Purpose and requirements: The main themes of the lesson are jobs and professions. Here, students are encouraged to talk and interact verbally since most of the lesson does not require any writing. It introduces job-related vocabulary (professions, habits, places, tools) and is mainly focused on feminine and masculine rules in French (nouns more generally) but it will also make students work on basic expression of goal, cause, and consequence. It requires students to know the indicatif présent (for all groups of verbs, preferably) and the use of the conditionnel présent. Students at this point have a good knowledge of the various interrogative forms and most likely also know the passé composé. This lesson is aimed at lower-intermediate levels. Lesson objectives: Material: Communication: describe people s jobs, ask someone about his or her job, talk about habits, express dreams and projects, and express cause, consequence and goal. Grammar focus: feminine and masculine rules and exceptions for nouns and adjectives to some extent, interrogation, conditionnel présent Vocabulary: job-related vocabulary Images of various professions chosen by the teacher from the word endings list provided below. Labels with places and items to draw A box Tape Dictionaries
Bridge-in: ACTIVITY 1 Showing images of various professions, using male and female pictures, the teacher is first going to demonstrate to students that in French, there are: 1. masculine and feminine forms for job names 2. some jobs with no feminine form that are used with un or le as if they were masculine 3. differences between il est and c est as in: il est docteur, c est un docteur Guidelines: Students can repeat the sentences to work on their pronunciation and to realize there are different sorts of endings. It is not necessary and might be confusing to write the vocabulary at this point. It should be written on the board when the activity is over. The teacher should use names for the characters shown to better explain the difference between c est and il est : C est un docteur. Marc est docteur. The rules for the feminine endings for nouns in French are presented here in three different parts: easy ones as well as common ones for jobs, the not so easy ones, and then other endings that are rare for jobs. This activity should only focus on endings of part 1 and 2. Rules have been simplified for an introduction to feminine and masculine forms. The rules (simplified): Part 1 Most of the time, making nouns feminine just involves adding an e un employé de bureau une employée de bureau This works for all sorts of words: un ami, une amie, un inconnu, une inconnue, etc. But some words end in e and are both masculine and feminine (this happens mostly with job names). le/la secrétaire le/la vétérinaire le/la juge le/la journaliste And many words have a specific ending; this is also the case for certain animals too. The -euse ending for words in -eur is very common for jobs un coiffeur une coiffeuse As well as the -(i)ère ending (although pronunciation is not easy and there s an accent to add) un boulanger une boulangère un banquier une banquière The -ienne ending for words in -ien un comédien une comédienne
ACTIVITY 2 Part 1 The teacher places the characters representing jobs on the board or walls of the class and asks students to pass the box with labels around the class, each student drawing a certain number of labels from the box. The labels are marked with places related to the jobs the teacher has shown as well as items used by the various characters. It is advised to use two places and two items at most for each job. Note: The quiz sheets provide a basis of words to work with. Students will then place the labels they have on the correct images and only in the second phase can they look in the dictionary if they are missing some words. Example: JOB : un cuisinier / une cuisinière PLACE : un restaurant ITEM USED : un four Part 2 The teacher makes sentences to describe a job. Example: Le cuisiner travaille dans un restaurant. Il prépare les repas avec un four. Il travaille avec un chef et avec d autres cuisiniers. Il ne voit pas les clients du restaurant. Then the teacher asks students to make sentences with jobs of their choice following the example. Depending on the students level, it might not be necessary to prepare the sentences by writing them. Part 2 The -trice ending can be confusing because of words in -teur ending in -teuse un acteur une actrice un chanteur une chanteuse Part 3 This part deals with other endings; there are not many jobs with these endings; therefore, some of the examples below may not be specifically job related. The -esse ending un maître d école une maîtresse d école un âne une ânesse The -onne ending for words in -on un patron une patronne un lion une lionne The -elle ending for words ending in -el un criminel une criminelle éternel éternelle The -ette ending un cadet une cadette not always for adjectives! discret - discrète The -se ending for words ending in -x un époux une épouse The -ve ending for words ending in -f un sportif une sportive Debriefing The first part of the lesson can be done without any writing to encourage students to talk. The teacher should either provide a list of the vocabulary used with sentences and rules for the feminine or write them on the board for students to copy once the first part of the lesson is over.
Activity with written preparation 1. Before learning the rules in part 3 for feminine endings, each student is asked to prepare a short text to present his or her dream job. Questions to answer could be written on the board: What is your dream job? What do you do daily in this job? Why would you like to do this job? Dictionaries are probably necessary. 2. Teacher will check and correct: students have to use the conditionnel présent (at least with j aimerais or je voudrais) students have to express a goal (pour + infinitive) but they may use parce que Activity for the other endings This activity deals with other endings (part 3 of the feminine endings rules) and there are not many jobs with them. 1. Dialogue The dialogue can be recorded or read by 2 students. Théo Qu est-ce que tu voudrais faire plus tard? Nicole Je voudrais être docteur et toi? Théo Moi? Comme mon papa! Nicole Et qu est-ce qu il fait dans la vie, ton papa? Théo Mon papa est patron! Nicole Patron? Ooh la la! Alors, vous êtes très riches? Théo Mais non! C est une petite entreprise! Nicole C est quelle entreprise? Théo L entreprise s appelle «Le maître fromager» 2. Questions a. What expression is used in French to talk about someone s job? «Qu est-ce qu il fait dans la vie?» b. What is a patron? (Why does Nicole think that Théo and his family are very rich?) A patron is a boss. c. What is Théo s father s company manufacturing or producing? Cheese (Le maître fromager) d. What is the feminine of patron? Students do not know the answer or answer that the word needs an e ; the teacher will introduce the double consonant ending rule for -on / -onne, -el / -elle, -et / -ette e. What is Ooh la la expressing? It expresses surprise/admiration; it is an expression similar to wow!
3. Dialogue creation for role play In pairs, students create a dialogue with a little girl and a little boy, following the structure of the dialogue above, but with different elements. The structure below could be given to students. Boy Qu est-ce que tu voudrais faire plus tard? Girl Je voudrais être... et toi? Boy Moi? Comme ma maman! Girl Et..., ta maman? Boy Ma maman est...! Girl...? Ooh la la! Alors, [choose or invent] elle travaille beaucoup / tu ne la vois pas souvent etc. Boy Mais non! [choose or invent]...! 4. Other endings Activity ends with the rest of the rules given to students: -esse ending un maître d école, une maîtresse d école -se ending for words ending in -x un époux, une épouse -ve ending for words ending in -f un sportif, une sportive Closure Game: What is your job? The game is a type of Who am I? game, but with jobs. A student chooses a job and others try to guess what it is by asking questions that require a yes or no answer. Do you use this or that, do you work at that place, do you meet these people, do you work on the weekends... The teacher can give examples of questions to ask. Copyright 2000-2012 Internet Order, LLC. All rights reserved. Stroll and Internet Order are trademarks of Internet Order, LLC. Internet Order, LLC sells Pimsleur products but is not an affiliate of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (the publisher of Pimsleur products) or of Beverly Pimsleur (the owner of the Pimsleur trademark, which is licensed exclusively to Simon & Schuster). Any use of the Pimsleur name or associated marks is solely to identify the products sold by Internet Order, LLC. Internet Order, LLC is solely responsible for the contents of this document.