Using Alice in Paris for intermediate and advanced French classes

One of my students’ favorite YouTube series is Alice in Paris – the episodes are short, less than 2 minutes each.  They were the perfect time filler for the days when we ended up with a few minutes at the end of class.  There is so much culture in each video, and we always enjoyed talking about the different places she went to eat. Sadly, the English version is no longer available on YouTube – it’s been repackaged as a longer-form video on Amazon Prime.  But the French version is still available, and the videos are still accessible to French learners with a little bit of scaffolding.

I’ve put together activities to accompany each of the episodes in season 1, and I plan to use them next year once my students have a little more French under their belts (I’m only teaching level 1 this year, so they are very limited at this point). Each activity follows the same format.

What’s included in the Alice in Paris activities?

Here’s a description of the different activities for Alice in Paris and what level may find it most useful. Reading comprehension:  There are two versions of the reading activity.  The reading is a quick synopsis of the plot of the episode.  One version is (mostly) in the present tense  – suitable for second year and up – while the other is in the past.  The past tense version uses the passé composé and the imparfait, with other compound tenses as needed – best for third year and up. Each is followed by comprehension questions.

Past tense conjugation practice:  This activity includes a copy of the present-tense synopsis of the Alice in Paris episode with the verbs bolded, followed by a copy with blank spaces for the verbs.  Students will need to rewrite the verbs in the correct pas tense.  These will mostly be imparfait and passé composé, but since there are some instances of other compound tenses, you may want to use them in year 2 with assistance, or years 3 and up independently.

Vocabulary/Comprehension activities: There are two versions of this activity page.  Each has a section to fill in the missing word from a sentence in the synopsis of the Alice in Paris episode, a section to put the events in the order that they happened, and a section to match the word to the image.  One version is in the present tense and has the events activity in English, the other is in the past tense and the events section is in French.

Cultural activity:  An activity about the restaurant/café/store in the video, or one similar.  Sadly, quite a few of the places Alice visited in season 1 of Alice in Paris have closed.  Some of the activities involve students visiting the website for the business and answering questions.  Others involve visiting a business that is similar (due to the original one closing).  Some involve reading reviews of the business.

With these activities, a 2-minutes episode of Alice can become a lesson to fill an entire class period.  All 24 episodes are now available, either separately or as a bundle.  There is a bonus with the bundle – a set of printable color posters for the vocabulary words in each activity.

They are available here on Frenchified, but also at the TPT store if you’d prefer to do your shopping there.