French news: last chance to join our live French sessions this week!
Coucou les membres de la communauté,
I hope this email finds you well and eager to continue your French journey!
I am excited to invite you to join our upcoming 45-minute live sessions happening this week.
But hurry – there are only a few spots left, so reserve yours today!
Here is why you should join my live sessions:
- Direct feedback from me. You have a question about something you don’t understand, ask me dircetly!
- Opportunities to speak French freely and with confidence. You will improve your French.
- A supportive environment where you speak French without fear. You’ll connect and make new friends from around the world.
Each session is limited to a small number of participants so that everyone can interact freely. Here are the remaining spots available this week:
– Only a few spots left on Wednesday for beginners or advanced beginners who want to express an opinion in French. We will have fun looking at entertaining pictures and giving our thoughts on them.
– One spot left on Friday for intermediate learners who want to talk spontaneously about their day. We will share what our typical day looks like!
Whether you’re looking to improve your conversational French, gain confidence in French, or simply connect with fellow learners, our live sessions offer the perfect opportunity to do so.
Don’t miss out on this chance to make real progress!
Click here to reserve your spot now.
I look forward to seeing you there!
New Senior Stage sessions!
I’m thrilled to announce 3 new sessions tailored for advanced learners seeking a deeper understanding of French grammar and literature.
Each session includes comprehensive video tutorials, detailed transcripts, audio recordings, and a comprehensive glossary.
In these sessions, you will gain insights into the usage of pronouns and their significance within the French language. You’ll also get to discover the very special friendship between Montaigne and de La Boétie.
Understand with ease. Think naturally. Speak freely.
Cordialement,
P.S. Got friends, family, colleagues and clients who want to become fluent in French? Share this with them, they’ll thank you for it!
French news: live sessions exclusive for our members
Coucou les membres de la communauté,
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of our weekly group sessions on Zoom. They are starting in May (next week already!).
Our live sessions are designed to keep you motivated, accountable, and consistently progressing in your French journey.
In these 45-minute sessions, you have the opportunity to engage with me and fellow members in a supportive and dynamic virtual environment. It is a collaborative and fun way to boost your French proficiency.
Here’s what you can expect from our group sessions:
- Weekly accountability: Stay on track with your French goals and make real progress.
- Engaging conversations tailored to your level. Understand with ease and speak French freely without fear.
- Feedback and guidance: Receive personalized feedback and guidance directly from me to address any challenges and maximize your progress.
How dos it work? Go to this page, click here!
- Choose & Book your Zoom session.
- You will receive an email from me with the Zoom link and password to access the session.
Stay on track. Ask me questions. Get feedback.
I can’t wait to help you move forward in your French journey!
Cordialement,
P.S. Got friends, family, colleagues and clients who want to become fluent in French? Share this with them, they’ll thank you for it!
Agen Takeaway #4: Reading
” Reading is breathing and comprehensible texts are oxygen” as Martina Bex wrote in a great article about reading in class.
At #Agen2019, I attended another inspiring session by the amazing Alina Filipescu about Free Voluntary Reading (Alina also happens to be one of my French online learners , she is my favourite one 😉
What is FVR?
“Free Voluntary Reading [FVR] means reading what you want to read, with no book reports, no questions at the end of the chapter, and not having to finish the book if you don’t want to. Sustained silent reading provides children with an opportunity to do free voluntary reading in school.” Stephen D. Krashen
This is the opening of Alina’s thoughtful blog post about how she has been building a FVR/SSR program with her Spanish classes.
This is also what Alina explained during her plenary presentation in Agen. The KEY is not to have reading as a dreading activity BUT at the same time holding students accountable for what they do.
How to get students to read for pleasure?
How to achieve it? Alina suggested different components such as:
- Sharing quotes about the positive impacts of reading. When I was teaching Spanish at Thuringia International School in Germany, I had posters in my classroom and in the school library about reading. I got most of them from Bryce Hedstrom website. It has an extensive list of reading “quotes”.
- Model pleasure reading during Sustained Silent reading (SSR). When my IB students were reading Spanish books, I would also read a German reader. Since most of my students were German, I would often ask them what a word meant in the book I was reading. That way, they knew they could also ask me or others in the class if they didn’t understand something about what they were reading. It made them feel comfortable about reading.
