It’s the holidays…time to teach about culture!

I used to think this way - that everything had to have a culturally rich and educational aspect.  If I told a story around the holidays, it had to involve something Francophone-culture-related.  

My thoughts on this changed over the years as I realized that while yes, we can and should teach culture in the target language using comprehensible input, sometimes using a familiar story would remove a barrier to understanding the language and keep my holiday-distracted middle schoolers on task.

So why not capitalize on this opportunity?

I decided to angle popular Christmas stories to help me engage my vacation-motivated students while teaching and reviewing verb conjugations. Students would already know the plot, characters, and themes and therefore could focus 100% on the target language, while I taught required grammar. It was the perfect idea!

I chose the Grinch as a place to begin. I wrote out a summary of the story using lots of ER verbs and cognates.  If I had a word that was not an ER verb I would look for synonyms.  For example, instead of using voir, I used observer.  

Key point: Not every sentence HAS to use the targeted grammar, just as many as possible to provide lots of repetition.

I added in simple dialogue to include all of the conjugations and make the story more interesting.  For example, the Whos saying “Nous chantons” and the Grinch responding with “Vous chantez”.  Or, the Grinch saying “Je déteste le Noël!”  

My Storytelling Process:

Step 1:

I tell the story once from beginning to end using the slideshow. I made the verbs red on the slides to call students’ attention to the forms.

Step 2: 

Middle schoolers focus better when doing something while listening, so when I told the story a second time, they filled in the verb endings on the story script worksheet. 

Step 3: 

Then, they highlighted all the subjects in blue and the verbs in red while looking for a pattern. The goal was for them to figure out that all of the verbs had a stem and different endings.  

After they made their predictions for a pattern, I showed them how to conjugate chanter and we compared their predictions to the actual rule. Then they walked me through conjugated aimer, then they tried jouer on their own.  I then showed them how to make verbs negative.  I also taught them a conjugation song to remember the endings of ER verbs to the tune of Old MacDonald.

Step 4: 

I then used a traditional fill-in-the-blank worksheet to practice adding the endings and finding the verb stem. That is what would be expected of them in a traditional classroom and my goal is to make sure they are prepared for the next level.  I then made several comprehension activities to practice and use the vocabulary

Pro tip: After direct instruction and guided practice play Gimkit.  This may be my favorite way to practice conjugations. 

Use the text input mode so students have to type in the conjugations.  They get really good at it because they must do it quickly to advance in the game.

Click here for a link to my Gimkit set of French ER verb conjugations.

Before you leave….GRAB YOUR FREE DOWNLOADS

Overall, this lesson was PERFECT. To help take some planning off your plate this month, get FREE DOWNLOADS of the Grinch in French and Frosty the Snowman in Spanish when you subscribe to the blog!

Wishing you and your students the best,

Robyn