This summer, I had the privilege of teaching a beginner French lab at The Agen Workshop. In response to requests from several participants, I’m excited to share my plans and materials in this post. I hope these resources will be valuable as you prepare for the upcoming school year.

Note: This class included 10 consenting adults, allowing for a faster pace and deeper exploration than I would use with middle school students. For example, 20 minutes of Personalized Questions & Answers (PQA) would be challenging with 12-year-olds. Nevertheless, the goals, flow, strategies, and materials used remain highly relevant to any beginner classroom.

DAY 2 GOALS

• Continue building trust by ensuring students experience success
• Our first Movie Talk: students can comprehend a fictional story
• Manie Musicale: students can locate francophone countries on a map and express simple opinions about songs

DAY 2 LESSON PLAN

1. TRUST talk in French (5 min)
   • I had typed up their contributions from the day before in French and we went over it slowly. Students figured out what it means based on what they had said the day before.
   • Read more about sharing power with students here.
2. How do we feel in French (10 min)
   • Focus on 5 feelings: “happy” “anxious” “tired”+ “grateful” and “confident”
   • I recycled complete sentences from the day before, asked some personalized questions and answers, and used some more gestures.
   • Comprehension check with eyes closed.
   • Read more about SEL check-ins here.
3. Movie Talk and post viewing activity in French (30 min)
   • I told the story in French using this slideshow (slides 1-22). By the end of the slideshow, everyone was saying in unison: “Beurk, je n’aime pas ce sandwich”. Hilarious!
   • We made a prediction in Frenglish (slide 23).
   • We watched the video together and give a quick reaction in English (slide 24).
   • We played “Who said”: I read speech bubbles from the story out-loud and students told me who said/thought it (slides 24-31).
   • We played “All The World’s a Stage”: they paired up, decided who was Pierre and who was Marie and they acted out the story as I narrated it again.
   • Learn more about Movie Talk with this free webinar.
4. Finish Card Talk (15 min)
   • We finished getting to know what everyone like using the card talk from the previous day and I gave them more opportunities to “find out” about each oher.
   • Read more about Card Talk here.
5. Debrief in English (10 min)
   • The debrief was led by my thoughtful colleague Anna Gilcher.
   • She asked students “how did Cécile make herself Comprehensible, make you feel Comfortable, and make the content Compelling?”
6. FORMAL BREAK (20 min)
7. Manie Musicale first match: Missy D vs Joyce Jonathan (50 min)
   • I used this slideshow.
   • I read the intro text from the back of the room and the students chorally translated into English (slide 1). we work on listening to each other so we all translate at the same time.
   • I introduced the match (slide 2).
   • We popcorn read Missy D’s intro slide (slide 3). “Popcorn” in my class is, I read in French and whoever feels ready to translate on their own stands up and translates out-loud.
   • We “travelled” to Rwanda and Canada (slide 4), using my students hobbies (horse back riding, cycling, hiking, swimming).
   • We watched the music video with subtitles and afterwards we sang the chorus using gestures.
   • I slowly modeled providing a simple opinion using a chatmat (slide 6), then the students tried it.
   • We popcorn read Joyce Jonathan slide (slide 7).
   • We “travelled” to France (slide 8), using my students hobbies (horse back riding, cycling, hiking, swimming).
   • I asked them what words they could understand in the lyrics and we watched the music video with subtitles. Afterwards we shared the words/phrases we understood.
   • I slowly modeled providing a simple opinion using our chatmat (slide 9), then the students tried it.
   • Students voted for their favorite ones on pieces of paper. I collected the papers and told them they would find out the winner the next day!
   • All the materials were provided by Manie Musicale (except the map). I simply adapted and sequenced them to meet my students’ proficiency levels. Read more about Manie Musicale here.

That’s it for today. Doing Storytelling in the first half of class and Manie Musicale in the second half worked out beautifully! Storytelling provides broader input in context and requires sustained focus, which is perfect for the beginning of class. Manie Musicale (they way I do it with Novice learners anyway) provides more targeted input on biographical info, alternates listening, reading, and speaking, and is highly cultural, perfect for the second half of class. Both are engaging in their own unique ways!

Feel free to leave questions and comments. See you tomorrow for Day 3!