Because of its striking cinematographic effects (black and white film, dramatic close-ups, soundtrack…) and engaging storyline, Patrice Leconte’s La fille sur le pont (1999) offers a rich source of material to analyse in an assignment on writing a compte rendu…
Raymond Queneau’s Exercices de Style (1947) is a useful and engaging text to use in an intermediate language or writing classes. Students at both levels seem to enjoy delving into Queneau’s project – that is, to tell the same story in…
Literature from outside of metropolitan France is finding an expanding presence in undergraduate French courses, freeing students from the idea that the great works of French literature must only come from France (or Paris). The incorporation of francophone literature into…
Le Cadavre exquis is a surrealist game the group invented in the 1920s. To play, one person writes a word or sentence on a piece of paper and then folds the paper to hide his contribution and then passes it…
Many instructors of French shy away from literary analysis in elementary and intermediate language classes. To be sure, discussion of literary theory can be difficult even in advanced courses. It can be daunting to aim to read texts and analyse…
Most students will recognize the melody of “Comme d’habitude” because it is that of “My Way,” but few will know that the song made famous by Sinatra is actually a remake of the French song by Claude François. The original…
This is a quick warm-up activity I use to review comparative adverbs (plus, moins, autant). It’s in the format of one of the most successful kind of oral exercise: a table to “find someone in the class who…” You can…
When learning adjectives in an elementary language course, I often use examples from the visual arts to create a comparaison exercise. Two paintings that lend themselves well to this kind of exercise are Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1862-1863) and Monet’s…
What student of 19th-century literature doesn’t remember the striking portrayal of the young Charles Bovary that begins Flaubert’s 1857 novel? The opening passage – which depicts the child as an awkward “nouveau” joining a class of students younger than him…
You can use any French song to create some sort of grammar, vocabulary, or culture lesson. The song “Octobre” by Francis Cabrel lends itself particularly well to a review of the futur simple. About half of the lines of the…