Bienvenue (welcome)!
February 2009
Bonjour parents!
This our third year of French at Thetford Elementary School. This year, the program expands to grades 1 through 6. Your children may be starting French for the first time, or they may be beginning their third year!
The program is based on a textbook series from France called Alex and Zoé and a method of teaching language through storytelling called TPRS (TPRS - Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling). The Dartmouth College Rassius® method is also used. The instructional methods are focused on 80% oral language and 20% reading and writing, which is appropriate to the elementary level. Students engage in lots of games, activities, songs, art, and culture to practice their skills.
New this year will be more emphasis on international culture and a 6th grade introduction to Spanish toward the end of the year.
Goals:
- To teach students to speak French and learn about Francophone and other cultures so that they may better understand others and become valuable members of what is rapidly becoming a world culture.
- To actively engage students to learn French by presenting grammar and culture in fun and interesting ways.
- To design instruction that appeals to all kinds of learners – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic – in order to encourage each student to use his or her strengths while gently stretching areas that need development.
- To encourage students to self-assess their progress.
- And most important . . .to EXCITE students about speaking a second language!
Class meets for 30 minutes 1 time a week for 1st and 2nd grades, 2 times a week for 3rd grade, and 4 times a week for 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.
I encourage parent involvement, especially during cultural activities such as the French Breakfast, cheese tasting party, and Mardi Gras. Please let me know if there is some interesting Québec or French history or artifacts in your family that you would like to share in class. Feel free to contact me at the school anytime. I look forward to meeting you and getting to know your children!
Madame (Georgia) Buckner
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Here's what's been happening!
February 2009
Ms. Nunez' kindergarten had 4 weeks of basic Spanish lessons to go with their unit on Mexico. They had fun playing Simon Says (Simopn dice) and eagerly greet me in the hall now in Spanish.
First and second grades: Students have learned to introduce themselves, ask and say how they are, count from 1 to 10, identify colors, and days of the week. They have learned The Elephant Song to practice numbers as well as color and days of the week songs. We celebrate birthdays once a month by setting up a fake wooden cake and singing Joyeux Anniversaire. Culturally, we watched the Red Balloon film from the 1950's which is a charming and timeless story of a young boy in Paris with a red balloon who is chased by bullies. Students have learned differences between French and American greetings. In December, students learned about Old Befana, an Italian legend. Some classes sampled pannetone bread.
Students are speaking French in sentences already thanks to the QTalk system, magnetic pictures that are arranged to form sentences to describe action and scenes and build vocabulary. The students have had fun making whacky "sentences" with the pictures. The students amaze me with how quickly they learn. I have to work hard to stay ahead of them!
Third and fourth grades: Students are in the first half of our Alex et Zoe book. They have learned differences between French and American greetings. Students can identify cognates (words that are the same or almost the same in two languages, introduce themselves, and ask and say how are you and say how they are. They made terrific "Ca va posters" (excuse the lack of accents) illustrating how someone feels. Students can count from 1 to 30 and talk about what they have or don't have. Vocabulary covers animals, brother and sister, school items, and colors. With colors comes more sophisticated grammar. Students need to grasp masculine and feminine words and use the appropriate form of an adjective (colors) to agree in number and gender with the word it describes. This is very different from English, so we practice in many ways, including holding up pink and blue cards (excuse the sterotypes!) to show understanding of gender in vocabulary words.
We practice with songs like The Elephant Song and games such as fly swat, bingo, and a sort of Candyland life size on the floor called Pauvre Grenouille. The "grenouille" (frog) is hungry and has to jump from one colored lily pad to another to get to the "mouche" (fly). Culturally, students have learned about the Tour de France and Charles Perrault, who published the first Mother Goose in France in the late 1600's. Students have also watched I Love Lucy in Paris. They laughed watching Lucy eat snails with disgust and get arrested for inadvertently using counterfeit money. The scene in the police station illustrates the need to learn a foreign language as students watch a line of 5 people, each speaking and translating into a different language along the line to allow the police chief to communicate with Lucy. Students have learned also about the Belgian Tintin books originally written in French.
4th grade has learned to talk about what they are doing and how to talk about things they want as well as things they want to do. They are starting the second half of the textbook where they will learn to talk about what they love. In the next few units, they will sample French cheese, have a fashion show, and have a French breakfast.
