Tips for Collecting Samples of Spoken Evidence

What do you do with your students to keep a record of their speaking abilities in French? What tools do you use? How often? Where? How are the opportunities created? Do the students take the responsibility for it? How What are the positives? The problems you meet? So many questions, so little time!
We all are at different stages trialling and experimenting: what about sharing the load by filling in this quick questionnaire?
Right below the questionnaire, you will find the list of suggestions shared by contributors. Thanks for sharing! And if you feel at this stage of your practice you can't contribute well it really doesn't matter, maybe just going over the questions in the questionnaire may provide some food for thoughts!

Picture by Lilielletune Overtheborderline (Gold.png) [CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0] via Wikimedia Commons

Creative Writing: Putting Pen to Paper

Jo Rittey (Rangi Ruru Girls' School, NZAFT 2009 Scholarship Recipient) attended the AFMLTA Conference in Sydney in July 09.  Jo's report on what she learnt there and her feedback from the creative workshop she has summarised for us was initially distributed to NZAFT members only.  Jo outlines in the document below are short, concise writing activities that can be used from year 8 onwards.

Literacy and Learning Languages: Strategies for Teaching and Assessment - A review of Dee Edwards' Presentation and a Teaching Resource.

Robyn Brooks (King's High School Dunedin, NZAFT 2010 Scholarship Recipient) attended Dee Edwards' Literacy and LL Strategies presentation at the NZALT Conference 2010. Robyn has shared her review of the workshop where Dee "presented strategies associated with a literacy approach to languages learning: where students can learn how to “read” text and apply the role of code-breaker, text participant, text –user and text analyst as well as develop cultural awareness through language use".
Robyn has also used these strategies to create a resource for the acquisition of adverbs, which you can downlaod below.

Reviews of John de Mado's Seminar on Error and Language Acquisition (NZALT Conference 2010)

James Donaldson (Iona College, NZAFT Scholarship Recipient 2010) reviews in the document below the seminar he attended at Conference 2010. John de Mado was the main plenary speaker. James reuses what the speaker had covered in the plenary and adds it to make more sense still to what John added in this seminar with a specific French slant. John discusses in particular Error Vs Mistakes, Inter-Language and 10 Organising Principles for Language Acquisition. In his summary James provides several useful links to follow for more detailed information.

Chris Cheyne (Gore High School, NZAFT Scholarship Recipient 2010) also reviews John de Mado's seminar. Chris also traced online the story John told during his talk by Jack Engelhard, called "His French Comes Out Greek" and has added it to her review. A great funny story illustrating John de Mado's presentation perfectly!

Linking Literacy & Languages: Effective Listening Strategies

While at the TOFA (Teachers of French Association) Conference in Perth in March 2010,  Lesley Parris (NZAFT President, Tamatea High School) attended Anne Carter's presentation on Effective Learning Skills.  Anne's intentions for her presentation (see PPT below) is to show:
- how important it is for Languages learning to be linked to improving literacy.
- how the improvement of listening skills can be linked to improving literacy.
- the importance of the listening strategies.
Anne has also provided practical listening activities (see document below) which assist in linking Literacy and French.

Engaging Boys in Learning Languages - The Happy Teacher

Lesley PARRIS attended the TOFA Conference in Perth in March 2010 and met one of the workshop presenters, Sarah Pavy, there.

Sarah Pavy is an Australian teacher and an educational consultant specialised in areas relating to the teaching and learning of Foreign Languages. She has gracefully accepted to share her research.
Sarah has taught, amongst others, French to a range of levels and she has comprehensive secondary languages teaching experience. Read more about Sarah's background from her website The Happy Teacher or in the document below. 
Of particular interest is Sarah's extensive work in the area of boys' education. Discover the presentation "Engaging Boys in Learning Languages" and its accompanying notes from this link.

Sarah provides information on the following:

Approaches to improve Boys Education
Can boys really not sit still?
Engagement in learning
Boys' achievement
Language and Literacy Strategy

While visiting The Happy Teacher you will also find a range of resources "specifically designed to help make teaching easy and effective".

Get them thinking! Picture interpretation.

