A Back to School Like No Other

While school re-opening plans are being shared and openly debated in the media, teachers are preparing for a return to school in uncharted territory. Some considerations I have been making while planning for back to school include physical distancing, limiting group work, not sharing materials among classes, and planning lessons which will help to close gaps in learning. I am also working on including themes of anti-racism and cultural diversity into my long range plans. 

As a core French teacher I will be travelling from class to class instead of having students rotate through my classroom during rotary. I am going to be using the AIM program to increase student comprehension using gestures because I will be wearing a mask and possibly a face shield during instruction. This will mean teaching raps and games the first few days of school and slowly introducing students to the vocabulary that will be used in a short play. Instead of having the students perform the play in groups they will record their parts using an app like Flipgrid and create a video to tell the story. 

In a school board in Toronto I couldn't believe that part of their school re-opening plan involved cutting out French classes altogether. This was so that class sizes could be smaller because having no French classes would free up more homeroom teachers. The plan was rejected by the government, but it left me thinking that it is important now more than ever to remind students why it is important to learn French (or any other subsequent language). 

One of the lessons I will be teaching the first week back will involve discussing ten good reasons to learn French based on an article from the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. This will help answer that student question of "Why do we have to learn this?" and help to motivate students. Here is a link to this lesson on reasons to learn French. 

This will be a school year like no other, but it is important to embrace the new challenges and turn this into an opportunity to make lessons as engaging and culturally responsive as possible. 

Back to School: Setting Up Classroom Rules and Routines

As a Core French teacher, one of my goals for the first few days of school is to begin the daunting task of learning over 200 students' names. I travel from class to class to teach a 45-60 minute lesson to five classes each day. Name tags can be a big help in the first few days of school. I would have students fold a piece of paper twice to form a triangle as a name tag. They can decorate their name tag on the front and on the back they can write 3-5 goals that they have for French class this term. Some goals might be to learn five new words each week, to write a journal entry every day, to attain a certain average grade in the class or to improve their reading level.

The first few days of school are crucial for setting up classroom routines and rules which are followed throughout the rest of the school year. I find it useful to write a poster of classroom rules with the class. They will offer suggestions for rules and I will help them write them in French on a poster board.

Check out these back to school resources! 

Keep in mind that classroom management is key to success. Here is a free video with classroom management strategies: