Session 17: Card/Slide Talk

Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to…

Beginner: say phrases or sentences in French to retell the story of a good or bad trip someone in class has taken, and add the characters’ thinking and dialogue

Intermediate: say sentences in French to retell the story of a good or bad trip someone in class has taken, and add the characters’ thinking and dialogue, details to describe the characters’ internal AND external traits, and sensory details of the setting

Advanced: say a series of connected sentences in French to retell the story of a good or bad trip someone in class has taken, and add the characters’ thinking and dialogue, details to describe the characters’ internal AND external traits, and sensory details of the setting, and using transition words to say more

Preparation:

You will use students’ slides with pictures and perhaps additional information they added to the slide (for the Slide Talk variation) or cards with sketches (for the original Card Talk strategy) that illustrate personal stories from their lives. In this example, students submit stories of good and/or bad trips they have taken. This slideshow is available to download from our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff), or of course you could easily make your own slideshow.

If you want to focus on certain themes or topics (school, careers, travel, activities, coming of age, beauty and aesthetics, etc.) you can “angle” the topic of the stories you ask students to submit, to elicit stories that focus on an aspect of the topic. For example, if you want to address the theme of beauty and aesthetics, you might ask for stories about good and bad experiences with personal beautifcation (e.g. a great haircut, a very unfortunate fashion disaster, or The Worst Hair Day Ever).

Now, on to the lesson procedures:

Continue to greet the students in English review expectations, etc., and share the lesson objective. If you have not yet set up your Videographer, I urge you to do so now, as the lessons will begin using the Scaffolded Oral Review strategy of Video Retells in Session 18, the next session in the instructional sequence. See the HR Manual in the Appendices for more information on setting up this and other student jobs.

You might make your own Reading Workshop text, use the ones in our Teachers Pay Teachers store, such as the example below, or work with a Shared Writing text from a previous lesson. Distribute or project the text. Then, share the lesson objective if you have not already done so, check in with your Class Starter (and perhaps Videographer), and begin the lesson.

French beginner reading

Pronunciation Practice

See the notes in Session Three for detailed instructions on how you might conduct this Reading Workshop strategy. In this sample lesson, I use the beginner reading from our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff) for Cycle Two Phase One, in French. Note that the story of Marie Antoinette would be familiar to students who, using the resources from our Teachers Pay Teachers store, have already had a lesson on Marie Antoinette’s life, in Cycle One Phase Four. If your students have not done that lesson, this reading might look too challenging for them. You can always choose to use a text that your class produced in a previous lesson during Shared Writing, which is, in many ways, the preferable option, since the text will be customized to the class’s experiences and - because they helped to create it - highly comprehensible, even for beginners. The Reading Workshop texts for this phase are diary entries to tell personal stories. Other levels of the example reading are shown below in German. As always, the lesson notes are written in English. The course language is in black. The class’s stronger shared language is grey. Once the students can see the projected text, or they have it on their desks, you can proceed. First, tell the class what the topic of the reading is most likely speaking in the class’s stronger shared language, and then read it aloud in the course language. “I will read this diary entry to you in French, about a story from Marie Antoinette’s life.” (read in the course language) “Let’s practice our French pronunciation. I will read a sentence in French and then we will all read it together. Your job is to pronounce the words as closely to how I say them as you can. We will really ‘French it up’ and try to use the ‘Frenchest’ pronunciation you can.”

German beginner reading German intermediate reading German advanced reading

(Read a sentence from the reading aloud in the course language, really emphasizing the pronunciation so that students will stretch their speech articulation muscles when they repeat the sentence in the same fashion.) “OK, let’s read that together, and ‘French it up’ as much as we can.” (Read with the class, modeling very clear and almost overly-articulated pronunciation in the course language.) “Good job. But I bet you can ‘French it up’ even more. Like this. Listen.” (Read the same sentence aloud in the course language, really emphasizing the pronunciation, perhaps even more than the first time.) “OK, let’s read that again, and ‘French it up’ even more.” (Read with the class, modeling very clear and almost overly-articulated pronunciation in the course language.)

