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!
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