French to write (at) home about

Is there any reason why various interests, hobbies, weekend pastimes and extracurricular activities should not be treated as legitimate sources of inspiration and material for learning? Au contraire, firmly believes International School. For instance, what better way for the students to truly experience the French language than to see and hear their peers from France talk about fun things in French… And then do it themselves?

After warming up with the online app Quizlet, which provided a vocabulary boost, as well as some group work and pronunciation exercises, the students watched the videos made by their peers from France, where they show and tell how they spend their free time, what they like to do, what kind of music they listen to…

In order to apply their lexical and grammar knowledge in this topic, the students were given some creative homework. They were supposed to make a video in which they would present their hobbies. The instructions given by the teacher were very clear, so all they had to do in order to make a perfect video was follow them. The most important thing was – speaking French during the video. This homework was very successful because the students were represented through various activities like cooking, singing, painting, sports, etc. These videos are also didactically important because they constitute an extension of what they have already learnt in class, combining language competences with modern technology. This is one of them.

 

Mastering the past tense through the biography of Coco Chanel

During their French lessons, our students mastered the practical use of certain language features and developed their critical thinking by discussing different areas of culture, art, politics, sports, history, etc.

For example, students covered the past tense with the help of biographical texts about prominent French and Francophone individuals like Coco Chanel and Jacques Prevert. After that, French language teacher asked students to use the text model they had covered for their own work.

With that students achieved a number of goals: they learned how to use the past tense by avoiding the usual boring grammar route, they learned a lot about French culture and were encouraged to conduct their own research.

To see how well students can manage group activities, teacher divided the class into two large groups. Each group had to prepare a presentation about the student exchange programme.

Students mastered the use of adjectives related to different nationalities, countries, the European Union and the emotions felt while studying foreign languages in a presentation about the Erasmus student exchange programme.