Moving away from script to "real" speech

How can you help students move from writing French scripts to doing true French oral production?

It is so easy for students to use an on-line translation site to assist them in creating their "speech" but certainly detrimental to their development in so many ways!  As the difficulty level increases while learning a second language so does the difficulty for students to create conversations without the use of "written aids".  When you ask a question students seem to immediately want to pick up a pen and write an answer down!!  Crazy but true! It's a comfort mechanism for them which if not curtailed can hinder their speech development.  HOWEVER, I believe that there's nothing wrong with students being able to jot down ideas or words to help them out. 

My beginner's class will soon be putting together a presentation to tell me about their likes and dislikes in terms of food, beverages, leisure activities, and school subjects along with information about themselves, their families, and pets. We have been working with -er verbs, one and two verb sentences, avoir expressions, partitive articles, idiomatic expressions and preferences.  This is an awful lot for them to remember and use!  We have been practising for two months now and soon they will show me what they have learned.  I know that this will be very scarey for some of them, but I also know that they will be able to manage their presentations with a little help.  So, today, I showed them exactly how to do this.

Using PowerPoint or Word or a cut and paste picture they will make a "slide" or "mini-poster" with a picture on it with a couple of words included.  They are "prompts" to help them put together a sentence or sentences of their choice.
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mon chien - 14 ans - le ballon
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Students can create many sentences from the above bits of information:

Voici mon chien, Bear.
Il s'appelle Bear.
J'ai un chien.
Il a 14 ans.
Il est brun et blanc.
Il aime jouer avec mon ballon.
Il aime jouer.
Il dort.
Il préfère dormir. Il n'aime pas jouer avec le ballon.
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With a little bit of persistence and much modelling and scaffolding your students will be amazed at how much they can actually say!!!  :)  Have fun with this!  After all, everyone wants to be able to speak their new language!

I love my job!

It's days like the day I had on Halloween with my students that I just want to shout "I love my job"!!

How much better can a job be than to have a day like this one?  Yes, there are some days that are difficult and tiring but luckily more days are wonderful than difficult.  So, what was it that made it so wonderful?? Well, it was a day where hard work just seemed to pay off; where my students were engaged and having a great time while working on their French.  Students were extra happy and teachers relaxed and all dressed for Halloween.  (me included)

I must also thank TpT for a most amazing product by Arik Durfee called Frankenstein's Monster - a PowerPoint Review game. This product designed with the Frankenstein theme with background sounds and music has been designed in such a way that it can be used in many subject areas.  It was perfect for Halloween.  So, I decided to put together a review game for my French 10 students.  With 4 categories available in the design, we were able to review "passe compose", "imparfait", the pronom "en", and "la Belgique".  Students worked in teams at their tables, many dressed up for Halloween and collaborated on the answers to the multiple choice questions that I designed. 

In between the bonus rounds there were "special questions" where students could earn extra points or in my case "un bonbon" for a special question for the first student who was able to answer it.  Students turned lights on and off, sharpened pencils, stood up and down, clapped their hands, patted their heads and said "bonjour" to their neighbours.  - all for an extra treat. 

I will definitely tuck this gem away for another year!  I will create more versions of this game for my other grade levels and will stock up on bonbons.  "un gros merci" to Arik!  :)

Need to get your students involved?

Do you need to get your students involved?  You want them to be truly engaged in their work?

My best suggestion to you is for YOU TO GET INVOLVED TOO!!  There is nothing more exciting for the students than to see their subject teacher participating in the activity along with them. 

Remember how great you felt when your PE teacher would run with you in your class?  (My hat comes off to those teachers who can manage to participate with 8 classes!!!!) 

Participation in the second language classroom is no different!  When you are doing an oral activity with your students, get in there with them!!  Be a full participant.  Not only do you get to hear your students and are able to help them out along the way, but you are seen as not only a teacher who gets involved but your students will be able to see the "language" in action! 

Market place activities are perfect for this and so are the inside/outside circle activities!  Have fun and "parlez"!  :)

And we begin again! :)

Wow! Where did the time go?  I had no idea that it had been so long since my last post!  My deepest apologies to all who follow my blog.

June in our school is extremely important with many oral evaluations being done to see how our students have progressed in their language learning.  This is indeed time consuming but very very worthwhile. 

Have you ever heard your students tell you that they can't say anything in your target language?  That day is not one that you want to hear!  Our department goal for our students this year is to truly work on the oral speaking component of our subject area and to reinforce to our students that they do indeed know a great deal and that with a little bit of effort they can prove it to themselves! :) 

How do you get 30+ students in a class to practise enough?  One of my ways is to do "market place".  I have a couple of different versions of this at my store with varying topics.  They are not long activities but give the students the opportunities to get out of their seats and speak with other students in the class with a focus on a specific topic or language component.

Another favorite of mine is the round table oral activity.  This can be done with any topic that you are working with! My younger students are learning to talk about themselves.  We started with very basic questions and learned and reviewed the information needed to answer these questions.  By the end of September I am going to show these students just how much they can say about themselves only after the first month of classes!   The round table activity allows students to practise these questions.  Student #1 asks the person to their right a question.  Student #2 answers the question.  He then turns to student #3 and asks a different question.  Students #3 answers it and then turns to student #4 to ask another different question.  Each student continues to do this until they have asked and answered all of the target questions.  Brainstorming the questions before beginning the activity further solidifies their knowledge! 

Have fun with this!!  Students will learn more about each other while practising their speaking skills!