Friday, during my last class, after a hard day, I was reviewing vocabulary through a translation exercise. I had created 10 sentences in French, using vocabulary I've given them since Day 1. The class and I were working through the sentences--when, voila!, I realized I did not have to tell them a single word. They translated all ten sentences themselves! Let me declare my amazement, my happiness, and their utter delight! This is a class of 30 students. I would say that half were engaged and participating while the other half, no, wait, I'll not go there. Half were engaged and reading French! That's truly what I want to share!
After they translated from French into English, they had to put five English sentences into French. They did that, also. My students are reading and writing in French!(Note: pronunciation still comes as a problem, although face-to-face, I can get the student with the most twisted tongue to pronounce to my satisfaction. Shoot, my family has exactly the same pronunciation problems--IF I can get them to repeat anything! Speaking a new language after puberty is difficult for anyone. It's too embarrassing, but I'm saying that ALL my students at least try even if they forget it ten seconds later. It is difficult to pronounce sounds and words in a, dare
I say?--"foreign" language!)
On another note, the faculty at my school is so multicultural. One librarian is Chinese, there are about a dozen men and women from the Philippines who teach various subjects. I would say that a third of the faculty is Caucasian, the rest being African-American. I'm guessing that the faculty is about half and half in gender, that being a real deviation from a majority of teachers as female. All ages are represented from the brand shiny new teachers to two of us who came out of retirement to teach this year. And, of course, all our teachers are American.
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