Chocolate as a teaching tool
- carolinejestaz
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
Since I teach languages, and not baking, and that I teach online, how come I use chocolate in my teaching so much?
The fact is, I love it. Find me someone who doesn’t!
It’s an easy – and memorable – conversation topic, which I use it in many examples:
- ‘acheter du chocolat’ (to buy chocolate), to explain indefinite quantities with ‘du’ (some chocolate)
- ‘le chocolat noir’ (dark chocolate), to introduce colours, since ‘noir’ = ‘black’
- ‘Un pain au chocolat’ / ‘un gâteau au chocolat’ / ‘une glace au chocolat’ (literally ‘a chocolate bread’, a chocolate cake, and a chocolate ice cream), to show how to describe flavours and where to place it in the sentence. By the way, did you notice it’s not in the same place as in English?
- ‘Je mange du chocolat – J’en mange’, to introduce pronouns, here ‘en’ replaces ‘du chocolat’. And to remind my students that pronouns are ubiquitous in French (though not in English).
Not to mention the fact that French people, including myself, prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, usually with our coffee, and that we tend to have much less of a sweet tooth than British people (which, admittedly, isn’t hard!).
It might seem silly but, as fellow teachers know, anything – including food – can become useful context when explaining something new to a student.
As long as they understand and, crucially, remember it, why not talk about something most of us enjoy eating?
Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions!