Mlle. Burt

How fun is this?

Here’s a cute site: Blabberize

Students can upload their picture (or use any from the web), add audio, and voila – talking picture! Tell me how much more likely it would be to get kids to speak in French if they could turn it into something funny? Here’s a quality example from the site.

Add comment December 28th, 2007

Tools you can use!

Joyeux Noël!

Now that school is out, I’ve had some much needed time to “play” with some of the tools introduced to me by a fellow teacher, a friend from university. The learning never ends and sharing makes it all that much easier. I hope you’re as excited about these as I am!

The first tool I’m going to share with you, ESLvideo.com should prove to be very interesting. Students watch a simple video and are then quizzed about it. Keeping in mind resource-based learning, this tool is completely adaptable. Pull any video from youtube or the like and create your own quiz! My favorite gift this Christmas was a web cam and I can also see myself making my own silly videos to engage my students.

The second tool leaves paper lovers without any excuses. With DIIGO, you can now sticky note and high lite any page online to point out important passages. Imagine the possibilities – I wish I had this in university when I was writing papers! Be advised this is just one version of this tool, there are many other applications out there. Look around and find the one you like!

I recently joined Mefeedia where you can subscribe to podcasts on pretty much anything. There are many free podcasts in French specifically targeting French language learners. Those of you with ipods can download them and take them with you to school! Here is a little taste of what you can find:

Video Vocabulary #4

And finally, to those of you just using Google to search… I implore you – take a better look. Google has so many tools I don’t know where to start and if Google has it, chances are there are other providers out there as well. If you don’t like the format, there are others to be had. My students and I are fans of igoogle (set up your own start page) and I recently started an rss reader for myself so that I don’t have to go to 27 different pages to get what I want. Anything to save time!

Add comment December 26th, 2007

Les Films

I’m excited to show a French (Quebecois) film tomorrow in grade 10.  It’s a movie I saw for the first time while participating in a 5 week summer language bursary in Jonquiere, QC.  It’s called “Nuit de Noces” and its hilarious.  You can’t watch the English version (Wedding Night) because the translation is horrible and the jokes are lost.  The other great thing about this film is that it is very expressive so you can tell what is happening, even with the sound off.  It makes it easy for the kids to follow the story and identify words they already know and make connections to new words (especially with English subtitles on!).  I have another Quebecois film – Les Aimants (Love and Magnets) but it is not as good.

The other day I also popped in the Simpsons and I didn’t hear one “Can’t we watch in English?”!  It went over really well – the kids get a kick out of the different tones of voice.

Have you used films or tv shows in the classroom?  What did you show and how was it received?

Add comment December 18th, 2007

Les Articles

I am looking forward to using the powerpoint on Les Articles we made during PLC’s with my grade 10’s this week.  Check it out!

Add comment December 17th, 2007

PLC’s

I’m hoping that since PLC’s end next month that we can use Edublogs/Twitter/Skype etc. to keep in touch and share information. It would be wonderful if we could get as many French teachers as possible to join up, especially to Twitter, and get sharing the amazing things we all do in our classrooms. I think we can all agree that there isn’t enough time in just one afternoon session!

1 comment December 17th, 2007