French the natural way: the next new thing

Coucou les French learners,

I am back this week with some great news!

Despite the fact it is extremely cold over here, il fait un froid de canard, a duck’s cold (don’t ask why we say that in French ?! C’est très bizarre !).

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From story-telling to story-asking

I am reading TPRS with Chinese characteristics: making students fluent and literate through comprehensible input by Terry Waltz and I am learning a great deal! I definitely recommend this book if, like me, you want your learners to truly develop fluency and proficiency in another language and on the other hand you do not consider yourself advanced in TPRS and comprehensible input,

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Vegetables alla carbonara

Lately I have been trying to eat less carbohydrates not only because I do feel better and less exhausted but also because I have noticed that my older boys eat a lot of carbohydrates at lunchtime. They eat at school and whenever I ask them what they had for dinner,

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Reading activity for French learners (beginner level).

Yeah!!! I am back to blogging! I had a very good excuse though for not posting for such a while: I had my fourth boy on the 24th of September. His name is Antoine and he is a lovely baby boy doing well 🙂

Whilst recovering from the birth and taking care of my precious little boy,

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Spanish story script: se vende

This story comes from the wonderful Martina Bex who posts so many brilliant ideas and resources on her blog. I started a new unit with my grade 6 class which is about going shopping and this story fitted perfectly!

Speaking/vocabulary: I first started by introducing the different shops to my students using this slideshow: SHOPS.

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acquire50 acquisition65 comprehensible100 comprehension250 expression21 flashcards8 key structure10 language45 Martina Bex11 pattern1 quizlet9 repetition42 se vende1 sell6 selling1 shop9 shopping13 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 story46 storytelling39 target9 TPRS71 writing55

How to use stories written by students?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a big fan of The Comprehensible Classroom because there are so many fun story scripts to be used and Martina Bex (the author) shares so many fabulous ideas and lesson plans! One story script I have used with my middle school students (grade 6 to 8) is Buscando Gafas.

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Storytelling: arranging to go out

I am using stories more and more often in my lessons as I believe my students greatly benefit from listening to them as well as reading them and writing new ones. Apart from inventing my own stories, my favorite source is The Comprehensible Classroom which has a wealth of fantastic resources and story scripts.

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