UNIT 1: Find out If Someone Has the Same Most Important Classroom Phrase and Words As

UNIT 1: Find out if someone has the same most important classroom phrase and words as you (year 7-8 or 9)

Outcome: Find out if someone has the same most important classroom sentence and words as you.

Note to the teacher: this is the second period of the year with a new class. The students can ask the teacher any vocabulary by asking “Comment dit-on …?” (“How do you say …?”) and the teacher writes it on the board with a translation into the target language. The requested vocabulary expressions cannot be longer than 5 words or else it’s too long to memorise.

PERIOD 1 (OUT OF 11)

PRIMING

1)The teacher writes on the board the 4 most important sentences to him within a classroom context. He mimes them, he explains them in French with plenty of repetition, he draws pictures on the board, he makes sure they all understand … and when they all do, he translates them into English. (Traduisez/Traduis! Translate! Allez, vas-y! Go/come on! Je teparlefrançais: I speak French to you. Je suis perdu: I am confused).

2)The teacher asks the students in their groups to decide on the 4 most important sentences to them in English. They have 4 minutes to do that. The only English they are allowed to speak is the 4 sentences they are choosing. One person from each group types them on the teacher’s computer linked to a projector and while they do this task, the teacher casually walks around and talks to the students in French. He wants them to get used to him speaking in the target language. He talks to them about the most important sentences to them, to him, makes comments, seizes any opportunities to elicit words from them in French, praises them for their listening and speaking efforts, has fun. When the 4 sentences from all the groups have been written down in the teacher’s computer, he makes sure there are no repeats and again, he involves the students in getting involved with a response in French. At this stage, only the extraverts will say something but that’s okay. The observant ones do what they do best: they observe and listen. The teacher starts translating the students’ sentences into French on his computer and gets them to repeat the sentences with different intonations and actions. The key thing is to have fun. The teacher wants them to mime each phrase while they are saying the sentences.

3)20 minutes before the end of this lesson, the teacher organises a game based on the class sentences he started translating. Just to get them enthused and get them to pronounce some French.

The students sit down in a circle on a chair facing outwards and there’s a desk with a plastic cone on top of it in the middle of the circle. The teacher numbers off three teams and asks them what they want to be called as a team and he writes down their team name on the board in a table to put the score in. He then makes sure that each team has a member with a number, so he calls out number 1s in each team to put up their hands, then 2s to put up their hands and so on. Everything is conducted in French. When the numbers are uneven, the teacher gets one student to take the score instead of him (especially a “loud” one). He then asks: “comment dit-on …? How do you say …?” (which was learnt in the first class of the year) + a random sentence typed from the class and tells the students in their group to find what the answer is in French. A lot of miming and actions are needed from the teacher especially at the beginning of the year. They only have to look at the board with the translations the teacher has just done to know the answer. They rehearse within the group how to say it (or so they think) and then the teacher demonstrates how to play the game. When their number gets called out, the students get up, run around the circle clock wise, get back to their chair which is then pulled inside the circle by a teammate and the first student to go through the circle and grab the cone in the middle can give the answer and earn a point for their team. Plenty of clapping and high fives and joy must be happening. Pronunciation should not be a focus at this point unless it hinders comprehension and in that case, the students have to repeat after the teacher.

PERIOD 2

4)For homework, the teacher has finished translating all the class sentences into French and has printed out a copy for every student. They can also be put into a Myportfolio group page or any eportfolio group page equivalent. He hands them out a copy and gets them to glue it in their exercise book.

5)The teacher draws a massive question mark on the board and wonders how the students will memorise some of the class sentences to use. Basically, he engages them into a metacognitive reflection: how can they maximise their memory skills? How do they learn best? He gets them to understand the following learning pointers (uploaded into an eportfolio group page) and asks them to write them down into their exercise book and tick the one(s) important to them:

• unesimilarité avec l’anglais (a similarity to English)
• une association bizarre (a weird association)
• une connection avec d’autrestrucs (a connection with other things)
• une fiche de vocabulaire (avocabularycard)
• un dessin (a drawing)
• un poster dans la salle de classe (a poster in the classroom)
• une nécessité personnelle (apersonalnecessity)
• un mime (a mime)
• une discussion avec quelqu’und’autre (a discussion with someone else)
• unerépétition de l’expressiontouteseule (a repetition of the expression on its own)
• un jeu de classe (a class game)
• …

6)The teacher tells the students to shut their exercise book and asks them to brainstorm the sentences they can recall and writes them down on the board. For each student recalling a sentence, he asks him/her how he/she remembers the sentence. The teacher thanks and praises the student for his/her participation each time. At the end, the teacher asks the students to put up their hand when one of the pointers suits their learning preferences best. He also gets them to highlight their learning preferences in their exercise book. This is a very important part of their learning way and future success in improving in the target language.

