NZC – French – Novice

Receptive skills

Listening

• recognise simple classroom language
• recognise everyday familiar words and very basic phrases concerning personal information, family, and immediate surroundings.

• understand instructions in a classroom environment
• begin to understand phrases and the highest-frequency vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance (e.g. personal information, simple descriptions and preferences, time, ownership) 
• begin to make sense of unfamiliar language by recognising similarities with words from languages they already know (cognates).

Reading

• recognise everyday familiar words and very simple phrases in very short, simple texts concerning personal information, family, and immediate surroundings.

• begin to understand short, simple texts containing familiar phrases and the highest-frequency vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance (e.g. personal information, simple descriptions and preferences, time, ownership)
• begin to recognise basic written spelling conventions and simple punctuation
• begin to make sense of unfamiliar language by recognising similarities with words from languages they already know (cognates).

Productive skills

Speaking

• produce simple, mainly isolated phrases and sentences about themselves, their families, and their immediate surroundings.

• produce simple phrases and sentences containing highest-frequency vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance (e.g. personal information, simple descriptions and preferences, time, ownership).

Writing

• produce simple isolated phrases and sentences about themselves, their families, and their immediate surroundings.

• produce a series of linked simple phrases and sentences containing highest-frequency vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance (e.g. personal information, simple descriptions and preferences, time, ownership).

Interacting

• exchange simple phrases to meet some immediate needs in the classroom
• use formulaic language and simple phrases to exchange information about themselves, their families, and their immediate surroundings.

Knowledge

The facts, concepts, principles, and theories to teach.

Practices

The skills, strategies, and applications to teach.

Language

example

Knowledge

The facts, concepts, principles, and theories to teach.

Practices

The skills, strategies, and applications to teach.

Language

example

Linguistic knowledge 

• Words and phrases used for greetings, farewells, and introductions 
• Formulaic expressions using simple forms of the verbs ‘être’ and ‘appeler’ 
• The French alphabet has 26 letters, same as English. 
• French has some distinct features, such as accents on some letters and a cedilla on the letter ‘c’ (ç) to show that it is pronounced like an ‘s’ rather than a ‘k’. These are compulsory and change the pronunciation. They are not extra letters in the alphabet, however, just variations on alphabet letters. 
• French spelling is not phonetic, meaning that the pronunciation of a word in French is not predictable from its spelling. 
• A non-breaking space is required before question marks and exclamation marks. 
• Last letters are rarely pronounced in French. 
• in French, the letter ‘w’ is pronounced ‘double-v’, rather than ‘double-u’. 
• There isn’t always an equivalent word from one language to another (e.g. there is no way of saying ‘good morning’ in French).

• Using basic greetings and farewells in different contexts 
• Introducing themselves and others and responding to introductions appropriately 
• Asking others how they are and responding appropriately when asked 

Greetings and farewells 

• Bonjour. 
• Bonsoir. 
• Bonne nuit. 
• Coucou. 
• Salut. 
• Au revoir. 
• Bonne nuit. 
• À plus. 
• À plus tard. 

Introductions 

• Comment
  t’appelles-tu ? 
• Tu t’appelles comment ?  
• Je m’appelle … 
• Je suis …  
• Moi, je m’appelle 
• Et voici (Paul) 
• Enchanté 

Asking how someone is doing 

• Comment
  ça va ? 
• Ça va ? 
• Ça va très bien. 
• Ça va. 
• Ça ne va pas. 
• Et toi ? 
• Ça ne va pas du tout. 
• Bof. 
• Pas mal. 
• Ah bon ?

• Formal greetings, farewells, and introductions 
• Identifying nationalities and ethnicities  
• There are different forms for ‘you’, depending on the familiarity between and the status of the speakers: 
  • ‘tu’ for someone you know well 
  • ‘vous’ for an adult you meet for the first time or an adult older or of higher status than you. 
• A change in word order in questions affects how direct a question feels and therefore its level of formality. 
• In French, adjectives must agree with the noun they qualify in gender (masculine or feminine). 
• Usually, the feminine form is created by adding an ‘e’ to the masculine form. 
• Unlike in English, nationalities are not capitalised in French. 
• French people usually write their surname first and sometimes all in capitals. 
• Identifying patterns at the end of nationalities is a helpful way to acquire new forms.

• Using greetings, farewells, and introductions and exchanging basic personal information in a formal context 
• Communicating about nationality or ethnicity in formal and informal contexts 

Formal introductions 

• Comment
  allez-vous ? 
• Comment appelez-vous ? 
• Vous appelez comment ? 
• Quel est votre nom ? 
• Prénom 
• Nom (de famille) 
• Je vais bien. Et vous ? 
• Où habitez-vous ? 
• J’habite à Auckland en Nouvelle-Zélande. Et vous ? 
• Vous venez d’où ? 
• Je viens de France. 
• Quelles langues parlez-vous? 
• Je parle français et anglais. 
• Je vous présente Marc. 

