As you may know, in class 81FI we have been working on improving our spoken French throughout the year.  One of the ways that we have done this is to watch several movies. With each movie, we study its vocabulary in depth and then prepare skits using the new words and expressions that we have learned.  I have been very very impressed with how many new words and expressions the students are adopting into their French.  Now when we prepare skits, it is not uncommon for a student to use new vocabulary from 2 or 3 movies that we have watched.

Because we watch movies that are about teenagers, the students in class 81FI have begun to speak more like francophone teenagers.  We often hear interesting sentences like "MAV" (BFF) and  "Quoi de neuf, poupée?"  (What's up dollface?) and "Je voulais qu'on fasse la paire" (I wanted us to be twinkies) in the classroom.  Students have also mastered some more complex French words and structures like "si" used for "oui" to answer a question asked in the negative. (Tu n'as pas fini tes devoirs?  SI, j'ai fini mes devoirs, Monsieur) or "Ne dis aucun mot à qui que ce soit" (Don't say a single word to anyone at all).   Another way that their French is developing is related to synonyms that they are learning.  For example, there are many words in French for "guy" or "friend".  Here are a few that we have learned this year:  gars, pote, vieux, mec, brave.  This is all evidence of excellent growth in the students' speaking skills.

Merci beaucoup, les enfants!  Un très bon effort!  Je vous félicite et je suis très fier de vous tous!
Monsieur