Podcasts

Hey all!  

For the last year or so, I have been seeking out various podcasts that I could use in my own classroom.  I have searched high and low for what is - for me - just the right podcast for beginning French students.  And there are a LOT of choices out there!  While almost all the ones I found were overall really well done (certainly more professional than mine!), I was struggling to find something that suited the needs of my students.  They were either too fast, too advanced, too off-topic for my students, or too expensive.  Many of them had some great additional materials, such as transcripts and even teacher resources - but if the content isn't accessible, then they just aren't right for me and my kids.  

DIY

The easiest thing to do was just to make one myself.  I am an absolute noob at creating videos.  I don't even have TikTok.  It took a while to figure out how to use movie-making software to get it all put together, but I am satisfied enough with the results to share this one out.  

Goal

My goal was to make a podcast that aligns to my curriculum, and then just hope that other French teachers find it useable as well.  My first-ever episode of Free State French Podcasts is about Sévérine - a high school student who simply introduces herself, including her name, age, birthday, and how she's feeling thanks to the lovely weather.  

Even though the content specifically aligns to what I am doing in my own classroom, I certainly hope that at least some of you French teachers out there will find this suitable to play in your own classrooms.  I am not trying to do anything fancy, and I don't have a ton of time to invest in my little project.  But I invite you to use this as a resource in your own classrooms if you think it will benefit your students.  

If this takes off - no promises - I hope I can publish a couple of times per month.

Ideas for classroom use

Ask students to jot down information such as her name, age, and birthday in English (or your students' first language).  Have them write a question that she asked of them.  Have them write their answers to those questions.  Can they identify Sévérine's gender (from the word 'contente')?  I often choose unfamiliar names so that they have to rely on gender markers in order to identify if the speaker is male or female.  (FWIW - I also include non-binary people in my daily activities and stories, but it doesn't come across easily in a first-person narrative.)

Thanks for giving my podcast a go!

Karen

Game idea - Moi Aussi

Hello friends and World Language teachers!

I haven't written a post in a loooong time but now that Grad school is done (woot WOOT!) I am going to try to pick it back up again.

I just wanted to share a quick game idea with you.  It can be a prep-in-advance situation, or completely zero prep (yay!).  It's up to you.

This activity can be less about language learning and more about relationship-building.  I played this the other day with my French 2 students and they really had a good time finding out what they had in common with their new classmates.  We played in English since it was literally the second day of school.

Since I have to have names for everything, I am calling this one "Moi Aussi" (Me too).  

Prep:

If you want to prep this in advance, you just need a Google Slideshow (Canva, whatever you prefer) with 1 picture per slide.  The pictures should be random things that kids their age may (or may not) enjoy.  I tried hard to think of things that teens may like but.... for some reason that task gets harder as I grow older!  You can always have kids write down some suggestions for you in advance.  I asked my own child for suggestions, leading me to include things they may have liked when they were younger.

I ended up with a slide show with pictures of Harry Potter, Stranger Things, Minecraft, Chappell Roan, Among Us...you get the idea.  

No Prep:

If you are aware of what the kids are into these days, you can just call things out loud during the game.  

Set-up

Students need to be partnered up.  You can do that however you wish.  You can do inside-outside circles, appointment partners (trendy in elementary school but it didn't work for me in high school) or just have them find a new partner each round.

I had planned for Wagon Wheels (also called inside-outside circles) but changed my mind last minute.  Instead, I played some French music on my phone, and they meandered around the room.  As soon as the music stopped, they paired up with someone near them.

Task:

After students are partnered up (a group of 3 is fine) you either show your Slideshow pic, or call out the thing (example: Harry Potter).  The students get a couple of seconds to decide how much they like the thing.  If they love it, it's a 5.  If they hate it, it's a 1.  If they are unfamiliar with the thing, it's a zero.  Then on the count of three, each partner holds up their fingers, to correspond to their love for the thing.  I am putting up all 5 fingers for Harry Potter.  Hunger Games is a 4 from me.  Chappell Roan is a zero (a closed fist...I don't know a single song of hers).  Justin Bieber is a 1...I know his stuff and it's not for me.  

Relationship-Building Goal:

The idea is that kids will either find out they both love the thing, and they can connect over it.  Or if my partner learns that I can't name a Chappell Roan song, they might share with me a couple of their favorites.  Or we can bond over both disliking Justin Bieber.  

