Je Veux - A song by Zaz

Upon seeing a link to this song being posted on the NZAFT listserve, Stefanie Hossback (St Margarets College, Christchurch) has created and shared the activity sheet below based on this 2010 hit. Stefanie includes a range of activities and grammar points for Levels 7&8 (inc. partitive, ideal for revision) as well as the lyrics. The video is available for download below the activity documents or is available online at this link

New March 2010: A great "fiche pédagogique" from Le Centre International d'Antibes to guide the discovery of the song.

TBL - Qu'est ce qui va se passer?

Chris Cheyne (Gore High School, NZAFT Scholarship Recipient 2010) shares what she describes as "an attempt to use the Task-Based Approach in a combined Y12/13 class in a 2-3 lesson unit" . The unit is based on the theme of guessing/predicting what will happen in the future.
Chris has including in her task a pre-task, a series of progressive tasks and a post task as well as clear instructions for the teacher and a vocabulary list, that you can find in the Teachers Instructions. She has also shared the corresponding Students Activity sheet. Chris is grateful for the input and support she has received from Manu Ménard (St Matthew's Collegiate, Masterton) while designing the unit.

IWB - Famous French People

Sylvie Plant (Woodford House, NZAFT Scholarship Recipient 2010) has kindly shared the lesson plan she has created for Y12 /13 about Famous French people. She has used it before planning for an internal assessment on a famous French person.
Sylvie has sent the five files which make up her resource, which you can find below.  She has created a resource to use with an interactive whiteboard (Promethean), but also sent a pdf version of it. They are also two support documents and the PPT presentation Sylvie used for her activity.

CAVILAM en ligne: Le Plaisir d'Apprendre

CAVILAM is is a non-profit making French language school in Vichy, France. Founded in 1964 by the Universities of Clermont-Ferrand and the town of Vichy its teachers use varied and innovative language teaching methods to teach French as a foreign language. CAVILAM offers a wide range of training courses for learners and teachers and also produces quality teaching resources. Both Patsy Hall (Hamilton High School for Girls) and Sue Pommarède (Rosehill College) have mentionned the wonderful resources they have found and used on the CAVILAM en ligne website Le Plaisir d'Apprendre

Of particular interest are the many Fiches Pédagogiques produced on French Songs (Chanson), which include lyrics and lesson plans.  The Parcours Internet section offers a good range of webquests too. Well worth a detour!

Une Exploration du Roman Le Bal d'Iréne Némirovski

Sue Kano (St Mary's College, Wellington) has kindly shared a séquence pédagogique she's designed and produced while on stage in Nice (LIA 2009). Her 4 to 5 week Unit of Work, designed for L8 students, is based on the study of the novel Le Bal by Irène Némirovski.
Sue presents the outline of her séquence pédagogique in detail, linking in NZC requirements and assessment opportunities, and she also lists structures and expressions. Sue also shares a range of resources, a practice 3.5 task, and an evaluation sheet.
This is a most comprehensive teaching resource allowing students to "explore and reflect on the Jewish communities in France and in NZ". Through their exploring "students will draw on their experience of parent-teenager relationship to discuss the relevance of this novel in a contemporary context."

Rhymes in Nuit Blanche by Renan Luce

Florence Lyons (Matamata College) has shared this resource she created to focus her students on sound recognition.  Print and laminate the lyrics document below and cut out the individual words.  The students read the text and fill in the gaps with the word which rhymes.  Then students listen to the song (YouTube link) and check/replace the individual words to match what they hear.  

Chansons & Sous Titres!

Florence Lyons (Matamata College) has added subtitles to a series of songs by French artists. Florence chose these songs as they each offered both an interesting context and grammar points illustrations. Contexts and possible grammar are presented below.

They all are available on TeacherTube from the links provided. Should you create a particular resource to exploit any of these clips with your students, please consider sharing it as it would be a great addition to this page.

Savoir Aimer by Florent PAGNY (Use of Sign Language, Use of Verbs as Subject)
Heureux qui comme Ulysse by RIDAN (Poetry by Joachim du Bellay, Hopes for the Future)
Objectif Planète by RIDAN (Environment, Narrative)
Octobre by Francis CABREL (Seasons & Related Activities, Future Tense)
On Aimerait Bien by Guillaume CANTILLON (Things you'd like to do, Conditional)
Le Super Pouvoir d'Achat by La Chanson du Dimanche (Daily life, cost of living, Si+ Imperfect & Conditional)
Quatre Saisons by Grand Corps Malade (Description of the four seasons, all past tenses)
Abdallah by TRYO (Africa and Desert, ex-French Colonies, Si+ Imperfect & Conditional)

La Renaissance de la Dictée

Ruth Bourchier (National French Advisor) has created the powerpoint resource below. In Ruth's words, "it is designed to show that it’s easy to adapt a classic old teaching tool, such as the dictée, into a motivating, co-operative learning opportunity with lots of scope for using transactional target language. It begins with an individual dictée but then develops into a pair> group> whole class activity using a wide range of French expressions to discuss how to correct it. The aim of the exercise is to collectively reproduce the text rather than to generate an individual mark.
The second part of the powerpoint provides links to authentic French material (mostly video clips) based on the dictée. These provide a basis for intercultural comparisons as they demonstrate the status of the dictée and the importance to the French of accurate spelling. There is also an extract from ‘Chagrin d’Ecole’ by Daniel Pennac, in which he describes how he tailor-made dictées to engage his ‘cancres’.
La Renaissance de la Dictée helps develop all KCs, literacy, communication skills and intercultural awareness while exercising most of Ellis’ principles of effective language acquisition."

