Strengthening Our Core

My core schedule happens to be the last block of the day, and believe me when I say that sometimes it’s like walking into a wind storm - some days a nice, calm breeze and others a swirling galing wind, often feeling like a tropical storm! It doesn’t always make you feel overly confident that you planned the right lesson for that particular day for that particular classroom atmosphere.  At the beginning of our project we created a ‘Well-Being and Attitude Towards FSL’ survey ( you can find our template here ) that we gave to students in grades 3 to 6. We will have them complete it at the end of the project as well so we can compare the results. The survey covered four main topics: Attitudes about learning French; Resilience and Perseverance; Feelings of Accomplishment and Success; and Attitudes about French learning activities. I was very pleased with how students generally felt about the classroom atmosphere, most importantly feeling comfortable in a second language class....

The other day I ran into a SERT who is following the blog (yay!) but who said she is feeling badly because she can’t fit time into her schedule to be in Core French classes. So just to clarify for anyone else who may have misunderstood … I can’t either!!! Like every other SERT, my schedule is jam-packed supporting English literacy and numeracy, plus the Empower reading program eats up two hours of my day every day, and I don’t speak French (yet) … so no, even with this project, I am not providing direct SERT support for Core French. My ‘new’ role with Paul is as a collaborative, collegial learning partner - researching the latest techniques from the pros, gathering/co-creating some useful materials together, and cheering him on.  I’m more like the guy holding the towel in the photo - I’m in his corner, but I’m not in the ring. Things I’m Grateful For: - Paul’s willingness to share his practice with me, and his patience with my lack of experience with FSL teaching (and French i...