Global Activity: Catalogue

Level: Elementary (could be adapted to Intermediate if clothing is reviewed)

Immediate Application: French 101, Voilà, Leçon 10

Skills: Writing, some speaking, some reading if you have a model catalogue page.

Structures / Vocabulary:

Clothing, colors, present tense verbs, adjective agreement.

Functions: Describing

Learning Styles:

Especially good for visual and hands-on learners. A cooperative writing exercise. Allows introverted students to be creative without being in the spotlight.

Background:

Clothing vocabulary and adjective agreement have been presented and practiced in more formal exercises. This activity may be used early on as a communicative/global follow-up to presentation, or later on as review. If possible, they have done a reading exercise from book or realia involving a clothing catalogue.

Materials Needed: Pictures from a clothing catalogue; paper; glue sticks

Overview: [Orally, in French.]

• Do you get catalogues in the mail?
• Which are your favorites?
• Do you ever order from catalogues?
• What do you expect to see in clothing catalogues?
• Do you only look at the pictures?
• What sort of information do you look for when you read the descriptions?(Make a list of answers to this last question on the board: size, color, etc.)

• We're going to make a clothing catalogue with pictures I've brought in.
• Project a sample picture and have the class generate two sentences together.
• Students divide into groups of three.
• Tell students they will now work in groups to write a minimum of three sentences to go with the picture you give them.

• Teacher circulates as students write.
• Try to catch errors and guide self-correction.
• Once most groups have three sentences, distribute a blank sheet of paper to each group and have groups begin to glue down picture and rewrite sentences in the form of a catalogue description.
• Go over important corrections--those within the focus of this and previous chapters--as students work, before they make their final copies.

Have groups show their pages using a visual presenter if you have one, otherwise have students hold up their pages and read them.

Expansion:

See Returning a Catalogue Purchase exercise at this site.

Comments:

This exercise allows students be very creative. A little cutting and pasting seems to put people in a good mood. It must trigger those childhood memories!

Samples of Work:

• Sample 1
• Sample 2

Copyright 1998 by Cheryl Krueger
Department of French
University of Virginia