Florence Lyons has created two Dictées Communicatives: Le Week end de Mme Lyons & L'Uniforme Scolaire

You also may want to refer to the following video clips while engaging in "Réflections Culturelles" to support "les points de discussion" suggested by Ruth in her PPT presentation.

Cadre Sup et nul en orthographe  La Dictée intergénération de Caen

Essay Writing: Techniques and Examples

Julia Brown (Dilworth School) has created and shared the useful documents below, to use at Senior levels.

Julia's "Constructing an Essay" is a practical comprehensive student focussed hand out which includes the following: useful phrases, tips to maximise the use of language, many language samples and practice exercises.  It also offers model answers for essays on the topics: Les Régions, La Violence dans la Société & L'Homme et la Religion. 

Julia has also shared possible answers for essays on a range of topics.

Grammar & French Songs

Rachel McDonald (South Otago High School) has kindly shared a list of French songs she has compiled that can be used in class to illustrate and explain a range of grammatical structures. 

"A Moi Paris, une histoire au présent" - FREE audiobook

This novel/ workbook (level 5 up) tells the story of 3 young women who live, study and have fun in Paris. Entirely written in the present tense, the text increases in difficulty as the story develops. Transcripts and podcasts of the story are fully downloadable.  From the margin on the left of the page, you can access the 16 chapters, the 16 related exrecises including lists of related vocabulary, questions about the story, and irregular verbs conjugations.  The whole 90 pages and 3 hours of audio are free to access from www.learnfrenchinboston.com

Chris Cheyne (Gore High School) has downloaded all the transcripts of the audiobook and made them into a photocopiable booklet so that students can read and listen.

Tintin au Tibet

This link takes you to an online "Scenario Pedagogique" created by a FLE teacher at Grenoble university, France.  It is a webquest made of a range of activities based on information gathered on the official Tintin website.

Les Français et la BD

This online comprehension exercise, based on a radio interview scenario, introduces the French great interest in comics.  Listen and/or read the conversation and complete the related self evaluating activity.

Les Chansons

Selection which can be added to! Corresponding Sound files: you can google any title and hear your chosen song online.  Sound files are often bigger than what the server allows for uploading onto the site!

Carla Bruni, the current French First Lady, is also a fashionable songstress.  Taryn Wilson (Tauranga Girls College) has compiled a short bio, as well as lyrics of two of her famous songs, with translations to share with your students.

Les Vieux Amants - Jacques BREL

Florence Lyons (Matamata College) has created a PPT presentation, including a video clip of the song, to introduce students to Les Vieux Amants by Jacques Brel.  The presentation includes also the lyrics and a fill in the gap exercise.

Toujours des Mots! 

A great site to share with your class for listening and vocabulary activities!  Go to Toujours des Mots where one can learn French while playing with classic French songs!  Extracts of various famous songs have been carefully chosen and illustrated to help understanding.  Click on the sound icon, listen, and fill in the gap in the text on the screen! Three levels of difficulty are on offer, and clues and answers are provided.  Log in and keep your score online if you wish. 

Selection of French Songs

This blog, created by Carmen Vera, catalogues a wide range of French songs from various artists (classic, contemporary...).  The initiator of this blog has a strong belief that French songs assist and generate enthusiasm for the learning of French as a foreign language.  The Chansonfle - Blogg is worth exploring to find lyrics, online activities and "fiches pédagogiques" if you wish to incorporate songs in your teaching.

A Pre-Ball Season Song!

Priscilla Pollard (Manurewa High School) has adapted the lyrics to "Et maintenant" by Gilbert Bécaud. She recommends to maybe play the original ("because it is so great!") and then play the new version...around ball time... Priscilla did this with her combined Year 12 and 13 class just before the ball and during a unit on adolescence and love...and they thought it was funny. The document could also be made into a cloze or a re-ordering activity.  

La Première Guerre Mondiale

This series of activities has been written and compiled by Verna Morris (Dunstan High School).  They are to be used upon viewing the TVNZ documentary "Le Quesnoy, The Town New Zealand Saved". 

Follow this link to the programme

Les Bandes Dessinées

More on Le Chat and Titeuf wanted!

Les Profs, Pica & Erroc

La Bande Dessinée: A Character Study, with particular emphasis on Caricature.

Estelle Seaman (Rangitoto College) is skillfully presenting an introduction to the BD Les Profs. She is using this topic as a practice conversation task - the real one will be about the genre "Contes, Fables and Poèmes de guerre". She has also scanned pages of the books and cut up the frames - students (in pairs) will put these in the correct order and retell the story in their own words - questions and discussion can follow - especially about the caricaturisation of teachers. Students also will consider "what if" scenarios. The scanned pages, due to copyrights, are not included but you can get them from Estelle directly.