7)The teacher asks them to put into practice their learning preferences. They get up or stay where they are but start putting into practice how they learn best to memorise sentences in French. By the end of the period, they must have memorised at least 5 sentences.

PERIOD 3

MAIN TASK

8)The teacher asks the students to draw a poster of a class sentence of their choice. They choose the colour of their poster paper and they are not forced to draw if they cannot draw. But it must be colourful and have the French at the top and the English at the bottom. The teacher shows them an example of a poster he has made. For those who have a tablet or ipad, they are more than welcome to do it on their device and print out a copy to go on the wall. The students choose their sentences (likely to be their’s) by raising their hand and the teacher writes the student’s initials next to the sentence on his computer copy. Those that haven’t got a poster to draw must choose one that has already been chosen but all sentences must be covered first. The teacher tells them that all posters will be put up on the classroom walls and therefore need to look beautiful and the handwriting big.

9)When the students have finished their poster, they staple it themselves on the classroom wall and then their objective is to walk around the room, see what students who haven’t finished are doing and try to memorise as many sentences as they can. For each memorised sentence, they have to record a pointer written next to it (eg: similarity, a drawing …) in their exercise book. That task has to be finished for homework: a picture of their sheet can be taken and uploaded to their eportfolio “The most important sentence and words to me” page and shared with their teacher.

PERIOD 4

10)The teacher invites the students to work in pairs and review all the sentences by specifying which pointer helped them for each sentence. They follow the dialogue below:

- J’aiappris (I’ve learnt) … par (through) …

• unesimilarité avec l’anglais (a similarity to English)
• une association bizarre (a weird association)
• une connection avec d’autrestrucs (a connection with other things)
• une fiche de vocabulaire (avocabularycard)
• un dessin (a drawing)
• un poster dans la salle de classe (a poster in the classroom)
• une nécessité personnelle (apersonalnecessity)
• un mime (a mime)
• une discussion avec quelqu’und’autre (a discussion with someone else)
• unerépétition de l’expressiontouteseule (a repetition of the expression on its own)
• un jeu de classe (a class game)
• …

Ettoi? (And you?)

- Moi, j’aiappris (I’ve learnt) … par (through) …

• unesimilarité avec l’anglais (a similarity to English)
• une association bizarre (a weird association)
• une connection avec d’autrestrucs (a connection with other things)
• une fiche de vocabulaire (avocabularycard)
• un dessin (a drawing)
• un poster dans la salle de classe (a poster in the classroom)
• une nécessité personnelle (apersonalnecessity)
• un mime (a mime)
• une discussion avec quelqu’und’autre (a discussion with someone else)
• unerépétition de l’expressiontouteseule (a repetition of the expression on its own)
• un jeu de classe (a class game)
• …

Whenever they can, they mime and try to be specific in their answer. The teacher reminds them they can ask him for some vocabulary when they mention “une association bizarre” (“a weird association”) or “une connection avec d’autrestrucs” (“a connection with other things”) or anything else they want to express.

If they haven’t learnt a sentence yet, they say:

“Je n’ai pas encore appris cette phrase.” (I haven’t learnt this sentence yet)

At some stage, students record their conversation on a cell phone/device and upload it on their eportfolio page.

11)The teacher organises a game to go over the sentences.

The class is divided into 2 teams and every student faces the classroom wall that has all the sentence posters on it. In the middle of the classroom, there’s a desk with 2 koosh balls on it. Each team is numbered off. The teacher makes sure all students know their number by getting them ro raise their hands. He asks how to say a sentence in French and all students look at the posters on the wall and rehearse within their team how to pronounce the sentence. The teacher then calls out a number and that number from each team must hurry to a koosh ball and throw it at the appropriate poster. The first one to hit the poster can say the sentence in French and earn 2 points for his team. If none of them can hit the poster, it is the first one to hit the wall to go to the wall and point at the poster he missed and say the sentence in French which will earn his team 1 point.

12)In the last 5 minutes of the period, the teacher asks the students to write down in their exercise book as many sentences as they can recall without looking at the classroom posters or their copy of sentences in their exercise book.

PERIOD 5

13)The students are asked to write down what their 3 most important words in life are. They can use the teacher’s dictionaries or their own device for vocabulary. The teacher asks a student to ask him the following question and he replies as per the demonstration:

-Quels sont les trois mots les plus importants pour toi? (What are the three most important words to you?)

-Pour moi, les trois mots les plus importants, c’est “voyage, famille et sport.” Ettoi? (For me, the three most important words are “travelling, family and sport. And you?)