Give them a minute or so with their partner to talk about their numbers.  No, not everyone will get super into the game, but I heard some heated conversations about MarioKart and Stranger Things yesterday!

When you're ready, have them find new partners to discuss the next thing.

Language component:

Depending on the level, you can definitely ask them to keep their conversations in the TL.  Have them give and defend an opinion, or explain their reasoning in TL.  Playing in English and focusing on the relationships is perfectly fine too!  

I hope this activity is something you can use as you head back to school. Here is the link to the slideshow I made.  Copy it and make it your own!  I included the Spanish directions, but no hablo español so blame ChatGPT for any errors.  

Special Person Interviews and why I will never stop using them

Relationships

 Any teacher worth their salt will tell you that relationships are absolutely key to building a safe and comfortable classroom environment.  Even in a normal year, the kids crave making connections with the adults in their schools, whether they know it or not.  They all long to be understood and heard, even if they act "too cool" for such things.  Some kids are easy to get to know.  They are open books.  They will just gush about the new kitty they got, or show you their most recent art.  Some will show you their latest TikTok, or go into great detail about how amazing Among Us is.  

Other kids, not so much.  No matter how much you try, you can't get some kids to open up.  I believe that they still want the connection, but maybe they need you to work harder for it.  I can respect that.  I'll be honest I am not sure I *understand* it, but I do respect it.  The relationships we have with those kids -- the closed books, the silent observers-- those are the ones that are the most important; we can't know if they are just shy and quiet, or truly suffering in silence and desperately need help.  

Not Quite Sold

I had heard about Special Person Interviews (SPI's) a couple of times, and it sounded good, but also like a big time commitment.  I honestly can't remember if I first heard about SPI's from creator Bryce Hedstrom directly, or from someone else who had tried them.  Either way, I was interested in the concept.  Each day a class member gets interviewed in the target language.  Kinda cool, but I wasn't sold on it.  I didn't see how the kids would be expected to answer in the target language and I had other routines that I didn't want to give up.  I thought it was cool in concept but that I wouldn't be able to make it work.  So I gave up without ever trying them.  Now that I think about it, I must have heard about them from someone other than Bryce because I really didn't "get it" and surely Bryce would've explained that which I wasn't understanding.

Then my friend, my colleague, my teaching soul-sister started using them.  She was making it work.  She was raving about how great they were.  She had already opened my eyes to the world of CI and I trust her as a professional.  But I couldn't figure out the concept for some reason.  I didn't get how she could devote so much class time to the interviews and get the kids responding.  So I asked her for a demonstration.  I am so grateful that she obliged.  

She had me act as a student in her Spanish classroom.  I can understand enough Spanish to get by in a level one classroom, so it was a perfect set-up.  She did a mock lesson for me, with me as the special person.  When I couldn't answer in a whole sentence, I resorted to Si and No.  It made sense to me but I still had questions.  "What do you do if the kid can't answer in a full Spanish sentence?"  I think I confused her.  She was like, I modeled that for you.  When you couldn't say "Yes, my favorite animal is the dog" in Spanish, and you just said "yes", I repeated the full sentence for you.  "Class, Karen's favorite animal is the dog.  My favorite animal is the dog, too!"  

Sold!

On goes the lightbulb.  Wait--you mean these aren't about language performance?  Bless her, she tried not to laugh too hard.  No--SPI is not about their performance.  It's all part of CI (comprehensible input).  It's about them hearing, not creating.  If they can start to create that's awesome.  But that's not the focus.  But even more so, this is about (you guessed it) building relationships with kids.  It's about you learning who they are.  It's about them, learning about their classmates, and finding people they have things in common with.  Yes, it's also language input and that's important.  But getting to know them as people, that's the real deal.  Then later down the road you can use their interests in stories and lessons.

Ok.  Sold.  I promised to try it.  I was nervous, but it's not like I couldn't handle it.  I know how to ask follow-up questions.  I know how to restate, how to model, how to bring the language down to a comfortable level for first-year students.  

Since we are now largely online, I gave my kids a slideshow on Google Slides.  They had a template slide that included their name, a few spaces to put interests and favorite things, a hero, their birthday, things like that.  Oh--and their pronouns.  It's so important to honor the pronouns they use and when you've literally never even seen some students we can't assume their gender. (Woah.  Need to rephrase that.  We can't assume gender.  Full Stop.)   They spent a class period filling out the slide with pictures.  They didn't have to use any target language on it, except for their French pronouns and 3 adjectives (which we had already spent some time on).  Here's the slide template I use, along with my completed slide (since I can't share a student's information, you get mine!) for reference.

The next Monday, we did it. I had pre-selected a student for each hour, and we discussed some of the questions for the Special Person.  The following day, we reviewed the Monday's work and then answered more of the questions.  But this time, I typed out their answers on a Kid Grid (a spreadsheet of the questions so we can keep track of everyone's answers as we go along).  The more interviews we did, the more I started to change up the language I was using.  I was able to slowly "level up the language" from "Suzie est de Lawrence" to "Mark habite à Lawrence" to "Jane vient de Lawrence, mais elle est née à Wichita".  I am not expecting them to create with it.  But they are being exposed to it, every single school day.  (Thursday/Friday is a new Special Person)

Better than expected

Even though I am so happy with the slow but steady advancements I am making with them, the reason these are so valuable, again, is the relationships I am trying to form with kids, some of whom I have literally never met in person, or even seen.  I was finally able to see them (they added selfies to the slide), talk to them directly about their interests, and help connect kids who had things in common.  One huge positive, and the reason I will never give up the SPI's is when "Mary" was the special person.  Mary was quiet.  I never saw her name pop up in the chat.  I didn't even know if she was listening to me.  She was in the WebEx, but was she even in the same room as her computer?  Mary, it turns out was born in LA, and her older brother "John" is her hero.  She loves paella and video games, and being with family.  Mary-who had never spoken or written in class before shared some personal information with me and her classmates.  But a couple of days later, for the first time, Mary thanked me at the end of class, told me to have a great day, and said goodbye.  

That to me was  a minor miracle.  Was she just quiet, disinterested in French, or a student in crisis?  I still don't know.  I hope she's just a quiet person.  But if the lines of communication have opened even just a crack, I'd say that SPI's are time well spent.  I will never start a year without them, and I am starting to work on a level 2 version of the activity - same concept but deeper questions.

What Next? - The Kid Grid

As we gather information about students, we need a place to collect it.  Enter The Kid Grid (credit to Tina Hargaden).  The Kid Grid is a Google Sheet (or Excel, or whatever floats your boat) in which all the information you collect in class is typed.  I spend the second day of a special person typing in the data the students provide.  We look at the student's images for about 30 seconds, then I swipe to the Grid.  I ask them to tell me what they remember about our person.  It's fine if they use English, but some will at least try the TL soon enough.  As you can see in this sample, we started pretty simply.  "She lives in CITY" and "She likes pizza".  But then we expand (as noted above), and we included things like "Jane says that Ellen lives in CITY" and "Paul knows that Ellen eats pizza".  It has been a GREAT way to get those little tags in, without having to expressly teach them.  (Pro-Tip - I make a new page for each class, so it stays organized)

I have yet to do this but, another idea is to take a few interviews and turn them into narratives.  You can do compare/contrast, or group "like" kids together, or whatever you want.  Some people even do little quizzes with the information, or you can even write up a Textivate story.  

If you would like more information, check out Cécile Lainé's Special Person Interview post here.  

Password!

Do you remember the old TV game show Password?  Celebrities would help their partners guess a Password by supplying them with one-word clues until they could guess the secret.  It was great, if you're into game shows.  Which I am. 

I first heard of using Passwords in the world language classroom at a conference several years ago.  I would happily cite my source if I could remember where I heard it from.  The idea was to set a vocab word as a password on one day, and then on the next they would have to repeat the word to get into the room.  I tried it a few times but I admit I didn't love the concept.  I would be too busy with the last class to greet the next one at the door to get the password, or I would just plum forget to do it all together.  I wasn't making it work and I wasn't sure why.  So it was easier to just not worry about it.

But I was lucky enough to see Bryce Hedstrom at a Comprehensible Input conference in Iowa in June of 2019.  And he gave a session on how to make Password work...how to make it effective and how to get as much bang for your buck out of the game.

I tried it at the beginning of the year and I am in love with the idea!  Here's how I use it in class.  All credit to Bryce. 

Every class (French 1 through 4) has a different password every week.  On Friday, I give them the Password (it's on the Power Point slide I use to project the plan for the day), and it stays up all week.  I try really hard to remember to Tweet the password out on Thursdays but that doesn't always happen.  I also make sure to use the password in class as much as I can.  Then on Friday, instead of the usual greetings, kids have to use the password to enter the class. 

