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Pre-AP Strategies for French Language
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by ElianeKurbegov
Discovery Canyon Campus
Colorado Springs, Colorado
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Using Pictures to Build Vocabulary
The regular use of pictures to answer questions, describe, comment, compare, find differences, and tell a story is essential to prepare students for the speaking component of the AP French Language Exam.
Students at any level can describe pictures in their textbook. First-year students will start with vocabulary words or short sentences like "Il y a un élève devant le tableau. Il a un jean bleu." The teacher can guide beginners by asking questions such as "Est-ce qu'il y a un tableau dans l'image? Où est l'élève? Est-ce un garcon ou une fille?" Second-year students will be able to add more action verbs, as in "La famille va en vacances en Italie. Ils vont visiter des musées."
Students love working with pictures of characters from favorite books or comic strips. I use pictures of Garfield, Bart Simpson, Babar, Astérix, and Obélix in my first- and second-year French classes. My beginners learn various parts of the body with an enlarged picture of Garfield. They color him in as they please, label parts of his body, and complete sentences I created with words from a vocabulary bank. They also write short paragraphs describing what he is doing or eating or thinking (I make a display of the best ones for everybody to see). For extra credit, they make a Garfield puppet or mask and read their paragraph to the class as a Garfield impersonation.
I also use a picture of Bart Simpson (black outline on white background) wearing a French beret to review and practice colors and clothing. Students often decorate the template with a striped shirt, a moustache, and sideburns, making him look like the stereotypical French artist. They then tell me why Simpson looks that way, where he is, what he is doing there, etc.
I made a color overhead transparency of Babar driving his shiny red car through the countryside. It introduces students to vocabulary associated with nautre (les fleurs, le lac, les papillons, les oiseaux, etc.). Students work in groups to build vocabulary lists and to describe Babar and his car. They eventually create their own Babar story based on answers to questions such as "D'où vient-il? Comment a-t-il eu cette voiture? Comment est-il habillé? Où va-t-il? Qu'apporte-t-il?" The various groups then share these stories orally.
Another activity students enjoy consists of finding differences between two pictures that look identical. This can be done with an overhead transparency. I found a color picture of the comic strip character Lucky Luke and made two enlargements of it. I modified one copy by adding, removing, or transforming some elements in the picture. I then copied both pictures side by side onto a transparency. I use this picture in French 1 or 2 classes to describe Lucky Luke's clothing and physical appearance. In the original picture, he is wearing a white cowboy hat, a red neck scarf, a yellow shirt, blue jeans, brown boots, and a brown belt. He carries a lasso and a blanket and rides a white horse. Students have fun finding the differences between the pictures, and they are introduced to a famous BD character. An extrapolation of the previous activity can lead to the collective creation of a "Lucky Luke au Far West" adventure.
Acting Up
Simulations and skits get students accustomed to speaking accurately in a quasi-spontaneous manner. First-year students can memorize and enact a skit taken verbatim from their textbook or written/modified by the teacher. All students should have the same number of lines; skits and lines should remain short. At that stage, I allow no more than two or three students in a group to help them stay focused by responding to only one person. I give first-year students two options. They may perform at their desk for me alone as I move through the room observing and assisting, or they may perform for the whole class. As extroverted students performing with humor and enthusiasm receive much applause, the others will eventually join in. The most important motivational element here is to create an environment free of criticism and mockery.
Second-year students can do the same with slightly longer lines, or they may be asked to modify an existing dialogue by replacing stock phrases. In a restaurant scene, instead of ordering onion soup and a sandwich, they may order steak and fries.
Third-year students can write their own skits and may be able to include more characters and more lines. This works best when the teacher walks around the room offering guidance, suggestions, and help with structures and idioms. The prompt for a skit could be a scene from French in Action or any other such video, a memorable scene from a movie, or a story read in class. To practice argumentation, students can simulate a scene from a popular show like Law and Order. To practice giving advice, they can simulate a show like Dr. Phil.
Reciting poems that they have memorized is a great way for students to improve their speaking skills by focusing on pronunciation and intonations. It is especially important to expose students to poetic language in the early stages of language acquisition so they may develop an affinity for the unique sounds and rhythm of French. Many of my beginners assure me that one of the reasons they chose to learn French is that "it sounds beautiful." If they love listening to the French language, they will be thrilled to listen to themselves speak French. I usually ask them to read the poem onto an audiocassette. I listen to it, identify the areas of difficulty, and point them out to students before they start memorizing. Then the students record themselves again. Some students like me to make a recording of myself reading the poem to serve as a model. The ultimate goal is for students to be able to recite the poem by heart with correct pronunciation and intonations as well as appropriate verbal expression. This can be done before the class or in front of me alone.
The content of the poem "Demain dès l'aube" by Victor Hugo moves students because they empathize with a father's grief for his deceased daughter. Eight verbs in the future tense amidst 12 lines provide an excellent way to practice the French R sound and review or learn the future tense. This particular poem also gives the opportunity to work on nasal sounds with rhyming words like attends/longtemps and common vocabulary like entendre/campagne/montagne. Many textbooks include poems by Jacques Prévert, La Fontaine, and Paul Fort that are appropriate for beginners. In addition, National Textbook Company offers an anthology of "Premiers Poèmes" with vocabulary lists and pronunciation exercises.
The Magic of Music
Songs are another fun way to encourage the production of oral French. Most songs have refrains that can be easily learned, and young people respond well to music even though it may not be their style. Choral singing offers students who are inhibited the opportunity to join their peers in a group activity that is not likely to embarrass them. Folk songs like "Frère Jacques," "Au clair de la Lune," and "Alouette" are already known to many students and will not seem strange to them. I also use some of Hélène Tsegara's lyrics, which are repetitive and easy to understand.
All of the above-mentioned techniques, when used from the earliest stages of learning French, will yield results that vary from one student to another according to ability and effort. They will undoubtedly encourage and enhance verbal spontaneity.
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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