Category: French

Start Up! Your FrenchDownload this manual for core French teachers, À vos marques, prêt, partez: A must-have guide for core French teachers , produced by CASLT (Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers ) and Manitoba teachers. I’m working on a BC version of the manual, but there is a wealth of great information — in English — about teaching French.

Here are some materials from Liliana Lanfranchi’s Sept 6th workshop..‘UN, DEUX, TROIS… on y va! A fantastic start in French!’ which she presented on Sept 6th in Burnaby- Thanks so much for this excellent material Liliana! Les Questions et Les Réponses
We’ll be adding more soon.

Mlle Jarvis is a French and French-Immersion TTOC, and she uses her website whenever she fills temporary leave positions. Feel free to send her any questions about teaching French via the Wiki private messaging! Her website has links to great activities, especially for Intro to French (good for elementary or French 8) and IB French 11: http://mllejarvis.tk

Suggestions from Mlle Jarvis:

• Create a Dropbox account. It will save your life. Instead of storing oodles of binders in my tiny apartment I store most of my unit resources in my Dropbox. It gets backed up just like the rest of my computer, and I can access the folders from any computer in the world connected to the Internet. The best part is that I don’t have to email myself documents or keep a USB key anymore. This means I have ONE version instead of SIX different versions floating around. I could go on, but trust me – it’s the best, for any teacher, and as a TTOC it means I can log in and print something on days without lesson plans left for me!
• Secondary Core French can borrow ideas from primary immersion classrooms. For example, the songs used in French Immersion Kindergarten are perfect for immersing Core French students (in any grade!) in the language and culture of the Francophone world. Sylvia Duckworth’s YouTube page has *great* videos of songs from artists such as Alain Le Lait and Charlotte Diamond. I use these songs all the way up to grade 10, and then switch to songs by Top 40 French Artists like Coeur de Pirate, Mika, Corneille, Christophe Maé, Lisa LeBlanc for grades 11 & 12.
• Connect with Language teachers from around the province through Twitter by joining the PSA for BC Language Teachers: BCATML (BC Association of Teachers of Modern Languages). Another way to connect is by searching hashtags such as #edchat, #langchat . You’ll often find great blogs as well as amazing mentors through Twitter. It’s been my most valuable source of professional development.
• Check out your district resource library database, and visit the District Resource Centre in person if possible. Flipping through books, activity kits and posters will give you many ideas, and you can make appointments to consult with the District Learning Resource Teacher responsible for supporting teachers for your specific curriculum area. They can often come to your classroom to make it easy for you! It’s their job to help, support, mentor.

List translated YPS handouts on this page

French Immersion
A fun game for oral language.
My students enjoyed this game. It was good to use at the beginning of the year to get them back in the habit of speaking French but they enjoyed it so much that I will have them play again later on in the year with a different theme.

20 Questions.

• Prepare small slips of paper with an animal (French) written on it.
• Tell students that they have to ask “yes”or “no” questions.
• Give some examples of questions.
• Form groups of at least four students.
• Give one person in the group the slip of paper and have only that person look at it.
• The rest of the group then starts asking questions (in French).
• When someone has guessed the answer, they raise their hand and receive a new animal.

A simple game that the students may be familiar with but that gave me a good sense of their oral language levels.