🦃 Celebrate L’Action de grâce in French Class with a Ready-to-Use IPA
- Karen Olson
- Nov 9
- 2 min read
Teaching French in November can be tricky. Your students are tired, the holidays are coming, and you’re trying to keep lessons meaningful without spending your weekend creating materials from scratch. That’s exactly why I created my Novice French Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) – L’Action de grâce au Canada.
This resource lets you bring culture, communication, and creativity together — without any extra prep.
🇨🇦 Why Canadian Thanksgiving?
Most students know about Thanksgiving in the U.S., but few realize that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, too — and in October! It’s a perfect opportunity to make cultural connections, compare traditions, and build real-world language skills.
In this IPA, students explore what Canadians eat and how they celebrate, while expressing gratitude in simple, authentic French.
💬 What Makes This Resource So Useful?
This isn’t just a themed worksheet — it’s a complete performance assessment that checks all three ACTFL modes of communication:
1️⃣ Interpretive (Listening or Reading)Students listen to or read a short passage from a French speaker in Canada describing their Thanksgiving celebration. You decide whether to use the audio or text version — flexible for in-person or online teaching.
2️⃣ Interpersonal (Speaking)Students engage in short, scaffolded conversations about what they eat, who they celebrate with, and what they’re thankful for. Sentence starters and vocabulary support are included, so even your most hesitant novices can succeed.
3️⃣ Presentational (Creative Production)Students choose from two fun, low-prep projects:
🥖 Create a French Thanksgiving menu (Mon menu de fête)
💌 Design a gratitude card or video (Je suis reconnaissant(e) pour...)
These tasks are creative but structured, helping students demonstrate real communication skills while celebrating a cultural theme.
🧑🏫 Designed for Busy Teachers
This IPA is designed to be plug-and-play. You’ll get:
A teacher guide with ACTFL alignment, answer key, and suggestions for in-person or digital teaching
A student packet with all tasks, questions, and a vocabulary list (in French & English)
A rubric for quick, consistent grading
Editable files for easy customization
Whether you teach Core French, FSL, or French 1, you can implement this IPA right away.
🎯 Why Teachers Love It
Teachers who use my IPAs appreciate how they:
✅ Save hours of planning time
✅ Encourage authentic communication at the novice level
✅ Integrate culture naturally
✅ Work equally well in hybrid or asynchronous classrooms
You can finally focus on teaching instead of searching for resources.
🛍️ Ready to Try It?
Bring Canadian Thanksgiving to life in your French classroom this November!
Your students will love expressing gratitude, learning new food vocabulary, and comparing cultures — and you’ll love how seamlessly it fits into your unit.
Make this season about communication, culture, and connection — all in French.
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