Day 5

I actually taught day 5 over two days, due to block scheduling.

With my second year students, we reviewed the gestures we created for the avoir phrases. I really think they have those phrases down. We'll see tomorrow when I ask them to translate them into English. Blaine Ray says that I should shoot for 90% of my students getting a 90% or greater on the test. I've got my fingers crossed for sure. We also started the questionnaire that I got from Ben Slavic's site that he got from someone else (I think). I had the students fill out the questions that had to do with things they have or want to have and what they are afraid of. That gave me an opportunity to get in some great repetitions. They also finished up their posters of the avoir phrases so that I can hang them up and they'll have a visual reminder of what they mean.

With my first year class, they also started filling out their questionnaire, but I just took Ben's advice and had them write their name and something they like. This introduced jouer, regarder, and aimer. I didn't get in as many repetitions as they needed because I'm always worried that they're getting bored and then they act out. Hopefully this will get better as I get better at the PQA.

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague today about what I'm doing and why. I guess I've really bought into the theory... It's hit home lately as I've watched how I interact with my infant daughter. I really want to create an environment for my students that is like how we learn our first language. I really believe that students do not need to know how to fill out a verb chart in order to be successful with language. My only hesitation is that I'm not sure what the other teachers think. I want to prepare my students to do well in the higher level classes with another teacher... My hypothesis is that it is better for them to really know how to communicate over a few topics really well than it is for them to know how to conjugate a verb. PLUS, it has been my experience that second year students remember next-to-nothing that was learned in the first year. So...if I'm teaching them something...anything!...that will stick through the summe months, isn't that better than teaching to the curriculum map exactly and having them forget literally almost all of it before they get to the next teacher?? Is there a way to have both??