How is this different from what I was trying the first time?  Well I am picking better passwords.  Rather than a random word of focus, I started picking phrases that were, you know....actually helpful.  I kinda can't believe I didn't figure that one out sooner, but live and learn.  Also I am using them in class.  I model them.  And I expect the kids to use them.  Once a phrase has been a password I try to make sure they use it.  And I am not above bribery...if they use it in context and without prompting in class, they get extra credit. 

Choosing a Password

Anything can be a password, but it should be something that you can get some miles out of.  I think a random vocab word is kind of "meh".  Like, ok...you can say "dog".  So?

French 1 passwords have been things they need to know, but I don't explictly instruct.  Their first password is "Je ne comprends pas".  Clearly that's a great phrase for a complete beginner to know.  Then they get "Comment dit-on...en français".  How great is it that kids can pose their questions in French?  I of course told them these expressions time after time (after time after time....) in class before this year.  But it didn't click for them because I used it without focus.  Telling is not the same as modeling.  Now I have kids who are making sure to use it each and every time.  Other phrases will be things like "à bientôt" and "puis-je aller aux toilettes". 

French 2 gets slightly more interesting things.  I think this week it was "Oh la vache! (darn it!)".  Next week is "Ça suffit" because clearly they don't understand me when I use it to politely ask them to shut the heck up.  ;-)  I am still in the process of building up my lists but go-to phrases like "I am joking" and "Nobody's perfect" are definitely on there.

French 3 and 4 get the idioms.  And they have been useful so far.  I am trying to help them learn more colloquial phrases to replace the mundane and novice-y phrases they continue to use.  I plan on also bringing in some good synonyms because I am SO OVER the word "très".   And French 4 loves that they have earned the right to know more....colorful expressions.  ;-)

Where to find them

I am using a lot of rejoinders in my lower level classes.  Those are fairly easy to find.  You can buy my rejoinder posters here, and there are great sources from Google and lots of other language teachers. 

Pinterest is great too.  I don't have a lot of background in casual French (read - slang).  I know a few things but nothing all that interesting.  Search idioms and jokes in your language and you will find some great expressions. 

Organization and Extra Credit

I have to organize.  In terms of school work, I can't stand clutter.  I have to know where all my digital things are and I have a probably over-complicated system to organize it all.

I use a simple Google Sheets (Excel if you are not using Google tools).   I have 1 Sheet with 4 separate pages (that sounds confusing...1 document on which you have have multiple tabs).  I have one page/tab for each class, and then the number of the weeks down the left.  Once I choose a password I enter it in.  If it's new to me I put the English for my own reference.  Then as the kids use words and expressions (in context) in class, I open the Sheet to the right page/tab, and type the kid's name after the right phrase. 

Give it a try!

So it's really nothing like the game in which Betty White makes Steve from New Jersey guess the word 'pitchfork'.  And sadly there is no prize money.  But the kids are learning and using authentic French in class with ZERO extra time being spent.  That's better than winning a few thousand dollars.

Kinda.

Flexible Seating

I had an annoying day today.  VERY long story short, we were told we'd be getting this "amazing" new furniture that was "just so cool", and we'll "love it", and best of all "it's FLEXIBLE"!

So of course I couldn't sleep last night because today was going to be the "big reveal", and we had to hope that all our stuff was in the right rooms and all that jazz (huge construction project going on...even longer story).  I felt like I was going to be on one of those home makeover shows that ends in tragedy for the family who did not get what they needed. 

So I walk in and.....I try not to cry.  The tables are just horrible for a world language room.  They gave us the most inflexible seating imaginable, short of bolting the tables to the floor.  The desks are triangles, making it difficult to have anything besides groups of 4.  There is no way to configure them so that no one has to turn 180 degrees just to see the TV or the front board.  They are very solid and don't even move out of the way easily.  Thank goodness I got rid of my hightop tables (much more conducive to the teacher who wants them for Project-Based Learning) before noon. 

For some classes, the tables are fine.  But for a language room??  We're ALWAYS moving around.  We are doing activities that need a crazy amount of space, or that require ease of movement.  Running dictation with no space to run?  Cakewalk while tripping over 32 backpacks and tables? How can we dance to Papaoutai in a room with barely any room to breathe!?!  Imagine a Kindergarten room with no SPACE -- it just doesn't work.  And hey, I basically teach Kindergarten to 16-year-olds in French 1. 

I can't bring myself to go completely deskless but after seeing the challenges of having 32 (thirty-two!) of these crazy desks and trying to make the room as Feng-Shui as possible I decided I am all about flexible seating. 

