I’m pleased to announce that I will once again be presenting at the World Language Teacher Summit. If you’re interested in seeing my video, “ Interpretive Tasks for In-class and Distance Learning” or any of the videos submitted by these fantastic language teachers, click here for your free registration. (Note: This is an affiliate link and if you purchase anything I might receive a commission.) The conference starts on Monday, so register soon!
I have to admit that I was never a huge fan of projects when I was in the classroom. There were several reasons for this. The first was that the class time spent on research and preparing a presentation took time away from the types of communicative tasks that I felt would lead to progress toward proficiency. Of course my upper level students could do research in the target language, but it was very difficult to ensure that they did. Likewise, although I could have had the students prepare their visual aid at home, I found that some students would not prepare anything and others spent an inordinate amount of time making something pretty that did not in any way reflect their ability to communicate in French. This created a real dilemma for me, as my grading system was designed to reflect language proficiency rather than workmanship, effort, artistic talent, etc.
Finally, I questioned the value of having students, especially Novices, present in French. Because their ideas (many of which came from research in English) were incongruous with their language proficiency, their presentations often involved reading Google-translated text aloud. It is hard to say whether listening to this type of presentation was more painful to me, the presenter or to their classmates, who didn’t understand a word of the language they heard.
Of course there are many advantages to assigning projects, too. In fact, there are rockstar language teachers out there who have designed entire curriculums around project-based learning and their students are speeding down the path to proficiency. Other esteemed colleagues are designing fabulous projects that motivate their students, provide opportunities for independent learning and will be remembered fondly by their students for the rest of their lives. I applaud all of you!!!!
As for me, in spite of the previously-mentioned challenges, I did find myself assigning projects from time to time. While I was not able to resolve all of the issues I mentioned above, some students did learn both language skills and content knowledge from their projects and I benefited from having a few days in a row that did not require a detailed lesson plan. This was important to me then and it would be even more vital if I were teaching via remote, hybrid or socially-distanced face-to-face learning, which is why I recently found myself designing a new project.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have begun creating mini-units based on some of my favorite Troto episodes. Each mini-unit includes several communicative activities based on the cartoon and then a series of extension activities designed to develop the students’ vocabulary and cultural competence on a topic related to the episode. Because I had selected Trotro s’habille for my most recent mini-unit, I decided to focus on introducing students to clothing in non-European regions of the Francophone world. After all, as cute as Trotro is, a diet of donkey cartoons alone is not going to introduce students to the diverse and fascinating cultures that make up La Francophonie. (Although they’re a great way to provide comprehensible input and a context for communicative tasks!)
Of course, there were some challenges inherent in introducing this topic. Even Novice High/French 2 students would struggle on most authentic texts relating to clothing styles and with so many French-speaking regions in the world, there was no way I could introduce them all. Fortunately, I found an infographic on clothing in Africa that I thought would be at least partially comprehensible at this level and was able to use it to create an interpretive task that was appropriate for Novice High students. This seemed like a pretty good start, but I wanted to provide students with exposure to additional cultures (I used only the Francophone African countries in the infographic on my interpretive task.) and to provide the teachers with additional lesson plans in the mini-unit. It seemed like it was time for a project.
As you can see in this project guide, the project I designed is highly-scaffolded will hopefully prevent many of the pitfalls I identified from previous projects. The first step of the project will be for the students to select the article of clothing that they would like to research. They will fill their names in on the sign-up list (provided) and then begin researching. Unfortunately, in spite of the many hours I spent researching traditional clothing around the world, I was not able to find comprehensible authentic texts for the majority of the clothing items. Therefore, I would invite students to research in English, or use our frenemy Google Translate to find out some basic details about the article of clothing they have selected. As you will see on the sign-up list, I did curate one or more authentic texts for each topic that could give the students something to translate or could be used by teachers of upper level students who would like to assign a more in-depth project to their students.
After researching a few basic details about their garment, the students will prepare a script for their presentation. In order to discourage the use of an electronic translator for this portion, I have provided sentence fragments that the students can use to write their scripts. I have then directed students to create a visual aid, but intend for teachers to expand on these directions based on their own expectations. For example, you may or may not allow the students to have text on their slides or to use notecards. Lastly, you’ll find a rubric for the presentation itself and a document that the audience members can use to take notes on the presentations. I think this will help keep their attention and make it more likely that they retain some cultural knowledge.
I hope that this project might be helpful for some of your clothing units and would be grateful for your feedback. If you’d like to access the rest of the mini-unit, it’s available here.
