Ben Obernolte
Chez nous: branché sur le monde francophone
Prentice Hall, 2010
French 101
Chapter 6 : Nous sommes chez nous [We are at home]
Correlation to National Standards/Objectives________________________________________
By looking to both the “Standards-based Textbook Evaluation Guide” and Bragger’s
questions on page 461 of our textbook I have come to the conclusion that Chez nous: branché
sur le monde francophone is a textbook that has a good variety of exercises that either explicitly
touch on or allow good opportunity for instructor-led discussions for each standard of
education for foreign language learning.
The activities that are presented in this book are of a good variety and there is good
contextualization and for the most part they touch on topics that the students will find
interesting. There is also a wealth of primary sources that give the students a good glimpse into
francophone life in a variety of countries; there is an emphasis placed on French culture and
vocabulary but each chapter includes information on francophone America and Africa.
The activities, dialogues, videos, and images presented in the textbook appear to be up
to date and the videos are of a conversational nature so they appear as though they are not
scripted. I would have liked to see more of a variety of French people. There are many French
people in the videos, but they are almost all from Nice.
The textbook does not have many activities geared toward the “communities” standard.
I was able to find a couple pages that touch on the prevalence of French in the world, but I
could not find activities that urge students to explore French websites or speak with native
French speakers. However, I do think that there were some activities where the instructor
would easily be able to include a discussion on the benefits of knowing a foreign language or
where the instructor could bring in a native speaker or set the students up with a pen pal.
Learning Scenario_______________________________________________________________
This thematic unit has been prepared for a first semester French course. During the
course it has been assumed that the students have no prior knowledge of any foreign language.
The class has had roughly 18 students during the course, just over half of the students have
reported knowledge of a foreign language and 7 have reported that they have studied French.
There is a good variety of grade levels represented in this course. Very few students have
expressed interest in studying French beyond the required amount; the vast majority will be
continuing onto French 102 next semester. Chapter 6 is in fact the 7 th chapter that is taught
during this semester since there is a preliminary chapter that is taught at the beginning. This is
the last chapter that is covered in the course. This chapter was taught in the 13th and 14th
weeks of a semester with 17 weeks between the first day of class and the date of the final
exam.
The course as a whole goes over grammar topics such as tenses (the present tense,
passé composé, imperfect, and near future), pronouns (subject, emphatic, direct and indirect
object, and en), and different parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, and adverbs). The themes
that are presented in this course are: “Let’s Present Ourselves!”, “My Family and Me”, “Studies
and Professions”, “Métro, boulot, dodo” [Train, Work Sleep], and “We are at home”
For this textbook it is best if the instructor has a computer with internet access and a
projector to be able to show the textbook on the wall as well as videos and images from the
book. There a good variety of exercises in the book that ranges from input to output based,
reading to writing, and listening to speaking. Francophone culture, society, and history serve as
the context of the textbook and therefore the course, with an emphasis on France due to the
instructor’s education and experience.
Activities______________________________________________________________________
1. Compléments d’objets directs (Sheet made by Maggie Morgan)
Title: Use of Direct Object Pronouns in the Passé Composé
Description: In this activity, students are given a sheet of paper (See image 1.1). As a
class we will fill out the flow chart at the top with information about the difference of
using “être” and “avoir” as the auxiliary verb in the passé composé. I will ask the
students to tell me what is the first thing we need to do when forming a phrase with the
passé composé (what belongs in boxes A and B) and a student will tell me, “Auxiliary
verbs” and the students will tell me how to conjugate both possible verbs. Then they
will tell me that the past participle goes after the auxiliary verb and the way to form the
past participle with the three different regular verb types. Next I will try and get the
students to tell me that when using “être” the past participle agrees with the subject by
asking, “What do we do differently when ‘être’ is the verb instead of ‘avoir’?”. And
finally, I will use the blank box F as a transition point to begin talking about what direct
object pronouns are and eventually fill in the information in box F.
