German: Reflexive Verbs Activity - Daily Routine

Hello all, Chris here. Today I would like to share a progression of activities to help students practice reflexive verbs, particularly those focusing on daily routines. There are of course numerous types of activities that can be done to help students practice these, from generic grammar drills to advanced role-plays. I am calling this a progression of activities for two reasons: 1) I try to avoid doing just one standalone activity when introducing grammatical or vocabulary concepts and 2) I find that simply having students work with something once and then moving on to something new does not help them retain the information. Instead I prefer to use a progression of activities which introduce, buildup, practice, evaluate, and advance the students' skills.

I will skip the grammar explanation for reflexive verbs here as that is best left to the teacher and will vary slightly between level and textbook. I will use the following set of reflexive verb phrases for this progression:

die Haare gekämmt                              die Zähne geputzt                   (etwas) angezogen/ausgezogen
die Haare gewaschen                           die Beine rasiert                      sich schminken (geschminkt)
die Haare gebürstet                              die Hände gewaschen             sich waschen (gewaschen)
die Haare geföhnt                                 sich duschen (geduscht)

A simple activity to begin with involves a partner activity where each student will pick one of these phrases and tell their partner what they have already done today. They will then ask their partner what he/she has already done?

Student A: Ich habe mir heute schon die Haare gewaschen? Und du?
Student B: Ich habe mir heute auch die Haare gewaschen. Oder Ich habe mir heute noch nicht die Haare gewaschen.

To followup on this activity and allow students to practice asking questions, I would have them do the following (with the same partner). Students should trade off between asking questions until they are comfortable with all of the phrases.

Student A: Hast du dir schon die Zähne geputzt?
Student B: Ja, ich habe mir schon die Zähne geputzt. Oder Nein, ich habe mir noch nicht die Zähne geputzt.

The next stage in the progression will be a group activity. For this I prefer having the students do interview activities and/or memory chain activities. For a description of memory chain activities, please visit this article.

Interview: Have students interview at least 5 other students in the classroom. They must find out which things their fellow students have (or have not) already done today using any of the previously learned phrases. Ask the students to write down the names of the people they interview as well as their responses.

Variation: Provide each student with a list of some of the activities. They must then try to find someone to answer affirmatively for each activity (brushing teeth, getting dressed, etc.). They must collect a signature from each student that answers affirmatively. However, they may not have the same student sign more than once. Ask the first student who finishes to read their answers. Ask the students who signed if they have indeed already done this activity: 'Hast du dir schon die Zähne geputzt?' etc.

Another activity that works well here is a memory chain activity. Have the students form two roughly equal groups and then have them stand in circles. Choose one student in each group to begin. They will state an activity they have already done. Proceeding clockwise, have the next student restate what the previous student(s) said followed by stating what activity they have already done. Each successive student will have to recall more and more information which forces everyone in the group to pay attention if they wish to finish the activity. For example:

1 Tom: Ich habe mich angezogen.
2 Marc: Tom hat sich angezogen. Ich habe mich geduscht.
3 Claudia: Tom hat sich angezogen und Marc hat sich geduscht. Ich habe mich geschminkt.

The last person in the group will have to recount what all of the previous students have done. This type of activity allows the students to practice the first and third person forms. To make the activity more challenging, you can have students restart the activity from the beginning if someone is unable to recount all of the information correctly. You can also have students practice the du and wir forms. When students are recounting what the person directly to their right has already done, have them use the du form. Whenever there are two or more people who have done the activity the student should use the wir form. For example,

1 Tom: Ich habe mir die Zähne geputzt.
2 Marc: Du (talking to Tom) hast dir die Zähne geputzt und ich habe mich geduscht.
3 Claudia: Tom und ich haben uns die Zähne geputzt und Marc had sich gesucht.

For homework, I find it helpful to assign the students a few fill in the blank activities which feature either dialogues or stories where the students will fill in the missing reflexive pronoun. These can vary from choosing either the correct accusative or dative pronoun such as mich vs. mir or an activity which features all of the pronouns.


Role-Play
Finally, to have the students actively practice using reflexive verbs and pronouns I would use the following role-play:

Divide students into groups of 3-4. The students are living together in a dorm/apartment and they all have busy schedules which will lead conflicts regarding bathroom use. Here you can have students use their actual schedules or provide each student with schedules which will conflict with one another. The students will have to come up with a schedule which will work for everyone. For the role-play each student should state their schedule and when they will require use of the bathroom. Following this, they must try to come up with a viable solution so that everyone will be able to use the bathroom at some point.

Hopefully the above activities will prove useful to you. Comments welcome!