French the natural way: how to speak confidently in 5 steps

Coucou les French learners,

Il pleut, il pleut bergère… It is raining, it is raining sheperdess…

I would have given my head to be cut that it would be a nice day today!

It is a popular song for children which has its origins in a French opera or opéra comique written in 1780 by Fabre d’Églantine.

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French the natural way: joyeux anniversaire !

Coucou les French learners,

Quelle semaine ! What a week!

Input alone is sufficient

My lovely grade 12 IB Spanish learners passed their oral examinations on Thursday. Instead of going through long lists of vocabulary related to the topics they had to talk about,

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Personalized questions in French: l’étoile du jour.

New photo by alice ayel / Google Photos

This morning, I was reading the Active learner blog post about “Café y conversación” and it inspired me to share about an authentic conversation I had last week with my French students.

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How to develop fluency for an oral examination?

The speaking examination for the IGCSEs can be a stressful experience for our students as they are having to speak in the target language for 15 minutes and they are being recorded. It is therefore best to practice this experience often during class time. In the past I have used Audioboo so that my students could practice and review the general questions (which are a series of linked questions on two or three topics which students have covered in grade 9 and 10).

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Communicative activity for French learners (beginner level).

As well as teaching online private English lessons to Spanish students, I help some French students at beginner level. As you may already know, I am a big fan of Martina Bex and I decided to use her storytelling unit for French 1: Dit.

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