COVID, 'confinement' and community

There's nothing quite like a viral pandemic to put actions in to perspective. 

I first started this blog with the ambition to not only share my love of teaching French but to partake in a broad community of teachers. When I first started teaching, I felt that it was quite an isolating occupation. Although you get to meet and work with inspiring teachers in your school community, the sharing of resources and ideas can be particularly restrictive in a small LOTE department. Hence, I Love French Australia blog was born in order to feel connected to other intrepid French teachers out there. Why shouldn't we be working together as a connected community?

When our schools started closing for online delivery due to COVID infections in Melbourne (AUS), I was once again reassured by the tenacity of the online teaching community. Through Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, so many teachers were reaching out to each other, whether to graciously offer resources or just to share in a mutual unease and offer support. 

Like most 'essential' workers, I have been working seven-day weeks since the start of term 1 this year. I took on two VCE classes (which I love), which adds to the workload, but also, it must be recognised that teaching is more than just academic instruction. We get into teaching because we care immensely about the wellbeing and future of our students. I think that most of us teachers are always working to ensure that we do the very best for each individual - of course, this can be an exhausting endeavor even without the COVID context! My blogging hiatus as a consequence of this, so far, unprecedented year.

Exhaustion aside, the pandemic has put my purpose of blogging in to perspective. I started this blog to belong and support my community of dynamic French and language teachers who have supported me through COVID and always. We must stay connected and continue to embrace this fine community!

All my best to my colleagues out there! If you ever need to contact me in regards to resources or just some good banter, send me an email at ilovefrenchaustralia@gmail.com

French Teacher Resource: Whodunnit?, 'Qui l'a fait?', adjectives game

Resources are most effective when students have the opportunity to create, use and share their own work. This is the kind of resource that covers all that, and my students have loved it over and over!

To enrich the learning of adjectives and adjective agreements, students engage in a good game of 'Whodunnit' or 'Qui l'a fait?'!

The Whodunnit game is organised in 3 parts:
1. Students complete a suspect profile
2. The class plays a Whodunnit game
3. Individual feedback collected by students

The whole activity covers 2 lessons, as you will need to collect the criminal profiles to create the Whodunnit game for the following class.

Students listing details from each 'recherché' profile hung around the classroom.

1. The suspect profiles

To practise physical and personality descriptions, get the students to draw a criminal and give a description. Depending on the level of the class, you can organise the profiles in different levels based on what you wish to test for. 

For my Year 8's, I would provide space for dot-points against different categories, e.g. hair, eyes, personality. For Year 10's, I would ask students to write a paragraph describing their criminal. 

You can access some examples here:

Year 8 level profile worksheets

Year 10 level profile worksheet

Collect the profiles from students at the end of class. Provide written feedback to students on the profiles, and decide on the "criminals" for the game. For a class of 25-30 students, choose about 5-6 student profiles as the criminals. Make sure the descriptions are varied and creative or targeted to vocab you want students to focus on. You will use these descriptions to create the 'dossier de police', the police suspect file, which you will give students to complete the game and work out the criminals during game play.

     2. 'Qui l'a fait?' game setup and play

Hang each profile on the walls. Begin the lesson by playing the 'Pink Panther' tune as students are walking in to the class - creates the investigator tone!

Go through the game instructions with students, either in French or English depending on how immersive your lessons are. The instructions for students are:

- You are a private detective (individual work) / Tu es detective privé (travail individu)

- Write down the details found on each profile (be precise) / Écrire les détails de chaque profil (sois précis)

- Once the details sheet is filled, collect the police witness file from your teacher / Quand la feuille de détails est remplie, prendre le dossier de police de ton prof

- Use the clues/statements to find out the criminals / Utiliser les indices pour trouver les criminels

- When you have the criminal names, go see your teacher! / Quand tu as les noms des criminels, aller voir ton prof!

Here is an example of the details sheet and police witness file. Change the detail boxes and descriptions based on the level of your students.

      3. Student feedback

At the end of the game, ensure that students collect their original profiles to ensure they receive individual feedback. You will also need to create an extension task for those students who complete the game quickly! Some students love these types of game a lot, and they are not always your top performing students. There is also lots of laughs and chatter as students ask each other questions about the profiles.

