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Jessica S. Smith
When I first began this course, I really had no idea what my philosophy of teaching
grammar was. This course was the first time I have actually been provided with instruction on
how to teach grammar specifically. I have learned a great deal from Nassaji and Fotos (2011)
along with Katz and Blyth (2007) that has helped shape my current position on grammar
instruction. I feel that language instructors should be authentic, be eclectic, and be inductive in
Be Authentic
At the middle school level, especially where learning a language is required, many students have
a hard time understanding why learning a language is important to them and their daily lives. If
students are given dry, boring grammar structures without allowing their skills to be used in
authentic ways that provide meaning to their lives, they are not going to fall in love with the
language and pursue it once they are no longer required to do so. Providing authentic instruction
increases the chances that students will develop a lifelong passion for language learning and will
meaningful contexts. For my lessons below, I taught likes and dislikes through the context of a
leisure and recreation unit. This is the first unit of the course so it allows students to get to know
one another in a non-threatening way. They also get to learn about the leisure and recreation
activities that French people enjoy doing while comparing the activities and making connections
to their lives. Middle school students love to talk about themselves and share the activities that
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they like to do. They also really enjoy being able to say how much they dislike homework and
having their teacher compliment them on their pronunciation instead of scolding them for their
negativity.
Another important part of being authentic is recycling the grammatical structures so that
students are repeatedly exposed to them. In real life, people use likes and dislikes to talk about
many different things, not just their leisure activities. When I introduce animals, I do a bell ringer
activity with likes and dislikes and animal cognates to bridge the units. I also teach likes and
dislikes again in the context of food. During the food unit, instead of focusing on infinitives with
likes and dislikes, students learn about definite articles. By the end of seventh grade French
students have seen likes and dislikes repeatedly. They even reappear in their final cultural project
Something that I now firmly believe after reading Katz and Blyth (2007) is that students
should be taught the differences between written and spoken language as early as possible. I feel
like my language teachers did me a huge disservice by not teaching me the differences and I
don’t want my students to feel that way about me. In my lesson plans below, I teach my students
that the “ne” is usually dropped in spoken French. I also mention that they may hear French
speakers ask “Tu aimes quoi?” and that the “tu” is likely to run into the “aimes” and sound like
one word.
In addition to learning spoken French, students should only learn the constructions that
will actually be used in authentic situations. I have already started doing this in my curriculum.
Whenever possible, I have removed inversion and “n’est-ce pas” from my curriculum. Whenever
students can say something using intonation, I am having that be the default. I strongly feel as an
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exploratory teacher that students do not need to know four ways to ask the same question. One or
two seems more than adequate. I feel my job is to get students to like French and that it is not to
overwhelm them with concepts they would not be able to understand in nine weeks.
Be Inductive
My past methods course focused on many different types of activities that could be done
in the classroom; however, the focus was primarily how to practice what had been taught and not
really on how to teach the grammar itself. We would go straight from introducing vocabulary to
having students write sentences or speak sentences without much in between. While I have
watched many of my students struggle with this, I didn’t really see anything wrong with it as it is
the way I was taught. I originally thought that these students might just not be good at languages;
however, I’m starting to wonder if I continue to make changes to include more inductive
Recently, I have focused my attention more from standing in front of the class and telling
students grammar rules to helping students figure out the patterns on their own. Often, I am able
to have students do this as part of a bell ringer by writing a few sentences using textual
enhancement followed by two or three questions to direct students’ thinking. I have used this
strategy in practice twice now, and both times students seemed happy and proud that they were
able to figure it out on their own. By doing this, we are able to have a conversation as a class
about the concept instead of me just dictating one more things that students need to remember.
I also believe that part of being inductive is allowing students to use what they know to
make connections to the new content. This means that it is fine for teachers to teach grammar
skills in English and provide activities for students to do in English so that they are fully able to
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understand the concept before they are expected to do it with new vocabulary. When I taught
subjects and verbs explicitly in our previous curriculum, students mapped sentences in English
first. The concept of a subject and a verb was new to many sixth graders. They have been new to
my ninth graders.