Based on the comments I’ve seen on the French Teachers in the US Facebook page, #langchat, etc. I know that the work of teaching via distance, hybrid, in-person-but- socially-distanced-learning has not gotten any easier since the school year began. While I wish I could do more to help my colleagues that are doing the real work of teaching, I have spent some time creating a few more lessons that can be used regardless of the version of pandemic teaching that your school district has devised. Since my previous work was geared toward the Intermediates, I’ve decided to focus on the Novices for a while.
Each of the mini-units below incorporates a series of activities related to a Trotro video as well as additional activities using authentic texts on the same topic. A short lesson on a relevant grammatical concept is also included. The resources include a Google Slides presentation to which the activities are linked, keys, and rubrics. Everything is editable so you can modify for your students. Here are the mini-units I’ve created so far:
Click here for link.Click here for link.Click here for link.
As always, I’m grateful for your feedback on these resources!
As I work with teachers around the country, I continue to be in awe of the work that you are doing! While I am very grateful that I am not navigating the demands of distance, hybrid, and face to face but socially distant learning, I have spent considerable time thinking about how I might have modified different aspects of my practice to accommodate these challenges.
While I previously shared some ideas about using graphic organizers for assessing interpretive reading, I really struggled on how I might have assessed presentational writing. I have always had students do their writing assessments in class, so that I could be confident that the work I was evaluating reflected their actual level of proficiency. Based on the assessment and my thinking at the time, I sometimes allowed access to paper dictionaries, online dictionaries, drafts, nothing but their brain cells, etc.
Distance learning, of course, presents a whole new set of challenges as we cannot physically prevent students from using Google Translate. While I agree with others that there is an appropriate time and place for using GT, when I was teaching I wanted to avoid having students write entire paragraphs in English and then plug them into any translation program. Like all of you, I could easily identify when students had done so, but this realization just created additional obstacles. Firstly, I preferred that my students’ grades reflect their proficiency rather than their behavior, so I needed to provide an alternate assessment rather than simply give them a zero. Secondly, the disciplinary measures that I was sometimes required to take did little to improve my relationships with students who already lacked the confidence to do the work as directed.
As a result of these challenges, I decided to turn my attention to how I might make it more difficult, rather than less difficult, to complete an assignment using translation software. Here’s a link to a Google Presentation with the steps I came up with.
On Slide 1 the students brainstorm the vocabulary they will use to complete the task (a message about a typical day in their life.) While they might use a translation program for this step, I am somewhat confident they will have made these words their own by the time they complete the assessment.
On Slide 2 the students write simple sentences about their day using the vocabulary they have selected.
On Slide 3 the students rewrite (or copy/paste) their simple sentence but add additional details.
On Slide 4 they organize their sentences, add transitions and proofread.
On Slide 5, they submit the final draft.
It is my hope that by following these steps, the students will be much less likely to resort to Google Translate. In fact, I’m not even sure what that would look like. In addition, I think this writing process could lead to increased proficiency in presentational writing even for students who are learning in a classroom environment.
I’d love to hear back from any of you who use a similar process. I have so much to learn from you that are doing the work!
Based on the encouragement of my readers, I have spent the last month continuing my work creating mini-units based on the Lou! cartoon series. I have now posted mini-units for the first 9 episodes as well as a bundle that includes all 9 episodes at a discounted price. It is my intention that these 9 mini-units could provide a stand-alone first quarter curriculum for Intermediate students (Level 3+) regardless of whether they are attending class face-to-face, in a hybrid situation or entirely via distance learning. Because of the focus on communicative tasks and authentic resources, these units are also appropriate supplements for AP or IB classes.
Since I am so new to creating resources that I am not actually using with my own students, I would be very grateful for feedback from any of you that have used the mini-units. I have no doubt that you are finding typos and other errors (which is why I have provided editable documents) and I would love to correct those. It would also be helpful for me to know which activities you are finding useful and which do not meet your needs so that I can focus on providing more beneficial resources in the future. Please send your feedback to me at lisashepardwlc@gmail.com.
Here’s a link to the bundle: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lou-Intermediate-French-Curriculum-for-Remote-Hybrid-or-In-Class-Learners-5988136
My work with language teachers this summer has been one of the most humbling experiences of my career. I see your sacrifice, dedication and courage in impossible situations and I’ve spent some time thinking about how I might help a little bit.
