Projet final : Mon monde en français
Chapter Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Introduce yourself and others, and exchange personal information, using tu and vous appropriately (Ch. 1–5).
- Describe your home, daily routine, food preferences, and shopping habits (Ch. 6–10).
- Communicate about getting around a city, leisure plans, health, and school or work (Ch. 11–15).
- Narrate connected past events using the passé composé and the imparfait, organized with sequencing connectors (Ch. 16–19).
- Combine present, near-future, and past communication in a single connected conversation or text.
- Ask and answer a wide range of practical and personal questions across registers and situations.
- Understand extended spoken and written French that mixes tenses, registers, and topics from across the volume.
- Produce a final integrated project — spoken and written — that presents "my world" in French: who you are, your daily life, your community, and a story from your own past.
Communication Scenario
Marc has been asked to record a short video and write a companion page for an international exchange program he is applying to. The program wants each applicant to present "mon monde en français" — my world in French — so that future host families and partner students can get to know them before they meet. Marc must introduce himself, describe his daily life and neighborhood, talk about his interests and plans, and tell a short story about something that happened to him, all in a single connected presentation. This chapter is your own version of that same project: an integrated performance that draws on everything you have learned since Chapter 1, without any new grammar or vocabulary system.
- Introduce yourself and describe your everyday life and community.
- Talk about your interests, plans, and routines.
- Tell a short connected story about a real or imagined past experience.
- Ask and answer questions about someone else's "monde en français."
Core Vocabulary
Chapter 20 introduces no new productive vocabulary. Instead, it draws together vocabulary from across the volume so that you can move fluidly between domains within a single presentation. Use the table below as a checklist, not as new material to memorize.
| Domain | Introduced in | Sample recycled items |
|---|---|---|
| Greetings and identity | Ch. 1–3 | bonjour, je m'appelle, je viens de, les langues |
| Family and description | Ch. 4 | ma famille, mon frère, il/elle a ... ans, les adjectifs |
| Home and neighborhood | Ch. 6 | il y a, mon quartier, mon appartement |
| Daily routine | Ch. 7 | se lever, se coucher, d'habitude, tous les jours |
| Food and shopping | Ch. 8–9 | je voudrais, du/de la/des, ça coûte combien ? |
| Getting around and plans | Ch. 11–12 | tournez à gauche, on va + infinitif, quel temps fait-il ? |
| Health and work | Ch. 13–14 | j'ai mal à, il faut, je travaille comme |
| Narrating the past | Ch. 16–19 | d'abord, ensuite, finalement, j'ai ..., je faisais ... |
No new vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation system is introduced as productive in this chapter. Chapter 20 assesses integrated CEFR A2 performance using only material activated in Chapters 1–19.
Pronunciation Focus
A final presentation moves across many pronunciation systems in a short space: oral and nasal vowels, front rounded vowels, the French r, required and optional liaison, enchaînement, elision, present-tense final-letter patterns, auxiliary–participle rhythm in the passé composé, and the shared /ɛ/ vowel of -ais, -ait, and -aient in the imparfait.
Before recording or reading your final project aloud, review required liaison in nous avons, vous êtes, and after plural articles and possessives. Review enchaînement when an already pronounced final consonant carries into a following vowel, as in avec elle. In the imparfait, -ais, -ait, and -aient normally share the vowel /ɛ/, while their final written consonant letters are silent. In the passé composé, the past participle normally contains an audible vowel, such as /e/ in parlé, /i/ in fini, or /y/ in vu, while many final consonant and agreement letters remain silent. No new sound or rule appears here; apply the previously learned system at a natural, connected pace.
Grammar: Un bilan complet du système
Purpose: consolidate and apply, in a single integrated performance, the complete grammar system developed across Volume I — without introducing any new productive structure.
20.1 The complete system, reviewed as one map
Every system below has already been taught. What is new in Chapter 20 is only the requirement to move between them naturally within one connected presentation at an integrated A2 level.
- Present tense for who you are and what you usually do: J'habite à Lyon et je travaille dans une école. I live in Lyon and I work at a school.
- Aller + infinitif for near-future plans: Ce week-end, je vais voir mes grands-parents. This weekend, I'm going to see my grandparents.
- Passé composé / imparfait for a connected past story: L'année dernière, nous sommes allés en Bretagne. Il pleuvait tous les jours, mais nous étions très contents. Last year, we went to Brittany. It rained every day, but we were very happy.
