J'ai entendu dire que...

We just wrapped our unit on Amour et Amitié (Love & Friendship) in my split French 3/4, and I have to say, I am so far thrilled with the results. I administered an IPA for this unit, as opposed to a traditional test, and I have been very pleased with my students' performances. I combined Storytelling with the inclusion of more authentic resources and lots of in-class discussion. For more structured interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational activities, I used an IPA-style approach to prepare them for what to expect on the summative assessment.

One particular part of the unit that we had a lot of fun with was the gossip/rumor-telling portion. During that time, our targeted structure was J'ai entendu dire que... (I heard that...) as well as refining our use of indirect discourse. I started off using Martina Bex's idea for teaching the structure "Dijo" but instead of focusing on the structure "said" (which my students already know pretty well), I focused on starting off each rumor with "J'ai entendu dire que." The kids LOVED this activity and we kept it going for nearly the whole hour! Like Martina, I had a lot of "Person A likes Person B" but plenty of other very creative rumors, too - I think my favorite was "Mademoiselle actually prefers to speak Spanish." In any case, it was a great way to provide lots of Comprehensible Input for students, and have fun, too. I always love to hear kids say, "We didn't do anything in French class today." They have no idea what they've accomplished!

We also took this time to review how to officially "do" indirect discourse - they already knew, but as I have particular grammar points I am required to hit throughout the course of the year, I took this time to do some more explicit grammar instruction (very limited, however).

After that, I had prepared some questions for discussion, which the students prepared first in partners, and then shared with the whole group:

1. Have you ever told a rumor about a friend?
2. Has a friend ever told a rumor about you? How did you feel when you found out?
3. What kind of problems can rumors cause?
4. Are rumors a big part of our culture? How do you know?

I was fishing for a particular answer for number four, which the kids provided readily when they talked about America's obsession with celebrities, hollywood, tabloid magazines, etc. I used that as a jumping-off point for analyzing an article from the French version of Marie Claire, who had done a write-up on an interview that Carla Bruni had given, discussing her marriage to Nicolas Sarkozy and whether or not she believed he had ever been unfaithful to her, in response to the endless rumors about the two of them. The kids read the article in partners and did the IPA-style activities; this particular article was chock-full of our unit vocabulary, so they actually found it quite easy to read!

After they read, they completed the interpersonal portion of the activity, in which they discussed with a partner the various contexts in which they themselves have been part of the rumor mill, and whether or not there was any truth to things they had said or heard. They were also provided with a series of scenarios that they had to rank using adjectives like "scandalous" or "revolting" and be prepared to orally defend why they felt the way they did. It was interesting to hear their perspectives on what would be the most shocking to them - many reported that the president having an affair would not rock their world, but their favorite athlete taking drugs would be an enormous scandal/shock. Interesting!

Ultimately, this whole thing acted as a lead-in to our discussion of François Hollande and his big cheating scandal, as well as marriage and relationship conventions in France.

In any case, I am providing the link to the work I developed. I departed a little bit from the traditional IPA format and CI conventions by including a very brief grammar section to review the construction of indirect discourse - this can be easily omitted if that is your personal preference! I also do not have a presentational part included for this particular assignment - the students in my classes had to write a blog entry on the theme of rumors and their impact on others, but you could add something in of your own choosing.

Carla Bruni et les rumeurs

Whole-Group Listening Game: Combien de gens comprennent...?

I'm posting today a kinesthetic listening game that can also function well as a formative assessment or review for just about any classroom topic. The idea came from some of the English teachers at my school, who use this activity as a way to practice vocabulary definitions, but it can be easily adapted for use in the World Language classroom, as either a way to review singular vocabulary words, or target phrases/ideas from a story! It is also a good way to provide students with a lot of repetitions of structures, but keep them engaged at the same time.

How to play:
1. Divide the class into two big teams (or three, if you have really large classes. My max is 25.).

2. Provide the students on one of the team's with a word or a phrase in the Target Language. Say it loud enough so that the whole class can hear, but only one team gets to guess first. This can be done with singular vocabulary (Que veut dire, "il y avait" en anglais?) or with details from a story that have already been established. For example, in French 3 we have been practicing the subjunctive with Bryce Hedstrom's Introducing the subjunctive with a story script, so I might ask the students, "Où est-ce que Haley veut que Marcus aille?" knowing that the detail has already been established in class.

