Semester 1 results: French 2

I am struggling with my French 2s this year.  I don't know what it is, but they are just not my favorite.  It seems like it's always a little bit like this because French 2 is where the upper classman who just finished French 1 mesh with the smarty pants who took French 1 in middle school.  The dynamic is strange and I have some huge attention seekers in those classes.

Anyway, here are my results of what my kids (and only the kids that had me last year and this year...so no smarty pants who took French in 8th grade) did on their writing final.

 This is a student who is not the best student.  He struggles with paying attention.  I love that he throws in phrases like "Suddenly!" Also, his story is terribly tragic with the object of Mason's affection killed in a car accident.  Might be hard for a native to understand the story, but it's there...

 This is from an otherwise perfectionist student.  I'm proud that she is able to get away from that perfectionism a little bit to write a story with a few mistakes.  I just need to get her to make more mistakes to get more output from her...  I love that she used "lui a dit" correctly (even though her story jumps from past to present throughout) and used conjunction words to make the story sound more natural.

 This is my student who struggles the MOST.  He could give up.  He could drop.  Instead, he comes to see me during study hall because he feels safe with me.  I show you this one to hopefully encourage you to focus on relationships sometimes more than grades.  This kid has been through HELL and I can't imagine how he manages to focus at all in class.  But he just decided last month that he's going to try and make it in college.  I pray so hard that he finds an advocate wherever he goes because I know he can do it and make a better life than what he's living right now.

This is my first year with this student, but she wanted to skip into French 2 so badly that she contacted me last year (when she was an 8th grader) to see if I could help her do that.  So I gave her some novels to read, asked her if she had any questions, and that's it!  This is what she has been able to accomplish with reading only for one year (and even less, actually) and one semester of CI.  I have to admit, she a genius at languages...she must be!  She soaks it in like a sunflower with sunshine.  I can't wait to see what she can do in another semester!

And finally, my class clown's writing.  I have to fight with him most days to keep him from becoming a distraction.  We've had the talk about being an actor and not a distractor, and most days he redirects well...  This piece is almost 100% grammatically perfect.  With zero direct grammar instruction and I guarantee this kid isn't playing on conjuguemos.com on his own time for funsies.