Have you tried this Whodunnit game? Let me know how it goes in the comment section!

French Teacher Resource: French in Melbourne City

Earlier this year, we took our Year 9 students on a city excursion to immerse them in the French culture that exists in our beautiful Melbourne city.

First we took them to La Petite Crêperie where they each devoured a crêpe and a galette, washing their food down with a cold Orangina to share. The staff at the crêperie were extremely accomodating as we squashed our classes in to the small space.

The students then attended a guided visit at the NGV on Impressionism. They were shown the masterpieces that we have here at our doorstep, and used their knowledge on Impressionist art learned in class.

To finish the day, I created a Frenchy Melbourne treasure hunt. Although most of my students had hardy navigated the city by themselves, I sent them off with a map and clues and waited at Federation Square with the phone. The chasse au trésor was a big hit. They were directed to work out their first clue and then continue to track their way through the city, taking photos when they reached each site. Given time restrictions, they were given an hour and half to complete as much of the puzzle as they could. They were then excused from the day once they returned to Federation Square and had their photos sited.

A PDF version of the Frenchy Melbourne Treasure hunt is downloadable here. I hope that it can be as much of a hit with your French students!

Quelle journée - c'était tellement amusante.

French Teacher Resource: Les Maisons Merveilleuses

I have constructed some super fun resources and activities for the topic on 'houses', focusing on culture, text-types and communication. I have tried these activities with four different classes now, in both year 7 and year 8.
With 3 x 50 minute classes per week, the following activities can take 2-3 weeks to complete in total. The whole unit is delivered over approximately 7 weeks.

Once students have learned basic vocabulary on the house and where you live ('la maison' et 'où on habite'), it's time for some fun inquiry-based and project-based work.

Here are the order of events, connected to Victorian Curriculum points:

1) Introduce students to the tasks, and show them the final product (with success criteria). Access task instructions here.

2) Students are presented with different and interesting French cultural homes (PPT). Depending on the class, I'll either get them to discuss what they like/don't like between slides or at the end of the PPT. Sometimes I'll get students to read out the information from the PPT too.

Communicating (Socialising)Interact with peers and teacher to exchange information and opinions, talk about self, family, friends and interests, and express feelings, likes and dislikes (VCFRC091)

3) Students choose a French cultural home to base their own home off. They start to produce a digital floorplan. (Individually or pairs is optimal, if they are in 3's someone always seems to do much less work). You can walk around the room and ask them to decision-make in French together, e.g. je veux un jardin, une grande chambre...

Communicating (Informing)Present information and ideas relating to social worlds and natural environments in spoken, written and digital forms (VCFRC095)Participate in collaborative activities such as performances and presentations that involve planning, making arrangements, transacting and negotiating (VCFRC092)

4) Students produce a labelled advertisement for their home, with pictures from the internet.
- If you haven't covered the bilingual component yet, you can ask them to produce a bilingual advertisement.

"They create their own texts, mainly using the present tense of regular and common irregular verbs, enriched by the use of adjectives and adverbs."

5) Students blu-tac their advertisement on the wall/board. Once all students are done, give them a survey sheet (le sondage) to survey every one's hard work. Collect the results and create charts for future use (Excel spreadsheet).

Communicating (Informing)Locate factual information from a range of texts and resources and use the information in new ways (VCFRC094)

6) Students participate in the housing auction (see 'Les règles aux enchères'). (Students don't actually win and take-home each other's work. It's just a fun idea!)
Some students try to 'play-off' each other, which is just amazing, because they are yelling French numbers at each other without even realising the effort!
You really have to calm down the room between each sale though, it can get quite loud in the auction room. I usually preface the auction by saying that auction rooms are 'quiet' rooms.
Access the paddles here. I glue them onto large paddlepop sticks.

Understanding (Systems of language)Recognise and use features of the French sound system, including pitch, rhythm, stress and intonation (VCFRU102)

7) I have also created a homework task to ensure students are reflecting on the tasks from a culture and identity perspective. Also great as a post-vocab task for consolidation and for re-inforcing numeracy skills.

