Award-Winning Private French Tutoring in Franklin Park, IL

Today, the student and I covered chapter 2 from text book, including the negative expression ne...pas, school vocabulary, describing students and classes, and the verb "faire."

The student earned a 96 on her Mid-Term! The student's French teacher wanted me to go over pages 121-125 in the textbook with her. I have already taught the student the concepts on these textbook pages because these concepts were on the student's Mid-term review list. I reinforced definite, indefinite and partitive articles. We also went over stress pronouns again. We reviewed about half of the exercise given. There was just one exercise. She should do the other half of the exercise for practice. So, the articles were: le, la, l', les, un, une, des, du, de la, de l', des, en. The stress pronouns were, moi, toi nous, vous, lui, elle and eux.

Today, the student and I introduced ourselves, and she told me about what she's studying and at what level. I asked her what she felt were her strongest areas in French and what she felt like she could improve upon. Since speaking and pronunciation were areas she would like to improve upon, we focused on that in the second half of our lesson. For the first half, we discussed ways to ask a question in French and what is most common in speaking. We also moved on to discuss how to construct sentences with relative pronouns in French. For next time, I will bring some exercises that focus on pronoun usage. We then moved on to a pronunciation exercise. I had her read Victor Hugo's "Demain des l'aube" out loud, stanza by stanza, and we focused on problem words and practicing specific sounds that she had issues on. For next time, I asked that we start the session with her reading the poem aloud. This time, after having practiced it a few times, the aim is that she will be able to complete it with more fluidity and confidence. Right from the start, however, her pronunciation was very precise! She was willing to take notes and ask questions throughout the session. She did seem like she wanted some more direction, so next time I will come with specific exercises and activities to do. She seemed to like reading the poem, because it provided her with concrete words and sounds to practice. I suggested that we section off around 10-15 minutes of just having a conversation in French for next time. She said she would like that. That way, she can practice her speaking and listening skills. Overall, we focused on three main content areas: questions, relative pronouns, and phonetics. Next time, I will continue to work on pronunciation and pronouns with her, using some of the same sounds that she had issues with this time. She was very astute, and in that way she's challenging me! She was very kind, easy going, and willing to practice when prompted.