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  • Writer's pictureAndrew Starr

French Advanced Improvers City of Portsmouth College

This post is for the French Advanced Improvers Class at the City of Portsmouth College (Highbury Campus) on Monday evenings from September to December 2022.


A shortened link to this page is rebrand.ly/copcfra22


There is likely to be access to Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams at some point, but in the meantime, I will place some available resources here.


Listen to French Music - Watch French TV series and films (or at least videos/news in French)

There is a lot of stuff online for the French language and also learning (not all of it, correct!)


The sites below are usually accessible for free and have French-language content.


Free sources for TV

All 4 (Walter Presents on Channel 4 has some French Series among the many foreign series)

France 24 (online news 24/7 in French)

TV5 Monde (an online bank of Francophone TV and Film)

BBC iPlayer (often under BBC 4 programming)


Free Sources for Radio


The classes run on the dates below:


Monday, December 5th

Comment fêtez-vous les féeries de noël chez vous?


Comment avez-vous fêté les féries de noël dans le passé? Si vous ne fêtez pas noël pourquoi pas?



«Nicolas avait pour voisin un homme qui, ruiné, ne pouvait marier ses trois filles faute de dot. Ce dernier envisageait de les prostituer afin de récolter l'argent nécessaire à leurs subsistances. Nicolas décida, en secret, de donner trois bourses pleines d'or à ces jeunes femmes.

Cette légende chrétienne est rapportée dans le livre la Légende Dorée de Jacques de Voragine»



Ginette Reno - Vive Le Vent
.pdf
Download PDF • 23KB


Roch Voisine - Au Roayume du Bonhomme Hiver
.pdf
Download PDF • 28KB

Mireille Matthieu - La colombe de Noël M4A

Céline Dion - Les cloches du hameau M4A


Monday, November 28th

From Entre Nous 3:

Some final reinforcement and extension activities on the theme of music appreciation.



Un peu de musique saisonnière

Johanne Blouin - Chanson de Noël. Une chanteuse de Québec MP3


GAPS_Les anges dans nos campagnes
.pdf
Download PDF • 25KB

Le miracle de Saint Nicolas



Monday, November 21st

You may have a tiny bit of prose to discuss your favourite song, singer or how music moves you with some examples of the said music (based on p30 item D from the book).


Piste 6 This listening task is on p30 item C.


Following this, we will look at «les marqueurs de but» ~ how to express a goal/objective...

We may get on to how music can be used to express anger/fury... (protest songs)

This one features in the book, so we may look at it this week or next week in more depth (time-dependent) MP3


Extra

How about a musical challenge?

We looked at this last week, so here it is with some missing words...


GAPS - Kyo - Le Graal
.docx
Download DOCX • 110KB

Monday, November 14th

Tout pour la musique - based on Entre Nous 3 - Les chansons coup de cœur (top pick songs)


Pour vous? Qu'est ce qui est le plus important dans une chanson? Pourquoi?


This song features in the book. Here are the lyrics MP3

This video does function outside of the College Network...

Many of the words he uses are slang (argot); the book gives you a good few of which to find the definitions.

Et Vous? - Quelle est votre chanson préférée ?


Monday, November 7th

L'Armistice

L'Armistice de Caen en 2018 - 100 ans après la fin de la 2e guerre mondiale.

Mémorial de Caen 2022 le 11 novembre - Entrée gratuite au Mémorial


From Entre Nous 3 - <<Sur les Traces de Gaugin et de Mâtisse>> p 30-31 and Préparation Tasks for the DELF. <<Des vacances ratées>> and <<Voyager de chez soi>>.

The cornflower is laid by the French, instead of the poppy lain by the British and their commonwealth cousins. Here is a brief history in English about the bleuet (as the cornflower is known in French).


Monday, October 31st

Halloween et Toussaint

You may have written about a holiday that started poorly, but it turned out ok in the end!


P. 27 Entre Nous 3 - Un autre Monde - <<Entrainez-Vous>>


Halloween Les Origines
.pdf
Download PDF • 249KB


Half Term - Monday. October 24th


Monday, October 17th

Maybe you have either completed a translation of the text about this masterpiece or written a report about a favourite work of art and, if you know it, the inspiration behind it...


From the course book Entre Nous we'll talk about things going wrong on holiday, prepositions of place (a reminder), and a little clarification about using the Perfect and Imperfect Tense in French. (p.25).


From p.26, following the same holidaying theme, we'll look at the formation of the pluperfect tense and its use.


As is often the case, you can use the present tense while recounting historical events when you give dates that are obviously in the past! See if you can spot any in this more familiar account of a well-known story.


Monday, October 10th

You may have prepared a mini-project task. Using the idea in Entre Nous 3 about a 'Destination qui vous fait rêver' - Planning your journey, where, when, how, what you will see and so on.


From Entre Nous 3:

We will look at how you prepare for your travels (perhaps to your dream destination and we will look at some possible <<applis>> that could be useful to help you prepare and for while on your journey.


Grammatically, we will revise the reflexive verb pronouns; possessive pronouns and look at how to refer back to things previously mentioned in a sentence.


Culture

Maybe you would like to either complete a translation of the text about this masterpiece or write a report about a favourite work of art and, if you know it, the inspiration behind it...


Musique

On ira - Zaz


There's quite a lot of useful vocabulary in this song - 'On ira' in particular about the future tense and, of course, how that works with any other vers should they be required...

Can you remember how to form the future tense? Check here if you need help.


GAPS_On Ira Zaz
.pdf
Download PDF • 21KB

Monday, October 3rd

From Entre Nous 3:

We will take a look at the sort of traveller you could be and possibly look into some more unusual holiday destinations.

For a mini-project task. Using the idea in Entre Nous 3 about a 'Destination qui vous fait rêver'

Plan your journey, where, when, how, what you will see, and so on.


Pays et Patrimoine

Le Conseil Municipal de Caen veut que les gens vienne non seulement pour visiter, mais aussi pour habiter ou travailler à Caen.


CaenNormandie_Plaquette_2021_2022
.pdf
Download PDF • 6.81MB


Monday, September 26th


Some of you may know each other, but not everyone does. So, we will examine some things to get you talking about you and why you are here tonight.


In the first lesson, we will look at what motivates you to improve your French, why you have signed up and what you are looking to get from the class (so I can best prepare for the next seven weeks!) It is also how we can get to know each other (for any people who were not in this class before).


It would be helpful to consider a few general themes and topics you would like to study. In particular, any grammatical features you feel you need to improve on. I will otherwise choose various topics and items I find in my perusal of the Francophone internet and news and possibly from one or two course books I have at my disposal.


Voici quelques questions pour vous faire parler aujourd'hui:


Pourquoi voulez-vous améliorer votre français?


Parlez-nous de la dernière fois que vous êtes allé(e)s en France...


Que faites-vous dans la vie?


Si vous avez gagné plusieurs millions de livres au loto que feriez vous avec cet argent?


Exercise from Entre Nous 3 (this book aims at B1, which is the level you require to become a French Citizen, for example)


<<Dossier de l'apprenant>> - to bring ourselves back into the study of French and maybe reasons why you would wish to improve your French. Your wishes and challenges to set for this term.

When and how you have used French, and what favourite words might you have?



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Extra

To find a few songs, singers or bands who sing in French, I have compiled a blog post about Francophone Music here.

Project Gutenberg - Classic Books to read in e-book form for free.





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