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

A teacher to look at!

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share with you a teacher-author, Kimberly Geswein, who makes fonts 'extraordinaire'!  I don't know about you but I get tired of the regular fonts that come with our computer programs and enjoy trying out new ones!  

Kimberly has dozens of fonts at her Teachers pay Teachers store with catchy names that certainly must go along with a bubbly personality.  I haven't met her but the names of her fonts give light to much "love of life".  :) Her fonts are available to you for personal use at no cost.  She shares these with everyone!  So generous I must say.  For those of us who are a part of the Teachers pay Teachers teacher-authors community or for others who sell their work,  she requires a commercial license to be bought with each font you choose to use.  So, for example, if I choose to use the font "Set Fire to the Rain", I can buy a single font license OR IF I find that I am going to use many of her fonts there is also an All Fonts license which will cover all of the fonts that she makes.  Additionally, the license you buy for a font is not for a single use but for a single font. So, I can use a "loved" font more than once and not need to buy a second license. My purchases have been well worth it!!  

For those of you who teach World Languages and who are wondering about the "accents".  Yes!!  Several - not all -- but several of her fonts include accents to cover 80+ languages.  This makes our classroom work look so much better and we do not need to worry about adding accents by hand.  :) 

The fonts that I like that have accents for me to use are:

KG Alphabet Regurgitation, KG Already Home, KG I Want Crazy, KG Hard Candy Solid, KG Hard Candy Striped, and Covered By Your Grace.

Additionally, for those of you who are like me and really don't know how to put different fonts together in terms of what looks good, download Kimberly's Font Tips - Pairing Guide!  It not only tells you the tips but shows you examples.  Very helpful!

So, while you are working so diligently at getting ready for school to start - or perhaps you have already started and are busy with your beginning of the school year activities, keep Kimberly Geswein Fonts in mind. You will be pleasantly surprised and impressed as was I!

   

Here's a link to her store:  KG Fonts

Happy Teaching everyone!  Lorraine

More ebook links to free resources and teaching tips!

Here are more TpT ebook links to help you find new resources for your classroom!

All links for the 2015-2016 Back to School Year:

Back to School Math ebook Grades 7-12

Back to School Science ebook Grades 7-12

Back to School English ebook Grades 7-12

Back to School Social Studies, Foreign Languages ebook Grades 7-12

Back to School ebook Grades 1 and 2

Back to School ebook Grades 3 and 4

Back to School ebook Grades 5 and 6

Enjoy!  Each teacher's page includes a free product for you!  Each teacher's page includes a Back to School Teaching Tip!

Lorraine

 

Secondary ebook! - French and Spanish resources included!

Hi everyone!  The 3rd ebook has just been compiled and published to celebrate 36 TpT teacher-authors at the Grade 7-12 Secondary Level of this subject area category! 

Each teacher-author has offered you a FREEBIE from his or her store along with a BACK TO SCHOOL teacher TIP!  Also included are resources for French, Spanish, Social Studies, Special Education, Art and more!  Click below to download the Free ebook!  There are many resources! I will also include the links for the other ebooks that are included covering the other subject areas and elementary education.  But for now, here is Secondary 7-12 with the subject areas listed above. Enjoy!

                                                    Back to School ebook!! Grades 7-12

More ebooks to come!! Happy teaching! Lorraine