2.5 Les objets de la classe
5. Les objets de la classe Classroom objects
In this section pupils learn the French names for different classroom objects, and simple phrases they can use between themselves to share and borrow objects in almost any lesson - with appropriate politeness. The teacher can use this to give instructions in French to the whole class about their tools and materials. We have chosen nine common items to start with. You can add more later; there are suggestions in “extra words and phrases”. It’s useful to describe some objects by their colour, so we introduce adjectives and gender agreement. Art and design projects - like Matisse-style cut-outs and building a kite - make enjoyable contexts for children to use their French.
NEW WORDS AND PHRASES
un stylo un cahier une gomme une règle un crayon un crayon de couleur des crayons de couleur des ciseaux la colle un feutre des feutres
- ballpoint pen - exercise book - rubber - ruler - pencil - crayon/coloured pencil - crayons/coloured pencils - scissors (m) - glue - felt-tip pen - felt-tip pens
As-tu ...(une gomme) ? Have you got ...(a rubber)? Oui, tiens Yes, take it
(loosely translated: Yes,
here you are)
Prenez tous ...(un crayon) Everyone get out ...(a pencil) REMINDER
Scene from video section 5: “Prêtes-moi ta règle?”.
s’il te plaît / s’il vous plaît please
VIDEO
The opening sequence introduces the names for a variety of different classroom objects. Children are seen in the French classroom using: un stylo, un cahier, une gomme, une règle, un crayon, un crayon de couleur, des crayons de couleur. Children asking each other for things: Child 1: “As-tu une gomme?” Child 2: “Oui, tiens”. Child 1: “Merci”. Child 3: “Prête-moi ta règle”. Child 4: “Oui, tiens”. Child 3: “Merci”.
CD Track 17
OPTIONAL EXTRA WORDS AND PHRASES Prête-moi ton stylo - Lequel?* 1 Lend me your pen - Which one? Prête-moi ta règle - Laquelle? 2 Lend me your ruler - Which one? *NOTE: As heard in the video. Some pupils may be able to compare 1 masculine and 2 feminine pronouns. CD Track 17 ⇠
Early Start French Pack 2 Child 5: “Prête-moi ton stylo s’il te plaît”. Child 6: “Lequel? Le bleu ou le rouge?” Child 5: “Le rouge”. Child 6: “Tiens”. Child 5: “Merci”. Teachers ask children to get out things: In Roubaix, class teacher Monsieur Charles, asks pupils to get out their orange exercise books: “Prenez vos cahiers oranges”. They are given out. We see a close-up of an orange exercise book and hear: “un cahier ... un cahier orange”. In the village school in Sars-Poteries, Monsieur Boulenger asks his class to get out equipment for a maths lesson: “Prenez tous un crayon”. The children each get a pencil out. After this, a ruler: “Prenez tous une règle”. ... and a rubber: “Prenez tous une gomme”. Finally, some coloured pencils: “Et enfin, des crayons de couleur”. The sequence ends with a list of each of the objects named so far: un stylo, un cahier, une gomme, une règle, un crayon, un crayon de couleur, des crayons de couleur.
The next stage of making the kites involves colouring with felt-tip pens: un feutre... un feutre rouge; un feutre jaune; un feutre noir; un feutre rouge; un feutre jaune. We then see some felt pens: des feutres. The Instructor shows them how to attach the tails to the kite: “Vous prenez les deux ... les deux bouts...” (You take both of them ... the two ends...) The string is also attached: “c’est bien” (that’s good) and the kites are ready. The children can now try them out on the beach.
Scene from video section 5: girl colouring her kite.
Planning your lessons
Before watching the video, you could remind pupils of previous contexts in which they have heard “as-tu...?” and “j’ai ...”. Plan activities to get children familiar with the names of the classroom objects. Then plan games to get them using the different phrases for asking and borrowing. You can add more French words as they need them; see “extra words and phrases”. When pupils are ready, introduce using colour-adjectives in French .
Scene from video section 5: the kite-making class.