3. The students on the team who believe they can confidently answer the question stand up and the teacher randomly calls on one standing student for an answer. I have a set of index cards for each class that have every student's name on one card, so it really is a random "cold-call," if you will.

4. The student gives the answer in English, if doing a vocabulary check, or in the TL if providing a detail from the story. If he or she is correct, his or her team gets as many points as they had people standing up, claiming to know the correct answer. If the answer is incorrect, the OTHER team has the opportunity to steal and get as many points as they have people standing up, PLUS the number of people from the other team who had originally stood up.

This game has been a big hit in all of my classes so far. Sometimes, in the spirit of competition, kids will encourage their teammates to stand up even if they don't know the correct answer, but the fact that by standing up each person makes him or herself eligible to be called on for the answer has tended to keep them pretty accountable and honest.

I have had a few "social loafers" during this activity - you know, the kids who use the idea of a whole group activity to just sit there and do nothing/tune out - but a quick comprehension quiz at the end of the game put an end to that behavior fairly quickly when they did poorly on a "quiz" that I had already given them the answers to and would have been an easy A, had they just paid attention and participated.

Happy teaching - and have fun to all of you attending #ACTFL14! I am beyond jealous - I hope to join you all someday!

First Marking Period Favorites

Bonjour à tous!

Again with the blogging. I know, I know. This is a big year for me, however, as I am teaching a completely full class load of French 1-4, with no prep hour and a personal goal to stay true to proficiency-based/TCI methods in every class. It has certainly not been easy so far but I am already seeing wonderful growth in my students and am excited to see what this year holds.

As I continue to develop my own proficiency in teaching French, I hope this blog can serve as a place to collaborate with other educators and collect resources to better my instruction.

And as our first marking period winds to an end (seriously? Where did it go?), I thought I'd share a few of the resources that have been helpful to me so far this year.

First Marking Period Favorites

The Creative Language Class: Though most of the instructional resources are in Spanish, the ladies at Creative Language Class have created an incredible collection of tools for any language educator. The proficiency-based rubrics have been especially helpful so far this year, and I've been able to easily adapt them to my many levels of French. They provide students with a clear picture of where their proficiency currently stands and where they're headed as this year progresses.

Madame's Musings: A French-teacher resource blog! Be still, mon coeur. The IPA lesson "packages" that Madame Shepard has made available on her blog have completely changed my French III/IV split and have inspired me to incorporate many more IPA-style practices in my class to prepare them for the actual assessment. All of my reading and listening practices so far have been modeled after what Madame Shepard has done with hers, which are based on ACTFLs recommendations for the interpretive part of the Integrated Performance Assessments. Once we get to our first "big" assessment in November, I think my students are going to do very well.

Français Interactif: Long a favorite resource for French grammar practice, I never realized until just recently that the University of Texas-Austin's Français Interactif offers MUCH more than just grammar exercises. They have vocabulary lists, grammar review & practice, an authentic song for each unit with accompanying listening exercises, a cultural component for each unit, videos and audio samples of authentic French speakers and an "activité internet" that students can easily complete in-class or at home. Formidable!

EduBlogs: This year, my French III/IV students are blogging as way to improve their writing proficiency, in both the presentational and interpersonal modes! EduBlogs allows a teacher to create a class that students can then "join" - which gives the teacher complete access to EVERY student's blog. I can also customize the security settings so that I can moderate each post and comment before they go "live" and so that only members of our class can view the student blogs, making internet safety the least of my concerns with this assignment. It does cost, but it is nothing astronomical and I think the price is worth it for that peace of mind.

E-Pals.com: My French II students this year have the great fortune of having French pen-pals to correspond with! E-pals has been awesome so far; like EduBlogs, I can assign each student a unique and secure e-mail address to use for sending and receiving e-mails to their pen-pals. Can I just say that my students were absolutely OVER THE MOON the day they received their first letters? Also like EduBlogs, I have access to each student's mailbox and can monitor their outgoing and incoming e-mails, making security a virtual non-issue.

So that's a wrap on my first marking period favorites - if you have anything else to add that's been invaluable to you and your students so far, please feel free to share below!