How to make your students feel welcome!

Is your school back in session soon?

One of the biggest things about going back to school is setting up and organizing your classroom. It’s so important to have the students walk into a welcoming classroom when they arrive in August or September. Spending a whole week before the doors open to the students has always been a busy week for many educators who do just that.

 

If you are brand new to a school, to a grade level or are teaching a new subject you may not know many or any of the students who walk through those classroom doors. So, how do you deal with that?  

 

You could start with an alphabetical seating plan but there are no guarantees that that is going to work! I remember these 2 lovely twins who switched desks and names on me just as I was trying to figure out who is who. Luckily, I caught onto it pretty quickly as I’m married to a twin and they used to play those little tricks while in school. 

 

I liked to get involved with the lessons and participate with the students during those first few lessons. It gives the students a chance to see me “in action” and I got to learn some names along the way. I have always believed that the better you know your students the easier the lessons are when you get down to business.  Classroom management is also much easier! For classroom décor, check out my free classroom posters series in my store. They will help with vocabulary and add some colour to your walls. 

 

Click here to see the classroom decor posters: 

 

French only version

 

French & English version

 

We speak French here posters 

 

Here is one of the resources that I have to help make students get to know one another and feel more comfortable when doing French speaking work at the beginning of the school year or semester. Have a look! You can use it for a variety of grade and ability levels!  This is one of those great activities to do along with your students while you are getting to know them!

ORAL TASK CARDS - CLICK HERE !

Have a great day everyone!  Bonne journée!

Lorraine

Which sites or monuments of France?

There are so many beautiful attractions in France to explore and if you aren’t able to be there in person, here is a resources bundle that I’ve put together to help your students to explore these places virtually!

 

Have you seen this?

 

At the moment this bundle includes 3 France attractions: la tour Eiffel, le Château de Versailles and le musée d’Orsay.  Within the next few months there will be more attractions included in this bundle.  You won’t want to miss out on this, as the cost of the BUNDLE will not remain the same and will increase each time I add another resource to the France attractions bundle.

 

Put this on your list, get it soon and add it to your next year’s teaching resources list!

 

CLICK HERE:  France Attractions Resource

 

 Here's something else to add to your resources!

 

         CLICK HERE FOR A FRENCH FREEBIE !

 

Have a great day! Thank you for all that you do!

 

Lorraine

 

Is it meatless Monday?

While on a regular basis we see advertised that we should try to lower the amount of meat we are eating by having “meatless Mondays” I like to encourage instead “French Fridays” for the classroom! 

 

How does this work?  Doing a reward system works really well at all grade levels.  And the reward doesn’t need to be something huge either; usually just a change in routine which feels like a reward in itself and an easier way to get through that Friday class!

 

So. The goal for French Fridays is exactly what it sounds like.  For all French classes that you have on Friday everyone is required to speak only French during that class.  Perhaps you already require that in your classrooms but for more beginner classes it is an added incentive to language learning. Often, however, students really need to ask questions about a “grammar concept”, for example, in English in order to fully understand how the grammar point works so while your goal is to have everyone only speak French all the time, this doesn’t always occur. 

 

For French Fridays, divide your class up into 2 teams. The left-hand side of the class and the right-hand side of the class is easiest. If you don’t use a seating plan create one for only Fridays. Choose a student to tally the French responses on each side of the class for that day. They can use the chalkboard/whiteboard or a piece of paper but using the board creates added incentive and interest.  For 3 classes of the month the tallies are recorded and then on the 4th Friday, it is reward day! Have a couple of things put aside for rewards for this day. 

 

Here are some examples:  

 

      French movie day – It is good to have a couple put aside and have the winning team choose which movie the week prior to movie day so that you can set it all up ahead of time and NOT as they walk into your class.  I have even provided popcorn now and again. Clean up RULES must be set in advance!

 

      French game day – This does not need to be teacher directed necessarily although if LOTO is chosen you might want to be the caller. French game day could be ‘BOARD GAME DAY’ where you set up a board game at a number of work stations around the room and the students choose one to play. 4-5 players per game is really the ideal number you would want to have at a board. If you don’t have enough board games to keep your game at 4-5 players though, have your students play in pairs as partners! 

 

      French “catch up” day – Not all students are always on top of their homework in French or the activities that are coming due shortly.   They have added responsibilities at home, have part-time jobs, etc.  During one of these days, introduce a project that the students who are on track can start to work on. The winning team from the previous week gets to choose which project will be done, so it’s good to have a couple available for them to choose from AS A GROUP. It’s not necessary to have 2 projects going at the same time.