Another part of being inductive is working with what students already know and focusing
on one concept or skill at a time whenever possible. I have discovered that teaching time with an
analog clock has become increasingly difficult in the days where nearly every sixth grader has a
smartphone. I have gone to using digital clocks so that I no longer have to teach students to read
a clock that they don’t understand on top of teaching them French. Similarly, when designing
new activities, especially for that first day of instruction, I try to make sure they only focus on
one thing. In the past, with the leisure and recreation unit I reworked below, students were
writing and speaking on the first day. The only input they had was repeating after me while
going through the PowerPoint which included likes, dislikes, the infinitives, negation, and the
question words all at once. I felt overwhelmed trying to teach all of that at once. I can only
When I reworked my leisure and recreation unit below, I tried to include only input-based
activities the first two days and much of the third day. I now believe that providing as much
input as possible before requiring students to perform output tasks is important to being a
successful instructor. Students were provided several listening and reading activities where they
were able to repeatedly be exposed to the correct forms, and they were directed to focus on the
meaning of what they were encountering in order to complete the required tasks. At the middle
school level, I try to avoid pencil and paper whenever possible so I created activities that were
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similar to the ones used in Katz and Blyth. Instead of writing, students manipulated objects or
moved their bodies to indicate that they were able to process the input. I also added them into
games I know they like to play in order to keep instruction authentic and meaningful to my
students.
For the assessment at the end of this unit, students create a skit with a partner and present
them to me. With the last skit they did, I quickly looked over people’s skits as they finished and
highlighted errors so they could go back and correct them on their own. This was very helpful for
my students as they had to figure out what was wrong on their own. Anytime students are forced
to think and reason through things on their own, I believe they are going to be much more
Be Eclectic
I’ve always considered myself to be an eclectic teacher. My logic has been to use as
many strategies as possible that work the best with the topic and hope that it all works out. I still
feel that way; however, this course has taught me to be more intentional in the strategies I
choose. Ultimately, students have different learning styles, they get bored of doing the same
things over and over again, and they all have different interests. Introducing every concept the
same way would be monotonous, and it may not be practical considering the curriculum, time
constraints, the readiness of the students, and the personalities of the students.
For my curriculum, sometimes it is best to teach new concepts implicitly while other
times it is better to use an explicit approach. There are times when teaching the grammar concept
behind the phrases that they are learning could take a week and that is all of the time I have to
spend on the whole unit. With a concept like negation, students only use it once in sixth grade so
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I teach it as a collocation and focus on “pas” being the negative word so they recognize it when
they see it. I also do this because they are being exposed to many new concepts at once here, and
they really don’t need another one added to their plate. On the other hand, students encounter
negation over and over again in seventh grade, so I am going to teach it to them during the first
unit as this is worth their time. Being previously exposed to it in sixth grade is helpful and
provides students with a connection when introducing the actual concept of negation.
This class has really influenced my philosophy of grammar instruction. Before this class,
I saw grammar as a bunch of charts and didn’t actually consider myself to be someone who
taught grammar. I now realize that there is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t teach grammar in
some form or another, but I have also realized that it is important that students receive grammar
instruction in ways that are authentic, inductive, and eclectic in order to meet their needs and
For my lesson plans, I chose to redo part of our leisure and recreation unit using the
methods we learned about it class. I teach sixth and seventh grade middle school. I want to use
what I’ve created in my class to improve my instruction and not just to show that I understand
some concepts so I have made some small changes in order to accommodate my learners with
some of the methods. I have noted those changes and my rationale for doing so throughout my
lesson plans.
Purpose Statement: Students will be able to identify activities they like to do in French.
Teacher will write the following on the board or project it for the students to complete as
a warm-up activity.
Bell ringer: Discuss the following with your group members: What do you like to do in your
Since this is only their second day of 7th grade French in my curriculum (and the first was
introductions) this serves as a good way for students to get to know things about their group
members, and it also allows for them to have ideas of things that they like in mind to look for as
Transition: Ask students to share some of their likes that they discussed with their groups.
Validate their likes as a group with a statement like, “Wow, it looks like you guys are involved in
a lot of great activities outside of class. I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of you
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this quarter.” Tell students about the unit that they will be talking about their likes and dislikes,
Direct Instruction: Tell students that we are going to learn two ways to talk about things they
like to do today. Have them look at their vocab list and direct them to “J’aime.” You can project
the list or write “J’aime” on the board. Explain that “J’aime” is the basic way to tell someone
you like something. When I introduce this to help with pronunciation, I show them the way the
French write it when they are chatting: “J’m.” It helps them remember how to say it better and
they like learning about texting so it is an authentic and meaningful way to introduce the word. I
tell students if they absolutely adore something, that they can use the phrase “j’adore” to say they
love something. Project the phrase “j’adore” and show them it in their vocab list.