Nationality/ethnicity 

• Quelle est ta nationalité ? 
• Quelle est votre nationalite ? 
• Je suis [nationality]. 
• Je suis néo-zélandais/néo-zélandaise. 
• Je suis français/française. 

Cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge 

• French is an official language in 29 countries. 
• The use of the language and cultural norms, such as handshake and kissing on the cheek, vary across those countries. 

• There are many languages with the equivalent tu/vous forms to indicate levels of respect or familiarity, such as German and Spanish. Other languages convey formality through different linguistic features (e.g. registers in Pacific languages). 
• Using the informal ‘tu’ when the formal ‘vous’ is required could come across as rude. 
• English used to have the equivalent to tu/vous, but this gradually changed.

Linguistic knowledge 

• Basic classroom instructions, questions, and comments 
• Common politeness expressions 
• Receptive knowledge of verbs for classroom actions 
• Classroom instructions change depending on whether a single person or a group is being addressed. 
• The phrase ‘s’il te plaît’ is used for someone you know well and when talking to one person. 
• The phrase 's’il vous plaît’ is used when you don’t know the person, they are superior to you, or you are talking to several people. 

• Responding to and using simple classroom language and politeness conventions 
• Recognising the words for common classroom objects and expressions of location 

Classroom instructions 

• Levez-vous. 
• Tout le monde se lève. 
• Asseyez-vous. 
• Fermez vos ordinateurs. 
• Sortez vos ordinateurs. 
• Levez la main. 
• Répétez. 
• Ecoutez. 
• Ecrivez. 

Classroom questions 

• Comment on dit ? 
• Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire ? 
• Est-ce que je peux aller aux toilettes s’il vous plaît ? 
• Est-ce que je peux boire de l’eau ? 

Classroom comments 

• Très bien. 
• Excellent. 
• Bien. 
• Assez bien. 
• Bon travail. 
• J’ai fini. 

Common phrases and politeness conventions 

• Oui. 
• Ouais. 
• Non. 
• Merci. 
• S’il te plaît. 
• S’il vous plaît. 
• De rien. 
• Pardon. 
• Désolé. 
• Moi aussi. 
• À tes souhaits. 
• Madame. 
• Monsieur. 
• Mademoiselle. 

• Classroom instructions and interactions 
• Classroom objects, including stationery 
• The verbs ‘écrire’, ‘travailler’, and ‘avoir’ 
• Masculine nouns take the indefinite article ‘un’, and feminine nouns take ‘une’. The concepts learnt previously are also applied to this learning: to say how many there are of an object, you replace un/une by the number and turn the object into its plural form. 
• Articles in French use grammatical gender and number (un/une, le/la, des, les) that agree with the noun. 
• ‘Qu’est-ce que’ is a way of formulating a ‘what’ question. 
• The phrase ‘il y a’ does not change between singular and plural — it means both ‘there is’ and ‘there are’. 

• Communicating in a classroom environment using an extended repertoire of instructions and short interactions 
• Identifying and communicating about classroom and school objects 

Classroom instructions 

• Écrivez dans votre cahier. 
• Tournez à la page [number]. 
• Travaillez par deux. 
• Travaillez en groupes de [number]. 
• Rangez vos affaires. 
• Mettez les chaises sur les tables. 
• Ça va sonner. 
• J’attends. 
• Trois, deux, un, partez. 
• Traduisez. 

Classroom interaction 

• Tu as un stylo ? 
• Oui, j’ai un stylo. 
• Non, je n’ai pas de stylo. 
• Tiens. 
• J’ai une question. 
• Je n’ai pas compris. 
• C’est où ? 

Classroom objects 

• Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans ta salle de classe ? 
• Dans ma salle de classe, il y a [number] [object]. 
• Dans ma salle de classe, il y a une table. 
• Dans ma salle de classe, il y a une chaise. 

School objects 

• Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans ton sac ? 
• Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans ta trousse ? 
• Dans mon sac, il y a [number] [object]. 
• Dans ma trousse, il y a [number] [object]. 
• Dans mon sac, il y a un cahier. 
• Dans ma trousse, il y a une règle.

Cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge 

• Using ‘s’il te plaît’ when you should use ‘s’il vous plaît’ could come across as rude. 

