Chez Renée

Have you heard about Quizlet? It's a very powerful tool all teachers should know about! Basically, Quizlet is a website that allows you to create flashcards in many languages. Students can access the cards you've created and play games and even take tests in order to learn the words on the cards.  They can also  listen to any word in French and hear how it's pronounced.  And it's FREE. I decided last year to make Quizlet flashcard sets for every unit for each level of French that I teach.  That was a lot of flashcards!!  I put links to all the sets on my class web pages, and now students can go there any time they want to and study for any unit they want to, which I think is a great resource for a teacher to provide.  If you would like to see the sets I've made, or even use them, you can search for my user name ( madamermwood ) at the Quizlet site. The questions becomes, however, how to integrate this tool into a wo...

Hoorah for summer!   Although school has been out for a while, today feels like the first day of summer for me since I've been busy attending workshops for the past few weeks.  I heard from several experienced edcuators who shared from their wealth of knowledge what they've learned over the years.  Mostly they reminded me of some important things that I already knew, but that are easy to forget when one is focused on the daily responsibilities of teaching.  I'd like to share what I was reminded of with you :).   Students will believe what you tell them :  Dr. Sharon Faber reminded me of this truth...and it is so easy to forget!  High school students may look like adults, but they are truly still children in many ways, and will often believe what you tell them simply because you are the teacher.  So remember to say such things as, "This is going to be your best year ever!", becaus...

"If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect." ~Benjamin Franklin I saw this quote on a poster on the Persuasive Writing teacher's classroom door this week, and it got me to thinking about how, in my experience, teenagers do need a lot of persuasion to be convinced that studying any particular subject is worth their while.  So how do we persuade them in a World Language class?  Appeal to their interests, such as: Music Food Entertainment Cultural Differences All of the above are easy to weave into French class if you're willing to exert a little extra effort.  Let's take music, for example.  Over the years I've developed a list of French music that I use to  teach listening skills and to reinforce grammatical concepts at appropriate times.  Students also learn cultural information when they listen to authentic French music, so they're really learning on so many levels when a teacher ...

I learned about this review game at a conference and tried it out with my students.  It's called  Organized Chaos.   It would work well for any subject!  Here's what you do: Write 8 questions that cover the topic you want to review. Make 8 copies of each question (so you'll have 64 sheets of paper). Give a few sheets of paper to each student. Ask students to crumble up each individual piece of paper into a ball. Tell students to throw the balls onto the floor, in the center of the room. Ask students to get out a sheet of paper and number from 1-8. Tell students to get up and start uncrumbling paper balls.  They write the answer to the question they find on their sheet of paper.  Then they crumble up the paper into a ball again and throw it back into the center. Repeat until they've found all 8 questions and answered them all. Collect their answers or go over the correct answers as you see fit. Put the garbage can in th...

I've learned over the years that high school students don't necessarily perceive reality accurately.  I've also learned that however inaccurate their perceptions may be, they do matter!  I recently became aware that I need to do a better job in one particular class at communicating my care and concern for my students.  So after giving the matter a lot of thought, I decided to send each student in that class a hand-made Happy New Year card.  I chose a snowflake design because I LOVE snowflakes, but also because I always encourage my students on the first day of the new semester to set a goal for themselves since it's a new year, a new semester and a chance for a fresh start.  The presentation I created for this is entitled "Fresh Snow" (to represent a fresh start), and features photos of snowflakes.   I gave this presentation to my students today!  And they should also be receiving these cards in t...

A few years ago I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Hal Urban  speak at a workshop.  A veteran teacher, Hal taught for more than 30 years in public schools in California and says he loved every minute of it.  Hal proposes that we can teach our students about the value of having good character and using good manners no matter what subject we teach or what sort of school we teach in.  He says that everyone, no matter what their background, can agree on the following:  1) The Golden Rule (treat others the way you'd like to be treated), 2) Societies (and therefore classrooms) function better when everyone uses good manners.  Hal convinced me that it's OK to take a few minutes of instructional time to set the tone for my classroom and to help teach students something even more important than French!  I followed his advice by talking to students about good manners and the power of words at the beginning of the year...