Unité 1

cajun 101 - learn louisiana french at home

Introduction

My son does well with a combination of online study and paper/pencil study. The Quizlet sets provided online allow you to generate some study materials. For example, we print out a set of flash cards for each set. The flash cards can be used in many ways. My son enjoys laying out all the terms on the dining room table (English and French) and matching them. I ask him to pronounce the French word as he matches it with the corresponding English card. Ten words at a time seems to be about right (for a six year old). And we stick with a lesson for a couple of days before doing a new one. After introducing a new set of words it's good to drop back and do a review of a previous lesson's word set. Once I think my son has mastered all the words in a given set, I give him a test, which is easily generated and customized from the Quizlet set page.

Another activity that seems to work well is to print out a Quizlet test that has only "written" question types, then use the corresponding French flash cards as a reference as the student writes down the correct French word in appropriate space on the test sheet.

Of course, you can always invent other ways of studying. What's important is to spend about ten minutes each day in contact with the French language. Listening and reading should supplement the written and verbal exercises I've discussed above.

Now with these study methods in mind, we'll start off with some basic expressions, begin building our vocabulary, and learning some grammar.