Linguistic knowledge 

• Numbers 1–15 to count and express age 
• Basic questions and answers to identify where you are from, where you live, and what languages you speak 
• Singular forms of the verbs ‘avoir’, ‘venir’, ‘parler’, and ‘habiter’ 
• In French, verbs in the present tense change their endings to agree with the subject in terms of person and number (e.g. ‘je parle’, ‘tu parles’). 
• Numbers are similar across Romance languages. 
• The same concept can be expressed differently across languages. For example, in French we say ‘j’ai 11 ans’ (I have 11 years), while in English we say ‘I am 11’. 
• When followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a silent ‘h’, ‘je’ becomes j’ to make pronunciation smoother (e.g. j’habite). 
• When using ‘je viens de’, the ‘de’ doesn’t change based on the gender of the country, so it’s always ‘Je viens de’ + name of country.  
• Unlike in English, in French the names of languages are not capitalised. 
• Cognates are words in different languages that share the same origin and have a similar meaning, pronunciation, and spelling. They can significantly accelerate language learning by allowing learners to activate existing knowledge, making it easier to build vocabulary and comprehend texts.

• Exchanging basic personal information 

Numbers (1–15) 

• 0–10: zéro, un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix 
• 11–15: onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze 

Age 

• Quel âge as-tu ? 
• J’ai [number] ans. Et toi ? 
• Moi aussi. 

Where they are from 

• Tu viens d’où ? 
• Je viens de Nouvelle-Zélande/de Canada. 

Where they live 

• Où habites-tu ? 
• J’habite à [suburb] à [town/city] en Nouvelle-Zélande/en France/en Nouvelle Calédonie/au Canada. 

Languages they speak 

• Quelles langues parles-tu ? 
• Tu parles quelles langues ? 
• Je parle anglais, français, et un peu maori. Et toi ? 
• Moi je parle français et je viens de Canada.

• Vocabulary for expressing preferences depending on the chosen context  
• Questions and answers to express preference and basic reasons for preferences using adjectives  
• The verb ‘préférer’ 
• Some words are spelt the same in English and French but are pronounced differently (e.g. orange). 
• Cognates are useful for language learning, but some words that are spelt the same or nearly the same in different languages can also be ‘false friends’ and have completely different meanings (e.g. pain, le pain). 
• A lot of French words are used in English, particularly in the areas of food, fashion, and art (e.g. menu, chef, croissant, boutique, ballet, avant-garde). 

• Expressing preferences, likes, and dislikes in familiar contexts, giving reasons in a simple way where appropriate 

Suggested topics: colours, food, school subjects, after-school activities, sports, music. 

Preferences 

• Quelle est ta couleur préférée ? 
• Quel est ton plat préféré ? 
• Quelle est ton activité préférée ? 
• Quelle est ta matière préférée ? 
• Quel est ton animal préféré ? 
• Ma couleur préférée, c’est le rouge. 
• Mon plat préféré, c’est la pizza. 
• Mon activité préférée, c’est le foot. 
• Ma matière préférée, c’est le sport. 
• Mon animal préféré, c’est le cheval. 

Likes and dislikes 

• J’aime le/la/les … 
• Je n’aime pas le/la/les … 
• J’adore le/la/les … 
• Je déteste le/la/les … 

Simple reasons 

• C’est … 
• génial 
• bien 
• intéressant 
• essentiel
• délicieux 
• amusant 
• facile 
• nul 
• ennuyeux 
• difficile 
• Parce que c’est … 

Cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge 

• French is not the only language spoken in France. There are also regional languages and dialects. 
• France has overseas territories and departments throughout the world. New Caledonia, which is an overseas territory of France, is the closest geographical neighbour of New Zealand and its closest French-speaking country.

• Preferences in areas such as food, school subjects, after-school activities, sports, and music may vary between New Zealand and French-speaking countries due to cultural influences and regional traditions. 

Linguistic knowledge 

• Numbers 16–31 
• Days of the week, months of the year 
• Expressing dates and birthdays 
• From 17 onwards, numbers follow the same pattern (e.g. 10 + 7 for 17, 20 + 2 for 22). 
• For 21 and 31, we say ‘twenty and one’, ‘thirty and one’. 
• In French, every noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. There are very few rules about gender, so students need to learn the gender of each noun along with its article. 
• The days of the week and the months are all masculine nouns. 
• Unlike in English, in French the days of the week and months of the year are not capitalised. 

• Communicating about the days of the week, months, dates, and birthdays 

Numbers (16–31) 

• seize 
• dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf 
• vingt, vingt et un, vingt-deux, vingt-trois, vingt-quatre, vingt-cinq, vingt-six, vingt-sept, vingt-huit, vingt-neuf 
• trente, trente et un 

Days of the week 

• lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche 
• C’est quel jour aujourd’hui? 
• Aujourd’hui c’est mardi. 

Months 

• janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre 

Date 

• Quelle est la date aujourd’hui ? 
• Aujourd’hui, c’est le mardi 10 juin. 

Birthdays 

• C’est quand ton anniversaire ? 
• Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire ? 
• Mon anniversaire, c’est le … 
• Joyeux anniversaire.

