Game Changer: Winbridge Personal Amplifier

This is the WinBridge Personal Amplifier System.

Its super small and light, but loud enough for my classroom.  Recently, I was really sick, and the medication I have to take leaves my throat raw, and dry, so I lose my voice a lot.  And I teach French.  Since, I can't do that without a voice, I have to use an amplifier so I can talk after first period.

It is great.  Its loud enough for my students to hear me with straining my voice.  Its portable, so it works while I'm walking in the hallways or library, or outside-- anywhere!  It is saving my voice.  And I think that one thing teachers take for granted is their voice.

We speak a lot.  More than many other subject teachers.  And that can wear on your vocal flaps and damage them.  Especially if you are raising your voice often.  I've retrained myself to speak normally with an amplifier.  And it has made such a difference.

With my students, they can hear me.  Even if there is a little chatter.  Some of my students are hard of hearing, and this has helped them too.  My classroom is calmer because I'm speaking more calmly-- not having to project my voice so much.

I paid $45.00 for my PA on Amazon.ca.  It comes with the microphone, a belt so you can wear your speaker, and USB cable for charging.  One full charge lasts me all day.  You can play music through the speaker from a USB drive too.  If you are worried about your voice, or if you have never thought about the wear and tear on your voice, consider getting some type of amp.  Your voice with thank you.

** This is not a sponsored post.  I'm just an Amp convert.  It has helped me immensely.  I hope it can help someone else.

Instant Feedback for Students- Using Google Forms, Google Sheet and FormMule

Howdy mes amis!

I have been asked by a couple of teachers to share how I provide instant feedback to my students.  Its actually pretty easy with the right tools.  My school uses Google Apps for Education, but even if your school doesn't you can still use these Google applications to send results to your students instantly!

Because I find videos easier to follow when I'm learning something new, I recorded a short (under 5 mins!) screencast showing step-by-step how I install and set-up FormMule to send students results to them.

In this video I will be sending quiz results, but in the past I used it to send results of major projects and other assignments.  Its a handy tool to have in your kit.  I hope you find this video helpful!

Guided Inquiry Project: Using Music to Learn French- Part 2 (Research and Writing)

Bienvenue to part 2 of my mini-series on Guided Inquiry for FSL- this project was focused on music. I wanted to write these posts to show how I developed and lead an inquiry exercise in FSL class.  After I spoke at the Spring OMLTA conference about inquiry in FSL classes, and the concerns that many teachers have, I got a few questions about how I lead inquiry for students in their second language.  So I thought that posting exactly how I use inquiry would be useful to teachers who are interested in learning more, and wanted to peek as to how I have done them.

Before I taught French, I laugh enrichment for grade 4 students in 2010, and we completed a term-long inquiry for geography, language and math about creating an environmentally friendly community that resulted in creating a green roof at our school in downtown Toronto.  That was the first inquiry-based learning I lead.  Disclaimer: I do like this approach.  I think that project-based learning is a great strategy or method to get kids making connections and thinking different ways; its not the only thing we can do in FSL class but it is useful to get kids invested in their own language learning.

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Alright, onto part 2- how to get the students to research and write in the target language during their inquiry.  I will outline some strategies for getting the student to research in French, manage the class, and guide students writing in preparation for the sharing stage of the inquiry.

After developing the criteria with the class, students break off and work on their own to research different songs.  They choose the songs on which they want to focus based on taste, the criteria and their abilities.  There is differentiation built into this activity, because students choose what they can handle in terms of comprehension.  As this is a guided inquiry, students are guided in where they look for their music.

For this, I had to do a little leg-work before my students took over.  I did an internet search for blog posts that suggested music and songs for helping people learn French.  There are many posts about using music; all the posts I found said that pop music was a great strategy for language learning.  What was not the same in each post, was which songs were the best for FSL learning.  Every blog post I found had a different list of songs and strategies.  This was great for purposes of our inquiry-- we were looking for the best song.  To help the students start their search, I printed lists of URLs and QR codes for students to search and read some blog posts, and listen to examples of songs.