Purpose: In this activity the students will review what we covered in the previous
chapter with boxes A, B, C, D, and E; those boxes contain the steps to producing a
sentence using the passé composé and when to make the past participle agree with the
subject of the sentence. Box F introduces the idea of direct object pronouns to the class.
The chart shows the students that up until the final step, the passé composé has the
same construction when using “être” and “avoir”. The main content of the activity is
grammar, but depending on the vocabulary chosen for example, there can also be a
vocabulary component. All four skills are being affected in this activity because written
and oral competence and comprehension should increase because of better
understanding of the construction of phrases using the passé composé .
Objectives: To clarify the construction of the passé composé as well as the differences
between sentences that use “être” and “avoir”. The students will also have this sheet
that they will be able to use when doing homework and studying for exams.
Materials Needed: Means to project image (i.e., overhead projector, computer onto
whiteboard), markers to fill in boxes on either whiteboard or transparency, copies of
images to give to students.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Time Required: 15 minutes
Standards: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 3.1
Communication Mode: Because the students have to fit the explanation of the passé
composé into the chart as a class they will use both interpretive and interpersonal
communication modes.
Created by Maggie Morgan
Image 1.1
Conjugate “avoir”
ai
avons
as
avez
a
ont
Add Past Participle
er= é
D
ir= i
re= u
Add “e”and/or “s” to
F
agree with direct object
pronoun.
Before
1) Present tense
a. Je t’aime
2) Passé composé
3) Negative statement
4) Negative command
a. Ne le dis pas.
5) “Les voilà”
B
Conjugate “être”
suis
sommes
es
êtes
est
sont
In this empty
space you can
write some of
the irregular
past
participles.
A
Add Past Participle
er= é
ir= i
re= u
C
Add “e” or “s” for plural or feminine subject.
E
In the Middle
6) two verbs with one
ongoing.
a. Je vais le faire.
After
7) Positive command
a. Fais-le!
2. Le Quartier
Title: Le Quartier [The Neighborhood] p. 233
Description: In this activity as a class we will read the short article that is accompanied by a
video. The students will take turns reading each sentence of the article then we will watch the
video that goes with it that follows a Parisian woman around as she describes her
neighborhood and why she loves it. The article poses the following questions, “Which aspects
of her neighborhood does she like in particular?”, “And you, do you also live in a quarter?”, and
“Do you also feel as though you are a part of a small community? Why?” (p.233). So after
reading the article and watching the clip we will answer these questions as a class, in French. I
will also ask the class to describe the different neighborhoods in Lincoln and to describe what
makes them different.
Purpose: This activity will be done on a day devoted to culture. So, this activity will bring to life
French culture, and therefore the French language, as well as give the students an opportunity
to speak French by comparing our cultures with French culture. To show the students what a
“quartier” is and to discuss as a class the differences between neighborhoods in France and the
United States. By watching the video the students are exposed to a native speaker of the target
language and they are exposed to actual footage of a neighborhood in the target culture. This
also serves as a good transition exercise because after this activity we will learn about the
studio apartment of a different French person from a different city. So we will be going from
learning about a neighborhood as to learning about an apartment. The reading, video, and
questions prepare the students for the next activity
Objectives: The main content covered in this activity is culture, with some review of vocabulary
covered in previous chapters. The skills involved are listening, reading, and speaking. The
students will induce both the definition of “quartier” by watching the video as well as what a
neighborhood is like in France by comparing the neighborhood that is described in the video
and the one in which they live.
Materials Needed: Projector, textbooks, computer with internet connection.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Time Required: 10-15 minutes
Standards: 2.1, 4.2
Communication Modes: Interpretive
Chez Nous Textbook p. 233
3. Indirect Object Pronouns 6-22 p. 237
Title: À qui est-ce qu’on parle ? [To whom are we speaking?]
Description: This activity will be the first activity that we do as a class after I explain
what an indirect object is and the class figures out where the pronoun is placed. In the
activity there is Romain, who is talking about his habits. With each sentence, the
students must decide if in each sentence Romain is talking to his girlfriend (singular
indirect object pronoun) or his parents (plural indirect object pronoun). Finally the
students are asked to figure out to whom he speaks more frequently.
