French the natural way: joyeux anniversaire !

Coucou les French learners,

Quelle semaine ! What a week!

Input alone is sufficient

My lovely grade 12 IB Spanish learners passed their oral examinations on Thursday. Instead of going through long lists of vocabulary related to the topics they had to talk about,

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anniversaire3 birthday3 birthdayparty2 celebration20 children story15 ci145 culturaldifferences2 demo5 Education20 facilitator4 fete6 francaislangueetrangere56 frenchcelebration4 frenchculture295 frenchstorytime26 germanculture3 goûter4 gouteranniversaire1 grade 123 Great Story Reading Project11 guide5 IB9 joyeuxanniversaire1 krashen5 languageteacher2 languageteaching1 learnfrenchthenaturalway59 livingingermany1 onlinepresentation2 onlinetalk1 personal13 presentation140 pureci43 speaking73 speaking skills8 Stephen Krashen11 storylistening142 TCI74 TPRS71

Personalized questions in French: l’étoile du jour.

This morning, I was reading the Active learner blog post about “Café y conversación” and it inspired me to share about an authentic conversation I had last week with my French students. As mentioned in the post: “When we have authentic conversation about topics that students want to talk about,

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acquire50 acquisition65 answers24 authentic168 beginner318 Blogging1 compelling39 comprehensible100 comprehension250 conditional13 Education20 French41 if clauses1 IGCSE12 output44 personalized16 PQA8 practice33 questions74 repetition42 repetitive22 speaking73 story46

How to develop fluency for an oral examination?

The speaking examination for the IGCSEs can be a stressful experience for our students as they are having to speak in the target language for 15 minutes and they are being recorded. It is therefore best to practice this experience often during class time. In the past I have used Audioboo so that my students could practice and review the general questions (which are a series of linked questions on two or three topics which students have covered in grade 9 and 10).

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acquire50 acquisition65 answers24 convey1 develop2 Education20 exam4 examination5 fluency107 fluent57 GCSE1 grade 108 grade 98 IGCSE12 information7 list4 personal13 personalized16 PQA8 practice33 questions74 set2 Spanish33 speaking73 speaking skills8 teacherspayteachers11 tenses2 TPRS71

Communicative activity for French learners (beginner level).

As well as teaching online private English lessons to Spanish students, I help some French students at beginner level. As you may already know, I am a big fan of Martina Bex and I decided to use her storytelling unit for French 1: Dit.

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activity13 adjective1 beginner318 cognates7 communicative7 comprehensible100 dit1 Education20 endings1 French41 game21 grammar66 guidelines2 ideas7 input47 instructions6 intermediate707 key structures8 Martina Bex11 repetition42 speaking73 story46 story asking15 storytelling39 TPRS71 unit3

How to encourage students to produce comprehensible output on sports

 

 

 

 

 

 

My grade 7 students (12-13 years old) did comprehensible presentations about some popular sports in Hispanic countries. First, I wanted to model a presentation because whenever my students produce Spanish output,

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baseball1 comprehensible100 countries6 Dominican Republic1 Education20 encourage2 example1 group work5 hispanic4 hobbies8 information7 input47 language45 look for2 model2 motivate151 output44 pair1 popular10 presentation140 project11 quiz18 sample1 search4 Spanish33 speaking73 sports7 teacherspayteachers11

Civilization project to use the past tense in Spanish

I have covered the past tense in Spanish with my grade 8 students (13-14 years old) this term and I want them to be able to describe past events confidently and accurately. Over my teaching experience I have found out that doing the traditional grammar exercises such as filling in the gaps with the correct verb forms does not really work with students.

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acquire50 acquired4 acquisition65 civilization1 collaboration work2 collaborative3 communication10 communicative7 comprehend52 comprehensible100 culture246 Education20 fluency107 grade 85 group work5 history92 imperfect187 incas2 independent4 information7 informative1 innate1 input47 internalize1 invented1 language45 language skills1 listening52 mayas1 output44 pair work2 past316 poster2 presentation140 proficiency12 project11 simple past24 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 storylistening142 video350

How to get students to talk about a sport in Spanish for one minute or two?

When reviewing the topic of free time with my grade 9 students (14-15 years old), I decided to spice it up a bit with “different” kind of sports and hobbies such as “el futbolchapas”:

without subtitles

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comprehension250 examination5 exams3 free time7 futbolchapas1 grade 108 grade 98 hobbies8 IGCSE12 listening52 ping-pong de puerta1 presentation140 questions74 reading252 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 sport9 subtitles5 video350