How do you promote French speaking?

 Are your French students allowed to use “cheat sheets” when preparing for speaking presentations or speaking tests?

 

The big question for me was always “how much is allowed”? What will be allowed? How will I prevent them from not writing a full-on “script” and then just reading it. 

 

After seeing the lengths the kids would go to in order to prep for these I came up with various options for “cheat sheets” depending upon the grade level and the oral speech production required of them. Here are a few that I have used. Maybe there’s an idea you might use.

 

1.  Allow only 10 words to help them out (on a small piece of paper or small index card)

2. Allow only the first 2-3 words of the sentence to be written down.

3. Allow every second word to be written down.

4. Allow the first 2 words of the sentence and the last 2 words of the sentence.

5. Allow drawn pictures to be allowed between the written beginning word and ending word of the sentence.

6. Allow point form ideas only to be listed – in French or a combo of French & English

7. Allow a list of verb infinitives only that they can use in the conjugated forms.

8. Divide a piece of paper up into box sections – 1 for verbs, 1 for adjectives, 1 for sentence starter words like “cependant”, 1 for general vocabulary to use. – Give a maximum number of words allowed in each box.

9. Allow sentence with a combination of French & English in them

These are only a handful of ideas to help your students and to guide them along the way to French speech production but they are ways to provide differentiated learning and even scaffolding within your classes or in varying grade levels. How many of these do you use? Also, have a chat with your students about how children learn to speak. It'll make them more aware of the task for them. Children point to things, pull you over to see something, etc. Language development is not an overnight accomplishment!

 

Activités orales

 

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Have a great day! Lorraine

 

Do you play games?

 

 Hi everyone! Do you have the same strategy each year for helping your students prepare for the end of the year exams or oral presentations? We aren't at that point yet where I live but I know that some of the US schools finish much earlier and so they are thinking about this now! 

I think that review at the end of the year is a very stressful time for everyone, and especially for the teachers. You count the weeks until the end of classes or until exams begin. You look at the concepts you still need to cover so that your kids are ready for the next school year and unfortunately the list goes on. I know it does, because I lived it for many years!  Now retired and happy to be that way, I LOVED teaching. There’s something about it that once in your blood, it is there to stay! That doesn't mean that I didn't suffer from some of the things above and especially feeling just a bit too tired in the morning to really want to get to work.

 

One of my favourite ways to review with my high school students was to play games. Any kind of game I could find, I would try to put into a category that I could use. I truly believe that learning happens and that knowledge solidifies when having fun.  It also allows the struggling students to feel success and not feel like everyone is looking at them by having a hand up in the air or more likely when being called upon to answer. 

 

So what concepts do your students not like to review? Probably verbs for one but there are many more concepts that need to be practised and reviewed.

So, my suggestion to you today is to play a game, have fun and help your kids review.  Here are some Games

 

Happy Earth Day on Saturday!  Have a great day!

À bientôt!

 

Lorraine

 

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For the love of learning - Earth Day

I first would like to give a huge shout out and thank you to the numerous educators in the elementary school system who brought to light the need for recycling and caring for our planet with our children when they were young. Yes, that was some years ago now but it brings me back to my comment of “for the love of learning” in a previous post.  Much earlier in our quest to “save our planet” my one child came home and started to give me lessons on what we needed to do as a family to help with this venture.  Yes! From her explanations and “teachings” it was going to be for the long haul (which of course it continues today).  She started with teaching us how to recycle and as extensive as our recycling program is here in our community, her lessons were to the point!  Still to this day while she is grown and living elsewhere I can hear her little voice in my head about what needs to be done. I am thankful for the wonderful set of skills that was instilled in her. With Earth Day coming up it is an additional reminder to us to keep up with our efforts and to continue to implement this in our classes no matter what our subject area is.  With some creative thinking there is ALWAYS a way to do this.  For the love of learning, what can you do to help with this? Here is something to use in a French language classroom to supplement your spring units and can be used as a springboard to that all important Earth discussion. 

 

 

Jour de la Terre

 

Bonne journée ! 

 Lorraine

 

 

 Why teach? - for the love of learning

----- Lorraine