How to use the zipper

 

So, you are probably quite confused with the title of this post. We all know how to use a zipper, right? 

 

Well, I've decided to tell you a bit more about my favourite ways to promote French speaking in the classroom. I’ll keep it a little shorter this time. This activity is called The zipper.  It works very much like the “onion – inside/outside circle” activity previously talked about in my blog post of May 2. However, you do not need to move your furniture around to make space for it and we used to often step into the hallway of the school in order to do this one.  Or on a nice day, we’d step outside our school doors onto the entrance sidewalk which was beside our classroom as a change of pace. How does this work you are thinking? You need to start with some kind of guided question/answer activity. For better success with your students, allow a sheet of paper with questions and possible answers on them. As you probably have already gathered, I’m a big supporter of one-page question prompts that are theme or grammar concept based.  So, with 10 questions in hand the students line up with a partner facing each other in 2 lines, like a zipper. Again, like the onion, only one line moves. One line of students asks one of the questions first and the other student answers it. Then, immediately the partner student asks a different question and the first student answers it. When it appears that most of the students have had an opportunity to do so on both sides, call “zipper” . The moving line moves one place to the right and the student at the top end of the zipper walks to the other end of the zipper to join in again. Repeat! 

 

We often did this activity around the perimeter of the classroom. It is great for students to be able to get out of their seats and stretch their legs while still having a "controlled scenario" for you. If you have an odd number of students in your class on that day, jump into line with your students! You then get the opportunity to help, correct and praise one on one with a good number of your students within a short amount of time. To make the activity a little more challenging have your students ask the questions "out of order". This forces your students to listen carefully to the question being asked instead of "Oh now it's question number 4", for example. 

Have fun with this!  

Lorraine

 

                  Here's a freebie for you!

How to plan a French 7 course meal

 

Have you ever had a 7 course meal or even served one?

 

Well, traditionally the French could have a 7 course meal in a fancy restaurant and there are strict traditions to planning and serving one.  An entrée is not the main dish like it is here in North America so right from the start North Americans need to change their mindset around that expression.  This is something you will need to clarify with your students when doing a unit about la nourriture in your classes. 

 

There are other strict rules, if you would like to call them that, about serving this elaborate menu. You would serve the cold dishes before the hot; fish is served before the heavier meats. Savory foods come before sweet foods and the table must be cleared before any dessert is served. And goodness, never have coffee before your meal.  

 

The French like to use many of the dishes to cleanse the palate before introducing the next dish. Meals are never meant to be eaten standing up and the main meal of the day is always the midday meal. The larger meal of the day is very common among European countries. 

 

You may know these French dishes but do your students?

Salade Piémontaise

Quiche Lorraine   

Cantal

Tomme de chèvre    

Comté

Profiteroles   

Tartifiette

Ratatouille   

Quenelles de brochet 

Sole meunière   

Canapés

Roquefort   

Salade Lyonnaise

Steak-frites     

Pissaladièr

Pot-au-feu   

Flamiche  

 

And are any of these served as an entrée? 

 

Modern day French do not eat 7 course meals on a daily basis and save them for special occasions or when eating out at a fancy restaurant.

 

All of these traditions are why I have created a resource to use with a French food unit!  It is a FREEBIE for you. If you are interested, you can get it here!  

 

 

                            CLICK HERE to grab this FREEBIE !

 

Enjoy! Lorraine

 

 

 

 

How to encourage creativity?:

When our children were growing up they loved to create things. It changed as the years went by. Sometimes it was a drawing, or a fortune teller that their teacher had introduced to them, while other times it was an immense lego blocks creation. We still have some “creations” around our house that made an impact on our children and in turn on us.  You may hear that children believe they aren’t creative but all students have different ability levels and also different levels of creativity. What is most important though is to continue to promote that creativity. You just never know what project or activity you ask your students to do that will spark a future “great interest”! We don’t know what that project will be or even the lesson that we deliver might be but continue to be as creative as you can and promote creativity in your class. It doesn’t matter what grade level you teach, just create! 

 

Make projects that require your students to go beyond the books in your class. Explore the internet to retrieve information or talk to people in the community to expand your students’ worlds.  A simple poem read in class could spark a world of cinematography in the future. I’ve used the poems of Jacques Prévert to expand students’ knowledge, French skills, and creativity. Often “open ended” projects turn out to be the most amazing pieces of student work! A couple of my students took the poem “Déjeuner du matin” by Jacques Prévert and created a video of the poem with a voice over in French.  The emotion that they were able to portray in the video was exemplary and is a piece of student work that will always be in the back of my mind. Creativity is personal. 

 

These are a couple of projects that I have made that will promote creativity for your students too!

 

    

 

French Inventors Projects

 

  

French Country Projects

 

 

Create and have fun! Create and shine! 

