Teaching is a lot easier when you have a cohesive French vocabulary unit that flows well from start to finish. Foreign language students need grammar practice, but they also need speaking activities, visuals, games, writing practice, cooperative learning, and so much more. When your students are struggling to grasp the grammar, do you have something […]
Teaching tips
French spring teaching resources
Spring is here! Spring fever hits students so hard every year, so it’s a great idea to have some French spring-themed teaching resources ready to go for when the time is right. Whether you want to do a whole French spring unit or just like to have no-prep activities on hand for early finishers or […]
Save yourself from grading stress
Spending too much time grading papers? Constantly feeling like you are never caught up? With constant meetings, conferences, growth charts, progress reports, collaborative planning, curriculum writing, and everything else on their plates, it’s amazing that teachers find any time to grade papers. Before moving to a lower grade, I taught high school for 8 years, […]
Increase enrollment in your language class
Enrollment time will be coming up soon! For French teachers, it’s often really hard to increase enrollment in French. When I taught high school French, enrollment was always a really stressful time for me, because low enrollment could have meant teaching a class outside of my area, getting less funds, or getting a not-so-good schedule. […]
Secondary student self-evaluations
I love using student self-evaluations with my class to encourage them to think reflectively on how they can improve. I find that it is a great way to encourage student responsibility. Self-evaluation activities are great tools to come back to if you need to have a conference with a parent, a quick chat with an […]
Making the most out of leftover class time
Having leftover classtime can be such a challenge! What do you do? Grab some easy ideas to use in any class here, plus find activities that work perfectly in the French classroom! One thing I’ve learned as a teacher is that things just don’t always go as you planned. Maybe there was a fire drill […]
An entire year of French 1 Resources!
It’s hard to teach beginning French students! They need so much structured practice in order to master those basic skills. Speaking doesn’t come naturally for them, spelling is not easy, and they often freak out if you try to speak too much French from the start. Whether you’re a veteran teacher, a new teacher, or […]
Learning French Verbs Should Be Fun!
Yes, you can make it fun to learn French verbs! Often, when I tell people I’m a French teacher, they tell me that they took French in high school and they had a hard time with all those FRENCH VERBS! Yes, there are a lot of verbs to learn, and then a lot of tenses […]
Have the best first day of French class!
What do I do on the first day of French class? I’ve had some less-than-stellar first days, like the time I had morning bus duty and was late to class (my first teaching day ever), or the time I knocked my coffee off my table and, in trying to save it, broke my cute Eiffel […]
5 ways to immerse your students in French
As a mom, I speak French at home. During the day, my son goes to an immersion school, and he spends all day speaking French. He doesn’t understand how to conjugate verbs yet, but he does know how to use them correctly in many tenses. He’s not even 100% sure what a verb is yet, […]
