Written by My HMW question, “How might we provide students with authentic learning opportunities so that they are all engaged and working at their respective CEFR levels in the FSL classroom?” guided me towards focusing on my Grade 10 course. That class has a mix of core French and French immersion students so I find it difficult to ensure students are always challenged.
Last w
eek, I asked them to fill out a survey to gather feedback about their level of engagement and to gain a sense of how challenged they are in my class. The result was a 6-page document (thanks Google Forms!) with insightful qualitative and quantitative data.
I talked about the results of my first question on engagement with @mneale and commented on not having had a discussion with my students on what engagement means prior to handing out the survey. What does being in engaged in French look like? What are the differences between entertainment and engagement? Do students expect to be entertained or engaged? Or both? This is a conversation I will have with them this week.
Overall, I learned that a lot of things are going right in my class. Students commented on understanding the purpose of everything we do, finding French fun, being comfortable taking risks, and feeling challenged. When I asked them how the Grade 10 French program could be improved, students commented on wanting more challenges, more real life conversations, more problem-solving tasks, and more reviews and refreshers. I’m realizin
g that some tweaks to my classes may be all I need to bring my program to the next level.
The third Cohort 21 F2F was incredible in helping me narrow my focus on my action plan. Thanks @rutheichholtz for taking the time to guide me through that process. I’ve decided to run a 4-week pilot program with my Grade 10 class that will incorporate some of my students’ suggestions – which all happen to be DELF-related. More to come on what that will look like. Read, set, GO!
Hi Myriam,
I am hoping that you’ve been able to connect with our other fantastic FSL teachers within the Cohort like Jennifer Bibby, Vivienne Krauss and Derek Doucet. Also, I am at NAIS at the moment, and listening to Charles Fadel who was addressing the role and purpose of translation technology is FSL. What do you think the role of these technologies are?
I would have loved to hear that presentation. I believe that the role of these technologies is simply to assist students in learning a language – it’s a tool like many others. We need to teach students how best to use them and how to think critically when using such tools. It will be interesting to see how far along translation technologies will come in the next few years, but I don’t see how the interpretation aspect of translation will ever be fully developed. There’s so much more to translation than finding out what a certain word means in another language.
It’s an aspect that I stress with my students. In grade 11, I start one of my novel studies with this podcast to get them thinking about why we read literary works in their original language http://www.radiolab.org/story/1000-flowers/. It’s worth listening to! In the podcast, an author becomes obsessed with translating his favourite French poem. He attempts to find the perfect translation but realizes that it is impossible to do. I stop the podcast halfway through and challenge my students to translate the poem. They soon realize that there are infinite ways that a poem could be translated and that it’s very difficult to capture an author’s true intent, meaning, and message and the nuances of a language. Definitely not something that Google Translate can do… yet!
Does anyone else have a similar lesson on the topic of translation? And Garth, can you direct me to any of Charles Fadel’s work on translation technology in FSL education?
What a powerful exercise for your students! @vkraus have you tried this? With regards to Fadel, he has A LOT of resources – but all are conveniently found here: http://www.p21.org/
Thanks,
garth.
Merci! Still trying to figure out how I can best use the technology we have. I’ll have to check out the podcast, too. A great hook for the beginning of a unit.
@Think_teach, merci for pointing me in the direction of @mlafrance ‘s blog! Myriam – ouf! – a 10 core/immersion split – quel travail! I currently have a Teacher Candidate from OISE working with me, and she says there is definitely a strong emphasis on authenticity in her French course. I had been using the word to describe the work that I want from the students (i.e. their own words, not a translator); however, she points out that the focus is more on authentic tasks. I am still trying to figure out the CEFR/DELF as it’s such a shift for me. Based on my work from last year’s Cohort21, I did start integrating a ‘conversation’ unit, which consists of the first 15 minutes of class and runs the entire year. I will let you know when I blog about it!
In the meantime – great job putting yourself out there by asking for your students’ opinions – it’ s a big risk with often bigger reward! I look foward to your final take-aways in the weeks to come.
Thanks @mmekraus! I loved reading how you do 15 minutes of conversation at the beginning of class as I do the same thing! I call it Questions du jour and students have input on the topics we end up talking about. At the end of the year, I organize a Café de Paris event for them to use their conversational skills in an authentic setting. It’s all about how much “air time” students end up having in class. If we, as teachers, are doing the talking, we’re the ones improving our oral skills, not the students. I look forward to reading your blog about it!
Hey @mlafrance – I love this post! I love to the CEFR in Action and thank @jenbibby for introducing it to me. I loved the teachers guide that makes it so clear and has lots of great ideas to make learning more authentic in French class.
Search for Livret de l’examinateur : DELF … will lead to you lots of different subjects and situations you can put your students into. http://www.ciep.fr/sources/delf-pro/docs/livret-examinateur-delf-pro-B1/ I will always listen in on some and provide feedback via a form with respect to their next steps in language or common patterns.
Your comment to “air time” is why students need to have the stage. Mini-lessons are great as is involving them in the process. What do they want to know how to say? What situations do they want to be able to work within – have you done online shopping with them? Have you had them book a flight to a foreign country? Once these are done and vocab is figured out – can you put them into roles of Travel Agent and Traveller perhaps?
I think that the shifts you’re making in French class are wonderful and the best thing you’re doing is engaging your students in the process. I’d love to come visit sometime this Spring if you’re up for it!
Looking forward to hearing how it goes with your Gr. 9s!