Students were also able to visit my YouTube channel, where I have playlists of French music videos that we have listened to in class, or that I had found online.  Students also could look at my Twitter (available on my class blog) where I retweeted a new song everyday from Tweeter Étudier le français.

In a guided inquiry, the teacher should provide guidance in the focus of the study, as well as the resources used for study.  This is especially important in FSL as students are expected to research in French.  For this project, students looked at both English and French sources, but all the songs they listened to were French.  Some of the sites that students explored were:

• www.fluentin3months.com/french-songs
• www.fluent.com/french/blog/learn-french-music-songs
• www.ilovefrenchmusic.com/
• www.frenchlearner.com/songs
• www.frenchasyoulikeit.com/7-great-songs-to-help-you-learn-french/
• https://en.duolingo.com/comment/2462552

Once students found a song that they wanted to focus on, they signed up for the song using a Google form.  Then all the song choices were organized onto a neat spreadsheet for me to refer to.

For students to organize their research, they were given a project booklet to guide their research and writing.  (Click the link for the document.) Here are the guiding questions students followed:

Students used this page to focus their writing in French.  Since they were going to share their information in conversation, they were not expected to write too much,  just a short presentation to give a little information to their audience, after which they would answer questions.

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My next blog post in this series will look at how the students shared the information they wrote about their songs, as well as how I assessed their reports and presentations.  If you would like to find all the documents that I created for this activity,  click here.

Guided Inquiry Project: Using Music to learn French- Part 1 (Provocation and Criteria)

I have probably said before that I use a lot of pop music in my FSL classes.  Because I do.  We have "mercredi musicale" once a week where we watch a music video in French and complete a short warm-u activity connected to that song.

So when I came across this blog post on FluentU:

I thought it would be a neat thing to try out in class.  This blog post has some great ideas on how to use French pop music as a learning tool for language studies.  

This blog post breaks down a simple method for incorporating music into you language study:

1. Choose this right kind of songs.  The author notes that he likes rap-- but that French rap was not the best choice for learning.  The rhymes were to fast, which made listening for understanding difficult.  He notes listening to a song, and if you can't make out any words, that song is too difficult for you.  For my students, I made it even easier to choose songs- I adapted a reading strategy from when I taught grade 4; students listen to a verse and a chorus and if there was more than 10 words that they didn't know or recognize that song was too difficult to use as a learning tool.
2. The blog post outlines a few methods for using music as a learning tool.  The most important method according to the blog post is repetition is the key for successful learning using music.  
3. Last, the blog post recommends that you like the songs you choose!  If you have to listen to the songs over and over, it shouldn't be a chore.  

The post also includes a list of 7 songs that helped the author with his French along with an explanation as to why these songs were helpful.

I thought that this was a cool idea, so as a class we read this blog post without the song suggestions.  As a class we talked about why pop music would be a great learning tool for FSL students.  Students created graffiti charts with reasons why music could help one learn a language.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that activity-- but the students came up with some great reasons:

• Good for listening for comprehension skills
• Can learn slang to sound more like a natural speaker
• learn about the French culture through the videos
• Fun
• more likely to listen to it over and over
• tunes and words get stuck in your head

Because this blog post generated some great discussion, I thought it would be a neat inquiry project.  And that's how inquiry projects are born!  This activity was like a provocation-- it got the students thinking about music as more than solely an entertainment medium, and more as a piece of culture, and learning tool.  

The next step was to have the students think about our question:  Quelle est la meilleure chanson d'apprendre le français?  

This question is broad and unanswerable on purpose.  Students have to think of criteria of what makes a song useful for learning about another language; they have choose a song based on that criteria; and then they have to defend their choice of song.  Having to create, follow and defend criteria is HOT skills, and therefore an inquiry project.  

Our first class activity was to create the criteria on which we would base our choices.

We had a brain-storming session as a class, and the students copied notes into their own books as we discussed the criteria.  Students used a lot of circumlocution to come up with their ideas, but in the end, they were happy with the list of criteria we created.  For a copy of this worksheet (.doc) click here. 

This criteria gave students a framework from which to find a song that would be a good tool for FSL students.  The criteria also gave the students somewhere from which to create a defence for their choice.

