FRENCH

Bonjour tout le monde ! Hello everyone !

We’ve had a great start in French. For the first two weeks of the year, we have focused on French culture.

In Prep, the students discovered where France was on the globe, how far it was from Australia, how long it would take to get there and whether it was possible or not to get there by car (we agreed it was probably not the best choice!). This discussion was followed by an activity using our big wooden map of the country. Students used a little bicycle to move around the map and stopped in selected regions. At each stop we learned a little bit about each area and everyone realised that France was made up of many different landscapes and building styles.

This week they learnt how to say ‘Bonjour, je m’appelle…’ (hello, my name is…) and took turns introducing themselves in front of the class. They found out about a French cartoon character called Barbapapa and watched a short episode in French. They tried to pick out the French words that they had just learnt and we had a discussion about what they understood of the story. The students realised that even though the characters used another language there were other ways they could understand the story. This is by listening to the tones of voice, watching facial expressions that are common in all cultures and getting clues from the drawings.

In all other grades, the students worked in teams of 4 or 5 and had to answer a specific quiz for their year level. Each quiz was entitled ‘Do you know France?’. They used their knowledge learnt in previous years to answer the questions. It ranged from the map of France to food specialties, French celebrities, the fashion industry, famous inventions or French architecture. In total, there were 12 - 15 questions that enabled them to revise aspects of the French culture. This was also a way to introduce the country to new students who haven’t studied French before. Last week we marked the answers and the winning groups got reward points. This year, we are using ‘classdojo’ to record the points and create new teams every week.

Like in previous years, we’ll play a lot of games in class. They will cover all aspects of the language: listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, as well as numbers and grammar. Each week, the students will be working in new teams, which will allow them to learn how to cooperate with everyone in the class. This system enables the stronger students to help those who find it harder to learn a new language. It is a way to build their self-confidence throughout the year and have some fun at the same time.