In French 1, we use many things to help us learn the foreign language. For example, every morning we listen to a song in or mostly in French. The song changes every two weeks and is played as soon as the bell rings. After that, we work on a calender that has one French activity for each school day of the week. On most days, after the calender and song, we review from the chapter in Allez Viens, the Holt French textbook, that we are currently studying, and then half the class works on Rosetta Stone while the other half works on TPG, or travaux practiques de grammaire, and then we switch. Review involves tossing a stuffed football to a victim, and the victim must answer the question "Comment diton..." or "How do you say..." Review usually lasts around five minutes. Rosetta Stone involves matching words or sounds with pictures, writing based on a sound and a picture, and saying what you hear or see on the screen. There are five levels, French 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, with four units in each level. The units have four lessons, which each have a Core Lesson, along with Grammar, Writing, Pronunciation, Reading and Review Lessons. Each unit ends with a milestone. TPG is a workbook connected to the Allez Viens textbook and is periodically completed along with the activities in the book. On days without Rosetta Stone or TPG, we usually watch a Allez Viens video or play a game associated with the memorization of French words.
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MOi CollageThis is my online version of a Likes and Dislikes collage. It was necessary to put in five activities, but after that, anything could be included. I made five slides each of general categories of my likes and dislikes and animated them so they would move onto the screen. I included a title page for the whole presentation, along with one for both likes and dislikes, and a "thank you" page for the end. Through this project, I learnt the names of some basic objects and concepts in French, and solidified my knowledge of some more basic ones. I think that this was a good and very effective way to learn the material. I still remember the French-to-English versions of the terms and almost all of the English-to-French versions. I also remember all or almost all of the grammatical rules associated with form of "like" or "do not like."
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I used some of my familiarity with Google Presentation, and power points in general, for an extra credit project for science. There was not much similarity in the subject, the science presentation was about a triple beam balance, but I used my knowledge of text boxes and aligning pictures to make a quick night's work of the project. To do this project, I learnt how to use animation on Google Presentation, and make and object fade, fly, or zoom in with or without spinning. The animations can start automatically, sequentially, or on the click of the mouse. I also used Google Translate for a few of the words I didn't know, like "sometimes" or "long distances." I became familiar with some of the features, such as switching the languages from being translated into to being translated from, or how to hear an audio pronunciation of the word.
Travaux Pratiques de GrammaireTravaux Pratiques de Grammaire (Practical Grammar Work), or TPG is a booklet that corresponds with the Allez Viens! textbook. Each page has a number of exercises which help build grammatical skill. At the beginning of the year, we were required to do a certain amount of the exercise, and I usually would do all, for the practice. However, sometimes I just did the necessary and a few others. As the year progressed, we abandoned TPG for a more relaxed approach with the language software Rosetta Stone. While TPG was still included with the French curricula, however, it was a valuable asset and I learned many grammatical tips.
TPG reminds me of the Review for Mastery booklet we got in Algebra for test prep. They both were kind of a review of the main lessons, and, of course, they both came in a booklet. I didn't use any tools for this activity, but while editing the pictures I became more familiar with Paint 2010. (I'm used to 2007.) |
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CalendrierCalendriers, or calendars, are something we do almost every day in French. After someone reads the objective, they choose a person to answer the question or trivial fact in the box for the day. If the person answers the question correctly, they get a piece of candy. At the end of the month we turn in our calendars for a grade and get a new one the first day of the next month. The calendars are great for building vocabulary and help me assimilate a knowledge of trivia.
The calendars remind me of something that my class did in fifth grade. Every morning, the teacher would give us a solution and the numbers that we could use to get it, for example, we could use five number 2's to get 8. Possible solutions could be (2*2*2)+(2-2) or (2*2*2)*(2/2) and so on. I did not use very many tools in this project, although I did discover that it is possible to drag and drop a picture from its folder right into Weebly Slideshow. |