 To be continued in part 2!


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My next blog post in this series will look at how the students researched and found their songs, as well as how they recorded the information they found, and how they created their reports and presentations.  If you would like to find all the documents that I created for this activity,  click here.

Inquiry Activity: French Pop Music and French Language Learning

Phew!  What a term!  I know that it has been a long time between my blog posts, but I have been working on a HUGE project with my students that has taken a couple months- but it was worth it!

So I am breaking up my post on these projects into 3 parts: a blog mini-series of sort.  I'm going to go through the steps of our pop music inquiry project starting with the provocation activity in part one; the development and complete of the project in part 2; and the sharing of the work in part 3.

I will make sure to share any documents that I made and used to complete the inquiry project.  If you use them, please let me know, I love feedback!

Song: En Classe Je Parle Français- All about that Bass Parody

I have decided, that this year, I want to be the "Weird Al" of French Teachers.

So to kick that off, I wrote some lyrics to go with the song "All About that Bass" that enforce speaking French in class.  Would you like to hear it?


Fun, huh?  I'm teaching in to my classes now, and hopefully they will create a music video in the future for it.  If you want to use it with your classes, feel free!  Here are the lyrics:

If you wanted to sing along to it, you could find a karaoke track on YouTube like this one, but minimize the screen or don't show it, so the students have to use the French lyrics!

If you do use it, and make a totally cool music video, please share it!  I would love to see it!

My Classroom Cell Phone Policy

After I led my workshop at WCML this year, I got a few questions about my cell phone policy in class.  I have a fairly strict policy about the use of tech in FSL class.  I have to have such a policy: cell phones are not allowed for personal use in the school, and some of my colleagues aren't completely sold on using cell phones in the classroom.  And I understand their position, they have legit concerns.  My classroom cell phone policy is rigid enough that I hope I cover these concerns, but open enough that the students feel they can use the tech when they need it-- not only when I say they can.

I think its important to say that my practice changes from class to class.   For some classes, I am heavier on the consequences than others.  In others the policy has changed a few times to suit the class I am teaching.  You know your classes-- so you create the policy that works the best for them and their abilities.  So this is a choose your own adventure post.  Choose your class' own tech adventure!

 

The first thing I do is co-create a list of expectations and guidelines for tech use in the classroom.  (We add the sarcastic comments together.)  Students know that they are to use the tech for work only. These guidelines are posted on my cart, and on the screens of the iPads and other tech I use in class.  Not once have I heard, "I didn't know" when I've busted a student.  Sometimes the students quote the blue comments after I recite a rule.


Inevitably, when a student does something they shouldn't with the tech we're using, I have a series of consequences that I choose from depending on the severity of the transgression.

  

Transgression 1: Device not present on the top right corner of desk or table.

This rule was added not too long ago, because students were trying to be sneaky with their tech.  Now, all students know (and habitually place) their cell phones and iPad on the top corner of their desk when they sit down.  If they have a device that I don't see from the beginning of the class, they get a level one consequence.

Transgression 2: Failing a Screen Check.

During any activity, I can say to the class "Les écrans" signalling a screen check from all students.  They must show me their screens without changing anything.  And I know if they have changed anything, because their device will be on the home screen.  If they are honest, it is a level one consequence.  If they are not honest, level 2 consequence. 


Transgression 3: Breaking our Tech-pectations agreements.

Usually its a level 2 consequence because they should know better by now.  

Consequences

My consequences are 2 leveled: Level 1, less serious, level 2 more serious, and usually includes a "heart-to-heart" chat/ lecture with me during their break.

Level 1:  If the tech is necessary to complete the classwork, students become my special friends.  They get to sit with me whee I can see their screens, and work there for the rest of the period.  We all know how much teens love sitting right beside the teacher.

 
Level 1:  If the tech is not necessary to complete the classwork, students lose their device to the l'oubliette, our lime green cell phone dungeon.  Most of my students are honest if they get caught doing something they shouldn't.  My grade 8s even made a song for times when the oubliette claims another cell phone: (To the tune of "Alouette"- Oubliette/ gentille oubliette./Oubliette/ madame va oublier.) I always forget about the phones in my oubliette. 

