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.

PS: If you are reading this in your email, I recommend reading it on my blog instead as some of the previous pictures have not been going through email.

DAY 4 GOALS

• Reading a book together: let’s find success and community in reading a book together
• Manie Musicale: let’s continue to talk about deeper topics using simple language

DAY 4 LESSON PLAN

1. TRUST talk in French (5 min)
   • I had our trust slide up but this time I only had the names of the people. Students figured out what each person had said. This was hard but it has been great to recycle our trust agreement in a different way everyday. The brain craves novelty! (I first heard this quote from Carol Gaab in 2016)
   • Read more about sharing power with students here.
2. How do we feel in French (5 min)
   • Focus on 6 feelings: “happy” “anxious” “tired”+ “grateful” “confident” “proud”
   • Read more about SEL check-ins here.
3. Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans la boite? in French (5 min)
   • I brought a box and students tried to guess what was in the box.
   • I rephrased what they were saying and asked questions such as “tu penses que…?” “Est-ce que tu es d’accord?”
   • In the end, I revealed what was in the box: a set of graphic novels in French!!
4. La Planete grise in French (45 min)
   • I used this slideshow, which is an excerpt from my teacher guide.
   • We watched the book trailer and tried answering “who” “where” when” “what” in Frenglish.
   • We sat in a circle and I read slowly out-loud to them while they were following along, alternating picture talking the book and actually reading the print. We read the first 10 pages and also took a brain break.
   • I did a character recap (slides 3).
   • We stood up for an interactive key vocabulary recap (slide 4-5)
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 second match: Ouidad vs Zaz (60 min)
   • We had a big reveal of the winner from the second match.
   • I used this slideshow and if you have read the previous days, you know the sequence by now! The more we progressed through the week, the more the students took charge of how they wanted to read.
   • For each song I had a reflection question they could think about while watching. The question was written in simple language but allowed my students to think critically. They are Novice learners, not Novice thinkers! (I first heard this wonderful quote from Rebecca Blouwolff in 2018)
   • For Casa the question was “De quelles parties du corps parle-t-elle?” Again, the idea was to use simple vocab to talk about deep topics, such as missing your home country with your entire body/senses.
   • For Une femme de couleur vive the question was “De quel(s) problème(s) de société parle-t-elle ?” Several students teared up at that song.
   • Since this is their third day providing opinions, they stood up, mingled and shared opinions using the chatmat.
   • All the materials were provided by Manie Musicale (except the map). I adapted the biographies and sequenced everything to meet my students’ proficiency levels. Read more about Manie Musicale here.

This was the messiest day of the week for me, even though my students told me they did not feel that way. I love reading out-loud with my younger students and checking for comprehension in English. But with this group of adults, I knew they could take on more input than just what was printed in the book, so I started alternating picture talking and reading. A great idea on paper but I struggled to figure out how to let them know when I was reading the text and when I was just describing the images and asking them questions. One or two students also signaled that I was going too fast. I could not wait to get back into it the next day and finish the week strong!

Feel free to leave questions and comments. See you tomorrow for the final day!