I have recently discovered one of THE most amazing motivators for students: Class Dojo! With a simple "PING!" students will do ANYTHING for a point on Class Dojo - and that includes, yes, speaking en Français! You assign a cute little furry avatar to each student, and as long as you have wireless and a data projector in your room, you can keep Class Dojo on all day. You can even assign points straight from your Iphone/Ipod - simply download the Class Dojo app!
You can create specific "badges", such as "Spoke in French", or negative badges that take away points, such as "Spoke English". I also created a badge for "Mlle. spoke in English" - with that one, the entire class gets a point. They love getting that one! There are also generic badges that say "Hard Work" or "Teamwork", etc.
Tally up points as a class, or individually. We usually pick a goal at the beginning of every week, for example, 500 points. If we gather up all the points, they can chose a "free time" activity to do at some point the following week (can be accounted for through QDPA).
It honestly works like magic - the first day I introduced it, I just had it up on the data projector, and as students walked in and got to their seats I gave them the "Gets to work right away" point - you should have seen how fast the others followed! On top of it all, I could have heard a pin drop! Give it a try and let me know what you think!
Another post by Madame Wiebe also talks about ways to get students to speak French - great read!
If you know of any other games/techniques, please post bellow!
I have recently joined the fabulous network of TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers). You wouldn't believe how much time I've saved either buying or downloading FREE information, worksheets, presentations, and more for my class. Anything from full lesson plans on how to teach persuasive writing, to a "You are going on vacation" package for a student who is about to take off for 2 weeks. Trust me, you won't be disappointed!! You will need to create an account in order to buy or download the material - but for free lesson plans, I wouldn't hesitate!
Since I have created a lot of my own worksheets in French (we all know how many French resources there are out there), I've decided to put some of my worksheets up for sale as well. I have a couple of Math worksheets and French Grammar. Mainly they are for grades 5 and under, but as always, are easily adaptable. To view my "store" look on the right side of my blog, under my contact information.
To browse the TPT general website, click here. Enjoy!!
I am thrilled to say I am back to blogging! As a new teacher, the first couple of weeks... OK, months, of school were quite busy! I had high hopes of blogging on a weekly basis, but clearly that was some serious wishful thinking! I have been loving my job more and more every day, and am so thankful to be at such a supportive school! Moreover, my class, which is a grade 3/4 French Immersion class (meaning that the first half of the day I teach them in French and the other half in English), has been so incredibly hard-working, kind, and fun to be in every single day! It has been great watching them learn and grow already!
So, during the month of October, we participated in the 2012 Global Read Aloud. Along with 30 000 students from 6 continents we read the book "The One and Only Ivan" by Katherine Applegate. I read aloud to them every day, knowing we had to read a specific batch of pages every week. We then connected with another class in the United States over Edmodo, where students from both classes were able to talk to each other and discuss the book. We did a wide variety of activities in class based on the book, such as creating a Wordle and Vokis. Here are two separate links from two students' Vokis:
I highly recommend participating in the Global Read Aloud next year! It was a phenomenal experience to see students get so involved in their learning! It was great for them to feel part of something so big and international. To learn more about the GLR click here.
You can already sign up for next year! If you have any questions about it, please don't hesitate to ask!