Repeat with a couple of other sentences, if time permits. After a few minutes, move into the Guided Oral Input, with a short calendar check-in and then the Card/Slide Talk.

It is suggested to continue the routine of a brief (2-3 minutes) calendar check-in, which (1) creates an opening/ transition routine and (2) continues to reinforce, daily, and in a meaningful context, important vocabulary such as the names of the months and days, weather, numbers, preferences, and activities. For guidance on how to gradually introduce new topics/vocabulary into this daily routine, please see Session Five.

Display the slideshow, and briefly introduce the topic.

“Let’s look at the stories of good and bad trips that people in class have taken.”

“Class, look (gesture) at Tina’s trip (point to the image).

“Tina went to Hawaii (place your hand under an image to support comprehension of what you are saying, and perhaps write the word “Hawaii” in the course language and perhaps also in the class’s stronger shared language).”

“Tina, when did you go to Hawaii? 2021 (jot the numeral, if needed to establish the meaning)? 2022 (jot)? (using the “What Am I Asking This Kid?” Trick, and speaking in the stronger shared language) What am I asking Tina?”

(some students call out, “When did you go to Hawaii?” or “When was your trip?” etc.) “Yes! Tina, when did you go to Hawaii? 2021? 2022?” Page 315

(the student responds, in the course language or their stronger language, “2019.”)

“Tina went to Hawaii in 2019 (jot). Who in the class (gesture) has been to Hawaii?” (students raise hands)

(counting in the course language) “One, two, three…five people in class have been to Hawaii.” “Tina went to the beach (place your hand under an image to support comprehension and perhaps write in the course language and maybe also the class’s stronger shared language) in Hawaii.” “Tina, did you like (gesture) the bea…(“lightly” interrupting the last word to implement the “What am I asking this kid?” Trick) What am I asking Tina?”

(some students call out, “Did you like the beach?” etc.) “Yes! Tina, did you like (gesture) the beach in Hawaii?”

(Tina responds, in the course language or their stronger language, “Yes,” or perhaps, “Yes, I liked the beach.” If the student begins to tell a bunch more additional facts in their stronger language, you will need to gently cut them off, to send the message that you want just a couple of words and not a full-tilt treatise on their opinion on various beaches.)

Continue with other facts about the first student’s trip, or move on to other slides, as time permits. You will, if you follow the schedule given in this book, return to the slideshow in a subsequent lesson(s), and so you do not need to feel any pressure to cover all the slides in one Guided Oral Input session, which is, after all, only about ten minutes long (or twenty in block classes).

You do not need to feel any pressure to cover all the slides, in any lesson, or to linger with a topic/strategy until you have been able to use each and every slide. This can lead to extreme bouts of tedium for both students and teachers.

You can, if you want to use all the slides/information students submitted, make a class book out of the slides, as described in Session 12, and pictured here.

After about 12 to 15 minutes of Guided Oral Input, regardless of how many of the slides you covered, even if you found that the discussion of the first slide was so interesting to your students that you spent the entire Guided Oral Input time on one slide, you will move on to Scaffolded Oral Review.

Who Said What?

Move to your Review Spot.

This strategy asks students to imagine what someone would say or think in reaction to various situations that are related to the facts you discussed during Guided Oral Input.

You will make a series of three to five statements that a member of the class could have possibly said, based on what you learned in the survey, and ask who said, or would have said, each one.

You will say something that one of the students could have said, and ask the class, “Who said that?”, “Who would say that?”, or “Who would have said that?”

You can provide more repetitions of the language by restating the person and what they said, for example, “Marquisse would have said, ‘I love the beach in Mexico!”

For more advanced students, you can also choose to ask the class to explain why the person said, or would have said, that statement, for example, “Marquisse would have said, ‘I love the beach in Mexico!’ Why would he say that?”

“Time to review. I will pretend to be someone in class, and your job is to say who might say that. You will hear the answer twice. The first time, listen, don’t talk. The second time, say who would have said it.”