- Help students find the right book. The first books your students read should be easy to read with 150 to 200 unique words at most. Although my students were in grade 11 and 12 at an IB level (intermediate level), I first recommended them to read such “easy” books to start with. They realized reading in Spanish was not that difficult, they enjoyed the stories because they could understand them, they gained confidence. They thought: ” Wow! I can read a book in Spanish!” and they wanted to read more. This combined with Story Listening made my students read many books of around 400 unique words and more.
- Have students review the books they have read for the others. Alina showed how her students write a few things on a sticky note about the book and leave that on the cover when done. They can write if they liked the book (or not) and why OR they just draw how many stars (1-5) they would give the book. My students also did it and it was a great motivator for other students to read.
They also had a log book where they wrote how many pages or chapters they read during a lesson. They also wrote some new words if they wanted to or some expressions they liked. That way, they were keeping track of their progress throughout the year. - Have a ROUTINE. My routine was and still is (with my online learners) to read every lesson or at least once a week ( if I don’t see my learners regularly). Reading is POWERFUL and the MORE your students READ, the MORE they will acquire the language.
En pratique
As Alina explained, you cannot have your students read a book in silence for 10 minutes from day 1. You need to prepare them, to lead them the way.
To me, Story Listening is the bridge to Free Voluntary reading. And here are the steps I follow to lead learners to read independently:
Story Listening enables students to hear French (or another language) and understand stories in French with the help of many different kinds of support. French is a difficult language to hear because the spelling doesn’t match the pronunciation, therefore Story Listening helps prepare to read as you write down words on the board and pronounce them at the same time.
Story Reading is introduced gradually and gently, using texts of high interest,so that students find the reading comprehensible and enjoyable. The goal is to establish a pleasure reading habit. Cécile Lainé wrote an excellent blog post about how to create enjoyable reading habits: Reading is fun, right?
What I do is I tell a story, then read it aloud to students. I also tell a story, then the students read a parallel story. For example with beginner learners, I would tell Des frites ! (which is actually based upon the children’s book by Stephanie Blake entitled ” Je veux des pâtes “).
Then students read and listen to a similar story (available when you are a member on my site) which you can download now: Paul veut manger des pizzas !
I am now building a database of such stories from beginner to advanced levels on the membership site. More stories (as well as articles, biographies and poems) are added every week. They all come with audio so learners can listen to how the words are pronounced. They get used to reading in French fluently.
Guided self-selected reading is when you go to the library with your students and help them choose a “real” book. You might sit next to them and read the book with them to see if it is right for them (and also to get them started!). Cécile Lainé wrote another great blog post about reaching this stage: Toward self selected reading.
Free Voluntary Reading is the ultimate stage when learners have become AUTONOMOUS. They have reached an intermediate level and they can choose a book on their own and read them with joy!
What about you? What are you strategies to get your students to read?
P.S. The eBook (pdf) about the adventures of Marie et Médor avant Noël is now available: 24 scripts in the present and in the past tense, and there is an eBook for dyslexic learners too.
For as little as 4.75EUR/month, you can download all the eBooks AND you have access to many other French stories, biographies, poems and articles (with a Dyslexic mode) as well as the audio files. JOIN NOW!
Read about Agen Takeway #1: Very Narrow Listening
Read about Agen Takeway #2: Get to know your learners
Read about Agen Takeway #3: Story Listening
Agen Takeaway #3: Story Listening
As I mentioned in my second takeaway from #Agen2019, Story Listening is the CORE of all my lessons.
WHY?
Because my IB Spanish students have achieved tremendous results in the past two years I have been teaching at Thuringia International School.
My online learners love listening to stories. Their affective filter is very low and they are receiving optimal input, input which is rich and at the same time compelling. Since I see most of them only once a week for one hour, they need optimal input to acquire French.
The benefits of Story Listening
Kathrin Shechtman did two amazing presentations about Story Listening in Agen. One about the basics of Story Listening and another one about Story Listening and Reading. I was so happy to see Kathrin as we do a tandem online. We teach each other German and Spanish respectively through Story Listening. It allows to use the sessions to work on my teaching skills and to acquire German, of course!
“All we need is a teacher who can tell stories and a library full of books.” Beniko Mason.
