Beyond the Pier

I have been using the extremely useful Google Maps service personally for some time now and recently had success in integrating it into teaching French.  During a Year 10 (14-15 year olds) topic on describing cities and making your way around town, I projected maps.google.fr (use .fr for extra exposure to French in the Google menus and directions) and Google Streetview screendumps to complement and add some interest to the work we had already done on giving directions and using prepositions of place to describe the layout of the town.

By using the local London area, the students were keen to spot our school/landmarks/shops etc that they were familiar with and even argue about how to get where and best.  This also let students consolidate shops/places having only the English on screen as it won’t say “supermarché” on shop signs, which would be a giveaway had we gone directly to France.  Admittedly, going to France would add an excellent cultural element and this could be developed in future lessons.

Using screendumps from Streetview of a nearby shopping street gave a chance to practise the prepositions of place in a more engaging and familiar context: Utilisez les prépositions de lieu pour décrire les images: e.g. la pharmacie est à côté de la banque

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In another activity, the newly added Google Maps functionality of viewing Streetview and the traditional aerial map view simultaneously came in very useful.  I pretended I was a tourist standing in front of the school and students had to give me directions - Excusez-moi, pour aller à la bibliothèque s’il vous plaît?.  I then followed their instructions accurately in real time on Streetview and Google Maps to check if I would end up where I’m meant to.  The map view allowed phrases like “deuxième rue à gauche” to be produced while the streetview allowed prepositions to be exploited (et c’est au coin, à côté de la pharmacie) This forced students to flesh out their directions and be much more precise with prepositions etc.

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Simon Howells has taken the use of Google Maps a step further, intergating it into an ICT based project.  See his excellent video below and finished product for details and ideas.