Write children’s stories in French to practise oral and written French.
In a Grades 9/10 French class, Ms. P. asked learners to create, illustrate, and share aloud a bilingual storybook featuring French and English. Ms. P. used inspiration from Walking in Two Worlds in the Plurilingual Classroom: Learning from the Case of an Intergeneration Project to leverage learner understanding of storytelling and bilingual literacy.
At this point in the course, learners had a wide vocabulary in French related to talking about themselves, describing people, places, and things, and they could speak about basic, familiar concepts comfortably. They were also familiar with pronouns, past and present verb tenses, and had just learned the “future proche.” The teacher shared a rubric that demonstrated the French concepts related to speaking, writing, reading, culture, and oral comprehension on which they were to be evaluated, and showed them a sample bilingual book. Each learner included minimum key vocabulary in a text box on each page in French while some learners were able to write a bilingual version of their work. After learners finished their stories, they took time to write three, short, simple comprehension questions in French to ask their classmates after sharing their books.
Ms. P modelled story time using other French children’s books. She shared a criteria checklist for an effective read-aloud with the learners. She sat at the front of the room holding the book so her learners could see. She modelled reading with expression, sharing her thinking aloud to demonstrate effective read-aloud techniques. Then, she reread the story, pointing to key pieces of information as she read, and explained key terminology to show the learners how they might read their stories. She then read another story and asked the learners to use the checklist to provide her with feedback after she read.
Ms. P. showed the learners how to give specific and helpful feedback so they were prepared to help their peers.
In partners, the learners practised reading aloud with expression, incorporating key terminology, so they were integrating both languages into their reading. After practising a few times, the learners gave each other feedback on their reading, using the criteria checklist.
Learners taught their peers with great care, celebrated, contributed to each other’s presentations, and listened enthusiastically to their peers’ stories. Afterward, learners were more confident in reflecting upon connections between languages and using their multilingualism to support their target language learning.
Aitken, Avril, and Loretta Robinson. “ ‘Walking in Two Worlds’ in the Plurilingual Classroom: Learning from the Case of an Intergenerational Project.” Plurilingual Pedagogies: Critical and Creative Endeavors for Equitable Language in Education, edited by Saskia Van Viegen and Sunny Man Chu Lau, Educational Linguistics series, Springer, 2021, pp. 77–92.