Since I’ve heard a few teachers (especially our valued newbies) mention how much they were struggling to find time to create a curriculum for their upper levels, I decided to start there. I think that many of us face planning challenges with that group. Due to the smaller numbers, we often find our level 3s and 4s or 4s and 5s (or all of the above!) mixed together. We might even find ourselves with one single student whom we so want to provide an independent study for but just don’t have enough hours in the day. The pandemic, of course, adds the nearly insurmountable problems of having to provide a curriculum for distance learning, hybrid learning and face to face learning (while keeping these faces from getting too close).
While I cannot do nearly as much to help as I would like, I have spent some time during the last week or so working on a mini-unit that I thought might provide a jumping off point for some of you.
For this mini-unit, rather than a typical content-based theme, I chose to design my activities around the first episode of the French cartoon Lou! . I was introduced to this program through my position with FluentKey where I’ve been working on transcribing and creating quizzes for the episodes. (It will take a while, I’m only on episode 14!) I would have loved to use this series with my own students–the characters are diverse, the main character’s family is non-traditional (in many ways) and the series addresses issues that affect adolescents in an engaging way. Although the episodes have recurring characters, each one could stand alone if necessary. As a result, I thought a mini-unit on the first episode could be used regardless of the regular curriculum, or with independent study students, or with the students who can’t be in school if you’re face to face, or with that small group of level 4’s that got put in with your level 3s or any of the myriad unimaginable challenges that you’re facing.
So feel free to skip to the link at the bottom, because I’m about to get pretty wordy as I describe the process I used to create the unit for any of you that might like to create units of your own for other episodes.
An Essential Question: I started here because backward design just makes sense to me and helps me frame my work.
Can-Do Statements: I created one Can-Do for each mode of communication based on the NCSSFL-ACTFL Intermediate benchmarks.
Avant de visionner: I included a few discussion questions to use as an advance organizer before introducing the video. These questions could be discussed in-class, via videoconference, in writing using an LMS, etc.
Vocabulaire: I selected ten vocabulary terms from the video and used pictures to introduce them.
Choisissez le bon mot: I created a matching activity in which students will select the word that corresponds to the French definition. This activity can be completed on paper, inserted into a Google Doc, or made into an online quiz using an LMS or other platform.
Regardez la vidéo: I’ve included a link to the FluentKey video for teachers that want to assign the video to students and use a quiz or play FluentKey live with the video. This could be played in-class or via video conference (link to directions is included in teacher notes). I’ve also included a YouTube link. Depending on the proficiency level of the students, I might play the video once, narrating and questioning to increase comprehension. This could be done in class or via videoconferencing. For other students, I would just assign the FluentKey video as an independent activity or assessment.
Remplissez ce schéma: I’ve included a story map graphic organizer for students to fill out about the video. I’ve included a link to a version of the map that can be completed online in the teacher resources at the end of the document.
Remplissez le résumé avec la forme correcte du verbe: I created a one-page summary of the video and left blanks for the students to fill in the correct form (imparfait, passe compose or plus-que-parfait [1] ). I included a key in the teacher resources. This activity could be completed on paper or put in a Google Doc for submitting online. Teachers could also quickly make a multiple choice version as an assessment or way of providing immediate feedback using an appropriate program/LMS.
Mots Croisés à deux: My students loved these partner crosswords! In the teacher notes you’ll find an A puzzle (with the vertical answers filled in) and a B puzzle with the horizontal answers filled in. There are no clues included, as the students use circumlocution to help their partner fill in their missing words. This activity serves as a fun review of the story, as the words in the puzzle are related to key events from the video. In the teacher notes I included an editable version of the puzzle that teachers could send out so that students could complete this activity via Google Meets or Zoom, recording and submitting if possible. Otherwise, the puzzle could be printed for in class use. I’ve also included a rubric for assessing the students if this is possible in your situation.
Citations à discuter: In this section you’ll find a list of quotes from the video as well as a list of discussion questions. I’ve found that this type of activity is an engaging way to review the video. If I were spending a few days on the episode, I might have the students discuss 6-7 questions a day. These discussions could take place face to face, via videoconference or in writing using a discussion board.
Comparaison Culturelle: I’ve created a graphic organizer which the students will complete to compare their lives to Lou’s. I’ve included an editable version in the teacher’s notes for online submission.
Lecture: Students will complete this simple graphic organizer to demonstrate comprehension of an article about journal writing. (Link and rubric included in teacher materials.)
