Last time I lived in France, I tried very hard to create a blog. I tried, very, very hard for a whole two and a half weeks. This time round, instead of being a travel-happy exchange student, I am doing a Masters in French literature at l'Universit Lyon II, and working at an assistante en langue trangre in three primary schools in St. Priest, which is part of Greater Lyon. And this blog is not going to be a so-today-I-did-this-today-I-did-that sort of blog. I am going to post my lesson planning and materials here to make these things accessible to the teachers that I work with in St. Priest, and to future language assistants in France. I will put detailed descriptions of my planning, how I taught it, and whether or not it was successful in English. I will post a summary of the activities of the week, along with any materials we use, in French, so that teachers I work with can come back to ideas we visit in their classes. Because the more ideas the better, right? And if you have any criticisms or suggestions, please comment, send me a message or... talk to me at work! Happy reading! La dernire fois que j'habitais en France, j'ai essay de tenir un petit blog. J'ai fait mon maximum au moins deux semaines et demi. chec total. Cette fois-ci par contre, au lieu d'tre tudiante en change souvent en vadrouille, je suis en masters de littrature franaise la fac Lyon II, et je travaille en tant qu'assistante en langue trangre dans trois coles primaires St. Priest, dans l'agglomration lyonnaise. Et ce blog ne va pas tre un blog du type 'aujourd'hui-j'ai-fait-ceci-aujourd'hui-j'ai-fait-cela'. Je vais plutt poster mon planning et mon matriel, dans le but de les rendre accessibles aux enseignant(e)s de St. Priest , et aux futurs assistants en langue trangre arrivant en France. En anglais, je vais dcrire mon planning, la manire dans laquelle je mis en place ma leon et ce qui marche et ne marche pas. En franais je vais mettre un sommaire des activits faites chaque semaine et le matriel utilis pour que les enseignant(e)s peuvent revisiter les ides vus dans leurs classes. Parce que plus il y a d'ides, mieux c'est, non? Et si vous avez des critiques ou des suggestions, n'hsitez pas laisser des commentaires, m'envoyez un message... ou me parler au travail! Bonne lecture! For assistants: Observation week. I met the students during my observation week, and most of them were very excited to speak English. I presented myself in English, articulating carefully and speaking slowly: Hello, my name is Alexa. I am from Canada. In the classes that had aleady done a few years of English (CE2, CM1, CM2), they all put up their hands and could tell me what I meant. In classes that were beginning their first year of English, or had only done one year (CP and CE1), they could figure out most of what I said, but didn't necessarily know what the words themselves meant. They could guess from my gesturing to myself when I said Alexa that it was my name, and from the word Canada (and my accent) that I was from elsewhere. I will be using the French names for the different grades here, to make it easier for French teachers to find activities, but if you are a language assistant like me, and find these names confusing, here's the breakdown: CP = Grade 1 (first year of English) CE1 = Grade 2 CE2 = Grade 3