Kathrin told a story in German aimed at beginners with lots of repetitions in the story “In einem dunklen, dunklen Zimmer“. She made the story comprehensible with her drawings, her gestures and also how she explained the new words in German. For example, Kathrin explained the word “Wald” (forest in German) by saying there were many trees in a forest. She drew a tree, and said there was a tree. Then she drew another tree, and said there was another tree. She drew many trees and said there were many trees in the forest.
And just this week, Megan Hayes who teaches Spanish to elementary students in the US, wrote a fantastic blog post about why she loves Story Listening. I could not explain better than she does why Story Listening is so good. I can relate to all the points she mentions in her post.
One point is particularly TRUE: ” The way I feel feeding students a consistent diet of SL. I feel satisfied, relaxed even, because I know like I’m providing them with an abundance of rich, contextualized and compelling input. It’s the same feeling I get when I feed my daughters a healthy balanced meal, like, I did it! I provided the optimal meal, which they ate, so they can have a cookie if they want! After a successful story, I have a parallel thought, such as, we can play a game or even go out to recess a bit early because they have taking in so much good stuff already!“.
How to implement it with your learners?
First of all, get rid of the “I can’t draw” feeling! I know how you feel, I feel the same: I CAN’T draw!!!
However, drawing is NOT important. It doesn’t matter if you are the worst drawer! What matters is that YOUR learners COMPREHEND the story. They should not comprehend every detail of the story, they should comprehend the story as a whole.
Carla Tarini, who is a US based teacher of French and author of French readers, commented today on the Facebook group for CI French teachers: “Not only does drawing slow you down but it shows students that you are a bit vulnerable and are taking a risk. That’s just what we ask them to do everyday in our classes. I’m terrible at drawing. But we get a lot of smiles and laughs out of it (lowering the affective filter). (Also, you could save yourself a ton of time in prep work if you don’t have to make slides.)“.
Once you are ready to draw, choose a story YOU enjoy. If you like this story, chances are your learners will enjoy it too. They will see and feel you like this story and they will want to listen to it.
Once you have chosen a good story you enjoy, make it comprehensible. Prepare a prompter. Use:
- Drawings
- Written Words
- Gestures (Body Movements)
- Mimic (Facial Expressions)
- Synonyms/Antonyms, Suffix/Prefix, Parts of Speech, Word Families
- Student’s First Language
- Students’ Knowledge of World
- Slow & Clear Speech
- Shorter, Easier Sentences
- Change the Content of the Story for Easier Predictability
- Quick Explanation about the rules of the Language for those who are initially trained in traditional grammar teaching. The explanation may make the input more comprehensible.
Source: https://storiesfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SF_handout_supplements.pdf
Your are NOW ready to tell the story to your learners! If you are still unsure, watch demos here.
En pratique
Start with relatively short stories (10-15 minutes max) and gradually tell longer stories. Your learners need to build on the stamina to listen to longer richer stories. You need to be CONSISTENT and to tell stories regularly, not just once a month. Try to tell a story each lesson.
Make sure, you tell your learners they are going to listen to a story in French. They should JUST listen and enjoy the story. If they don’t get all the details in the story, it is NOT important. They should try and understand the story as a whole.
If your learners start to un-focus and to talk over you about something else, STOP, BREATHE, SMILE and WAIT until they are silent again. Continue to tell the story. If they start to interact and say things about the story, it is GOOD, it means they understand the story and are enjoying it!
At the end of the story, ask your learners to write a summary of the story in L1, or to draw or to re-tell the story to someone else. You can then evaluate how well they understood the story and how well you told it.
Here are the stories I have told so far to a total beginner. She is Chinese and it was a challenge because of the cultural gap. There are some simple words she did not understand although it was obvious to me she would understand them. Therefore she needed stories with repetitions and with a simple plot (Thank you To Claire Walter who has done an amazing job in adding many, many stories to the Great Story Reading Project):
- La grenouille et le boeuf
- La soupe (very repetitive and with a scary ending!)
- Le vieux grand-père et son petit-fils
- Les trois chèvres
- La petite grenouille à grande bouche
- Le loup et les sept petites chèvres
- Les étoiles
- Le coq et la perle (This one is very short and easy to start with)
- Partir en voyage
- Pygmalion
- La douce bouillie
- Le doigt de pied polu
- Les vaches de Monsieur Lapin
- Les miettes sur la table
- Les plumes volées
- Le roi Midas
- Les trois ours
- Le singe curieux
What do you think? Have you tried Story Listening with your learners?