Children making kites: At the Agora Centre in the seaside town of Berck-sur-Mer, a group of children learn how to make their own kites. To begin with we see them using scissors and glue: les ciseaux, la colle. Their instructor asks them if they have finished: Instructor: “Vous avez fini?” Children: “Oui” Instructor: “D’accord ... c’est bien”.
Activities
1. Warm up
You could ask different pupils questions like: “As-tu un animal?”, “As-tu un frère?”, “Quel âge as-tu?” Replies may include “J’ai 2 frères”, “J’ai 9 ans”, “Je n’ai pas d’animal”, and will remind pupils of using “j’ai ...” and “as-tu ...?” (I have / have you?) in French. Ask pupils, how often does a classmate ask if they have, say, a rubber? And how often does the teacher ask if they have, say, a pen? Hold up felt-tip pens and ask “Quelle couleur?” to remind children of colours in French.
NOTE: This sequence is for “gisting”. Pupils can follow what is happening without necessarily understanding every word. ⇠
2.5 Les objets de la classe KEY SOUNDS
2. Watch the video
Listen and enjoy copying these typical sounds: where have you heard them before?
❑ Watch video section 5: “Les objets de la classe” to introduce the new words.
“ ” as in crayon
3. Get used to the sounds
❑ Echoing: You show the class real objects, or hold up picture cards from the activity sheet (or show them on your whiteboard/ OHP). You name each object; pupils echo your words.
Heard before in:
“ ” as in feutre
Heard before in:
Responding with understanding
deux joyeux jeudi
“ ” as in stylo ciseaux
❑ Flashcards: make several enlarged copies of the activity sheet and cut into picture cards. Give one card to each child. (It’s probably safer to use cards rather than real objects.) When you call out, e.g. “un crayon”, pupils with the pictures of the pencil hold them up. Vary the pace at which you call out the objects, and repeat the same ones several times in a row to try and catch pupils out. Ask them to swap pictures every so often.
Heard before in:
piscine ville
(Listen to the native speakers try to copy their typically French sounds.) CD Track 17
by demonstrating what to do. ❑ Play “Jacques a dit...” Turn the previous activity into a whole-class game like “Simon says...” If you say, “Jacques a dit, prenez tous un crayon”, any child who does NOT obey correctly and without hesitation is out. But any child who obeys a plain instruction, “Prenez tous un crayon”, is out - and joins you in watching the rest for errors and false moves!
❑ Play “true or false” As you hold up each object (or display it on a whiteboard/OHP.), say its name, e.g.“un stylo”. If you say the correct name, pupils echo it; if you make “mistake”, they remain silent. ❑ Play “do what I say!” The class clear their tables. Like the teachers in the video, you tell each pupil to get out different objects, e.g.: “Prenez tous un crayon”- each gets out a pencil; “Prenez tous une règle” - they get out a ruler, etc. If your puppet can handle objects, it could help
❑ Play “what’s missing?” 1 Using either a tray of real objects or pictures on the OHP/whiteboard, show a range of objects to the class and name each item. Then hide the objects; remove one of them and shuffle the places of the remaining objects.
HOW FRENCH WORKS: 1 Asking for a classroom object politely In the video, pupils heard some French children say “please”. You could suggest that, when children ask others to pass or lend something, they say “s’il te plaît”. NOTE: Ch.2.17:“En classe” has more on classroom
bonsoir marron Napoléon
One child to another:
Please!
Prête-moi ta règle, s’il te plaît. Lend me your ruler, please.
Borrowing politely in French
REMINDER
⇠
Early Start French Pack 2 “Voici ton stylo”. ❑ Play “charades”: Play in groups. You need a set of picture cards (this chapter’s only), and a clock. Give a card to one child from the first group. Allow them (say) 1 minute to communicate the word by miming or drawing to the rest of their group. (No speaking or writing permitted). The group wins a point if they call out the correct word in French before time is up. When pupils are confident with the names of the classroom objects, move on to some activities which involve saying what colour various objects are. (see “How French works 2”).
Go round with a tray of objects in “what’s missing?” 1 & 2.
