An activity where children explore french adjectives to describe places. Children begin to be aware of stereotyping

 

 Describing Places!

 

Create a word search using the following adjectives:

 

Recognising cognates!

 

intéressant

délicieux

spectaculaire

magnifique

impressionnant

vaste.

fantastique

 

Ask the children to find the words and to guess what they might mean.

 

 

Handout the following pictures -1 set to each group of 5 children.:

(Pictures are available  to download in photo gallery area of website))

A cliff- une falaise

A river- un fleuve

A hotel- un hôtel

A desert – un désert

animals- les animaux

scenery- le paysage

meals/food- les repas

 

 

 

 

Ask the children to put a suitable adjective beside each picture to describe it.

Teach them how to say the words.

 

 

Then let the children hear  the following phrases (sound to be added)

 

il y a un paysage magnifique

il y a des falaises impressionnantes

il y a un fleuve spectaculaire

il y a un désert vaste

il y a des repas délicieux

il y a des animaux intéressants

il y a des hôtels fantastiques

 

 

Ask them to  hold up the appropriate picture when they hear the phrase. Give them a chance to practise saying the new phrases- listen/repeat.

Ask the children (in pairs) to imagine they are in one of the places in the photographs and prepare a quick mime to show they are there. Ask different pairs of children to come up to the front of the class and mime their picture. The other children in the class have to see if they can guess which picture they are miming – guessing in French- e.g un désert vaste?

Ask the children to bring in or find on the internet a photo that they think sums up/ represents their local region in the UK. Ask a  child to show his/her photo to the class. Ask the class if they all agree that the photo sums up their region. There will be lots of  disagreements! Pin up all the photos the children have found. Ask the children if all their photos gives a good representation of their region- if so why or if not how could it be better? The children may begin to look at the idea of stereotyping a place, and having more and varied information from a cross-section of people reduces the chance of stereotyping. Ask the children if they think the 6 photos of Mali give a complete and accurate picture of Mali? If not what could be better?

Using some of the new french adjectives the children could build a word/picture wall with their class photos to describe their own  region- in French.

In groups, children could look for 5 more photos on the internet which show an element of Mali that surprised them. They could build up a word wall showing all these photos, and as they progress with the topic, they can add in new knowledge about Mali and new French words to describe the country