Small Victories

Thanks to a set of grammar books I bought from Teacher's Discovery, I'm able to pull some balance into my classroom with regards to irregular verbs.  The passé composé, however, continues to be an absolute nightmare for my seniors.  Ugh.  Next week we will be undertaking the imperfect tense.  I think that will go much better.

I had my students do a photo project based off of a Lexique du Cinéma, which can be found here:
http://www.institutfrancais.de/cinefete/IMG/pdf/CINEFETE12_Petit-lexique.pdf

They did an excellent job using the different perspectives as part of the story.  Then I heard this on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/09/13/140403979/wonderstruck-a-novel-approach-to-picture-books
A story about an author who was inspired to illustrate his book in a cinematic way to develop the words the way that movies do.

The students all used pictures of themselves in their photos, so I can't really regenerate them here.  But i wish I could.  Some of them are quite brilliant.


Seems like I'm right with the times.

Links: Teaching Film Analysis

My French IV course is grounded in the study of films.  I'm in the process of developing the course further from my experience last year.  I'm posting some links here that I found useful, but also so that I don't lose them. 

This site lists all of the links below, as well as links to teaching various films in English:
http://teachfilmstudy.com/filmStudy.htm

An article about teaching film study to increase literacy: (Excellent!)
http://hhsdrama.com/documents/UsingFilmtoTeach.pdf

Companion to above article, step by step resource for teaching films:
http://hhsdrama.com/documents/OrganizingaFilmClass.pdf

A Paper by an English teacher, How to Read a Film:
http://sites.unc.edu/daniel/131spring99/papers/Mazer.html

The importance and benefits of using media correctly in class: Research Article
http://hhsdrama.com/documents/Nonoptimalusesofvideointheclassroom.pdf

PBS Resource: Analyzing Film in the classroom:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/learningresources/fic.html

The Director in the classroom: Useful site for film making, desktop movie making
http://www.thedirectorintheclassroom.com/resources.php

AFI Curriculum for Film Study (Filmmaking Course)
http://hhsdrama.com/documents/AFIScreenEducation.pdf

 Yale Film Studies Guide

http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/

French III (Second Semester)

While working with another French teacher, I stumbled across the Essential Questions that I'll be using for French III Honors in the winter semester.

• How are human beings valued by society?
• How do we measure this value?
• How do I value others?
• How do I value myself?
• How do I want to be valued by others?

Course Outline

The French Revolution

Films: Ridicule, Marie Antoinette, Instructional DVD: La Révolution Française (TF1)

World War II

French IV: Coming UP

So I'm planning my curriculum for the French IV film class.  Here's what I'm looking at, as far as chronology:

Week 1: Language review through (film critiques?)
Week 2: Cinematic vocabulary, concepts, film study introduction

Film 1: Entre les Murs concept-Education/Cultural Identity
Film 2: Persepolis concept-Home/Family/Cultural Identity
Film 3: A La Folie, Pas du Tout  -Perspective vs. Reality
Film 4: Amélie -Love and Stereotypes
Film 5: La Haine -Hate and Action/Reaction
Film 6: Student-produced film for final exam project demonstrating understanding one of the concepts studied in the course, as well as use of film techniques studied in the course.

Update: the Original Immersion Kids (OIK!)

So I just got my class lists for next year.  On the 17th Nov 2010 I posted about how the immersion program was working for 5 of my 8 students.  These same 5 students signed up for my French III honors class.

5 OUT OF 8!

Woohoo!!!!!

Now... grammatically they are way behind....

Vocabulary-wise, they have some catching up to do...

But, THEY ARE HOOKED!

And they want BOOK WORK!  They want to learn GRAMMAR!  They want WORKSHEETS!

Sooooooo, I will have these students in the second half of the year next year.  That means I have some time to prepare them before christmas.  Maybe we will do some after school tutoring in French to get them a bit caught up...

I'm soo looking forward to being able to plan thoughtfully, structure my courses, and do it right, starting with an essential question.  I'm so excited to give them a meaningful experience.  :)  yay Immersion!  thanks Liz.  You're the best.

