French the natural way: 3 steps to read aloud

Coucou les French learners,

Are you ready to speak French this year? I know you probably are but you may have this fear of speaking and making mistakes.

I have the answer for you.

Remember, you speak when you feel ready to. Do not force yourself to speak if you are not ready yet.

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French the natural way: the benefits of becoming patient

Coucou les French learners,

How has this new year started? I hope not too fast! I know I need to remind myself to slow down.

Living life at a fast pace often leads to stress and frustration. BUT acquiring another language teaches you to take your time and become patient.

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abonnetoi39 acquisition65 benefit3 benefits5 boost184 breathe17 breathing18 ci145 community154 compelling39 compellinginput8 comprehensible100 comprehensible input36 comprehensiblefrench241 croissance3 culture246 enjoy48 enjoyable39 expressfluency20235 fle269 fluency107 francophone81 francophonie82 frenchacquisition135 frenchculture295 grow3 growing4 growth4 histoires en français12 inputaloneissufficient223 languageacquisition49 languageboost18 languagebooster16 learnfrenchthenaturalway59 lefrancaisensemble206 lefrançaisnaturellement92 lefrancaispartout10 member24 new year22 newyear24 reach30 reaching3 reachout3 relax48 self french205 sla123 slowfrench64 TCI74 trust6 trusttheprocess78 video350 youtube67 youtube channel52

Story listening is powerful!

To me, developing listening skills are vital in life, yet not practiced enough. As teachers, we are told to let students learn by doing (which is valuable too in some cases) and that classrooms should be students led. As a consequence the skill of listening is being put aside,

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Cultural input: the prisons in Bolivia (or how to engage Spanish learners)

How to get students engaged and producing a lot of language???? Well…. I recommend purchasing Martina Bex 7-day lesson plans about Los niños prisioneros de Bolivia as it is truly worth the investment! Not only did it save me a lot of prep-time, it also made my students had a meaningful discussion in the target language!

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The Spanish alphabet

This is a simple activity to do with Spanish beginners when you are teaching the alphabet: students create their own alphabet page by looking for words which start with each letter of the Spanish alphabet. This is the first year in my teaching career that I do this activity and I have found out that my grade 6 students (11-12 years old) had a lot of fun doing this.

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Speaking activity: giving opinions about TV programs and films.

This is a fantastic idea from one of my emails from the mflresources@yahoogroups.com: “I show the students some clips (2-3 mins each) from YouTube and they play the role of critic – after each clip they get 30 seconds to write their opinion of each clip and then a further 30 seconds to share their opinion with their neighbor.

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Reading activity: una televisión para los perros

I believe reading in the target language is crucial because it promotes fluent reading skills which then leads to fluency in the other language skills such as speaking and writing. Fluent reading means reading without a dictionary, which can be challenging if students read an authentic text or a book.

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