Coming to terms with Basic French Grammar, pronunciation and Vocabulary

Session 2 (9th October 2007)

The focus for today's session was very much grammar and intonation. Regional dialects and poor annunciation often mean that in English spoken language the wrong interpretataion can be made. How often have you heard the voice raise at the end of a sentence - yet it wasn't a question!! In french it is very importnat to maintain the correct intonation. For example in questions where there is a yes/no repsonse the intonation would go up at the end of the question. Where a longer repsonse may be necessary then the intonation raises in the middle. In general a statement has one level of intonation but the accent is on the last syllable that is heard. (see grahic for clarification).

In French there are 9 personal prounouns (les pronoms personnels - je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles) and it is important that we know when the etiquette of using these, especially tu et vous.

Questions are easy to introduce and use in the classroom. Children can respond to questions which they hear with simple phrases.

Comment ca va? - How are you? Ca va bien!

Qui est-ce? Who is it? C'est Henri!

Ou habites tu? Where do do live? J'habite en Cornouille.

Qu'est-ce que c'est? C'est un crayon.

Quel age as-tu? How old are you?

Quand est-tu ne(e)? When were you born?

Pour quoi as-tu froid? Why are you cold? Parce que c'est l'hiver!

A point to note in pronunciation is that an 's' between two vowels becomes 'z'

When learning numbers - make sure the children learn how to write numbers in French correctly as there are significant differences which must be observed. Sing the numbers to weel known tunes and play bingo in french.

We reviewed places in France and asked Ou habites tu? J'habite a Lyon... When talking about towns etc then we use 'a' ...a Plymouth, a Paris, a Madrid but when talking about countries / regions then we use 'en'......en Cornuoille, en France, en Espagne.

We also reviewed the days of the week, months and seasons briefly.

Relevant documents and files can be found here

Coming to terms with Basic French Grammar, pronunciation and Vocabulary

Course Focus:
Run under the auspices of the Plymouth Early Language Learning regional Support Group. The aim is to develop linguistic competence and confidence teaching/ starting to teach French (Ks1/Ks2) The focus will be primarily on language improvement and pronunciation but there will be many practical activities / games and a short review of commercially produced resources.
Objectives:
· To manage basic grammar appropriate to the classroom
· To understand important pronunciation rules
· To learn vocabulary/structures appropriate to classroom teaching


Reasons for Attending:
In order to support staff in my role as MFL coordinator it is important that I have a good grasp of the basics in French. Although I did French at school and have a degree of simple conversation, this course would offer a good opportunity to refresh this.

Session 1: Tuesday 2nd October 2007
I have to admit to being incredibly nervous when I arrived for this the first of eight sessions, to improve my French grammar, pronunciation and vocabualry. This heightened at the realisation that the course leader was native French and that at least one other attending this sessions was fluent! There are in fact only five of us! A small intimate group!.... so very quickly we have to get over any nerves and embarassment at not quite having the correct pronunciation or vocabulary. As the session progressed, I quickly realised and reinforced that I understand much more than I can actually vocalise confidently. But then this is what this course is all about. Gabrielle Bogart insists in explaining everything in French (well almost) and reinforces that this is exactly as we should when teaching our children. As soon as you start to translate, the language is lost! This first session then was an assessment of our language capabilities in French. It included simple and basic introductions - Je m'appelle..... Comment tu t'appelles? Ca va, Oui, ca va bien / Comme ci comme ca! Non, ca va pas! (Not strictly correct if written but acceptable in spoken french... correctly written it should be .....Non, ca ne va pas). Quel age as tu? J'ai......ans. Ou habite tu? J'habite a Plymouth / en Cornouille. A simple test encouraged us to listen for the sounds i / u / ou and identify which sound we heard. A score of 14/15 was a great relief! Roll on session 2!

Our task for this week then is to practise our introdcutions. With our classes, take the register in French and sing "Joyeux Anniversaire" if appropriate!

Resources supplied at this session can be found at the following link. Inclded are the first two parts (mp3 files) of "The very Hungry Caterpillar" in French which we will read at the end of our eight sessions with perfect pronunciation and expression!

I have done the register in French with the class, but the first approporiate birthday will actually fall the day after our second session!

I have ordered the Eric Carle book via Amazon France!