Last updated on February 28th, 2024 at 09:07 am
When you learn a language like French, one of your goals is probably to be able to follow a conversation in French. This means to be able not only to understand what people tell you but also to answer them in a clear and relatively fast way.
Most of my students take French conversation lessons because they have difficulties in that field.
Different exercises can be done to improve French conversation skills:
First exercise: prepare a topic about every day life
A lot of conversations are small talks that are easy to prepare. Some of the most common questions are:
– how was your weekend?(Comment s’est passé ton week-end ?)
– the weather (le temps qu’il fait)
– what are your plans for … (Quels sont tes projets pour…/ Que penses-tu faire …)
– talk about your family (parler de sa famille)
– etc.
All these topics are recurring questions when you meet someone, so they are informally rehearsed during the lessons. For lower levels, it’s usually good to prepare the answers beforehand and to write them down. Slowly slowly students get more comfortable and are able to answer without looking at their notes.
Second exercise: pick a text as a basis of a French conversation
– first we read and try to understand a text in French about a certain topic
– then we learn some helpful vocabulary for this topic
– eventually, I ask the student’s opinion on the matter, bring some more vocabulary, correct his mistakes.
We usually share interesting opinions, but above all we learn how to have a conversation in French about the topic and work on both sides of the problem: understand and speak or react.
Third exercise: listen to a video
The Internet allows us to get access to a lot of resources online. Therefore, it’s easy to find a 1-2min video to watch (once or a few times if need be) to improve your listening comprehension. Then, find a friend or a French teacher to talk about it.
Obviously, the most important if you want to improve your French conversation skills is to practice. You can talk in front of your mirror if you want, otherwise you can rehearse with a friend (a French friend is even better), but the best solution will always be to have a Live French tutor who can spend time with you to concentrate on your mistakes in order to help you. You can study French no matter where you are located with our French classes by Skype.
