This lesson can take between one to two hours depending on the activities you choose to do. It is better to take more time doing each activity and thus to dedicate 2 classes to this lesson
Objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to describe different French museums and their collections while learning French vocabulary related to art.
Materials:
– Computers or tablets with internet access
– Pen and paper
Warm-up
– The teacher introduces the topic of the lesson by showing pictures of famous French artworks or landmarks such as the Mona Lisa, the Eiffel Tower, or the Palace of Versailles. The teacher asks the students if they recognize any of them and what they know about them.
Presentation / activity 1:
– introduce various French museums such as the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, and the Musée Picasso, and explains their collections and history. Show pictures of the museums and explain where they are located in France.
– introduce vocabulary related to art such as peinture (painting), sculpture (sculpture), exposition (exhibition), artiste (artist), and œuvre d’art (artwork), etc.
Activity 2:
– divide the class into pairs or small groups of 3 and assign each group a French virtual museum to explore. The museums can be found on websites such as Google Arts & Culture or the museums’ official websites.
– provide a worksheet with questions for the students to answer while exploring the museum. The questions should include specific artworks or collections to look for and descriptions to write.
– encourage the students to use the vocabulary they learnt in class to describe the artworks and to write short paragraphs in French.
Wrap-up
– ask each group to present their findings and to show pictures of the artworks they have explored.
– lead a discussion on the different museums and their collections, and ask students to share their favorite artwork or museum.
– review the vocabulary and encourage the students to continue practicing by exploring more French museums or by watching French documentaries or films about art.
Goal of the Class: Students discuss on stereotypes they have on French people; they also learn about the various stereotypes existing in different regions of France and also different kind of expressions used in daily speech and referring to these stereotypes. Students practice their listening and speaking skills by watching videos in French on the topic, and then discuss about it both in groups and then with the whole class
Warm-up : 10/15 minutes
Intermediate and advanced : Par groupes trouvez 5 clichés que vous avez sur les Français (in groups find 5 clichés/stereotypes that you have about French people). I gave students 10 minutes to talk about it in groups and then I asked each group to share what discussed. Then I showed them a picture of different typical stereotypes existing about French people around the world with vocabulary included and further explanation of them if needed.
Input:
As a transition towards the first activity, I gave them three commonly used expressions in French that are related to stereotypical traits generally assigned to French people: Grande gueule (talk too much, is too direct), dragueur (flirty), nul en langues (bad at languages)
Advanced: for advanced I added more specific cultural input on various stereotypes depending on the regions in France:
En France, selon les régions il y a aussi des clichés différents: Par exemple, on dit qu’en Bretagne il pleut tout le temps, à Paris les gens sont hautains et arrogants (haughty and snobbish), en Alsace ils mangent que de la choucroute (plat traditionnel avec du chou), la Normandie est principalement peuplée de vaches.
Ce ne sont que des stéréotypes et donc pas totalement vrai! par exemple, en Bretagne il ne pleut pas tout le temps (mais souvent) et beaucoup de Parisiens sont très gentils (pas tous)
Activity 1: In groups still I then asked them to discuss the following questions revolving around stereotypes on Americans:
Quels sont d’après vous les stéréotypes que les personnes étrangères ont sur les Américains ? (What do you think are the stereotypes that foreign people have about Americans?)
Est-ce qu’il y a des stéréotypes spécifiques pour chaque états des Etats Unis? Donnez des exemples (Are there specific stereotypes for each state in the United States? Give examples)
Est-ce que vous connaissez des clichés sur d’autres pays Européens comme l’Italie, l’Angleterre, l’Espagne, etc.? (Do you know any clichés about other European countries like Italy, England, Spain, etc.?)
After they discussed for about 10-13 minutes, we exchange as a class and then I gave them some stereotypes we have in France about Americans:
Les Américains mangent mal et il y a des fast foods partout
Les Américains sont très patriotes
Il y a plus d’armes (guns) que d’Américains
Les Américains n’ont pas d’assurance santé
Les gobelets rouges (red cups) dans les fêtes étudiantes
Les ‘Hugs’ pour dire Bonjour
Activity 2: this second activity is centered on a video I showed them. One is on how Europeans living in France and speaking French fluently view French people, and the other one is similar but is an interview of non-European people living in France.