CM1 = Grade 4 CM2 = Grade 5 Then I told all of the students that as I had introduced myself to them, I would like them to introduce themselves to me. The older students were ready to answer the question What is your name? with either My name is... or I am... The younger classes were not, and we discussed what My name is Alexa sounded like in French. When I said it slowly, they were able to hear that name sounded like nom, and then they understood. Once they knew what it meant we practised saying it (having them repeat it after me a few times, and then saying it all together). We also discussed the question What is your name, and how it could be said in French. I went around the class and asked them their names, and asked them to correct me if I got them wrong. Sometimes my pronunciation was a bit off, and this got a laugh. Having spent a year and a half in France (in 2007-2008), and having, for the most part, been called Alexia (as my name doesn't exist in French) I told them that I really wanted to get their names right. So they corrected me. And we shook hands, and I said Good to meet you which they had not yet heard and which all of them thought was hilarious. In some CM1 and CM2 classes, the students were ready to say I am... years old as well. Although I was in observation, some teachers didn't mind if I taught (and talked!) with their students. When they didn't mind, the older classes tended to volunteer to tell me their ages, which took a bit of time. Then, in all classes, I explained that we would mostly be speaking English when I was in the classroom, but as it was my first day, and I came from the other side of the world, that they would be allowed to ask me questions in French. About me, about Canada, about the presumed presence of great quantities of both snow and polar bears in my frozen, nordic country... you name it. The funniest part was that almost every single class thought that I still lived in Canada, and flew over the 11, 000 kilometres from the Pacific Coast each week just to teach them. They were reassured to learn that I took the tramway to work and lived in Lyon like a reasonable human being. I also asked them to help me make a list of all of the things that they had already learned in English themes they had covered, like colours or days of the week, songs or stories they had read. In the older classes I wrote these on the board in English. In the CP classes, where this was their first year of English, I asked them if they knew any English already, that they'd learned all on their own. I think this helped demonstrate to them that English was something completely feasible. It says something for the prevalence of Anglophone culture in the world that every CP student could think of at least one English word. The difficult part was trying to talk to the teachers with all of the students in the room, but recess (which happens both in the morning and in the afternoon) and lunchtime are both good for this. Generally the teachers were waiting till I started to really begin English with their classes (which they do twice a week forty-five minutes with me there, and one without generally, although they do less in CP as they are just beginning), and so introductions and then a discussion of what they had already studied or knew in English was a decent place to start. I made a mistake with one class, and started to teach them to sing the alphabet in English. From an Anglophone perspective, this is a very basic thing, but for French primary students it actually comes fairly late in the curriculum. The sounds and spelling are so different that they do a few years of almost entirely oral English before attempting to learn the alphabet and start spelling. The teacher was very kind to me about, because she knew that I had no idea, and the students liked singing it, but it was perhaps not so helpful. If I could do the day over, I would have chosen a much more simple song, or one that they

knew already, like Head and shoulders, knees and toes. One last thing to bear in mind: French classrooms are a bit bigger than classrooms back home, with up to 25 students. The teachers tend to be a bit stricter (so as to keep control on such a big class!)... and I figured out pretty quickly that it would help me run things if they thought I was strict(ish) too. Making a point of only answering questions when students raised their hands definitely kept things calm. I also played a card that their teachers couldn't: I told them that it was hard for me to understand when everyone talked at once (not true, but that wasn't the point), and so, as to make me feel more welcome in their country and in their language, I would like them to speak one at a time. I didn't know if it would work, but it did. They were worried about me being lost in French, and got much better about not all yelling at once. I don't know how other assistants or teachers feel about this, but even when I'm strict, I don't yell. Maybe its effective for some, for me, it mostly leaves me voiceless at the end of the day. I've worked with kids for almost ten years (doing just about everything under the sun teaching literacy, sports, jewelry making, art class, baking, leadership, running outreach programs in subsidized housing communities... the list goes on) and as far as I can tell, it doesn't work when I yell. And I'm grouchy when I'm hoarse. So I do the thing where I raise my hand in the air, look at it, look patient, point at it with my other hand, put a finger on my lips etc. Anything to indicate to them that I'm waiting and they need to stop. The first time I did it, during this observation week, it sure took a long time. Once they stopped though, I explained very clearly that I did not mind waiting for them to be quiet, but that it seemed like a real waste of both my time and theirs, and that most days, I planned to bring games and group activities which would take careful listening... but if they weren't able to do it, we would be stuck learning English with the repeat-after-me model. Or, their teacher might (check with the teacher before threatening this) decide that they were not well enough behaved to do English that week, and decide to do dreaded grammar or math instead. I then made it clear to them that I wanted to do English with them, and for everyone to have fun doing so, and that if we worked together to listen respectfully that I was sure we could succeed (ah yes, teaching language). I'm sure that not everyone's observation week went (or will go) like this, and in some classes I mostly observed how the teacher taught an entirely different subject (like Math!) but this is roughly what I did, and it went pretty well. I also checked with all the teachers what they expected from me and learned a bit about how they taught English. Some of them thought that, like the intervenants who used to come in to teach foreign languages, I would be taking the class by myself, some of them weren't sure if I would come in with much planned at all. If you come to France as an assistant, do make sure that the teachers understand that you are still learning to teach, and are most definitely an assistant and not a fully-trained intervenant which is a job that no longer exists, due to cuts in the Education budget. I was also given an outline of the primary learning goals in English, a thirteen page document created by le ministre de l'ducation, which was very helpful. It was given to me the next week, during our 12 hours of training, but if you don't get offered it do make sure to ask for a copy.

