Year 9 have learned shop and town vocabulary, and their textbook says French speakers everywhere happily borrow English words such as le shopping and le fast-food. The teacher gives each pair a 200-metre stretch of one of four streets, rue Sainte-Catherine and avenue du Mont-Royal in Montreal, rue de Rivoli and rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris, having walked every stretch in Street View beforehand; pupils record sign text only, never people. Pairs walk their stretch in Google Earth and log each shop sign into one shared Google Sheet: the words on it, the language or languages used, and any English word where a French one exists, such as Store for magasin. As rows arrive the sheet charts the share of English on signs in each city, and the teacher then introduces Quebec's Charter of the French Language, which requires French to be markedly predominant on commercial signs, so pairs go back to hunt for evidence such as ARRÊT on Montreal stop signs against STOP in Paris, and dépanneur for a corner shop. Pairs finish by writing three comparative sentences in French, such as "À Montréal, il y a moins de mots anglais qu'à Paris", each backed by a row of their data.
Tools: Google Earth, Google Sheets Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.