SASQUATCH!

I was looking through my (not big enough) collection of French story books the other day, because I wanted to do a read aloud with my grade 5/6 Core class.  One of my biggest challenges with this group of students is that it is hard to find texts that are at their level that aren't too immature for them.  I finally stumbled upon a book called Boris, written by Ashley Spires.

I read this book to my grade 4/5 immersion kids last year and they seemed to understand it, but looking at the vocabulary, I was a little worried that reading it to a core class might be too challenging.  I enjoy this book so much that I chose to read it anyways!  My lesson turned out great!  We worked on decoding the sentences one at a time in order to figure out what was happening, and because the character was so hilarious and intriguing, the kids didn't mind that they had to work hard and listen carefully to understand the story!  We first made a list of strategies we can use to decode the meaning.  Here are a couple that the students came up with:
- Pictures
- Using familiar words
- etc. 

I incorporate a clothespin reward system when I am teaching.  The students can earn clothespins if they are trying their hardest to speak, listening carefully to instructions and respecting everything and everyone.  After a week or so, the top 4-5 students who have collected the most pins win a prize (that does NOT cost money) such as "Teacher for the period", "Free time", etc.  So, I made sure to hand out LOADS of clothespins during this lesson to keep them motivated.  As soon as someone made a guess as to what the words/sentence/paragraph meant, they would get a clothespin... I ran out of pins FAST! 

I had hands going up left and right, because I was not only rewarding the students who got the right answer, but all of the students who even gave it a try!  This is how I am giving the students the confidence they need to listen, speak, write and read in a second language!!!  They weren't afraid to make a guess.  Being wrong wasn't a scary thing! 

Remember!  When the kids figure out (in English) what a word, sentence or paragraph means, make sure you repeat in in a sandwich (French, English, French) afterwards.

In the end, Boris the sasquatch ended up being the best help I could have asked for to give my students the confidence they need to succeed in French class!  Thanks Boris!