| What a student can do at home
The Wasatch French program is very successful for students who
dedicate themselves fully to the work we do during our daily class time.
The
responsibility of the teacher is to present the "content" in a
comprehensible
way and the responsibility of the student is to do all s/he can to
understand.
We have reviewed the various techniques to achieve this goal on a
great number of occasions.
A good number of students will make reasonable progress without
studying outside of the classroom. However, greater progress, better
retention of what has been acquired in the past and eventually a higher
grade
can be obtained by following the plan indicated below.
Part 1:
- Bring the notebook home 2 or 3 times a week. Have fun with it,
keep it in excellent condition and color it to make it
attractive.
A number of former students have kept their notebooks and enjoy
looking at them again.
Read silently with a pencil in hand the new texts and worksheets
which have been presented in class.
- 1st time: normal speed. Read the definition, text or
question
on the worksheet.
- 2nd time: very slowly and with focus. Line by line or group
of
words by group of words. Repeat several times. Pause and
underline problem areas. Think and work at it.
(Use the "Recognize, guess and skip" technique.) See if
pencil
mark can be erased.
- 3rd time: normal speed. Read entire text without stopping to
see
how much progress has been made.
Part 2:
Second reading,at a different time.
- 1st time: read outloud the entire page without stopping.
- 2nd time: take a yellow highlighter and, beginning again,
read
very slowly and with focus. Line by line or group of words by
group of words.
Highlight what is mostly or roughly understood.
If unable to highlight much, pay more attention in class and do
exercises in part 1 again.
These home activities are part of what we call: "RHiCC!"
Read, Highlight, Complete,and Color.
Part 3:
- Ask someone (parent, brother/sister, older friend etc.) who does
not understand French to play the role of "student".
- Read aloud to this person the definitions, the text or the
question/answer in French. This "student" should not correct
you, help you or do anything else but listen and encourage
you.
Perhaps ask questions to guide you help you clarify a point.
- Tell the "student" in English the meaning of what you just read
to him or her. This shoud not be a word for word translation
but an accurate idea of the reading.
- Ask the listener to date, sign and give a score (at the bottom
of
the page) on a scale of 0 to 10 regarding his/her impression of
how well you communicated the ideas to him/her.
Important note: If someone else (parent, friend, relative etc,)
wants to reteach you, this person cannot play the role
of "student"
as well. The interaction with the "student" should be a pleasant
experience for both.
[Please ask the person who wants to reteach you to contact me
for
important information. Click on Home and on the mailbox to email
me.]
Part 4: MAINTAIN !!! Maintaining means to spend time regularly re-
reading
past texts in the French notebook. French 2 students should for instance
maintain by re-reading texts from French 1. Students should understand and
practice in some way : repeating aloud, memorizing, re-inventing stories
etc... Students can bring a yellow post-it note to me anytime when they
don't remember something from the past. The note should include the student
name, the chapter, the phrase, and the difficulty underlined. The note
should be placed on my tablet before the beginning of class.
Bonne chance!!!
| |
