Early Reflections during my Certification

Testing the waters!

Very cool and interesting professional development opportunity here. Just did the first test and failed miserably. Wow and I thought I knew lots about the AIM program. Guess I need to go back to school!

Pared Down Language Module

I spent some time last night looking at the first module (Pared down language) and watched the video with Wendy. It was so informative and I was very impressed with the thoroughness of the information provided. I want to go back and take some notes, so I'll be doing that before I move on. She provided a lot of information that I found very interesting and that was not fully detailed in the teacher's manuals, so it was very useful. 

What makes AIM accelerated.
Content:

The goal of a Core Program is to teach the basics of the language. Each year the learning is a continuation of what was learned the previous year. Students will have a basic knowledge of the language but not necessarily a functional knowledge. They may be able to recognize and understand basic vocabulary and small written texts at a given time but for many the retention of knowledge is lacking, and for many good reasons.

Core french programs over the past 30 years have focused on grammar as the learning goal and teaching language using grammar as the basis is useless. I like to use a holistic approach to teaching and learning French. It is like driving a car. I know how to drive a car but I do not necessarily know what makes it work. So I learn how to do it and then I start to learn what makes it work. I believe that learning a language is no different. I like to go from the whole to the parts and not the other way around. Students need to learn how to use the language before they learn how to put it together grammatically. I teach grade 1 immersion now and the entire focus of the first term was oral language. Second term we focused on reading and now we are focusing on writing skills. Students cannot read and write it if it does not sound right or resonate correctly in the ears. For core or immersion, students need to learn how to speak before they learn anything else. The development of receptive and expressive language orally is much more important at first than reading and writing. Also, if you can provided activities and strategies that help your students remember, such as using songs and plays, then the students will learn more rapidly and retention will be better than with pencil and paper activities. What is the definition of proficiency? i know that after 100 hours of instruction, my students can understand everything I say in French in the classroom, they can ask me simple functional questions and they can answer my questions correctly. They can read specific texts and they can write by copying. They can write independently after significant modelling and practice. Is this proficient? It is good and amazing to see and the students know so much but is it proficient? Depends on the definition. Many of my core students were as fluent as my grade 1 students after a few years of instruction. This would not have been possible without AIM. To facilitate fluency, the students have to be talking all the time. they have to produce the sounds and make the words and practice that over and over until it becomes second nature. They have to use functional language, everyday language and not selected word lists. They have to use high frequency words found in oral language and then high frequency words found in written language, because they are different. We do not speak the way we read and write. The language is different.