Do your students think they don’t like writing? What can you do to teach students to enjoy writing in French and improve their skills?
Today I’m interviewing the teacher-author Keshia, a.k.a. Mme McIntosh.
Though she and I have never met in real life, we’ve connected online and she does love teaching writing in French.
Keshia is sharing her suggestions, tips, and ideas for teaching students to enjoy writing in French.
This is a post in a series of interviews, where I’ll be chatting with amazing educators so we can learn their tips and strategies to make our own lessons even more enticing, effective, and fun!
Now on to the interview!
Lucy: Hi Keshia, when I think about teaching writing in French, you’re one of the first names that come to mind of teachers who love it! I know, of course, that teaching writing is important, but my first question is: why do you enjoy teaching writing so much?
Keshia: Hi Lucy, thanks so much for interviewing me! That’s a great question. I think I enjoy teaching writing so much because there are ways to include all students, regardless of their ability. There are countless opportunities for creativity and I love how their writing from the beginning of the year to the end of the year shows just how much they’ve grown as writers
L: At times, some students think they don’t like writing. As a second language, French can be particularly tricky because of spelling. How do we teach students to enjoy writing in French?
K: I recently switched to Grade 2 this year, and found many students at the beginning of the year telling me that they didn’t know French and didn’t know how to write in French, which wasn’t entirely true but it’s how they felt.
After nearly two years of learning through a pandemic, there naturally ended up being gaps in their learning, especially in their confidence.
Here are three of the things that have worked for me in getting my students writing more confidently:
- Have students use writing prompts. Having a prompt on the board or on anchor paper gives the students the initial encouragement to get the pencil to the paper. This could be starting simple with “Je vois _______” and “Il y a _______” and having them finish the sentence with words they already know, or our focus vocabulary for the week. Start small and then work your way up to more detailed sentences as they become more comfortable.
- Give them access to helpful resources. Giving the students visual dictionaries and word lists was a huge motivator for my Grade 2s this year. They are now starting to write more creative sentences because they no longer have to use just the vocabulary they know off the top of their head (which for some, is limited).
- Offer them frequent opportunities for “free writing”. Something new I started with my students this year was “free writing” on whiteboards. Of course, “free writing” is something I’ve always done, but taking away the paper/pencil step made it less stressful for the students because they knew they could just practice freely and erase it when they were done. Some of my students’ best writing has come out of these 10-15 minute daily sessions when transitioning from our morning routine. We’ve moved from writing those “Je vois” sentences to adding in more details and answering questions like “Qui? Quoi? Où? Avec qui?”
L: Are there any DON’Ts when it comes to teaching writing?
K: Don’t try to focus on/assess too many things at once.
When the kids get feedback on their writing and see ALL the mistakes they’ve made, it’s deeply discouraging.
So, focus on a couple things at a time – small attainable goals until they’re ready to move on.
I typically like to do this in a whole-group setting. We talk about it, I model it, and we do “shared” examples of what our end-goals should look like. Then, they set off to independently put it into practice. When I’m assessing their writing and providing feedback, I’m focusing solely on the skill we were practicing and not ALL the things they need to work on. If I notice that there are gaps in their learning, then that tells me that some students might need individual goals instead.
L: I agree 100% with not providing feedback on every single mistake all at once. If we did that, students wouldn’t even know where to begin correcting what they got wrong.
Now let me ask you: What’s your favourite writing skill/topic/theme to teach?
K: My love for teaching the different genres of writing runs deep, but I’d have to say Descriptive Writing is my favourite one to teach.
It focuses heavily on the use of adjectives to add rich detail to their sentences. I like to do a quick exercise with my students before we start, where I have them divide a page into four sections. I’ll read a sentence aloud and have them draw what I’ve said. Every square, I’ll add more adjectives and details to the same sentence so that their drawings become more detailed too. We then look at the first sentence and the last sentence and always collectively agree that the more detailed sentence is more interesting to read and of course, paints a nicer picture. I then have a variety of “go-to” writing projects that I do with the students to put adding details into practice.
If you’re looking to jump into Descriptive Writing with your own students, these FREE “animal idéal” writing templates might help get you started. This project is always a hit every year!
L: What are some simple ways to differentiate writing lessons?
K: Differentiating your writing lessons is SO important. The best way to do this is to offer different entry points for your students with where to start. At the beginning of the year, I had a handful of students who felt comfortable enough to write basic sentences, but also had students who needed some extra practice with sentence structure and understanding capitals and punctuation. I knew this would be the case moving into Grade 2 and worked hard over the summer to create templates that would reach all learners and also be progressive in that they’d master one and then work towards creating more same-topic sentences.
For my beginner writers, I’d have them unscramble sentences to focus solely on sentence structure. We talked about the first word having a capital and the last word being followed by a period. This helped them start to make sense of what a sentence should look like. We did multiple examples together before the students set off to do some “cut and paste” activities. If your students are ready for it, you can also talk about the subject and verb and their important roles within a sentence.
From here, we’d move towards writing our own sentences using an illustrated word bank. It was important to me that my students be able to write at least ONE sentence and write it well. I didn’t see the value in writing many sentences incorrectly so we wrote single sentences until they were ready to add in more. Many of my students who already had basic sentence writing skills had moved onto this stage without the cut & paste practice, and some were even ready for writing multiple sentences using an illustrated scene.
The ultimate goal is to have the students writing a couple same-topic sentences. Once they are, then the students are able to write at their own pace moving forward. For some, it’s writing 3 sentences, for others, it’s writing 5 sentences. You know your students best – it’s all about finding out what they can do and then meeting them where they’re at.
L: And I should have asked earlier, but what grade(s) have you taught?
K: The majority of my career has been spent teaching Grade 3 but I made the switch to Grade 2 this year and am loving it so far! At the beginning of my career, though, I also taught Grades 4 and 5 for a year. My heart is definitely in Primary French Immersion!
L: If you had to give just ONE piece of actionable advice regarding teaching writing in the French classroom, what would it be?
K: Use a writing task that can reach all of your learners at once. Nothing complicated with a long list of success criteria. Just good ol’ opportunities to get them thinking and writing in French.
One of my favourite (and oh, so simple) ways to get the students writing is by using illustrated scenes with familiar vocabulary (for example, a park scene with kids playing on a structure, running through the grass, etc.). I project the image onto the whiteboard and then as a class, we brainstorm the vocabulary that we see and I label the image with the words they come up with. This is important because the students will use the vocabulary to help them write. I also have the students practice answering in complete sentences. For early Primary, I recommend having them answer using a prompt that you give them: “Je vois un chien” and then you would label the dog on the image.
If you’re looking to differentiate, there’s a few different ways you can do this. For beginner writers, give them a simple prompt to copy down so that they can fill in the blanks with the vocabulary on the image (Je vois _________. Il y a ________). This still allows them to be part of the same writing process, but gives them a bit more confidence to get their ideas down on paper. You can also provide them with the verbs they’ll need to be able to write about the scene.
For more advanced writers, challenge them to use transition words between their ideas (aussi, de plus, etc.) and to add more details about what is going on in the scene beyond just the Qui? and Quoi?. I like to encourage them to talk about Avec qui? and Où?
Example: La fille est dans le bac à sable avec le bébé. Aussi, il y a un garçon qui joue au soccer avec son ami.
I absolutely encourage you to set goals with them and nudge them to work towards becoming stronger, independent writers but it’s important to build up their confidence so that constructive feedback doesn’t make them feel like all they’re doing is making mistakes.
The students will feed off your energy. Make writing in French a positive, exciting experience for them and praise them on what they’re doing right.
L: Thank you so much, Keshia, for sharing your knowledge and expertise about teaching writing in the French classroom!
If you’d like to learn more about Keshia and what she shares about teaching French, check out her blog La classe de Mme McIntosh and her TpT store. Also, make sure to stop by her Instagram account and let her know you’ve read and enjoyed this interview.
Thank you for reading!
Merci!
Lucy
Read: Teaching Students to Stretch Sentences
Read: Free Online Resources for French Teachers
