Commercial French Radio in the Classroom

ABSTRACT Among the many activities instructors use to help students improve their listening comprehension in French, commercial radio remains a relatively unex- plored territory. Canadian radio, being accessible to much of the northern United States, can be exploited and utilized profitably by the imaginative instructor. This article describes several techniques that can be used successfully in high schools and colleges. News, weather, and sports broadcasts, as well as popular songs, provide the major components in a program designed for sharpening the listening comprehension skill.

A survey of pedagogical studies published in major professional journals reveals several articles dealing with the use of radio in the French classroom.’ These ar- ticles emphasize the use of short-wave and amateur radio broadcasts as sources to be exploited. No one, however, has explored in depth the pedagogical poten- tial of commercial French radio.z Since Canadian radio is readily available to northern sections of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, and is received clearly during the evening hours in central Massachusetts, teachers in these areas have at their disposal a powerful tool for their French classes. I would like to share several techniques I have developed over the years for using commercial French radio at the secondary and university levels.

Commercial radio offers several advantages over short-wave and amateur broadcasts. The major advan- tage is variety. Popular songs, news and sports broad- casts, weather reports, commercials, interviews, and the constant chatter of the disk jockey all can be heard in rapid succession. Students hear a great variety of voices and speeds of delivery, a welcome change from the in- structor’s voice they hear every day and from the voices

Richard J . Melpignano (Ph.D., University of Connecticut) is Visiting Lec- turer in French a t Framingham Sta te College, Framingham, Massachusetts.

Richard J. Melpignano

on textbook tapes. Another advantage of commercial radio is the brevity of each segment, the longest of each being the songs. Quite often even the news broadcasts last only a few minutes. With such a variety of short segments, interest is maintained. And unlike short-wave broadcasts, commercial radio has a stronger, steadier signal, expecially late in the evening.

The radio stations I listen to regularly are CKAC 730 AM, CKLM 1570 AM, and CBF 690 AM, all originating in Montreal. The best time for listening is the late evening hours when local stations decrease their kilowattage. The stations broadcast 24 hours a day and have a varied program log, so the instructor wishing to use certain broadcasts in the classroom has a wide var- iety to choose from. Only a few of the announcers have a distinctive joual accent. All the voices-male and female-are clear and resonant. The purpose of using radio broadcasts is, of course, the improvement of the listening skill.

Students should be able to understand French spoken at a normal rate of speed before trying to understand disk jockeys, commercials, and sports broadcasts. I would suggest using radio in advanced classes in high school and in intermediate and higher classes in college since, for the inexperienced listener, the rapidity of the deliveries may cause difficulty in comprehension and discouragement. After a few hours, however, the obstacle to comprehension created by rapid speech disappears. One student on,ce remarked to me: “Wow, now I can hear faster!”

A recent half hour segment on CKAC was divided as follows: (a) news; (b) sports; (c) weather; (d) commer- cial for the Goldie Hawn-Chevy Chase movie DrGle d’embrouille [FoulPluy]; (e) a song by Enrico Macias- Noel h Jerusalem; (f) a commercial for a contest spon- sored by a local newspaper and CKAC; (g) a commer- cial for a record album; (h) a song by Joe Dassin-L’Et6 indien. Activities are developed for each section of the half hour program. Before doing any of these activities, however, I play the entire program, recorded on cassette, for the class. Normally I record two days in ad-

Foreign Language Annals, 13, No. 5 , 1980 387

388 FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS

vance, thus giving me time to prepare worksheets. A delay of two days does not “age” news items ap- preciably.

