Chez moi (a textivate sequence = a substantial bit of homework)

This post features a textivate sequence, based on the following text:

J'habite une petite maison dans un village à la campagne.
Chez moi il y a six pièces en tout.
Au rez-de-chaussée il y a une cuisine, un grand salon et une salle de bains. Il n'y a pas de salle à manger chez moi.
Au premier étage il y a trois chambres.
Dehors il y a un grand jardin avec beaucoup d'arbres. Il y a aussi un garage.
J'aime bien ma maison parce que j'aime le jardin, et j'adore habiter à la campagne.

...and the following vocab items:

1. on the first floor = au premier étage
2. there is / there are = il y a
3. at my house / at my place = chez moi
4. in total = en tout
5. in the countryside = à la campagne
6. in a village = dans un village
7. on the ground floor = au rez-de-chaussée
8. there isn't (a) / there aren't (any) = il n'y a pas (de)
9. because = parce que
10. also = aussi
11. outside = dehors
12. I really like = j'aime bien
13. I love = j'adore
14. I love living = j'adore habiter
15. with = avec
16. a lot (of) = beaucoup (de)
17. a bedroom = une chambre
18. a house = une maison
19. a room = une pièce
20. a kitchen = une cuisine
21. a dining room = une salle à manger
22. a bathroom = une salle de bains
23. a garden = un jardin
24. a garage = un garage
25. a tree = un arbre

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Brandon Brown veut un chien (chapter 1)


Looking for graded readers for your language classes? Ever thought of looking at books available in the USA?

I recently came across tprstorytelling.com - a source of resources for the TPRS method of Communicative Input based foreign language teaching.

The site sells a range of novels (yes, novels - typically 10 or more chapters, roughly 100 pages per novel).

Some of the novels allow you to preview the first chapter or so as a pdf file. I asked the author of one of the novels (Carol Gaab, author of "Brandon Brown veut un chien") for permission to put the first chapter into textivate.

The pdfs below were printed from the textivate resource.

The textivate resource can be found here: www.textivate.com/menu-sghjn1

Here is an embedded version of just one of the 30-ish activities available via the link above:

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French - text repeated in various tenses to focus on tense structure.

I thought I'd try this out.

One simple daily routine text in the present tense (every day).

Then the same text in the perfect tense (yesterday).

Then in the simple "aller + infinitive" future (tomorrow).

Then finally in the imperfect (when I was little).

See the various embedded exercises below, which are normally accessed via these buttons on the textivate menu screen:

1. Drag the tiles into the correct order. (NB. It starts with "Tous les jours..."):

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Mes vacances (combining embedded video and embedded textivate exercise)

This post contains an example of combining embedded video from youtube with an embedded textivate exercise.

The video is a song about "Mes vacances" by Tom Poisson, which I've already blogged about on the TaskMagic blog: http://taskmagic.posterous.com/french-song-resources-mes-vacances

The activity shown below is the "Next Word" activity, which can be accessed via this button on the textivate menu screen:

Here is the video / audio:

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