3rd grade celebrated the Chinese new Year on Monday, February 15th. Susan Farrell came in and talked to the students about the meaning of the Chinese New Year. Other parents brought in noodles (long noodle = long life) and dumplings and students ate with chopsticks.
3rd and 4th grades celebrated Mardi Gras with King Cake during Mardi Gras week, February 16th.
Fifth grade: Students opened the year doing storytelling for review. This is a process by which students help make up stories to learn and practice vocabulary and grammar. Students compete to add interesting details to a story I create. It gets pretty wild. This practices answering and asking questions and offers thye repetition needed for understanding in the fun context of a story. We have done three "Mini-contes" or little stories, so far. This also creates more reading material.
Students are finishing the text Alex et Zoe that they started last year. They have learned to tell time on the hour, name body parts, and describe how many and what color are the body parts of monsters. This prepares them for describing their own hair and eye color. They drew huge monsters and labeled the body parts. These hung in the hallway for some time. We practice grammar with games such as fly swat, bingo, Simon says (Simon dit), match games, and, later, Jeopardy. Our next unit prepares students to talk about where they are with vocabulary about the farm, farm animals, and rooms in a house.
Culturally, students are learning about the fables of Jean de la Fontaine, Flavia Bujor (a Parisian girl who published her first book at age 13), and read about a couple in NH who had to get the support of their town to renew a French visa so they could keep their French cafe and bakery open. Students loved watching the episode of I Love Lucy in Paris. They laughed watching Lucy eat snails with disgust and get arrested for inadvertently using counterfeit money. The scene in the police station illustrates the need to learn a foreign language as students watch a line of 5 people, each speaking and a different language and translating along the line to allow the police chief to communicate with Lucy. Students have researched the 9 main regions of France and prepared travel brochures on their region. Their task was to convince other students that their region was the best to visit. We'll vote soon to see where students would want to go the most!
To extend their knowledge of international culture, students learned about Hannukah and sampled potato latkes in December. Lisa Cadow came into the classroom in February and made crepes on her griddle. Lisa is a certified crepe maker who trained in Brittany, France. Students will celebrate Mardi Gras with a King Cake on Tuesday, February 16th. They are learning the meaning of Mardi Gras as well as some background on the Cajun culture.
Sixth grade: Students opened the year doing storytelling for review. This is a process by which students help make up stories to learn and practice vocabulary and grammar. Students compete to add interesting details to a story I create. It gets pretty wild. This practices answering and asking questions and offers theyrepetition needed for understanding in the fun context of a story. We have done three "Mini-contes" or little stories, so far. This also creates more reading material.
Sixth grade is well into the second level Alex et Zoe textbook. Students began the year learning how to talk about what they are going to do, speaking in the future for the first time. They can talk about activities they are going to do more or less of and make resolutions. They made terrific posters describing themselves to practice using past and new vocabulary. They have also learned how to order, ask for the check, and pay for food in a French speaking restaurant. We had a Quiche Party and learned about the origin and different types of quiche. Thank you to those parents who prepared wonderful salads, quiches, and helped in the classroom! Students have examined authentic French menus, including an overhead MacDonald's menu from Quebec City.
Culturally, students have focused on restaurants skills, as these are life skills. They are also learning about the fables of Jean de la Fontaine, Flavia Bujor (a Parisian girl who published her first book at age 13), the troubled public rental bike system in Paris, and a couple in NH who had to get the support of their town to renew a French visa so they could keep their French cafe and bakery open. Students loved watching the episode of I Love Lucy in Paris. They laughed watching Lucy eat snails with disgust and get arrested for inadvertently using counterfeit money. The scene in the police station illustrates the need to learn a foreign language as students watch a line of 5 people, each speaking and a different language and translating along the line to allow the police chief to communicate with Lucy.
In January, students took field trip to King Arthur Bakery in Norwich see real French bread in the making, talk to bakers, see their huge French oven, and knead and shape French bread dough themselves. Lisa Cadow came into the classroom in February and made crepes on her griddle. Lisa is a certified crepe maker who trained in Brittany, France. Students will celebrate Mardi Gras with a King Cake on Tuesday, February 16th. They are learning the meaning of Mardi Gras as well as some background on the Cajun culture.
Stay tuned for more exciting episodes of Life in French Class. Au revoir!