This week I’d like to share more about the app I’ve been working with and focusing on- Doulingo, our French local newspaper and Screencastify . It has been my baseline as I’ve explored more apps, resources, and tools to learn French. This week I learned about travel. The last topic was art (colors) and future topics include food and treats! But for now, I’m off traveling in French!

First, I’ll travel locally. This is the local French newspaper I wrote about last time, that I’ll keep exploring. It is in Canadian French, and my app is European French, but I’ll try to not get too confused. This is the screencastify video I took this week to show you how I can use the newspaper to learn French and keep improving it with more interest, community, English-French connections, and just have more fun while learning it.

The screencastify wouldn’t upload as a video or HTML (has this happened to you? please share what you did! I found a solution as I uploaded it as a Viemo link, but there must be a more simple solution. Anyway, here is the final video! Wehooo!

Than, I’ll travel further as I learn travel words in French in case a trip will be possible at the distant future! For that, I appreciate working with Doulingo for a few reasons, and mostly for the details in design, simple and useful features and content.

First, it covers the base of speaking, listening, writing and reading.
Second, it allows for your chosen time windows- you can set a 5, 10. 15, 30… or any amount of time for daily practice.
Third, it has goals and tracks your days of practice, reminds you of it, and had helps keep on track. It also has little points and treasures to find like a game, but as I’m not much into gaming I let this part go. But if you’re into it- it’s there!
Fourth, it covers the basics very well. It has lessons and tips with the rules to learn. I explores more apps and videos, and they help, but this has lots of comprehensive information I’m using daily, that seems easy to get also when compared with varied resources. I did add some youtube videos to help me out, but they helped me add and stick to the base Doulingo gave me.
And last, it has a lovely design and simple tools to use it when you can and can’t make noise to adjust the class accordingly.

I’m learning now masculine and feminine differences, reviewing common verbs, pronunciation. This is how my lesson the other day looked like. For masculine and feminine, it had the differences, examples, and rules for words that start with a vowel.

It then continued into some verbs (reviewing Aller) and how to conjugate it. I later continued to practice it (again with the special vowels- they always through me off but I guess not just me as the app keeps giving it as examples and reminders!) and moved on to the verb Avoir. I use google translate to see what the verbs mean if I don’t know.

The lesson than continued to pronunciation and gave me an audio to check it out, and examples of how to say “G” in different words. This is the kind of details I may catch when listen to French songs/ friends, but won’t know how to differentiate it or tell the difference on my own. It made so much sense to read it!

I like how Doulingo helps with all four aspects of learning a language (speak, write, listen, write). This makes me type in the translations, and the better I get the longer the sentence gets. After this 2 words translation I got a 4 words sentence to translate, and so on.

It also helps with listening and then speaking, and has an “I can’t speak/ listen now” button which is great as I can practice when I am waiting in line but don’t want to make noise. This feature was such a motivator- as I can practice of I have 10 minutes between errands, without worrying about the sound.

I than has some more verbs (I appreciate that it was broken with a speaking part – switching between listening/ speaking to writing and reading helps me a lot to stay focused. This is something I learned about how I study better through the app! This may also be why I do better on classes with both zoom/ reading than just the reading and independent 100%.

And last but not least- the game points and daily goals target! It does make it look more cheerful and fun 🙂

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This week I focused mostly about this, and will keep up with the daily work and pronunciation until I feel better and go on the podcast again!

One more thing I like is that the characters in it are from all ethnicities, this makes it feel a little more inclusive and fun. All in all- a great app! I needed to go back to the basics lately- and now feel that I am ready to keep exploring!

Thanks for tuning in, and see you next time!

Maya

Thanks for coming back to my blog! This week is a check in to see the bigger picture. An exploration of a new ideas, and how to use it simply within context.