Les activits de la premire semaine dans les cours de CE1-CM2:

Pendant la semaine d'observation, on avait revu comment se prsenter en anglais, en utilisant la question What is your name? . Cette semaine, en partant de cette introduction, on a commenc travailler sur les rponses diverses How are you?. Les lves connaissaient dj plusieurs rponses, surtout les rponses polies: Good Very Good So-so etc. Dans les cours de CM1 et CM2, les lves connaissaient souvent: Sad Happy Bad Sick (ou Ill, qui se dit plus en Angleterre!) Je leur ai ensuite prsent du nouveau vocabulaire motionnel avec les images suivant: Je joins toutes les images que j'ai utilis en CM2. Pour les cours de CE1 CM1, on a commenc avec seulement une partie. ****Grands images ici! ********** Aprs avoir fait dcouvrir ces images plutt drle aux lves, je leur ai demand de rpter les mots avec l'accent anglophone. Puis, lorsqu'ils avaient compris les mots et leur prononciation, on a fait deux jeux pour les aider retenir ce vocabulaire. Premire Jeu : Tlphone Ce jeu permet les lves de travailler la fois la comprhension et la prononciation sans tre obliger de rpter simplement les mots aprs moi. Le chuchotement les oblige (au moins, en principe) bien articuler les mots! La classe est divise en lignes (dpendant de l'espace disponible, entre 2 et 5 quipes). Les images sont laisses au tableau. On chuchote un mot l'oreille au premier lve de chaque range. Les lves transmettent ensuite le mot voix basse leur voisin. Le dernier lve de la ligne, lve la main et dit le mot haute voix. Chaque quipe qui a bien transmis son mot a un point, et un autre point si ils sont capables de reconnatre l'image. Astuces: J'ai observ que ce jeu marchait mieux quand chaque quipe avait un mot diffrent. En effet, les lves comprenaient mieux que le but tait de bien transmettre le mot correctement et non de faire la course. Deuxime Jeu: The Hello, how are you? Game

Ce jeu permet aux lves de faire quelque chose qu'ils aiment bien : parler entre eux ! Le bt est de leur donner un contexte dans lequel ils peuvent travailler la fois la question How are you et les rponses apprises ensemble. Chaque lve reoit une des images correspondant un mot de vocabulaire vu en classe cette semaine. (Toutes les images sont jointes, en version petit, en bas !) On leur explique qu'ils ont le droit de se lever et de parler entre eux... mais que en anglais! Leur objectif est d'changer leur image le plus fois possible. Pour cela, ils doivent avec un camarade engager une conversation sous la forme: Le premier demandait : How are you? Le deuxime rpondait: I am __________. How are you? Et puis le premier rpondait: I am ________. Une fois la 'discussion' termine, ils changent alors leur image et continuent avec un autre lve. Astuces: J'ai remarqu qu'il est prfrable de revoir le vocabulaire juste avant. Les grandes salles ou le fait d'tre en extrieur, ainsi que la participation du professeur(e) et de l'assistant(e) favorisent galement la bon droulement du jeu et l'emploi de l'anglais par les lves. Les activits de la premire semaine dans les cours de CP : Pendant la semaine d'observation, on avait vu comment se prsenter en anglais, en utilisant la question What is your name? . Cette semaine, en partant de cette introduction, on a commenc travailler sur les salutations diverses: Good Morning Good Afternoon Good Evening Good Night J'ai present ce nouveau vocabulaire avec des images tirs de cet site: http://eflfrog.com/downloads/expressions-level-a-flash-cards/ Malheureusement les images sont protgs, et je ne peux pas les tlcharg pour separer que les quatre que j'ai utilis et les mettre sur mon blog. Si vous voulez les utilisez, les quatre salutations sont l dans le PDF de 24 images. Je ne conseille pas tout les autres images - il y a du vocabulaire un peu bizarre, que ne s'emploi pas en anglais. ie. Big Voice . Aprs avoir fait dcouvrir ces images aux lves, je leur ai demand de rpter les mots avec l'accent anglophone. Puis, lorsqu'ils avaient compris les mots et leur prononciation, on a fait deux jeux pour les aider retenir ce vocabulaire. Premire Jeu : Tlphone Ce jeu permet les lves de travailler la fois la comprhension et la prononciation sans tre obliger de rpter simplement les mots aprs moi. Le chuchotement les oblige (au moins, en principe) bien articuler les mots!