My Reflections:

I asked my students to tell me what they found difficult about the class, how they overcame this difficulty, and what they want to change. 

I found planning very difficult.  I was overwhelmed by the amount of work necessary to plan an immersion course, and was often exasperated and tired, desperate to make it interesting.

I also struggled with keeping the class in French because the students resisted using the French.  Two out of three classes complied, but my class of juniors wore me down, and eventually I lost my energy to continue the fight for French.  I gave in during World War II.  Many students in this class mentioned that they liked the immersion and thought it was great, but these were the kids I fought with the most about using the French.  (!)  more exasperation.

I tried to overcome these difficulties by stretching myself too far, by trying to crack down on language and by modifying the participation rubrics in order to remove some of the subjectivity from the grading.  Some students accused me of playing favorites, and I understand their point of view because some students actively demanded my attention much more so than others.  Other students avoided me, and in trying to accomodate them all, I lost the group in the middle, I think.  I don't quite know how to go about fixing this, and that troubles me.  But I think it troubles me because I want to fix all of the things that were bad this year by flipping an instant switch.  I have a lot of work to do.

Next year I will be able to contribute more time to my planning.  I look forward to planning more creative and shorter lessons, based on concepts that I will spend time developing and researching.  I look forward to having an overview of the course before I teach it, with much more development and preparation.  This year I spent so much time today just planning tomorrow.  i was never ahead of the game, and many days I just wanted to let the kids do nothing because I was so exhausted, although I never gave in to this.  WWII and the Ma Vie en Rose movie took waaaaaaayy too long!  I have no idea of the length of time that would be necessary to go through these lessons. 

In short, this year I felt like a first year teacher in many ways.  I'm very angry about a lot of my shortcomings this year, and the way they negatively affected my students learning opportunities.  I can only blame so much of this on being in grad school and therefore having less time.  The rest is because of my over-ambition, my lack of perspective on the amount of work I created for myself, and the shallow depth that I barely managed to reach because of the breadth I expected of myself, and of my students.  While they spoke more French, and experienced their dream of "less textbook", there were so many lost opportunities, so many undeveloped lessons that I taught, so much blatant return to exactly that which I was trying to avoid: meaningless information.  In expanding too quickly I reduced myself.

In order to move beyond this depressed outlook, I remember the Woody Allen quote about failure.  I can be uplifted by my need to improve, and as one of my students tells me "Reflect your reflections".  I will continue to work forwards, but hopefully in the future, I will work smarter, smaller, and deeper. 

French III Survey: What would you change?

• The true immersion piece was maginificent.  After that, you gave up...
• I like that we studied the holocaust, it was very interesting.  I would change more projects and less quizzes or tests.
• More book work is good.  Even though I don't like the book work it's very helpful in studying the language because it helps me memorize the material.
• Because everyone didn't like the war, to have a shorter lesson of WWII would be good.  I like WWII but the other students don't like war.
• I think you play favorites with the students.  We saw that.  This put a bad attitude in the class, and made learning difficult. 
• I don't want to change the class because I learned a lot of new French. 
• I would change the projects, like video projects. 
• I would change the quantity of text to translate.  It was too much.  WWII was too difficult.
• I would teach a little bit about tthe war a year before French III.  A little in French II and then the rest in French III. 
• I would change the two objectives in the journal because it's very difficult to think of two objectives.  Also more time for learning new vocabulary.
• I would change the topic.  i want to learn food.  WWII is very difficult for French III.
• I would chyange the Second world war for the students next year.
• French III is good like it is.  the students after me like the class becuase it's very interesting.  STudying a language is very difficult, but you make the class interesting and fun.  Immersion is very weird at first, but after you overcome the difficulty it is is easy.
• I would make more tests.  More testsmake people work harder and pay attention.  But over all, the class was good.
• Let the students speak English and have less WWII.
• I wouldn't change the class, but if I changed the class I would restrict the people in the class.  I want to speak with people who are serious.
• I would change the quantity of spoken French.  In a French III class it's a bit too difficult, but in a French IV class, it's too easy.
• For the class next year, I would change the course to have mor projects, and also make the projects more "hands on".  A lot of people like projects and it's easy to make interesting things with your hands.