I’ve been working with Doulingo which gives me the regular practice. I’m learning there mostly about feminine and masculine differences at the moment. I also did some research and saw the common thing for the resources I liked most is that they are more applicable daily. May it be daily in practice (apps) or daily in content (commonly used verbs) or daily in ways if use (focusing the present tense at the moment, and using my verbs and sentences in forms of “I am doing…. I am learning… I am seeing….” to make it as useful in my classes as possible. After coming to the conclusion that it is the daily practice I need to keep focusing on I tried to find more ways to use French daily in a fun and useful way. I Here is how I uses French daily this week, and hopefully in many more weeks to come:

Bringing French to the classroom

I’ve decided to start using it in my class when I have students that speak French, in a simple, inclusive and fun way. This week we learned art with line work styles (continuous line, outline, broken line and decorative lines). By the way, this is also a great cross curricular for literacy at grade 1 as it helps them learn how to write letters! Ok, back to French. We drew whales and learned with them how to draw line works. I asked than how do we say Whale in French and tried to use it in the class, normalizing multilingualism, and ensuring the French speaking students felt ok with it and that they got to share a word in their language. They were so happy!

This can be used in simple ways as google translate, but beware- it works for words individually, and even so I still check with French speaking parents just in case, plus the longer the sentence the more lost the meaning will be. I tried it once in Hebrew, my first language, and it translated a “do not eat and drink” sign to “please eat and drink” ! haha!!!

Taking down the overwhelm

As I continue with my Doulingo app, I’ve had less time for it this week. So I decided to stay committed to 5-10 minutes daily (sometimes I go more, but there’s not pressure) and this way I’m not overwhelmed (which makes me procrastinate).

I also save more time to practice it in daily opportunities when I can, and staying flexible when I miss it.

I’ve learned so many words, and I need to start using them and practice them in a daily context otherwise they’ll leave as soon as they came.

Local Newspapers

Which is why I added more local context to my reading and practice by reading some of our local Yukon Newspaper called “L’aurore Boreal” and is ALL in French! I may not get most of it, but I’ll scroll through and just get in the habit of immersing myself with the language and culture. I know the places and people they write about, and can get some from context to fill in the big picture.

This is a collection of stories about the awesome woman we have in Yukon! will be fun to share this in class sometime!

Optimizing your efforts

I’ve looked for the most commonly used words in French to make sure I’m investing my energy in the right place. I checked here in a website called Language Daily a saw I have been keeping well with Doulingo so far as it covered the most common verbs well. This is a good check in that made me feel good about choosing doulingo, as I’m still exploring that app.

Keep exploring!

For future classes, I checked out this link that has 35 free resources to learn French. I also read this article at Read Naturally about learning to read- because what kids do is exactly what I do now too- learning a new language. So going back to the basics. I loved especially the contexts references, showing how it matters and impacts the reading to learn in context and connections to our environment. Easy to remember when making a unit plan for the kids but easy to forget when learning my own subjects!

So now that I feel like I’m getting more resources, a handle on the context and new ways to keep my online platforms supportive, I need your help! I’m more confident in speaking for my final project. What should I start focusing on for my final project? This is all within context haha, I love eating, looking forward to traveling again one day, and love art! Can’t decide….

What’s your experience with google translate? how do you use learning a new topic in a daily way when needed? or balancing the daily practice/ weekly big ideas classes? Would love to hear from you!

Colorfully yours,

Maya

Thanks for coming back! This week I’ve checked out Anchor to learn French (my learning project) and discover how to write a classroom podcast. Honestly, I was not sure what to choose- a podcase (and which one?) a class plan website, a video editor…. too much to choose from! So I decided to start with the podcast to see how I can embed this in the classroom and engage students in new ways, and maybe check out more options later too. Anchor felt more intuitive for me so I went with it.

So starting where I always start first when I’m excited/ overwhelmed/ anything in between: the very first part of the very first step. In this case- podcast short intro. I called it hot chocolate (for the kids) and coffee (for me!) break. This can be a way for me to learn French now, and provide the verbal practice (additional time to Doulingo ) and have a fun way to experiment on myself and try this later in the classroom.

It was not easy- it took me a few days and some road blocks. First, I learned how to set it up, and then have the courage to actually talk in it – in French! haha…. then it would not submit for reviewing for some reason. So I played around with it, got frustrated, stopped, got back to it later, and eventually figured it out.