I am gonna ditch some of the desks, and bring in some floor seating.  I got some cozy pillows already and I think my kids will like those.  But I am hoping to get some stadium seats and bean bag chairs too.  I am keeping some desks in groups, and I want a big open space in the middle for kids to be comfortable while we learn French. 

I was going to say that if I were a student I would personally choose a desk.  But......would I?  That bean bag chair looks awfully cozy...

Thanks for reading.  Please feel free to share your experiences with Flexible Seating here!

Karen

Update - I lasted 1 semester with the hybrid seating model.  I had a mix of desks (in small groups) and cozy seating.  At the end of the semester, I decided I was ready to bite the bullet and get rid of all the desks.  They came back in January, and were of course a little surprised.  But they made it work and didn't complain (too much!).  I had my chairs arranged in four groups of six chairs, in inward-facing U shapes.  In the middle of each pod, I placed a storage crate with clip boards, paper, mini white-boards, and art supplies.  I loved the arrangement, and I think the kids adapted well.

The biggest benefit was that it made me change my instructional methods.  I did less paper and pencil work, and more story telling.  More games, fewer worksheets.  

Unfortunately, I only got a few weeks in this arrangement, as schools closed due to COVID-19 in March 2020.  But once we start fully in-person teaching again, I will be excited to see how well the arrangement works.   

French Super Verbs

I don't know about you, but lately I have been hearing a LOT about the "Super Seven" (credit to Terry Waltz) and the "Sweet Sixteen" (credit Michael Peto) verbs.  I first heard about the concept from my colleague, who heard of it from Martina Bex (see Martina's post, and she links back to the original creators).

If you don't know what I am talking about, the Sweet Sixteen is a set of super high frequency structures that can be used in any language to communicate on a wide variety of topics.  You can get some insane mileage out of these simple structures, and to be honest, it's pretty hard to communicate without them!  Just try telling a story without saying "There are" and "I said" and "He is".  It's pretty tough!  We use these phrases ALL.  THE.  TIME.....but are we really helping the students acquire them early on?  Or do we wait until the textbook says it's time to teach "to be"?

If I were to follow my textbook series to the letter, my students would not learn "I am" until chapter 7!  That's like March.  And they wouldn't even learn "He says" in level 1 at all!  Needless to say, I don't follow my textbook anymore.  Sent them all back to central office, and maaaaaaannnn, it felt good to get rid of them!

Anyway - One of my goals for the year is to focus hard on the Sweet 16 in level 1.  (sure we'll review in other years but I am just wanting to see what my Firsties can do with them!)  I am excited to bring in more Movie Talks (Simon's Cat anyone?) and story asks that can get the kids engaged with these structures that really pack a punch!

There are a lot of world language educators who are posting their Super 7 or Sweet 16 in their rooms.  I never really liked the idea when I was a more traditional teacher.  I thought, 'I don't really care what the posters know, I want to know what the kids know!'  But as I have been following more CI styles for educating, I am seeing that these scaffolds are necessary.  I mean, what is a scaffold for anyway?  You put up the scaffold while you're building the house and then eventually the house stands up on its own, right?  So let's give the kids the support they need and eventually, they'll quit looking at my posters.  Well, that's the hope anyway!

If you're like me, you a) like things to look a certain way, b) hate spending money on classroom stuff that the school should buy for you (but that's a whole other rant!!!), and c) are annoyed that it's so EASY to find stuff in Spanish and kinda hard to find it in French!

So I made my own poster set for the Sweet 16.  You can find it here for free.  I have included 1st and 3rd person singular forms only, and it's color coded.  If you want an editable version, hit me up and I can send you a Power Point version (teachers of other languages, you can easily change the French to the TL of your choice!).  The only thing I ask is that you please don't share my work directly.  Share the link to this blog all you want so your colleagues can download the posters.

I will note that I made some minor changes from the original lists.  I added "Il me/lui faut" because I think it's pretty important and it sets up IOPs for later on.

So I hope you like these posters, and that if you're not already teaching the Sweet 16 that you'll give it a shot this year!

Parents' Night 2018

Hi Parents of French Students!  I am looking forward to meeting you at our upcoming Parents' Night.  I know you get a lot of information from 7 teachers in a short amount of time, so I thought this presentation might be helpful.  In it you can find my contact information, a little bit about my expectations, and information about our upcoming trip to Paris and Rome.  I hope you find it helpful!