20.2 Moving between time frames in one presentation
Notice that every verb form belongs to a system already taught: the present (Ch. 1–15), aller + infinitif (Ch. 12), and the passé composé / imparfait contrast (Ch. 16–18), organized with the connectors from Chapter 19.
20.3 Asking about someone else's world
A complete conversation is not one-sided. Use question strategies already active since Chapter 3 — est-ce que, question words, and intonation questions — to ask a partner about their own life, plans, and stories: Où est-ce que tu habites ?, Qu'est-ce que tu vas faire ce week-end ?, Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ?
Model Dialogue: Mon monde en français
Context: Marc records the spoken part of his exchange-program presentation, imagining a future host student asking him questions.
This presentation moves through the present tense (Ch. 1–15), aller + infinitif (Ch. 12), and the consolidated passé composé / imparfait narration with sequencing connectors (Ch. 16–19) — the same building blocks reviewed above, simply combined.
Listening Practice
Listen once or twice before revealing the script. Use an audio recording, text-to-speech tool, instructor, or partner to read the passage aloud. Answer the questions from listening alone, then reveal the script to check your work.
- Where does Nadia live, and what does she usually do in the morning and afternoon?
- What is Nadia's plan for this weekend?
- What happened while Nadia and Marc were having dinner in Brittany?
- Identify one present-tense sentence, one near-future sentence, and one past-tense sentence in the script.
Reveal script after listening
Speaking Practice
Pratique contrôlée — Controlled practice: three time frames
Say three connected statements:
- one true present-tense statement about your current life;
- one near-future statement using aller + infinitif;
- one past statement using either the passé composé or the imparfait, according to the intended viewpoint.
Then answer one follow-up question about each statement.
Tâche communicative — Communicative task: mon monde en français
Present your own monde en français to a partner or small group in at least ten connected sentences. Include:
- your identity and where you live;
- at least three present-tense sentences about your home, neighborhood, routine, interests, school, or work;
- at least one near-future plan using aller + infinitif;
- a connected past story of at least five sentences;
- at least three sequencing connectors;
- at least two imparfait forms;
- at least three passé composé forms.
Your partner asks at least three relevant follow-up questions: one about the present, one about the future, and one about the past. Answer all three questions.
Pratique individuelle — Solo alternative
Record a two-to-three-minute video presenting your monde en français. Meet all the requirements of the communicative task: at least ten connected sentences, at least three present-tense daily-life sentences, one near-future plan, a five-sentence past story, three sequencing connectors, two imparfait forms, and three passé composé forms. Then record three questions that a listener could reasonably ask — one about the present, one about the future, and one about the past — and record a comprehensible response to each question.
Reading Practice
Tâche de lecture — Reading task:
- What does Nadia usually do in the morning and in the afternoon?
- What is Nadia's plan for next month?
- List, in order, the four sequencing connectors Nadia uses in her Brittany story.
- Identify one sentence in the present tense, one in the near future, and two in the past (one passé composé, one imparfait).
Writing Workshop
Complete the following linked writing tasks in order. Together, they form your final written project for Volume I.
Tâche unique — "Mon monde en français" page: Write a presentation page of twelve to fifteen sentences. Include:
- your name, age, and where you live;
- at least three present-tense sentences describing your daily routine, home, neighborhood, interests, school, or work;
- at least one near-future plan using aller + infinitif;
- a connected past story of at least five sentences;
- at least three sequencing connectors;
- at least two imparfait forms;
- at least three passé composé forms;
- a final question or invitation encouraging the reader to share their own world.
- Plan each section. Sketch a short outline: identity and routine, plans, past story, closing.
- Draft your introduction and daily life section. Use present-tense verbs already active since Chapter 1.
- Draft your plans. Add at least one sentence with aller + infinitif.
- Draft your story. Sequence at least three connected events with connectors, mixing passé composé and imparfait as in Chapters 16–19.
- Read your full page aloud once. Check required liaison, enchaînement, present-tense final-letter patterns, auxiliary–participle rhythm, and the /ɛ/ pronunciation of imparfait endings without adding final consonant sounds.
- Revise. Confirm articles, agreement, verb forms, and accents are accurate throughout, and confirm that all productive vocabulary and grammar come from Chapters 1–19.
Liste de révision — Editing checklist:
- The page contains twelve to fifteen sentences.
- The introduction includes the writer's name, age, and where the writer lives.
- At least three present-tense sentences describe daily life, home, neighborhood, interests, school, or work.
- At least one near-future plan uses aller + infinitif.
- The past-story portion contains at least five connected sentences.
- At least three sequencing connectors organize the past story.
