I am rolling out a new French 7 curriculum this year. Since my new units are thematic, I took a fresh look at the film Kirikou and thought about where (and if) it belonged in the curriculum. I decided to try something different and do a mini-unit about the film early in the year. Usually I save films for later in the year when students have more structures and vocabulary. But in keeping with my new practice of leading with input, I thought a simple movie might be an engaging source of days and days worth of simple French.
Kirikou is a beautifully illustrated animated film with a simple plot line and a surprise ending. Much of the plot can be understood through visuals, although there are a few scenes where I gave a 2-3 sentence explanation in English. As always, students watched the film in French with French captions. It is set in West Africa and includes some cultural products like la case, les ignames, and les fétiches. It also lends itself to a conversation about cultural perspectives on nudity (eg bare legs are acceptable and common in the US; naked breasts are acceptable and common in France, where the film was made and adored by a very young audience). As students blushed and giggled, I simply asked that they notice this reaction and consider how we came to hold our ideas about what is and isn't okay to see on the human body. I spent 9 days on this film. The unit template is here. My student Can-Dos for the unit are: I can name and describe the main characters in this film (review of Unit 1, Le Moi Unique + 3rd person) I can describe the overall story arc of the film (passive recognition of who/what/where/when/why + teacher-constructed answers to these questions) My essential questions are: Who is a hero? What can we learn about a culture from its folktales? I've made a packet with all my student materials for this unit here. It includes: 1. Listening guide for the trailer 2. Table to record information about key characters 3. Chronology activity 5. Theme song lyrics You can see my daily lesson plans here if you're interested. The night before we began the film, I assigned students the trailer and some interpretive questions as homework. This let them get used to the nudity outside of class. I spent the whole first day setting the scene with a slideshow by Steph Reid I found on this British website. The next 5 days we watched about 15-20 minutes of the film each day (my classes last 45 minutes), stopping to discuss and ask questions. I introduced a number of useful structures via the film such as definite and indefinite articles, plural adjectives, and il veut & ils veulent. The unit also reinforced recently-learned material like descriptions in the third person. Students received a vocabulary list and structures handout to track this information. Once we'd finished the film, students made a mind map about the characters, setting, and main events. This served as a graphic organizer for them to each make a trailer about the film (assignment & rubric found at link). They pulled images from online sources and added their own narration using memorized language from the packet and descriptive sentences of their own creation. Next, students watched one another's trailers and scribed what they heard as a way to reinforce the most important vocabulary from the film. I gave an ACTFL IPA-style interpretive reading assessment based on the first page of the book version of the story. It was astounding to see students handle this gracefully after just 3 months of French study! Many thanks to Lisa Shepard, whose blog features examples this type of assessment. After the assessment, while I was at ACTFL, I posted a number of pages from the book and had students choose one to study in depth. What movies do you use with your first-year French students? Do you teach Kirikou at your school? I'd love to hear your feedback on this unit if you try it!
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While I aspire to create engaging lessons for my students, I rarely use suspense as a hook. The 2010 movie Une Vie de chat (A Cat in Paris), however, instills a sense of excitement in its very plot line - a quality that I find rare in films for children. There are some interesting characters (a police captain mom, a silent daughter, a "good" thief) and lots for beginning students to discuss: what will happen next? why does the daughter get her voice back? how can the police captain fall in love with the burglar? There are some great resources at this site which inspired my mini-unit and I've pinned all resources here. I spent 6 days on this film, which is a squeeze. My student Can-Dos for the unit are: I can name and describe the main characters in this film I can describe the overall story arc of the film I can summarize key scenes from the film I can talk about themes in the film My essential questions are: What makes someone good or evil? How do families change over time? I've made a packet with all my student materials for this unit here. It includes: 1. Listening guide for the trailer (regrettably, I can no longer figure out where I got this activity from - please let me know if you find it so that I can provide proper credit!) 2. Important vocabulary - words kids need to know in order to talk about the plot 3. Table to record information about key characters (I assign one character per student; then we do a jigsaw share at the end) 4. Activity from this site with descriptions of characters to match to their pictures 5. Just a few key questions about the film You can see my daily lesson plans here if you're interested. I spend the whole first day setting the scene, studying the trailer, and making predictions. I assign each student 1 character to "follow" and take notes on during the film and they share these notes in a jigsaw activity at the end of the unit. The next 3 days we watch about 20-25 minutes of the film each day (my classes last 45 minutes), stopping to discuss and ask questions. Days 5 includes mapping the story and making a fortune-teller to ask one another key questions about the film. Fortune-tellers are so easy to make using this template - I really recommend them and have Valerie Shull at Proficiency From The Start to thank for this idea! We watch an authentic video about how to fold a fortune-teller (thanks to Creative Language Class for the inspiration here) and then kids work in concentric circles, changing partners and asking each other the "big" questions about the film. The unit concludes on Day 6 with 3 stations, the last of which is an assessment:
1. Jigsaw share about characters using table in the packet 2. Play Celebrity (basically a combo of Taboo and Charades) with the vocabulary and characters 3. Write a paragraph about how Dino is the same and different from "regular" cats OR how Zoé changes during the film OR the main events of the film (for students who are still working on narrating in the past). We call this a fluency count and students try to write as much as possible in 10 minutes; they save all their writing in a folder to review throughout the year. The other film I teach in French 8 is Les Choristes. You can read about my mini-unit here. What if your mom ordered you a new hockey jersey and the store sent the wrong one...from your arch rival team? It happened to Roch Carrier. I'm in the midst of a mini-unit on Le Chandail de hockey, within a mega-unit on les loisirs, and it is a gem. The story's theme is utterly relatable for my middle school students here in Red Sox Nation: that one's hometown team is a core identity and associating with the enemy, whether it be the Toronto Maple Leafs or the New York Yankees, is simply unthinkable. Set in 1946 rural Quebec, Le Chandail goes beyond sports rivalries to delve into the relationship between religion and sport and the division between French and English Canada.