Purpose: to expose the students to a lot of input, with minimal output. The students
will hear and read many sentences that use indirect object pronouns and they will have
to show their understanding by saying whether or not the pronoun is singular or plural.
Objective: reinforce placement of pronouns in a sentence, increase comprehension of
sentences that use indirect object pronouns, prepare students for the following
activities where they will be expected to produce material.
Materials Needed: Textbooks, means to project exercise on whiteboard (optional)
Prep time: 5 min
Time Required: 5 minutes
Standards: 1.2
Communication mode: interpretive
Chez Nous Textbook p. 237
4. Title: Quelqu’un te drague [someone’s hitting on you].
Description: In this activity students will get into pairs and take turns asking each other
on dates. They will be asked to ask questions that use direct objects (e.g., Do you want
to visit the museum with me?) and then the person must reject that person replacing
the direct object with the appropriate pronoun (e.g., I have already visited it, I don’t like
it). The goal will be to come up with the most creative dates and the most creative
rejections. After a few minutes, the students will be asked to present their favorites.
Purpose: This activity will help students practice placing the direct object pronoun in the
sentence; earlier in the unit we learned the three different possible locations for the
pronoun. It will also help the students recognize what is a direct object since they need
to create sentences that have direct objects and they will recognize when they create a
sentence without a direct object because their partner will not be able to properly reject
them. I chose this theme because earlier in the semester I asked them to come up with
excuses as to why they could not go out with someone and they really enjoyed that
activity. This activity could lead to a discussion of dating culture in France if time permits
and students are interested.
Objectives: using direct object pronouns in a conversation setting, work on identifying
the direct object part of sentence, engage students by using topic they enjoy and can
relate to.
Materials needed: White board and markers to brainstorm before activity
Prep time: maybe reviewing places in the city as a warm-up activity to help students
brainstorm.
Time required: 10 minutes
Standards: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 4.1 (if discussed afterword), 5.2
Communication Modes: Interpersonal, Presentational (for students who present after),
Interpretive (when students listen to examples at the end)
5. Writing Assignment 6-19
Title: Workbook Exercise 6-19, La maison de vacances: en écrivant [Vacation Home :
Writing] (Student Activities Manual p.163)
Description: As a homework assignment, the students will be writing a paragraph of five
or six sentences describing a real or fictional vocation home and finally, they will invite
someone to come visit them. I will correct the paragraphs using the “highlighting”
technique described by Hadley, return corrections to students, and the students will
have the opportunity to rewrite the paragraph with the corrections to earn back lost
points.
Purpose: This activity is a good mixture of things that we are learning in this chapter,
and things that we have learned in the past. An additional benefit to doing a writing
activity is that there are not many opportunities in class each students to produce a lot
of French, so a writing assignment allows me to give individual attention the students’
production of French.
Objectives: For the students to produce French and employ the topics that are covered
in the chapter, as well as a variety of topics that have been covered during the course of
the semester.
Materials Needed: Teacher: highlighter, dictionary. Students: Exercise book, textbook,
paper, writing utensil, dictionary.
Time required: Teacher: 5 min before activity, approximately 5 minutes per paragraph
per round of corrections. Students: 15-20 minutes for writing and corrections.
Communicative Mode: Interpretive, presentational
Standards: 1.2
Chez Nous Student Activity Manual p. 163
6. Les numéros 1000
Title: Quelle est la chiffre? [What is the number?]
Description: I will ask the students to write down different numbers. There will be two
different kinds of questions: (1) facts, or questions that the students must estimate and then I
will read the numbers to the students at the end of the activity, (2) questions that the students
will be able to answer and I will ask them to share the answers at the end. I will ask the class six
questions, three from each category. 1) How old are you? 2) How many people live in the US?
3) How many people live in your hometown? 4) How many people do you think live in France?