• Adjectives to describe appearance and qualities  
• In French, most adjectives must agree with the noun they qualify in gender (masculine or feminine). 
• The conjugation of the verb ‘être’ (to be) in the singular is: je suis, tu es, il/elle/on est. 
• The conjugation of the verb ‘avoir’ (to have) in the singular is: j’ai, tu as, il/elle a. 
• Qualifiers (e.g. très, assez) can be used before the adjective to limit or intensify the adjective in a sentence (e.g. très timide). 
• In French, basic negation is formed with ne … pas, with the verb placed between the two words, such as in ‘Je ne suis pas drôle’. 
• ‘ne’ is abbreviated to n’ before a vowel or silent ‘h’, such as in ‘Je n’ai pas …’ (I don’t have …). 

• Describing appearance and qualities of people, animals, and objects 

Qualities 

• Je suis un peu timide. 
• Je ne suis pas drôle. 
• Ton frère/ta sœur est comment? 
• Ma sœur est sympa. 

Physical characteristics 

• Je suis grand(e). 
• Je suis petit(e). 
• Je suis de taille moyenne. 
• J’ai les cheveux longs. 
• Je n’ai pas les cheveux longs. 
• J’ai les yeux bleus/verts/marron.
• Je porte des lunettes. 

Qualifiers 

• très  
• assez 
• toujours 
• un peu

Cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge    

• The names of most days in French come from the names of planets. 
• French-speaking countries observe Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter, alongside nationally significant secular holidays such as France’s Bastille Day. Numerous festivals and traditions are associated with different seasons and cultural practices, like the Carnaval de Québec. 
• Birthday celebrations in French-speaking countries vary by country and region. 

• Prominent figures of the French-speaking world in different fields 

Linguistic knowledge 

•  
• Names of the seasons 
• Formulaic expressions to describe the weather 
• When talking about the weather, French uses the structure ‘il fait’ + [adjective], ‘il y a’ + [noun], ‘il’ + [verb]. 
• French phrases don’t always translate literally into English (e.g. Il fait beau). 
•  

• Communicating about the weather and the seasons 

Weather 

• Quel temps fait-il ? 
• La météo. 
• Il fait chaud. 
• Il fait froid. 
• Il fait beau. 
• Il fait mauvais. 
• Il y a du soleil. 
• Il y a du vent. 
• Il neige. 
• Il pleut. 
• Il y a du brouillard. 
• Il y a des nuages. 

Seasons 

• en automne 
• en hiver 
• au printemps 
• en été

• Vocabulary and formulaic expressions for telling the time 

• Telling the time 

Suggested topics: school timetables 

• Time 
• Quelle heure est-il ? 
• Il est une heure. 
• Il est deux heures dix. 
• Il est deux heures et quart. 
• Il est deux heures et demie. 
• Il est trois heures moins le quart. 
• Il est treize heures quarante-cinq. 
• Il est midi. 
• Il est minuit. 

Timetables 

• On commence à neuf heures. 
• J’ai français à dix heures cinq.

Cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge 

• Seasons in the Northern Hemisphere, where French is mostly spoken, are opposite to the seasons in New Zealand, which impacts the school year and celebrations.

• Typically, the 24-hour clock is used to express time. 
• French culture is generally punctual in business and formal settings but allows for a more relaxed approach in social situations, with a slight lateness being acceptable. 

Linguistic knowledge 

• Close family members 
• Family composition and size 
• Numbers from 31 onwards 
• When a number finishes in 1, ‘et’ is added between the multiple of 10 and the 1 (e.g. vingt et un). 
• ‘mon’ is the word for ‘my’ when the object/person after ‘my’ is masculine. 
• ‘ma’ is the word for ‘my’ when the object/person after ‘my’ is feminine. 

• Communicating about their families, including names and ages 

Family 

• Qui est dans ta famille ? 
• Dans ma famille, il y a moi, ma mère, et mon père. 
• Il s’appelle [name]. 
• Elle s’appelle [name]. 

Age 

• Il a [number] ans. 
• Elle a [number] ans. 

• Vocabulary for expressing ownership depending on the chosen context.  
• Questions can be formed simply by putting a question mark on the end of the sentence, without changing the wording of the sentence. 
• In most cases, plurals are formed by adding an ‘s’ to the end of a word, though some words undergo significant changes in their plural form. 
• Unlike in English, that plural ‘s’ is not pronounced in French.

• Communicating about ownership 

Suggested topics: pets, classroom objects, clothes 

Ownership 

• Tu as un animal ? 
• Oui, j’ai un/une [pet]. 
• Oui, j’ai deux chiens. 
• Oui, j’ai un chien et un chat. 
• Non, je n’ai pas d’animal. 

Linguistic knowledge 

• Some common French prepositions are ‘sur’, ‘sous’, ‘devant’, and ‘derrière’. 

• Asking and answering simple questions about location 

• Où est le livre? Sur la table.