Any teacher happens to hear:
"Sure, I did the exercises, but my dog ate them".
Statistically, any dog is fed by paper and ink every other day. Dogs do not eat French exercises and essays only. They also like Maths. They devour English. They nibble at Geography. They chew History. They savour Physics. They bite hundreds of chemical formulas. Take into account that not only one child lives with each dog. The devilish beast wolfs down the whole family's exercise books. I wonder if some dogs have got several stomachs, like the cows. Are there vets who specialize in curing these dogs? I bet they are rich.

Whatever the excuse, even true, I had decided that to be accepted, it had to be funny, sensible and new. Pupils could try their luck and explained why they were not able to give me their exercises in time. The speech had to be longer than 2 minutes and shorter than 5.

If the excuse was not convincing enough, the speaker got nothing. But if it was well championed, I extended the time limit.

Even shy pupils tried to avoid to get nothing (parents tend to be very inquisitive when their kid comes back with the worst possible mark on their report card!) and the self-confident often worked on their excuses more than on their "official" presentations.

From the first try: "Sure, Madame, I did my exercises, but my hen ate them" to real novels about essays forgotten in space ships, I have heard dozens of stories.

After the speech, the audience were allowed to ask questions. They became good at detecting incoherences and at recognizing quotations. Quicker than I had thought, they were able to pull apart a false argument and to propose theirs to prove it was false.

I obtained greater work and think-tank than if I had entitled the same exercise: "Let's study argumentation."

Gabrielle Guichard
is a French teacher who helps you to learn French online.