I love projects to assess student understanding and this French all about me project is one of my favorites to do with beginning students! Sometimes I do it as an end of the year project for French 1, but I’ve also used it as a back to school French project with my French 2 students. It’s so much fun and I love learning more about my students!
This project is handy, because it’s easy to get a presentation speaking grade and a writing grade from the same assignment! Using the French they’ve learned plus images of their own or ones they find online, they create a presentation using their app of choice such as Google Slides™️ or PowerPoint™️ to tell us all about themselves!
I’m big on providing student choice, so I let them choose what they want to tell me from a list of basic French vocabulary sets they have learned in their first year. It’s easy to get them engaged with a project that allows them to talk about what they want using words they know!
A few of the topics they can choose from are:
- What I like to eat
- My family
- My school activities
- My pets
I usually have students pick 5 topics, but this French all about me project allows you to change some details like the number of topics, number of slides, and number of images they have to include. Students have so much fun with this, because they love to talk about themselves, so most students will ask to do more than I suggest!
How to plan for this French all about me project:
When I’m using projects for French class, I always give students time to work in class, because I know that most of them will not be able to ask questions when they’re at home! That doesn’t mean the entire project needs to be done in class. I usually give them about half the class period on a few days to do the writing portion.
I let them conference with me during that work time so they can ask any questions they want. Then, we usually spend two days in the computer lab so they can create their presentations. Beyond that, anything they need to finish is usually done at home. For most of my middle school and high school students, that is more than enough time and support to get really good results for our French all about me projects!
Provide the support students need.
With beginners, I like to provide an English version of the entire project just to be sure they understand! However, I know a lot of FSL teachers strive to do their instruction in French, and for immersion teachers, it’s not an option. This has a full-French version included for classes that are ready for that.
Students will be speaking and writing, so that makes this a perfect assessment for presentation speaking and formal writing. With a variety of French and English rubrics, it’s easy to find just the right one to meet the needs of different classes. I often like to use the one-column rubric shown below to avoid exact breakdown of skills and provide more details about what they can improve and what I like about the presentation.
Teachers love my projects for the great results they turn out! They’re fun for students but they’re also so easy to use that they are major time-savers for the busiest times of the year – back to school and the end of the year! This French all about me project is always a teacher and student favorite!
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