Level 2:  If the tech is necessary to complete the classwork, students become my "pages." That is, they work for me.  They sit with me for the remainder of the time that it takes to complete the project, a short lecture on "trust" and they get to do my bidding.  They hand out books and sheets, and collect them too.

Level 2:  If the tech is not necessary to complete the classwork, student loses device to the oubliette for the remainder of the class.  A chat at break, and an agreement contract.  Time in the oubliette varies too; first time, for the class.  Second time for the day.  Third time, their parents must pick the device up from the office. 

Sometimes, it is necessary to be a little creative with the consequences.  One of my students was consistently going off-task with his phone.  I confiscated it until lunch.  I locked his phone, and emailed the password to his mother.  He could still answer class from people, and make emergency calls, but he couldn't unlock it to do anything else.  I haven't had a problem since them.  Probably won't fall for it again, though.


* Of course, these "transgressions" are not the more serious problems such as looking at inappropriate materials; or cyber bullying or taking pictures/ recordings in class.  These are minor, off-topic, "look at the shiny!" infractions.  For more serious problems, I involve the school administration and follow our internet policies in place. 

My tech policy works well for me.  I know it seems very strict, but it works for my situation as a Core FSL teacher on a cart with students on rotary.  Additionally, I use humor in the enforcement of my policy, so its not as harsh as it may seem.  So far, it has been very effective in managing my classes' use of their own devices in FSL class.  My policy will change as I need it to. 

What is your class room tech policy?  Are you a rotary teacher?  What tips do you have?

Googd ideas from Twitter: iPad Rules Lock Screens

I love Twitter!  I find the best ideas by browsing my hashtags #fslchat and #langchat!  If you don't follow those groups, you are missing out!  I find great activity ideas, and classroom management ideas-- and more recently tech integration and management ideas.  This idea came from the blog:
Technology Erintegration.  I am so happy I found this blog!  So many great ideas.

In this article, she talks about 5 ways to use iPad backgrounds in the classroom.  The idea I loved (being a middle school teacher) is using the lock screen as a rule reminder.  The above picture is the lock screen I made for my FSL ipads.  Here's a close up of one of the screens:

I have the reminders for proper iPad ettiquette, a note on agreeing with the rules before the students unlock the screen, and in the top corner, a little banner that shows the iPad number of my set.

I struggled with whether or not to put the rules on the screen in French, but I opted for English because I want the students to understand the rules to which they are to agree before using the technology.  Also, students should read the TOA (terms of agreement) before anything they click on the internet, so its an opportunity to teach digital citizenship too. I think in the future, I will do a bilingual lock screen, but for now, I thought it would be more useful for my students in my Core classes to have the rules available in English. 

This idea was a hit at my school!  We are now in the process of creating lock screens for the Learning Commons sets of iPads.  Do you think this is a useful idea for your school's tech?

Welcome World Congress of Modern Languages Participants!

This year, I am lucky enough to speak at the OMLTA/CASLT World Congress of Modern Languages.  If you are visiting because of my session, Bienvenue!  I wanted to post the links to the presentation and resources here so that they are all in one place, and so that they would be easier to find. Voilà!

If you would like to download the presentation from the Conference:
http://bit.ly/OMLTApres

If you would like the resource I mentioned at the end of my presentation:

http://bit.ly/OMLTA2015

To check out my class blog:
http://bass.commons.hwdsb.on.ca/ 

Learn more about Kahoot!:
http://bonneideefsl.blogspot.ca/2014/10/vlog-how-to-kahoot.html


If you are willing to fill out a quick feedback survey (2 questions), please use the form below:

The Angry Family videos

I know that I already did a post about my YouTube channel, but I wanted to talk about one channel that I subscribe to:  The Angry Family!

The Angry Family are a series of FSL videos that follow a group of bizarre characters as they learn to speak French.  There are a lot of the videos available on their YouTube channel, or on the website of the creators.

