Language Learning Center

Français à la Nouvelle-Orléans

Introduction

Français à la Nouvelle-Orléans is an online open-educational French language method for beginning students. The version you will find here is still experimental version and will evolve in the years to come.

Français à la Nouvelle-Orléans is organized around can-do statements: its progression is based on sets of concrete communicative skills rather than grammatical structures. In our approach, grammatical structures are viewed as tools to help reach can-do statement goals and are introduced and reviewed accordingly. Our method therefore follows a spiral model: students keep reviewing and broadening their linguistic knowledge of French according to the goals defined by the can-do statements. 

Français à la Nouvelle-Orléans will have three levels (low–mid novice/A1, mid novice–low intermediate/A2), low intermediate–mid intermediate/B1) with 24 leçons each, organized in modules. 

Each leçon is built on the following structure:

  • PHASE 1: VOCABULARY HOMEWORK
    • students are expected to go over a list of lexical items necessary/useful to reach a can-do statement goal
    • students are expected to listen to the audio file and repeat the words and phrases after the model
    • students are expected to start memorizing the vocabulary
    • students are expected to do exercises (mainly focusing on form)
  • PHASE 2: IN CLASS VOCABULARY AND RECEPTIVE SKILLS PRACTICE
    • students do some activities (mainly focusing on meaning) in which they practice the target vocabulary with oral and/or written input and/or output
    • students are exposed to the target vocabulary in context through a listening and a reading activity based on realia and/or pedagogical videos/texts.
  • PHASE 3: GUIDED-INDUCTIVE ACTIVITY
    • students answer questions on some target structures used in the documents to practice their metalinguistic awareness and prepare them for the structure homework
  • PHASE 4: STRUCTURE HOMEWORK
    • students are expected to go over and memorize the conjugation paradigms and the grammatical and phonological explanations
    • students are expected to do a variety of exercises to apply and strengthen their knowledge of the target structures
  • PHASE 5: IN CLASS STRUCTURES AND PRODUCTIVE SKILLS PRACTICE
    • students use and practice the target structures in a communicative context
    • students realize a speaking and reading task based on the leçon can-do statements

In addition to the leçons, we also offer activities and tasks for students to develop their cultural competence: Explorez. The goal of Explorez is for students to discover cultural facts actively rather than simply reading about them. All Explorez include pre and post-activity questions aimed to develop students’ critical thinking abilities and to draw comparisons between Francophone cultures and their own.

Note that all the documents are not online yet. The three levels are expected to be completed by December 2019.