Blogging Challenge, Day 6 of 20

Today's challenge: What is ONE thing you wish you were better at? Just one! Why? What could you do about it?

I would like to be better at planning lessons well-enough in advance to prepare more/better visual aids. If I  want to provide a language/culture-immersive experience for my students, I must maintain the language (French, in my case) 90-100% of the time. Students at ALL levels become frustrated by this, I realize. But I also know that they understand better if visuals are associated with the spoken/written target language (TL). 

What am I doing about it? I am updating my curriculum based on themes. I am the only French teacher in my district, and doing 4-5 preps daily is crazy! In my new curriculum, the same theme will be addressed at the same time across all levels. The difference will be in the complexity of language expected at each level. For example, if the theme is Personal and Public Identities, at Level 1 students will be expected to list adjectives and nouns to describe themselves. Level 2 students can describe themselves as well as  friends & family, with a more diverse choice of descriptors, likes & dislikes, etc. Level 3 might make comparisons between the person they were before high school, the person they are now and the person they want to become. Levels 4 & 5 can do the same, give opinions, justify their responses, etc.

By working the same theme across levels, I can prepare visuals to incorporate in class; for example, photos of people familiar or unknown. At every level, I can introduce the concept of Personal and Public Identities by describing the images in language appropriate to the abilities of my students, thus modeling my expectations for their own descriptions. 

Visuals bring an element of familiarity to the classroom (I could start with photos of myself, teachers in the building, celebrities students love/hate, etc.), the comfort level is raised, humor & surprise can be injected into the lesson (because the internet is loaded with funny images) and culture is embedded (now I can start introducing francophone celebs)when images are authentic, rather than contrived or cartoonish. 

I'm ready to dive in to this new format!