Pupils have to say which object is missing. ❑ Play “what’s missing?” 2 As in “what’s missing?” 1, present pupils with a tray of objects and name each one. This time do not rearrange the objects when you have removed the first item. Ask the class to repeat the names of all the objects on the tray including the “missing” one. Continue until all the objects have been removed and the class is naming a complete tray of “invisible” objects.
Continue with the other groups in turn.
5. Get used to the sounds: Saying what colour something is
❑ Echoing colour adjectives: Start with masculine nouns, like “un feutre”, “un crayon”; get pupils used to hearing and saying
❑ Use the class puppet as a partner to demonstrate asking for different objects, e.g. You: “As-tu des ciseaux?” Puppet: “Oui, tiens.” (gives you the scissors) You: “Merci.” You: “As-tu une règle?” Puppet: “Non, je n’ai pas de règle.” Now move around the room. The puppet asks different children for things; they reply “Oui, tiens” or “Non, je n’ai pas de...” as appropriate.
“As-tu un feutre rouge?”
the colours AFTER the noun. You take a packet of felt-tip pens; hold up each pen in turn, and say what colour it is, e.g. “un feutre rouge”. The children echo the words. Do the same with a selection of coloured pencils, e.g. “un crayon jaune”.
❑ Play “absent-minded teacher” Oh là là! You have left your classroom objects in silly but visible places, and the class have to help you find the objects you have “lost”. You could put your pencil in a plant pot; place a rubber on the ledge for the board rubber; tape your biro to the computer monitor. Make sure the “hunt” is not confused by other similar objects also visible in the classroom. Tell the children what they have to find, e.g. “Où est mon stylo?”. When a pupil spots the pen in the plant pot, s/he tells you where it is:
❑ You move around the class, asking individual children if they have a coloured object: “As-tu un crayon rouge?” Children reply “Oui, tiens” and offer it you, or “Non”, as appropriate. If they misunderstand, gently point out, “Oui, tu as un crayon rouge”, if you see one ⇠
2.5 Les objets de la classe different (green, grey, white and purple), and say e.g., “un feutre vert”, “une gomme verte”. The children echo the words each time. Ask the children to listen for what changes, as you repeat this once or twice more. You can give a simple explanation (see “how French works 2”); that some colour adjectives change slightly when they are used to describe nouns beginning with ”une” or “la”.
OPTIONAL: colour with feminine nouns (see “How French works 2”). (or “Non, tu n’as pas de crayon rouge”). ❑ A “sorting the nouns” race Give pupils, working in pairs, a set of picture cards from the activity sheet. Ask each pair to sort the cards into two piles, one of “une”/“la” nouns, the other for “un”/“le” nouns. Fastest correct pair has won. As a class, go through which cards are which. You could repeat the activity using cards from previous sections, like pets or places in town.
❑ Play any of the previous games such as “what’s missing?” and “spot the object” again, this time including coloured pens and pencils as well as other objects.
❑ Echoing - masculine and feminine nouns: This time, hold up some examples of feminine nouns (“une gomme”, “une règle”) as well as felt-tip pens and pencils. Concentrate on those colours where the feminine form sounds
❑ Use colour adjectives with other words Talk with children about describing their pets. “Ton animal, c’est de quelle couleur?” : e.g. Mon chien est blanc J’ai un chat noir
HOW FRENCH WORKS: 2 Saying what colour something is Sometimes you HEAR a change in the colour when it describes a feminine noun, e.g. Masculine noun Feminine noun un feutre vert une règle verte un crayon gris une gomme grise un crayon blanc une règle blanche un feutre violet une règle violette On the Teachers Preparation guide, you can hear how to say these feminine adjectives.
What you read and write If you want to go further, show pupils some written phrases. Can they see the pattern? ◆ colours generally change ending when they describe a feminine noun. ◆ often this has NO effect on pronunciation. If the noun is feminine, you add a (silent) “e” to the adjective, unless it already ends in “e”; if it’s plural, you generally add a (silent) “s”: Masculine noun Feminine noun un cahier bleu une règle bleue un stylo noir une gomme noire
“Le stylo rouge, s’il te plaît”.
