MEGE+Journal+5

Journal 5 French 2 (Hours 1 and 3) Monday November 7, 2011 I taught both sections of French 2. I started the class off with bell work and had them write down their answer (responding to “qu’est-ce que tu fais le matin?” meaning “what do you do in the morning?”). I asked them to write down three things that they do. I then had them ask their partner the same question. Then I went around the room asking them what does he/she (their partner) in the morning. In both sections, the first group I called on started answering with “I” because they did not hear nor understand the difference (even though it was written on the board). Once it was modeled they picked up on it and started answering correctly. We also did a Gouin Series in which all students were asked to participate and act out the verbs.
 * Student Learning and Development**

The Guoin Series worked much better with 3rd hour. Students were able to verbally lead it and remembered the original sequence as well. First hour students were not as engaged, perhaps because it was a Monday morning.
 * Teaching Strategies**

The Guoin Series was a formative assessment that allowed me to see what the students know. It was a good review for the quiz because of the constant repetition and actions that make it more memorable.
 * Assessment**

They also had a quiz today that incorporated the reflexive verbs and their vocabulary. I would read off sentences and students would have to mark the picture it corresponded with. They also had a spelling section in which I would say the English word and they would write the French equivalent. This acted as a formative assessment because it marks where the students are at before their upcoming summative assessment: the performance task.

The quiz was worth 15 points with a chance at one point for extra credit. For the spelling section, it was half a point for the correct gender and half a point for the correct spelling of the noun. Both sections averaged a 13.9/15 on their quizzes. The most common mistakes were incorrect gender, no accent mark on “réveil” and not putting “e” or “s” on the end of some words. The other common mistake was students writing “peigner (verb)” instead of “peigne (noun)” when asked to write down “comb”. In our review session before the quiz, these common errors were pointed out to them. I would often remind them not to forget accent marks, to pay attention to gender, ect. I was surprised to see that even though they were warned that some of them still made these mistakes.

Before handing out the quiz, I asked students to put everything on the ground. I had to ask quite a few times because a lot of them left their books or little cheat sheets on their desk. When the quiz was administered, I would have to tell to stop talking. I blame this on the fact that they often are able to talk their way out of quizzes. I have heard Mrs. Palmer say since last Monday (Halloween) that they would have a quiz “tomorrow”. I heard this everyday for that whole first week. They say that they aren’t ready and then she postpones it. I had to talk her into having a quiz today and told her that I know the students are ready, they are just being lazy. Luckily they did well so that defended my statement of them knowing the material better than they give themselves credit for. There was one issue first hour of a girl cheating off her friend’s paper. She was leaning so far over I’m surprised she didn’t fall out of her chair. The kicker to me was I was standing literally three feet away and was looking right at them. I “ahemmed” at them and made one of them change seats. After that there weren’t any issues and students stopped talking, too. The only problem third hour was students talking. They cleared their desks with much more ease than first hour.
 * Classroom Management**