Two types of worksheets for the news segments are possible: a traditional questionlanswer format, usually dealing with specific items: numbers, dates, who, when, where, etc.; and a fill-in-the blank sheet in which I omit geographical names along with the article or preposi- tion. Since there is a preponderance of Canadian locales, each news broadcast is a short geography lesson on our northern neighbor. If the instructor wishes to practice lexical comprehension, other key words can be blanked out. Or numbers and dates can be stressed. Practice in understanding the time of day is afforded since the time is always announced at the beginning of the news segment, using the 24-hour system. The pedagogical uses of this segment are limited only by the instructor’s imagination. A sample fill-in-the blank worksheet based on a news broadcast follows (bold- faced words would be deleted):

Sur la scene internationale la Roumanie a demand6 a la Chine et au Vietnam de mettre un terme aux ac- tions militaires et d’ouvrir des negotiations afin de regler leurs litiges ou ces deux pays se sont engages. . . La Roumanie soulignant est le seulpays du pacte de Varsovie a entretenir a la fois des bons rapports avec la Chine et le Vietnam. Enfin un soldat, membre de la force des Nations- Unies au Sud-Liban a ete arr& aujourd’hui et ac- cuse de collaboration avec I’Organisation de la Liberation de la Palestine-I’OLP.

The location of these countries and of Warsaw can be shown on a world atlas. Expanded practice is possible with the French names of other countries and cities and with the inhabitants of various countries and cities-Ies Roumains, les Chinois, les Vietnamiens, les Sud- Libanais, les Pale~tiniens.~

The sports segment of CKAC broadcasts, usually quite short, is a fine opportunity for the introduction of sports termin~logy.~ Words and phrases gleaned from a recent segment include le lanceur, la rondelle (Canadian term for le palet), mener 4 a 2, en huitieme manche, match nul. Various synonyms pertaining to victory are always used: victoire de . . . sur . . . ; avoir raison de; dcraser.

The vocabulary used in the weather reports on Cana- dian radio can become repetitive in the winter months. Once spring haa arrived in Montreal, however, there is more lexical diversity. Terms gathered during three reports include the following: passages nuageux, des eclaircies, ennuagement graduel, temps venteux, quel- ques averses, temps ensoleill&, un dkgagement lent. All temperatures are given on the Celsius scale.’ As a com- plementary exercise, the students are asked to bring to class actual weather reports taken from local newspapers. In class, lists of terms are drawn up; subse- quently, small groups of students are formed and an original weather report is written. In order to make the activity as interesting and amusing as possible, I en-

courage the creation of imaginative reports, the more outrageous the better. Sometimes it will snow heavilyin San Antonio, or an avalanche of snow and mud will crush a perfume factory in Grasse. Our classroom once experienced an earthqualie with 20 “C heat and torren- tial rains. A less ambitious activity involves fill-in-the blank worksheets where the key weather terms are deleted. The tape is played and the students complete the script. A sample exercise follows: (boldfaced words would be deleted):

Un riel degage‘ pour cette nuit. Un minimum de 2. Ensoleille demain en matinee suivi d’un en- nuagement avec risques d’averses en soiree. De- main maximum de 18. Et pour dimanche c’est I’inverse. Nuageux au depart suivi d’un degage- ment. Actuellement au centre-ville a 21h 51 minutes, il fait 10 degres au numero un de I’in- formation.

Commercials in French have proven to be the most popular activity with both high school and college classes.6 Normally the activity will succeed if the prod- uct being advertised is known to the class.’ The French version of the Goldie Hawn-Chevy Chase movie, DrBle d’embrouille, recently advertised on CKAC, included short segments taken from the film soundtrack. For ex- panded practice with such advertisements for films, the instructor could give lists of the French titles of recent American films and television programs with which the students are familiar; for example: Les Dents de lamer (Jaws), Le Parrain (The Godfather), Les Grand Fonds (The Deep), L’Arnaque (The Sting), La Chasse au dipI6me (The Paper Chase), L’Homme qui valait trois milliards (The Six-Million Dollar Man), Adieu, je reste (The Goodbye Girl). The list is, of course, endless. Since advertising is normally a short segment (the ad for DrGle d’embrouille lasts 30 seconds), a transcription of the commercial can be done by members of the class work- ing in small groups. Another commercial heard recent- ly, concerning a new record album, is a dialogue be- tween a man and a woman. Several types of activities based on such a commercial are possible, the most popular one being the transcription of the dialogue by a pair of students and the presentation of the commercial to the class. Here is the dialogue in its entirety:

A knocking is heard.