These videos were created by the Newcastle University in England, as part of the Linguacast project that provide multimedia resources for MFL programs.  The Angry Family is also available in Spanish and German, Japanese and Chinese.   The videos are designed for British schools, however, they are great for teachers who use the CEFR to guide their teaching practice.

Each of the videos covers a topic in FSL study, in an amusing way.  The videos also show the situations in which one would use the language.   The videos are categorized by grammar rules, vocabulary or phrases.  I like the phrases videos as a warm up question for my class.  We watch and then add the new question to our conversation time.  

The Angry Family (French) YouTube Channel

The first video is in English to introduce the students to the premise of the series.  The introductions of each of the characters is in French with each main character having their own video.  The vocabulary is simple, and the dialogue is slow enough for beginners to understand.

A couple of critique I have of the videos are the subtitles at the bottom in English and the English character's names.  I want my students to use their strategies instead of look at the translation.  I'm working on a quick way to cover the subtitles.  As for the character's names, we usually discuss what the character's names would be in French, which is sometimes really funny.  So its not a huge problem for me.  Other than those two things, I love these vids. 

You can get these video by adding their playlists to your own playlists on YouTube, or getting to them from the University site here.

My very useful YouTube channel

One thing that I use in my class (a lot) are videos.  I find its a good way of starting my class; it gets my students listening and thinking in French, and its fun.  I have been collecting the videos I show on my YouTube channel.  If you don't have a YouTube channel, I would strongly encourage you to start one!  They are great!  Any video that you find, and want to use later, you can save it and organize your collection of videos into playlists.  There is no limit to the number of playlists or videos you have on your channel, so just add them on.

To get a YouTube channel, all you need is a Google login.  If you have a Gmail account, you already have what you need to sign up.  Another plus is that any other channels that you subscribe to are in the side bar of your page.

For my video collection my vids are organized by subject or theme for FSL class. Every time I find a new video while I'm surfing online, or a colleague sends me a link to a great video, I throw it into my playlist (depending what its about.)

I also share my YouTube channel with my students.  Listening to French videos is great practice.  Some of the videos I show are really funny, so the students like to watch them again, or share them with their family.  I have a link to my YouTube channel on my class blog.

I love the ability to pull up a video to highlight a point, or introduce a new concept.  One of my student's commented that I seemed "to have a video for everything.  It's pretty cool." That endorsement works for me.

If you want to have a look at my playlists and videos, my YouTube channel can be found at here.

Kahoot, Part 2: Why I love Kahoot

Here is part 2 of my Kahoot mini-lesson.  I think this web-app has some great uses in the class for assessment of, for and as learning.  Here's how I use this game in FSL class.

Bonne Idée on Paper.li!

Do you have Twitter? I find Twitter is a great resource for FSL teacher collaboration. I think I should do a post about that. But for now, here are some headlines and tweets that I found and collected!

Do you Lino?

Just a quick post today on an online app that I have been using in class.  Lino is a virtual post-it board that students and teachers can add to from anywhere (provided there is wifi and a device handy.)  Teachers need to create an account for lino, but its free and can link to you google account.  (If you don't have a google account, get one!  Its free and so many apps and programs can link to it.  You don't need 609 names and passwords. )

Lino is a great tool for brainstorming, reflecting and anywhere you would use post it notes.  In the above pic, my classes were using it as a reflection tool and exit activity.  Since I discourage the use of English in class, students can post their exit ticket in English.  Students are encouraged to read other students posts for ideas/ inspiration or to help them create their own reflections.

Lino is great for Inquiry-based activities.  Students can create post-it notes on the information they find and post it to the board for others to see.  The board updates in real time, so students see what is being posted as it happens.  I like to assign colors for each class or group so that I can keep track of who posted what note.

Today we are going to use Lino as a vocabulary collection point for our review on adjectives.  Students will be able to add words and pictures to create a living list of adjectives that they can access.

What I really like about Lino is that I can post the boards to our class blog:

This is the blog zoomed out so that you can see the header and the board.  You can change the size of the Lino board by changing the size settings in your post.

