French-English Cognates

Unit Overview
What would you like for dinner? Beef, pork or soup?

Focus: French-English cognates

Aim: To help students see that they can use their knowledge of French to understand many English words that have been borrowed from French or Latin.

Example:

English: The duke had a big army; he was prepared for the battle!

French: Le duc avait une grande armée, il a été préparé pour la bataille !

The sentence above is probably simple for French-speaking learners of English to understand because of the helpful cognates (duke/ duc, etc.). But some cognates are not easy to recognize and sometimes meanings don’t match across languages:

English : The duke's spouse was gentle, beautiful and rich.

French : L'épouse du duc était douce, belle et riche.

The connection between spouse and épouse may not be obvious, and gentle is misleading because it does not match gentil in French.


Major cognate activities on the theme of William the Conqueror to be completed in one 60-minute lesson:

  1. William the Conqueror activity with lesson plan, picture sequence and story, about 30 minutes
  2. King’s Dinner vocabulary activity and role play with student sheet and teacher sheet, about 30 minutes

Mini-lessons for cognates, 15-20 minutes each, to be completed in class or for homework:

  1. Cognates across languages activity with lesson plan, student story sheet, teacher sheet
  2. Good and false friends activity with lesson plan, student sheet, teacher sheet
  3. Food cognates board activity with lesson plan
  4. Discovering useful patterns activity with lesson plan and student sheet

Supplementary activities of various lengths based on the stories of William the Conqueror and Queen Mathilda:

  1. Cognate skit (for groups of four) with lesson plan, student script
  2. His and her practice with lesson plan, story text, student sheet 1, student sheet 2
  3. Pronunciation of H with lesson plan, student sheet, teacher sheet
  4. Song Cloze with student sheet, teacher sheet

Lesson plan (pdf)

Mini-lesson 1: lesson plan (pdf), student story sheet (pdf) & teacher sheet (pdf)

Mini-lesson 2: lesson plan (pdf), student sheet (pdf) & teacher sheet (pdf)

Mini-lesson 3: activity with lesson plan (pdf)

Mini-lesson 4: activity with lesson plan (pdf) & student sheet (pdf)

Supplementary activity 1: cognate skit (for groups of four) with lesson plan (pdf) & student script (pdf)

Supplementary activity 2: his and her practice with lesson plan (pdf), story text (pdf), student sheet 1 (pdf) & student sheet 2 (pdf)

Supplementary activity 3: pronunciation of H with lesson plan (pdf), student sheet (pdf) & teacher sheet (pdf)

Supplementary activity 4: song cloze with student sheet (pdf) & teacher sheet (pdf)