French as a Second Language (Core French)

Rebonjour ! Welcome to your second year of Core French. In Grade 4 you learned to greet people, introduce yourself, count to 31, and talk about the weather, colours, your family and your likes. In Grade 5 you'll listen to longer messages and say more. You'll ask questions with question words and keep a conversation going, count to 100 and tell time, describe people and their personalities, talk about feelings, describe your home and where things are, talk about your hobbies and give your opinion, order food politely, give directions in town, and discover la francophonie around the world, from Québec's Carnaval to Senegal and Belgium. At the end, you'll plan, rehearse and give a presentation about your world, and answer questions in an interview.

Every new word has a sound-it-out spelling so a grown-up who doesn't speak French can help too, and words used mostly in Canada are labelled Canadian French. Every lesson has examples to listen to, a hands-on activity, lots of practice and a short quiz. The sibling unit, Reading and Writing in French, covers the reading and writing strands.

Curriculum expectations covered: A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, A2.3, A3 (intercultural understanding), B1.1, B1.2, B1.3, B2.1, B2.2, B2.3, B3 (intercultural understanding), B3.2 (The Ontario Curriculum: French as a Second Language, Core French, Grades 4–8, 2013, Grade 5).

Welcome to Grade 5 reading and writing in French! In Grade 4 you took your first steps: the alphabet and accents, cognates, greetings, dates, un/une and le/la/les, colour words, je suis, j'ai, j'aime, and a postcard. This year the texts get longer and your writing gets richer.

You will read like a detective (skimming, scanning, context clues and word families), and you will read and write many real kinds of texts: a journal, an email to a pen pal, an interview, a lost-pet poster and a character portrait, a schedule and an invitation, a recipe, reviews, fact cards about francophone communities, and finally your own short story. Along the way you will learn the present tense of -er verbs, the big verbs être, avoir, aller, faire, questions and negatives, adjective agreement, the futur proche (je vais jouer) and commands (Mélangez !). You will also explore French-speaking communities across Canada (Acadians, Québec, Franco-Manitobans, the Métis Nation) and around the world, and see how French words change from place to place. Canadian French words are labelled as you go.

Explanations are in English so a child and a parent can learn together, even if no one at home speaks French. The companion unit Listening and Speaking covers the oral strands.

Curriculum expectations covered: C1, C2, C3, D1, D2, D3 (The Ontario Curriculum: French as a Second Language, Core French, Grades 4–8, 2013, Grade 5 overall expectations).