 

      French project day – As mentioned in the above suggestion, the winning team would choose the next French project to do. Introduce it on the Friday and allow your students to give it a start. It’s something interesting and not necessarily teacher directed which gives your students more freedom to work on their own and do as much as they like AND WHAT part of the project they would like to do during that Friday class. 

 

Always have your rewards French-related with your curriculum. Board games are curriculum oriented in that they tie into Speaking & reading comprehension, movies are listening comprehension and catch up days are more general. Projects are sentence structures development and culture based. And as a side note: Have a fun vocabulary worksheet ready to go for movies that end before the end of the class. There’s nothing worse I think than a class on a Friday that unravels for 15 minutes! 

 

Here are a few resources that can help with some of the suggestions above. I hope you will do French Fridays and have fun with it! It’s great for promoting more French speaking AND helps with classroom management too!

 

    CLICK HERE for BOARD GAME

 

 

    CLICK HERE for Carnaval de Quebec BOARD GAME

 

 

    CLICK HERE for COUNTRY PROJECTS

 

 

    CLICK HERE for FUN Word Scrambles

 

 

CLICK HERE FOR A FREE RESOURCE!  

Have a great day! 

 

Lorraine

 

 

 

 

It's Fathers Day!

Hi everyone! I just want to wish everyone who is a father or a father figure to someone a "Happy Fathers Day"!  I think dads often are not appreciated as much as they should be and so I want to give the all important shout out to all those dads out there who are doing their very best every day to set good role model examples for their youngsters - and I don't mean only youngsters that are kids.

 

So, Happy Fathers Day to all of you!  Have a great weekend!

 

Lorraine

Do you have a summer project?

Do you choose a “project” or “mini project” to do over the summer to help you prepare for the following school year? I have always found this to be most beneficial because once school starts up there are so many things to do that some of the culture and engaging activities I really want to do just don’t get done because there isn’t enough time to prepare them! Marking gets in the way, and so does the weekly lesson planning and those are only a couple of the challenges. 

 

So this week in my blog I want to share with you some of those types of projects that can be done at a leisurely pace while kicking back and enjoying your time off! You will then reap the benefits of having them ready whenever you choose to put them into action during the school year.

 

These will save you hours of researching, planning and prepping and will be an excellent addition to your lessons.

 

This first one is great for a variety of grade levels! It’s a seasonal product during the winter and highlights the Carnaval de Québec in February. This hands on matching game is perfect for end of the day activities, as a springboard activity to begin your Carnaval unit or to use as a celebratory game when the students have explored Carnaval during your winter carnival unit! Save yourself hours of looking for photos and making French game cards with vocabulary appropriate to the pictures with this resource at my TPT store! 

 

 CLICK HERE ----   Carnaval de Québec matching game 

Other matching games that follow the above format can be found here:

 CLICK HERE ----   Paris matching game

 CLICK HERE ----  Weather matching game

 CLICK HERE ----  School Objects matching game

 

The next mini project is ideal for building community in your classroom at the beginning of the school year or semester!  There are 75 oral task cards to use and you can divide them up into “themes” if you wish in order to use them over several classes or in different grade levels.  They could also be used in small group situations if you feel that having your full class move around the room at the same time is not something that you feel comfortable with.  With the extra time of the summer, you will have time to divide the cards up efficiently and choose which ones to use first! My students have always enjoyed these cards!

 

 CLICK HERE --- French Oral task cards

The last one I’d like to share with you is a French inventors’ project!  This is a great way to introduce famous people to your students from a variety of countries.  It is also a great way for your students to either work as individuals or in pairs – again to build community. With a presentation at the end you will get an opportunity to do some impromptu formative evaluation of your students to better gauge what lessons and work needs to be done in your lessons by seeing their ability levels while doing this project. Whether you want to specify grammatical structures to be used in the project is definitely up to you.

 

  CLICK HERE ----  French inventors project

 

I hope you will find one of these projects can fit into your summer schedule.

 

Have a great day! Bonne journée !

 

Lorraine

 

                  Here's a freebie for you!

How to use the zipper

 

So, you are probably quite confused with the title of this post. We all know how to use a zipper, right? 