(explaining the directions again in the course language) “I will say (gesture)… Say (gesture) means say. Show me “say” (gesture). Show me “look” (gesture). “Prefer” (gesture). “Love” (gesture). “Talk” (gesture). “Like” (gesture). “Say” (gesture).”

“I will say (gesture) a sentence in French. I will say (gesture) the sentence two (hold up two fingers) times.” “The first time (hold up one finger) listen. Do not talk (gesture). “ “The second time (hold up two fingers), you will say (gesture) who in class would have said (gesture) that.”

“Number One. (hold up one finger). Who would have said (gesture) ‘I love (gesture) the pyramids in Mexico (point to the image/word)!’…shhh! Who would have said (gesture) ‘I love (gesture) the pyramids in Mexico (point to the image/word)!’?”

Students call out: Marquisse! Dré! etc.

“Yes, Marquisse would have said (gesture) ‘I love (gesture) the beach in Mexico (point to the image/word)!’ Dré would have said (gesture) ‘I love (gesture) the beach in Mexico (point) too!”

“Would Dré say (gesture) ‘I love (gesture) the beach in Hawaii (gesture and/or point to the image/ words)’….shhhh…or ‘I DON’T LIKE (gesture) the beach in Hawaii’? Shhhh…..Would Dré say I love (gesture) the beach in Hawaii (gesture and/or point) or or ‘I DON’T LIKE (gesture) the beach in Hawaii’?”

Students call out: Love! I love the beach in Hawaii! etc.

“Number Two. (hold up two fingers). Who would have said (gesture) ‘I celebrated Christmas in Waikiki’ (gesture and/or point to the image/words)…shhh! Who would have said (gesture) ‘I celebrated Christmas in Waikiki’ (gesture and/or point to the image/words)?”

Students call out the answer, and you might ask follow-up questions as modeled above.

Ask more questions, if time permits.

Write and Discuss with an Anchor Chart

You will continue to use the anchor chart that you set up in Session 16, adding two or three new terms to it today. You may need to be selective, if you used many new words to narrate during the Card/Slide Talk discussion.

See the sections on Reading Workshop and Shared Writing in Session 9 for more detailed information on setting up anchor charts and goal boxes during Shared Writing. To read more details on Write and Discuss in general, please see the first eight instructional sessions.

First, add about two new terms to the anchor chart (this example uses three, which is about the max that most students can handle at one time).

“Today our goal is to use these words (write “a visité” (visited) and “a voyagé” (traveled) and “est allé.e” (went) in the course language in the box, and perhaps add sketches to reinforce the meaning, as pictured.). We will get a point every time we use one of these words, so look for ways to use

them in the sentences. OK, let’s go!”

Draw a box on your Shared Writing paper, and write/sketch the word “Goal” in the course language, or use a preprinted sheet with a goal box.

Say/Write: The Trip…

…or The AMAZING (you can establish the meaning of a word such as this, when you are introducing it in a meaningful, comprehensible context such as Write and Discuss, simply using gestures and intonation, saying it in a “marvelous” way as illustrated below) trip?

(students: Amazing! or The amazing trip! etc.)

Say/Write: The amazing trip…the amazing trip of Marquisse…or the amazing trip? (students: Marquisse! or The amazing trip of Marquisse! etc.)

Say/Write: The amazing trip of Marquisse (spelling in the course language as you write) Capital M-A-Q-U-I-S-S-E… the amazing trip of Marquisse, or the amazing trip of Marquisse and his family, or the amazing trip of Marquisse and his parents (“parents” is a very direct cognate in French, but if your language does not have an applicable cognate, you might want to skip this, or establish meaning by sketching, writing, and/or teaching a gesture)? Marquisse, or Marquisse and his family, or Marquisse and his parents?”

(students: His parents! or Marquisse and his parents! etc.)

Say/Write: The amazing trip of Marquisse and his parents. The amazing trip of Marquisse and his parents to Mexico, or to Kentucky?

(students: Mexico!)

Say/Write: The amazing trip of Marquisse and his parents to Mexico.

