Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Volleyball Reading

I love to read and was a voracious reader throughout my childhood and adolescence. Unfortunately, most of my students don't seem to share the same interest in reading as I did when I was their age (which wasn't all that long ago!). Since many of them dislike reading in English, getting them enthusiastic about reading in French is no easy task!

I do my best to make the actual process of reading more fun for my students and I often read to them to provide them with input that is both comprehensible and accurate. From time to time I like to take the heat off of myself and have the students do the reading - but I also don't want to have to worry about students making comprehension errors when I step back, which means that I would have to work double-hard to undo something that had been cemented into their heads incorrectly.

Wikimedia Commons

Enter...volleyball. It's a technique I picked up a couple of years ago at a TPRS Workshop and it is probably my students' favorite reading strategy. It works best with smaller chunks of text at a time - say, an Embedded/Extended Reading or perhaps 1-2 pages of a chapter in a novel - and it provides students with LOTS of repetition and CI (provided that the text you pick is comprehensible)!

First, the students and I read through the text together; I give them the French, and they respond together in unison with the English translation, line per line. This is what helps to provide comprehensibility. If it is a text that features a lot of structures the students are already familiar with, I will ask them to read it together with a partner, and circle or underline any words/phrases they don't know. Before we start volleyball, I will clarify the translations of those words or phrases.

Then...we play! Students sit with a partner, and they begin to "volley" back and forth; Student A reads the first line of the story in French; student B translates that line into English, and then reads the following line in French. Student A translates that line, then reads in French, so on and so forth. During this time, I am circling and listening for accuracy; if I hear an inaccurate translation, we clarify, and I send them back to the beginning of the story. After an indeterminate amount of time, I call, Arrête (Stop)! and the students stop reading. If Student A was in the middle of speaking when I called stop, then Student B gets to mark one point on his/her paper and vice versa. I do my best to vary when I call stop, so that the students can't predict when I'm going to say it. If they get to the end of the reading sample before I call stop, they are to go back to the beginning and start again.

Whichever partner has the most points at the end of the game is the "winner" - and students usually ask for a rematch, which I love - more repetitions! and the students love - more game time!

Bonne continuation!

Monday, January 5, 2015

2015 New Year's Resolutions

I've never been one for making many New Year's Resolutions as I've found a tendency to attempt to accomplish things that are not actually that realistic - sometimes lofty goals with no supports in place are not the best recipe for success, shockingly! Likewise, as I move into the latter part of my twenties, I'd like to think of these less as one-year goals and more as steps toward becoming a more mature, responsible, and productive adult.

In addition to setting personal goals for my own health and wellness (eat more mindfully, be more active, spend more time reading), I have also created a few professional "resolutions" that I hope to work on this year as well.

Resolution #1: 90% Language, 100% Comprehensible.

I know this. You know this. The students need me to remain in the Target Language 90% of the time. I am inconsistent with this -  there are some days when I hit that target full force with 90% or more, and some days where it's all I can do to just stay standing until the end of the hour, let alone speaking French. I need to be more diligent about reminding myself (and having students remind me!) that since it's French class, that's the language I need to be speaking.

Resolution #2: #authres is where it's at.

I need way more authentic resources. I need to let the students discover the culture, rather than sit and listen while I tell them about the culture. I think learning stations are absolutely golden when it comes to this - they force me to take a back seat, and force the students to do the work and discovery. Additionally, students WANT to spend more time exploring the culture - if not a daily focus, this needs to be a more consistent, weekly focus. Pinterest, here I come!

Resolution #3: Less is more.

Though my do-it-all grammar obsession has waned considerably since I first started to wade into the ocean of technique that is TCI/TPRS (I'm still hanging out in the shallow end, relatively speaking), I still am trying to do too much. My expectations, per proficiency level, are still too high. I am letting the pressure of my non-TCI department get to me, to "get through the textbook" and to "cover" material. I also do not trust myself; I do not trust that they will learn sentence structure if I throw out verb charts! I do not trust that they will acquire vocabulary without a reference list. I need to trust. I need to slow down. I need to remember what the goal really is - and it's not to get through eleventy-bajillion verb tenses and 500 vocab words.

Resolution #4: My work day ends at 4:00 PM.

This is one I'm stealing from the ladies at Creative Language Class, because it's genius and it never even occurred to me. Seriously? It never occurred to me to put a limit on my work day. This is insanity, because I could (and have!) work all day and all night. It's easy to go home and keep that stack of grading handy as I watch TV, or surf for resources, so on and so forth - but I've got to knock it off. I need limits, a work-life balance, and better time management skills. I also want to put that time into pursuing new hobbies (and maybe walking my dog a little more...sorry Lu!).

Bonne année, toutes et tous! What are your resolutions??


Thursday, January 1, 2015

Quoi de neuf?

Each day, in every single one of my classes (even French 1!) I start with the same question: Quoi de neuf? ("What's new?"). It's a simple, but extremely effective way, to get students speaking in the TL in a no-pressure situation. I let them speak about whatever they want, for however long they want, and anyone who wants to talk gets a chance to have the floor - so long as it's in French. I used to do this mostly on Fridays or Mondays, to discuss weekend plans and goings-on, but it has since expanded into everyday use.

I used to - well, who am I kidding, really, I still do - feel the pressure of having to "get to work" and maximize our scant 55 minutes to dig into our current unit topics and spending this kind of time to just talk to one another about whatever was on our minds felt like an enormous waste. But then I thought about it - doesn't language exist for this reason? To have conversations? What use is it to rush into vocabulary and grammar and reading/writing/listening, however authentic and CI-based they may be, if the kids are happy to just use the TL to speak to each other? So now we talk, for however long we'd like; sometimes it's 5 minutes, sometimes it's 25 minutes. The students are happy because they think they "didn't do anything" in French class that day, and I'm happy because we got to practice speaking without me having to actually prep anything special. :)

I've found extraordinary participation during this Quoi de neuf conversation. Even students who wouldn't normally be willing to participate in regular speaking activities or games are willing to raise their hands and tell me what's going on in their lives that day; I have three tests today, or I'm going to dinner with my family, or I have homework in five classes! Sometimes I'm sneaky and get in a little bit of a grammar reminder, like when a student says that she's "going to go to a restaurant this weekend" and it's Monday - I'll say something like, "Going to go this coming weekend?" as if I'm verifying her detail, and typically that will be enough for the student to smile, re-assess, and tell me, "No, I went!" 

My students regularly tell me that this conversation time is their favorite thing about class, and I often get comments such as, "You're the only teacher that actually wants to know about our lives." I feel fortunate that, as the only French teacher in my building, I get to know these students so well and can share these moments with them.

So, go ahead...quoi de neuf?