French regions with an emphasis on Bretagne and Provence.

How did you pick this theme or topic?

I wanted to see what they knew about the French regions and cities because I think it is important to know more about the geography of a country when you study its language. I also thought it could be nice to focus on other regions than Paris, for a change, so they could discover something else than the capital.

How did you present the material? (Handouts, group work, general discussion, student presentations, etc.)

Group work
Work in pairs
General discussion

How did students react?

They reacted well, but didn’t know much about the regions. So I think it was useful for them to get to know Bretagne and Provence.

Did they engage with each other and you?

Yes but they were not very talkative. Maybe because the activities I had planned were not based on communication enough.

What materials or media did you use? (articles, satellite tv, digital projector, etc.)
Handouts

Please attach a copy.
Below is the plan I had with me in class.

Would you recommend this activity for a future class?
Yes, but I would modify the activities to make them talk more.

Regions francaises

1. Warm-up – 5mn

2. Can you name 5 french regions? 5 cities?

3. Map of France : they must locate the regions or cities they know
–> use a map like this one

4. Provence et Bretagne – work in pairs
⇒ Assumptions on either Provence or Bretagne, they must find out which region each sentence refers to
⇒ Fill in the blanks with the right words
⇒ Reading of the text

For Intermediate:

5. Role play “travel agency” – two groups
→ each group represents a region, they must talk with the other students in their group about the assets of the region and write them down
→ then they need to try to convince a potential tourist to go visit their region, using the region’s assets, as if they were working in a travel agency

For Advanced:

5. Closed-task discussion – three groups
→ They need to agree with their classmates on the top 3 priorities of a tourist on vacation in a foreign region or country
⇒ General discussion