Improving Oral FrenchIMPROVEMENT HAPPENS ONE STEP AT A TIME

BY: CHANTALLE CLOUTIER

Overall Goal for Oral French

• One of the main goals of French Immersion is to create French speaking bilingual students.

• In the first three years of French Immersion, all instruction is taught entirely in French and by the end of grade three it is assumed students will be able to carry a simple conversation in French.

Background of Oral French in Early French immersion

• I teach grade one students and throughout the year, I speak as much French as possible. I expect the same in return from my students, in the hope that by the end of grade one they are able to carry on a simple conversation in French, with myself and their peers.

• We encourage the use of the French language through:

• Discussions

• Games

• Drama

• Daily routines

• Every subject taught

• Literacy stations etc…

However …we still have many students who are unable to carry on these simple conversations

This lead me to wonder why? and how I can change this?

The Students

There is a wide range of abilities in each class.

We accept students from all socio-economic backgrounds.

We practice inclusion

We are severely lacking in classroom support for the size of the school ( 600+ students and 24 classes). It is assumed French Immersion students have a higher economic status, however this is a misconception as this is not the case in all schools.

The Problem

• Even by the end of their elementary schooling, many students have difficulty becoming fully bilingual. I have learned through staff meetings, workshops and through my own experience, many students are not meeting the curriculum expectations in French oral language skills. I feel the majority of the basic language learning IS learned in the first three years (K-2) of French Immersion, where the students are constantly encouraged to speak French and are taught many themes relating to everyday vocabulary. The problems start in these first three years of learning and there should be more conversations in the language rather than only teaching dialogue.

Circumstances that Affect Oral Learning

• Some students in K-3 classes are not wanting to put forth the effort to speak French inside and outside of the classroom.

• Some students have a hard time learning and internalizing a new language.

• Some teachers are not fully trained in the best techniques and activities to teach the French language, while some teachers do not have the resources to use new techniques in teaching French.

• Some teachers are not supplied with enough PRO-D funds to pay for workshops that aid in teaching French.

• There are also School Districts that do not hold French workshops and teachers must use their own money to travel.

• There is lack of support for those struggling.

• Technology is a big part of our student’s lives these days. They could benefit from more access to technology to play games that will improve their vocabulary.

Problems we Can Change

The problems How to change them

Most often we teach the students how to converse in French in a classroom setting but when faced with real life situations, their vocabulary is insufficient.

We need to include more real world vocabulary in the primary grades.

We have many conversations as a class but not one-on-one.

There should be opportunity for partner conversations each day, if not, every few days.

The conversations are usually about what we are learning in the educational setting and not outside the classroom. (ex) buying something

We need to teach the students a different way of talking to people each week and follow up with practice conversations.

There is a lack of technology in some schools and it can often be troublesome to retrieve the computers. It is also difficulty to teach 24 grade ones to use a laptop.

Make time to use technology once a week and let the students play games that will teach them vocabulary.

What I Changed to Help my Students

To improve students’ ability to carry on a conversation in French I decided to introduce themed conversation exercises weekly and make time for a French conversation daily. Starting in September, I will incorporate the gestures learned in the AIM program in order to test whether or not they help improve French fluency and comprehension.

Learning Objective(s):

The student will be able to speak simple French sentences.

The student will be able to have a simple French conversation with another student.

The student will comprehend more of what the teacher is communicating in French through the use of these gestures. (Fall 2015)

The student will know how to use gestures when carrying on a simple conversation. (Fall 2015)

My Procedural Analysis and Intended Solution

I wanted to find out after my mini conversation lesson, if the student could carry out a simple introductory conversation with another person and understand the information the other person is relaying back?

I would have mini-lessons on how to carry out themed conversations. Ex) Introductions, favorite things, seasons etc… and re-visit these lessons to imbed vocabulary in the brains of students.

Barriers I would have to overcome: Student’s negative attitudes about having this conversation in French.

Student’s attitude about working with a certain student they may not like.

Interruptions from loud noises in the hallways or people entering the class can easily distract students.

Some students may still not be able to identify and use the vocabulary needed for an introductory conversation.

