French with Flo

 France is a very diverse country. Each region has its own geography, landmarks, culture, characteristic landscapes, and even its own language in some cases. To complicate things, the administrative entities known as régions were re-arranged in 2016. The new map is supposed to be simpler, but personally, I'm still getting a bit confused! I guess it will take some time getting used to it... Here are a few activities to discover French geography and famous landmarks. Geography exercise :  La France, tu connais?  (document created by  FranRC91  at ISLCollective). In this exercise, you'll have to identify France's main rivers and mountain ranges, and associate cities, regions and pictures. Here's the answer key . [Beginner] French landmarks and regional features , based on the map from the exercise above. We started in class to identify and explain the numerous illustrations appearing on the map. This is an ongoing, collective effort. Here's the list (in progress)...

 " Les Grandes Vacances " is the term French schoolchildren use for the Summer vacations. They're called "big" because they last over 2 months, from late June to early September. Since workers in France get in general at least 5 weeks of paid vacations, families often take a long trip together during the Summer. Since we're having this class over the Summer, let's explore together the theme of Travel and Holidays with a couple of activities. Vidéo : Destination de rêve . This video produced by Easy French is a " micro-trottoir ", which means a video where ordinary people in the street are asked to answer a few brief questions. In this video, various French people talk about their dream destination for the vacations. Texte et Questions : Le voyage . Easy text with comprehension questions. [Beginner] And finally, talking about traveling, you may enjoy " La ville de Paris vue du ciel ", a quiz about Parisian landmarks based on a video ta...

Unsurprisingly, the last class of the year had a seasonal theme! Thank you so much to you all for your cards, gifts and kind words. They mean a lot to me and I'm so happy to have such wonderful students. Thank you also for the amazing food. I'm sure we have the best potlucks in the Senior Center! 😋 This year, I had three Christmas-related handouts: Christmas Eve - Image Description (created by silvialefevre at ISLCollective.com) Christmas Vocabulary  (created by jannabanna at ISLCollective.com) Text - Fill in the Blanks  (created by cranberry2 at ISLCollective.com) Finally, here's a beautiful Christmas song about children and world peace. I hope you'll enjoy it. And here's the karaoke version:

Between Chapter 14 and Chapter 15 of French Made Simple , there is a review section covering chapters 10 to 14. We completed the book with a few other exercices, mostly about numbers. At the Train Station [BEGINNER] This is an easy listening exercice to review numbers and hours. Click on the sound file to listen to a short dialogue between a customer and an employee at the train station's ticket window, then answer the questions by using the information on the right of the screen. At the Farmer's Market This is another exercice about numbers and prices. Listen to each sound bite and complete the chart, using the information at the top of the screen. For each line, you need to indicate what fruit or veggie is sold, what is the price and what is the quantity for that price. Understanding a Phone Message Answering the phone is one of the hardest things to do in a foreign language. Understanding a phone message is slightly easier because you can hit the repeat but...

Here is everything we studied in connection with Chapter 13 of French Made Simple . 1. Shopping for clothes Our study of numbers took us on a detour down the clothing aisle of our favorite department store. We started with the following exercise from Podcast Français Facile : Listen to the price  (numbers from 1 to 400): t his text describes a customer's shopping trip to a boutique. Listen to the audio file from the link above and fill in the prices in  the class handout . I adapted my handout from   this original pdf , which includes the answers.  Buying Clothes   (created by tkdana at ISLCollective ): w e took the shopping theme a little further with these two short dialogues between a customer and a clothing store attendant. In class, we used these as templates to improvise little dialogues.  [BEGINNER] Clothing vocabulary : t his is a useful vocabulary list, also created by Podcast Français Facile . You can hear an audio vers...