“J’aime” and “j’adore” are taught as collocations since conjugations have not been
introduced and because it would be confusing to have to teach them “je” and then break it down
Transition to infinitives: Say something like, “Now that you know how people say I like and I
love, we are going to put it together with some verbs so you can talk about the activities you like
to do.”
Project the following. Have the students repeat after you read each phrase.
Give students a minute or two to discuss with their groups the difference between the French and
the English. Students should eventually come up with the English side has the word “to” before
the action they like. Tell students that in English, whenever we have the word “to” before a verb,
we call that an infinitive. Tell them that in French, the word “to” is already built into the
infinitives. “Danser” means “to dance” even though it’s only one word. “Chanter” means “to
sing”. Ask someone to raise their hand if they think they can figure out what “lire” means. Then
ask everyone to tell what “dormir” means. Ask if there are any questions.
agree with Katz and Blyth (2007) that it is important to let students figure out patterns
themselves through deductive reasoning (pg. 245). Students are able to see how two words in
English are expressed as one word in French without much effort if they are in a bold font.
do not expect that most of the students will know what an infinitive is by name. My expectation
is that they will not ask me repeatedly how to say “to” or try to add in an “à” before the verb
when they are creating their sentences. In eighth grade, when they officially learn what an
infinitive is, it should be an easier concept for them as they will have already been exposed to it.
Direct students to the section of their vocabulary labeled “infinitives.” Ask “What word is
already built into all of these words?” Students should answer “to”. Tell students that we are
going to go over the meanings of these words so that they will be able to talk about what they
like to do. Have students get out a blue highlighter. Show the PowerPoint with the infinitives and
the images. While showing, say the vocabulary words in a complete sentence with either
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“J’aime” or “J’adore” before the infinitive shown. Students will repeat the sentence and be
Collaborative Practice: Sentence Sorting Activity – Each pair of students will have a set of
manipulatives and will be working together on this task with the aid of their vocabulary list. The
manipulatives are cards with a sentence that has the phrase “J’aime” followed by an infinitive on
them. Students will turn over a card and decide if they agree with the sentence. They will lay out
the cards in three columns. Each student will have an “I agree” column on their side where they
will put things that they like but their partner doesn’t like and in the middle will be a column of
sentences they both agree describes them. If neither of them likes it, they can put it in a separate
discard pile. Example: Students will turn over a card. The card says, “J’aime faire du shopping.”
They will decide if that sentence describes one of them or both of them. If only partner one likes
shopping, that person will lay it out on his/her side. If they both like shopping, it will go in the
middle.
This activity provides structured input that focuses on the meaning of the sentences.
Students are able to read the sentences and decide what they mean in an authentic way. They get
to teach their partner about their likes and find common ground with the items they both like. It
is also a much better task at the middle school level than having students read sentences and
deciding if they agree or disagree with them in writing. Students who finish early can challenge
themselves by reading the sentences out loud to their partners. When time is up, have students
Debriefing/Wrap Up: Have your own set of the manipulatives. Draw a card. Read the statement
on the card. If the students agree, have them stand up. If students disagree, have them sit down.
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Ask them what the activity is and have them repeat back in unison to make sure they have
figured out the meaning and to correct any misunderstandings other students may have.
Since this is day one of instruction, I am trying very hard not to make students produce
the language on their own as Katz and Blyth (2007) discourage requiring students to produce
output before they have had adequate structured input (pg. 39). In our current curriculum,
students are writing their own sentences and saying them by the end of class. This activity gives
students more structured input and forces them to focus on the meaning instead of requiring an
exit slip that makes them produce the brand new concept. It also allows students to see what they
Homework: Practice Leisure and Recreation Quizlet #1 for at least ten minutes. Listen to the
phrases with the volume on and repeat while doing activity of choice.
Purpose: Students will identify activities that they do not like to do in French.
Bell ringer: Discuss the following with your group members: What activities do you dislike
Transition:
Direct Instruction: Have students get out their vocabulary list and look at the phrases “Je
n’aime pas” and “Je déteste.” I tell them that “je déteste” is easy. I tell them it’s a cognate and
ask them to raise their hand if they have heard the word detest. About a third of them typically
say they have. For the others to remember it, I ask them to raise their hands if they hate tests.