Intermediate:
En regardant la vidéo, notez les mots que vous ne connaissez pas sur une feuille de papier ou votre téléphone portable (While watching the video, write down the words you don’t know on a piece of paper or your cell phone)
Les Français vus par des Européens (how Europeans see French people) :
Quels sont les clichés/stéréotypes mentionnés dans la vidéo? (What clichés/stereotypes are mentioned in the video?)
Then I showed them some slides I created with photos on new vocabulary mentioned in the video, here is an example:
Advanced:
Quels sont les clichés que certaines personnes hors d’Europes ont sur les français?
Quelles sont les habitudes / les comportements typiquement français ?
Last activity : Les gestes et expressions typiquement francais – French also speak using gestures. This video is very funny and explains some of these common gestures used in the common speech in France:
1- j’ai les chocotes/ça fait peur/c’est flippant/j’ai peur
2- I’m drunk
3- j’en ai par-dessus la tête/j’en ai marre
4- ça m’énerve!
5- et toc! / dans ta face
6- les doigts dans le nez (it was easy)
laquelle intégreriez-vous dans votre vie de tous les jours ? (Which one-s would you incorporate in your everyday life?)
Est-ce que vous utilisez des gestes quand vous parlez? (do you use gestures when you speak?
Feedback/end of the class: give one or two words that you learnt today, how many times do you think people do ‘la bise’ in France to introduce themselves?
Reflection: This class went so well both in the advanced and intermediate classes. The students were participating a lot and we ended up having very interesting points and elements of discussions raised all throughout the class. These classes definitely showed that conversation classes are much more than just practicing the target language, they can also be an opportunity to learn and enlarge point of views, knowledge on various topics/issues, etc. This class led to deep and meaningful exchanges as a whole class.
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class):Advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: 传统节日 Traditional Festivals
Goal of the class:
By the end of this class, students will learn more about Mid-Autumn Festival and the stories and legends of it. By the end of the class, they are expected to make a video to families and friends and send their best wishes to them.
How did you structure the class?
Warm-up: Labor Day
Where did you go? What did you do?
Do you know which Festival is coming soon in China?
When is Mid-Autumn Festival? & How do Chinese people celebrate it? – Top Activities & Traditions
Stories & Legends of Mid-Autumn Festival
嫦娥奔月 ‘Chang E Flying to the Moon’
玉兔捣药 Rabbit in the Moon
吴刚伐桂 Wu Gang Chops the Tree
朱元璋和月饼起义Zhu Yuanzhang and Moon Cake Uprising
What phrases do people usually use for this Festival?
Make a lantern!
Make a video to your family/friend and give him/her your best wishes on this festival.
写一段祝福，并录下来，发送给你的老师/朋友
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
PowerPoint slides
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Things that worked well:
The class went really well! Since I had some inventories(lanterns) from last semester’s study break, and I only got 2 students in this group, an idea popped up just before the class began: why not making lanterns, writing wishes on them & making videos to loved ones(families/friends)? So I added two slides of lantern-making traditions and did this activity in class. It went so well! I think my students love it!
The thing that did not work:
Actually everything worked really well. The students were not as shy as last week and I could see that they engaged more and more in this class. We had a conversation about their Labor Day break at the beginning of the class and they even started making jokes about each other. At the end of the class they asked me to airdrop them the videos and I think one student actually sent the video to her mom. Since I had the experience from last semester that the stories maybe too hard for them to understand, so instead of showing the videos on Youtube, I told the stories myself with easier sentences and phrases(+ an amount of body language). So I think they understood the cultural background and the stories really well.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
I’d say nothing much. Just this class would probably only works for a small group of students. Any class with more than 5 may not work as well.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Warm-up (15 minutes): Questions to discuss in group around Morning Routines and habits
The students have to discuss the following questions in groups of 3 to 4 students: Avez-vous une routine le matin? Que faites-vous habituellement après le réveil? (petit-déjeuner? Douche? Sport? Yoga? Lecture? Méditation?) – Do you have a morning routine? What do you usually do after waking up?
Qu’est-ce que tu fais en premier le matin?–What is the first thing you do after you wake up? Quelles sont les bonnes habitudes que vous aimeriez prendre le matin?–What are some good/healthy morning habits you would like to develop?
Qu’est-ce que tu manges au petit-déjeuner?–What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Est-ce que tu es un/une «lève tôt» ou un/une «couche tard» – are you an early bird or a night owl?