Jeux de Rôles: I’ve included 3 different role plays based on the video. In my classroom, I would usually have the students practice each role play at least twice (changing roles) and often changing partners. I would then call up an unannounced pair and randomly assign a role play for assessment purposes. This ensured a more spontaneous conversation. In a virtual environment, I would have students practice via break out room or have them call each other on the phone. Then I would assign them a 3-minute Zoom conference for the assessment, if that were possible in my particular situation. In the teacher notes I also included a series of phone messages that could be used as speaking assessments if necessary. While these would not be interpersonal tasks, they would allow you to at least have a speaking prompt to assess. They could even be submitted via Flipgrid and classmates could respond as the character who listened to the message.
Journal Intime: You’ll find 3 different prompts based on the video. I generally allowed students to pick the one that most interested them. Having 3 prompts allows the teacher options if they find a student needs to redo the activity for any reason. (I’ve included wording in my rubrics to clarify why students might need to redo an assessment.)
Bonus Activity: This activity, found in the teacher notes, includes the time stamp and a description of a scene from the video so that a teacher could take screenshots from important scenes for discussion activities. I’ve included discussion questions if you choose to include this activity. A teacher could also use the screenshots and questions to assess a student individually, asking follow up questions and personalized questions to create a more developed conversation. Lastly, students could also respond orally or in writing via an LMS for an online environment.
Whew! Congratulations for making it to the end! Here’s a link to the document:
As always, I’d love to hear your feedback and answer any questions you have about this mini-unit.
I’ve completed similar mini-units for Episodes 2 and 3 and listed them on Teachers Pay Teachers for those teachers that may not have time to create their own:
As many of you know, one of my post-retirement gigs is creating content for FluentKey.com. For those of you that are not familiar with FluentKey, it is a tool that allows language teachers to upload videos and create quizzes with a variety of question types. In addition, FluentKey also includes hundreds of Featured videos that have a transcript and computer-graded quiz questions. (The transcripts and quiz questions are where I come in.) A basic subscription to FluentKey is free and there is also a Pro subscription that includes additional features.
If you’re interested in learning more about FluentKey here’s a link to the FAQs and another link to a blog post explaining some differences between FluentKey and Edpuzzle.
I really enjoy my work at FluentKey and find it has been a great way to keep my language skills fresh since I am no longer in the classroom. A couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that it might be helpful if I created a document which lists some possible thematic units for each level and links to existing FluentKey videos for each of these topics. The current document includes possible themes for Levels 1-3 but I’ll be adding Level 4 and 5 in the next couple of weeks. As this link shows, the document includes an Essential Question for each unit, along with one or more Can-Do statements and some relevant vocabulary topics and contexts.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know!
Although I have written about my grading policies in the past, my ideas have continued to evolve since these earlier posts. Prompted by a recent conversation on the French Teachers in the US Facebook page, I thought I would share my most recent policies for grading in a proficiency-based classroom.
Step 1: Gradebook
My preferred gradebook configuration is to have five different categories: Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing and Miscellaneous . I weight each of these categories evenly at 20%. Other people use the modes (Interpretive, Interpersonal and Presentational) as their categories and I think that’s great. I preferred to use the skills rather than modes, because my students and I got more specific feedback this way. I found that a student’s interpersonal speaking and presentational speaking skills were much more congruous than their presentational speaking and presentational writing skills were. If I used Presentational as a category, I would not immediately be clear whether a struggling student needed support for writing or speaking. Note: If I were in a school with standards-based grading, I would eliminate the Miscellaneous category and move the other categories to 25%.
Step 2: Formative Assessments
In my classroom the majority of the each class period was spent on communicative activities that I assessed as follows:
Interpretive Reading: When the students read something in class and completed some type of comprehension-based task, I either gave whole class feedback (providing the correct answers) or collected their work for written feedback. This feedback was usually limited to a score (I scored out of 10 rather than percentages) based on accuracy.
Interpretive Listening: I assigned a lot of Edpuzzles (but only because FluentKey wasn’t yet available!) I used the computer-generated score as a basis for a score out of 10. Because I didn’t expect my students to get all of my questions correct (I designed some questions to encourage my high flyers to stretch), I usually gave a 10/10 for 90% or higher, 9/10 for 80% or higher, etc.
Interpersonal Speaking: I circulated among my students as they worked on interpersonal tasks. Sometimes I filled out a rubric with specific feedback and recorded a score (out of 10) but most times I jotted down notes on a class roster. Occasionally I used these notes to determine a grade. I did not generally assign any interpersonal writing tasks.
