Advanced student - demonstration

[Fanny Passeport]

Hi

I am planning to do a demonstration of the SW for French teachers on Saturday (my last session of a course I was providing). I plan to do a short 15 min demo with a beginner on chart 1 (I did one with him on the sound chart earlier) and then 15 min with an advanced student.

For the advanced student (a young adult), I plan to ask her to bring an image as a way to prompt her to speak. Based on what I know of her French, she makes few mistakes but I can show micro-corrections. I am planning to let her describe or speak about the image and slowly build a mini text using blank words. 

I was wondering if I should do a conversation instead (without the blanks) and let her speak more rather than correct every single sentence. But then I could use the blank words on the sentences that need reworking only.

I suppose I am looking for perspectives (but mostly confirmation and tweaks/ideas to make this powerful, for both the learner and the teachers observing).

thank you!

[Roslyn Young]

Hi Fanny.

If you use lines for words, then she would be easier to correct, because you could easily indicate which words need correcting. 

Eg. —  —  —  —  —  —  —•  for Je suis allée voir un film dimanche. You could, if you wanted to, get her to add just the bits that might be difficult; for example, just 'ée' at the end of the third word. You could then point out to your students that the words on the board can be transformed by the rest of the class into the same text but in the third person, for example, or the second.  If they know that this is coming, then they can think about it while she is working on her version. (or not.) 

I'm sure you've thought of this... but just in case...

Ros

[Laurence Howells]

Fanny

I’ve always thought a demonstration lesson is first and foremost just a lesson.  So I’d be inclined to do just what you would in a normal lesson.  Your first duty is to the student so that she is a bit better at French by the end of the session.  I guess from what you say about her French, it’s likely to be pronunciation/intonation that she could improve on??  There’s not a huge amount that can be done in 15 min in any case, so I would be inclined to have in mind working on fewer sentences but pushing her as far as you can on pronunciation so that she sounds even more French.

But in this case, you also want the observers to notice what’s happened, and at this level, where someone is not making obvious mistakes, that might not be so easy.  To be honest I’ve never done a demo lesson at this level, so I don’t really have any actual experience to go on … but maybe if the observers have been thinking about the Silent Way through the preceding hours of the course they’ll be ‘primed’ to notice what’s going on?

Best of luck on Saturday, I’d be interested to hear what happens!

Laurence

[Fanny Passeport]

Thank you Ros and Laurence

Ros, the permutation of pronoun/perspectives is a useful idea to share with teachers for 'differentiation purposes'.

Laurence, indeed, the teachers will not just notice the student but also the techniques (finger corrections, using the fill in the blank spaces for words, pointing, etc) so I hope there will be enough to observe.

I think I got this. I will share back afterward :-)

Best regards

[Cedric Lefebvre]

Just an additional thought, but since 15 minutes isn't much, I was wondering if you've suggested them to watch the 45 minutes video featuring Don Cherry? https://youtu.be/TBaQ4Xg7qH4

After that they might be more aware of what's going on when you're teaching in front of them. 

Something I would advice you against is to "let the student speak more instead of correcting every single sentence". Even if it's an artifical situation, I still believe you'd better show that you want the student to get the best possible level in French, and even if she doesn't say much in 15 minutes, that will give you several opportunities to help her notice her mistakes, try to correct them and maybe learn something out of it. 

But please let us know how it goes! 

Cédric 

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[don cherry]

Hi Fanny (and everyone else),

Perhaps I'm not fully seeing the lesson you're describing for the advanced student, so at the risk of blundering into your very well-laid plans, here are some thoughts. Feel free to ignore them if you see fit. It wouldn't be the first time someone has ignored my advice and gone onto great success.

The thing about writing a series of blanks, if the sentence is long and there are many of them, it might be difficult just because it might be more of a memory thing. A similar activity might be to have the student talk about the image, and while the student is doing that, you jot down the key words. In English, this might be the student saying, "A man and woman having picnic by tree" and you writing down man/woman/picnic/tree. You'd do this for about 5-10 sentences. Then you would put up on the board what you wrote "man/woman/picnic/tree" and ask the student to say the sentence again, and you would then work with the student on this sentence using finger correction or other SW techniques (adding "are" before "having" and, if you like, adding "a" before "woman" and replacing "be" with "beneath"), working on bits of pronunciation (sounds, intonation, rhythm, etc.). You could then just go ahead and add some more key words at the end of the ones already written up, forcing the student to use what she has to accommodate the addition of, for instance, "grass/summer day", so that the student can wind up saying in a natural pronunciation, "A man and a woman are having a picnic on the grass beneath a tree on a summer day." By the way, the key words would not have to be, initially and when added to later, written in the order they would come up in a sentence. This would make it even more challenging.

Just an idea. Again, pardon me if I have misrepresented your original idea. Good luck, and have a great time!

[don cherry]

One more thing, whatever you choose to do, if you do have the student bring an image, you might want to bring an image of your own, just in case the image the student brings is unproductive. You can sort of slip in your image without hurting the student's feelings by just putting them up side by side, on equal footing, and then waiting for the sentences to come and the fun to follow.

[Fanny Passeport]

Hi

thank you Cedric and Don. 

Cedric: I have shared many resources with the teachers and they have accessed quite a few videos and done a lot themselves. I can only do small demos (online) because we only meet for 2 hours at a time and I want them to debrief (the student answers a few questions about her/his experience and then teachers share what they have noticed, how can they use such approach and if they have any questions).

Don: Thank you for sharing as I think this approach will work very well for this student who is advanced. I was thinking about the blanks earlier and slowly thought about how the blanks would be used only for the sentences that needed work but this approach of a few words on the board (maybe couples with the blanks for only the sentences that need reworking) might be the right fit.

Thank you all!

Fanny