We've just published a special resource to go with this short animation on the topic of the environment, so if you're looking to make authentic listening more accessible … job done! Students can get bored with predictable textbook listening tasks and Read more...

We've just published a special resource to go with this short animation on the topic of the environment, so if you're looking to make authentic listening more accessible … job done!

Students can get bored with predictable textbook listening tasks and often perceive listening practice as a test. However, we think this fun animation should help liven up listening, motivate your students and give them a boost – they'll have understood some real French! Also, I can pretty much guarantee they'll pick up the word 'prout' in the process.

Our worksheet has been designed to accompany the '12 solutions des enfants pour le climat' clip which is part of the '1 jour, 1 question' series of videos on YouTube. It includes a pre-listening starter activity and a listening for gist task to help your class get the most out of the native-speaker speed animation.

This is followed by a listening for detail task, which is differentiated into bronze, silver and gold. Translation sentences based on the clip are also included, along with answers and teaching notes.

Basically, it's an instant lesson! The PDF is free! What more could you possibly want?

Thanks to @MFLCorner for highlighting this environmentally-aware song on YouTube: Recyclez! Teaching ideas Using songs can be a really effective way of helping some students memorise key phrases. Challenge groups to listen to the clip as many Read more...

Thanks to @MFLCorner for highlighting this environmentally-aware song on YouTube: Recyclez!

Teaching ideas

Using songs can be a really effective way of helping some students memorise key phrases.

Challenge groups to listen to the clip as many times as they need to in order to note the lyrics or as many words and sentences as they can.

Students could also create their own 'green' song lyrics or write a rap, if given a few rhyming words to get them started.

Les énergivOres (www.energivores.tv) is a great site for the environment topic, with short, quirky, educational animations on a range of issues. Try the clip entitled 'Les incarnés' (1min 43 secs) to show the true cost of our reliance on meat. Teaching Read more...

Les énergivOres (www.energivores.tv) is a great site for the environment topic, with short, quirky, educational animations on a range of issues. Try the clip entitled 'Les incarnés' (1min 43 secs) to show the true cost of our reliance on meat.

Teaching ideas

Below the video you will find a series of coloured tabs - click on the one entitled 'mini jeux'. The five multiple choice questions will introduce some of the key language, themes and statistics in the clip.

Students could then watch the clip, noting any numbers they hear. Once the group have shared what they heard, ask them to listen again for the significance of each figure, e.g. 100 = Les Français mangent plus de 100k de viande par an.

They could then redo the multiple choice quiz, giving more information about each of the questions from what they have heard in the clip.

Paris sans voiture? Quelle bonne idée! 27 September will be a 'car-free' day in Paris, and although this restriction will only apply to certain zones, it  will certainly make crossing the road in the French capital a lot less stressful. For A level students Read more...

Paris sans voiture? Quelle bonne idée!
27 September will be a 'car-free' day in Paris, and although this restriction will only apply to certain zones, it  will certainly make crossing the road in the French capital a lot less stressful. For A level students tackling the topic of transport and the environment, this research task could inspire some discussion.

Teaching ideas

The official website for this event, www. parissansvoiture.fr/fr, is the best place for students to start, with the homepage slider images giving a snapshot of what the capital will be like on this day. They can then head for the 'Notre projet' tab to find out more about the event. Some prompt questions below.

• When was the idea for a car-free day in Paris suggested and who by?
• Are any vehicles allowed at all?
• What kind of events will take place on the streets?
• What are the aims of the day (environmental and cultural)?
• What is the vision for this event in future years?

This interesting article about the use of household waste to create fuel in the Republic of Cameroon would make good reading for A level groups studying the energy topic. Teaching ideas Ask the students to create a flowchart using an app or a PowerPoint Read more...

This interesting article about the use of household waste to create fuel in the Republic of Cameroon would make good reading for A level groups studying the energy topic.

Teaching ideas

Ask the students to create a flowchart using an app or a PowerPoint showing the various steps in the process of this project, dubbed 'Kermit-Ecology'. 

For example the first three steps in the process might read: 

• Des étudiants ont fait des recherches à Douala: 79% des personnes utilisent du bois ou du charbon de bois comme source d'énergie domestique.
• Ils ont ramassé les tas de compost.
• Les déchets ont été séchés au soleil.

La Recharge (www.la-recharge.fr) bills itself as 'la première épicerie sans emballages jetables' and would be a great site to use for the environment topic at GCSE or A level. Try setting the questions below as a homework task. For A level students, simply Read more...

La Recharge (www.la-recharge.fr) bills itself as 'la première épicerie sans emballages jetables' and would be a great site to use for the environment topic at GCSE or A level. Try setting the questions below as a homework task. For A level students, simply translate the questions into French and ask them to prepare to discuss the topic.

Teaching ideas

Give students the web address, www.la-recharge.fr, without any further clues! Ask them to browse the site and find answers to the following questions (answers provided below). They can find the answers in the order of the questions by clicking on the relevant headers at the top of the web page or by scrolling down the site.

1. What and where is La Recharge? 
2. What products will you find there and what is special about these products? 
3. How does it work in practice and what will you need to bring?
4. What is the ethos/rationale behind La Recharge?
5. Who started the company and why?
6. Make a list of useful new vocabulary in French and English which you feel is important to this topic (e.g. le suremballage).