Of all the ideas shared by John Phelps (Learning@School Conference 2010) during his Interactive and Engaging Learning Connections with Limited ICT Resources workshop, the idea of projecting a picture with a short caption, inviting interpretation, really appealed.  The concept is simple: select some photos, make a quick presentation (in PPT go to insert Photo Album, select all the photos you want to insert, click Ok and eh presto, your presentation is created!) and choose to add captions or not (in PPT go to insert Text Box and type in your caption).  Project one of the pictures as the students enter your room, to set the tone and engage them into a thinking mode as they come in.  Or project it sometime during the class, to focus attention and facilitate the connection between Thinking and Learning. 
In the presentation below (by Pascale Hyboud-Peron, web Administrator) 12 pictures under a Creative Commons Licence were sourced from Flickr and some captions added in French.  Feel free to try it in your class, listen to the students' interpretations and why not ask your students to create their own to share?

Team Making Cards

Pascale Hyboud-Peron (french.ac.nz) put together these cards, which can be useful when setting teams, groups or pair activities.  They add a short sharp learning opportunity for students when establishing the teams/groups and they help you ensure you are in control of who works with who.  Based on Food and Drinks, the cards can be used early on in your programme with students at all levels. 
Jane Donald (Geraldine High School) has kindly shared the Team Cards based on Sports she created. Once you have printed, pasted and laminated the cards, your set is bound to last, just keep it at the ready in your schoolbag!

Teaching French to Students with Dyslexia.

In August 2009, an NZAFT listserve member was interested to hear from teachers with experience in teaching French to students with dyslexia.
The following document is a compilation of the suggestions and information which were posted to answer this query. The first article, Teaching a Dyslexic a Second Language, by Deborah Williams (Languages Learners of Christchurch),  was too big a document to make it to the listserve. Deborah, a trained SPELD teacher, also shares practical information and pointers she has perfected through experience.
Should you wish to add more to this document, please feel free to email either the NZAFT listserve or Pascale, the site Administrator.

Differentiation in Learning Languages

Initially designed for a Year 9 Differentiation workshop and based on Carol Tomlinson’s Defensible Differentiation: What would it Take to Get Right? Dawn Jarbeau (Team Solutions, Auckland University) presents a picture of what differentiation is in the PPT below.  One of the purposes of Dawn's PPT is to engage you and your colleagues in thinking about the key principles of differentiation. She also aims to link key competencies of the New Zealand curriculum to differentiation.  This presentation and its supporting documents (Tomlinson's Differentiation Continuum Table and the Resources list) are very useful to engage into the thinking of differentiation. The PPT, viewed in Normal View, allows to you to read Dawn's helpful footnotes.

Thinking Skills Strategies for the Language Teacher.

The MFL Sunderland Website offers a document called "Thinking Skills Strategies for MFL Teachers", located at the top of the page.  In it are outlined the purpose of Thinking Skills but also ways to shape a Thinking Skills lesson as well as some detailed strategies to try out. Follow one this web page a range of lesson plans and activities for French which incorporate the strategies mentioned.

Juniors and Vocabulary

Looking for interactive ways to introduce new vocabulary to Junior students?  Visit teachingideas.co.uk for simple tips and ideas that you can use straightaway in your classroom.  Take a look at "Pass the Words" or "Tips with FlashCards" in particular.

Ma France - BBC Languages Programme

NEW! Subscribe to the monthly Ma France newsletter which features the highlights of this language programme.

Preparing for a DELF/DALF assessment? Or looking for up-to-date real life short videos to view and work from with your classes?

Ma France introduces, and provides opportunities to  improve or brush up basic French with the help of Stéphane Cornicard and 24 interactive video units. The language used is spoken and current.  A wide range of practical situations and conversational topics are presented: directions, personal introductions, house-buying, food and drinks etc… The idea is to follow the units in order but you can just dip into them. Each of the units is organized around three short films: video A contains the main vocabulary and grammar outcomes; video B gives you more cultural information and video C sets the interviewees a surprise challenge. Each video  has  links to the French and English transcripts, downloadable printable resources and online activities.  The language and grammar match the second (Preliminary) stage of the Languages Ladder and conform to Level A2/B1 of the Common European Framework.  The contexts and the language are accessible to a range of levels,  the Tutors section  and the Syllabus section indicate where you can fit the videos units in your lessons or programmes of work or in your revision programme.

