French culture: celebrating la Chandeleur !

Candlemas is around the corner and I have prepared some fun activities to do in the French class to celebrate this special event. In fact as the activities are mainly centered around crepes and how to make them, you could also use them to celebrate Mardi Gras (which is on the 9th of February this year) or if you are teaching a topic on food.

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Personalized questions in French: l'étoile du jour.

https://goo.gl/photos/QtQ95BFaxjMXP18X8

This morning, I was reading the Active learner blog post about "Café y conversación" and it inspired me to share about an authentic conversation I had last week with my French students. As mentioned in the post: "When we have authentic conversation about topics that students want to talk about,

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acquire28 acquisition33 answers8 authentic1 beginner10 Blogging2 compelling10 comprehensible41 comprehension31 conditional2 Education8 if clauses1 IGCSE12 oral11 output10 personalized13 PQA5 practice17 questions19 repetition11 repetitive5 speaking37 story34

Reading activity for French learners (beginner level).

Yeah!!! I am back to blogging! I had a very good excuse though for not posting for such a while: I had my fourth boy on the 24th of September. His name is Antoine and he is a lovely baby boy doing well :-)

Whilst recovering from the birth and taking care of my precious little boy,

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Communicative activity for French learners (beginner level).

As well as teaching online private English lessons to Spanish students, I help some French students at beginner level. As you may already know, I am a big fan of Martina Bex and I decided to use her storytelling unit for French 1: Dit.

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Marceline Loridan-Ivens: a moving account.

When I prepare dinner in the evening, I like to listen to the radio and it usually falls during Le Grand Entretien on France Inter. François Busnel, a journalist spends an hour interviewing different people from authors to comedians to politicians. I like the way this journalist conducts the interviews.

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Crepes party!

We are in the midst of the pancakes (crêpes in French) season before the start of Lent (for Christian believers). In France, we have crêpes twice. First on the 2nd of February to celebrate la fête de la Chandeleur which commemorates the presentation of Jesus at the temple.

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chandeleur1 Cooking17 crepes1 culture22 France4 mardi gras1 pancakes1 party2 recipe12

French resources about the Epihany

To share the Epiphany tradition with your French students, here are some ideas:

Explain the tradition worldwide
The Mary Glasgow website published an article La Galette des Rois which explains the different traditions in France, California, Mexico, Spain and Portugal with its audio version to download (all for free).

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