La classe est divise en lignes (dpendant de l'espace disponible, entre 2 et 5 quipes). Les images sont laisses au tableau. On chuchote un mot l'oreille au premier lve de chaque range. Les lves transmettent ensuite le mot voix basse leur voisin. Le dernier lve de la ligne, lve la main et dit le mot haute voix. Chaque quipe qui a bien transmis son mot a un point, et un autre point si ils sont capables de reconnatre l'image. Astuces: C'tait un peu dur pour les CPs de jouer ce jeu, car ils ont eu du mal a rentenir les mots. Le jeu aurait march mieux si on avait pass une journe decouvrir le vocabulaire avec des petits activities (ie. Les couleuriages, des chansons) avant de essayer cet jeu. Deuxime Jeu: The Good Morning Game Ce jeu permet aux lves de faire quelque chose qu'ils aiment bien : parler entre eux ! Le bt est de leur donner un contexte dans lequel ils peuvent travailler leur noveau vocabulaire. On change de salle (quand c'est possible) pour avoir plus de place. Quand tout les lves sont assis, on leur explique qu'ils ont le droit de se lever et de parler entre eux... mais que en anglais! Leur objectif est de se serrer la main en emploieant le mot de vocabulaire indiqu le plus fois possible. Pendant qu'ils sont tout assis, je choisis un image et le montre aux lves. Puis, je leur redit la prononciation. Puis, je compte one, two, three, c'est parti! , et ils se levent et se serrent la main deux a la fois. Astuces: Il serait preferable de jouer ce jeu aprs avoir pass une classe en travaillant le vocabulaire pour que les CPs connaitrait mieux le vocabulaire.. J'ai galement not que les CPs aiment un peu trop se serrer la main. Ce jeu marchera mieux si les lves echangaient les images de Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening, Good Night au lieu de se serrer la main, comme on a fait dans les classes de CE1-CM2. Week One: During my observation week, I came to the schools and was able to introduce myself in all of my classes that I will be working with (of which there are eleven in total) and the students all introduced themselves. Introduction week explored the question What's your name?, and how to answer. This week, I built on this by working on the questions How are you? and a variety of answers. I started the lesson by reviewing what we had done the last week. I first asked them if any of them remembered my name... jokingly, of course, but after a week of vacation... nothing is a given. Most of them did. And then I asked the more challenging question: who remembers what we did last time I was here? They remembered talking about Canada, and about the fact that I played soccer... and eventually a student always found the answer : we presented ourselves! Then, in the CE1-CM2 classes, I then asked them, if they met someone new, what they might then ask (I'll talk about the CP classes at the end). This usually yielded silly comments, or a repeat of the same question in English What's your name? Alexa, c'est a la reponse?? Then I acted it out.

As myself: As Bob, my imaginary teaching partner: As myself: Dear Old Bob, who sounds very sad:

Hi! Hello! What's your name? My name is Alexa. What`s your name? My name is Bob. Good to meet you.

