Guide
Guide > Core: The Forums

Working with the forums

ACTIVITIES

By virtue of the fact that French students write their commentaries in their native language, the forums provide you and your students with an authentic source of cultural and linguistic richness.You can choose to focus on:

• the content of the commentaries
• or the form of these commentaries.

You can have your students :

• read the commentaries by the French students and regularly select those they find interesting/illuminating/etc.., and bring them to class. Students can then share with others in a group why they chose those particular commentaries.
• have students select commentaries that confirm or contradict earlier opinions. Encourage class discussions.
• compare how the French and the American students express themselves in writing, in terms of the structure of the sentences, the discourse, the use of irony, etc...
• look for such differences, ahead of time, and come to class with some examples and observations of their own or you can, on day, distribute at random some postings (from any forum) and have students, in groups, come up with observations.
• make connections with earlier findings.

Linguistic focus

The forums also provide a wonderful opportunity to focus on many different linguistic aspects: vocabulary, grammar and discourse.The forums can be used in that way at any point and/or at several points during Cultura.You will just need to select some passages that will lend themselves to the following diverse activities. Students can:

1. focus on vocabulary development and read the forums for new words and expressions which they can then ask their counterparts to explain if they don’t understand..
2. study grammar within a communicative context: the use of the relative pronouns or object pronouns; the uses of the different tenses; etc…
3. focus on comparing the discourse used by the French and the Americans. They can look at:

• the point of view expressed (= who speaks for whom? Qui parle? Je, on, nous, ici, vous, etc... How they address "the other": tu, vous, chez vous, chez les Américains, etc..)
• how opinions or hypotheses are expressed
• how one speaks of the others (l'autre sexe, les autres générations, etc...)
• the type of examples and/or references used.
• how French and American express personal reactions. (Ex: "je suis complètement sciée; "vous m’étonnez" etc.......)
• the use of slang
• the use of imagery
• the use of irony

Tip: it is always a good idea to provide students with specific excerpts to work with.

SUGGESTIONS FOR SPECIFIC FORUMS:

THE DATA FORUMS

After your students have worked with the DATA, ask them to post their findings on the corresponding forums (DATA/CHIFFRES ).Ask them to share the statistics they have found and to follow them up with one or two comments . In these comments students should:

• explain why they find these statistics interesting or useful
• say what topic /idea or concept they relate to
• say whether they confirm or contradict any particular finding they had made earlier while analyzing the questionnaires and discussing them on the forum.
• follow-up by one or two questions in order to elucidate a particular point or to raise an issue which these statistics may bring to their mind.

THE FILM FORUMS

Have students send their observations about the differences they see in the films and follow them up with questions. They should post their comments on the corresponding forums. There are Two kinds of forums:

1. those dealing with the global differences (they include three sub-forums, each dealing with a different theme).
2. those dealing with the analysis of specific scenes (they include five sub-forums corresponding to the five different scenes to be analyzed).
3. Make sure they:

• make connections between what they see on the films and their earlier observations about the questionnaires, the data, etc..
• raise issues and contradictions.

THE NEWSSTAND FORUMS

Have students send their observations about the differences (if any) they have seen while comparing specific French and American newspapers or magazines.These observations can be as broad or as specific as they want. Encourage students, however, to give specific reference: the names of the newspapers, the dates, the exact title of the articles an (if relevant), etc…Make also sure students continue

• making connections between what they see on the films and their earlier observations about the questionnaires, the data, etc..
• raising issues and contradictions.

THE LIBRARY FORUMS

Have students tell their counterparts about the passages they have read and which they have found particularly illuminating. Tell them to:

• quote those passages, if possible
• explain why they found them particularly enlightening
• how they relate to what they learned before

If these passages raise new issues and/or contradictions, encourage the students to ask their counterparts for their opinion or an explanation. 

 THE ARCHIVES FORUMS

It is up to you whether you have your students interact on the forums on the basis of the Archives. It may feel to them as overkill to some extent, since they are not likely to find great differences between their own answers to the questionnaires and own observations and those to be found in the Archives.However, these Archives are extremely useful if you use the Cultura Project without a live partner. In the latter case, they will play a very more central role.