5) How many movies have you seen? 6) What is the average salary of a French person?
Purpose: This is a warm up activity to refresh the students’ memories of Friday’s lesson when
we learned about numbers. This activity allows students to think about larger numbers before
being asked to produce them. Depending on the questions, this could also allow students to
compare cultures and learn about francophone cultures.
Objectives: content covered is vocabulary and culture. Basic skills covered are listening and
speaking.
Materials Needed: The students just need pen and paper. The questions must be prepared
ahead of time.
Prep Time: 10 minutes (however long it takes to think of a few questions of each type)
Time Required: 10 minutes
Standards: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 4.2.
Communication Modes: interpretive, and presentational
Self-Reflections/assessment of activities:
1. Use of Direct Object Pronouns in the ‘Passé Composé’
In this activity the students reviewed how to form the passé composé and learned about
making the past participle agree when using a direct object pronoun. There were many
parts of this exercise that went well, there were some parts of this exercise that could be
done differently, and there were not any parts of this exercise that I would omit in the
future.
Throughout the semester I have been using the technical names for the parts of the
language as we go (i.e., subject, auxiliary verb, direct object) so that when we start learning
about topics such as direct object pronouns the students will understand the basic parts of
a sentence and it would be possible to explain them formulaically. In the previous chapter I
explained the passé composé using the formula: subject+auxiliary verb+past
particple+object. However, the students did poorly on this section of the exam. So it was
important to me to explain it in a different manner.
By using a graphic organizer I was able to reinforce explicit understanding by means of
output and bottom-up processing. In the future I will have the students either work alone
or in pairs to fill in the chart and then we will fill it in together to allow the activity to include
the interpersonal communication mode as well as the interpretive. One thing that I added
while doing this exercise was a review of irregular past participles. I had the students tell
me some irregular past participles and wrote them in the open space around boxes C and D
and told the students that they should fill in others that they know at home.
2. Le Quartier [The Neighborhood]
In this activity we read an article that explained what a quartier is and we followed
Pauline around her neighborhood as she told us about it and showed us her favorite places.
The activity went well as planned, but there were some things I added to the lesson to
teach the students more about French cities and there are some things that I do next time
to improve the activity.
In the video, Pauline says that she lives, “in the 14th,” which means that she lives in the
14th district of Paris. At the end of the video I realized that the students most likely were
not familiar with the layout of Paris or French cities in general. So after we discussed the
neighborhoods in Lincoln, I showed the students a map of Paris that showed the borders of
the districts and explained that in France low income families tend to live in the suburbs
instead of the inner city. This allowed the students to compare the United States to France,
and learning about the districts provided directly applicable information for student who
someday visit Paris.
The content used was semi-authentic in that it was a native French speaker speaking
about her actual French neighborhood. However, the content was specifically created for
the activity so that decreases the authenticity of the content. This activity employed both
the analytic and experiential approaches because the students practiced the language
hearing and reading the language while learning about the French’s concept of a
neighborhood. Since we did not discuss the content before the reading, the students had to
use top-down learning to discern the meaning of the text. This content made use of the
students’ knowledge of the linguistic code and allowed them to use contextual codes to
discern meaning. Because this is a lower level of French, the video added a good level of
visual information to aide in comprehension. And finally, since the students were simply
asked to interpret the text as a whole, they were expected to understand extensively the
text instead of understand intensively.
3. Indirect Object Pronoun À qui est-ce qu’on parle ? [To Whom Are We Speaking?]
In this activity I read a sentence to the students that makes use of an indirect object
pronoun and the students had to say if the pronoun employed was the singular or the plural.
This activity went was successful in the ways that I predicted, however there were more
advantages to the activity than I had foreseen.
The indirect object pronouns are similar to those of Spanish because there is only one
singular and one plural, they do not agree in gender. I thought that because of this, the
students would have an easier time learning these pronouns than the other pronouns that do
agree in gender. I learned that this was not the case so an additional advantage of this activity
was that I was able to change the genders of the indirect objects of the sentences to reinforce
that the pronoun does not change.
