Note: this is an update of a post I originally published in 2013. Click here to read the original post.
While many of you reading this have already started the school year, I won’t teach my first class until after Labor Day. One of the most important things I do in the beginning of the year with my first year French students is establish why French is important. In this post, I will share some of the ways I explore that with my students.
In the first week of school, I show a video explaining why French is important. Here are the main components of the video:
-Photos I have taken in French-speaking countries
-Where French is spoken
-People sharing why they learned French
-Clips from francophone music videos and TV shows
-Clips of celebrities (that my students would know) speaking French
-Clips of movies (that my students would know) in French – this ties into a bulletin board I have in my classroom featuring popular movie posters in French
Due to the ever-changing nature of what celebrities and movies are popular, I update this video every few years. I just gave it a revamp for 2023.
After the video, we have a class discussion about what they understood, what they saw, and what they learned. Their homework is to discuss these points with their parents, and leave an optional comment on the class discussion board. They can watch the video at home as well.
You will note the use of copyrighted material in this video. United States, Belgian and French copyright law allow for the use of small portions of copyrighted work for educational purposes with credit given to the creator. Any copyrighted works used in the above video are believed in good faith to be acceptable uses and are credited during and at the end of the video.
For National French Week, my students create posters illustrating some of the reasons they learned why French is important earlier in the year. Click here to learn more about this activity and see more examples.
One of the ways I have my students practice and discover new things outside of class is with the Independent Exploration library I’ve curated for them. One of the sections within it is entitled “Why French?” and contains this YouTube playlist:
As a follow up, students must share three new things they learned.
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