- At least two accurately formed imparfait verbs present intended background, description, habit, or ongoing situations.
- At least three accurately formed passé composé verbs present foregrounded completed events.
- Tense choices match the intended viewpoint and context.
- The page ends with a question or invitation encouraging a response.
- Articles, gender, adjective agreement, auxiliary choice, and past-participle agreement are accurate.
- Accents, apostrophes, capitalization, and punctuation are accurate.
- No productive vocabulary or grammar outside Chapters 1–19 is required.
Culture and Communication
Introducing your daily life, your neighborhood, and a personal story to someone new is a common feature of exchange programs, professional introductions, and online profiles across French-speaking communities, though the expected length, tone, and level of personal detail vary by context, generation, and platform. A page written for a student exchange, a formal cover letter, and a casual social-media post would each strike a different balance between warmth and formality, even when written by the same person.
Throughout this volume, you have seen that contemporary French varies by region while remaining mutually intelligible: vocabulary choices in shopping and food (Ch. 8–9), pronunciation tendencies in nasal vowels and liaison (Ch. 6 onward), and address norms with tu and vous (Ch. 1 onward) may all differ somewhat between France, Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, and other Francophone communities. The neutral standard French modeled in this course remains broadly understood across these communities, but it is one productive model among several legitimate varieties, not the only correct French.
Common Mistakes
Error: Writing an entire presentation only in the present tense, without any plan for the future or story from the past.
Correction: A complete presentation moves through present routine, a near-future plan with aller + infinitif, and a connected past story: J'habite à Lyon. Ce week-end, je vais voir ma famille. L'été dernier, nous sommes allés en Bretagne.
Error: Writing Il a fait mauvais, mais nous avons été contents to describe ongoing weather and mood surrounding a trip.
Correction: In the controlled narrative patterns practiced here, background and ongoing states normally use the imparfait when that is the intended viewpoint: Il faisait mauvais, mais nous étions contents.
Error: Ending a presentation abruptly after the past story, without any question or closing that invites the other person to respond.
Correction: Close with a question or invitation, as modeled since Chapter 19: Et vous, quel est votre monde ? or J'ai hâte de faire votre connaissance !
Chapter Review
Partie A — Compréhension (Comprehension)
1. Return to the Model Dialogue, and answer these short questions.
- Where does Marc live, and who does he live with?
- What happened one day while Marc and his sister were walking in Brittany?
Partie B — Écriture (Writing)
1. Write three connected sentences about yourself: one in the present tense, one about a near-future plan, and one about a past event. Use an appropriate time expression to introduce each time frame.
2. Choose the correct tense: Nous ______ (être) très fatigués quand nous ______ (arriver) à l'hôtel.
Partie C — Lecture (Reading)
1. Return to Nadia's presentation page, and list the four sequencing connectors she uses, in order.
Partie D — Oral (Speaking)
1. Present a one-minute version of your own monde en français. Include:
- your name and where you live;
- at least two present-tense sentences about daily life or your neighborhood;
- one near-future plan using aller + infinitif;
- a short past story of at least three sentences;
- at least two sequencing connectors;
- at least one imparfait form;
- at least two passé composé forms.
Your partner must ask one question about your present life, one about your future plan, and one about your past story. Answer all three questions.
Grammar recycled
The complete Volume I system: articles and gender, present tense, near future, negation, questions, object pronouns, passé composé, imparfait, and narrative connectors (Ch. 1–19).
Vocabulary recycled
Identity, family, home, routine, food, shopping, travel, health, work, and narrative vocabulary from every chapter.
Pronunciation recycled
Oral and nasal vowels, French r, liaison, enchaînement, elision, final-letter pronunciation patterns, including silent final consonant letters where applicable, auxiliary–participle rhythm, and the /ɛ/ vowel of common imparfait endings.
Skills recycled
Introductions (Ch. 1–5), practical description (Ch. 6–10), community communication (Ch. 11–15), and connected narration (Ch. 16–19).
Practical Performance Task
Chapter 20 Practical Check — Final CEFR A2 Performance
Projet final : Mon monde en français — My World in French
Complete the following connected tasks, in order. Together, they form the final integrated assessment for Volume I.
- Read the model dialogue and Nadia's presentation page. Answer the comprehension questions above before continuing.
- Present your world aloud. Produce at least ten connected sentences, including at least three present-tense daily-life statements, one near-future plan, and a past story of at least five sentences. The past story must use at least three sequencing connectors, at least two imparfait forms, and at least three passé composé forms.
