Activité 1: Apprendre le vocabulaire pour se présenter

En classe, les étudiants apprennent les mots/phrases nécessaires pour se présenter et écoutent/lisent quelques exemples de personnes qui s’introduisent. Ils font une liste des nouveaux mots et expressions en classe qu’ils mettent sur des cartes flash dans quizlet et qu'ils apprennent par la suite.

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Activité 2: Se présenter à la classe

En classe, les étudiants écrivent un petit texte dans lequel ils se présentent. Ensuite, ils enregistrent leur texte avec Audioboo. À la maison, les étudiants écoutent la présentation de leurs amis. L'enseignant pourrait leur donner une feuille de travail avec des questions à répondre pendant l'écoute ou il pourrait simplement annoncer qu'il y aura un jeu compétitif au prochain cours dans lequel il s'agit de savoir le plus de détails possibles sur les autres étudiants.

listen to ‘Mme Weber se présente’ on Audioboo

Activité 3: Connaître les autres et pratiquer le vocabulaire

En classe, les étudiants remplissent un petit questionnaire sur eux-mêmes et sur leurs vies. Encore une fois, les étudiants notent les nouveaux mots et expressions et les pratiques dans quizlet. À partir des données des questionnaires, l’enseignant crée un petit jeu de Jeopardy. Avant de jouer le jeu, l'enseignant pourrait faire quelques exercices de révision afin de revoir comment poser des question en français.

My Jeopardy Template

Reading 10

I think personal devices could be extremely useful in class. I could imagine, for instance, that I designate a dictionary user per class who will look up words for us on their cell phone whenever we need some help. When the students are specifically working with vocabulary or a challenging text, everybody could be looking up words on their cell phones.

One of the points I disagree with is taking pictures of notes. One of the interviewed teachers says: “If kids are taking notes they inevitably miss some of the information, because they are focusing on writing things down instead of paying attention to what is being said.” I learn through writing, and taking notes has always been extremely important to me. It gives me a point of focus. If I am asked to just listen, I find I cannot focus as well. If I did not write something down and if I just took a picture of what the teacher wrote on the board, I would not understand it as well later. But this might be my personal learning preference, and I know that for some students writing is a huge hurdle. For these students, taking pictures with their cell phones might be a good idea.

Mme Weber's Prezi

Mme Weber's Prezi on Prezi

This is the first time I have used Prezi and it takes some time getting used to. Just putting together this small presentation took me a while. I think that Prezi could be very useful though. Having my students work with it would mean that I would have to get very good at it so that I could teach my students how to make a good presentation. One of the useful features of Prezi is that you can have several persons edit the presentation at the same time. Students could work in groups and collaborate on presentations. In our literature class, we used Prezi to keep track of our literature circle discussions. Every member of the literature circle had a role and posted his or her contribution in the assigned space. At the end, the teacher was able to see our finished product as a Prezi presentation.

Reading 9

I think the author of this blog post makes some very good points about “powerpointlessness”, a term I like a lot. I think all of us have been to one of these terrible power point presentation/lectures where the person talking was reading everything that was on his or her slides, or bombarded the audience with so much text that you just gave up reading what was on the slides. Today, university professors use power point presentations and then tell the students that they do not need to take any notes because the presentation will be on the course website. In this situation, as a student, I ask myself why I should even come to class if what the professor is saying is not worth taking notes of and if everything that is of value is on the power point slides. So I completely agree with the blog’s author that a power point presentation is just a support, and nothing more. I think as teachers, we should encourage our students to use power point, but teach them some simple rules of how to present things. Also, I think that working on oral presentation skills (how you say things in a simple way, how you emphasize things, how you engage your audience) might be worthwhile so that power point becomes just a tool again, and not the focus of the presentation.

Mme Weber's Presentation