Provision of a vocabulary sheet with a lot of words, expressions and idioms pertaining to the morning routine in French (I included more difficult expressions/turn of phrases and idioms for the advanced level class). This sheet is designed to be a support for the following activities as well.
Activity 1: (20/25 minutes)
The first activity is based on creativity (writing) in groups of 2/3 students. First, I ask them to individually write on a small sheet of paper one word in relation to the word ‘Morning’. Then they all give them to me, I shuffle them, I create groups of 2/3 students, and each group randomly picks two papers. Based on the words they picked, they have to come up with a short story of about 100 words. This activity not only calls on to students’ imagination and creativity, but the way it is designed (team work) also makes it a good way for them to practice speaking in French by working on writing their story. They really liked this activity and it took them approximatively 20/25 minutes to write their story, after which each group chose to either tell the story or act it out. The whole class had a lot of fun!
Activity 2:
Another activity that could be done in this class is the following:
Les Français nous racontent leur routine matinale dans les rues de Paris –French people tell us about their morning routine in the streets of Paris : Video screening of Parisians interviewed in the street on their morning routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lMIShoMuIk.
This video is very good not only for the vocabulary and expressions used by the persons interviewed but also because it teaches the most accurate ways of expressing one’s habits in a colloquial manner.
Instructions: Jot down what you understand about the interviewees’ daily routine; what did they understood about the interviewees’ morning routines: Quelles sont les routines matinales des personnes interviewées dans la video?
The last part of the activity can be a little quiz on words and expressions mentioned in the interviews that are either colloquial or idiomatic.
This class is designed to introduced students to the French speaking world. After this class, students will know about the French speaking countries, the distribution of the french language in the world, some linguistic specificities/differences between the various French-speaking countries
Activity 1:
1) Par groupes de 3, au tableau, notez tout ce que la Francophonie représente pour vous (In groups of 3, on the board, write down everything that ‘La Francophonie’ means to you)
2) discutez et choisissez dans votre liste l’élément qui représente le plus la France pour vous. Justifiez votre choix (Discuss and choose from your list the item that most represents France to you. Justify your choice)
Activity 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wIwTn61huA – Que nous apprend cette vidéo sur la présence et l’importance de la langue Française dans le monde? (What does this video tell us about the presence and importance of the French language in the world?)
Combien de personnes parlent le Français dans le monde? (How many people speak French in the world today?)
Quel est le top 5 des langues les plus parlées dans le monde? (what are the top 5 languages most spoken in the world today?)
Cultural Input:
Liste des pays ou régions où on parle français (list of the countries/places where French is spoken):
La France et:
• La Belgique, le Luxembourg, la Suisse, Monaco.
• En Afrique: l’Algérie, le Burkina Faso, le Bénin, le Cameroun, le Congo, la Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, le Gabon, la Guinée, Madagascar, le Mali, le Maroc, la Mauritanie, la République centrafricaine, la République démocratique du Congo (ex-Zaïre), le Sénégal, le Tchad, le Togo.
• Certaines îles: les Comores et les Seychelles, Vanuatu, Haïti.
• Le Québec, Louisiane aux États-Unis, Nouvelle-Écosse et Nouveau-Brunswick
• En Inde (Pondichéry), au Moyen-Orient (Égypte, Israël et Liban), au Cambodge, au Vietnam, au Laos, à l’île Maurice et en Afrique du Sud.
Parmi les expressions qui sont mentionnées dans cette vidéo, quelle est votre expression favorite? (What is your favorite expression amongst those presented in this video?)
mots et expressions de la Francophonie (words and expressions from the Francophone world):
chafouin rusé, sournois. Il viendrait de l’ouest de la France (je l’utilise pour dire que je suis de mauvaise humeur = ‘Grumpy’)
« il est fada! » (Il est fou!) ou « fada! » comme ponctuation de phrase (Dingue! / fou!)
