Purpose and requirements: The students will learn how to talk about their families and describe family members and their relationships. The lesson is ideal for pre-teen children or early beginners. It is mainly focused on the indicatif présent and adjectifs possessifs. Students at this point should know the pronoms personnels (je, tu, il...) verbs like to be, to have, and to live, so they are able to make simple present tense sentences, ask simple questions and answer them. They should also have used the negative form with ne...pas. Ideally, they know il y a or c est or both. Lesson objectives: Communication: talk about/describe their family Grammar focus: adjectifs possessifs, interrogation (c est / ce sont, il y a, qui, où). There is no est-il or est-que or y a t-il; questions are only presented based on the intonation. Vocabulary: family members Culture: French names, French jokes Pronunciation: intonation when asking questions in the affirmative form Material: A vintage family portrait, the dialogue (listed below), and the labels with names Students family portraits (to bring for the lesson) Small portraits of various men, women, and children of all ages: about 10 to 15 portraits per student. Scissors, glue, paper, pencils
Bridge-in: Thomas : Grand-mère, qui sont les personnes sur la photo? Louise : Ce sont mes grands-parents avec leurs enfants. Thomas : Avec leurs enfants? Alors... sur la photo, il y a ton père? Louise : Non, mon papa n est pas sur la photo : c est la famille de ma mère. Thomas : Ah bon! Et... où est ta maman? Louise : Ma maman, c est la petite fille à gauche, elle s appelle... Thomas : je sais! Elle s appelle Jeanne! Louise : Oui, c est ça! Ma mère s appelle Jeanne et ma grand-mère, c est Thérèse. Thomas : Thérèse? Comme ma maman? Louise : Oui, ma fille a le même prénom que ma grand-mère, c est un hommage. Thomas : Alors, le monsieur avec la moustache et la barbe, c est ton grand-père? Louise : Oui, c est mon grand-père, il s appelle Henri. Thomas : Et qui sont les enfants? Louise : Ce sont mes tantes et mes oncles! Thomas : Tes oncles? Tu as des oncles? Louise : Oui, à droite, c est mon oncle Pierre, ton grand-oncle, tu comprends? Thomas : Oui, je comprends. Alors Pierre a quatre sœurs? Louise : Mais non! Il y a trois filles et deux garçons sur la photo! Pierre a un frère et trois sœurs. Thomas : Il y a deux garçons sur la photo? Louise : Oui, devant ma grand-mère, c est un petit garçon, mon oncle Jean. Thomas : Ah d accord! Et comment s appellent tes tantes? Louise : L aînée s appelle Émilie, ensuite il y a ma mère et la plus jeune, c est Françoise. Guidelines: The dialogue could be recorded with two voices, but it should be read by two students, only after listening to it at least twice (either with a recording or the teacher reading). Intonation is important as the questions do not always use the (grammatical) interrogative form. The goal of the activity is to complete a family tree. The teacher draws the following structure (empty, except for Thomas) on the board before reading or listening to the dialogue. Émilie Thérèse Jeanne Louise Françoise Thomas Thérèse Henri Pierre Jean
Continuing the Lesson: Once the family tree is correct, the teacher can check that the vocabulary list has been understood by asking questions : 1. Qui est le père de Jeanne? (Henri) 2. Qui est la mère de Louise? (Jeanne) 3. Qui est le grand-père de Louise? (Henri) 4. Qui est la grand-mère de Louise? (Thérèse) 5. Comment s appelle la fille de Louise? (Thérèse) 6. Comment s appellent les filles de Thérèse et Henri? (Emilie, Jeanne et François) 7. Comment s appellent les fils de Thérèse et Henri? (Pierre et Jean) 8. Comment s appelle le frère de Jean? (Pierre) 9. Est-ce que Jeanne a trois sœurs? (Non, deux) 10. Est-ce que Louise a trois tantes? (Non, deux) Activities: 1. For this lesson, students were asked to bring a family portrait. It can be any type of family portrait with anyone in the picture from one person to many more. The student does not have to be in the picture. It could be an old family portrait or a recent one. 2. The family tree dialogue uses the following adjectifs possessifs : mon / ton ma / ta mes / tes (and leurs). The teacher shows students how they are used depending on the person (je or tu) and the gender feminine or masculine, plural or singular. Examples should be extracted from the dialogue: Ma mère s appelle Jeanne. Où est ta maman? C est mon grand-père, il s appelle Henri. Sur la photo, il y a ton père? Ce sont mes tantes et mes oncles! After the dialogue and vocabulary explanations, the teacher gives big labels to students with the following names on them: Louise, Thérèse, Thérèse, Henri, Émilie, Jeanne, Françoise, Pierre, Jean. Students have ~five to ten minutes to place the labels at the right places on the family tree. They should be free to discuss together and they should choose one student to place the labels on the family tree chart. Tips: 1. Before the labeling activity starts, the teacher should extract the main family member vocabulary to write a list on the board adding a few words for feminine/masculine equivalence. It should not be necessary to translate at this point: le père (papa), la mère (maman) le grand-père, la grand-mère, la fille, le fils (be careful with the possible confusion with une petite fille) un enfant, des enfants, un frère, une sœur, un oncle, une tante, un grand-oncle, une grand-tante. 2. This is a good opportunity to introduce or revise qui est-ce / qu est-ce que c est and est-ce que / est-ce que c est as well as to work on the intonation. The table below shows how adjectifs possessifs are used. This should be provided after the activity. Masculin Féminin Pluriel Je Mon frère Ma sœur Mes frères / Mes sœurs Tu Ton père Ta mère Tes parents Il / Elle Son oncle Sa tante Ses oncles / Ses tantes Nous Notre grand-père / Nos grands Notre grand-mère parents Vous Votre fils / Votre fille Vos enfants Ils / Elles Leur fils / Leur fille Leurs enfants
