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Recipes make for good listening material

I've been looking around for good video listening material for the adult student section of frenchteacher.net and discovered that there are a myriad of useful short videos featuring cooking recipes. Many are short enough (up to about 4 minutes is good) and easy enough to be very usable in the classroom or for homework.

As with all listening resources you need to find language which is clear and not too fast. With recipes you have the great advantage that the visuals follow  the language very closely so comprehension is facilitated. In addition, most students would find at least some interest in following recipes.

Videos like this can be exploited in a number of ways. Here are a few:
  • True/false/not mentioned
  • Gap fill
  • Matching starts and ends of sentences
  • Vocabulary list completion
  • Oral recounting of the recipe to a partner
  • Adapting the material to produce a written account in past tense
  • Making the recipe at home to be brought in for a class tasting.
  • Focusing on an aspect of grammar (e.g. imperatives and il faut)
  • Focusing on cooking vocabulary which can be re-used when describing another recipe orally or in writing
Here is a simple recipe for cheese and ham canapés on which I based a worksheet for adults, high intermediate or advanced students. My wife makes something similar.




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