Topic:  La nourriture

 

Meredith Birmingham

French I

Grade 9

                                                           

Unit Rationale

 

As a key part of existence, being able to talk about food is an important skill in a foreign language.  Ordering food and expressing preferences about food are practical skills.  There is also value in learning about the culture of food in France, which sheds light on the larger consideration of French culture in general. 

 

Essential Questions:

·         What are your food likes and dislikes?

·         How does food and food culture reflect the larger culture of a society?

 

Students will be able to...

·         Order from a menu using correct and polite terminology

·         Express food likes and dislikes

·         Ask questions to obtain more information

·         Compare and contrast French and American food culture

 

Students will know...

·         the names of various food, drink, and restaurant items

·         useful phrases for ordering and expressing self about food

·         the partitive construction

·         verbs:  boire, prendre

 

Students will already need to know...

·         the verbs aimer and détester

·         prepositions:  entre

·         comparatives:  meilleur, pire; plus, moins

·         possessive pronouns

 

ACTFL Standards

·         Communication

o       Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.

o       Standard 1.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics.

o       Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.

·         Cultures

o       Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied.

o       Standard 2.2: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied.

·         Connections

o       Standard 3.1: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.

o       Standard 3.2: Students acquire information and recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the foreign language and its cultures.

·         Comparisons

o       Standard 4.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.

·         Communities

o       Standard 5.1: Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting.

o       Standard 5.2: Students show evidence of becoming life-long learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.

 

Subtopics/Objectives

·         At a restaurant

o       Identify foods, drinks, and table items

o       Ask for and give additional information about menu items

o       Order food and drink using correct vocabulary and grammatical constructions

·         Preparing for a dinner party

o       Express/ask about food preferences/allergies

o       Create a menu for a party

o       Prepare food items from French recipes

·         French and American food culture

o       Distinguish consumption trends in France and the United States

o       Hypothesize larger cultural reasons for consumption trend similarities and differences

 

Activities

·         Picture presentation of food and drink based on meal; reinforcement through pictionary—two teams, one student from each team comes to the board, chooses a vocabulary word at random, and draws it.  The first team to guess the word correctly in French gets a point.  May consider lining students up and having only the head of each line guess in order to maintain control of class.

·         Present with cartoon of restaurant scene; ask students to make observations about words in bold (partitive); then, present partitive through direct instruction; present useful phrases; present verbs boire, manger, and prendre

·         Cultural trends:  picture/video presentation of French food culture—hours of stores, shopping at supermarkets, individual shops, open-air markets; the length and content of meals (entrée, plat, fromage, dessert).  In groups, compare to American trends using Venn diagrams.

·         Exploration:  L’Espador http://www.menusrestaurant.com/phpmysql/menus/editsites.php?id=35  Preparation for skits:  By looking at the presentation photo of the restaurant, have students guess what kind of food is served there (fish—the wall decoration).  Go to menu, show students how a “menu” works.   At bottom of page, there is “suite...” to see 23€ menu.  In the upper right-hand corner, go to “carte.”  Have students decipher meanings of different menu items, make choices about what they would like and not like for their entrée, plat, and fromage/dessert.

·         Class list:  food preferences—ask students if they do not eat or drink certain things due to allergies, health or other reasons (ex:  végétarien/végétarienne, allérigque à..., une intolérance au lactose)

·         Skit :  At L’Espador, a waiter and a customer have a conversation in which the customer orders from the menu—use vocabulary, partitive, useful phrases, food preference vocabulary; students in audience note on worksheet phrases and words that they hear

·         Party project:  have students find easy recipes (http://www.odelices.com); as a class, decide on a menu; create menus in French with English translations to be passed out to an elementary or middle school (French?) class; have students make the items on the menu in groups and host a French food party for the younger students

·         Survey project:  Read article about French food habits.  As a class, look at the questions and statistics in the results.  In groups, have students work to create a hypothesis about what Americans trends would be for the same questions.  Have students translate questions into English, survey two adults each (each adult must be the main grocery shopper for his or her household).  As a class, students will combine survey results, organize info into a chart, and analyze to test their hypotheses.  Students will individually write a short reaction to the results, explaining why they think any similarities or differences exist and which trends they agree with (2+ sentences in French, 2+ sentences in English).

 

Assessments

 

Formative

·         Daily observation of students’ progress during above activities

·         Entrance and exit ticket activities, tied to daily vocabulary, grammar, or culture points, student self-assessment, and/or student feedback to teacher on activities as appropriate

·         Party project:  assess students’ understanding through their ability to carry out simple French recipes

 

Summative

·         Vocabulary quiz:  food, drink, restaurant items

·         Grammar quiz:  verbs, partitive

·         L’Espador skit:  assessment of correct vocabulary, grammar, and pronuncation

·         Survey project:  written portion will assess students’ writing skills and critical thinking skills