Lui: Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Elle: Bonjour. Je suis votre novelle voisine. Lui: Oui. Elle: Je voulais vous emprunter un marteau. Lui: Entrez, je vous prie. Elle: Qu’est-ce que ca sent bon ici. Lui: Vous trouvez? Elle: Votre epouse est cordon bleu? Lui: Je suis celibataire. Elle: Et ce decor. Vous avez dD y passer un

temps fou. Lui: Lorsqu’on est celibataire, vous savez, on

se dkbrouille. Elle: J’ai amenage hier.

OCTOBER 1980 389

Lui: Je sais. Lorsqu’on est ctlibataire, rien ne

Elle: Ca se comprend bien. Vous Etes

Lui: Vous on peut rien vous cacher. Elle: Et moi pour ne rien vous cacher, ce n’est

pas pour emprunter un rnarteau. Je vou- lais tout simplement savoir quel est le disque vous ecoutez. C’est superbe.

Lui: Eh bien, c’est Blue Dophin, de Stephen Schlacks.

Elle: Je suppose qu’il est en vente partout. Lui: Bien sOr. Mais d’ici la, pourquoi ne pas

I’ecouter ensemble, tout en dinant. Elle: Mmmmm

Blue Dolphin, de Stephen Schlacks, sur eti- quette Telson. Pour le reste, servez-vous de votre imagination.

nous echappe.

celibataire.

Exploitation of this dialogue can lead to vocabulary and cultural enrichment. Several activities and lexical developments are possible:

Invert the roles so that the man knocks on the door and a woman answers. This gives added practice using the masculine forms of voisine, epouse, mademoiselle, and the in- variable celibataire. Explain the colloquial expression qu’est-re que . . . and un temps fou as well as the repetition of vous and the suppression of ne in vous on peut rien vous cacher. Explain the typically French usage of vous trouvez? in place of merci after a compli- ment. Give synonyms and antonyms of amenager, such as dkmenager, s’installer. Explain the difference between en vente and en solde.

After listening to several commercials in order to get the “feel” of their styles, the students can play a devinette game wherein 3 or 4 students working together each choose a product to describe. They then write the commercial, lasting no longer than 30 seconds, and pre- sent it to the class, without revealing the name of the product. To imitate radio styles as closely as possible, background music and sound effects could be added.

Each instructor will naturally have his or her own ideas for activities using commercials. Just as with the news, weather, and sports reports, using radio commer- cials helps to sharpen the four skills. Frangois Weiss has summed up the importance of radio in the classroom:

Cet entrainement a la comprehension auditive constitue un point important dans I’appren- tissage du francais, car dans beaucoup de pays, la majorit6 des eleves n’aura que t r b rarement I’occasion de s’entretenir avec un francophone. Par contre, il aura I’occasion d’entendre des documents sonores de toutes sortes. Cet aspect

est important pour determiner I’irnportance relative a donner aux quatre habiletes . . . I’on pourrait envisager un programme d’etudes fond@ sur I’importance relative a accorder a chaque habilete:

40 p . 100 a ia comprehension audiiive 30 p . 100 a la comprehension ecrile 20 p . 100 a I’expression orale 10 p . I00 a I’expression ecrites

As far as songs are concerned, commercial Canadian radio has a major advantage: many French versions of American and British songs are played. Recognition is immediate since the melodies are the same. Students are naturally curious about the French equivalent of the original song and try to determine whether the words are merely a translation of the original or a wholly dif- ferent set of lyrics bearing no resemblance to the song they know. Several activities can be planned around the use of songs. The English and French equivalent can be compared, with vocabulary and structure being the point of departure. Students can be asked to jot down any words they recognize as the song is being played. The lyrics, prepared by the instructor, can be distributed to the students, but with certain words deleted. The students’ task is to complete the text by listening carefully for the missing words or phrases, verb tenses, examples of liaison, argot, colloquial expressions, etc. Lyrics that feature the pronunciation of the mute e should be singled out for comment also.’

In conclusion, commercial French radio is a virtually untapped resource for listening comprehension in the classroom. Its use constitutes a valuable dynamic tool for the innovative instructor and an enjoyable, instruc- tive medium for the student.

