Languages - French 

Journée internationale du prof de français

Thursday 24 November 2022 marked the journée internationale du prof de français (International French Teachers’ Day).  To mark the occasion, all staff at Auburn High School were treated to French croissants and pains au chocolat for morning tea.  All students were also encouraged to be particularly kind to their French teacher.

Story retelling and les contraires - Year 7

Our Year 7 beginner students have worked hard all year to learn a new language and develop their vocabulary and writing skills in French.  They have learned French through the AIM program.  In this program, French is contextualised through songs, raps and stories which provide the right context essential to language acquisition.  Gestures are used continuously in class to facilitate learning and memory.  This is a very interactive program which enables students to apply their new skills repetitively and ultimately, achieve fluency.  Recently, students were asked to retell a very familiar story and rewrite it using their own sentences.  Here is an example of an excellent text written by one of our Year 7 students, Jemma Tivendale.  Well done, Jemma, for your excellent work!

Similarly, Year 7 students have continued to build their vocabulary by learning “les contraires” (opposites).  Pairing opposite words is a great way to learn new vocabulary. Language learners have an easier time attaching meaning to a word when they are also presented with a word’s antonym.

Here is an example of a poster showcasing “les contraires” by one of our students, Elke Bennetts.  Bravo Elke!

Sonia Boyer

Languages Learning Area Leader- French Teacher

Year 8 French mainstream- Cheese tasting incursion

As part of their unit on food, the Year 8 mainstream students have been preparing for their Writing CAT.  They have done excellent work with quite a few students writing above 200 words with the support of a prompt.  Students can be very proud of their achievement.

To round up the unit of work on food, students had the opportunity to learn about a much-talked-about subject:  French cheese and the obsession of the French with cheese. Students watched a video on the history of cheese, listened to a cultural presentation, researched a cheese and then had a tasting session of several types of cheese including le brie, le gruyère, le gorgonzola (deemed milder than the French blue cheeses) and le chèvre, the favourite of the day!  Of course, cheese was sampled with bread, not crackers. Everyone has now been briefed on how to cut cheese properly as well.

Some students were lucky enough to have a scientific presentation and a short cheesemaking demonstration by our resident cheese expert, Madame Papon.  We are very grateful for her willingness to generously share her wealth of knowledge on the topic and look forward to learning even more on the subject.