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 !

 

 

How do you promote French speaking?

 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!

 

Activités orales

 

Here's a freebie for you too!  

Have a great day! Lorraine

 

Do you play games?

 

 Hi everyone! Do you have the same strategy each year for helping your students prepare for the end of the year exams or oral presentations? We aren't at that point yet where I live but I know that some of the US schools finish much earlier and so they are thinking about this now! 

I think that review at the end of the year is a very stressful time for everyone, and especially for the teachers. You count the weeks until the end of classes or until exams begin. You look at the concepts you still need to cover so that your kids are ready for the next school year and unfortunately the list goes on. I know it does, because I lived it for many years!  Now retired and happy to be that way, I LOVED teaching. There’s something about it that once in your blood, it is there to stay! That doesn't mean that I didn't suffer from some of the things above and especially feeling just a bit too tired in the morning to really want to get to work.

 

One of my favourite ways to review with my high school students was to play games. Any kind of game I could find, I would try to put into a category that I could use. I truly believe that learning happens and that knowledge solidifies when having fun.  It also allows the struggling students to feel success and not feel like everyone is looking at them by having a hand up in the air or more likely when being called upon to answer. 

 

So what concepts do your students not like to review? Probably verbs for one but there are many more concepts that need to be practised and reviewed.

So, my suggestion to you today is to play a game, have fun and help your kids review.  Here are some Games

 

Happy Earth Day on Saturday!  Have a great day!

À bientôt!

 

Lorraine

 

              Here's a freebie for you!

For the love of learning - Earth Day

I first would like to give a huge shout out and thank you to the numerous educators in the elementary school system who brought to light the need for recycling and caring for our planet with our children when they were young. Yes, that was some years ago now but it brings me back to my comment of “for the love of learning” in a previous post.  Much earlier in our quest to “save our planet” my one child came home and started to give me lessons on what we needed to do as a family to help with this venture.  Yes! From her explanations and “teachings” it was going to be for the long haul (which of course it continues today).  She started with teaching us how to recycle and as extensive as our recycling program is here in our community, her lessons were to the point!  Still to this day while she is grown and living elsewhere I can hear her little voice in my head about what needs to be done. I am thankful for the wonderful set of skills that was instilled in her. With Earth Day coming up it is an additional reminder to us to keep up with our efforts and to continue to implement this in our classes no matter what our subject area is.  With some creative thinking there is ALWAYS a way to do this.  For the love of learning, what can you do to help with this? Here is something to use in a French language classroom to supplement your spring units and can be used as a springboard to that all important Earth discussion. 

 

 

Jour de la Terre

 

Bonne journée ! 

 Lorraine

 

 

 Why teach? - for the love of learning

----- Lorraine

A holiday wish!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

 Enjoy some well deserved time with family and friends this holiday season.

 Best wishes from Lorraine

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American neighbours and friends!

Get Kahoot!

Generally speaking, each summer I look for a new "special" activity, game, idea, etc. that I can use in my classroom for the following school year.  This fall I discovered "Kahoot" a wonderful on-line method for students to play games or do review activities while using their handheld devices or laptops.  Having students engaged in learning is always important and where often using a student's cellphone is a "no no" this allows the students to use them in an educational way. 

To start you need to set up a "free" account for yourself at:  https://getkahoot.com/ 

You can either explore the thousands of 'shared' games that other people have made and use these in your classroom or make up your own to use.  This way your games or reviews can be subject specific.  I have made some for my French 8 classes to review the new concepts. Even the quietest of students can participate without anyone knowing if they get the answers correct or not.  There is always a running list of who are the "top leaders" of the game and students can create their own "fictitious names" to hide their identities if they wish to remain anonymous.  My colleagues and I also make games to review movies that we have watched in class and now one of the most recent ones is one about Christmas.  === all of these are of course in French for us. With a multiple choice format or true/false you can either write questions, do fill-in-the-blanks or even link questions to pictures.  This is particularly great for vocabulary review. 

The questions will appear on the large screen (connected to a projector) and then the possible answers.  You program in the correct answer when you make up the quiz/review.  The answers will not show up on the students' devices but instead will be red, blue, yellow or green squares with shapes on each of them.  The shapes are particularly good as it allows for students who may be colour blind. The faster the students answer the questions, the more points they will earn.  You can also set the amount of time allowed for choosing the correct answer.  I like to use 20 seconds.  The funky music plays in the background so be sure to hook your projector up to a speaker via your laptop. The countdown will also appear on the screen. You can use this as review by pausing after each question and discussing the correct answer choice with the class.  --- a great learning tool!  Check it out!

Happy Teaching!! Lorraine