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To be proficient active readers in French, we must strive to be reading logic problem solvers,
with the clear conviction that the words do not just make sense on their own. We must have experience
decoding, sorting through possibilities, creating successive horizons of expectations, and making
semantic combinations. One way to build up some these abilities in ourselves is by working with the
smallest reading texts in the target language, where we can focus on a few items which may be
considered sense keys. Indeed, "proverbes, maximes, dictons, sentences, aphorismes", etc. can be put to
very productive use. They are semantically dense, and provide occasions to practice reading logic, even
though they may not always agree with our personal orientation in wisdom. Proverbs are predictably
binary and one half has a strong causal or comparative relation to the other, a structure which allows
for many possible intellectual games. Here are some possible learning activities for teachers to try
with their students. Please understand that the activities are for levels from intermediate to upper-
division undergraduate courses. It is unlikely that students without the habit of expressing themselves
in sentences will benefit from these: 1) Read a proverb aloud while students select the same from among a small group of written proverbs (either similar or quite dissimilar). 2) Give students a key word to locate within a body of proverbs, etc. As a follow-up, ask students to determine which proverbs containing this word fall into a topic determined largely by that word, and in which is the word more or less incidental. 3) Pick out about fifty proverbs and see if students can group them by named subjects. 4) Stand some examples of different kinds of wisdom utterances together and have students divide them one from another creating their own categories, to see how they can distinguish among kinds. 5) Have a contest between groups of students to see which one can find the largest number of proverbs on a named topic. 6) Have students paraphrase and/or expand on the wisdom of a proverb. 7) Divide the class into teams of two students. Have each group write an extended explanation of a proverb, trying to use synonyms of the actual words where possible. Collect the explanations from each, and hand them to different groups, making each choose from among a number of proverbs, which one is being explained. 8) Offer students a prize for the one who finds the largest number of pairs of proverbs which seem to contradict each other. 9) Have students pick out different versions of the same wisdom in proverbs. You might try giving out pairs of roughly synonymous proverbs, etc., one to each student, see if students can find their sense partners, by asking each other for their wisdom until partners are found. 10) Have students pick a proverb with which they agree, having them explain why they agree, create or cite a story which seems to verify the proverb's wisdom. 11) Have students cite a proverb with which they don't agree and do the same as above to disprove. 12) Have students explain how particular proverbs use telegraphic (or abbreviated) discourse. 13) Have students find parallel English-language proverbs for the French ones they have been assigned. 14) Split each of twenty or thirty familiar proverbs into two halves and the student, starting with one half finds the other among proverb halves. 15) Have students create proverbs by corrupting authentic ones with substitutions or splices with other proverbs (A stitch in time is a friend indeed), or by condensing longer wisdom statements. 16) Have students work in teams to write a set of proverbs about school, parents or other common topics about which kids like to impart their wisdom. Give a prize to the team with the most different but correct sayings. 17) Have students create or pick proverbs as morals to very short prose passages or stories. 18) Have students locate proverbs used as part of a larger context (like a story, a poem, an argument) and comment on the effect they have. 19) Have students string some proverbs together to see if they can enlarge on or combine wisdom (as in a poem or as a comment on every paragraph in a story of their making). 20) Have students find drawings or photos that they believe could illustrate a proverb, and have them explain their choices. 21) Have students use proverbs to support points in their side of an argument. 22) Have students study ways in which proverbs are introduced or announced in the context of other discourse. Have them pick out specific examples from the discourse surrounding proverbs used in various contexts. Sometimes it is hard to find collections of these micro-texts. The following link list puts an end to this problem. Making well over 35,000 examples of French sentential wisdom remotely accessible through over a hundred links, it is the most extensive resource of its kind on the planet. One important advantage in a web collection, is that the proverbs, sayings, etc. can be selected and conveniently arranged electronically for appropriate activities. In order to expand reading logic opportunities I have included links on crossword puzzles and riddles. |