oral+production+4C

I had a group of 6 children. What we have to keep in mind is that this class was one lesson behind 4B. Consequently this was their second half hour on the weather, they should be less confident. What is intersting is that in my "french private lesson" I had a child, Adam, who has a lot of problems. Normally, he does not want to be there during the French lesson, I think he has been there 3 or 4 times since the beginning of the year. However Thursday 11 of March he wanted to be there and he did really well. But for me it was difficult because he wanted all my attention and he did not let the others participate because he was so excited. The first one to speak was Adam then Lola, Jordan Leigh Helena ,Katie and finally David. Like for 4B, I showed them weather's flashcards and they had to say the sentence in French. They wanted to do more than one so some of them got two or three sentences. If they did not remember the sentence, they could ask for another one. media type="file" key="4C weather.MP3" width="240" height="20"

What happens everytime is that as soon as they see the recorder they begin to panic and they say:" I do not want to be recorded". But once they have been recorded and when they listen to themself, they want to do it again. However this time to present the weather still in the little group, I only had three children who felt confident enough to do it. They were asked to point at the weather on the map and said the sentence that corresponded to the pictures. And again, I do not want to push them. Adam went firstmedia type="file" key="Adam presenting the weather.MP3" width="240" height="20" who said: il pleut and tried to say: il fait chaud. Then katie did it:media type="file" key="Katie presenting the weather.MP3" width="240" height="20" Again, she decided to say:il pleut and il neige which are the most popular sentences in both classroom and also in the comprehension tests. Finally Jordan Leigh went on and she intoduced herself even if she did not have been ask to: media type="file" key="Jordan leigh presenting the weather.MP3" width="240" height="20" She chose il fait chaud and il fait froid which is very strange because the other children tried to avoid them. When I taught to the all classroom I could not record any of them bcause we had a 5 minutes lesson. The other teacher thought that they were too noisy and to punish them we did nothing!!

Thursday 18th of March. In a group of 6 we carried on with the weather sentences. But this time, if they could not remember the sentence in French, they could say it in English. I allowed them to do that so I can see what are the sentences that they did not get. Two boys started but then I send them back to their classroom because they kept laughing. Consequenlty I could not record the other girls. Infortunatly, while I was transfering the data on my computer I deleted -not on purpose- Ciries and alice 's work. media type="file" key="cail saying weather flashcards.MP3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="maddie and Ciries saying the weather.MP3" width="240" height="20"

As you hear, most of them did not remember, il fait froid, il fait beau, il fait chaud, il y a du vent et il y a de brouillard. Maddie is special because her grand parent live in France ad she visits them every summer. She only struggled with il fait beau. Furthermore I think that her accent is much better but as she told at the beginning of the lesson, she already knew those sentences.

Thursday 25th of March Telling the time. I had a group of 6 children and we practised telling some times. Because I know that this class has more facilities I pushed them and we kept saying half past. I did not do that with 4B. They remembered it from last week and as for 4B I was surpised because the lesson was a total failure. Joe made seven mistakes out of ten at her comprehension test. She is a very difficult child and the other teachers told me that they have a lot of problems with her. In the group, she kept talking with Kaylee so I asked them to move.

media type="file" key="Joe telling a second time the time.MP3" width="240" height="20" When Joe was telling the time, we can hear her struggle a little bit. She may find it more difficult than other children. But she seemed to get o'clock. Half past is harder and I did not except all the children to get it. She tried to do it and it was not so bad.media type="file" key="Kaylee telling the time (2).MP3" width="240" height="20" Kaylee also had some difficulties. First if you listen carefully you can hear her count on her fingers. She is the only one who did that among the children of both classes. Her comprehension test results are not very good, last time she made 5 mistakes out of ten. She really did not get half past and struggle with a clock. Furthermore, if you notice she said quatorze and seize but I did not teach them the 24 hours. She is confused with her numbers, she wanted to say quatre and six heures. I really do not think that she will never be able to learn French but what stops her for the moment, is her behaviour in the classroom, she is too agitated.

media type="file" key="Lucy telling the time.MP3" width="240" height="20" Lucy, unfortunatly did not get it at all. She thought that et demi was o'clock and heure was half past. Even when I corrected her, she did not manage to say it right. Her last go, shows that she did not get anything because she repeated 3h and then added 7h. However during the comprehension test she made 4 mistales out of 10. But she is not able to give back some input.

Then comes the boys, I am pleased by David because we had a very bad start at the beginning of the year. He said he did not want to do French so the teacher sent him out. Since that day, he was calm during the lesson but I thought that he was just pretending to listen. But he proved me wrong. He had good resuts at his comprehension tests and oraly he impressed me. By the tone of his voice you can hear that he was not really confident and afraid to make mistakes but he did really well.media type="file" key="David telling the time.MP3" width="240" height="20"

James is a really nice pupil, he is calm and always listen, his good behaviour may justify his good results during the comprehension tests. I knew that speaking French was not an issue for him because he does always participate. media type="file" key="James telling the time.MP3" width="240" height="20" Adam does very well on his comprehension tests but here he had a few difficulties. He got o'clock without any problem but concerning half past, he had some troubles. However after I told him the correct answer he did not have any difficulty telling the right time. I think he is one of those children who lose a bit of their capacity when they have to speak. In fact, he did not want to do the excercise but I forced him.media type="file" key="Adam telling the time.MP3"

As a conclusion I would say that they were not that bad and I was happy enough with their oral production.