Famous French people
How did you pick this theme or topic?
I didn’t know who they knew or considered as famous in France so I thought it might be interesting to “test” their knowledge about famous people in France, and to make them discover famous French names (artists, sportsmen, etc…).
How did you present the material? (Handouts, group work, general discussion, student presentations, etc.)
Group work
General discussion
How did students react?
They reacted well, but I was a bit surprised to see that they knew so few French people, but at the same time I think that it was a good thing because they were interested and discovered French people.
Did they engage with each other and you?
Yes. They tried to guess when they knew, and asked questions about the people they didn’t know. When each group had to compete against the other for the final “contest”, they spoke quite a lot and replied to each other.
What materials or media did you use? (articles, satellite tv, digital projector, etc.)
Computer (youtube), handout.
Please attach a copy.
Below is the plan I had with me in class.
Would you recommend this activity for a future class?
Yes, I think they liked it and they were all able to participate in the discussion.
Intermediate 09/10
Famous people in France
1) Warm-up 5 min
2) 1st activity: 20 min
– I show some videos of famous people
– They need to find who they are
– We talk about it
• Nicolas Sarkozy
• Edith Piaf
• George Brassens
• Serge Gainsbourg
• Johnny Hallyday
• Charles Aznavour
• Zinédine Zidane
• etc…
3) 2nd activity: 15 min
– they are in groups of 2 or 3
→ distribution of a longer paragraph on two famous French people
→ explanation of the words
→ need to fill in the blanks (they have different blanks so they need to read the paragraph aloud so that the others can fill in their blanks and vice versa)
– Tony Parker: Tony Parker1 and Tony Parker2
– Zinédine Zidane: Zinedine Zidane1 and Zinedine Zidane2
4) award : 15 min
– they need to give a speech to be given the award for the best player
– 5 min preparation