P.S. To have access to many French stories, eBooks, biographies, poems and articles to read (with a Dyslexic mode) as well as the audio files for as little as 4.75EUR/month, join now!
P.P.S. The eBook (pdf) about the adventures of Marie et Médor avant Noël is on its way! 24 scripts in the present and in the past tense to be dowloaded SOON!
The Dyslexic eBook of le Livre numéro 1 – 30 petites histoires is also to be dowloaded SOON!
Read about Agen Takeway #1: Very Narrow Listening
Agen Takeaway #2: get to know your learners
Welcome back for those teachers who are already back to school! And even for those who aren’t yet, this post should be of great help to start the school year!
Last week, I was telling you about my first takeaway from #Agen2019: Very Narrow Listening presented by Judith Dubois (who also happens to run the conference). It struck a chord because I strongly believe LISTENING is the KEY to acquire a language AND to succeed in life!
My second takeaway is strongly linked with Listening.
Card Talk
I got to experience Card Talk being a learner in Justin Soclum Bailey Latin class. Justin started on the first day by asking us, the learners, to draw or write down on a sticky note something we enjoyed doing.
How best to start a whole week of Latin class? Magister Justin showed us from the start he wanted to get to know us first. He was genuinely interested in us as people.
When he had collected all the sticky notes, he picked some of them and he asked questions to the people concerned, about what they liked to do. Not only, was the teacher interested in their learners, the learners were also getting to know each other.
Alice likes to shoot arrows!
HOWEVER, Magister Justin never, at any point during the week, forced us to speak in Latin! There was NO forced output during the class. The teacher would always repeat and rephrase what the learner wanted to say. The objective was to know the class and to give comprehensible input.
Card Talk is very well explained by Martina Bex here. It doesn’t need tons of preparation and it is the best way to start the school year when you already feel overwhelmed with all the resources and activities out there!
Genuinely know your learners
I don’t teach in a school anymore but I do teach online mostly one to one. First, when I start a session, I want to know how the learner feels. We have a genuine conversation about feelings, the weather… Exactly as we would do in real life!
For example, just today, we started to have a natural conversation with a beginner learner. She told she was tired in English. I asked her: ” Pourquoi tu es fatiguée ce matin ? ” and she answered in English that she hadn’t slept enough. So I rephrased in French: ” Tu n’as pas suffisamment dormi, n’est-ce pas ? ” and I wrote ” suffisamment ” on the board as I was spelling it. Then I asked her: ” Pourquoi tu n’as pas suffisamment dormi ? ” and she explained she didn’t sleep at her house but at a friend’s house. So there came the chance to have ” chez moi / toi / ton ami ” on the board. I didn’t plan this, the conversation just happened and it was NATURAL.
After this “small talk”, I told the learner the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I did Story Listening of Boucle d’Or et les trois ours (Find the simplified version of on the Great Story Reading Project) which was perfect because the learner already knew the story in English and since she was tired, she found it easier to understand the story.
Story Listening is the CORE of all my lessons but first I want to genuinely know my learners and have small conversations with them with NO forced output.
En pratique
Whether you are new to teaching Comprehensible Input or not, here is my routine:
Start by asking your learners how they feel. You can use these free downloadable cue cards (on Modolinguo Website) to help you ask questions to your students: Comment ça va ? & Mon humeur du jour
Do one Story Listening to give your learners Optimal Input from Day 1 and also to train them to listen with the intend to understand the story (not all the details of the story).
Tell them a short story (10 minutes max) like the fable of L’oie aux oeufs d’or or La grenouille et le boeuf (All stories are on The Great Story Reading Project):
Ask you learners to draw, write in L1 what they understood from the story. Your learners keep this in a portfolio with all the stories they will have listened to throughout the year.
THAT’S IT! No need to do tons of different activities and to tire yourself and the students!
If you need to give your learners homework, give them something to read like this fun story about Maxine (downloadable in pdf file here) and to listen to here:
What do you think? What is your routine with your learners?
P.S. To have access to many French stories (like the above one), biographies, poems and articles to read (with a Dyslexic mode) as well as the audio files for as little as 4.75EUR/month, join now!
P.P.S. The eBook (pdf) about the adventures of Marie et Médor avant Noël is on its way! 24 scripts in the present and in the past tense to be dowloaded SOON!
Read about Agen Takeway #1: Very Narrow Listening