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Novel projects!

I often admired the wonderful projects that my colleagues who teach English used to receive from their students.  They showed so much thought and an amazing ability to present the inner soul of the books they would read.  Why not in French?  Perhaps one day I thought.  Well, I came across the most wonderful opportunity to do just that.  I currently have a group of students who came to my school with immersion background and with them also a creative side.  While studying novels by Jules Verne - L’île mystérieuse, and Le Tour du monde en 80 jours these students put together a variety of amazing projects.  I wanted to share a few with you! 

These 3 projects cover: Globe: Le Tour du monde en 80 jours depicting all of the stops that Phileas Fogg and Passepartout made on their journey around the world.
Cereal Box: a representation of the main characters and "Flocons de voyage" as the new cereal.  Cereal ingredients and a coupon were also included. 
Venn Diagram:  Comparison of Phileas Fogg, Passepartout and my student.  Similarities and differences in personalities.



If you are interested in any of these please visit my store for the following 3 products that I used as resources for this novel study.  :)

Giving Directions!

One of the best things my high school teacher taught us was how to give directions to someone in French!  In our tourist destination city thousands of people would visit each year.  For whatever reason, I always seemed to meet someone who was French during the summer and each time, they needed directions to a local restaurant, tourist site, or shopping area.  Merci Mme!!  This past week I did this very same thing for my students. We don't live in as large a city nor are there as many tourists flocking to our city but I remember how good it felt to help someone out.  My students took on the roles of "tourist" and "local" while practising with a "Montreal city map" and of course a list of vocabulary to help them out.  They would switch back and forth in the roles while I gave them "beginning locations" and "destinations".  Map skills are not as prevalent these days with our fancy GPSs but when travelling someone will invariably give you a PAPER MAP!  Have fun with this!  One of my products at my store includes vocabulary for this activity!  Check it out! :)

Giving Directions! - vocabulary included

Oral presentation notes!

My students are always asking me how much they are allowed to have written down as "helpers" when they are doing an oral presentation.  I give a variety of answers depending upon what kind of presentation it is. Sometimes it's only 10 words, sometimes it's partial sentences, or beginning of sentences only and sometimes it's fill in the blank type of sentences on a cue card.  Whatever my answer is it is always with the intention on providing a little bit of help while still challenging my students to do authentic speaking on the topic chosen!!  I have asked permission to share these recent notes from one of my French students. We have talked about language development in children and how we learned to speak English as children.  This student totally understood what I was talking about!!  Enjoy! 

A picture says a thousand words!  :) 

Un Coup du Sort - A board game!

Un Coup du Sort - French Board Game

"Un Coup du Sort" is a board game that I created to help students review the material in French 8 in Canada.  I wanted  to have something to use in my classroom that would challenge students to use a wide variety of material that they had learrned throughout the school year without "me" having to be "on stage". :) There are cards that you select when indicated on the individual spots as you go around the board. You can choose shortcuts to get to the end more quickly or go around the regular route.  If the students are not sure if they are answering the question correctly then they can have a look on the sheet I also made with sample answers. The student can see if what they were giving was a good replica of a suggested correct answer or not. In my classroom I had my board and all of my cards and suggested answers glued onto construction paper and then laminated so that they will last for a long time!!  The students are amazed at how much they have learned over time and have fun while doing a comprehensive review!

I also made a Version 2 to go along with a French 9 program.  Different sentence patterns and theme areas are covered in it. It is important to note that with different kinds of programs offered around the country that these games could be easily used at other grade levels than for which I use them.   :)

If you are interested in either of these games you can click on the links below:

Un Coup du Sort 

Un Coup du Sort - Version 2

Surrealism in the Classroom!

After teaching a unit on Belgium I also introduced surrealism art through the art of René Magritte the famous Belgian Surrealist artist.  We looked at a variety of pictures by Magritte and then I asked them to create their own piece of "surrealism".  This is the perfect opportunity for students to get cross-curricular credit from another course, mainly from Art or if you offer a segment of Art History this will also work.  This dual credit is of course negotiated with the Art teacher in advance.  The students that negotiated cross-curricular credit did large paintings in the Surrealism style.  They were extraordinary!  The student samples here are ones that were for my class alone.  Each student had to not only produce a piece of Surrealistic art but they also had to describe it using a wide variety of adjectives that we had learned and also use a specific number of "sentence patterns" that I had given to them.  I like to use "guided sentence patterns" in some of my activities as it forces the students to raise to a level that I desire them to write at.  It also helps to introduce a variety of sentence structures that they might not normally think about.  I was amazed and thrilled at the art and creativity that my students produced for me.  I did not mark their "art" but enjoyed immensely what they had produced.  It was a required component to the assignment and was considered a "given" to be done, but I gave the "graded marks" towards their French written piece.  On "presentation" day I used the inside/outside circle activity for students to share their work in French with each other!  Lots of fun!

mini video clips!

Pixar mini video clips are a perfect way to have students do either a creative writing or an oral activity by having them retell the story.  The most recent one I have used is one with a snowman in a snowglobe.  The video clip has little or no dialogue in it but has some music to go along with the "story".  The mini clip with the snowman is perfect for this time of year even if you don't happen to have snow where you live.  It has a wintery feel to it mixed in with a beachside vacation and of course a "girl" in a swimsuit.   After watching the short 2-3 minute video I asked the students to "tell me what was going to happen next"!  Their imaginations are not always pushed at a high school level but it is certainly fun to hear about what will happen to the snowman next!  :) 

Bonne Année! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  It's a new page for everyone; a fresh start to the year and a great way to welcome back your students!  I like to start with some simple things for the new year with my students such as "sorting their notebooks".  If your students are anything like mine or even my own children you will know that "Spring cleaning" needs to come much earlier than Spring and so cleaning out and reorganizing the notebook is a great start to the new year.  You  and your students may be surprised at what they find!  - work to be submitted?!  probably yes.  Remember to teach your students where they are at in their learning and your students will work at fulfilling your goals for them along with the goals they have made for themselves.  Happy Teaching! :)

Fun with graham wafers!

Each month the languages department in our school holds a multi-cultural seminar where we bring in students who study both French or Spanish to participate in an activity.  This month we wanted to do something a little bit different and so we held a 'monuments making' activity class.  We began by showing some prominent French and Spanish monuments or buildings such as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral in France.  The students created their own versions of the monuments out of milk carton bases, graham wafers, royal icing, jujubes, candies, mints, licorice, etc......  Here are just two of the creations that we are most proud of.  :)  The students are still talking about this activity and students from all over the school have heard about it and have come by our classroom to have a look! 

 

la Tour Eiffel

la Cathédrale de Notre Dame

Allons-nous à la plage?

Non!  We are not going to the beach but your students will have fun with this one!  This is a wonderful idea that I picked up at a conference just over a year ago now and have just had the opportunity to try it in my classroom this year.  For each unit that you teach, write a variety of questions about that unit on the beach ball.  When you're busy taking attendance and the students are waiting for you or when you have a few minutes at the end of class, toss the ball out into the audience.  Yes - to your students! :) When a student catches the ball he or she must answer the question wherever his thumbs are.  That means of course that your student has a choice of two questions but that's certainly ok! The student must first read the question aloud and then come up with an answer to the question in French, bien sûr! The students then take turns tossing the beach ball to each other.  If the same question comes up, that student must answer the question touching the other thumb!   :)