Speak Like the Natives
“Take a trip to foreign country” is a featured item on most people’s list of things they would love to accomplish in life. Tasting the food, enjoying the music and visiting the hottest attractions are common activities in which tourists partake while on holiday out of the country. Thoughts of taking a trip to a French-speaking country, most popularly France, sends minds spinning on how one would survive while there.
In a French class, it will be most helpful to learn how to speak to the natives in everyday French. To support your current instructional model, these French SMARTBoard activities will have your students ordering a taxi, shopping, and visiting the Arc de Triomphe with confidence on their next trip to the “City of Lights.”
Food
Knowing how to order food is a skill that no one can afford to fail at developing. As soon as students begin their trip to a French speaking company, whether by car, plane, train, or boat, they will need to know how to order food, identify it, and ask for it. Linked below are a few SMARTBoard activities on French dishes.
French Food Introduction – Smart Exchange teaches French food vocabulary, food names translated into French, and French meal times.
Food – Here is another exercise from Smart Exchange in naming and spelling French foods and proper gender use.
Telling Time and Weather Tracking
While vacationing, keeping time and following weather forecasts are vital tasks in avoiding a spoiled journey. Theatrical events are of many ingredients that make up a country’s culture. Reading show dates and planning an itinerary both are steps taken to help make a vacation worth going on; getting it all in while you are there. Inclement weather can spoil any well-thought-out trip. Students will appreciate SMARTBoard French activities on weather and telling time in French. Check out these:
French Telling Time –students working on telling time in French.
French Weather Vocabulary –a SMARTBoard activity on weather in French for students to use prior knowledge of weather systems and seasons for further French immersion.
Shopping
Ah, shopping, the stuff that dreams are made of–well, coming home with bags and bags of deals scored in your French country, that is. Imagine visiting Paris lacking the ability to ask for the proper size or correct quantity of that beautiful dress you saw in the window. Now imagine not bringing home the souvenirs for your family and friends from your trip to Canada because you did not know how to ask for a thimble with the Canadian flag emblazoned on it. You would be disappointed and so would your folks back home. Because you would not wish a shopping trip spoiled by a failure in communication on your worst enemy, use the links listed to help students with shopping for those cute digs and treasured mementos. These helpful sites are also on Smart Exchange.
Clothing Unit –a notebook lesson for French clothing vocabulary.
Home furnishings in French –as the title states, a French vocabulary activity on home furniture.
Travel
Can your students name the most notable tourist sites in France? How about Switzerland, Monaco, Djibouti, Vanuatu? If the answer is no for either of these countries, then you will find that your class will benefit greatly from SMARTBoard French activities covering geography. To get started, use this Smart Exchange lesson:
Geography of France– Rivers, cities and mountains in France and adjacent countries.
Slanguage in the Language
What is language without slang? What is conversational French without it? Boring, that’s what it is! Teaching informal language helps your class with fluency and helps them to sound more like native speakers. Nothing says tourists like a failure in communicating the slanguage.
Jeopardy! –a review game with a category on French slang.
At the end of a busy week of studying for their next visit to a French-speaking country, strike some fun with this French SMARTBoard activity:
Zip, Zat, Zut– A popular game in French classrooms. This a template to customize to your particular topic of study.
