A shortened URL to return to this page is: rebrand.ly/copcfrb23
This post is for the French Beginners Class at the City of Portsmouth College (Highbury Campus) on Tuesday evenings from January to March 2023.
To improve your listening and speaking skills in a social setting, come to the evening or afternoon events organised in the city.
Tips for tuning your ear into French
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 learning (not all of it, correct!) The sites below are usually accessible for free and have French-language content.
Free sources for TV (you will need to put the subtitles on)
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 (tunes in your ear and your brain to the rhythm of French).
Radio.Garden (Sadly, since October 2022, the UK government has blocked this website for working outside the UK). However, click on the ellipsis (...). You can see the option to visit the website - click there, and you can go to the website - click on 'écouter la radio'. It gives all the France Bleu regional stations in France... then you can listen (this option will work on most radio stations based on 'Radio.Garden'.
Find some Francophone music you like - there's an extraordinary amount out there, and all can be seen on YouTube whenever you like. I have written much more about French music here.
I will use some of the materials from the course book Entre Nous 1, aimed at the European Language Standards A1 (beginners). You may find it helpful to get a copy for home use and self-study.
This blog page will help you learn how to get all those accents on your various devices.
Gender of nouns - here is a blog post which may help
Summer term Courses
The summer term course will run for eight weeks rather than 10. Therefore, the price will be about 20% less than the Autumn and Spring Terms' price.
The summer term classes would be the Improvers class, so you must move to Thursday evenings.
They will be on Thursday, April 20th and 27th, May 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th, Half Term, June 8th and 15th.
The classes run for 10 weeks on the dates below:
Tuesday, March 28th
We can revise speaking about towns, houses, people and pets...
- Comment vous appelez vous?
- Quel âge avez vous?
- Où habitez vous? / Vous êtes d'où?
- C'est comment?
- Qu'est-ce qu'il y a près de chez vous?
- C'est comment chez vous?
- Vous avez des enfants? / des frères et sœurs? Comment sont-ils?
- Vous avez des animaux?
This is a bit of fun to learn animal names and the noises animals make in French... Definitely not the height of French Culture, though!!
Tuesday, March 21st
Continue "Un voyage au Québec" from Entre Nous 1 with some looking into grammar structures in French.
Lannion, Bretagne
A trip from Caen to the Sea.
Tuesday, March 14th
Un voyage au Québec from Entre Nous 1. We will look at how to talk about where you are going and the use of the pronoun «on» in French. Piste 31 Piste 32
We can look at the irregular verb «aller» in the present tense.
This is from French TV about the city of Quebec, you'll not follow it all, but we can "mine" it for useful vocabulary and phrases to talk about cities in French (even if they are speaking with a Quebecois accent!!)
Henri Dès - C'est le Printemps (well in theory).
Tuesday, March 7th
* We will look at where French is spoken in the world.
La Francophonie
* We will revise, giving your name, age, and where you live.
* We will add civil status and ensure you have your jobs and can say at least one positive thing about where you live.
* We will report back about other people
Using Entre Nous 1 Chapter 2 pp. 40-44. Piste 22
<< Une femme en vair qui s'appelle Vérène verra à travers ses verres son verre de vin qui contient un ver vert vers huit heures tout en récitant un vers d'un poème. >>
We will look in more detail at the theme of "The Town" in French. p50-55.
«Quels sont les sommerces de votre quartier?»
We will then describe your local area in more than just lists of shops.
You might wish to use that as an example for preparation for next week's mini-presentation in French about your local area.
« Dans mon quartier on a pas mal de maisons et quelques appartements. Les maisons sont assez grandes dans ce quartier avec des fenêtres en saillie. On a deux pubs, un qui est grand et vend des repas et un autre plus petit 'du coin'.
On a aussi deux superettes, beaucoup de vendeurs de plats à emporter comme une friterie, un pour les plats indiens et deux autres pour les plats chinois, une pizzeria et un fast-food pour les hamburgers, une petite poste et plusieurs coiffeurs pour les hommes et pour les femmes.
Il y a aussi un marchand de tapis, une fleuriste, un salon de tatouage et quelques bureaux. Non loin on a deux concessionaires de voitures d'occasion aussi, avec une pharmacie, un cabinet de dentiste et une autre superette Tesco. Il y un beau jardin public.
C'est assez tranquille comme quartier sauf le bruit de la circulation et parfois des ambulances. »
Chanson
Quels sont les mots manquants?
Tuesday, February 28th
Tonight, we will talk about the family and describe people...
Extra:
Personality: This link lists the most commonly used positive and negative personality trait adjectives and the noun associated with the adjective (often in English, this is ~ness).
Following today's class, you should be able to understand much of what is contained in these rather old videos, from BBC Schools and Colleges Collection.
+++++++++++++++++++=====================++++++++++++++
Tuesday, February 21st
We will look at some French Speaking people and their jobs from Entre Nous.
Mardi Gras
Tuesday, February 7th
For your homework, you might want to write a little about yourselves.
You could start a document on your computer with the following information in French about yourselves and then add to it each time you learn a new item as a resumé of what you have learned.
Introduce yourself, spell your name(s), say your nationality and how you feel, and give your birthday… Say whereabouts you live and what sort of things there are near your home...
e.g.