As for “Je n’aime pas,” they have seen “je n’ai pas de” in sixth grade for classroom
objects, but the grammar behind it was not explained. In seventh grade, they are going to have to
use “ne” and “pas” much more so it requires an introduction at the very least here.
J’ai J’aime
Ask students if the top sentences are negative or the bottom sentences are negative. They should
know that it is the bottom from last year. Ask students how they know the bottom sentences are
negative. I expect that some students would remember from last year and say because they see
the word “pas.” Ask students if anyone can describe what happens to the verb “have” and the
verb “like” in French when they become negative. When you get the answer you are looking for,
ne (verb) pas
*ne goes before the verb and pas goes after the verb to make a sentence negative
*ne changes to n’ when the verb starts with a vowel (just like je does)
Review the rule about silent “s’s” here and emphasize the correct pronunciation of “pas.” We
will spend more time on this tomorrow. This would be a good time to mention that in informal
spoken French, it is common to drop the “ne” when speaking. Make sure to mention that it is
required in writing and that you will always expect to see it there. After my personal experience
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and from reading Katz and Blyth, I feel that including details about spoken language is important
Review Infinitives PowerPoint – Ask students “Who remembers what an infinitive is?” and
determine answer. Have students get out a pink highlighter. Tell them this time we are going to
say sentences about our dislikes and highlight things that we dislike. Go through PowerPoint
adding saying “Je n’aime pas” and “Je déteste” before the infinitives to make complete
sentences. Have the students repeat the sentences and highlight their dislikes in pink.
Write the letter “L” next to the blank if the sentence describes a like. Write the letter “D”
next to the blank if the sentence describes a dislike.
1. J’aime dormir. _____
2. Je déteste faire du basket. _____
3. Je n’aime pas faire du volley. _____
4. J’adore nager. _____
5. Je déteste faire les devoirs. _____
6. J’aime lire. _____
7. Je n’aime pas étudier. _____
8. J’adore faire du foot. _____
9. J’aime chanter. _____
10. Je n’aime pas faire du golf.
The four corners of the room each have a poster. Each poster has a different expression
“J’aime, j’adore, je n’aime pas, or je déteste.” Students will listen as instructor calls out an
infinitive and then decide if they like, love, don’t like, or hate the activity. They will go stand in
the corner under the sign that matches how they feel about it. I explain this much of the activity
and have the students do it. Once they are in the corners, students will work collaboratively to
create a sentence that describes how they feel about the activity. Since they have the poster on
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the wall with the sentence starter, all they have to do is combine the sentence starter with the
infinitive. Do the first one as an example. Tell them that each group will be responsible for
saying their sentences when you point to them. Count 1..2..3, point to students, and have them
say their sentence in unison. Go to the next group and do the same thing. Mix this up a bit when
doing it. It’s not necessary to have every group share every time.
Having students create these sentences for their first time in a group of students who feels
the same way they do is very helpful for them as they are able to help each other clear up
Debriefing/Wrap Up: Have students tell you something they like or dislike individually on the
Homework: Practice Leisure and Recreation Quizlet #2 for at least ten minutes. Listen to the
phrases with the volume on and repeat while doing activity of choice.
Purpose Statement: Students will be able to ask and answer questions about their likes and
dislikes.
Bell ringer: Discuss what you think the following questions are asking with your group.
Students should be able to figure these out for themselves because they have seen the word “tu”
Transition: Call on students to tell you what each question was asking. Tell students that today
they are going to be working on asking others about their likes and dislikes so that they will be
able to ask their partners about them when it comes time to create their skits.
Say something like, “Intonation is the most common way to ask questions in a familiar setting.
Since what you like to do is something that you would most likely be discussing with your
friends, we are going to focus mostly on using intonation. When you use intonation, your voice
rises at the end.” Explain that we do this in English too. Give a couple examples and have
students practice raising their voice while saying them. Ex: You like to play sports? You like
swimming? You could write these on the board or project them and draw a line going up towards
the end. I chose not to teach inversion here as I don’t feel students will need to be able to use
Direct students to their vocabulary notes section with the questions. Project the sentences and
have students draw a line above them going up towards the end to remind them to use intonation.
Ask students about the rule regarding “s’s” at the end of words. Have students put a dashed line
Tell students at the end of these phrases they are going to add the infinitives and emphasize that
these are used only if you want to know if they like a specific activity. To ask about a person’s
likes in general, tell students that they should use “Qu’est-ce que tu aimes faire?” Direct students
to this in their notes. Have them write in clues to help them remember how to pronounce the
words.
