Texts
Putumayo. French Playground. Putumayo World Music, 2005.
This CD is a great collection of French music to get kids connected to the language. It’s influences include not just France, but also French Creole, Caribbean, and African sounds. The lyrics tell stories of what life is like in French speaking countries and the beats can appeal to all types of people.
Students can learn about other cultures and connect to children all over the world when listening to this music. Lyrics are included, so copies can be made and distributed among the class to sing along and also to discuss the content. It helps students to hear the language spoken aloud by more than just the teacher, and lets them know how fun it can be.
Sempé , Jean-Jacques. Goscinny, Rene. Le Petit Nicolas. Gallimard, 1999.
Originally published in 1959 in France, but revised in 1999, this is a great collection of short stories following a young boy named Nicolas and his friends. The stories are told from the point of view of Nicolas himself, and are written from a child’s perspective. The vocabulary is simple enough for young learners to understand and engaging enough to keep the interest of kids. Since I first read it in the early 90’s, an entire series has sprung from the original and even a movie!
Students can read these short stories in class and not feel overwhelmed with an entire full length novel. They can relate to the adventures and get great practice with the language. We can watch the movie in class as well, after reading and practicing translating the books.
Beauty and the Beast (1991). Dir. Gary Trousdale. Perf. Paige O'Hara and Robby
Benson. Walt Disney Video, 2002. DVD.
This is a classic French fairy tale with a Disney twist. It is the story of a prince who is cursed by a witch to live as a beast. A young woman is forced to live with him and discovers the beauty of him inside. It is a charming story set to music.
I think it would be fantastic to make a project with this story and let the kids perform their own play in French. It may be somewhat abridged, but it is fairly well known and would be an enjoyable project for a more advanced class. The advanced class can put on a production for the lower levels and then all will benefit from it.
Strategies
Think Aloud a Passage – I’m not exactly sure if this counts as a strategy, but this is a great tool from the Beers book to help students understand how to read, and what to think about when reading. The teacher reads aloud a passage, and as he/she reads, uses strategies for understanding the text and shares them with the students. The teacher provides a model by thinking aloud the strategies, so students know what they should be doing as they read.
Though the strategy seemed to be for students learning to read in their first language, it is also an excellent tool for students to learn a second language. This would be great to use when students first start learning to read longer passages and books. The early stages of the language are learning just vocabulary words and then short sentences, so this is very helpful for students to start recognizing passages as a whole. Even students that can do this well in English may not remember to do so in French, or any other second language.
Nonstop Write – In this strategy, students write in response to a prompt for three to five minutes. Students use sentences and paragraphs, but emphasis is not placed on spelling or punctuation, but on content. The idea is to get a lot of thoughts down, like a brainstorm, while writing continuously for a specified amount of time. After time is up, students can then get in groups or pairs and discuss what they wrote.
In a language class, this would be a great way to clarify understanding of longer passages of text. After reading a passage in a book, students can perform a nonstop write prompted by what they read. When meeting up in groups, they can compare and contrast their thoughts and make sure that they are following what we are reading.