 

Well, I've decided to tell you a bit more about my favourite ways to promote French speaking in the classroom. I’ll keep it a little shorter this time. This activity is called The zipper.  It works very much like the “onion – inside/outside circle” activity previously talked about in my blog post of May 2. However, you do not need to move your furniture around to make space for it and we used to often step into the hallway of the school in order to do this one.  Or on a nice day, we’d step outside our school doors onto the entrance sidewalk which was beside our classroom as a change of pace. How does this work you are thinking? You need to start with some kind of guided question/answer activity. For better success with your students, allow a sheet of paper with questions and possible answers on them. As you probably have already gathered, I’m a big supporter of one-page question prompts that are theme or grammar concept based.  So, with 10 questions in hand the students line up with a partner facing each other in 2 lines, like a zipper. Again, like the onion, only one line moves. One line of students asks one of the questions first and the other student answers it. Then, immediately the partner student asks a different question and the first student answers it. When it appears that most of the students have had an opportunity to do so on both sides, call “zipper” . The moving line moves one place to the right and the student at the top end of the zipper walks to the other end of the zipper to join in again. Repeat! 

 

We often did this activity around the perimeter of the classroom. It is great for students to be able to get out of their seats and stretch their legs while still having a "controlled scenario" for you. If you have an odd number of students in your class on that day, jump into line with your students! You then get the opportunity to help, correct and praise one on one with a good number of your students within a short amount of time. To make the activity a little more challenging have your students ask the questions "out of order". This forces your students to listen carefully to the question being asked instead of "Oh now it's question number 4", for example. 

Have fun with this!  

Lorraine

 

                  Here's a freebie for you!

How to plan a French 7 course meal

 

Have you ever had a 7 course meal or even served one?

 

Well, traditionally the French could have a 7 course meal in a fancy restaurant and there are strict traditions to planning and serving one.  An entrée is not the main dish like it is here in North America so right from the start North Americans need to change their mindset around that expression.  This is something you will need to clarify with your students when doing a unit about la nourriture in your classes. 

 

There are other strict rules, if you would like to call them that, about serving this elaborate menu. You would serve the cold dishes before the hot; fish is served before the heavier meats. Savory foods come before sweet foods and the table must be cleared before any dessert is served. And goodness, never have coffee before your meal.  

 

The French like to use many of the dishes to cleanse the palate before introducing the next dish. Meals are never meant to be eaten standing up and the main meal of the day is always the midday meal. The larger meal of the day is very common among European countries. 

 

You may know these French dishes but do your students?

Salade Piémontaise

Quiche Lorraine   

Cantal

Tomme de chèvre    

Comté

Profiteroles   

Tartifiette

Ratatouille   

Quenelles de brochet 

Sole meunière   

Canapés

Roquefort   

Salade Lyonnaise

Steak-frites     

Pissaladièr

Pot-au-feu   

Flamiche  

 

And are any of these served as an entrée? 

 

Modern day French do not eat 7 course meals on a daily basis and save them for special occasions or when eating out at a fancy restaurant.

 

All of these traditions are why I have created a resource to use with a French food unit!  It is a FREEBIE for you. If you are interested, you can get it here!  

 

 

                            CLICK HERE to grab this FREEBIE !

 

Enjoy! Lorraine

 

 

 

 

How to encourage creativity?:

When our children were growing up they loved to create things. It changed as the years went by. Sometimes it was a drawing, or a fortune teller that their teacher had introduced to them, while other times it was an immense lego blocks creation. We still have some “creations” around our house that made an impact on our children and in turn on us.  You may hear that children believe they aren’t creative but all students have different ability levels and also different levels of creativity. What is most important though is to continue to promote that creativity. You just never know what project or activity you ask your students to do that will spark a future “great interest”! We don’t know what that project will be or even the lesson that we deliver might be but continue to be as creative as you can and promote creativity in your class. It doesn’t matter what grade level you teach, just create! 

 

Make projects that require your students to go beyond the books in your class. Explore the internet to retrieve information or talk to people in the community to expand your students’ worlds.  A simple poem read in class could spark a world of cinematography in the future. I’ve used the poems of Jacques Prévert to expand students’ knowledge, French skills, and creativity. Often “open ended” projects turn out to be the most amazing pieces of student work! A couple of my students took the poem “Déjeuner du matin” by Jacques Prévert and created a video of the poem with a voice over in French.  The emotion that they were able to portray in the video was exemplary and is a piece of student work that will always be in the back of my mind. Creativity is personal. 

 

These are a couple of projects that I have made that will promote creativity for your students too!

 

    

 

French Inventors Projects

 

  

French Country Projects

 

 

Create and have fun! Create and shine! 

 

Lorraine

                        Here's a freebie for you!

 

 

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!