This, of course, was silly, and illicited a laugh. But it got the point across. Bob does not sound too happy. The students wanted to know why. And so, silly responses were had ''Qu'est que t'as, Bob?'' ''Bob, t'es deprim ou quoi?'' and finally, ''Mais il faut demand Bob si a va ou pas!!!'' And so we arrived at the question : How are you? Most of the students knew basic answers: good, so-so, bad, okay and very good were all mentioned. But when it came to actually explaining a feeling, the only vocabulary available and this is in the older classes, CM1 and CM2, was happy or sad. A few students could also remember how to say Ill. When they identified a word that I had an image for (happy, sad, or sick) I put the word on the board. And then, depending on the level, we looked at more emotional vocabulary. The images are available in large format, and small format here: http://imagesdenseignement.imgur.com/vocabulaire_emotionnel/Bf4TM Normally they are the right size to print, but if they aren't, the resolution should be high enough so that you can easily resize them. A note on the images themselves: It took me a long time to find the images. A lot of emotion images are not clear and distinct, and even the ones I ended up with are only so-so at best. I had to draw some z-z-zz-z-z's about the one for tired to make it clear. And the image for bored was a little bit difficult for them to grasp. It also irked me that litterally all of the images I found were of white people. All of them. I eventually gave up, and printed them in gray-scale, which was the best I could do. I pulled the images out one at a time, each time facing the image, and asking ''How are you?'' The students then answered, raising their hands, in French. Sometimes they had different ideas about what the image meant, or they wanted to tell the story of why the person felt how they did. After letting a few students answer (usually no more than three students, per image, because once they start talking, its hard to keep the class focused), I asked for ''Quiet please!'' And told them, ''in English _____ se dit ______'' Then I had them repeat the words a number of times. I started with the most basic words : happy, sad, mad and scared. Interestingly, once I put mad on the board, it turned out that some of the CM1's and CM2's had, in fact, already learned angry. At first they were confused that there were two words for the same thing, but I compared it to en colre and tre fach and they were then ready to learn the new word. With CE1 and CE2 classes, I tended to stop here. Then, without having the words written on the board, I quizzed them on the vocabulary, pointing at the images out of sequence, and having the students say the whole sentence: I am + the emotion. If this went well, I often added one more word. With CM2 classes, we looked at all 9 words, and with CM1 classes, I usually got through about 6. Once the words had been learned(ish), and practiced, it helped to discuss the ends of words. Most students didn't hear the ''ed'' sound on the ends of scared, bored or tired. We then practiced the words one more time. At this point, I tended to write the words on the board. I quickly realized that all of the pronounciation went out the window when I did this, however. After having one class switch from the

correct pronounciation of tired to a distinctly French ti-RED, I prefaced writing the words on the board by explaining that the goal of showing them the words was to see if they could keep saying the words the right way, even though they thought they should be said differently... like for me, as an anglophone seeing the word lves in the plural, and having to struggle not to say the s, because the rules are different in French. Once they were warned that reading the word would make it harder, they were aware of what they had to try to do, and did remarkably well. Now, all this sounds like it took forever. But the entire discussion of the past lesson, right up to the pronounciation of the words written on the board only took about 20 minutes. Well, almost always. I had one class with some pretty serious calling-out problems, and it took 25-30 minutes, which, alas, meant that we only got through one of the two vocab practicing games. We did get to play games in all of the classes, though! And so, without further ado: Game One : Telephone Apparently in French this is called tlphone arab. I told them that in Canadian English we just called it plain, old telephone. I asked the teachers for help here, because they know who should or shouldn't be next to who, and can get the class organized much more easily than I can. We divided the class into teams (from 2-5 teams, depending on what the classroom allowed). This game allows the students to practice the vocabulary without the repeat-after-me format, and helps them work on both speaking and comprehension. Whispering also (at least in theory) forces them to articulate clearly, so as to be understood. I whispered word to the student at the back of the line, and they had to whisper it to the next student and so on, until the student at the front of the line was whispered the word. Only the student at the front could say it out loud. I gave them one point for correct pronounciation, and another point if they could identify the image on the board. Then the student at the front of the line went to the back, and we began again. Time allowing, all students got a turn at the front of the line. This game worked best when each team was given a different word, otherwise they raced through it, trying to finish first. When each team had a different word, they succeeded more often in passing on the correct pronounciation. It was also important to have each student at the back of the line repeat the word back to me, so as to at least begin with the correct pronounciation. It took some emphasizing, but reminding them during the game that they can say repeat, please also helped. The students generally enjoyed this game. Game 2 : The How-are-you Game I had printed the faces corresponding to the new vocabular words in small format. The small format is also available here : http://imagesdenseignement.imgur.com/vocabulaire_emotionnel/Bf4TM I gave each student an image, and explained that our goal would be to exchange images as many times as possible, within a time limit. To exchange images, however, the students would need to find someone to trade with who had a different picture. Then, in English, they would need to use the following dialogue to be allowed to trade : Student 1: Hello! How are you?

