I used to hate having to come up with sub plans for my Novice Learners. They need comprehensible and compelling input: who can provide that while I am away?
Enters Alice Ayel, French teacher and storyteller. Her YouTube channel is filled with short videos where she tells simple 5 to 10 min stories using what Dr. Krashen calls supplementation, ways to make language comprehensible.
Now, when I am absent [or on the days I need some self-care, we all have those], my Novice students watch a few of her videos with French subtitles on, and complete one of the following mini-tasks:
- counting how many times a structure is repeated in the story
- making an educated guess about the meaning of a word or phrase
- writing a short summary of the story (In L1)
- answering 1-2 questions (In L1 or L2 if your students are at that level)
The tasks have built-in differentiation: some students will feel more comfortable counting structures, while others are ready to grasp the full meaning of the story. Everyone will find something at their level, and what’s most important, students are getting comprehensible input while I am away!
Feel free to add your Alice Ayel input-based activities in this document and never have to worry again about sub plans for Novice learners!
photo credit: Alice Ayel @ http://www.aliceayel.com/
[…] I also used Alice Ayel’s story videos for those days where I needed a break. Thank you Alice for providing comprehensible input to my […]
Merci mille fois!
Pas de problème!
[…] spend that much time in English, I use this assessment when I am absent! I ask the sub to play an Alice Ayel story and my students write a retell in English. They are still listening to language in context while I […]
Bonjour Cécile,
Merci pour le document partagé avec les histoires d’Alice Ayel. Je venais juste de commencer à faire un document comme ça avec les 3 premières histoires. C’est super d’en avoir plus d’un coup…
I have made a Quizlet Set for the first 3 stories. This is to introduce the vocabulary to students with the Flashcards (they can also start with that on their own), and doing revisions with Quizlet.live later.
Would that be part of a CI lesson? Or would you rather not do that?
(I can had the link to the document shared but didn’t want to do it without asking first.)
Merci de me dire…
Bonjour, feel free to add.
[…] I also used Alice Ayel’s story videos for those days where I needed a break. Thank you Alice for providing comprehensible input to my […]
[…] spend that much time in English, I use this assessment when I am absent! I ask the sub to play an Alice Ayel story and my students write a retell in English. They are still listening to language in context while I […]