Activity for authentic writing task: Will you skype with us?

A couple of months ago in my French II class, I was going to give an oral performance evaluation and, like always, was trying to decide what I would have the students do while they were waiting to take the assessment.  Even though we don't concentrate on writing in the first semester of French II, I like to ask them to do a little from time to time.  So, I thought this was as good a time as any to come up with a short writing task about the theme for the unit- family.

I decided simultaneously that it would be nice if they knew more Francophone celebrities (me, too, for that matter!) and so I started searching for them on line.  As I found more and more lists of famous francophone-born actors, singers, artists, writers and others, I imagined what it would be like if we could get them to skype with us.  From this, the assignment was born.

I had each student choose a slip of paper from a bag.  The paper had two names of two different celebrities: one to look up and the other as an identity.  The student had to look up the one they were writing to and find out why they are famous; then, they had to look up info on that celebrity's family.  Once they did this, they had to write an email introducing themselves to the celebrity, telling them what they knew about the celebrity's family and presenting information on their own families, making sure to note if they had anything in common (I see you have an older sister; I also have a sister, but she's younger).  at the end of the email, they had to ask the celebrity to skype with our class.

After writing the email, they had to send it to a partner in the class (whose identity is the celebrity they researched).  The partner then had to respond to the email as the celebrity, first thanking them for the email and then saying whether they would skype with the class or not.

I had them copy me on these emails so I could use them as writing samples.  I plan on having them work on these emails second semester and actually sending them to the real celebrities to see if we can get one of them to skype with us.  The rubric I used to grade them was adapted from the Jefferson County proficiency rubrics.

The can-do statements for this are many, but these are the most important for my purposes:

• I can research a person and learn about their family.
• I can begin and end an email in the appropriate way.
• I can type basic information about myself and my family in an email.
• I can compare my family with another family.
• I can ask someone to do something for me.

Teachers need to practice, too

Being a foreign language teacher is difficult.  At first glance, these words appear simplistic and obvious.  Every person who works has a job that is challenging, and we are all willing to admit that.  The challenge facing a foreign language teacher is that no matter how difficult the job is – keeping the students interested, finding good authentic materials, teaching more preps than we can handle or dealing with a feeling that we are not relevant-maintaining the skills to do the job is the real mountain.

All foreign language teachers, even the native speakers, struggle with their own language facility in the classroom, especially in the U.S, where it is difficult to find authentic interactions in the languages we teach. While we expect that students will come in to the class with a less than perfect mastery of the spoken language, we are often don’t think about the teacher. Teachers are frequently burdened by prepping lessons for the upcoming week, balancing administrative and extra-curricular activities, correcting at home and inventing ways to make a program relevant for fear of losing it; not to mention having a life outside of work! All of this time spent takes away from a critical need: proficiency in the language.  

It is often a wish that our children take a language to develop fluency, a term all too over used.  How many times have we heard a parent exclaim, “ Oh, you know, my son is fluent in French!”,truly believing that this is the case, when in fact, it is clearly not true?  Too many times to count.  Of course, this does not mean that the child has no competency in the language.  Is it possible that one reason (among many!) that the input is not sufficient for the learner to fully function in the language, since many times the teacher is not able to continue with his/her development?The loss of teacher language skills is a problem that is not easily solved, and not one we hear much about; I have done limited research and even contacted Susan Colville-Hall, whose 1995 article dealt with this issue; she has not written anything on the subject since then.In my mind it is of paramount importance that we non-native speakers pay attention to our own development as continuing language learners, and that native speakers maintain theirs. There are ways to slow down the attrition, both of current target culture norms, as well as that of the language itself. 

One skill that can suffer without sufficient practice is reception.  The more authentic language we listen to as teachers, the more ideas we get for ways to help our students, and the more we grow.  Likewise, the more authentic documents we read the more we know about the target culture and the more our vocabulary increases.  More importantly, the more we listen to authentic sources of language, the more we are able to understand the cultures that speak the languages we teach; cultures are deep and radio and other sources can teach us the layers of knowledge and conventions and norms these cultures embody.    To this end, I have made a pledge that every day when I commute to school, I listen to the same radio station (France Culture); I always listen to the same show because it is on at the same time every day.  From this daily experience, I have not only gotten to know a radio personality, but I have listened to an embedded reporter as she accompanied Syrian refugees on their journey to safety, I have met a janitor that cleaned the offices at the radio station for 20 years and heard her sing (she was a minor sensation in her native Tunisia), and many other stories that allow me as a learner and teacher to deepen profoundly my knowledge and to feel CONFIDENT as I guide my students on their journeys.  The human interest stories, the scientific terminology, the places that exist that I have encountered are all now a part of my teaching.  This can be you, too!  I alternate France Culture with Energie (a Quebec station), as well as Senegalese and other stations; I listen on the Bluetooth in my car. As non-native speakers we should not get too comfortable with one dialect, for in my opinion it shows favoritism and does not allow for us to truly delve into the many cultures that speak the target language, but who never get any airplay, if you get my drift.

Maybe you'd like to try this?  Let me know how it goes.  I guarantee that if you do it every day- even for 10 minutes- you will be amazed at how fluently you comprehend and will be glad of the things you learn!

Welcome

Welcome to the blog whose mission it is to provoke thought and to push the limits in the language teaching world and beyond.  How many of you have often thought that we teach Christmas in the language class only to neglect Hanukkah or Eid?  How many of you have realized at some point that the pictorial representations of culture in the countries that speak the language you teach only give students one idea of socio-economic class or skin color?  Have any of you ever thought about the role that dialects play in your classroom?  If you are interested in these questions, this is the place for you! There will be activities and thoughts posted on here from time to time; it is my hope that they will serve to create dialogue and to stir others to act and teach to push the limits of the language learner and teacher.