Skip to main content

Parent-child role-plays

Here's a resource I posted on frenchteacher.net a long time ago. I recall this task working really well with A-level classes. It works as a one-off lesson, or you could shoehorn it into your family topic.


Imaginez les conversations. Une personne joue le rôle du parent, l’autre de l’adolescent(e).


  1. Le parent vient de recevoir un coup de téléphone du directeur de l’école. Celui-ci a dit que l’adolescent a raté quelques cours et qu’il ne fait pas ses devoirs. Il risque de rater le bac.

  1. En rangeant la chambre de sa fille, le parent a trouvé des pilules contraceptives dans le tiroir d’une table de chevet.

  1. L’adolescent explique au parent qu’il est victime de cyber-intimidation. Un autre élève envoie des SMS offensifs et le prend en photo sans permission.

  1. L’adolescent annonce à son parent qu’il ne veut plus aller à l’université.

  1. L’adolescent veut faire un petit job tous les weekends. Le parent n’est pas d’accord.

  1. Le parent sent l’odeur du cannabis dans la chambre de l’adolescent et décide d’aborder le problème avec son enfant.

  1. Le parent rentre en fin de soirée pour trouver que la maison est très en désordre après une fête.

  1. Le parent et l’adolescent discutent si l’enfant devrait étudier les langues ou les sciences à l’université.

  1. L’adolescent a décidé qu’il veut faire le tour du monde avant d’aller à la fac. Le parent n’est pas d’accord.

10. L’adolescent rentre tard dans sa voiture en état d’ivresse. C’est la
         deuxième fois que cela s’est produit.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a langua...

Zaz - Si jamais j'oublie

My wife and I often listen to Radio Paradise, a listener-supported, ad-free radio station from California. They've been playing this song by Zaz recently. I like it and maybe your students would too. I shouldn't really  reproduce the lyrics here for copyright reasons, but I am going to translate them (with the help of another video). You could copy and paste this translation and set it for classwork (not homework, I suggest, since students could just go and find the lyrics online). The song was released in 2015 and gotr to number 11 in the French charts - only number 11! Here we go: Remind me of the day and the year Remind me of the weather And if I've forgotten, you can shake me And if I want to take myself away Lock me up and throw away the key With pricks of memory Tell me what my name is If I ever forget the nights I spent, the guitars, the cries Remind me who I am, why I am alive If I ever forget, if I ever take to my heels If one day I run away Remind me who I am, wha...

Longman's Audio-Visual French

I'm sitting here with my copies of Cours Illustré de Français Book 1 and Longman's Audio-Visual French Stage A1 . I have previously mentioned the former, published in 1966, with its use of pictures to exemplify grammar and vocabulary. In his preface Mark Gilbert says: "The pictures are not... a mere decoration but provide further foundation for the language work at this early stage." He talks of "fluency" and "flexibility": "In oral work it is advisable to persist with the practice of a particular pattern until the pupils can use it fluently and flexibly. Flexibility means, for example, the ability to switch from one person of the verb to another..." Ah! Now, the Longman offering, written by S. Moore and A.L. Antrobus, published in 1973, just seven years later, has a great deal in common with Gilbert's course. We now have three colours (green, black and white) rather than mere black and white. The layout is arguably more attrac...