My first unit of the year in French 8 is La Vie en Ville. This unit is based heavily on an ACTFL unit, “Living in the City,” by Laura Terrill & Donna Clementi. I have adapted it to suit my school’s textbook (Discovering French Bleu, Unit 5) and our region’s geographic proximity to Quebec. I have written the unit using Helena Curtain’s unit planning template. Although my students need to reach Intermediate Low by the end of French 8, I've aimed this first unit at Novice High so they can settle into proficiency-based instruction and authentic resources before things really take off! Here is the completed template for the entire unit. I made a Can-Dos table for students to monitor their learning, with suggestions for guided practice (often from the textbook, Discovering French Bleu). I keep track of their progress on a teacher version of the table and demonstrating unit goals makes up 30% of their term grade. This really keeps students focused on what they need to do to show me their learning! Here are my daily lesson plans for the unit. I don't know how comprehensible they will be to readers, but I'm always curious to see what people's daily planning looks like, and perhaps you are, too! And if it's TMI, just read on for the good stuff... My authentic resources for the unit can be found on my Pinterest board. My hook for this unit is this promotional video about Quebec City, narrated by the city's mayor (see below). Our students visit Quebec in the fall, so the unit is intended, in part, to drum up interest in the trip and prepare participating students for the richest possible experience. Here's the interpretive listening guide I created for it. There are numerous interpretive activities throughout the unit. We watch a TV5 video from their Ça Bouge au Canada site. I adapted their listening guide for my students' level here (directions in English, for example). We listen to Grégoire's song Toi+moi to start using more object pronouns, so I've made a cloze activity for the song here. Students listen to a few audio guide entries for tourists in Quebec, and take notes on this worksheet. I use Cécile Laîné's interpretive activity based on this Yahoo! discussion board. She has a generous GoogleDrive full of IPAs that you should check out on her site.
For interpersonal activities, students play Go Fish using these cards to get familiar with the place names and to practice language chunks like "Est-ce qu'il y a un/e...?" and "Non, il n'y a pas de..." Later on they read this article in English at home (suggested by Laura Terrill) and then we do a 4 corners activity in class to discuss their priorities for choosing a place to live. These formative assessments prepare them for the summative interpersonal activity later on. The unit concludes with a travel fair in which each student shares an itinerary they've created for a trip to Quebec City. Here are my directions for the project (including rubric for assessment) and a table where students can take notes on one another's projects during the fair. Two other summative assessments are an interpersonal speaking assignment in which students hold a small-group discussion about Quebec City (rubric here) and an on-demand writing assignment where students describe their hometown and compare it to Quebec City (rubric here).
12 Comments
Nicole Morris
3/21/2017 05:12:21 pm
Bonjour,
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3/21/2017 07:44:12 pm
Bonsoir Madame! The slideshow is available at the link below. Nothing fancy, but that's where I need to be in September : ). https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWtY-8gKgad3NLN2lSbm1iYmc/view?usp=sharing
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Sandy
9/12/2017 02:15:20 pm
Thank you so much for sharing. In your plan you mentioned in the Homework part the pages... in what book and are you able to share?
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9/12/2017 03:10:55 pm
Bonjour Madame! I'm not sure exactly which document you're referring to, so let me know if you still need more info. after reading this. You may be seeing pages from Discovering French Blue, which I was using in past years as the vocabulary "backbone" for this unit. I also give students a big dossier/packet, and I refer to those pages at times & assign parts as HW. This blog post includes links to every unit's dossier: http://mmeblouwolff.weebly.com/thematic-units/beyond-beta-the-beauty-of-year-two
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Sandy
9/13/2017 12:40:08 pm
For homework you mentioned pages. FOr example ( cahier ex 1&2) p 120) 9/13/2017 08:05:04 pm
Ah, yes! During my 1st year teaching these units, I made a conscious decision to continue assigning silly exercises in the workbook because I just could not fathom generating new homework assignments on top of everything else. Those pages are from the Discovering French Bleu workbook. I do not recommend them, but they helped me limp through that first messy year!
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Sandy
9/14/2017 12:43:07 pm
Ok, what do you use as homework now? Do you a ppt with the unit?
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9/15/2017 11:49:26 am
Hi again! My homework varies. Many nights, students choose an activity from a menu to practice the vocabulary. Some nights, they might read an article in English that provides more cultural context for a theme we're studying. On occasion, they're showing off their skills by singing a song or reciting a fingerplay to a family member. Sometimes, they're making a page using an app like Book Creator to show what they're learning. For example, last night my students needed to screenshot a map of their neighborhood and write about 3 places they visit there.
Florence E Thompsen
8/22/2021 04:46:56 pm
Hello, I'm doing a unit on the city with my French 2 and was reading your take on it, which are absolutely amazing!! I the student packet you are refering to "lecture: Quebec" with the carnaval, jaque quartier, la nouvelle france... I can't seemed to find the reading that the students need to work with and was wondering if I miss something , like if it's just a recherche that students need to do. Thank you so much!
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Kerri S
2/24/2024 04:47:28 pm
Hi Florence!
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Kerri S
2/25/2024 05:01:11 pm
I made this set of resources to go along with the Lecture: Québec page in Rebecca's student dossier. Please make a copy for yourselves and enjoying using with your students. :-) Leave a Reply. |
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