 

Lorraine

                        Here's a freebie for you!

 

 

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there and to all those who are the mother figures to someone! Be extra kind today. Celebrate your mom. 

Lorraine

More ways to promote French speaking

Now that the prep is done for your students to present or participate in an oral French activity how is it going to play out in the class?

 

I always had a few favourite ways to promote and practice French speaking in my classes.  As a language teacher I always had to remind myself and OTHERS that a noisy classroom does not mean an unruly one when it comes to a Second language class. Many times someone would wander into the class and find that my students were busy at work when they thought things were a little out of control from the buzz down the hallway. Luckily for the languages teachers, we had a cluster of rooms at the end of a hallway where the buzz was NORMAL. I will share 2 of them with you here.

 

Let’s start with the Marketplace activity. This one is great for a class that needs to be moving around. It’s particularly good for junior high school where the students are fidgety if they are required to sit for too long. Using themed topics like a grammar concept that you have been working on works really well. Using a one-sided worksheet, there are often 4-5 questions at the top half of the page. Then, a “final” question is one that the students make up on their own. It’s good to have them write this one on the worksheet before the activity begins. For a “limited” amount of time, say 15-20 minutes the students stand up and circulate around the room asking each other the questions.  On the bottom half of the worksheet is an answer table where the students write the question down, the name of the person who gave them the answer and the answer itself.  If sitting at tables, be sure to tell the students that they can only ask one of those students at the same table a question. They must circulate around the room and ask 5-6 different classmates.  Upon completion, they submit the sheets and you can randomly ask questions to individuals in the class. It’s a quick check to see if they actually answered the questions! 

 

Next, is the onion!  Yes, I agree it’s a strange name but my students always knew what I was referring to when I said we were going to do an onion activity. Other teachers call it the “inside/outside circle” activity. This works best if you have an even number of students in the class BUT when there’s an odd number of students YOU get to play too! Open space will need to be made in the middle of the class. 2 circles of chairs are to be placed in a circle, one circle facing the outside of the classroom and the other circle faces towards the inside of the circle. Basically, there are pairs of chairs facing each other in a circle where the students can sit.  The topic for this one really can be anything you are working on. Use a one-sided sheet of questions. 10 is a good number where there is also a line on which students can write their answers down OR they can write down a possible answer BEFORE the activity begins. The students each have their sheet of questions (and possible answers that they did for homework maybe) with them. The students who sit in the middle circle DO NOT MOVE. The students who sit in the outer circle will move to their right when you call ‘L’OIGNON ‘. Since the “answers written down” are only possible answers, no writing takes place during the activity and you can do this activity easily for 20-25 minutes with older students and there is little movement in the class. Each time the outer circle of students move, the inner circle of students asks a different question. The question does not have to be in the order that is on the sheet. It’s a random draw of questions but if all students have done their prep they should have some kind of answer in their heads or on their questions sheet in front of them. To add a greater complexity to the activity, have the students giving the answers, close their sheets in half so they can only see half of the sheet. (vertically adds variety as they can only see the first half of the questions AND answers). Half way through your planned “time” for the activity switch the roles of the students. Now the outer circle that is moving will be asking the questions. Practice of listening and speaking skills for everyone. 

 

I always loved being able to participate because then I had greater opportunity to help correct errors, pronunciation or just give HELP in general. It’s also a great way for you to do some formative evaluation and have a better idea what you still need to work on with your students. 

 

Have fun with these!

 

Lorraine

 

 

 

 Market place #2 activities

les masques - onion type activity  

 

 

 

                      Here's a freebie for you!

Do you like interesting resources?

 

I SURE DO! I’m always looking for interesting ideas and resources that can be done in the languages classroom. I recently discovered that Teacher Gameroom does some really interesting game templates that can be developed for many subject areas. You just need to use a little bit of imagination and choose a concept area. 

 

I have recently made up 2 new resources that I wish I had had to use. The first one is about the traditional French meal; the fancy one you would find at a restaurant. Or it could be the one served on special occasions in a French home with guests coming over. – the 7 course meal!  Most students know about escargots and some cheeses like brie and camembert but there are so many French dishes that are served that they aren’t familiar with and in North America they get a bit confused when you talk about “l’entrée” at the meal.  Here, we consider it to be the main dish of the meal so it takes them a bit to wrap their heads around the fact that it isn’t the same in France. So this research based internet activity that I have created helps students categorize a wide variety of French dishes into l’entrée, l’amuse-bouche, le plat principal, le dessert, etc.  They get to learn about many different dishes and then as a finishing activity create their own restaurant menu from the dishes they have learned about.  It is great for individual work or in pairs, whichever suits you and works best for your classes.  - It is also a FREEBIE for you – my gift

 

I hope you like it!   I’ll fill you in on the second resource in another blog post! 

 

Lorraine

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREEBIE !