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To improve your listening and speaking skills in a social setting, visit the evening or afternoon events organised in the city.
This post is for the French Improvers Class at the City of Portsmouth College (Highbury Campus) on Thursday evenings from January to March 2023.
Tips for refreshing and reinforcing your 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
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
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' and 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'.
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.
They will be on Thursday, April 20th and 27th, May 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th, Half Term, June 8th and 15th.
If you feel confident enough, you may wish to move to the advanced class, which will run on a Wednesday evening for the next term.
The classes run for 10 weeks on the dates below:
Thursday, March 30th
Les cloches de Pâques
For Primary School Children (but she speaks s-l-o-w-l-y)
Could you speak for at least one minute on each of these questions below... ?
- Que faites-vous normalement une journée ouvrable?
- Qu'est-ce que vous allez faire ce weekend?
- Qu'est-ce que vous feriez pour les vacances?
- Si vous gagniez la loto qu'envisageriez vous faire ? Si + imparfait et conditionel
- Parlez-nous de votre famille, vos amis et vos animaux...
- Quand vous étiez jeune, qu'est-ce que vous aimiez faire?
- Qu'est-ce que vous avez fait le week-end dernier?
Thursday, March 23rd
Having totally looked through all the tenses, we can take a break from serious grammar tonight, while looking at where it comes up in these texts.
We will look at an example of a daily routine, and you can use this to talk about your day-to-day routine. Poster
Thursday, March 16th
Tonight, we will discuss the formation of the (near future), future and conditional tenses in French.
With these, we will have completed the tense structures in French, that most people will require for everyday use in French-Speaking nations.
Thursday, March 9th
Tonight, from Entre Nous 1, we will discuss what you like to do and find suitable house/flatmates. Pistes Audio 42-50
Let's look again at the formation of the perfect and imperfect tenses, how they could be employed... and the formation and use of the pluperfect tense.
This song has the Perfect, the Imperfect and the Pluperfect along with the Subjunctive.
Thursday, March 2nd
Tonight, from Entre Nous 2, we will look at the theme of people reminiscing (using past tenses)
Let's look more at the formation of the perfect and imperfect tenses and how they could be employed...
Chanson
Céline Dion - Pour que tu m'aimes encore - The title here is subjunctive! However, this song uses a LOT of Perfect Tense and Present Tense constructions, along with a couple of imperfect and future tense constructions. What can you notice about the future tense formation of most verbs?
On parle du québecois
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Thursday, February 23rd
Tonight, from Entre Nous 1, we will revise the grammatical structures around saying what you are going to do and why you are going to do it.
Culture et Actualité
News from Bénin - Thursday, 16 February (the language tends to be slower than most and quite well pronounced).
You can probably find the previous night's news on this YouTube Channel. It could be good as a starting point to ease yourself into the news from l'Hexagone.
Rallumer les étoiles - Mylène Farmer (latest release)
Une petite blague bretonne
Thursday, February 9th
To check verb conjugation - particularly while you are learning all those irregular verbs - this tool could be of use to you.
The Imperfect Tense (sets the scene while you then say what happened next using the Perfect Tense - we may get to look at this tonight)
EN2 p69-70 Events that can change a life II. Piste 24
also, EN1 p68-69 Describing people in a family and their interpersonal relationships
We will also look further at the Perfect Tense in French; I will use my blog here to cover its formation and use it step-by-step; for far more detail, though, why not look at Laura K Lawless' blog (linked first in this paragraph)?
Exercise (H/W) French Verb Drills Book (could be of use to those who want to hone their grammatical skills)
Tonight:
Recap - regular «-er» verbs, regular «-ir» verbs, regular «-re» verbs with avoir
Then we must look at the verbs that use être as an auxiliary and their eccentricities.
Possibly reflexive verbs... (if it is not too daunting all in one go)
Possible Self Study.
If you have not already begun... why not create a word document where you have placed information about your family (real or fictional) and add some ideas from today's topics to it.
You could even create a Podcast or a Vlog post...
Chanson
A couple of songs that use a LOT of Perfect Tense, including a few irregular and regular pattern verbs
Ingrid - Tu es ...... (a fairly rude song in all reality - not for the faint-hearted)
Laurent Voulzy - Je suis venu pour elle.
All verbs are missing here... Can you figure out all the correct spellings?
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Thursday, February 2nd
From the course book:
Continuing the theme of families
EN2CH4 pp 66-69 - Talking about famous people (referencing the past) Piste Audio
We will also look further at the Perfect Tense in French; I will use my blog here to cover its formation and use it step-by-step; for far more detail, though, why not look at Laura K Lawless' blog (linked first in this paragraph)?
Exercise (H/W) French Verb Drills Book (could be of use to those who want to hone their grammatical skills)
Tonight:
Recap - regular «-er» verbs, regular «-ir» verbs, regular «-re» verbs with avoir
The verbs that use être as an auxiliary and their eccentricities.
Possibly reflexive verbs...
Chanson
Someone whose québecois is not natural but has lived there a long time
Oh là là! an actual québecoise talking about how people express annoyance in Québec
🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷 🇫🇷
Thursday, January 26th
Tonight, we will look at families.
We will learn or revise describing people both physical and personal characteristics.
We will also look at the Perfect Tense in French; I will use my blog here to cover its formation and use it step-by-step; for far more detail, though, why not look at Laura K Lawless' blog (linked first in this paragraph)?
We will listen for the missing words; some are adjectives to describe people, but remember to make the adjective agree with both number and gender! Some are easy, some are not, and some are very challenging!
Thursday, January 19th
Tonight is the first lesson. We will look at what motivates you to improve your French, why you have signed up and what you want to get from the class (so I can best prepare for the next nine 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 coursebooks I have at my disposal. In particular, the book Entre Nous 1 and Entre Nous 2
Voici quelques questions pour vous faire parler aujourd'hui:
Pourquoi voulez-vous améliorer votre français?
Parlez-nous d'une visite en France ou dans un pays francophone...
Que faites-vous dans la vie?
Quels sont vos passe-temps préférés?
Revisons - la famille
EN1CH4 pp 66-69 - Talking about family Piste Audio
EN2CH4 pp 66-69 - Talking about famous people (referencing the past) Piste Audio
Faisons le plein alors!
« Est-ce que c'est vrai qu'un ver vert verra le verre vert du verrier en vair ce vendredi vers huit heures? »
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