Student 2: I am __(emotion corresponding to their image)____. How are you? Student 1: I am __(emotion corresponding to their image)____. Then they could swap. I demonstrated this by showing one small image, and placing it in the hands of a student at the front, while say I am (whatever emotion corresponded),and then taking a card myself, and saying the same thing. Then I walked the student through the dialogue: puis maintenant je dis.... puis maintenant tu dis.... This worked well. Seeing the scenario in action helped them understand quickly so I didn't have to spend so much time explaining. After the time expired, I asked them to Stop! Sit down, please! And then asked them to raise their hand if they had more than 5? more than 10? more than 11?etc. The first few times I said more than I translated it. Up to ten, I could show the numbers with my fingers. Afterwards, I would say the number in English, and then in France. Ex Who got, qui a eu, more than, plus de, five (show fingers)? Once they had grasped the sentence in English, I asked like this: Who got more than seventeen, dix-sept? This game worked best when I played too (and the teacher, when they wanted to!) This helped them remember to speak only in English. It was also helpful to leave the words written on the board (if you play Telephone first, you will have to rewrite them because they have to be erased for telephone!) I was nervous about my first week of teaching, but all in all, the CE1-CM2 classes went pretty well. The CP classes, grade 1, was a little bit more difficult. As these students were just beginning their first year of English, I wanted to continue with introductions, working on Good morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night. I brought in images, like with the emotional vocabulary, and had them repeat after me a few times. Then I tried to organise a game of Telephone with these words. CP students were not able to pass the word, or control themselves enough so that those passing the word could hear they were too busy talking to each other in French! I should have expected this, and planned something that would have allowed them to work either individually or two by two (which corresponds to their seating plan). I quickly realized that this didn't work, and asked the teacher if it would be possible to move to a bigger room, where we could make some noise. We spent some time changing rooms, but eventually everyone was sitting down in a larger room. I quickly organized an abridged game of How-are-you?, telling them that the goal was to shake hands, and say either Good morning, good afternoon, good evening or good night depending on the image shown. They enjoyed this a lot, but it got a bit out of hand, as what they enjoyed the most was shaking hands very vigourously. It helped when I said the vocabulary first, and then gave them only one minute to shake hands. Then I clapped, and had them sit down as fast as possible. This also allowed us to begin to talk about the numbers in English, from 1-10, as in the 1 minute time frame they were never able to shake hands more often than that. I would not necessarily reccomend starting with this vocabulary. I think they would have enjoyed good, bad, and so-so more, and that the how are you game would have worked better with those images. Shaking hands was also unsuccessful. As the CP students were very enthusiastic about colours, I plan to structure my next lesson around a colour-learning activity. Notes on my Second Week:

My second week of teaching didn't occur until the first week of November, as schools were on holiday for the last week of October, and the first Monday of November. Unfortunately, I teach 6 of my 10 classes on Mondays, so the two schools I work with on that day, ended up a week behind the school in which I work on Friday. Halloween came and reared its head and went during the vacation. France has begun to celebrate this holiday, so I did not put a large emphasis on it. I began all of my classes with a discussion about Halloween, asking the students what they knew about Halloween. They all knew that on Halloween many kids in (mostly) anglophone places go door-to-door, asking for candy. Some of them knew the phrase: Trick or treat! But none of them knew what it meant exactly. Mostly they presumed it meant donnez-moi des bon-bons! I walked the older students through the words, asking then to find a word in French that ressembled Trick . Once I said it with a French accent, they were able to link it to the word triche. Then I defined Treat as sucrerie or gaterie and they were able to figure out that it meant : give me a treat or I'll play a trick on you! Apparently a similar formula is used in France, where some kids have started to trick-ortreat (not always with costumes, and, if they wear costumes, almost entirely with scary ones).... only in France, the phrase has become a bit more violent: Des bon-bons ou la morte! I'm not sure how common this is, but students in all of my classes mentioned it, in all three schools where I work. How strange! There were a couple misconceptions about Halloween my students tended to think that the goal was only to look scary, and that kids were able to go out by themselves. I told them some of the Halloween costumes I had as a kid (A witch, a cat, pippi longstocking, a clown). They were thrilled with the idea of primary and secondary students and teachers (!) coming to school in costume. I told them about some of the costumes that my teachers has worn in highschool. There were particularly taken with the story of my very tall, muscular gym teacher who came dressed one year as a fluffy, pink bunny. This discussion took about 20 minutes, and was all I did for Halloween, as I didn't think that Halloween vocabulary would be the most useful for us to focus on. I planned a listening exercise next, with a worksheet with six pumpkins and one empty square, each with a day of the week in English above. The worksheet is here: http://imagesdenseignement.imgur.com/pumpkin_colours_worksheet Before distributing the worksheet, I got them to guess what the halloween themed activity would be. They guessed pumpkins pretty quickly. They asked a few questions about what we do with the pumpkins. I explained that most people carve faces, but that some people do funny things. They liked the story about how in Canada - which is crazy about hockey the way France is crazy about football (soccer to me) some people will sometimes carve hockey team logos into their pumpkins.

Then I explained that I had bought a coloriage... but that the secret colouring code was only going to be given in English. With classes from CE1-CM2: To quickly review the colours before starting, I walked around the room pointing at objects saying things like The book is rouge. Qu'est que c'est rouge in English or held up pencil crayons. The students were often off in their pronounciation once one student has raised their hand to answer, I repeated the word, and had the whole class say the word, with their best anglophone action. With classes from CP: The students did not know the colours. We learned two colours. I picked orange and blue to start, because they are close to the colours in French. Then I explained how the exercise would work (explaination is in the following paragraph!), and we did Monday. The we learned a new colour, yellow, and proceeded to Tuesday. Each image had a choice between two colours, one we had already learned and not yet coloured with, and a colour just learned. To practice the colours between the listening exercise, I went around the room pointing to objects, or my clothing or students bags etc... saying The _____ is ____ and having the whole class say the colour we had just learned. Once the new colour was well-learned, we did a few The _____ is ____ with the colour we had learned before but not yet coloured with. Then we moved on to the next day. To set up the activity: I carefully explained (more than once!) that les images sont colourier par rapport a ce que vous entendez. Je vais vous lire un texte en anglais qui indique Lundi, le citrouille est.... Mardi le citrouille est... Je vais dire chaque phrase plusieurs fois. Les jours de la semaine en anglais sont indiqu en dessous de chaque citrouille. Le mot citrouille en anglais est pumpkin. Repeat. Pumpkin. Very Good. Je vous assure que je vais repeter chaque phrase plusieurs fois, et lentement. Vous n'avez pas a vous enquieter si vous comprennez pas la premiere fois. Et, dernier conceille : si vous ne comprennez pas la couleur, mais vous croyez avoir compris... ne coleur pas! Mis juste un petit point a cte du citrouille et puis attendre pour recouter et soit confirmer ou changer d'avis. Are you ready? Vous etes ready? Prets? All of this seems a bit onerous, but the first time I tried the exercise, it quickly became clear that without carefully spelling all this out, pointing at the day of the week, often putting On ___________ the pumkin is ___________ on the board and emphasizing the need to wait and understand before colouring, the students didn`t feel comfortable trying the exercise. Then, after asking for silence Quiet, please! I began to read the text: For CE1-CM2: On Monday, the pumpkin is orange and yellow. On Tuesday, the pumpkin is red, yellow and blue. On Wednesday, the pumpkin is green and brown. On Thursday, the pumpkin is pink. On Friday, the pumpkin is black and purple. On Saturday, the pumpkin is grey and white. For CP (and also my class of CP-CE1): On Monday, the pumpkin is orange. On Tueday, the pumpkin is yellow. On Wednesday the pumpkin is blue. With the older classes, we were able to get through the first six days of the week, but the last day, le