Presentational Writing: I often assigned short written tasks based on the interpretive and interpersonal tasks from the lesson and gave basic feedback and a score out of 10.
Presentational Speaking: I seldom assigned a presentational speaking task as a formative assessment. When I did so, I provided feedback and a score out of 10.
In addition to these communicative activities, I occasionally gave a quiz of some kind. For example, if the students had done a pair activity that involved describing pictures to each other, I might describe 5 pictures and have the students identify them. If they had done a reading activity with a partner, I might ask some oral true/false questions about the reading.
At the end of a 4-6 week unit, I had a LOT of scores. They ALL went in the Miscellaneous category. A better name for this category would have been Formative Assessment, but I was leaving myself a little wiggle room for the rare instances that I needed to include something that I didn’t consider to be a formative assessment but that I was required to assign by my department.
Step 3: Summative Assessments
At the end of each unit, I assigned an Integrated Performance Assessment. Each task in the assessment resulted in a separate grade. So for most IPAs I had a grade for each performance category: Interpretive Reading, Interpretive Listening, Interpersonal Speaking and Presentational Writing. If I included a Presentational Speaking task, that would be an additional grade in my Speaking category.
The grades for the IPAs were the only grades that went into my performance categories. In other words, 80% of my grades (all but the formative assessments) came from IPAs.
When I graded my IPAs, I used the following rubrics.
Interpretive Reading: I used the rubric from the ACTFL publication,Implementing Integrated Performance Assessment by Bonnie Adair-Hauck, Eileen W. Glisan and Francis J. Troyan. I assigned 10/10 for students whose work fell in the Accomplished Comprehension category, and 8/10 or 9/10 for Strong Comprehension, a 7/10 for Minimal Comprehension and a 5/10 or 6/10 for Limited Comprehension. I did not assign scores of less that 5/10. (See this article for an explanation of this policy.)
Interpretive Listening: Because I did not use the IPA Interpretive Template for my listening assessments, I developed individual rubrics for my listening tasks. I usually used a graphic organizer or comprehension questions for listening assessment and a rubric something like this:
10: Identifies the main ideas and supports each one with relevant details
9: Identifies the main ideas and supports most of them with relevant details
8: Identifies some main ideas and/or several details
7: Identifies a main idea and a couple of details.
6: Identifies a few details.
5: Is unable to identify a main idea or provide any relevant details.
Presentational Speaking and/or Presentational Writing: I used this proficiency-based rubric from the Ohio Department of Education.
Note: The Interpersonal and Presentational rubrics do not provide a numeric or letter grade. I preferred to just check the relevant boxes to provide feedback to my students. In order to determine a numerical grade for my gradebook, I used this conversion chart:
*In each case (9) represents the ACTFL expectation.
I know that what worked for me may not work in other environments and I look forward to hearing from other teachers who are willing to share the grading practices they have developed!
As I begin to adjust to this new normal, my thoughts have turned to how I might be modifying my teaching practices for an online environment if I were in the classroom. Since I like to start each lesson with an interpretive task, I began by envisioning some activities that I thought might be appropriate for distance learners. Two significant challenges to assigning interpretive texts in a distance learning environment occurred to me. First and foremost, teachers are spending more time working than ever before. Creating specific comprehension guides for each text is simply not possible. Secondly, without the physical presence of a teacher, many students find themselves resorting to copying classmates’ work or using Google to translate the texts they are given. While I’m not sure there’s a way to totally eliminate these behaviors, I have created a few tasks that I hope might discourage them. Each of these activities are open-ended, so that no two students would randomly end up with the same responses. Best of all, little or no modification should be needed. For the most part they are ready to be shared with students as is.
This oldy but goody can be used with any informative text. As a pre-reading activity, the students fill in what they know about the topic, as well as what they’d like to know. After reading a text or watching a video about the topic, the students fill in new information that they learned about the topic. Because I think this activity works best if the students are writing in French, I think it works best with Intermediate learners.
In this activity students fill in a graphic organizer with main ideas and supporting details. I find this one works well with both written and recorded informational texts and Novices might write in English while Intermediates might write in French.
For this graphic organizer, the teacher identifies a problem or event related to the content being studied, and students fill in the causes and consequences of this problem based on their interpretation of a written or recorded text. Based on the level of students, this might be completed in French or English.
Unlike the previous graphic organizer, this one is designed to work with narrative texts. As this example shows, students begin with the first event of the story and then add an effect of this action, which becomes the cause of the next one. I think this one works best in French, so I would have Novices write very short, simple sentences.
