How many times have you heard your students say: “Why learn French?”. As annoying as it can be, it is also a valid question that we need to help them answer. Why do they need to learn French? In a world where English is predominant in many areas, one can wonder what the benefits of learning French would be.
As teachers, it is our job to increase awareness about what speaking French can bring into their lives, inside and outside of the classroom, and to help them get a glimpse of the bigger world. It is easy to feel unmotivated if you don’t see how applicable the skill you’re learning is to real life. Because of that, I always want my kids to feel excited about French and curious about what incredible doors the language can open for them. I spend a lot of time emphasizing it during the first week of school It is, in my opinion, fundamental.
Why Learn French? Here’s why Students Should Learn a Second Language
First, I like to talk about languages in general. I find this video, “Why Students Should Learn a Second Language” to be a great starting point. We watch it together and then discuss what we have seen/learned. Click here to access the video
A few questions I usually ask my students include:
Who in this class speaks another language? You might be surprised by the answers that you get. It also allows you to know your students a little more. Connection is everything.
Are there people speaking other languages in our community? If yes, who and which languages?
Have you ever traveled to a country where they didn’t speak your language? If yes, tell us about your experience.
What did you learn in this video? What is one thing that struck you?
If your students are in high school, I highly recommend this TedTalk video. Linguist and Columbia professor John McWhorte shares 4 reasons to learn another language. It is a 10 minute video packed with great information. Professor McWhorte gives a fascinating perspective on why you should bother learning a foreign language when English is fast becoming the world's universal language.
Click here to access the video
Dive deeper into why students want to learn French
After the video, we spend most of our time working on various activities that I designed shop here in order to help students reach the following goals:
List the reasons for studying French that are important to me.
Identify many different reasons why French is important worldwide.
We start by reading 4 testimonies of students who are learning or want to learn French. Each testimony explores a different aspect of why that students wants to learn to speak French. Each testimony has corresponding questions that help guide class discussions.
TESTIMONIALS ABOUT WHY KIDS WANT TO LEARN FRENCH
Julianna wants to learn French because it’s her grandparent's native language and she wants to connect with them and her family history.
Example questions: What do you think of Julianna’s reason for learning French? Before taking lessons Julianna learned French by watching YouTube videos. What would be some other ways to do it? Julianna heard French for the first time when listening to music at her grandparents’ house. When was the first time you heard French?
Next, we search the internet to fill in the blank of a French-language infographic. Kids research answers to questions such as, how many people in the world speak French, how many countries have French as an official language, who speaks French in the European Union, and more. I like to keep one of these infographics on my classroom wall for students to reference throughout the year.
This research leads us to completing a true or false activity about the French-speaking world. It can be done individually or as a game where students compete to see which team gets the most correct answers.
Then I grab a bunch of colored pencils. We work on a map of where French is spoken. You can have individual maps or print a big one and do a group activity where students label the French-speaking countries of the world. Consider giving a different continent to each group.
To end the sessions, I ask each student why they want to learn French, what they have learned through this process, and what they are excited about it.
I hope these suggestions will help you start your beginner French students off on the right foot. These activities will help students build a strong foundation, practice speaking French, while also learning basics about the language that they may not know. If you’re interested in my first week of French pack of activities pictured above and mentioned through this blog post, click here. Get your students engaged from day one so that they never dare to ask why they need to learn French.