Overview
During the first quarter, there will be a certain amount of review with an emphasis on the themes of polite social behavior, communication and descriptions (people).
Vocabulary acquisition
Basic speech acts having to do with social situations will be reviewed and new everyday speech acts will be introduced. Students will study and practice welcoming, inviting, congratulating, showing sympathy, and encouraging in a variety of contexts. They will also study and practice polite telephone behavior. For these activities, they will learn expressions to be used as a whole rather than individual words. The text used for this is written entirely in French.
The students should already know the basic vocabulary needed for descriptions. This vocabulary will be reviewed and expanded and the standard formats for describing people will be reviewed and reinforced. In spite of the fact that the students studied some of this vocabulary last year, there will be many new terms since describing people involves knowing the visible parts of the body, physical adjectives, character adjectives and clothing terms. At the end of the quarter, students will have to show that they can give a detailed description of a person in writing and speaking without using notes. Memorization of the vocabulary will be essential to success on these assessments. One of the best ways to memorize new words or phrases is by creating and using flash cards with the French word or expression on one side and the
English equivalent on the other. (If you are not familiar with flash cards, see the instructions further down on this page.)
Recordings
Students will be asked at times to record themselves practicing the speech acts used in everyday social contexts. Parents or guardians can help by being supportive and understanding, by providing a quiet place for the student to practice, and by trying to discourage mocking remarks from other children in the household.
Recording requires some equipment, but usually students can find time to do the recordings at school using the department's machines. If the student should prefer to do recordings at home, here are some options:
a) One option is to use a standard cassette recorder requiring a standard sized cassette (about 2 1/2 inches by 3 7/8 inches). We have a few recorders available for use before and after school in the classrooms. We also have a limited supply of pre-used cassettes that students may borrow for the year if necessary. It may be more practical to have a recorder at home.
b) Another option is a miniature digital or tape recorder that would have to be left with me when it is time to review the recorded assignment.
Verb acquisition
First level French verbs will be reviewed in the present indicative. Previously studied idiomatic uses of these verbs will also be reviewed. Since the students will be asked to read and listen to authentic materials not created for English speaking students, they will encounter the regular use of a number of French idioms and expressions in which verbs they know will be used with entirely different meanings. In order to reduce confusion and improve understanding, several idiomatic uses of the level one verbs will be introduced. Students can expect to be quizzed on the verbs on a regular basis.
Listening
Besides the listening that the students will be doing while role-playing and otherwise interacting in French with their classmates, they will spend some time listening to materials recorded by native French speakers. We will go over these recordings very carefully for practice for they will be asked to show their understanding of similar recorded texts during as well as at the end of the quarter.
Speaking
For practice, students will role-play common social situations in class, record some speech acts at home, and do some paired and small group activities related to describing people in French. At assessment time, they will be asked to demonstrate what they can do without notes.
Reading
Much of the reading this quarter will be activity related. First, students will have to learn to understand the directions in the vocabulary workbook. In addition, they will have to learn how to guess intelligently at the meaning of the new vocabulary as it is presented pictorially and in short texts.
During the unit on descriptions, students will read models of good descriptions. We will analyse the written models to find the elements of a good description so that they can imitate the models in their own writing.
Should time allow it, the students may be asked to read a complete short story containing some of the new expressions they will have learned during the quarter.
Writing
For practice, students will be asked to write a few descriptive paragraphs, first focusing on physical aspects, then on the character and manner of dress, and finally putting it all together. Most of the writing this quarter will be done in class under supervision. Please see the policy on written assignments on the frenchweb site .
The writing process will follow a cycle.
º First, there is the pre-writing stage where the students will gather and organize the information they have to convey, and list the French vocabulary and expressions that they will need for their composition.
º Then they will write a rough draft and submit it for correction and comments.
º Next they will have to rewrite their composition, making corrections and doing some
revisions.
º Once this final draft is done, they will resubmit it for scoring.
How to use flash cards
Creating flash cards
Step 1) Write each French word or expression on a separate card. Write large enough so you can read the word or phrase easily. On the back of each card, write the English word or expression that has the same meaning.
Using flash cards
Step 2) First, look at the French side of each card, one card at a time. Try to guess the English word or expression that has the same meaning. After each guess, look at the English side to see if you were correct. If not, take a second look at both the French side and the English side, then go on to the next card. When you have guessed all of the English translations correctly, go on to the next step.
Step 3) Now, flip the deck of cards over and read the English side first. Try to guess the French word or expression that is on the other side. After each guess, check the French side of the card to see if you were right. If not, take a second look at both sides of the card and go on to the next one. Work at it until you can guess each one correctly. Go on to the next step.
Step 4) Shuffle the cards and see if you can still guess all of the French words or expressions correctly. Keep at it until you can go through the deck two or three times, shuffling the cards each time.
Quizzes
Students can expect daily quizzes on verb conjugations, idiomatic uses of verbs, and vocabulary. Within the time frame of a given unit, students may make up quizzes until they have shown that they have mastered the material.
Verb quizzes
This quarter, students will have to conjugate the target verb(s) in the present indicative in all of the persons, singular and plural with the English equivalents. They will also have to write one or more original sentence(s) using each target verb and translate the sentence(s) into idiomatic English so that the teacher can verify the students' comprehension of usage. Success on verb quizzes requires that the conjugation be 100% correct.
Idiomatic uses of verbs
Students will be given a series of French sentences to translate into idiomatic English and a series of English sentences to translate into idiomatic French. Comprehension of the idiomatic usage must be shown and the verb conjugation must be correct for success on these quizzes although a few minor errors in the rest of the sentence may be tolerated.
Vocabulary quizzes
Students will be asked to translate lists of vocabulary terms and expressions from French to English and from English to French. To succeed in these quizzes, students must have 70% of the items correct. Spelling and the correct use of diacritical marks (accent marks and cedillas) definitely count.
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