French 4 History and Culture Course

[Erin Higgins]

Hello,

 I will be creating/teaching a new course at our school next year. For course approval purposes, it must be called French 4, but I have a lot of freedom to do what I want with it. I also teach AP so I am considering either teaching it aligned to the AP themes keeping it modern without the AP test prep, or using our old Tresor du temps series and studying past history and culture. 

I am curious to know if anyone currently teaches a French 4 course in addition to AP and how they make them similar or different. I would be very interested in seeing someone's syllabus or collaborating in creating a new course if anyone is interested.

Erin Higgins

French Dept. Chair

William and Carol Ouchi High School

Los Angeles, CA

[Susan Bartlett]

Erin,

I did a class that studied France by regions and then francophonie.  We studied the history, food, culture of each region and either read or watched something by an author from that region.  You could do that and bring each region into the 1st century with issues in the AP themes.

 

Susan Bartlett

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From: ap-french-dis...@googlegroups.com [ap-french-dis...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Erin Higgins [erin.m....@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 12:05 PM
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Subject: [AP French] French 4 History and Culture Course

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[Toby Gillen]

At my school, we stop using a formal textbook after level 2 and start
"theme-based" lessons. I teach the French 4 class that is basically a
pre-AP and the AP (for the first time this year). I am going to change
it slightly to align the curriculum a little more with the new AP exam.
Building on the themes begun in French 3 (Impressionism, Global
Challenges, Immigration and Racism), I do the following in French 4:

Q1 - le Petit Prince

Q2 - Le Québec (history; poems and songs from the 60s and 70s; short
stories; films: la Grande Seduction & The Rocket: Maurice Richard; big
theme: IDENTITY)

Q3 - L'Actualité Francophone (big themes: CURRENT EVENTS; GLOBAL
CHALLENGES) or Le Surréalisme (big theme: BEAUTY & ESTHETICS)- depending
on the year

Q4 - La Francophonie - (Colonialism, triangular trade; poems and songs
out of Africa and the Caribbean; film: Rue cases negres or Indochine;
big themes: IDENTITY, EDUCATION)

I hope that helps!


*******************************
Toby Gillen
MS/HS French Teacher
Bronxville UFSD
177 Pondfield Road, Room B112
Bronxville, NY 10708
(914) 395-0500 x 2443

>>> Erin Higgins <erin.m....@gmail.com> 5/25/2012 1:05 PM >>>

[Barbara Romanczuk]

I use Tresors du Temps and I LOVE it in French IV.  Once you reach the 5^th chapter, you begin colonialism and this will then springboard you to all of the francophone countries.  This provides a great understanding to the students about the origin of francophonie.  I continue to use the later chapters during AP for readings and literature.  In addition, there are good discussions about the US, philosophy, religion, etc.  This is one of my favorite books.

 

Barb

 

 

Barbara Romanczuk, Ph.D.

French Teacher

French I, II, III, IV, AP

Bexley City Schools

Bexley, Ohio

[James in Belgium]

Cher Erin,

Though "Trésors du temps" is not my favorite book, when I set my mind
to it, I was able to make turn out quite well. As a level IV or III
Honors book, it does serve a the guiding path to your curriculum.
Others who have replied will attest to the help provided by the two
websites I created to support this textbook.

The 1st site, targeted to the students, is housed on Quia.web and
there are also a few quia activities. There are many links to
readings, audio, videos and to the original literature works.
http://www.quia.com/pages/tresorstemps.html

The 2nd site, is a teacher document and E-mail exchange site on
Yahoo. The file folders are organized by "étape" and are easy to
consult.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tresors_du_temps/

If you find broken links on the student site, please E-mail me. I
have not taught Fr. IV in the last two years. So, I have not been
using the Quia site.

You should not rely on the grammar of TDT. Use a different book such
as, En bonne forme.
Vocabulary in TDT is not that which is really needed by the students,
especially true of the first half of the book.

You can teach 8 étapes in a year. I used to do 1-7 in year A and 8-11
in year B as an AP course. It all depends on how much reading you do
and how many tangents you explore.

There is no reason why you should not start to include the AP
competencies in the pre-AP courses. Go for it. My imagination runs
wild thinking about the permutations... Roman E-mail to a Gaul for ex.

I had hoped to teach Fr. IV history again in '12-'13 but my colleague
whined to point that admin. caved in.

Bien à vous,

James O'Donnell