Chez Renée

Students in 3rd year French participated in the wedding of our classroom mannequins, Jacques & Suzette!  Everyone had a part to play.  Students acted out the ceremony at the town hall with the mayor and then the church ceremony, so they learned about French culture as well.  Here are some photos. The mayor presides as Jacques & Suzette sign the marriage license. The mayor gives Jacques & Suzette their livret de famille. At the church, the flower girl scatters rose petals. Jacques & Suzette exchange rings. Suzette is wearing my grandmother's wedding dress from 1933. And of course, there was a little goofing around as well! Later, students read a description of the wedding and practiced choosing the correct verb tenses for describing a past event in French.  It was a day to remember!

High school students love to write messages and graffiti wherever and whenever they can.  I decided to use this to my advantage by creating a message board for my students to write messages and graffiti in French!  I purchased a white board and some colorful markers for this purpose.  Students are allowed to write on the board in the few minutes before class begins, or at the end of class if we finish our lesson a few minutes early.  The rules are:  1. Write in French only,  2.  Don't erase anything that anyone else has written, 3.  Be nice.  Here's a photo of the message board. My students fill this board  in a week.  If you look closely, you can see that I taught them some texting phrases that week (Je t'm), so they tried it out on the board.  One year a student asked a date to Homecoming in French on the message board.  And often, students stop in after school to see ...

This week was an exciting one in 3rd year French!  Students heard the story of how Jacques recently proposed to Suzette.  Jacques and Suzette are classroom mannequins and students have been hearing stories about their lives since they began studying French.  This particular story is used to help students learn how to describe a past event using appropriate verb tenses (le passé composé vs. l'imparfait).  After hearing this story, students were given invitations to Jacques & Suzette's wedding!  Here's a photo of the invitations. And here's a video of the story of their engagement! Notice the students' responses as they realize what's going on.  It sure makes learning how to use various verb tenses more exciting...for my students and for me, too. :)

First year French will learn how to describe their families this week.  In order to teach students the family vocabulary, I will introduce them to the family of Jacques DUBOIS (my classroom mannequin).  Here's a photo of Jacques.  I used photos of store mannequins to create a Power Point presentation of Jacques' family.  Here are some of the photos I used in the presentation.  This is Jacques' uncle.  As you can see, his family is multi-cultural. This is one of Jacques' brothers.  And this is Jacques' dog, Beau! You get the idea.  I had fun making this presentation and am looking forward to using it in class.  I think it's a good way to go beyond my textbook to help make the topic more interesting, and maybe even a little amusing, too. :)

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...

Today we learned to count to 20 in first year French.  I used our classroom mannequin, Jacques DUBOIS to teach this.  The conversation went something like this (in French, of course):  "Look everyone!  Jacques has his backpack with him.  I wonder what's in it!  Let's take a look (I open the backpack and gasp)...oh my!!  There's CANDY in his backpack.  How many pieces do you think there are?  Let's count them.  (I count in French, students who already know the numbers join in spontaneously).  Wow.  There are 20 pieces of candy.  How many students do we have in our class?  Let's count.  Can you believe it?  There are 20 students in the class, and 20 pieces of candy.  What a coincidence!  I think maybe I should give all of you a piece of candy!" So I passed Jacques' backpack around the room, and everyone took a piece of candy.  I know it sounds a little crazy, but I assure you that I had e...

A few years ago I tried a new idea inspired by our high school librarian.  She had a clay flower pot filled with coffee beans at the front desk.  The pot was "sprouting" daffodils, which were really just pens made to look like flowers.  I decided to make my own flower pot filled with flower pens for my desk.  I bought various colorful silk flowers and attached them to pens with tape.  Then I covered the entire pen with floral tape so it resembled the stem of a flower.  I placed the flower pens in a pot filled with coffee beans.  Students are allowed to borrow the pens for the class period if they wish.  I've been pleasantly surprised by how much they seem to enjoy using these pens.  Believe it or not, last year a group of 11th grade boys enjoyed them the most and would sometimes race to class to claim their favorite pen first.  Who wouldn't want their students racing to their class with anticipation?  Thi...