Taking French at PTA

As the teacher, I thought it would be interesting to have our seniors’ reactions to being immersed in French once again. Spanish and French are taught at PTA through the “Teaching with Comprehensible Input” method (TCI) which is based on telling stories with a controlled vocabulary.  After three days of classes, we are finally through the syllabus and on to our storytelling method.  Here are some of the seniors comments after listening and responding to the first story of the year.  

“Coming back to French class is awesome.  I like the new classroom and I love that I can still actually remember French from last year.  It sort of feels as easy to understand as English.”

“My brain’s on fire because I’m learning a lot, but the good thing about French class is that I remember a good amount of the words from last year.”
“I’m surprised I remembered as many words and terms as I did.”
“After not learning more French over the summer I thought it would be a little difficult trying to get back in the swing of things in this class, but actually it was Okay.  I like the new classroom and I’m enjoying being back in this class and learning more French.
“Being back in French is a little difficult because I haven’t been using any French over the summer, but I remembered a little more than I thought I would.”
“Entering French II after a long summer break, I was surprised to have retained as much information as I did from last school year.  Listening to the stories is no longer intimidating because I’m able to translate in my head.”
It looks like our seniors possess a positive attitude as they march forward into their second year of being bilingual.  I will try to create a productive and learning-rich environment in French II as our students continue to advance.  Vive la France!

​Anne Goorhuis, World Language Teacher