NOTES I . Alan Garfinkel, “Teaching Languages by Radio: A Review of

Sources,” The Modern Language Journal, 56 (1972), 158-63; Leon Glenn, “Teaching Foreign Language by Radio,” Educational Research Bullelm, (May 1961). 114-15; John L. Grigsby, “More on the Shortwave Radio in the Classroom,”French Review, 50 (1977). 557-61; Bernard Medard, “Teaching French by Radio,” Soulh Pacific Bulletin, XI (April 1962), 28-30; Robert J . Nelson and Richard E. Wood, Radio in Foreign Language Education. ERIC/CLL Series on Language and Linguistics, 1 1 . Arlington. VA: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1975; Svein Oksenholt. “Put a Short- Wave Radio in Your Foreign Language Classroom,” Audrovrsual Insrrur- tion, 22 (May 1977), 19-22; Edmun B. Richmond, “Amateur Radio as an Aid t o Foreign Language Learning,” Foreign Language Annals, 1 1 (1Y78), 259-63; Robert Cornelius Rorke. “Into French and the World via Short- Wave,” Foreign Language Annals, I I (December 1978), 679-86; Sandra J . Savignon, A I’ecoute de France-Inter: The Use of Radio in a Student- Centered Oral French Class,’’ French Review, 46 (1972), 34249; Jean- Charles Seigneuret, “lci Paris, Office de la Radio-Television Francaise . . . , I ’ French Review, 46 (1972). 350-53; Melvin G. Therrien. “Learning French via Short-Wave Radio and Popular Periodicals.” French Review, 46 (1973), 178-83; Francois Weiss, “La Radio el la lele- vision dans I’enseignement,” Le Franpis dun5 le monde, 139 (aoGt- septembre 1978), 52-56.

2. Several possibilities for using commercial television in the classroom have been explored by Jean-Pierre Berwald. “Teaching French Language Skills with Commercial Television,” French Review, 50 (1976). 222-26.

3. For instructors interested in developing a library of listening com- prehension resources-literary, cultural, political, social-free disyurr d’acrualil4s are available from Radio Canada International. Each record-a 45 at 33 1/3 speed-contains from 4 to 6 short segments, each lasting between 1 and 5 minutes. T o receive the dkques on a regular basis. usually 1 per week. write on school letterhead to: Monsieur Gerard

390 F O R E I G N L A N G U A G E ANNALS

Poupart, Radio Canada International, Casier Postal 6000, Montreal H3C 3A8 P.Q. (telephone 514-285-2410).

4. Instructors who are unfamiliar with the hpecialired vocabulary of sports should consult the following text for an introduction: Jean-Picrrc Berwald and David E. Wolfe, Teaching French wirh American Sporrr (Detroit, Michigan: Advancement Press of America, Inc., 1975).

5 The following publication from ACTFL is a resource for expanded practice with weather terms. On rhe Road lo Find Out: Career Related French Language Llnils, developed by Donna R. Erickson and Karen K. Holicky (New York: ACTFL Materials Center, n.d.), pp. 20-31.

6. Suggestions for using television commercials in the French languagc classroom can be found in Berwald, “Teachlng French Language Skills . . .,” p. 224.

7. Students may find the ACTFL publication on McDonald’s restaurants in France amusing: Robert J . Meadrick Jr. , Ronald McDonuld dit: ‘Deuxsrearkshach~ssaucespecialesaladefromageoignonsdansu~iri~le~ painrondrecouverfdegrainsdesPsomes’ (New York: ACTFL Materials Center, n.d.).

8. Weiss, p. 5 5 .

9. Several articles dealing with songs as teaching devices can be con- sulted: James W. Brown, “For a Pedagogy of the Song-Poem,” French Review, 49 (1975). 23-31; Jacqueline C. Elliott, “Poesies et chan\on\ francaises: bases pour I’etude de la langue et de la civilisation,” French Revien,, 50 (1977). 400-1 1; William D. Leith, “Advanced French Conver- sation through Popular Music,” French Review, 52 (1979), 537-51.

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