Music Day , la fête de la musique , is celebrated on June 21st, the longest day of the year and the first day of Summer. In this video by FrenchPod101.com , Ingrid tells us everything about this special Holiday: In class, we also studied the text " La fête de la musique " (with audio version) from Podcast Français Facile . I reformatted their pdf to create the class handout , which includes a fill-in-the-blanks exercise, vocabulary notes and comprehension questions. We also took this opportunity to study a song in class: "Parce qu'on vient de loin" ("Because we Come from Far Away") by singer-songwriter Corneille . Here is the official music clip: Here are the chords with guitar tabs I used for the class handout . You can also find here the French lyrics with English translation. In order to fully understand this song, it is necessary to know the singer's story. Corneille grew up in Rwanda. At 17, his whole family w...

Since last week's class fell on May 1st, I had of course to talk about the premier mai  Holiday in France. We studied the French Labor Day last year in this post (with a text and a video - check it out if you missed it last time), so this year I thought I'd focus on another May 1st custom : the sprigs of lily of the valley French people gift each-other to bring good luck. Here is my class handout  about the muguet du premier mai , adapted from the website momes.net . I slightly modified their text and quiz and I added a vocabulary list.

During last class, we celebrated (a bit late) International Women's Day. Here is the exercise sheet accompanying the video, with a fill-in-the-blank exercise and comprehension questions. On the last page of this document, you'll find the video transcript with English translation . You might also like these web-based exercises, proposed by TV5Monde: - Women in the workplace (a series of 4 exercices, beginner to intermediate level) - Droits des Femmes: à quand l'égalité?  (other series of 4 exercices, intermediate to advanced level) - Quiz: la Journée de la Femme (also advanced level, but no listening involved so it seems easier 😉)

Here we are with two (hopefully) fun classes dedicated to food in France (a topic of national importance), and more specifically to the different meals of the day. "Un  repas de noces à Yport" (détail), Albert Fourié, 1886 Our first link is a text with audio version from Podcast Français Facile: Les repas . The class handout  (created by  BEZOYA15  at  ISLcollective ) includes an exercise based on the audio document above, as well as the transcript and questions that can be found on the Podcast Français Facile page. The next handout  (created by mariaf at ISLcollective ) is a series of crosswords and exercises aimed at practicing vocabulary around food and learning how to describe what you eat as well as your likes and dislikes. It's also a good opportunity to review the use of the definite/indefinite/partitive articles when talking about food. (Document created by arliette at  ISLcollective .) And finally, here's a video ab...

On February 2nd, the French celebrate  la Chandeleur (Candlemas in English). For Catholics, this Holiday commemorates Jesus' presentation at the temple, but it also corresponds to very old folk rites celebrating the beginning of Winter sowing and the lengthening of daylight. But first of all, for everyone in France, la Chandeleur is Crepes Day ! This video, produced by FrenchPod101.com , explains what you need to know about this Holiday, with both French and English subtitles. We also practiced listening with the next video, aimed at young French speakers. The class handout  that goes with this second video includes Chandeleur-related vocabulary, as well as a fill-in-the-blank exercise and comprehension questions. Finally, after talking about crepes so much, you may feel a bit hungry.  If that's the case, here's the Crepes Recipe ! With pictures and in French, of course... (document created by crisbarto at ISLCollective .)

Using properly the casual address "tu" or the formal address "vous" is very important when you speak French. Use "vous" at the wrong time and you'll sound strange and overly formal ; use "tu" wrongly and you might very well offend the person you're talking to... which is what happened to Boris, a young French learner, in the video above. Poor Boris, he learned the hard way! This text comes from the book "Je vis en France : vingt lectures faciles pour découvrir la civilisation française" by Marie Barthe and Bernadette Chovelon. Here is the class handout (slightly reformatted from the original.) There are many, many resources on the Internet about this topic. Here is one I like:

As we've seen, feasting takes a prominent place in Christmas and end-of-year celebrations in France. So, after all these excesses, in early January, what do French people do? They eat cake! 😂 The "fête des Rois", or Épiphanie, is a popular holiday for French people, no matter their religion (or absence thereof.) The video shown in class, from FrenchPod101.com, gives a very good overview of the subject. Our first handout this week was a crossword puzzle with accompanying vocabulary (adapted from this webpage .) We also worked on a fill-in-the-blanks exercise . You can find here the audio document the exercise above is based on. Scroll up and click on the first video to hear the text. Just under the video is a multiple-choice exercise you may find entertaining, and a little below is the full transcript of the text. And, by the way, how do you make this famous galette des Rois? Well, apparently, it's child's play. Enjoy! 😋

As we end 2018, here are some handouts and links that, for some reason (such as me being absolutely terrible with anything having to do with the Internet) never made it to the blog after I taught the corresponding class. This is material we studied between June and September 2018. Hopefully, posting this, even late, will be useful for returning and new students alike.       Texts / Dialogues La fête des voisins: Neighbors Day      1. Text and exercises:  Voisins, voisines      2. Learn more about France's Neighbors Day  here Booking a Table      1. Dialogue:  Réserver une table au restaurant      2.  Dialogue in pictures  (both documents created by  carolebim  at  Tes )       Exercises Crosswords to Practice the Present Tense      1. Mots Croisés:  présent des vacances  (created by  dodeuil  at ISLC...

The first part of our class about devinettes (guessing game) was a couple of beginner-level dialogues from Podcast Français Facile , introducing the vocabulary and sentence structure needed to describe an object. Here are the two dialogues (with the audio recordings), and the accompanying vocabulary . [BEGINNER] We then used a vocabulary in pictures about classroom items in order to practice the guessing game. (source: ISL Collective, originally created by mafaldita47 and updated by me.) [BEGINNER] And finally, here is the list of 10 devinettes we went over today. You all did a great job guessing the answers. Congratulations! 👏

I hope you enjoyed the yogurt cake I baked for the class the other day... even though it didn't rise properly! 😥 Here is the recipe , from Podcast Français Facile once again, with the audio version. I hope you'll try this cake at home. Let me know how it comes out! Picture: www.podcastfrancaisfacile.com By the way, I really enjoyed our lunch at Casse-Croute Bakery today... and it looked like Juan enjoyed it too! 😁 Becky, thank you again for this great idea.

En France, le 1er mai est un jour férié. Les français célèbrent la fête internationale des travailleurs. In France, May 1st is a national Holiday. The French celebrate International Workers' Day. Voici une vidéo sur le sujet, avec sous-titres en français et en anglais. Here is a video on that topic, with French and English subtitles. Et voici un lien vers le texte que nous avons étudié en classe, avec la version audio : And here is a link to the text we studied in class, with the audio version: https://www.podcastfrancaisfacile.com/podcast/la-fete-du-travail.html Le muguet du premier mai. Pour les français, c'est un porte-bonheur ! Lily of the Valley, offered on May 1st. For the French, this is a lucky charm!

Si vous avez manqué un cours (ou perdu une feuille), voici ce que nous avons étudié lors des cours précédents. If you've missed a class (or lost a handout), here is what we studied during the previous classes. Dialogues Le petit déjeuner   ( Breakfast) (source: podcastfrancaisfacile.com) À la boulangerie   (At the bakery) (source: ISLcollective, créé par sarahISL) Grammaire (Grammar) Les articles (source: grammaire française Larousse) Exercice: articles partitifs   (source: podcastfrancaisfacile.com) Grammaire : articles partitif ou pas ? (source: ISLcollective, créé par arliette) not either/not anymore Women's professions and titles Fêtes et culture  ( Holidays and Culture) La Saint-Valentin   (Valentine's Day) (source: podcastfrancaisfacile.com) Jeux olympiques d'hiver   (Winter Olympics) (source: ISLcollective, créé par silvia lefevre) Lexique du printemps   (Spring Vocabulary) (source: ISLcollective, créé pa...