French

The Why...

There are many French-speaking students from Switzerland, Belgium, and France who attend St. Peter’s every fall. These foreign exchange students are paired up with a St. Peter’s student through an local exchange company.

Most often, our exchange students have very limited access to student and school activities and culture before their arrival; they are provided with basic, logistical information from the exchange company, student services, and their exchange partner.

How amazing would it be if these students could learn about the different activities/course/services available at St. Peter’s in their own language, and as presented by a variety future fellow students (with various different interests), before arriving here?

Copy of Mrs- Hevia part 3 (DEE481E0-9114-4C60-984E-22DA43C28FF8).mp4

Goals:

To create an authentic and interactive learning experience through the use of alternative technology in order to support French as a Second Language learning.
To create a learning experience for students that is based on a real-life situation, and that allows them to help other students abroad.
To create a lesson that will motivate my students, give them the choice to discuss what they are interested in, promote school culture and events, and impact their learning of a second language in a positive way.
To to transform the learning space, and to use technology, in order to re-define a project and make it accessible to students worldwide.

What are your influences?

Sylvia Duckworth's sketchnoting projects:

Sketchnoting for Beginners

Doodler/Author: Sunni Brown

http://canadaam.ctvnews.ca/power-of-the-doodle-and-why-it-s-so-much-more-than-distracted-drawing-1.2357532

"Teach Like a Pirate" by Dave Burgess

http://daveburgess.com/

"Ditch That Textbook" by Matt Miller

http://ditchthattextbook.com/

The SAMR model

Actions

Here is an outline the assignment that I presented to my students....

This slide show outlines the expectations of the assignment:

11U Sketchnoting Assignment

Students will choose a school activity/event/location that they wish to promote to students from another country
Students will create 10-15 sentences about this activity using verbs, vocabulary, and expressions that we have studied in class.
Students will create a “practice sketch” that includes some sketchnoting/doodling elements
Students will create a "draw your own life" video that combines the drawings and the sentences.

Here is the assessment tool I used with my students for this project:

3U Sketchnoting Assignment Rubric

What really happened?

Something that really pleasantly surprised me about this project was being able to link aspects of it to our study of the novel "Le Petit Prince". We were able to talk about doodling (the pilot in the story doodles for the prince/reader); we discussed how, as we grow up, we often lose some creative aspects of our personality. We reflected on why it is important to be creative, and how creativity is just as valuable as productivity in our society.

Students worked in pairs using various-sized white boards, white board markers, and fit-sits, in order to create their sentences and doodling
Students worked with a partner to create the sentences and doodles...

Once students finished their sentences and drawings, each group met with the student who was filming. Each group recorded the components of their project separately (one student read and one student drew). The student who as filming edited the footage and created the final product.

THE FINAL PRODUCT:

Copy of 2A77CECD-D3F5-4B0A-93BA-16B983D8789F_HQ.mp4

Changing the physical space, using technology, and the SAMR Model. Using technology and changing the space in the classroom definitely increased the productivity, motivation, and creativity of my students. This project could be considered a modification on the SAMR model; it is "redefined task" as it allowed the students share their student life and culture with other students across the globe.

Going forward...

PROCESS: I had the white boards installed close to the floor so that students could sit on the fit-sits and work. Students suggested that I install the whiteboards a little higher on the wall so that they could sit on chairs, and then on the fit-sits (instead of placing the fit-sits directly on the floor)

PROCESS: Language : Unfortunately, many students spoke more English than I expected during preparation for filming. In future, I could provide prompt sheets with key French words to help promote the use of additional French oral communication during the "planning" part of the project.
PROCESS: Equal Distribution of work : Because students were working with a partner, some of them did not speak on camera. Most groups prepared the sentences and drawings together. However, during the actual filming, some groups had one person do all of the drawing, and the other person do all of the speaking. In future, I would clearly define that each person would have to draw and speak.
PROCESS: Equal Distribution of work : One of my students took on the role of filming and editing her classmates; I was concerned that her workload was above and beyond that of the other students. She also did not use her French language skills in the same way as the other students. Her project placed more emphasis on listening to French, as opposed to speaking it (so different skills were practiced and developed); this also affected the way she could be assessed. In the future, I would consider partnering the class up with a communication technology/film class, and re-designing this project as a cross-curricular activity, so that the workload is fair and equal for all of my students. I also had one student with attendance challenges throughout the duration of this project. He ended up having to work by himself, although other students were assigned a partner. Even though I reduced the amount of sentences he had to complete, perhaps this accommodation was not equitable.
FINAL PRODUCT : In order to improve the final product, I could perhaps have closed captions added to the film; the listener would then also get a visual component in the film in addition to what they are hearing. This could assist the listener with any moments where the spoken word lacks clarity. It would also allow for the film to appeal to/reach a broader audience, including those who are deaf, or those with limited French language skills.
It is a LONG film. I would prefer for the film to be an overview of each event; there is too much information presented about each topic. In future, I could reduce the amount of sentences/drawing required in order to shorten the film.
Proofread the drawings. Unfortunately, some drawings in the film have grammatical mistakes in them. I proofread the spoken sentences and listened to/corrected pronunciation of words (which minimized errors) but I did not think to proofread the images! In future, I could perhaps use a peer editing model...

Copy of Mrs- Hevia part 4 (37CF5629-2CF8-4FE9-9208-CF55D74B75BE).mp4

Student Feedback:

Copy of Serena (70D20F6F-2D86-48B7-ADD1-48C5C06BEE3F).mp4

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