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Reading Preparation for AP French Language
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by ElianeKurbegov
Discovery Canyon Campus
Colorado Springs, Colorado
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| | What types of reading best prepare students for the AP© French Language course? The answer to that question is: "Il n'y a pas de sotte lecture." Any and every type of reading will be useful as long as the student learns, practices, and continues to develop good reading techniques.
Short Stories, Poems, and Proverbs
Even first-year students can read short stories in a series like Petites Histoires pour Rire if the teacher carefully guides them through the reading and activities. Students will get used to recognizing cognates and establishing patterns (conjugations, prepositional structures like "continuer à," suffixes and prefixes, etc.), and will develop self-confidence in extracting meaning from unfamiliar words. First-year students also can make sense of Jacques Prévert's "Déjeuner du matin," and, with a little help, extrapolate and infer ideas from this simple poem. They can paraphrase a proverb like "Qui ne risque n'a rien" as well.
While short stories, poems, and proverbs are different genres of writing, they all are rich in linguistic, structural, and cultural content. As students progress from one year to the next, acquiring better control of structures and expanding vocabulary resources demands that they be exposed to more than just limited vocabulary lists and controlled grammar exercises. Although the latter are necessary to establish basic foundations, it is equally important for students to occasionally venture into unfamiliar but authentic language territory. These selections must be carefully chosen and prepared by the teacher. "Déjeuner du matin" can be introduced after students have learned the passé composé or when the teacher is about to teach that tense. The proverb "Qui ne risque n'a rien" can be inserted into a lesson on negatives and can be followed by an activity in which students expand upon the structure as in "Qui ne va nulle part..."; "Qui ne voyage jamais..."; etc.
Textbooks, Magazines, Music, and "Bandes Dessinées"
As students become more skillful in French, primary textbooks should be increasingly supplemented by francophone readers, as well as magazine and newspaper articles, to expose students to different writing styles, perspectives, and viewpoints, and also to caricatures and advertisements. Magazines like Paris-Match or Reader's Digest can be found in most schools libraries. Selected articles from Reader's Digest/Canada can be found online. Your school may subscribe to newspapers like Le Monde, but again you can find selected articles online that can be printed and reproduced for students. Radio France Internationale provides written articles along with audio programs for a general audience and for learners of French.
There are some excellent publications available for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students (i.e., Etincelles and Authentik) that include teaching tips and suggested activities with student handouts as well as audiocassettes and CDs. These are excellent tools to expose students to current issues and concerns in the French speaking world. If their prices are prohibitive, schools should explore the possibility of borrowing the material from another school through interlibrary sharing programs.
Musical compositions also can be effective in teaching French language. Through its Web site, Espace Francophone, the New Orleans affiliate office of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S. offers scripts and pedagogical aids for many songs (e.g., Jean-Jacques Goldman, Céline Dion, and MC Solar). The lyrics of the songs can be used with or without audio support and make wonderful reading and discussion material.
 www.espacefrancophone.org
Advanced students also should read excerpts from novels, plays, and poems. I currently use two novels, Guy de Maupassant's Pierre et Jean and Camara Laye's L'Enfant Noir, because this helps me introduce students to works that are on the AP literature list. Juniors in my AP French Language class get a taste of what to expect the following year in AP French Literature. It is my experience that students usually enjoy the psychological dimension in Pierre et Jean and the cultural contrast of European and American cultures offered in L'Enfant Noir. I use the play L'école des Femmes by Molière for similar reasons. Students enjoy the various types of comic and appreciate Agnès's position in seventeenth-century French society.
Wayside Publishing sells guides for each of the works on the AP list; these are useful in explaining idiomatic phrases and identifying key themes to guide students in their reading. There is a multitude of poems available to AP students in textbooks and in more specialized books like Poèmes pour le Cours Avancé.
The wonderful "bandes dessinées" by Claire Brétécher, Hergé, and Réné Goscinny and Albert Uderzo are authentic but often challenging reading material for students at any level. They require sophisticated reading techniques as they are written in colloquial and familiar language, such as Brétécher's Agrippine, or may rely on Latin and Roman history, such as Goscinny and Uderzo's Astérix. Students will enjoy humoristic and cultural nuances while putting their analytical skills to the test.
It is extremely important for students at all levels to be exposed to various genres as well as different styles and varying lengths of written material. The results will justify the age-old proverb: "A force de forger, on devient forgeron."
Eliane Kurbegov has been teaching for the last 23 years at the Miami-Dade Public School System, where she has taught all levels of French, including AP French Language and French Literature. National Board Certified and vice-president of the American Association of Teachers of French, she has authored numerous workshops at the local, state, and national levels and has served at the Reading in AP French for many years.
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