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!  :)