Advice on teaching French to Senior Cycle students

rose23

Hi all,

Im hoping some French/language teachers have some advice on useful ways to teach Senior Cycle French.

I find lessons easy to plan for Junior Cycle students, there are loads of fun activities to get them involved. However, last year when I was teaching my LC HL French class I felt like it was boring, I was struggling to find the best way to teach them new vocab and prepare them for writing essays in the exam.

I have secured a job for September and will have LC HL students again, I just want to be more confident going into the classroom if possible.
Any tips/advice would be great!

mtoutlemonde

rose23 wrote: »

Hi all,

Im hoping some French/language teachers have some advice on useful ways to teach Senior Cycle French.

I find lessons easy to plan for Junior Cycle students, there are loads of fun activities to get them involved. However, last year when I was teaching my LC HL French class I felt like it was boring, I was struggling to find the best way to teach them new vocab and prepare them for writing essays in the exam.

I have secured a job for September and will have LC HL students again, I just want to be more confident going into the classroom if possible.
Any tips/advice would be great!

What textbook do you use? I use textbook, my own resources and a variety of materials from the internet e.g. Tes connect etc. I also use frenchteacher.net and online languages resources - but both have subscriptions.

drvantramp

Interested in same issue rose23
I am using passe partout but interested in opinions on other textbooks.
I also use femme actuelle/paris-match/closer.fr for relevant articles. JC does seem more fun!

mtoutlemonde

drvantramp wrote: »

Interested in same issue rose23
I am using passe partout but interested in opinions on other textbooks.
I also use femme actuelle/paris-match/closer.fr for relevant articles. JC does seem more fun!

I've looked at all the textbooks and the one I used last year was Tout va bien!
I looked at Passe Partout and Formule 1 and didn't like either. I used others for resources but mainly Tout va bien! It's nicely laid out with each chapter starting with ordinary level material working its way to higher level material and by the time the students get to the higher level material they should have a good amount of vocab. Triomphe au Bac is also nice espcially the higher level one as it deals with all the essay topics and gives sample answers.

Just as aside to this post - were you teaching TY? What did you do?

drvantramp

merci mtoutlemonde
formule1 seemed a bit "lite", while content of passe partout quite good but I don't like layout/format - not userfriendly

No to TY - I think there is some posts on this somewhere - I think I would use films and music as base for different themes, i.e. upweight Culture with a capital C..

mtoutlemonde

drvantramp wrote: »

merci mtoutlemonde
formule1 seemed a bit "lite", while content of passe partout quite good but I don't like layout/format - not userfriendly

No to TY - I think there is some posts on this somewhere - I think I would use films and music as base for different themes, i.e. upweight Culture with a capital C..

De rien. Yeah that's what I did last year. Entre les murs was a great success - students enjoyed it. I did a lot of cultural stuff and students did presentations about famous French people. Their last assignment was a short video which dealt with the first few topics of the oral and what they did during TY and what they liked/disliked. I've looked at the other TY posts - the majority of posters did the same as myself.

vamos!

Have a good look through the TES resources. There are loads of games that can be adapted for oral work and vocab learning. It can be a bit dull at times but the exam is also a bit dull!! I tended to vary my resources and did a lot of group work and group written pieces. The made the written pieces seem less tedious and also allowed the groups or pairs to learn from each other.

vamos!

mtoutlemonde wrote: »

I've looked at all the textbooks and the one I used last year was Tout va bien!
I looked at Passe Partout and Formule 1 and didn't like either. I used others for resources but mainly Tout va bien! It's nicely laid out with each chapter starting with ordinary level material working its way to higher level material and by the time the students get to the higher level material they should have a good amount of vocab. Triomphe au Bac is also nice espcially the higher level one as it deals with all the essay topics and gives sample answers.

Just as aside to this post - were you teaching TY? What did you do?

Personal choice I suppose but I hate Tout va bien. I just found it to be way too basic. I loved Mosaique but it is on the tough side. Triomphe au Bac would probably be my choice, but I will be using Mosaique again this year.

mtoutlemonde

vamos! wrote: »

mtoutlemonde wrote: »

I've looked at all the textbooks and the one I used last year was Tout va bien!
I looked at Passe Partout and Formule 1 and didn't like either. I used others for resources but mainly Tout va bien! It's nicely laid out with each chapter starting with ordinary level material working its way to higher level material and by the time the students get to the higher level material they should have a good amount of vocab. Triomphe au Bac is also nice espcially the higher level one as it deals with all the essay topics and gives sample answers.

Just as aside to this post - were you teaching TY? What did you do?

Personal choice I suppose but I hate Tout va bien. I just found it to be way too basic. I loved Mosaique but it is on the tough side. Triomphe au Bac would probably be my choice, but I will be using Mosaique again this year.

Well I didn't really have a choice - Tout va bien was the book the school was using - I liked it although I had to prepare notes for the written and oral sections.

rose23

vamos! wrote: »

Have a good look through the TES resources. There are loads of games that can be adapted for oral work and vocab learning. It can be a bit dull at times but the exam is also a bit dull!! I tended to vary my resources and did a lot of group work and group written pieces. The made the written pieces seem less tedious and also allowed the groups or pairs to learn from each other.

Yeah TES have great resources alright, I always use that! What way would you work the group work exercise for written expression?

rose23

vamos! wrote: »

Have a good look through the TES resources. There are loads of games that can be adapted for oral work and vocab learning. It can be a bit dull at times but the exam is also a bit dull!! I tended to vary my resources and did a lot of group work and group written pieces. The made the written pieces seem less tedious and also allowed the groups or pairs to learn from each other.

Im really interested how you work this Vamos.. Would be very grateful if you could give me advice on this!

vamos!

Sent you a PM as response was quite long

drvantramp

Vamos
ditto can you also PM me please

vamos!

i asked rose23 to forward on the PMs. Hope that's OK. Can't see how to do it myself and don't fancy typing again.

I meant to ask other senior French teachers about francais.ie. I used their Grammar exercises (fantastic!) but was considering buying some of the oral sections and podcasts. Has anyone done this. Would you recommend it?

mtoutlemonde

vamos! wrote: »

i asked rose23 to forward on the PMs. Hope that's OK. Can't see how to do it myself and don't fancy typing again.

I meant to ask other senior French teachers about francais.ie. I used their Grammar exercises (fantastic!) but was considering buying some of the oral sections and podcasts. Has anyone done this. Would you recommend it?

Hi vamos! I came across that website and am wondering the same! The grammar was very good. I looked at the oral sample and there didn't seem to be a lot in it so I didn't spend the money as I found similar information or made my own resources on the topic.

drvantramp

Merci Vamos