Strengthening Our Core

Near the end of May, Paul and I got to attend a day long workshop presented by our second language-special ed hero, Katie Arnett!!! We actually got to talk to her live and in person!!! And she was AMAZING!!!! We learned sooo much in one day I wish we could have met her at the beginning of our project instead of the end, but it was an AWESOME way to wind our project up!  To make the day even better (if that was even possible!) as part of our project, we were able to bring the FSL-SERT team from Queen Elizabeth PS with us too! Teri Smart and Tanya Campbell seemed to enjoy the day as much as we did, and Tanya was taking notes at least as fast as I was.  A few interesting / thought-provoking bits from my notes include: - We were referring to ULAs as "you ell ay's" throughout our project, but Katy calls them "Oo la's" ... which sounds way more 'Oo la la' and fun to me! 😊 - We speak 180 words per minute. In a second language classroom we tend to

For the Action Research part of our project, I chose to focus on six of the Universal Language Actions (ULAs) in Katy Arnett and Renée Bourgoin’s book, "Access for Success: Making Inclusion Work for Language Learners". (You can find the list of ULAs here ) Most of them were things I was already doing, but for the project I chose to be more intentional about them, planning ahead instead of using them on the fly. Here are my reflections on my experience with each one ... ULA Action 1.5 Providing wait time when presenting new information, after asking a question, or before inviting learners to start a task  This action was a hard task for myself to get over. I only have 30 minutes in the classroom which can be a barrier itself to get started. I did make myself flexible by allowing the students that needed time to sit out for short period and observe. One particular student in class needs time to watch the activity before he can join in, and that is ok because he k

At the beginning of our project, Paul and I identified several barriers that many Core French teachers (and other Itinerant Teachers) have to deal with. You can see our list in our first blog post ( click here for the link ). We addressed some of these barriers directly in this project and shared our resources and materials in previous posts and in the Toolkit that can be found by clicking on the three bars at the top of the blog’s main screen. Addressing some of the other barriers requires a cooperative effort by classroom teachers, SERTs and school administrators. Being an itinerant teacher without a classroom and no travel time is hard work. We’ve created a little poster called ‘5 Tips to Support Our Itinerant Teachers’ that might serve as a gentle reminder for all of us ( click here for the PDF ). Remember everybody, take care of each other. We’re all in this together. Things I’m Grateful For: - Working in a school with a tight-knit community of hardworking educa

I’ve been called many things in my life, but athletic has never been one of them. Our blog’s vintage sports theme reflects Paul being sporty and me being … vintage. Despite my lack of athleticism, I always enjoyed playing games outside, but preferred ones where the social and psychological stakes weren’t too high for the uncoordinated kids so we could all just do our best and have fun.   Although the whole book is fantastic, I have two favourite parts in Katy Arnett and Renée Bourgoin’s " Access for Success: Making Inclusion Work for Language Learners ". Both focus on setting up a supportive learning environment that reduces potential barriers and allows everyone a chance to succeed and have fun in French class.  The first is an excellent chart on dispelling myths about inclusion in FSL classrooms in the first chapter of the book. It lists each myth, what current research actually shows, and links to the studies. It really helped me with my own growth mindset, espec

My core schedule happens to be the last block of the day, and believe me when I say that sometimes it’s like walking into a wind storm - some days a nice, calm breeze and others a swirling galing wind, often feeling like a tropical storm! It doesn’t always make you feel overly confident that you planned the right lesson for that particular day for that particular classroom atmosphere.  At the beginning of our project we created a ‘Well-Being and Attitude Towards FSL’ survey ( you can find our template here ) that we gave to students in grades 3 to 6. We will have them complete it at the end of the project as well so we can compare the results. The survey covered four main topics: Attitudes about learning French; Resilience and Perseverance; Feelings of Accomplishment and Success; and Attitudes about French learning activities. I was very pleased with how students generally felt about the classroom atmosphere, most importantly feeling comfortable in a second language class.  It

The other day I ran into a SERT who is following the blog (yay!) but who said she is feeling badly because she can’t fit time into her schedule to be in Core French classes. So just to clarify for anyone else who may have misunderstood … I can’t either!!! Like every other SERT, my schedule is jam-packed supporting English literacy and numeracy, plus the Empower reading program eats up two hours of my day every day, and I don’t speak French (yet) … so no, even with this project, I am not providing direct SERT support for Core French. My ‘new’ role with Paul is as a collaborative, collegial learning partner - researching the latest techniques from the pros, gathering/co-creating some useful materials together, and cheering him on.  I’m more like the guy holding the towel in the photo - I’m in his corner, but I’m not in the ring. Things I’m Grateful For: - Paul’s willingness to share his practice with me, and his patience with my lack of experience with FSL teaching (and French in ge

As someone who was buried alive in a rockslide on a grade six field trip (true story!) I can well imagine and appreciate the sense of being crushed under a mountain that Core French Teachers must feel when they face their stack of IEPs. For those with limited special ed background attempting to climb up (or dig out of) that mountain must seem like an insurmountable challenge. In order for Paul and I to fill in our life-saving one-page special ed profiles for each class ( you can find our template here ), we had to read a lot of IEPs. We noticed that we were flipping to five key spots to find the information that impacts an FSL teacher. To help out other mountain climbers, we created a " 5 Step IEP Reading for Core French Teachers " sheet to add to our Strengthening Our Core Toolkit. Things I'm Grateful For I’m grateful that our Board moved to Google so collaborating and sharing with colleagues is so easy! Things I'm Wondering About I wonder how other SERT and