Possible answers

1. The first grocery shop with no disposable packaging. In Bordeaux.
2. Fruit and veg; rice, pasta and cereals; eggs, dairy and cold meats; bread, cakes, biscuits and chocolate; jam and honey; wine, cold drinks, tea and coffee; spices, oil and vinegar; soap and cleaning products; utensils. They prioritise top quality, local produce.
3. To shop at La Recharge, bring your own containers (whatever they may be!), weigh them, fill them with the products you'd like and pay for them – without having to pay for the packaging.
4. To reduce the amount of packaging thrown away and the negative impact on the environment of producing and disposing of packaging. To protect our health and reduce the cost to consumers.
5. Guillaume (who has never liked taking the bins out!) and Jules (who has always loved good local food).
6. Students' own vocabulary lists.

This article from the website Réseau Terre Interactif is all about reducing water consumption. It would make a useful authentic text to use with A level students beginning the environment topic. Teaching ideas Copy and paste the text into Word, Read more...

This article from the website Réseau Terre Interactif is all about reducing water consumption. It would make a useful authentic text to use with A level students beginning the environment topic.

Teaching ideas

Copy and paste the text into Word, enlarge the font, photocopy onto A3 and cut up the paragraphs and four headings.

Ask students to work together in small groups at the front of the class to decide which heading each paragraph should be under. Compare and discuss.

Students can then return to their desks. Give the whole text with the imperative verbs cut out and pasted into a box at the bottom of the document.

The text can then be completed and translated as a group, providing a springboard for work on the imperative.

 

This video would be a good introduction to the French A2 environment topic as it outlines very clearly the causes and effects of climate change. The graphics and labels in the video make this far easier to understand than it might first appear.  Read more...

This video would be a good introduction to the French A2 environment topic as it outlines very clearly the causes and effects of climate change. The graphics and labels in the video make this far easier to understand than it might first appear.

Teaching ideas

Try setting this as a homework task so that students can pause the video whenever it suits them to make notes. You might like to ask different students to focus on any or all of the aspects below when watching it:

• Make a list of essential vocabulary for this topic.
• Write down important statistics and what they represent.
• Write a summary in French of how man has had an impact on the climate.
• Choose a 30 second extract which interests you and write the transcript for the video.
• Draw a cartoon strip based on the video graphics to illustrate climate change.

Here's an interesting starter for German A2 students studying the environmental topic: a video about the effects of global warming on walruses in Alaska. Teaching ideas Set up the video to play mute on full screen (so the title and commentary Read more...

Here's an interesting starter for German A2 students studying the environmental topic: a video about the effects of global warming on walruses in Alaska.

Teaching ideas

Set up the video to play mute on full screen (so the title and commentary doesn't give the game away), making sure you set it up so that it plays after the advert. While it runs, invite the students to speculate about what animals they can see, how many of them they think there are, what might be happening in the video and why.

Answer: 35,000 walruses gathered on the beach due to the lack of available pack ice as global warming has an impact.

Play the clip again with the sound for students to check their predictions and make more detailed notes. The accompanying article could be given for additional reading practice.

This short report about France's first cooperative wind-farm would be ideal for A2 French students studying the environment topic. The extract runs from 1m 42s to 3m 34s of the programme Coup de Pouce pour la planète on TV5. Teaching ideas To Read more...

This short report about France's first cooperative wind-farm would be ideal for A2 French students studying the environment topic. The extract runs from 1m 42s to 3m 34s of the programme Coup de Pouce pour la planète on TV5.

Teaching ideas

To practise listening for the significance of various numbers and figures, put each of the numbers below on a card and ask students to listen out for each figure and put them in the order that they hear them. Listen again with pauses as needed so that they can note what each number relates to. 

Here are the numbers and their significance in the order they are mentioned:

1,000 = les personnes qui ont investi dans le parc.

€5,000 = la somme investie par la famille Duquet.

10 ans = le projet a commencé il y a plus de 10 ans.

10,000 = les habitants dans le canton de Bégannes.

4 = il y a 4 éoliennes dans le parc.

20 million = de KWH par an sera produit.

4% = l'intérêt annuel que l'investissement devrait rapporter.

20 = nouveaux projets coopératifs sont déjà lancés.

An intriguing video clip about a lake which has recently appeared in the Tunisian desert as if by magic … but with a disturbing twist in the tale. Teaching ideas This 50-second clip gives the story with three short bits of text. 1. Play the clip Read more...

An intriguing video clip about a lake which has recently appeared in the Tunisian desert as if by magic … but with a disturbing twist in the tale.

Teaching ideas

This 50-second clip gives the story with three short bits of text.

1. Play the clip and pause it at 12 seconds. Ask students to read and translate the first bit of text:

Un lac est apparu comme par enchantement non loin de Gafsa dans le sud de la Tunisie au début du mois de juillet. 

Ask them some questions in French about what they can see (the weather, what people are doing etc), elicit their opinions of the lake and whether they would like to visit and swim there.

2. Play the next section of the clip and pause it again at 30 seconds. Ask students to read and give the gist of the next bit of text:

Ce point d'eau en pleine zone désertique fait le bonheur des populations avoisinantes mais inquiète les autorités.

Ask some more questions about why the locals are happy and invite speculation about why the authorities might be worried (in English or in French according to the level of your students).

3. Play the next section of the clip and pause it again at 38 seconds. Ask students to read and translate the next bit of text:

L'eau de ce lac, dont l'origine reste à préciser, pourrait être radioactive, du fait de la présence de gisements de phosphates.

Ask students to explain the problem and give their thoughts on this.

Still want to go there? Maybe not …