vigousse, en Suisse, signifie « vif »
tap-tap: un mot haïtien pour désigner une camionnette servant de transports en commun
poudrerie: un mot québécois pour désigner la neige poussée par le vent…
lumerotte: mot belge pour parler d’une source de lumière de faible intensité
dracher: s’emploie lorsque la pluie tombe à verse (pouring rain), en Belgique
champagné: un mot d’Afrique centrale pour désigner quelqu’un qui a de l’influence, ou de multiples relations
To wrap up this class, the last activity can be the following:
Activity 4:
Par groupes de 3, trouvez et partagez avec les autres des situations/anecdotes personnelles durant lesquelles vous vous êtes sentis (In groups of 3, find and share with others personal situations/anecdotes in which you felt):
chafouins (de mauvaise humeur)
Vigousses (Energiques)
BG (beaux)
En PLS (mal/malade)
Frais (se sentir bien)
Enjaillé (motivé)
Ça peut être des situations de tout les jours, des souvenirs spécifiques, des moments embarrassants ou drôles
Class theme/topic discussed: Food and beverages II
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
Describe food and use expressions to order food in a restaurant (for example: “me gustaría ordenar”, “quisiera pedir”, “¿Qué lleva el ___?”, “¿me podría traer la cuenta?”, etc)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students remember vocabulary of ingredients of food by seeing last class’ images of Chilean food and saying the ingredients that they can see.
Activities
-Students watch a video on “how NOT to order food in Spanish” and are asked to identify the expressions that are used to order food, as well as answering: how should the customer have said those expressions in a better way?. After that, the facilitator writes on the board relevant expressions for ordering food.
-Students see an open-ended dialogue at a regular restaurant setting and practice the expressions filling in the blanks the information that they want to add to the situation. They practice asking about ingredients and describing plates in the process.
Roleplay: One of the students is the waiter and the others are customers. They simulate a restaurant setting in which some difficulties happen (they take turns so that someone is not always the waiter):
Their favorite plate is not available that day and they have to find something that could be enjoyable for them.
While eating, they realized that there was meat on what they ordered. They are vegetarians.
While eating, the restaurant is about to close, but they only started eating about 5 minutes ago.
Wrap up:
Adivina el plato de comida: Each students describes a plate, and the rest of the participants guess what the plate is.
Resources used: Projector, Power point presentation, youtube video
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students participated well during the class. They had practiced describing food on the previous class, so it was easier for them to do it that class. It was surprising for me that they remembered so many things about Chilean food ( I thought that they would forget it right after the class). In general, they seemed to have fun, but I realized that, even though I still tried to model before each activity, I could have done it more; because there were a couple of situations in which students were not so sure about how to proceed, so then I would try to show them again.
Food ordering dialog (for controlled practice stage)
Mesero: Buenas tardes, bienvenido/a al restaurante ____________. Mi nombre es ____ y voy a ser su mesero. ¿Qué desea tomar/beber?
Use food vocabulary and expressions to indicate place (encima, al lado de, sobre, debajo de, etc.)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students see an image of different kinds of foods and answer the question: “¿what’s your favorite food/restaurant?”
Activities:
-Students see images of Chilean traditional food and beverages (cazuela, humitas, empanadas, mote con huesillo, leche asada, terremoto) and mention the ingredients that they think they might have, how they think it could be prepared and whether it looks similar to a plate from another country or culture.
-“¿Qué comida es?”: Each student gets small pieces of paper that can have either an image, name of a meal or a description on it. They go around the room and try to exchange information with their classmates in order to match each image with the name of the plate and its description. Some of them are the ones that were shown before and some others were new.
-“Encuentra las diferencias”: Students get a sheet of paper with the image of a man in a kitchen. Some of them got the A form and others the B form. Both have a similar image on it, but many of the elements in the image are different. Without seeing their classmate’s sheet, they ask questions to them in order to find out what the differences are. (for example: “hay un trozo de queso al lado del vaso de leche?”)
Wrap up:
Students remember the Chilean food that they learned about and talk about which one they would eventually like to try and why.
Resources used: Projector, laptop, pieces of paper.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students seemed to like the topic about food and asked questions about Chilean food. One of my students has Mexican relatives and we realized that there were some plates that were similar, although they differ in aspects of how they are made or the ingredients. We also spent some time talking about the vocabulary difference of some ingredients (for example “porotos” vs “frijoles” or “choclo” vs “maiz”). The activity in which they had to ask questions about the other person’s image also worked well and it gave them the chance to ask questions about prepositions and more vocabulary.
What was a little bit more challenging were the descriptions of food on the sheet of paper. They ended up doing it well, but it took them a while to understand everything, so they asked questions on vocabulary and expressions. Maybe a simpler version of those descriptions could have worked better, but at the same time, I think that the little challenge that they had could also have been helpful, since it wasn’t extremely hard for them.
