Bienvenue!

MadameFipa.com

 

 

If you have any questions, comments or technical difficulties,
please email me at….madamefipa@gmail.com

A) What is the Madame Fipa French Club?

MadameFipa.com is for learning & growing your French vocabulary efficiently & easily with videos and word puzzles. We introduce new words through short videos, songs and book excerpts. Then we learn more words that are related to those words through word relationships, such as rhymes, synonyms, etc…., organized in Word Map diagrams. And we review them all with online quizzes & word puzzle sheets.

It originally started as my school’s French Club, once located in a dark corner of the school where nothing but ants & dust lived. But the extreme cold weather & impending French Finals made a few of the kids come & join. The kids would watch videos and review the words from the videos through word puzzles. After a while, the kids started asking for extra copies of the puzzles. I got tired of having to make copies, so I have put all the materials up on this site for all to share. Membership is free. So join and download to your heart’s content!

B) Who is this club for?

It’s for all beginner or novice French learners who want to learn more French words & expand their vocabulary.

After a certain point, as a beginner, you learn enough grammar to get a basic understanding of the language. From there, you have to expand your vocabulary to really grasp the language and to get to the next level. Beginners all know…. Il y a un crayon sur ton pupitre (There is a pencil on your desk.) …. But after that, the next level would be….Il y a une fourmi sur ta tête. (There is an ant on your head.) What’s the difference between the two? Vocabulary. Without a bigger vocabulary, you can’t apply any grammar, comprehension or sentence structure rules if you don’t know the words first. The words come first, then everything else follows.

C) Who am I and what is my French background?

My name is Madame Fipa. I am a French teacher. Although I teach French, I am not a native French speaker. I learned French as a second language. And although my crush on my French teacher kept me motivated enough to overcome the struggles of learning grammar, I found learning vocabulary was an uphill battle. I tried reading to learn new words. But reading as a beginner was like pulling teeth. Even reading a children’s story was tough. Too many words I didn’t know. (Who has ever come across the French word for “Porridge” during French class?) Too many pages. (Why does it take over 20 pages for a few bears to eat porridge?)

So back in those days, unable to read anything beyond a French textbook paragraph, learning vocabulary meant memorizing lists of words. Ugh! So although my grammar developed quickly, my vocabulary stayed at a beginner level. This meant that my vast grammar knowledge was limited to talking about nothing but pencils & desks since those were the only words I knew.

I was destined to converse about only pencils & desks in varied French tenses forever. ‘Til one day, before my French mid-term, sitting & memorizing lists of words the old-fashioned way, I got so full of rage & frustration that I felt like a clumsy King Kong trying to climb up the Eiffel Tower. After that, I started inventing little tricks, songs and methods to help memorize the words more efficiently & easily. Now, as a French teacher, I see my students going through the same difficulties I went through. Having been through it all myself, I understand. (I feel your pain.) So I now share my tricks & methods with my students. Luckily, it has helped many of them and hopefully, this club will help you too!

 

* Note to our school’s club members: Anybody who missed last week’s meeting…I have put all the club’s resources, word games, puzzles and sheets up here. Stop asking me for extra copies and just download and print! (And if you don’t have a printer, chisel them on a rock or something… just stop asking me for extra copies….^^)

If you have any questions, comments or technical difficulties, please email me at….madamefipa@gmail.com