Français A
This trimester, the theme in French A was Bon appétit dans l’Ouest de la France.
The class learned how to offer, accept and refuse food as well as asking for and giving an opinion on food they ate. They also used the partitive articles, the verbs vouloir, pouvoir and -ir verbs in the present tense as well as the conditional and imperative.
After doing research on typical specialities from francophone countries, students decided to prepare either a sweet or savory dish, and film a short cooking video of themselves making the dish. These dishes ranged from a pudding chômeur to profiteroles.
This project tested their ability to both speak the language and apply the new grammar that they had learned throughout the trimester.
Finally, students compiled all of their research on the recipes, as well as a step-by-step guide to cooking these dishes at home on their very own French A cooking blog!
Français C
This trimester, French C focused on the francophone region of Maghreb through the lens of storytelling as well its conflictual history with France.
To begin our study of this region in North Africa, we looked at its tradition of story-telling through fairytales and fables. As a class we looked at the vocabulary typical of these types of stories, and introduced two new tenses to our growing arsenal, the passé simple and plus-que-parfait. This allowed students to read the folk tale “Les Origines de l’Inimitié entre les Hommes et les Animaux”, which tells the cautionary tale of human’s impact on the animal kingdom.
After reading this traditional tale, students took on the challenge of writing their own origin-story, in the form of a children’s book! They made use of their newly-learned vocabulary and tenses, as well as applied previous concepts and ideas. Students then illustrated their stories and even got to read them out to the French A class during our end-of-year French Picnic!
Finally, the second part of our last trimester was spent looking at the shared history between France and the African continent. Students got acquainted to more advanced vocabulary in order to discuss the several conflicts and war which led to the independence of countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Mali. To demonstrate their ability to use discuss these more advanced themes, students picked a francophone country, researched its history (specifically, how it gained its independence from France), and created timelines to go over the countries key dates and the events which led to them gaining their independence.