Communicating (Reflecting)Notice own and others’ ways of expressing identity, and consider the relationship between language, culture and identity(VCFRC101)

Amusez-vous bien! Please write your comments below on any ideas or suggestions for improvements, or your experiences teaching this unit of work.
Feel free to adapt any of the attached resources, and feel free to send them back to me.

Access curriculum documents here

French Teacher Resource: Verb cheat sheets

My more advanced students like to understand that grammar rules can be finite.

For most students at school, they feel that the amount of verbal conjugations and mood/tenses that they have to learn will go on forever! To help them consolidate their learning, and also as a visual aid, I give my students a copy of the following documents.

The first verb document shows the different verbal moods visually, and how they are made up of tenses. This helps students to see how language is constructed in moods of speech and time.

The second verb document is a consolidated list of verbal conjugations. This also helps them to see the difference in simple and complex verbal constructions.

Leave your comments below.

Learn fluent French fast... here's where to start.

I get asked by a lot of people about how to start learning French. What are the secrets, what are the tips of the trade. The hardest part about starting a new language is knowing where to... start! The task of taking on a new skill, such as talking in a new language, is nothing less than onerous. Or so you thought.

So this blog is for you, adult language learners. And just for the repeated record, yes you can learn a language to fluency at any age - I get tired of explaining this to people. For now, just understand that it's a big fat lie when you hear that adults can't pick up second language fluency.

Here, i'll lay out some different ways that I advise adults to learn new languages.

STEP 1: The best way to start is to work out why you wish to start learning French.

Learner goal A) I want to learn French because I want to speak with people, and communicate in a different language. This is either because I want to travel to a French speaking country or because I'm interested to talk to people who speak a different language. Or maybe both! (Lucky you!)
Maybe you need it to increase job prospects or to connect with your new French partner (This is a common situation, so many Frenchies in Australia!). Maybe you're a retiree who just wants to work the brain, and practice a new and interesting hobby.

Learner goal B) I'm mainly interested in the logistics behind language and language learning. I love learning about linguistics, and how people can express themselves in languages other than English.
Maybe you feel as though Australia is such a multilingual country that it's time you had some perspective on how people might think in another language.

.... So what's your reason? (Comment below if you wish to share!) I can help you decide whether you're a learner type (A) or a learner type (B). Then move onto the next step to get started ASAP!

STEP 2: Start to learn with both language 'input' and 'output'

Let me start by expressing one main rule of language learning. You need both language 'input' and language 'output' to truly learn any language. What this means is that you need to be learning the language by ways in which most people would consider hearing and listening to a language, and also you need to be using the language through speaking and writing (optional). You constantly need a mix of all these passive and active learning methods at all stages of the language learning to progress. Even right from the get-go!

Now let's look at some different ways that you can learn French in Australia:

Learner goal A) Coucou! You're predominately wanting to learn to SPEAK the language!
We are so lucky in Australia to have so many native French speakers - time to take advantage of the situation!

Meetup language group

Social approach -
Use the combination of a group class scenario along with meetup social groups. There are many organisations and small businesses to choose from (see below for links). Meetup groups are generally a mixture of native speakers and learners of French, if you know which groups to choose from.
This mixture of speaking and learning quickly from natives and advanced learners gives you the opportunity to use the language straight away, and quickly adapt the language based on your initial mistakes. It's one of the best ways to learn a language, in the fluent capacity, but can also be the most daunting as you are forced to drop your guard quickly and embrace your language faux pas.

Solo approach -
Use a combination of one-on-one tutoring with a native French speaker, and join some bi-monthly small French conversation groups. I advise these types of people not to join a group language class, as you will lose yourself within the group and then become way too nervous to open your mouth to speak (which is the opposite to your goal!) Build some confidence within small groups and with native speakers, and you will truly feel yourself flourish in the language. Sometimes you might also like to be immersed in culture by yourself, so attend French events that occur often in your city or visit French cafés and restaurants, and soak in the Frenchness.

Learner goal B) Bonjour, salut, coucou, bienvenue to linguistics. You're predominately wanting to learn the FORM and FUNCTION of the language.

Grammar approach -
I typically find that this group is really in to language apps. Start to delve into apps such as DuoLingo and iTalki on your phone and laptop for some quick knowledge. As group French classes are generally grammar-based, you might also enjoy interacting with people with similar interests in this setting. Hard-copy grammar books that I would recommend are Schaum's Grammar and Easy French Step-by-Step (free copy through link). Both books contain heavy grammar exercises and are in-depth guides to form.
If you're heading back to uni or about to start, the French language courses at most good universities will be enough to tickle your grammar desires.

Allez, c'est parti! We all have to just jump in and start learning!


Links to learning French in Melbourne:
Please comment or email if you need some help to find what's best for you.

Native French tutors -
Gumtree (best way to find a local native and on the cheap)
The French Workshop
VoulezVouloz
Alliance Française de Melbourne

Group classes -
Lyceum Language Centre
Alliance Française
Cosmopoli' French
CAE
French Journey
InLanguage Boutique

Meetups -
Meetup.com
MundoLingo
Language Connection

Conversation groups -
My French Life
Alliance Française
Ask your local French restaurants and cafés as many hold monthly conversation groups


Please comment or email if you need some help to find what's best for you. Bon courage!

Should we teach French in schools?

A recent article by Associate Professor Warren Midgley from the University of Southern Queensland, analysing which languages should be taught in Australian schools, recently took flight in the media. The well researched article highlighted the gap between the languages offered in Australian schools and the possible economic and community benefits of second language learning.

In today's global setting, students acquiring second language skills at schools can be of great benefit to our international community. No doubt the question of which languages to study at school is of great importance. However, it would be a mistake to simply impose change based on economic reasoning.

With a focus on economic gain and Australia's majority linguistic communities, it is easy to understand that French might not feature high on the priority list. The article does however point out that, for travel purposes, French is the official language of 53 countries. Is this the only important factor for learning French? As the article implies, is it worth teaching French at all?

French literature
Bilingual competency gives access to different languages, and subsequently, different concepts and ideas. Studies have shown that if you want to get a message out to the world, English will be the language accessible to most. However, what about the approximate 6 billion people who don't speak English? How do you reach their ideas?

Recent studies have identified the best languages to get your message out and access different cultural ideas. Along with Chinese Mandarin, Spanish, and Russian, French is of course a highly communicated global language. French is also highly translated in English, which shows the literary demand for both language groups. If you have ever done some research as a monolingual English speaker, you may have noticed that you only ever read articles or scholarly work in English? Ever thought that might be an issue?

Francophile communities
There is nothing better about the Internet than easy collection of data. Duolingo (app for language learning) released information that, after English, French was the most accessed language on their app. For Australia, French tops the list.

Francophile and francophone communities exist all over the globe. In Europe, French is still the second most taught language in schools. Not to mention that half of Africa is French-speaking, and we have New Caledonia at our doorstep. Through my travel experiences, I have used French everywhere I go, and have used French to build relationships with refugees in Australia and other second language speakers. Just being a 'linguaphile' bridges the gap for new language experiences.

The French-speaking world 2008

Brain benefits
I couldn't write a blog without the obvious mention of the cognitive benefits to second language learning. It is common knowledge that when students learn a second language, there are positive impacts on all areas of learning.

Most people quote the 'critical period hypothesis' to me, saying that you can't learn a second language after the age of 12, so why bother. Nonsense! The research shows that, although you may never be a native speaker, you can certainly acquire bilingual competency, and well, why do you want to be a native speaker anyway?
It is never too late to learn a language, our brains are amazing machines. Use it! If you happen to have a slight affinity for the French language, start from there.

As a French teacher, my bias towards the study of French is implicit within this blog. My experience in teaching, however, has shown me that students will generally show interest in language for reasons outside of economic gain and travel. Generally, there are personal beliefs and interests that are predisposed by family and experience. Most students are inspired by their teachers, and tune-in to the teacher's passion for the subject area. Most students in Victoria are also stimulated by the incentive of increased study scores in LOTE (but that's another conversation...).

My opinion dictates that French is, in fact, a globally important language to study at school, and there seems to be general 'francophile' interest. Also, LOTE in general is of benefit to cognition and social skills for students. We don't want to create more of a disincentive for students to learn languages by imposing adult economic beliefs on the languages curriculum. Let's promote language learning for all the right reasons.