3. A Preparation : Students have five minutes to look at their family portraits in order to get ready to answer questions from other students. They should also look at the dialogue to extract possible questions. They can: write a description of their family on their own train in pairs to ask each other questions. B Questions : the teacher should ask which students would like to answer questions about their family portraits. The teacher then collects pictures and lets students raise hands to ask their questions. It is easier for them than going in front of the class with their pictures. Tips: With the dialogue, students have a few questions to ask and answer: qui sont les personnes sur la photo? Qui est la petite fille, qui est le petit garçon, etc. but the teacher should go from pair to pair to answer students vocabulary questions. Small class: the activity allows all students to answer questions about their family portraits. Bigger class: when some students have not answered questions, they can: - exchange pictures and prepare questions for the next lesson - present their family directly; if so, these students should be advised to use the questions phase to prepare their presentation. Game: The goal: Using an imaginary family tree, students will have to find one family member with the help of hints. Instructions/Preparation: The teacher distributes 15 portraits of various people of all ages on a sheet of paper. Students (in pairs, in groups, or on their own) have to create an imaginary family tree by cutting out people s portraits and gluing them on a tree they draw. Internet connection: If the class has an internet connection, there are websites providing lists of typical French names; one of the most complete lists can be found here: http://www.lesprenoms.net/lustrehf18901998.htm No Internet connection: The teacher can write a list of French names on the board while students prepare their family trees classifying them as male or female and older or contemporary. New family member vocabulary may appear in this activity: cousin / cousine, petits-enfants, petit-fils, petitefille (petite-fille meaning grand-daughter, not petite fille meaning little girl) The Hints: Students give their family members names and write them on the tree, they pick one family member, and then have to prepare two hints to give to the class so students can guess who it is. They should give a difficult hint first and then an easy one. The teacher must provide examples of hints (je suis une fille / un garçon mon père a un frère mes parents ont trois enfants je suis le cousin de... je suis la fille de...) and inform students that hints using the negative form could be even more difficult (mon père ne s appelle pas - n est pas ma grand-mère ma mère n est pas sur l arbre ) The teacher should check that students will not give the answer with their first hint.
Pre-test: Students are asked to complete the missing cells of the table below with sentences for Thomas and then add their own personal information. If students have no information of their own to add, they can leave the cell empty as students will raise their hands to answer only when they have the ability to answer. L information Le verbe Thomas Moi La mère Thérèse s appeler Sa mère s appelle Thérèse Le père Professeur être Les grands-parents Paris habiter à Le chien Rex s appeler La sœur 10 ans avoir Les cousins Strasbourg habiter à Le grand-père Sur sa photo de être Son grand-père n est pas famille sur sa photo de famille Closure: To use the adjectifs possessifs, students can make sentences for the list of people/things/places below. A table can be filled in on the board for each student s name in columns or rows. The table does not have to be completely filled in for bigger classes. Some students probably know the answers for other students and therefore should answer for them, using son / sa / ses. The teacher should ask some students directly and for others, ask if anyone knows, then ask the students to confirm it is correct. Ideas for the table topics: meilleur(e) ami(e) chanteur préféré / chanteuse préférée loisirs / sports préférés adresse matière préférée (à l école) marque préférée film préféré animaux
Assessment: Worksheets and quizzes are possible assessments but they can be done either as homework or in class to start the next lesson. Quiz 1 introduces further family member vocabulary. This is the vintage family picture used to create the dialogue and the first family tree activity. http://www.flickr.com/photos/imnotquitejack/4153783693/ Copyright 2000-2012 Internet Order, LLC. All rights reserved. Stroll and Internet Order are trademarks of Internet Order, LLC. Internet Order, LLC sells Pimsleur products but is not an affiliate of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (the publisher of Pimsleur products) or of Beverly Pimsleur (the owner of the Pimsleur trademark, which is licensed exclusively to Simon & Schuster). Any use of the Pimsleur name or associated marks is solely to identify the products sold by Internet Order, LLC. Internet Order, LLC is solely responsible for the contents of this document.