How do I teach my French 1 students to read? Should I wait until April or May when they know more words? It feels like I should start little French readings in September or October but those are hard to find on the internet or are outdated in my textbook. My French 2 students should definitely be reading in September or October but they are worried! Where is the time to find authentic readings for beginning French students?
Your gut is no fool. Listen to it. You should start the (authentic) reading process as early as possible in French 1 (before Halloween for sure). What follows are activities or short lessons to set up your beginning French 1 or French 2 (or any World Language) students for reading success and confidence in the target language. Take these ideas and make them work for you, your style, your teaching method(s), and – above all – your students.
#1 – Move beyond articles and books
These are all considered authentic World Language reading resources:
- Restaurant menus
- Lists of ingredients
- School calendars
- Class schedules
- Book titles
- Pictures with captions from a newspaper or magazine
- Advertisements
- Comics
- Travel itineraries
- Job applications
- Polls, Charts, and Infographics
- Signs in a store (hours, how to pay, sections of a store)
- Maps and brochures
Yes, several textbooks have readings throughout the chapters which center around the unit theme. Keep using them as resources and add some of the authentic resources above to change up the types of reading that you give to your beginning French students.
#2 – What to do with an authentic reading?
Interacting with an authentic French reading is critical to comprehension and its extension activities. Each one of the following ideas requires teacher prep work BUT once you prepare it, you can use it for years to come. What follows are language functions which guide you and the student to focus on the desired outcome of the activity. These ideas also create an expectation of how you will present and interact with reading materials in your French (or World Language) classroom.
- Compare / contrast (menus, school schedules or calendars, travel destinations)
- Categorize (maps, brochures, book titles, ingredients, menu items, where I might see the advertisement or sign – on the highway, in a library, at a clothing store)
- Rank order by likes or dislikes (types of ads, ingredients, school classes, travel itineraries)
- Match (dialogue to the comic strip picture, magazine / newspaper pictures to the caption)
- Match words to pictures (signs in a store, book titles to book genres, who or what is being polled or shown in a graph)
- Complete (as much of a job application or passport application as possible)
- Tabulate (items on infographics, polls, costs in an ad)
- Bullet-point (similar items, opposites, foods, locations by continents, stores)
The list of language functions can go on and on and so should the use of the authentic resource you have finally found. Each of the following examples might be a 10-15 minute class activity. I might not put them back-to-back because I want time for students to process the French resource and activity for that day. On the second day, I start with a 5-minute review of the Day 1 activity to check for continued comprehension and then move into Day 2 use of the authentic resource.
For example, spend Day 1 with two or three school calendars (Zone A, Zone B, Zone C from the French government) to compare / contrast with your school calendar and answer some written questions that you have created. In October of French 1, it’s okay if your questions are in English.
On Day 2, use the same French school calendars as a French speaking activity. Prepare 15 yes / no questions or 15 either / or questions for students to ask in French. (Example: Is January 1 on a Friday or a Tuesday?) If you have 30 students in a class, let pairs of students walk around to ask / answer the same question over and over to 10-12 other partner pairs. Each group will master their one question while having multiple opportunities to respond to 10-12 other yes / no or either / or questions.
On Day 3, take the same French school calendar, and put the 15 yes / no questions into a writing activity. By the third day, students are familiar with how to read the calendar and now you can use it as a French speaking prompt. They heard and answered the questions orally on Day 2, and on day 3 they read the questions to answer in French.
To make Day 3 stretch into Day 4, ask half the class to read / write the answers on Day 3 while the other half of the class re-does the speaking activity from Day 2 (but without a partner). On Day 4, the group who was reading and writing does the solo speaking / listening activity and vice versa.
With each mini-activity taking 5 minutes to review and 10-15 minutes to complete, it becomes a solid 15-20 minute interaction with the reading. Furthermore, I have created an expectation that we always interact several times with a reading activity in all of the skill areas (listening, speaking, and writing). This allows for multiple opportunities to hit the learning styles of all students.
#3 – How do I grade these activities?
Grading is sometimes influenced by school expectations of formatives and summatives. If I have my own influence in my classroom, I give students participation points for completing those 3 or 4 days of formative reading-related activities. If a student is absent, I might excuse the student from 1 or 2 and see if there is class time to make up 1 or 2 of the activities by assigning a partner to help.
Don’t get too caught up in grading individual answers at home on the weekends. Grade the questions as a class or monitor their progress as you walk around and check off the completion points as they are working. What is more important is their comfort level with readings and the subsequent activities associated with them. The end-of-the-year goal is for students to have comfort with the French reading and the expectation of how to interact with the text.
My name is Lisa and I am happy to be your new French colleague – how can I help you tomorrow?
