French 3: Monday January 28 2013 Lesson Plan

DUE: Presentations on Famous French People!

• Each student will prepare a presentation on a famous French person. Current or past, politicians, artists, scientists, you name it—as long as the person is French, you're good.
• That free rein given, permit me to suggest de Gaulle, Napoléon, Chagall (Belarussian, but he moved to Paris), de Tocqueville, Chanel, Descartes, Jeanne d'Arc (especially if you've been to Rouen!), Weil, Renoir, Monet (again, Rouen!), Bernhardt (l'actrice!)...
• Same rules as last time: 30-second intro entirely in French without notes; minimum three minutes for full presentation.
• Audiovisuals are welcome but not required to support your talk (it's always nice to see what these famous people look like)

[50 minutes] Presentations

• After each presentation, the previous speaker must ask the current speaker one question about her/his topic, and the current speaker must respond, chaque en français.

[20 minutes] New Grammar: The Conditional! 

• See page R51 for chart!
• The conditional in French is the "would" form of a verb.
• The French use the conditional just as we do: either to express something that would happen if certain conditions were true, and to make a request more polite.
• The conditional forms pretty simply: just add the imperfect ending to the future stem:
1. J'aimerais devenir professeur—"I'd like to become a teacher."
2. Tu m'aiderais avec les devoirs?—"Would you help me with the homework?"
3. Hannah pourrait parler avec le prof?—"Could Hannah speak to the teacher?" (pouvoir has an irregular future root, pourr-. "could" = "would be able to")
4. Nous irions aller au stade, mais il va pleuvoir—"We would go to the stadium, but it's going to rain."
5. Vous arrêteriez de fumer?—"Would you stop smoking?"
6. Mes parents aimeraient une nouvelle voiture—"My parents would like a new car."
• Practice with this online exercise!

[20 minutes] Vocab 4.1 Practice!

• Firing line, face-to-face practice! Student drill each other.

Les Devoirs: rien! Mais étudiez beaucoup pour l'examen de vocabulaire 4.1, que nous passerons mercredi!