Je m'appelle ... ça s'écrit ... je suis de nationalité anglaise/britannique... ça-va bien merci et vous? J'habite à ... au sud d'Angleterre dans une maison au bord de la mer et près de chez moi il y a une boulangerie, une poste, trois superettes, un pub et un petit jardin public.
Don't forget that language needs regular practice if you wish to improve.
In class tonight...
Let's use the Entre Nous 1 book and look at the city of Lille, identifying where the various places are in the city. (P.24)
We will look at the definite article (the) in French, giving some survival phrases in French you could use when in need! (P.25-26) Revise greetings and their appropriate setting (P.30)
Tripes à la Mode de Caen...
We may begin to look at France and Francophonie... (P.35 and P.36) and to begin to give personal details in French.
To begin to familiarise yourself with French as she is spoken!! Begin listening to and watching things in French, here's a little video about Lille in French.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Tuesday, January 31st
You might be able to say a few sentences about your town or city in response to this question...
<<Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans votre ville? >> e.g. Voici... l'église, voilà ... la suprette...
Building on last week's introduction to the city of Caen, we will look at what the course book Entre Nous wants to introduce us to this week.
They are using the city of Nantes over in the West of France, south of Brittany, but once was in Brittany before France annexed it.
We will then examine why people are learning French, some personal details and how to form the present tense of regular '-er' verbs... (the joy, the bliss!) and mention the reflexives (more joy!!).
It is possible we will get onto talking about basic greetings and 'faire la bise'
Tuesday, January 24th
For this lesson you might like to be ready to introduce yourself in French, giving your name, saying where you're from and when your birthday is...
Depuis le dossier de l'apprenant, vous feriez votre vision de la France, en parlant de vos opinions sur:
le petit déjeuner français, les films français, la gastronomie française, la France même, le sport français, et l'art français.
For a little vocabulary building, we will look at compiling << un portrait chinois >>. We don't have a name for that in English, we do call a similar thing "20 questions".
Revisions l'alphabet et épeler vos noms, les noms de vos villes et lieux de naissance.
Revisons les chiffres entre 1 et 20.
Avez-vous un numéro fétiche?
Travel to France - Portsmouth is twinned with Caen, so we will look at what can be seen in Caen (basic vocabulary initially based on the course book Voilà ).
The course book uses Nantes as an example, but Caen is linked by ferry to Portsmouth.
La Gastronomie de Caen
Revision
This very young French Teacher made these vlogs for his French beginners during the Coronavirus lockdown. However, he covers many of the things we covered in class today and last week, which can serve as a reminder!
In teacher training, they say if you do something at least 6 times, you might remember them!
He certainly seems to use that method... Here is his video for the places you might find in a town - if you need it...
Un peu d'humour français... Une réponse à la question brûlante...
Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire?
Tuesday, January 17th
Today, we will begin learning to speak, read and write in French and listen to French being spoken.
In the first class, we will introduce ourselves and find our reasons for learning French as we do not all know each other yet.
There is a coursebook for this beginners class that I have based the content we study on. You may find it helpful to get a copy for home use and self-study. We will also discuss your motivation for learning French.
We will most likely begin looking at the course book Entre Nous 1.
The beginning discusses why you are learning French and some simple information about yourselves. There is no compulsion to buy the book, but you might find it helpful for your studies.
We will answer the French questions for:
Who are you?
Why are you learning French?
What does France mean to you?
You may need to leave some questions until you've learned more about the country and its cultures.
Up-to-date map of French Regions - They were merged to make them less numerous.
Worksheets for use in class/at home.
Florabelle et la Mushroom Family - L'Alphabet en chantant - An earworm which will teach you the alphabet.
This guy does a lot of beginner's videos... Now there's enthusiasm, and then there's ~Thomas!
He can, at least, serve as a reminder of the correct pronunciation, should you need one...
Extras
A really useful way to tune your ear into French is to find some singers and bands who perform in French and begin to follow them on youtube, or if you do have a paid-for music streaming service, you may be able to access them on there. I have written much more about French music here.
Mylène Farmer (The French Madonna has been around since 1987 but still gets to number one in France!)
Zaz...
Zaz does a wide variety of old and new songs and Jazz styles. This one is a cover version of a Daniel Balavoine song. he was huge in the 80s but, unfortunately, was killed in a helicopter crash. This song was part of a tribute album to him.
Kyo
A band from Rouen, big in the late nineties and early noughties, made a comeback a few years ago...
I cannot possibly cater to all tastes in music, but searching YouTube will bring you many different artists.
There are so many more, including a multitude of rappers!
For non-rappers, try: Shy'M, Keen'V, M. Pokora, Marc Lavoine, Renaud, Desireless, Louane, Patricia Kaas, Amel Bent, Calogero, Christophe Maé, Christophe Willem, Etienne Daho, Francis Cabrel, Patrick Bruel, Boulevard des Airs, Grégoire, Indila, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Joyce Jonathan, Najoua Belyzel. Navii, Raphaël, Vianney, William Sheller and Yseult....
All have a presence on YouTube, and then there will be recommendations for more similar things down the side...
*********************************************************************************
