Chantons!

SALUT LES JEUNES!
Chantons!
Every language teacher will agree that music can be the most effective way to insure the retention of
vocabulary and sentence patterns! Susan Laffitte has suggested a song for learning geography: “Les Frites
de Bruxelles,” available for download from [amazon.com]. Karen Kuebler has shared a fabulous Web site
with us that offers free downloadable songs and other children’s activities relating to French holidays, a real
treasure source [www.fete-enfants.com]. “J’ai vu un poisson marron...” is wonderful for le poisson d’avril, plus
it reinforces colors.
Most of my students’ favorites are available on YouTube now. Just type in a title, and probably you will find the song with an
accompanying video for what you are singing in class. For middle school or high school, a favoriate that plays with vowel sounds
and also helps with vocabulary when learning the parts of a house and the adjectives beau/laid (as long as you are comfortable
referring to le bidet) has really just two lines, but the YouTube video is quite silly and will have your students dancing and singing
along. Go to Vincent La gaf, “Bo le lavabo.”
Il est beau, il est beau, il est beau le lavabo; il est laid, il est laid, il est laid le bidet!
More appropriate for younger children learning the parts of the body might be “Papa (ou Maman) les p’tits bateaux...” also available on YouTube.
Maman les p’tits bateaux
Qui vont sur le’au
Ont-ils des jambes?
Mais oui, mon gors bêta
S’ils n’en avaient pas
Ils ne march’raient pas.
Jordy with his tiny voice reinforces other parts of the body
(also now on YouTube:
Tu peux être un bébé
Tu peux être un bébé
C’est la danse du pouce dans la bouche
Danse, danse, c’est la danse
Danse, danse, c’est la danse du pouce, bis...
Et tu sautes, et tu sautes, et tu sautes, bis...
Vol. 38, No. 3 (January 2013)
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A classic children’s song with a little twist, “Une souris verte,” has a number of video possibilities on YouTube. Younger learners
can color; older students can fill in some vocabulary.
Une souris verte
qui courait dans l’herbe...
Je l’attrape par la queue...
Je la montre à ces messieurs.
Ces messieurs me disent:
“Trempez-la dans l’huile.”
“Trempez-la dans l’eau.”
“Ça fera un escargot tout chaud!.”
Elizabeth Miller
Crystal Springs Uplands School
Hillsborough, CA
Send us your favorite songs! Share with other FLES* and middle school teachers your ideas, classroom gimmicks, games
for oral interaciton, and successful lessons. Join the teacher network! Send your ideas to Elizabeth Miller, 74 Tuscaloosa Avenue,
Atherton, CA 94027; e-mail [[email protected]]
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Vol. 38, No. 3 (January 2013)