- Ask and answer follow-up questions. With a partner, ask and answer at least three relevant questions: one about present life, one about a future plan, and one about the past story. In the solo alternative, record the three questions and a comprehensible response to each one.
- Write your presentation page. Produce twelve to fifteen sentences and satisfy all Writing Workshop content, tense, connector, and reply-invitation requirements.
- Read your page aloud once. Apply required liaison, enchaînement, auxiliary–participle rhythm, present-tense final-letter patterns, and accurate imparfait pronunciation without adding final consonant sounds.
Present-tense communication
The learner accurately produces at least three present-tense statements about identity, daily life, home, neighborhood, interests, school, or work.
Near-future formation
The learner accurately produces at least one aller + infinitif plan.
Passé composé formation
The learner accurately forms at least three passé composé events, including correct auxiliary selection and agreement where required.
Imparfait formation and viewpoint
The learner accurately forms at least two imparfait verbs and uses them for intended background, description, habit, or ongoing situations.
Time-frame control
The learner moves clearly between present, near future, and past without confusing the functions of the forms.
Narrative sequencing
The learner produces a past story of at least five sentences using at least three appropriate sequencing connectors.
Interaction
The learner asks and answers three relevant follow-up questions spanning present, future, and past.
Written-project completeness
The written page contains twelve to fifteen sentences, name, age, location, present-life description, a near-future plan, a five-sentence past story, a response invitation, and all required tense and connector counts.
Register and appropriateness
The learner uses tu/vous, greetings, closings, and personal-detail level appropriately for the selected exchange-program audience.
Oral intelligibility
The learner produces speech intelligibly, including required liaison, enchaînement, auxiliary–participle rhythm, and accurate imparfait endings without added final consonant sounds.
Reading comprehension
The learner accurately identifies key facts, time frames, and narrative connectors in Nadia's presentation.
Listening comprehension
The learner accurately identifies key facts, plans, past events, and representative present, future, and past forms in Nadia's spoken presentation.
Scope and accuracy
The learner remains within productive language activated in Chapters 1–19 and maintains accurate articles, agreement, verb forms, accents, and punctuation.
This chapter introduces no new grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, or skill system. It assesses integrated CEFR A2 performance using material activated across the entire volume, completing Volume I: Foundations of Practical Communication.
Answer Key
Model Dialogue — Comprehension
- Marc lives in Lyon, in a small apartment with his sister.
- While walking in Brittany, Marc and his sister met an old fisherman who told them the history of his village.
Listening Practice
- Nadia lives in Tours; in the morning she goes to university, and in the afternoon she works at a café.
- She is going to Lyon to visit Marc and his family.
- They met a local singer who sang traditional songs for them.
- Answers will vary. Sample: present — j'habite à Tours; near future — je vais aller à Lyon; past — nous avons voyagé ensemble or il pleuvait presque tous les jours.
Reading Practice
- She goes to university in the morning and works at a café in the afternoon.
- She is going to Spain next month for a university exchange program.
- d'abord, ensuite, après ça, finalement
- Answers will vary. Accept one accurate present-tense example, one accurate near-future example, one passé composé example, and one imparfait example from the revised passage.
Chapter Review — Part B
- Answers will vary. Model: D'habitude, j'étudie le matin. Ce week-end, je vais retrouver des amis. L'année dernière, j'ai visité l'Italie.
- étions ... sommes arrivés
Chapter Review — Part C
d'abord, ensuite, après ça, finalement
Chapter Review — Part D
Answers will vary. A successful response includes the required personal introduction, two present-tense statements, one accurate near-future plan, a three-sentence past story, two sequencing connectors, one appropriate imparfait form, two accurate passé composé forms, and comprehensible answers to three follow-up questions spanning present, future, and past.
Final Spoken Project
Successful performance requires: at least ten connected sentences; three present-tense daily-life statements; one near-future plan; a five-sentence past story; three connectors; two imparfait forms; three passé composé forms; and three answered follow-up questions.
Final Written Project
Successful performance requires: twelve to fifteen sentences; name, age, and location; three present-tense daily-life statements; one near-future plan; a five-sentence past story; three connectors; two imparfait forms; three passé composé forms; a response invitation; and accurate language within Chapters 1–19.
Looking Ahead
Ce que vous savez faire maintenant — What you can do now
You can introduce yourself and others, describe your daily life and community, discuss plans, ask and answer a wide range of practical and personal questions, and tell a complete connected story about your past — combining every system developed across Volume I into a single, natural performance in French.