Why using geo-literacy to learn French

Here is another good reason why I’m learning with Coetail. At our school we had two big events over the last two weeks: the French open class day where parents come to see and participate in French lessons and the PTC. During the PTC, I had excellent feedback from the parents, they were ecstatic to see IT integration in my lessons!

For my final project I choose to do a story map with my Grade 3 students. This group started to learn French last year.
I choose to do geo-literacy as the subject space is at the same time an easy one but also a difficult one as it takes time for the students to transfer the French to the English. I’m not even sure that a 8 year old can find his/her way easily in his/her own home language. In this case the best way to learn is to practice.
The final product for the students would be to screen-cast their story map and to post it on their class blog.
This project allows the students to work on the four attainment targets: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

Background

I use a story where a man, M. Lampion, comes every night to sing a lullaby to all the children in town but one night he doesn’t come. Then, a girl, Lucie, decides to look for him.
Using a map-maker, students have to bookmark places, add text and pictures about how Lucie goes there and who tells her to go there in order to create her journey. They started by putting places where Lucie went on the original story. Then they add their own places and means of transportation and directions.
I’m using the interactive map-maker from National Geographic Education.

How did it go?

They have been working on the project for the last 4 lessons that last 40mn each. So the first lesson, they just named their map. During the introductory lesson, I spent a lot of time helping the students finding the website, showing them how to name and save. By the second lesson, they really started to work collaboratively.

The down side of this project is to find the place on the map. The size of the fizzbook’screen is small and students often get lost in Germany or France and can’t find their way back to Luxembourg.
Apart from these technical issues, it is so great to see the students enjoying the French lessons, getting ready and staying on task.
They also responded very well to the GRASP task that I shared with them. I also think that it comes from the fact that I gave it in English.

What would I do differently?

Why I didn’t do that earlier??? I really needed a push to have my students working with technology. This is what I really learned from the course 1: it’s doable. Lessons are not messy and noisy. And if they are, kids are still learning, learning to collaborate, to communicate, to be creative, to be critical-thinker. And this is learning, right?

I would have chosen another tool to create a story map. With National Geographic Education, maps are available via link send to an email address. That means that at the beginning (or before the beginning) of every lesson, I have to open the link for the students using the French department email address.
I would give the students the GRASP task in French as I don’t feel comfortable using English to give instructions during French lessons.
What I am really looking forward to is to see the final product and the screen cast of their story map. I know that the students would truly understand the meaning of learning French.