Familiar words
In the video, pupils hear French teachers and children using colours (which they know from Ch.1.5: “Les couleurs”) as adjectives.
Colour-adjectives FOLLOW the noun They may notice that - unlike in English - the colours come AFTER the noun they describe, e.g. un feutre rouge. When they read French, they will find most adjectives come after the noun. In Ch.2.15: “Qu’est-ce que tu portes?”, pupils meet some of the few exceptions.
Plural nouns
les feutres jaunes les gommes noires As with English, there are exceptions: with colours, feminine blanc is blanche, violet is violette (see above); marron does not change.
Describing feminine nouns When children are ready, hold up coloured objects and say what they are.
CD Track 17 ⇠
Early Start French Pack 2 Introduce colour adjectives if they are ready.
C’est une souris grise J’ai un cheval marron, etc. ... ❑ Play “hunt the object” One pupil is selected to leave the room. The rest decide upon an object and call the pupil back into the room. If s/he moves close to the object everyone says “oui”, getting louder as the player gets closer. If s/he is moving away from the object, they say “non”, getting quieter as the player goes further away. The player has succeeded when they name the chosen object correctly in French.
5. Working in pairs
CROSS-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
❑ Pupils can practise asking each other for classroom objects. Alternatively, they could do this with their puppets.
❑ Daily routines: Encourage pupils to use French whenever they need to ask each other for classroom objects. Whenever you ask pupils to get out particular items such as a pen, pencil or ruler, do this in French, e.g. “Prenez tous un stylo” etc.
6. Watch the video again
❑ Show video section 5: “Les objets de la classe” again for reinforcement.
❑ Design & Technology : Kite-making project A group project to design, make, test-fly and improve their own kites gives pupils a good opportunity to use their French in sharing tools and materials at each stage. If you first do Ch. 2.8: “Les nombres 40-200”, pupils will also know higher numbers and other phrases useful for measuring. Pupils see more about kites in video section 7: “Quel temps fait-il?”. Ch.2.8 has an activity sheet on ‘how to make a simple kite’. See this chapter’s “talking points” for more.
7. Look again at sounds
❑ Play either “listen to the sounds” (described in Ch.2.2: “En ville”) or “find the sound” (described in Ch.2.3: “Toutes directions”).
Introducing the written word
Show the final sequence of video section 5: “Les objets de la classe”, which repeats each of the key words and phrases with text on-screen. ❑ Play “word-picture match” As described in Chapter 2.2: “En ville”, attach the picture cards to the wall. Make text cards to go with each, and set them out on a table. Point to a picture, ask a pupil to select the right word card, and attach it to the picture. Pupils can play word-picture “snap’ in pairs.
❑ Art & Design: Henri Matisse The class could experiment with making coloured paper cut-outs in the style of the famous French artist. “Talking point 3” suggests how pupils can work together (in French), like Matisse worked with assistants in his old age. See www.earlystart.co.uk. for more about Henri Matisse.
❑ Play “jumbled words” Display jumbled text cards on the board (or OHP/whiteboard), e.g. “as crayon tu un”. To start, you say the sentence, e.g. “as-tu un crayon?” Ask a child to re-arrange the text cards to make this sentence. When children have got the idea, leave them to find a sentence they can make with the words. ⇠
25 . 5. LL ee ss oo b b jj ee tt ss d d ee ll aa cc ll aa ss ss ee
Talking point 1
Talking point 2
EVERYDAY LIFE IN FRANCE La rentrée - The new school year
Flying kites at Berck-sur-Mer Find a windy place
Towards the end of the long summer holidays, supermarkets and stationery shops throughout France urge parents and pupils to prepare for the new school year - “La rentrée des classes”, often referred to simply as “la rentrée”. Attractive displays of notebooks, pencils, and pencil cases entice children to buy new sets.
In the video, we see children flying kites they have made themselves. The wide flat beaches along the coast of Nord-Pas de Calais face westerly winds blowing straight up the Channel from the Atlantic - equally ideal for kite-flying, sailing, sand-yachting, and wind-surfing.
