First week plans: a tentative look

I guess I’m going to jump on the bandwagon here and share my plans for the first week of school. At my school, we’ll be starting on a Thursday, with the first week being only 2 days. I plan to do some fun beginning of the year type activities on those first two days and then use the next week to introduce my students to proficiency. Here’s what I’m thinking for level 1, with obvious room for crazy first week modifications:

Thursday (first day of school):

• Assigned seating for Ss, having them make name cards for use during the year.
• Introductions: I’ll be modeling “Je m’appelle Madame, comment tu t’appelles?” all the way around the room, with potential time for a competition if possible.
• Stations?: I’d love to do some kind of stations on these first two days, but I will be the first to admit that I’m TERRIBLE with stations. Hopefully all Ss will have their devices (laptop or iPad) by these days. My ideas on stations are:
  • 1) A “webquest” where students view my interactive syllabus (and maybe answer some questions?)
  • 2) Instagram – I’m thinking of having students use their devices to upload an Instagram picture with a frame, à la Sra. Wienhold. Not sure where to upload them to, or what else to have at this station. Maybe I could have the kids follow me on instagram here too.
  • 3) Creating a French class twitter account, and following celebrities that they know and might not know, and my class twitter account; I’m also thinking of taking suggestions for a class hashtag
  • 4) App download: there are a few apps that I want students to have on their devices, and I know it might take a little bit of time, so I’m thinking this could work well as a station. If they don’t finish, I plan on having a list of apps that I want accessible. For my HS Ss with laptops, they’ll be signing up for a few accounts.
  • 5) Student info surveys – I plan on having these up on Google Forms, à la Sra. Stilson

Friday (second day of school) — still up in the air

• Introductions, again: last year I used this likes and names activity by Creative Language Class and I think that it went really well
• Intro to Madame: I’m not sure yet if I’ll create a Prezi, like Sra. Wienhold, or have students ask me any questions that they have. Last year, I had students ask me the same questions that were on their student info surveys
• Stations: I’d love to continue stations today, maybe adding one if necessary?

Monday (third day of school)

• Review introductions and likes
• Introduce proficiency levels – Taco sheet from Musicuentos, maybe with Creative Language Class cards … I want to split students into groups with a proficiency level, and have them describe a movie together to the rest of the class.
• I’d like groups of students to define what proficiency means to them, but need a better framework to make it happen – maybe I’ll show them the bicycle analogy (by Laura Sexton, who borrowed from Srta. Barragán, who borrowed from Martina Bex and Kelly Daugherty) and have them create their own (examples: walking to marathon running, playing guitar chords to playing crazy guitar solos?)

Tuesday (fourth day of school)

• Proficiency matching: I’d like to take the movie descriptions that all of my classes made yesterday, and have students work in groups or pairs to match them with the correct prof. level and guess what movie it was. I’d love an online platform for this, so that I don’t have to print and cut a million descriptions. Do you have any suggestions?
• Need another activity here; still not sure

Wednesday (fifth day of school)

• Proficiency videos: I plan on using ACTFL’s English videos with either EdPuzzle or EduCanon to give students an interactive way to watch the videos and understand what the speakers are trying to communicate. I hope to not only have pop up questions, but also have students guess the proficiency level that each speaker is.
• Goal setting for 1st semester: where do students hope to be by the end of first semester? How can I help them get there? How can our class help them get there? What will they do to get there?

From there, I think that I’ll start with real content, maybe I’ll do some work with cognates first? I’m not entirely sure, as everything is a work in progress, and will be until I meet my Ss and decide what’s working and not working for them! Keep checking for updates to this page as I solidify ideas!