Last Updated on Sunday, 17 July 2011 07:48
Written by Issac Greaves
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
Although one of the aims for this session was cross-curricular contexts, I was personally drawn to the emphasis on using authentic resources, and was subsequently disappointed at the fact we only had Spanish at my school as some of the French resources were fantastic, however the techniques in exploiting such authentic resources were transferable to other languages.
Martine highlighted that students want to also learn new things about the world in the language classroom. This stress on cross-curricular work demonstrated the importance for motivations sake. Authentic resources are important for that contextual learning and we need to find ways to make them work, even for KS3 students. Although Martine spoke of several resources, I only outline one here as with the other sessions, we were promised the presentations would be placed on the ALL website.
I chose Yannick Noah’s Aux Arbres Citoyens as I thought it was really catchy and have observed a lesson as a student where it had great success. The video clip and ‘paroles’ follow:
Aux arbres citoyens by Dolio-Keyok
Click here for the .pdf file of the lyrics, otherwise see below to sing along :0)
Yannick Noah – Aux Arbres Citoyens
Le ciment dans les plaines
Coule jusqu’aux montagnes
Poison dans les fontaines,
Dans nos campagnes
De cyclones en rafales
Notre histoire prend l’eau
Reste notre idéal
“Faire les beaux”
S’acheter de l’air en barre
Remplir la balance :
Quelques pétrodollars
Contre l’existence
De l’équateur aux pôles,
Ce poids sur nos épaulees
De squatters éphémers…
Maintenant c’est plus drôle
Puisqu’il faut changer les choses
Aux arbres citoyens !
Il est grand temps qu’on propose
Un monde pour demain !
Aux arbres citoyens
Quelques baffes à prendre
La veille est pour demain
Des baffes à rendre
Faire tenir debour
Une armée de roseaux
Plus personne à genoux
Fait passer le mot
C’est vrai la terre est ronde
Mais qui viendra nous dire
Qu’elle l’est pour tout le monde…
Et les autres à venir…
Puisqu’il faut changer les choses
Aux arbres citoyens !
Il est grand temps qu’on propose
Un monde pour demain !
Puisqu’il faut changer les choses
Aux arbres citoyens !
Il est grand temps qu’on s’oppose
Un monde pour demain !
Plus le temps de savoir à qui la faute
De compter la chance ou les autres
Maintenant on se bat
Avec toi moi j’y crois
Puisqu’il faut changer les choses
Aux arbres citoyens !
Il est grand temps qu’on propose
Un monde pour demain !
The first step would be to play the video to get the students engaged. The students would not be expected to understand everything at this point. Something I had never considered, but made perfect sense when Martine mentioned it was that the students could still have questions to answer, but they needn’t be comprehension questions at this point.
An example would be to ask the colour of a coat in one of the scenes for example, drawing on existing knowledge. Then with the text/stimulus, get the students to highlight the words that they recognise. With new words, give the students a choice of meaning (whiteboards?). Play the video/song again, students follow transcript with finger and then stop on the word where the song ends and elicit it from the students, they could also say the subsequent word practicing sounds.
The teacher could read the transcript and students could raise their hands when they hear something different, i.e. the teacher reads out aloud a different word to that on the transcript. After these practice methods have been completed, you could finish with a set of comprehension questions as the students have begun to understand more and more. Last but not least, there could also be some grammar consolidation questions based on the text or even an inductive grammar activity.
This session was extremely useful as it demonstrated that you can use authentic resources with students if you are clever with them. You don’t have to jump straight in with comprehension questions after practicing the vocabulary, you can ask questions in the TL that don’t necessarily relate to the comprehension of the material, which will as a result build the student’s confidence.