challenge had to be left for next week. With the CP classes, learning 3 colours at a time was more than enough. As well, as my hour is divided between 2 CP classes, we have only have the time that I have with older classes, so we progress more slowly. I was not sure if the students would enjoy this activity, but they were all very happy to colour. A couple of (younger) students told me that they thought they wouldn`t be able to understand, and were really excited that they had got it. Nothing to change from this week's learning activity, it was a very successful! It would have been a nice thing to have had photos of my family's halloween, though. I think that it is hard to imagine how things are different somewhere else without image to go with description. Les activits de la deuxime semaine dans les cours de CE1-CM2 Cette semaine on a pass un moment en parlant du fameuse Halloween qui a eu lieu pendant les vacances de Toussaint. Puis on a pass un exercise d'ecoute, qui revisait a la fois les coleurs et les jours de la semaine tout en pratiquant la comprehension de l'anglais orale. J'ai cre un coleuriage pour les lves avec des citrouilles d'Halloween. Il y a six citrouilles et un carr vide, chaqu'un avec un jour de la semaine en anglais au dessus...et ils avaient diviner les coleurs utiliser en ecoutant un texte qui decrivait les citrouilles en anglais: On Monday, the pumpkin is orange and yellow. On Tuesday, the pumpkin is red, yellow and blue. On Wednesday, the pumpkin is green and brown. On Thursday, the pumpkin is pink. On Friday, the pumpkin is black and purple. On Saturday, the pumpkin is grey and white. Avant de commencer on a reviser les couleurs, et expliquer (plusieurs fois!) l'exercise pour verifier que tout les lves l'avaient bien compris. Cet exercise se passait bien, mais comme on a parler de la culture anglophone au debut, on n'a pas eu le temps de finir le carr vide de dimanche. Avec cet carr on peut faire plusieurs activits: ils peuvent dessinent leur propre citrouille avec plusieurs coleurs et puis ecrire la phrase On Sunday, the pumpkin is_____________ . Ils peuvent faire la phrase a cte, et puis le lire un camarade a fin qu'ils partiquent l'ecoute entre eux.(pour les CM1 et 2) Ils peuvent faire le challenge de crer dans leur propre style un citrouille magnifique dessin avec tout les coleurs qu'on a appris. A cte de leur desin, on peut egalement ecrire tout les coleurs dans un crayon de coleur ou feutre qui correspond pour avoir un feuille de revision qui peut tre coller dans le cahier d'anglais. Astuces: Les lves avaient un peu de mal ne pas couleurier tout suite, et ca se passe mieux si je leur

conceillais plusieurs fois d'attendre pour coleurier par rapport a ce qu'ils entendaient en anglais. Le pluspart ne connaisait pas le mot pumpkin . J'ai trouv que il fallait parler de cet mot et leur fait pratiquer le mot ausi. Ds fois, je mettais la phrase On _ _____, the pumpkin is _______ au tableau et je leur expliquait les partis de la phrase avant de commencer. Un dernier point : comme ils aiment bien coleurier, j'ai trouv qu'ils avaient souvent envie de commencer, mme sans avoir bien compris. Souvent, par exemple les couleurs green et grey se confondait (car green resemble un peu gris). Quand je leur expliquait que j'allais repeter chaque phrase plusieurs fois et que il marchait mieux si la premire fois on posait les crayons et coutait, ils se trompaient moins. Je leur ont egalement conceiller de faire des petits points de couleur qu'ils pensaient avoir entendu le deuxime fois que je l'ai repeter, et d'attendre le 3ieme et 4ieme repetition pour soit confirmer les couleurs ou changer d'avis avant de coleurier.

For CP (and also my class of CP-CE1): On Monday, the pumpkin is orange. On Tueday, the pumpkin is yellow. On Wednesday the pumpkin is blue.