Practice pronouncing this several times with students repeating. Depending on your students, you
could share that in spoken French people will often ask “Tu aimes quoi?” but that either one is
acceptable.
Ask students what they think they would do if they would like to ask someone what he or she
does not like to do. Ask students to raise their hands if they remember how to make a sentence
negative. You should get “ne…pas” around the verb as your answer. Ask students what the verb
in the sentence is. They should say “aimes.” Add in the “ne… pas” and practice saying it.
Go through the Infinitives PowerPoint for the final time repeating as a question: “Tu aimes…”
Have students get out a pencil for this activity so they can add in pronunciation notes since they
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are going to have to say the words today. Stop and direct students to make notes on commonly
mispronounced words. In the infinitives section, it’s a good idea to have them write er = ay in big
Collaborative Practice: This activity is based on the “Would you rather…” questions that
middle schoolers love except you are using leisure activities. Students will listen to the question
you ask, figure out what it means with a partner, and stand on the side of the room associated
with that like. Put down a piece of masking tape dividing the room before class. Example: You
ask, “Tu aimes danser ou tu aimes chanter?” As you say them, gesture to the side you want them
to go to. Be consistent. If you have them go to the left side with the first thing you say, do that
every time. You can make statements gradually more complicated by adding in “Tu adores, tu
détestes, and tu n’aimes pas?” This is another input activity where students have to listen and
find meaning. The students will be able to hear the questions asked several times and understand
The next activity is a “Find someone who…” which is implicit grammar-focused task that also
provides collaborative feedback, and they are interacting with others as they ask and answer
questions. Students will model the correct form as they ask and answer the questions while
focusing on the meaning. Hand out a sheet to each student, read through the directions, and
model the first square with them. Make sure to emphasize that students should be using
In the past two lessons, I worked hard to keep students from creating output. By day
three, I believe students have received enough input as far as talking about their likes and
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dislikes goes to create these sentences with the help of sentence starters. Also, the questions they
are asking involve little more than students reading aloud from a sheet of paper.
Go around and ask your classmates the following questions in French. If the person likes what
you are asking him/her about, have them sign your paper in the box.
Answer the questions using the following sentence starters plus the infinitive:
Debriefing/Wrap Up: Students will ask their instructor a “oui ou no” question on the way out of
the room.
Homework: Practice Leisure and Recreation Quizlet #3 for at least ten minutes. Listen to the
phrases with the volume on and repeat while doing activity of choice.
Our units are five –six days long, so I wanted to include the first three lessons as they are
the ones in which I was introducing material; however, I had some other ideas as to how I would
like to change this unit based on what I have learned so I thought I would include the highlights
Day Four
On day four of the unit, students will create their own sentences as part of a “Two truths
and a lie” activity. They write two sentences about themselves that are true and one sentence that
is false. The students then read their sentences to the class or a small group (depending on time).
The other students ask questions when guessing what the lie was.
Day Five
Students will be creating their skits where they will ask students about their likes and
dislikes. Each student will have five lines and they will present the next day. They are graded on
our course speaking rubric. As students finish writing out their skits, they will bring their sheets
to me, and I will highlight any errors without telling them what is wrong so they can fix them
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prior to giving their presentation. I tried this the last time with great success after reading about
Day Six
Students will present their skits and work on an activity on Google Classroom where they learn
about the leisure and recreation activities that French students enjoy. My students will make
comparisons between leisure activities in France and the ones they do here in the United States.
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Collaboration
I collaborated with Nicole Fikes and Rebekah Diser on this project. We were put in a
group together during our final chat and decided that three heads were better than two. They
were very helpful in providing help with editing my paper. We all seemed to disagree on what
correct APA was and how to cite sources within our text. I know that the Perdue website and
many others are available. I have used them, I have done the tutorials, and I am still unsure about
what I am doing and I’m not convinced my group members know what they are doing either. It
would be really helpful, if we had some sort of instruction on APA at the beginning of this
program. I found in this work that there were several times that I mentioned things I had learned
in class, but I didn’t need to quote a specific page as it was simply a reaction to something or a
belief I developed because I read the books. Nicole and I were both unsure if I needed to actually
References
Katz, S. & Blyth, C. (2007). Teaching French grammar in context. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Nassaji, H. & Fotos, S. (2011) Teaching grammar in second language classrooms: Integrating