My collaboration partner has told me the story many times of her students at her previous school forming the idea that all French people eat baguettes, live in France, and so things like visit the Eiffel Tower. It's been my observation that my students have formed similar misconceptions, but it's also a powerful thing when … Continue reading
In my previous blog post, I explained the structure of the reading journals my collaboration partner and I are currently using. In Part 2 of the information about reading journals, you will find: how (and why) we started reading journals with our students this year how we model the responses to guide students how students … Continue reading
If you are a high school teacher, you have probably had the experience of students telling you the previous year's teacher didn't teach them "anything", or that they "never" learned the thing you are asking them if they know. We know this isn't true, but the issue remains - there is a learning gap that … Continue reading
A little over three years ago, I volunteered to be a part of a group of French teachers in my school district (Surrey, BC) who would try new programs with their classes in order to determine what the best fit would be for French learners in our district. We had been using Communi-Quête (link here … Continue reading
As I wrote here and here, my collaboration partner and I have spent a lot of time developing effective learning maps for our French classes. (If you're not familiar with learning maps, they are essentially a blueprint for assessment in a given subject area for a given grade level. This book is highly recommended if … Continue reading
In the previous post, I focused on the story of how my collaboration partner and I got here. This post is dedicated to where we are now, and where we hope to go. Even though our collaboration started with a focus on our French as a second language classes, I am also trained as an … Continue reading
There is a growing body of evidence to support the premise that teacher collaboration supports student achievement. It also suggests that this collaboration works best if it is sustained, high quality, and connected to instructional strategies, curriculum and assessment. That all sounds good - as teachers, we tend to want things that will benefit our … Continue reading
The best way I can start this blog post it to say a huge thank you and give recognition to my collaboration partner, Meghann Kenkel. We are currently in year three of an increasingly wide-ranging collaboration that is showing no signs of slowing down. The text messages, Facebook messages, Pinterest messages, emails, and in person … Continue reading
On January 10, 2016, I received an email from a colleague with a picture of a book cover (the featured image on this post), telling me that she had just read the book and that she thought I should read it. I forgot about it until we exchanged another email a couple of weeks later, … Continue reading
We frequently say that we want young people to learn how to make good choices. They will do that if we give them opportunities to choose. That sounds obvious, but it's quite common as teachers/parents/responsible adults to give kids advice and the choice is whether they want to follow it or not. My French 8 … Continue reading
ignitelanguage.com 