Marquisse went to Mexico (you might point to the word/ sketch on the anchor chart) or Marquisse VISITED (point to the word if needed to reinforce the meaning) Mexico…or Marquisse TRAVELED (point) to Mexico?

(students: Went to Mexico! or Visited! or Traveled to Mexico! or Traveled! etc.)

Say/Write: The amazing trip of Marquisse and his parents to Mexico. Marquisse went to Mexico.

Good job! (put a check or tally mark in the goal box because you used one of the goal words.)

Say/Write: He visited…class, did Marquisse visit (point to the anchor chart) pyramids (sketch or point to the slide, if needed to reinforce the meaning) in Mexico? (students: Yes! Pyramids! Visited the pyramids! etc.)

Say/Write: He visited (point) pyramids in Mexico…class, did he visit the beach, too? (students: Yes! Beach! Visited the beach! etc.)

Say/Write: and he went (point to the anchor chart if needed) to the beach there, also.

Note that the words “there” and “also” have not previously been taught. You can, again, rely on the context to support comprehension.

And if not all students understand precisely, exactly what you are writing…

…that is actually desirable.

Wait, I hear you thinking, “Just wait one blamed minute there Tina…isn’t this comprehensionbased language teaching?

Why would I want to be - even slightly, or briefly - NOT comprehensible?!?”

Let’s take a gander at a couple of Dr. Stephen Krashen’s terms, and maybe it will make more sense. The first one is “i + 1.”

This is a term from Dr. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, developed in the 1970s and 80s, that describes the optimal “richness” (or, to put it another way, the optimal “slight unknown-ness”) of the input we provide.

If i is the level of input that students can comprehend with 100% confidence, then if we continue to only provide input at that level, then learners will not develop further. We are actually going for the level “i + 1” — language input that is slightly more advanced than their current level. In the “formula” i + 1, the "i" is the learner's current level of ability to comprehend, and the “+ 1" is the next level of language acquisition.

In 2015, Dr. Krashen added another consideration to the notion of “how comprehensible is optimal?” when he wrote about the concept of the “Illusion of Transparency.”

He writes, in the 2015 article, “TPRS: Contributions, Problems, New Frontiers, and Issues,” that “input is transparent if the acquirer understands every word. This is, of course, a crude definition. We could define extreme transparency as a conscious understanding of not only every word but every grammatical marker and morpheme. Transparent is not the same as “comprehensible.” If input is transparent, it is comprehensible, but input can be comprehensible and not fully transparent, that is, it could contain some as yet unacquired language that does not interfere with comprehension (‘noise’).”

The examples of “noise” above are carefully calibrated to be just a bit of new language, just a bit of “unknownness.” They are purpose-designed to introduce just enough “noise” to create optimal conditions for language acquisition, and for learning in general. They set up situations in which students are likely to experience “cognitive dissonance,” which - used judiciously and with the teacher’s guidance to resolve - is a powerful education tool.

Social psychologist Leon Festinger first described “cognitive dissonance” in 1957, as the state of mind induced when a learner holds two contradictory beliefs. Since this situation produces discomfort, the learner is more motivated to change one of the beliefs to avoid being inconsistent. Much research has been conducted since then to demonstrate the desirability for learners to experience this cognitive dissonance. It is applicable to many disciplines, perhaps most notably in public health and social justice/ anti-racist learning. However, in

a smaller way, it is very much applicable to Write and Discuss.

When we simply use a new term, in the very controlled, scaffolded, mostly-comprehensible context of Write and Discuss, students will be “forced” to formulate their own inner theory for what that word means. Even if they do not consciously say to themselves, “Why, I do declare that I would suppose that “là-bas, aussi” (“there, too” from the French example above) means “there, also,” based upon the context of the aforementioned terms,” their language acquisition device automatically attempts to make the unknown language make sense, using the context and the learner’s existing literacies.