14)The teacher gives a copy of the following dialogue to the students. For those who have finished quite promptly with their 3-word search, they are to translate what the dialogue below means.

-Quels sont les 3 mots les plus importants pour toi? (What are the 3 most important words to you?)

-Pour moi, c’est “Voyage, famille et sport”! (For me, it’s “Travelling, family and sport”!)

-Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire? (What does that mean?)

-“Travelling, family and sport”!

-Ças’écrit comment, ça? (How do you write that down?)

-“Voyage, ça s’écrit -v-o-y-a-g-e-, famille, ça s’écrit -f-a-m-i-l-l-e, et sport, ça s’écrit -s-p-o-r-t-, c’est pareil qu’en anglais.” Et toi, quels sont les trois mots les plus importants pour toi? (Travelling is written … And you, what are the 3 most important words to you?)

-…

15)The teacher does a demonstration with a student on the dialogue and the students are to do the same with everyone in the class. A demonstration can also be available on the eportfolio group page if the students want to check the pronunciation. They have to find out if someone has the same most important sentence and words as them. The teacher does not say anything when the students start asking each other about their most important words and sentence. He waits for some student to say they can’t spell in French. If no one says anything, he stops them and says that spelling in English is obviously not French and therefore, some work needs to be done on the alphabet.

FOCUS ON FORM

16)Consciousness-raising: the teacher sings the alphabet in French to the tune of “Twinkle little star” (also uploaded on Myportfolio) and then he asks them how they are going to learn how to spell the alphabet. He hopes someone will think of the pointers to learn best that were presented at the beginning of this unit. If no one thinks of them, the teacher mentions the learning strategies again. He then divides the students into groups according to their learning preference. They don’t have much time but by the end of the period, they must be able to show they have learnt some letters of the alphabet.

PERIOD 6

17)Drilling: the teacher explains that for the whole period except in the last 10 minutes, the whole class will play games on the alphabet. In the last 10 minutes, students will go into their group of learning preference and make sure each member will know how to spell because there will be a quiz in the last 5 minutes of the period.

18)Drilling: the teacher explains the “Grand-mother’s steps” game.

Students write in big their first name on an A4 piece of paper and the teacher explains that when they go outside, they are allowed to do one step forward when they hear the teacher calling out a letter which is in their name. They’re allowed to do 2 steps if there are 2 of the same letter within their name or 3 if that is the case). They’re also allowed to do 2 steps on the first letter of their name. At all times, they must hold up their piece of paper with their name on it so the teacher can check they’re not cheating. The winner is the first person to get to where the teacher stands. So everyone goes outside. The students all line up facing the teacher who stands about 50 meters away. And the game starts. The teacher randomly calls out the letters of the alphabet in French. If the students want to play the game again, you do it again as long as you were asked in the target language.

19)Drilling: the students and teacher stand in a circle, join hands with each other and start walking clockwise and every step they make, a letter of the alphabet must be sung to the tune of “Twinkle little star.” Then, instead of walking, the whole group runs. And then they run anti clockwise and then the teacher changes directions all the time. Finally, they all move closer to the middle of the circle, slowly, singing the alphabet song on every step, and lift up their joined hands when everyone is squashed in the middle and then step back, step by step, to the initial fully stretched circle.

20)Drilling: from where they stand, they all sit down and we play duck duck goose. The person running around must tap the right shoulder and say a letter of the alphabet. When a person gets tapped on the left shoulder, that’s when the chase starts.

21)Drilling: they remain in their group for the last 5 minutes of the period and instead of a quiz, they play a hangman in French on French words.

22)Reflecting: The students get together in their group of learning preference (see point 16). They have 5 minutes to perfect their spelling.

PERIOD 7

23)Same as last period: the teacher tells them it’s the last period before they can go back into interviewing every student in the class about their most important sentence and words. Therefore, they really need to sharpen their spelling skills. In the last 10 minutes, they will go back into their group of learning preference followed by a kind of a test.

Drilling: the class goes outside and is divided into 3 groups. The objective for all the groups is to make an amazing human formation for each letter of the alphabet. No English is allowed. For any words needed like “here” or “like that,” students need to ask the teacher how to say them in French which he will on a small white board. They have 15 minutes to perform each letter of the alphabet using all the human bodies in the group. After 15 minutes, each group at a time performs their human alphabet and they must hold the pause for at least 3 seconds while a student in the group has the time to say: “Trois, deux, un, -a-! (Three, two, one, -a-!)”and then the whole group repeats -a- and so forth for each letter of the alphabet and its formation. The winning group is the group with the most accurate/original/amazing formations and can say the letters of the alphabet properly. The teacher takes notes on his computer and pictures with his device to upload on an eportfolio.