We're spending about a week and a half on the story. My student Can-Dos are: I can describe popular leisure activities in France and Quebec I can discuss past events and say what I've done I can tell when events take place and in what order and my essential questions are: What activities do friends in French-speaking countries do together? (straight from T'es branché) What do activities and pastimes reveal about a culture? I've made a packet with interpretive activities here based on the film and book. I also use a story map and/or 9-box flow chart to chart the action. The packet includes: 1. Ordering activity to do while watching the 10-minute film in silence 2. Key words to discuss the plot 3. Cloze listening exercise with the film's opening lines 4. ACTFL IPA-style interpretive reading activity for the book with key word recognition, important phrases, and purpose I also highly recommend the visuals found at the Canadian Museum of History's website here. Show your students Maurice Richard's famous #9 hockey jersey, Roch Carrier in his Maple Leafs jersey, and more. We spend a day working with the film, one or two days reading the book aloud in small groups and completing the reading activity, and then start to retell the story using expressions of order and the passé composé. I focus on the il/elle form of regular -er verbs to start to get students familiar with the pattern, but answer questions about other forms as they come up. The unit concludes with students retelling the story in a format of their choice: skit, journal entry, calendar, poem, map, or creative retelling. Here's a description of the assignment with rubric. I am curious about the Office national du film du Canada's other French-language films and would love to hear from teachers who use them in their French classes. We all agree that teachers are heroes, right?! But there aren't nearly enough good films about the extraordinary role that teachers play in transforming children's lives. Les Choristes is a favorite of mine because it's got a simple, yet rich story, a variety of engaging child and adult characters, and lots of themes to mine in discussion. Even my year 1 students can really dig into this film and its themes with a little guidance. Here's my Pinterest board with a few links to other great lesson plans on this film.
I spent 6 days on Les Choristes and could easily spend more. My student Can-Dos for the unit are: I can name and describe the main characters in this film I can describe the overall story arc of the film I can summarize key scenes from the film using il dit, ils disent, il écrit, ils écrivent I can talk about themes in the film And my essential questions are: What makes someone a hero ? How can art change us ? Why do people abuse their power? I've made a packet with all my student materials for this unit here. It includes: 1. Questions about the trailer, which you can view here 2. Important vocabulary - words kids need to know in order to talk about the plot 3. Table to record information about key characters (I assign one character per student; then we do a jigsaw share at the end) 4. Just a few key questions about the film 5. Activities from this site with key images and the order of events 6. Cloze activities for two songs, Caresse sur l'océan and Cerf-volant (last year the chorus teacher taught these and students performed them at the winter concert, which was an amazing coincidental tie-in) 7. Table to record information about school discipline today, in the film and in students' grandparents' generation (they do a brief interview for homework to gather facts for that) You can see my daily lesson plans here and my homework list here if you're interested. My favorite part is when we predict how the film might end, before watching the final 15 minutes or so. Students post predictions on Padlet and comment on them. See an example here. The unit concludes with 3 stations, which are IPA-ish assessments by mode: 1. Interpretive reading assessment using excerpts from Clément Mathieu's journal. 2. Write a paragraph about school discipline in the film, in our school and in your grandparents' generation OR the role of music in your life OR a teacher who's changed you for the better 3. A conversation using the TALK rubric. Here's the prompt: Participate in a conversation about discipline, school rules, and various punishments at WMS, in Les Choristes, and in your grandparents’ generation. Students can use the table they've prepared as a reference for support. Here's the rubric I use to assess the paragraph and conversation all together. Usually I'd have 2 separate rubrics, but this is such a short unit that I go "lite" just this once. What are your favorite films to teach in French I? I also use Une Vie de chat - post here! |