Because we simply use the new term, and move on, without stopping to define or belabor it, students may experience a brief, slight feeling of “wait, wait, what up?” before they are whisked away to another utterance (which, because Write and Discuss is designed to be super-duper comprehensible, will most likely calm their emotions, because they will understand so clearly). However, the daily instructional framework is designed to remedy this “cognitive dissonance” in the next part of the lesson: Shared Reading, where we do involve the conscious mind in making the class’s text “transparent” when we translate every single word, exactly.

Because some students may have formulated an erroneous “theory” as to the meaning of the new word (e.g. “là-bas, aussi), when they first encountered it during Shared Writing, they have a chance to, during the Shared Reading, gain conscious knowledge of the meaning that the class/teacher assign to it as you translate. This creates the situation of “cognitive dissonance” as they must revise their original thinking and integrate it with the new knowledge.

Please note that you do not want to overdo it! You want your students to be "forced" to take a guess as to the meaning of just a few terms in the Write and Discuss. Not too many, and not words that are critical to understanding the meaning. Just little expressions/phrases here and there.

It is possible to overdo this, or have too much of a good thing. If students experience too much cognitive dissonance, they lose motivation.

However, with just a little, especially in the context of what is, by now, a super-familiar daily experience — Write and Discuss followed by Shared Reading — you can tap into this powerful element of human psychology every single day.

The “Go-To” Daily Strategies

Shared Reading is not modeled in this lesson, as you are simply continuing to use the “go-to” strategies explained and modeled in the previous sessions. Refer to Sessions one through ten for more details.

Everyone Acts

This strategy was first introduced in Session 15, and you can find a more detailed explanation of it there.

When using this strategy in a narrative lesson, like the one in this session, you will already have established the character(s) that the actors will portray. If you have only discussed one character, you will need to have a pair, so you can invent another character: a friend, family member, teacher, or even their “truthful self” and their “lying self” (which allows you to set up imaginary debates that feel a lot like those cartoon devils and angels on people’s shoulders) or their “younger self” and their “self self” or their “future self.”

You will simply make up the dialogue on the spot, or you can use dialogue and thinking from the Shared Writing text that you added using the anchor chart, if you have included it. If you have not included very much dialogue or thinking in your Shared Writing texts, you can take a slightly different approach, and use the “Write Inside the Story” strategy introduced in Session Nine, instead of “Everyone Acts,” and ask students to write with you “inside” one of the Write and Discuss texts to add dialogue and thinking. Since this session is designed to be repeated over at least two, if not three or more,

class periods, on the first day that you discuss the Card/Slide Talk, you can prepare a text by loading it up with a lot of dialogue and thinking, and then use it with the “Everyone Acts” strategy in the second lesson of this session.

You can also use a Shared Writing text that does not contain any dialogue or thinking, and just make up some lines that the characters can say/think.

The activity might go something like this, after the example lesson provided in this session:

“OK, you will get with a partner, and decide who is Partner A and who is Partner B. Partner A will be Marquisse, and Partner B will be Marquisse’s cat, Butterbeer Belly. I will say your lines in French with gestures and emotions, and then the partner who has that role will repeat the line with gestures and emotions, then Partner A will do the same, taking turns to create a little scene in French.”

“Partner A, Marquisse, (point to the word(s)), says (gesture), “I visited pyramids in Mexico!” (the students who are Partner A repeat to their partner, speaking in the course language, “I visited pyramids in Mexico!”)

Note: To exhort your class to greater heights of dramatic artistry, and also make an opportunity to repeat the

input another time, you can use the “No, No, Not Like That!” trick, as described below. You will simply restate the actors’ line, insisting that the actor say it with MORE emotion, as modeled below.

“No, no, Marquisse is VERY HAPPY (gesture or use your posture and/or facial expression to establish meaning). Marquisse says (say the line very dramatically and gesture very dramatically), “I visited the PYRAMIDS in MEXICOOOOOOO!” (the students who are Partner A repeat to their partner, speaking in the course language and, it is to be hoped, in a more dramatic fashion , “I visited the pyramids in Mexico!”)

Continue on to Partner B, and perhaps return again to Partner A and, time permitting, cycling through another set of lines with both partners.

At the end of the period, you might debrief on what went well, and perhaps setting or reviewing goals.