Students then only have to access the class blog to post their notes.  You can embed the lino screen only any website, Lino provides the codes for you to do so.  You can also hotlink to your boards, so if you use Twitter or another messaging platform to communicate with you students, you can add the link there for students to access the Lino boards. Pro-tip: make sure that you set the publicity setting to public, otherwise it will not show the board.  Another pointer, if you are using a mobile device the board will prompt you to download the app, but it is not necessary.  Just click the small "close" x in the top right corner and to will take you right to the board.

Another plus to Lino, is that you do not have to download the app to use the program.  It is accessible through the website www.linoit.com.  As long as students have a browser on their device, they can add to Lino.  The Lino app makes it easier to add to boards, but for creating and editing, I like the online version better.  Its more user-friendly and easier to navigate.

A third positive for Lino is that it keeps all your boards together so that you can look at them later.

This is a handy little app to use in class or outside of class.  I found that some of my students were adding to the Lino boards outside of class time, which is a plus!

What are some ways that you could use Lino in your class?

À la carte: Anchor Chart Binder and Online Notebooks

This next school year, I will officially be on a cart, traveling from class to class to teach FSL. I say officially, because I was pretty much on a cart this year, even though I did have access to a FSL classroom.  Most of the time, I chose to teach the students in their homerooms.  

So, I am already used to being the "traveling show" when it come to teaching.  Over the past year, I was looking for ways to make my traveling easier for my students.  Any FSL teacher knows that there are many benefits of having a dedicated space for teaching French.  I want to be able to provide some one those benefits, even though I move from place to place.  

The biggest challenge for me was finding space to keep the anchor charts that I made visible for my students.  I have 2 ways that I do this: the first is heavily tech based, and the second is my Anchor Chart Binder.  

Anchor Chart Binder

 

On my cart, I have two front cubbies on the bottom, and in there I keep a binder that hold every anchor chart I make.  During class, I have the student designated as the class reporter for the week, take a picture of the anchor charts that we make/ use.  Then the pictures are uploaded to Google Drive, or emailed to me, and I print to to add to the binder.  

 

This is an example from one of my grade 4 classes.  We were learning our learning goals and success criteria, and so the class reporter took a picture of the chart.  The binder itself is organized into sections: verbes, vocabulaire, and unités (with the title of the unit able to be written in erasable marker on the tab.)  

The students were really good about getting and using the binder if they needed to review an anchor chart for some reason.  This binder was especially usuful for students that were away, and needed to catch up.  I could also photocopy certain charts for students to have access to with their notes or for activities in which I needed to differentiate for some students.

Notes on Google Drive

 

When we started to implement the use of iPads into our classes, I moved away from the binder to an online binder of sorts. I still had a class reporter, but now instead of printing, I uploaded the charts to a shared drive so students could access the charts and other notes from anywhere.  

Students can access the online notebook from my class blog, but I also created a shortened link so that students can memorize the link easily.  (create a shortened link through services such as bit.ly or Google URL shortener.) Once in the shared drive, they can browse and download the notes that they need on their device.  I hope to cut down on the amount of paper we use. (I have a secret quest to become paperless.  More on that another time though.)  More, I want the students to be able to access the information they need anytime and anyplace.  

Through my school board, students have their own Google Drive space where they can download the notes they want to keep to their own drive.  Ideally, students would download the notes as we use them to their own drive to pull up in class etc.  

Pluses for using Google Drive are that the app is really user friendly.  My grade 4s and 5s last year were experts at navigating the classes shared Drive and uploading their projects and pictures to it.  It was a great tool because we had to used shared computers and iPads.  Students did not need to store anything on the devices and they had access to the projects and notes for homework or to work on when they finished other work.   More than this though, using services like Google drive are great inter-subject learning.  And knowing how to use cloud storage services is a crucial skill for our students as they grow and education become further and further entrenched in the technology that is readily available to us.  It was really exciting to see the students use the technology in FSL.  They knew that it was important, and it was engaging.  They know that they need these skills, and more they want to learn these skills. 

Having set up my binder and Google Drive for my students this upcoming year, I am looking forward to being "à la carte."  I will get to keep my online resources up to date, and hopefully it will become an integral resource for my students.

How do you manage sharing information to your students without a dedicated class space? Have you thought about going paperless?