Some students are easily distracted by anything whatsoever.

A student may be too shy to speak with another person.

It may take more time than initially predicted

Procedures Continued…

What I planned to do with the students:

Class mini-lesson on how to have a conversation

Have students repeat what is expected

One-on-one practice with other students

One-on-one practice with teacher

Re-visit lessons

Introductory conversation:

Learn how to have a respectful conversation through using eye contact and facing the other person.

Find someone to have a conversation with in class.

Shake hands and ask the person’s name in French.

Say ‘hello’ and introduce themselves in French.

Ask what age they are in French.

Ask how many people in their family.

Ask what they like to do on the weekend.

Ask what their favorite colour is.

Ask what their favorite movie is.

Thank them for speaking with you

Our First Conversation Lesson

To start the lesson we had a discussion about what a conversation is.

The students listened first to the teacher’s prompts on how to have an introductory conversation in French and then gave their input.

The teacher then asked for the student’s input on what step comes next in a conversation.

The teacher wrote down each step on a white board or a large chart paper as the class went along with their ideas.

The teacher then had the class practice one step at a time with teacher prompting students when to do so.

Finally the teacher instructed the students to work in pairs independently of the teacher. When working with a partner, they chose a person close to them and then decided who plays A and who plays B. This did not need practice, as this class has practiced A/B partners before but may need more guidelines with another class.

The Questions we Used

Students were on the carpet facing the teacher.

The lesson was completely oral, therefore no supplies were needed, except for the chart paper or a white board.

The teacher had chart paper ready to write their ideas down.

There were no other distractions in the room at the time and the doors were closed in order to minimize distraction.

The teacher would prompt students and then wait for their ideas.

The chart on the right is what we came up with, as a class.

Formative One-on-One Evaluation

The testing was done between the teacher and one student in a primary classroom at a round table on one side of the classroom, while the rest of the students were all around the classroom playing math games with a partner. The atmosphere was noisy but only distracting for one of my students.

For this one-to-one testing, a whiteboard and whiteboard pen were used. Other than these two things, there was only the teacher and student at the table.

The students were facing me, with their backs to the rest of the class

I started by having the student sit down and asked them if they remembered the activity we did previously, when we first introduced ourselves. I then explained we would be doing that again but this time one-on-one with each other.

I went through all the same steps as I had with the whole class mini-lesson but this time I only collected a single student’s ideas of what should be said in a introductory conversation. I wrote their steps on a whiteboard as we went along and prompted when needed.

Results

Student of high ability

Student memorized everything we had done before and answered everything quickly in French.

They seemed bored and were wondering why they had to do this lesson.

Did not use the steps we had written on the whiteboard together.

Had a full conversation with me one-on-one without difficulty and could have continued further.

Student of average ability

Student needed some prompting when brainstorming steps to having an introductory conversation but responded in French.

Needed some support but when helped, they remembered and said “oh ya!”

Used the steps we wrote together on the whiteboard to help.

Was able to carry a simple conversation with me with some support.

Student of low ability

Student needed extensive prompting and still did not understand. Needed instructions in English and then responded in English.

Needed support on every step and in English. Often said “ I don’t understand”.

Could not understand the French steps written on the whiteboard.

Needed to repeat after me for each step. Several repetitions for most students in this category.

Lessons Learned

The students performed as I predicted, according to their ability.

When pairing students, at times pair them according to ability. This way the strong students who are bored, receive some challenge through helping those who have difficulty.

Ask for feedback from a class or student on what to include in the conversation and write the points down as you go. This includes and gives the students more responsibility in their learning. Having a set poster for every conversation can be boring. Include them by making the chart together.

Do not do a mini-lesson on conversations only once. Repeat in order to help them remember and imbed in their minds.

Make sure to practice each step as a class before letting the students pair up. It gives the Students with the lowest abilities a chance to understand.

Make time each day for a classroom conversation in French.

Introduce a conversation mini-lesson every week and re-visit this conversation in a few weeks, as they forget over time. Change theme each week.

Try to make each conversation topics they would come across in real life.

Allot more time than previously estimated.