Manie Musicale 2024 – 16 great French songs = fun!

Manie Musicale offers an engaging way to immerse students in French culture and language, inspired by the excitement of the NCAA basketball tournament in March. It’s a music competition where 16 French songs battle it out in a bracket-style format, voted on by students worldwide. This annual event encourages active participation, language practice, and cultural exposure, making the learning process fun and interactive. Teachers can incorporate Manie Musicale into their curriculum through various activities, from movie talks and grammar practice to creative projects and lyric analysis, enhancing both language skills and cultural understanding.

Over 5000 different schools are participating in Manie Musicale this year – it’s grown by leaps and bounds! There are prizes for classes who have the best brackets, and many teachers offer prizes to the students in their classes who have the best brackets as well. The official website has all you need to get started.

Once you register with Manie Musicale as a teacher, you’ll receive links to activities and information to run your manie. There are lesson ideas based on how much time you want to spend on the activities. It’s possible to spend the entire month focused on the songs, but it’s not necessary. Some teachers spend just a few minutes each day, and that’s fine too.

Introducing Manie Musicale to your students

What I’m doing with my students is prepping them by exposing them to the songs before we do our brackets. This means starting a bit early – four weeks before the brackets are due. Of course, you don’t have to take that long. Here’s my process for introducing the songs. You can also read my blog post from 2021 about ways to promote Manie Musicale.

1. Four days per week, we listen to a new song each day. I show the students the artist bio slide and we talk about the artist and compare them to the other artists. Then I show the students the video for that song.

2. I have a wall where I am putting up the printable graphics for each song as we listen to it. I arrange the songs by twos, so it looks like the bracket they will eventually fill out.

3. I have the students do 10 minutes per week on Roxxem. They choose the song(s) they want to study. It’s not enough to really learn all of the lyrics during the assigned time, but some are choosing to spend extra time to learn the songs they really like.

4. During the four weeks when I’m introducing the songs, I’m using the playlist as background music whenever possible. When we’re playing Blooket or Gimkit, or when students are working on make-up work, or when they are working on speaking activities (low background music makes them feel less self-conscious), that playlist is on.

5. The week that brackets are due, we will be watching the mashup video as a review. There is a ratings page available in the teacher kit that allows students to make notes on each song. After we’ve watched the mashup and students have had a chance to review the songs, it’s time to make the brackets!

What students think about Manie Musicale

For the most parts, students really enjoy the songs. They are a really nice mix of styles and culture – from all over the Francophone World. I have quite a few students from Africa in my class this year and they were stoked to hear the song by Magic System – they recognized it and were already fans of one of the featured singers.

I’ve had students download songs from past playlists and when it comes down to it, music is music. Whatever language a song is in, if it catches your ear you’ll want to listen (Numa Numa, anyone?). The Manie Musicale is one more way to get students to recognize French as not just a class they take in school, but a real living language that people use to communicate and share feelings and emotions.