French Class - Week 1

I observed my AT teaching French to 38 students (all the grade 4's) in the library because no classroom was big enough.  I was not sure how it was going to work out for me.  My AT used a video called "Telefrancais" which the kids seemed to enjoy - but it seemed like a lot of time was spent on making sure some kids weren't get distracted by other kids and I was worried because although I knew the names of all the kids in my grade 4 class, I knew very few names of the other grade 4 class.  I started my first day of teaching French on Thursday and I'll be taking over the French class until the end of practicum.  The first thing I did was move all the tables & chairs in the library so we could form a big circle and I did "Tribes" kind of things at the beginning - rainstick for quiet - go around the circle introducing the child next to you (en francais, of course).  Then I started trying the oral (with songs and poems) and physically active way that I have been teaching French in the last couple of years at my daughter's school.  One realization I came to was that I'm pretty good at it - those 2 years really helped me build up a confidence that I actually know what I'm doing (even though I went from a class of 13 - to my present class of 38).  The children and my AT seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, too.  I came up with a plan on how I'm going to continue for the rest of the practicum.  I have some ritual songs and poems that we do at the beginning and end of each class - and then in the middle, we work on whatever I feel would be good to work on that day - whether it's moving and counting in French; singing some songs that we will eventually do in rounds; learning a poem about the Autumn leaves, etc. etc.  The, next week, I will introduce a story - one of Aesop's Fables - a story about the Wind and the Sun and a contest they have.  Once the children are familiar with the story, I intend to teach it to them, so that they can tell me in French, and eventually I will get them to act it out (where several of them will take the narrator role, several will be the sun, several will be the wind, and several will be the people.  I suggested to my AT, that towards the end of practicum, we have a soiree francaise, where we invite the parents, have French cheeses (that's for you Lauren), praise the Lord! and croissants, and the children can sing one or 2 beautiful French songs, say their poem about autumn (I thought we could do some artwork to go with that) and perform the Fable.  I also started teaching science - we are studying sound (grade 4) and doing experiments.  I think it is going well so far - again, the AT said we can work on the "Sound" unit the whole time I'm there, and of course I'll bring in my assortment of musical instruments as well as do many scientific investigations (we did our first one on Friday.  It was quite fun - we put saran wrap on little yogurt containers, and secured it with an elastic.  We then sprinkled salt on it, and then hit a tuning fork on our foot.  We observed to see what would happen when we put the tuning fork close to the salt & saran wrap, without touching it.  And then we observed to see what would happen when we touched it.  The children were delighted when the salt jumped right off (for some of them) from the vibrations of the sound from the tuning forks.  This coming week, we'll do a similar experiment where we fill the yogurt containers with water to see what happens.  And then move on to other things.

I'll also be presenting my all about me on Monday morning - I will tie it in with Medieval History (a grade 4 thing) but not from the perspective of the European Dark Ages (which is the general perspective that is taken) but from the perspective of the Golden Age of Islam in Andalusia where all kinds of wonderful art forms (literary & musical) were being created and scientific inventions and knowledge were being investigated.  I'll also tie it in with things they are familiar with such as the 1001 Nights - which the story of Aladdin comes from.  I will tie it in with science as well, because I will bring in some instruments which I'll play for them, and we can discuss how it relates to "Sound" and how what we have learned so far relates to how my instruments make sounds and how we hear/perceive them.

I'm enjoying my class a lot, I have to say - but I am also a little worried because I've been sick since practicum started (I started with no voice which is slowly but surely returning - PHEW! - but I know the workload is going to continue to increase - so I'm crossing my fingers I don't have a total burnout.  I'll keep you posted!