Coucou les membres de la communauté,
Thank you to all the community members who took the time to share their thoughts about the Senior Stage. Your feedback is invaluable, and we’ve listened carefully.
As a result, we’ve decided to pause the Senior Stage for now. We will introduce a new geography course exploring the beautiful regions of France soon!
Rest assured, the 20 sessions of grammar foundations through literary texts from the Senior Stage remain available if you want to delve deeper into French grammar.
Click here to access the Senior Stage!
Introducing “Le balcon de l’amour“: A Charming Movie Talk for Beginners
My Dear Man & I are thrilled to unveil our latest resource for French beginners!
It is a delightful love story based on a cute animation set in a Parisian building with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
This resource is inspired by the Movie Talk method, an approach developed by Dr. Ashley Hastings in the late 1980s.
Hastings developed MovieTalk while teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He came up with this idea to effectively develop students’ listening proficiency by combining visual storytelling with teacher-guided narration and description.
The core principle of MovieTalk is to provide high-quality comprehensible input embedded within the flow of a coherent, interesting story.
By narrating movie scenes in clear, simple language while pointing to various parts of the picture, you can comprehend new words and grammatical structures easily.
To make the most of this resource, first, read and listen to the story, focusing on understanding the gist.
Next, watch the video to check your comprehension.
Finally, try narrating the story, either as you watch the video or from memory.
Advanced Learners: Dive into “Mémé dans les orties“
When you are an advanced French learner, My Dear Man & I are excited to present a passage from the novel “Mémé dans les orties” by Aurélie Valognes.
This heartwarming story follows Ferdinand Brun, an 83-year-old grumpy widower whose life takes an unexpected turn when he befriends his young neighbor, Juliette.
Aurélie Valognes, a bestselling French author known for her humorous and touching novels, beautifully captures the intergenerational friendship in this work.
The title “Mémé dans les orties” plays on the French expression “Il ne faut pas pousser mémé dans les orties,” which literally means “Don’t push grandma into the nettles.” This idiom is used to warn against going too far or exaggerating.
Click here to see the text!
Read and listen to the text, then try your hand at answering the comprehension questions.
Don’t worry! We’ve provided elements of the answers to guide you.
A Testament to the Power of Optimal French Input
Just today, Mr. Doffing shared in our Community Chat:
“You’ve created an amazing resource here Alice and you are a phenomenal teacher. The proof is in the pudding… I started with zero French about a month ago, and now I’m reading the infant stage stories and enjoying every sentence… No homework, no studying flashcards, just pure comprehension and acquisition. It’s a real pleasure to learn this way.”
Thank you for being an integral part of our French learning community!
Cordialement,
