Description

Students learn how to ask and tell the time of day and to relate the times of everyday school activities in the target language of French.

Materials

-Overhead projector
-Three Overhead transparency sheets
-Drawing paper, two sheets per student
-Pencils and colored markers
-A real clock
-Poster board
-Student copies of the L'heure Assessment (See Associated File)

Procedures

NOTE: Before teaching these lessons on telling time in French, a lesson(s) on the French numbers from 1-29 is necessary. It is also recommended that a few time expressions be taught each day in four lessons rather than all of them in one class period. Here is a suggestion for a possible plan: Day 1: Il est deux heures, trois heures, etc.; Day 2: Il est deux heures dix, etc.; Day 3: Il est deux heures et demie, et quart, etc.; Day 4: Il est deux heures moins dix du soir, etc.

1. Review the French numbers from 1-29 in spoken and written French with the students. Have a list of these numbers on the board or on a separate poster in front of the classroom. Explain that only these numbers are spoken when telling time in French, even though they will see numerals up to 59 when writing the time in French, just as in English.

2. Direct the students' attention to the overhead projector where the telling time vocabulary is displayed.

3. Have the students repeat after you the vocabulary associated with telling time in French for each clock shown, modeling the correct pronunciation.

4. Show students how the time is written for each time that they say for each clock. For example, 6h10 = Il est six heures dix = It is 6:10.

5. Introduce the two ways to ask what time it is: Il est quelle heure? and Quelle heure est-il? Model them and have students repeat after you.

6. Answer the questions, alternating between the two, by pointing to the clocks with different times on the overhead transparency.

7. Using the clock in front of the class, ask, Il est quelle heure? Change the clock to various times and monitor students' responses. Then have one student ask the question and a second student respond.

8. Put up the transparency that has the clock faces and digital times shown, and have the students practice their telling time vocabulary by writing the times in word form in French on their own papers, according to the times displayed on the transparency.

9. Go over the students' answers together as a class and have them correct their own papers, giving positive and corrective feedback.

10. This activity will be different if you elect to teach this lesson on telling time in four class periods.
Day 1: Have students look at the sample school schedule on the overhead transparency (See Attached Files), and on their own papers write the times of each class shown on the schedule in French in word and numeral form.
Day 2: Have the students draw their own class schedule in a chart form and then below their schedules write sentences in French telling the times that they have each class.
Day 3: Have the students interview a partner and write sentences in French about their partner's schedule of classes.
Day 4: Have the students draw a picture of an activity that they do, noting the time of day in which they perform it marked in the corner. For example, a picture of a person eating dinner (6h30 = 6:30). Based on the picture, the other students must give the time and the appropriate time of day. (Il est six heures et demie du soir = It is six thirty in the evening = 6:30 p.m.)

11. Assess comprehension. (See Assessments)

Extensions

Prepare a sample school schedule on an overhead transparency. Have a list of the school subjects in French, most are cognates, and have students make statements of time duration. Make incorrect statements about the schedule and have students correct them.

Attached Files

L'heure Assessment, Answer Key, and the L'emploi du Temps de David (David's Schedule).     File Extension: pdf