Showing children how to glue the kite together.
Kite School At Berck-sur-Mer, the Agora leisure centre offers kite-making and -flying lessons, so children can create and try out their own personal kites. Competitions The ultimate challenge is to join in one of Berck’s kite competitions - like that featured in video section 7: ”Quel temps fait-il?”.
Handing out books in the classroom.
Most state primary schools provide exercise books, and some basic equipment like pens, and pencils. In the video we see pens being distributed to those children who don’t have one, and also a set of orange exercise books being given out. As pupils grow older, they are encouraged to stock their own pencil cases. French primary teachers set homework most days, so each pupil needs a large school bag, “un cartable”, to carry books and writing things to and from home. These “rucksack”-style bags distribute weight evenly across the back, so are considered to be healthier for young children than bags carried on one shoulder. They are also colourful fashion items. Some pupils have trolleys, which are easy to steer along the pavement.
Cultural awareness
Children try out their kites on the beach.
■ Talk with children about the classroom scenes in the video. What do they notice? What do your pupils carry to and from home? Exchange information with your French partner school.
Make your own kite Schools can join in these events. Your class could make kites using the activity sheet in Ch.2.8 (see “cross-curricular activities”.) ⇠
5. Les objets de la classe the countryside. His message was that art is hard work. To find out more about Matisse and the Musée Matisse in le Cateau, see www.earlystart.co.uk.
Talking point 3
The paper cut-outs of Henri Matisse
The famous French artist Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) was counted as one of the world’s greatest modern artists, even in his lifetime. He is known for his use of rich, bright colours, fanciful patterns, flattened abstract forms, and graceful lines. Drawing with scissors In old age, poor health forced him to turn from painting to making paper cut-outs. He called it “drawing with scissors”; he sat in his wheelchair, and painstakingly cut just the shape he wanted from sheets of paper painted with plain vibrant colours. He said: “Cutting directly into colour reminds me of a sculptor’s carving into stone”. Deceptively simple Then he gave directions while each cutout was pinned to a background hanging on the wall, asking for them to be moved around until he was satisfied with the design and the arrangement of colours. The result is deceptively simple: he worked at it until nothing could be taken away without spoiling the effect. Born in Nord-Pas de Calais Henri Matisse was born in the hard-working textile town of le Cateau in Northern France. As an adult, Matisse escaped to lively Paris and warm Nice in the South of France - where he did most of his work. He retained affection for his childhood roots, and gave a big collection to found a museum in his home town. Textile town Matisse had great respect for the artistic and creative abilities of the local textile mill-workers. They created colourful patterns, that machines reproduced on miles of cloth. Their work required craftsmanship as well as imagination; much of their cloth was used for designerclothes in Paris fashion houses (see ch.2.15). The Matisse Museum Matisse wanted his museum to tell people that anyone had it in them to be artistic, even in a grey, boring small mill-town in the middle of
Cultural awareness
■ Show children some examples of Matisse’s work. Talk about the bold simple shapes, and his choice of colours. Children could try working together - like Matisse and his helpers - to make a cut-out. Choose a subject, then pick just a few colours and a few shapes that fit your theme. Paint each sheet of paper with plain, solid colour. When dry, cut out the shapes. Make several copies at once by cutting through a pile of paper. Arrange carefully on a background (which may also need to be painted), with someone giving directions - like Matisse did.
EXTRA WORDS AND PHRASES
un livre - book un classeur - folder/file le scotch - sticky tape la vidéo - video l’écran - screen le tableau - board une calculatrice - calculator une trousse - pencil case un cartable - school bag la rentrée (des classes) start of the new school year Cherchez 1/cherche 2...[un stylo] Find ... [a pen]
(Said 1 to the class/ 2 to one pupil - see ch.2.17)
un cerf-volant - a kite Reminder
Qu’est-ce que c’est? What is it?
Hear these phrases pronounced on the audio CD for teachers. CD Track 17
⇠
Les objets de la classe Je m’appelle ...........................
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