Learning Activities Ideas for the Fidgety

In October 2008, a very fruitful exchange of ideas took place on the NZAFT listserv after a member posted a request, looking to widen his array of activities to keep his "fidgety" students' interest and attention.  The document which follows is a compilation of all the learning activities which were posted as a reply on that occasion.

School Trips to Nouméa: What to do once there?

Pascale McMillan (Botany Downs Secondary College) is originally from New Caledonia and she has extensive experience in organizing trips and exchanges with New Caledonia. Pascale has organized the activities for her trips herself with the help of numerous contacts she has there.  She is kindly sharing her experience and activities, which can be used and adapted for either a Creipac trip or a stay with a hosting school.  Pascale has compiled a workbook which you can give student.  It includes activities for the supermarket and a treasure hunt in town.  She too recommends that you contact the people whose details are given should you need to.

Increasing the Use of Target Language in the Classroom

Ruth Bourchier (French National Adviser) provides below a list of words and expressions which could form a valuable basic repertoire to use in the classroom, in order to maximise both input and output of the Target Language.  Refer to Ruth's introductory document to read about the benefits of building and using such a repertoire.  Use her PPT to discover a wide range of expressions relevant to the classroom environment.

TBL - Task-based approach to teaching is motivating and effective

Manu Ménard (St Matthews Collegiate) presents the TBL approach and gives concrete examples on how to use it in the classroom at all levels. TBL is indeed a perfect approach to adopt to meet the Vision, Values and Key Competencies of the new NZC.  Read the PPT presentation he made at NZALT Conference 2008 and share it with your colleagues.  Why not looking at it during a Department meeting prior? Find more TBL activities on this site by entering TBL in the search box.

Attention à l'Accent!

Which way does it go?  Your students get to practise the use of accents on French vowels with gap filling, word reconstruction and multi choice online activities. 

What to do with vocabulary lists?

Read below the "How to Use Vocab Lists?" documents to view a list of strategies for active learning of vocabulary and many useful ideas for the classroom.  Thank you frenchteacher.net ! 

ReusableTeam Cards

Want students to work in pairs/teams? Want a "fair" way to establish the pair/teams? Maybe you can use the Animal Team Cards Pascale Hyboud-Peron (french.ac.nz Administrator) has put together. A bit of fiddling to start with, but lots of time gained overall! First , print the "posters" and laminate: you will put them on the board to dipslay records of the different teams.  Print the card sheets on strong card, cut and save the individual cards. Decide how many students you want on each team ( eg 3, so put 3 "chien" cards in the bag, etc), each student draws a card and discovers what Animal team s/he belongs to but does not annonce it. Once each student has drawn a card, they must find who else is in their team by making the sound of the animal on their card! A bit noisy but a lot of fun to start any activity and young students also learn words for animals

Using Images or Pictures to produce written or oral French language

Jo Rittey (Rangiruru College) presented her suggestions at NZALT 2008.  She suggests ways in which students can analyse pictures or photos to produce written or oral French.  Jo also shares in the document below activities to put theory to practice.

Language-Learning Strategies: Does the ‘Good Language Learner’ Exist?

A question you must have asked yourself time and time again! Read the conclusions reached in the following research paper and share them with your students. The document is called "Strategies for Language Learning and Use and Styles - and Strategies-Based Instruction".  Click on the link to discover interesting pointers.

Principles of Instructed Second Language Acquisition

In this 'Dossier', Stephanie Barnett (National French Advisor 2002-2007) presents the principles which make for effective pedagogy  and provides practical applications of these principles in your classroom.

Teaching French to primary age students

Stephanie Barnett (French National Advisor 2002-2007) presents ways and activities tp focus on making sense of the language through sounds and visual messages.

Petits Trésors!

Find below all sorts of good ideas to take to your classroom!  More are welcome to make this Treasure Box grow bigger, bigger...