This activity allowed the students to use bottom-up processing because the emphasis
was on the construction of the sentence, not meaning. There was very explicit learning taking
place because emphasis was entirely placed on the concept that was just covered and little to
no emphasis was placed on inferring the rules of the concept. The authenticity of this activity is
rather low because there is a non-native speaker reading the sentences, and the sentences are
not organized in a conversational manner. I do not believe that the low authenticity of this
activity is a problem because the simplicity and repetition of the sentences is important to
reinforce the concept and later I will be able to incorporate more authentic materials that
contain indirect object pronouns.
4. Quelqu’un te drague [Someone’s hitting on you]
This was the activity where the students took turns asking each other out using a direct
object and the other person’s response had to include a direct object pronoun. This activity
went all right, but I think it would have went better if I used it in the next semester since a lot of
the people wanted to ask the other person to a place and we have not learned how to say
“there” yet. So I will try this activity when we get to the unit when we learn that pronoun.
When I repeat the activity next semester there will be even more benefits than the ones
that were present when I did it in this unit. The students seemed to like the theme of the
activity, and they were able to come up with a few creative mini-dialogues so this activity was a
good activity that included both interpersonal and presentational communication modes. This
activity also encouraged a lot of output from the students and it reinforced the explicit
recognition of the direct object in a phrase and hopefully helped make responding using a
direct object pronoun more implicit. The additional benefits from doing this activity once we
have learned the pronoun for “there” is that it will give the students an opportunity review the
pronouns from this semester while working on the new pronoun. This activity will be done
later in the learning process to avoid confusion of the pronouns, but it can also help in that it
allows the students to decide which pronoun is appropriate.
5. Writing Assignment 6-19
In this activity the students had to write a short letter to a friend describing their
vacation home and at the end they had to invite the friend to come visit. When I
compare this activity to the other writing activities that we have done in this course, this
was a lot more fruitful because I had the student re-submit a corrected version of the
assignment. In the past I simply corrected the assignment and returned them to the
students. But this time since the students could receive credit for correcting the
paragraph, their errors were made salient and since I used the highlighting method they
had to look up their errors as well.
This activity allowed the students to employ both presentational and interpretive
communication modes because they had to compose the paragraph and because they
had to interpret the prompt and my highlighting. This activity could include more
standards if they had to pretend their vacation home was in a francophone country and
had to describe it showing that it is a French home. This would make salient the
difference between French and American homes.
6. Numbers 1000+
This is the activity where I asked the students to write down a variety of
numbers. I asked them questions such as, “How many people live in your hometown?”,
and “how many people live in France, the USA?” At the end after we went over all the
questions, we talked about how to break the big numbers down into more manageable
pieces. This activity went well; some students asked to repeat the activity later.
One of the problems with the activity was that some students looked up the
right answers to the questions so that took away from the discussion about our ideas
about population and average wage and their reality. In the future, I would take out the
questions where each student would have a separate answer and replace them with
questions that provide meta-cultural thinking. I would do this because the metacultural questions provided for more discussion and because the students were more
interested in them.
The students used interpretive and interpersonal communication styles because
at the end we shared our guesses and discussed the answers. I thought the large
numbers such as national population were useful because they provided the students
with a lot of practice, they are the most difficult numbers that the students are likely to
encounter, and they show the students that there is a pattern to forming numbers. It
was also useful because it allowed the students to hear the numbers without producing
any output, and at the end it allowed the students to produce the numbers with a script
that they could follow.
Testing________________________________________________________________________
1. In a paragraph, describe your childhood home. Make sure to include what rooms it had,
as well as a physical description exterior. Give a more detailed description of (Test A)
the Kitchen (Test B) the living room (Test C) your bedroom. Sentences should employ
the imperfect tense. 10 points (Translated from French)
This writing question is more indirect and convergent, but it is framed in a way to make sure
the students use the target grammar point, and to show them that they know how to write a
paragraph on the topic.
2. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate verb, conjugated in the imperfect tense. (7 points,
0.5 for correct verb choice, 0.5 for correct conjugation)
Word bank: se coucher, écrire, être, faire, finir, manger, prendre
Quand j’(étais) un enfant, je (faisais) du sport après l’école. Quand je suis rentré à la
maison je (finissais) mes devoirs avant qu’on (mangeait) le diner. De temps en temps
j’(écrivais) une lettre à mon ami américain et ma mère la (prenait) à la poste. Entre neuf
et dix heures nous (nous couchions) pour avoir de l’énergie pour la journée prochaine.
This activity is also convergent, but it is more convergent and direct than the first question. I
chose this activity because it allows for more authenticity while also giving me an opportunity
to have them conjugate many different types of verbs.
3. For each sentence, write a response replacing the object with the appropriate pronoun.
(6 points, 0.5 for the correct pronoun, 0.5 for the correct placement)
1. -Est-ce que tu aimes le fauteuil?
-_(Oui, je l’aime) or (Non, je ne l’aime pas)___.
2. –Tu vas décorer le séjour ?
-_(Oui, je vais le décorer) or (Non, je ne vais pas le décorer)_________.
3. –Tu as fermé le réfrigérateur ?
-_(Oui, je l’ai fermé) or(Non, je ne l’ai pas fermé_.
4. – Tu téléphone à ta mère ?
-_(Oui, je lui téléphone) or (Non, je ne lui téléphone)_____.
5. -Je prends mon sac à dos ?
- _Oui, (prend-le)_____.
6. – J’écris à votre patron (boss) ?
-- Non ! (ne lui écrivez pas !)____________.
This activity is the more divergent and direct of the three. There are only two acceptable
responses and it is good because it allows me a lot of variety in the types of responses I want
the students to give.
Length
0.0- Too short. Not
able to show
understanding/
ability to use
grammatical point.
0.5-Shorter than
length given in
prompt. Few
sentences that
employ grammatical
point
1.0- As long, or
longer than given in
prompt. Employs
grammatical point
many times to show
understanding.
Spelling errors
(-0.25/spelling error.
Same spelling only
counted once)
(-0.1 for accents)
0.0- More than four
spelling errors
0.5- Two different
spelling errors
1.0- No spelling
errors.
Grammatical Errors
0.0-Does not show
competence in
specific grammatical
point of exercise as
well as other points
covered previously in
class.
1.0- Over half of
instances with
grammatical point
are correct. Lacks
variety in
employment of
grammatical point.
Competence in
previously covered
points.
2.0- Employs
grammatical point
correctly with a
variety of subjects,
verbs, etc.
Competence in
previously covered
points
Vocabulary
0.0- Does not use
vocabulary from
current unit. There
are English words
(homework). Many
words in English,
especially words
learned for class (in
class work).
0.5- Few words from
current unit, mostly
words from previous
units. No English
words.
1.0-Many words from
current unit. No
English words
Concluding Remarks_____________________________________________________________
This chapter went very well. It is very nicely situated in the semester. The previous two
chapters’ test scores were the lowest of the semester which I believe is due to timing. Because
this was the last unit of the semester I believe that the students put in extra effort so that they
can add one last high score to their final grade. This chapter presented a good variety of
activities for students based on many factors, including their learning styles and their progress
into a specific point (i.e., input based vs. output based or fill in the blank vs. sentence creation).
Also, during this chapter the class had the most lively and fruitful cultural discussions.
Even though there were many things that went well in this thematic unit, there are
some things that I will do differently next time I teach this course. I would like to include an
activity about looking for an apartment or house in a francophone country where the students
must search online for their apartment or house. I will also ensure that there is a bigger variety
of examples (e.g., verb types, sentence structures) for activities on grammatical points.
One thing that I have found very helpful is discussing lesson plans and activity ideas with
my colleagues, my coordinator, and with the participants in MODL 880. It was very useful to
get advice from more experienced educators as well as people with learning styles and
perspectives that are different from mine.