Poem+Presentations

__**French BAGS Adjectives Poem Presentations**__ Who is it for?: Any classroom of first- or second- year French students who need to start learning the skills of memorization and presentational speaking for learning a second language. What: Groups of 3-5 memorize the BAGS (Beauty, Age, Goodness, Size) adjective poem, come up with their own collective gesture for each adjective, and present as a group with everybody saying each word and doing the group action that goes with each word. When: Beginning students can do this presentation in the beginning of the year or when they reach the adjective unit - and presentations can all be done within about 1 minute, so it goes fast when they present! Why: Promotes ownership of material, facilitates memorization skills, builds classroom community, promotes oral production, motivates students to learn!

Présentations Orales Les Adjectifs
 * Project:** Memorize the following poem as a group (of some of the special French adjectives that go before nouns instead of after). As a group, decide on gestures that demonstrate each adjective, and present as a whole - in unison! EXTRA CREDIT - Turn this poem into a song or a rap!

// « Petit, grand, gros // // Vilain, joli, beau // // Autre, long // // Mauvais, bon // // Jeune, vieux, nouveau! » // Retention of vocabulary : /10 Pronunciation : /10 Participation in group : /5 Creativity and enthusiasm while presenting : /5 Total : /30


 * Rationale:** In my three French II classes, I decided to give them a different kind of assessment for their Unit 1 Lesson 2 material. Instead of a written test (despite the listening and reading portions included), I really wanted to start them off early with speaking assessments. In sum, the goals were:
 * 1) Feel comfortable speaking/presenting in a foreign language class (so, every group member memorizes the poem in advance, and every member speaks together to limit stage fright/fear of speaking)
 * 2) Learn the beauty/age/goodness/size adjectives that go before nouns (these follow different rules on adjective position)
 * 3) Make your own interpretation of the word – when you make the gesture, you make the word your OWN. This will help memorization as well.
 * 4) Work efficiently and respectfully in a group.


 * My thoughts for Swap Shop 10/31/08:**
 * I got the idea from something that I did when I was a middle-school student, and wanted to see if I could do something similar in my field placement to see if it would be effective for high-schoolers in a slightly different setting.
 * Students seemed to really enjoy this project -- some even wanted me to put the videos I took on the televised morning announcements! I had a lot of requests for them to do more projects like this because they really liked getting the chance to speak French for a grade, but in a fun, creative and comfortable way.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but based on my rubric, everybody seemed to get a high B to an A+. It kind of inflated everybody's grades!
 * Comment:**

[|3rd Hour Practicing] [|Extra-Credit Example]
 * My Videos:**