UoP French L3&4 2025

Andrew Starr
Nov 12
5 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

This page collects resources for the University of Portsmouth's SELL French General Language Class 2025-26.

A shortened link to this page is rebrand.ly/uopfr25

If the above link returns an error, ajstarr.short.gy/blog will direct you to the blog index, where you can locate your page by scrolling down.

A useful book to get your head around French Grammar (there are versions in languages other than English, too).

Lien très utile >>> Grammaire Française pour les nuls (Version Anglaise) <<< Lien très utile

It is a page to gather links to all valuable content, so I have everything to hand. Students will be able to access most of this directly in Moodle.

Pronunciation Practice

Friends in France - Some people mainly from Caen looking for 'correspondants'

If you're looking for a 'penpal' in Caen, here are some interested parties - mainly in their early 20s, studying at the University of Caen... One is a business and Economics teacher at the Lycée Malherbe in Caen. One lives in Belgium and is 77.

Please let me know if any are of interest, and I will provide you with their email addresses.

We have an exchange visit from Caen in June. There is also likely to be a day trip coming to visit Arundel on Saturday, 6th December, you would be welcome to join us and meet the French!

Fichiers

mardi, 16 décembre

In class assessment in this session

mardi, 9 décembre

Noël aux quatre coins du monde

mardi, 2 décembre

Setting of the text for preparation for assessment in Week 13.

mardi, 25 novembre

Correspondants à Caen - voir ci-dessus...

Mock assessment in this session.

mardi, 18 novembre

Correspondants à Caen - voir ci-dessus...

Today, we will look at the mock test assessment text and discuss how you should prepare the text for the mock assessment next week in this session.

We can look at a series of verb drills to help you with the grammar section of your upcoming examination assessment!

Plus:

Quite a few examples of all tenses, including the subjunctive mood in this song from the 1990s by Céline Dion

Mots manquants

A good example of a French song that uses both the imparfait and passé composé is "J'étais là" by Zazie. It contrasts past actions ("passé composé") with ongoing states or descriptions ("imparfait").

This song is popular for teaching both tenses, as it contains many examples of past events ("passé composé") and descriptions or states of being ("imparfait"). For example, the "passé composé" is used for specific actions, while the "imparfait" is used to describe the emotional or situational context of those actions.

Mots manqués (voir fichiers)

You can watch this American video to learn more about the French imperfect and conditional tenses:

This video explains the difference between le passé composé and l'imparfait.

This American video explains the French imperfect verb tense with a song parody:

mardi, 11 novembre

L'Armistice en 1918 Fichiers

Correspondants à Caen - voir ci-dessus...

Your assessment is due in tomorrow at noon! How are you doing with this?

Today we will have a look at « L'armistice en 1918 » and why today is, in France a public holiday. (voir fichiers).

Revisons : Le passé composé, l'imparfait, le subjonctif, et le plus-que-parfait. (voir fichiers).

Le participe passé - (voir fichiers).

Nostalgie - Quand j'étais petit.../jeune... - (voir fichiers).

mardi, 4 novembre

Correspondants à Caen - voir ci-dessus...

Hopefully, on Monday you covered speaking about a film with Caterina. Fichiers

Today, I am going to take you through some key phrases and possible ideas to enable you to plan for your spoken conversations/presentations on « Les Choristes ».

La culture

La Toussaint en France

Further details

Cahier pédagogique « Les Choristes »

A Level Notes

Revue - Le Monde

Revue belge

An American Podcast about Les Choristes

mardi, 21 octobre

Hopefully, on Monday, you covered ... Fichiers

Expression de la cause et de la conséquence.

Le subjonctif

You also may have covered

L'obligation et l'interdiction...

With this in mind, today we move on to the theme of health.

Unité 7- Santé pp.98-108
Donner un conseil (1)
Les pronoms COD et COI, p.100
Exprimer son point de vue/ Parler des problèmes de santé
Le superlatif p.103
Les pronoms interrogatifs p.107
Les mots de l'actualité
For your assessment, you need to watch the movie 'Les Choristes' - This film is on Box of Broadcasts. We will if time allows discuss what sort of questions you might be using in your assessment...
You will soon be issued with the assessment overview and instruction brief.

BOB

Aspets Culturels

Toussaint et le jour des défunts

Or, for a bit of cultural research and translation of an aural text, how would you translate the message in this news bulletin from TF1 about Halloween in France into English?

Halloween en France - Depuis Quand?

PPT

A commencer pendant la semaine prochaine

Regardez le film et prenez des notes des thèmes dont on a parlé dans la colloque. Puis dès la publication des instructions... préparez pour pouvoir mettre à jour vos enregistrements pour la date limite du 12 novembre.

You should have access to the assessment task on Weds 29th.

Are there any questions, hints and tips you need? Now would be the best time to ask!

Written for French teenagers who also have to write a film review with some hints on what to do and what not to do!

Some French Film Critiques on: (offering some inspiration for what you might wish to say.)

Killers of the Flower Moon Au revoir les enfants No et moi (Presse)

Halloween

Here are some more details about the subjunctive. I wrote a whole blog about verbs; you can access it here.

From Édito A2:

Lire page 120, Entraînement p.122, Bilan grammaire, Le subjonctif p.117

La place des pronoms COD et COI p.121, Faire une critique de film

La sédentarité - We will look in a little more depth at this today.

The French government has this website linked on many advertisements on TV. Ideas to get people doing more and eating more sensibly... (usually on ads for things deemed less healthy).

This page can help us find things to say about la sédentarité.