grades 4/5 from Ms.Kutertan's class
I am the new Core French teacher for the grade 4 and 5 students in Ms.Kutertan's class, and I am also their Dance and Drama teacher for one period a week.
Here is the link to the Ontario Curriculum for Core French if you want to read it in more detail.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/fsl18-2013curr.pdf
Learning French is no longer focused on learning grammar at certain grades, and will ideally take place through a more communicative approach that stresses authentic conversation. New vocabulary and grammar will obviously be taught, but the French teacher now has more flexibility when it comes to what to teach students during daily lessons without being tied to teaching from a specific plan or program. The concept is that this will lead to greater learning because the French teacher can adapt to the learning needs and styles of students within each class and plan and adapt instruction to those factors. I have been trying to teach according to this concept for the past few years since the new curriculum was introduced while still being mindful of the aspects of some older approach that work in some situations.
Last year, the current grade 5's finished all of the units in the Echo Pros 1 program that Mr.Cowan was using, so I will be using a different program called Visages which I have been using for over 15 years so that the grade 5's do not simply get a repeat of last year's material. I will start with a general introductory unit on basic conversational French which will be a review for the grade 5's and a simple introduction for the grade 4's who have not learned French at school before. This will also give me a familiar starting point to get an impression of what level the students are at. After that I will be teaching a progression of units from the Visages 1 and 2 programs which I have found to work well in my past teaching.
Here is my planned sequence of units for the upcoming school year, with links to extra resources to support learning at home :
1. INTRODUCTION : basic conversational French
2. LES PAS - describing various dance moves and actions
3. LES ANIMAUX DE COMPAGNIE : different types of pets
4. LES T-SHIRTS : various summer and winter sports
5. DANS UNE ÎLE : various features and habitats on a tropical island