This took a week haha…. learning French AND patience! Now that I’ve explored it for a while, and still got lots to learn (like placing sound effects, etc.) I think it’s a good tool overall- just got to learn how to make it work and be more familiar with its system. I also have so much more to focus on, especially talking slower when I’m nervous.

This is how my Anchor profile looks like when I progress with the steps (which is how I realized that I was stuck at the publishing stage! smart app design)

and how the main page looks like now that my podcast is approved and ready to go (taken with zoom, the glue of my life lately!) which shows you where the podcast is available, the embedding links, etc.

And that was followed with the very happy victory email that I got declaring my podcast is available online!

So- why is this good in the classroom? check out the podcast and find out! (and hear be learning French…) grab your coffee and chill for 6 minutes 🙂

The podcast will be a fun way to engage and get the kids vocal and creative in a positive way

It will help them be aware of their words choices

Share with parents and community members our weekly learning

Collaborate with other classrooms doing the same

Hear progress when learning a new language

And much much more!

I still need to learn lots here… how to upload a full song, how to do transitions in the body of the episode, and much more…. if you got tips- please please share! This is all so new!

For my French project, this was helpful as I spoke my new words. This week I learned the colors. As an art teacher- this is extra fun! I pronounce it still a bit off, but can already hear progress and this is a big step for me. I used Quizlets for this one. And want to thank you all for the helpful tips and recommending so many good places to learn French- this is so much appreciated!

This is the super short video I found that also helps me practice along side Quizlets- unlike the other videos I posted before it’s around one minute so can be played anytime and is just there if I need to fix up my pronunciation. I like how simple it is, and how quick it is. Repetition and simplifying has turned out key to my progress in French learning project!

How is your project going? Why did you choose your platforms? Feel free to share and follow also on twitter!

Until next time!

Colorfully yours,

Maya

This week I struggled with differentiating sounds and meaning of similar words and numbers. I decided to focus on pronunciation first, with Doulingo and this new source by “French Truly” for conjugation of “avoir”, which I needed to keep revising longer than other verbs to remember well. Even my app gave up on me as Doulingo popped a message at some point writing “we’ll get back to this later” signaling me to move on and not get stuck on one part. I like that this app has such a useful feature- I’m the kind of person that can keep at it until I get it but I did not stop to eat or breath- and Doulingo proved to be useful at teaching the content and also at making me be productive and switching things around when I need it.

I than decided to go over numbers here at another blog by “Transparent Language”, a fun learning French blog. I love how it has a vocal and written clarity- was a super helpful source! Learning vocally and visually is key for me.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s blog and let me know- what are you willing to suck at to be a beginner with as you learn something new?

Colorfully yours

Maya

Allright! Week 2- this week I’m learning so much about Food that this image was required. And let’s face it- French culture and good food and just one and the same! I think that culture is more than just words- it’s food, songs, stories, much more than we can learn through vocabulary and grammar. But grammar is a first step to get there. This week- to get into the French mode- I am focusing on food! I bought croissant dough and going to make some for my French lessons! I hope this will get me in the mood. I am great at burning my food- but will do my best to bake them well.

I’ve learned so far how to say the difference between I am eating pizza and I want pizza- which is pretty cool because I can actually use it! This week’s learning are the verbs Manges (to eat) and Vouloir (to want). I used Doulingo for the daily practices and conjugation (still only learning present tense). You can see how Doulingo shows the verbs clearly here:

https://www.duolingo.com/dictionary/French/manges/7607a8eb97fb67c7d390b8ae63bd8ab4

This video also helped. I found it was more useful for me as his style, both verbally and visually, were easier to follow along with. Here is the video:

Also- I finally found how to do polls! Help me choose my final project in the poll of last week’s learning project blog!

Hope this was fun for you to read and that you enjoy this French adventure! (as close as I get to travel now!)

Let me know what is your favorite French food? or just tips to learn a new language?

Colorfully yours,

Maya