5. Annotation
The last low prep, open-ended task that I wanted to share was an annotation activity. While I often had students annotate texts in my classroom, I had them do so with a pencil and hard copy of the text. Since this won’t work with distance learning, I did some research and taught myself a new tech tool. (I actually practiced with several online annotation tools, but this one seemed pretty user-friendly so that’s the one that I chose to share here.)
Click on Free Online on the left side of the screen.
(Note: If you are giving the students a pdf link from the internet, they will click Load pdf from Internet.
If you have uploaded a pdf to Google and are sharing the Google link, they will click on Upload pdf to PDFescape.)
These are the ideas I had about using this tool with remote learners. You’ll probably think of some others, too!
Once the pdf is
Choose 10 words that helped you understand what you were reading.
Click on the Annotate tab in the upper left corner.
Click on Underline.
Highlight the section you would like to underline. Make sure to change the color if necessary by clicking on Color at the top of the page.
(Note: Click on Underline again to stop Underlining texts. If you make a mistake, click the Undo arrow or highlight the annotation and click on the trash icon.)
Choose at least 3 words that you don’t know but which would have helped you better understand the text.
Click on the Annotate tab.
Click on Rectangle.
Highlight the word to create a rectangle around it.. Change the color if necessary
Click inside the rectangle to bring up a text box.
Look up the word at Wordreference.com and type the English meaning in the box.
You can make the textbox smaller by clicking on the corners and you can move the text box by clicking on it and dragging it to a better location on your screen.
Ask at least 2 questions about the information in the text.
Click on the Annotate tab in the upper left corner.
Click on More.
Click on Oval.
Highlight the section you have a question about.
Change the color of your oval to either red or white, depending on the background color of your page.
Click on the circle and type your question in the text box that appears.
Write at least 3 new things you learned (about Francophone culture) from this text.
Click on the Annotate tab in the upper left corner.
Click on More.
Click on Oval.
Highlight the relevant part of the text. Change the color of the oval to blue or red.
Click in the oval until you see a text box. Type a sentence explaining what you learned about Francophone culture from that section of the text.
Make at least 3 connections between your life and the text.
Click on the Annotate tab in the upper left corner.
Click on Sticky Note.
Highlight the relevant part of the text and when the Sticky Note box opens up, type a sentence explaining the connection between the text and your life.
If I were assigning this activity, I would have the students submit a screenshot of their annotated text. They can also select “Save and download pdf” but I found that when I sent myself a copy of the downloaded pdf, the information from the textboxes was not available. When I uploaded the pdf to my Google Drive, the sticky notes appeared as Comments, but the information from the textboxes in the ovals and rectangles did not appear. You could, of course, have the students use Sticky Notes for the types of information that I included in Circles and Rectangles.
Courage to all of you. You have my utmost admiration for the work that you are doing.
It seems so strange to be blogging after such a long absence! While I have been busy with professional obligations as an independent consultant, moderator of #langchat and #langbook and as the French Content Editor of FluentKey, I have not been lesson planning, leaving me with so little to share here. And while I am in absolute awe of the amazing way that all of you are addressing the challenges inherent in distance learning, I felt at a loss when it came to providing support for something with which I have little experience. However, when a member of the French Teachers in the US Facebook page posted a question about Petit Nicolas books, I thought that maybe sharing some of the resources I’ve created might be helpful to some of you that were using these stories for the first (or twenty-first) time.
Please note that I have used these stories in a lot of different ways over the past thirty years. My understandings about how languages are learned evolved immensely during that time, and I would not necessarily use some of these resources in the same way now as I did then. You will be invited to make a copy of any document you wish and I encourage you to make any changes that you’d like to meet your needs and those of your students.
I also wanted to provide a bit of information about the links to the videos I have shared. These videos are adorable and I love using them with students. Unfortunately, the videos seem to disappear quite regularly from Youtube (often to reappear later from a different source) so the links will most likely not remain active for very long. If you have problems with any of them, try a search with the title in Youtube and you might find a different copy. I would also recommend checking Edpuzzle for listening activities. I had created Edpuzzles for several of the videos, but my account is no longer active as it was associated with my school email.
I’ve also included a link to the text of each story for those of you that don’t have access to the books. There are several sources for online texts, but unfortunately these often do not include the adorable pictures from the book. It would be so much nicer to be able to post a copy of the book pages for the students!
Here are the links to the resources I had in my files. While some have been shared in previous posts, I thought it might be helpful to have them all in one place. Please let me know if you have any questions!