Transition Year French

gagiteebo

Hi guys,
Just a question for those teaching TY, particularly languages; I've been teaching TY for about 4 years now and to be honest I am struggling to keep it 'fresh'. We had an inspection in Oct and all went well but personally I would love to do something with them beyond projects and the usual etc

Does anyone feel the same about TY and if so do you have any advice to offer? I'm trying to plan my classes for next year and TY is where I'm hitting a wall!

Thanks

drvantramp

Films (and music) might be an idea, these are quite varied in themes:

La Haine
La Vie en Rose
Le Grand Bleu
Joyeux Noel

bdoo

You could try teaming up with the home ec. dept do a spot of French cuisine through French?

just something popped into ny head - tv is teeming with cooking programmes somebody must be looking at them!

purplepapillon

Tried and tested penpals OR e-mail/skype/facebook exchange. I did this with my fifth year group this year and they loved having French friends online. They loved picking up new bits of slang or how to write "text" style.

Any film with Audrey Tatou is usually a hit.
"L'ensemble c'est tout" is a good one and maybe for a stronger class, you could tie it in with a chapter from the novel (by Anna Gavalda) too.

Perhaps link in with the English Dept. for film studies in TY, as they usually begin to study film and learn about techniques, camera angles, themes etc.

Bon courage!

gagiteebo

purplepapillon wrote: »

Tried and tested penpals OR e-mail/skype/facebook exchange. I did this with my fifth year group this year and they loved having French friends online. They loved picking up new bits of slang or how to write "text" style.

Any film with Audrey Tatou is usually a hit.
"L'ensemble c'est tout" is a good one and maybe for a stronger class, you could tie it in with a chapter from the novel (by Anna Gavalda) too.

Perhaps link in with the English Dept. for film studies in TY, as they usually begin to study film and learn about techniques, camera angles, themes etc.

Bon courage!

Yeah they would love something like that I think. How did you go about setting them up with 'penpals'? Did you use one particular school or just random students from all over France?

purplepapillon

gagiteebo wrote: »

How did you go about setting them up with 'penpals'?

I asked a friend in France about schools in their area, and they told me which ones had particular renown in English. He didn't have any contacts or anything - just gave me a list of schools. I treid emailing, but no replies, so I wrote and sent letters instead. They write in English and my students reply in French. Even if it peters out as these things are wont to do, at least there's some enthusiasm and interest for a while! Bon courage!