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Extended French

By Heidi Blokland

In September our Grade 5 students arrived at school ready to meet their new teacher and begin a new challenge in their learning journey. With a few nervous butterflies they entered their classroom where they would spend the first 100 minutes of each day talking and learning in French.

Madame Sarah Tripp is the teacher of our Extended French program for the students in Grade 5 and 6. The students spend 1/3 of their day immersed in French. They have devotions and memorize scripture in French. They have conversations about relevant topics in French. They do engaging projects in French.

And now, six months later, you may be wondering how things are going. We were wondering too, so we asked Andre Charlebois, our Extended French trainer and mentor, to come in and meet with our students. He had initially met them in September, having a brief conversation with them in French to see what level they were at.

After meeting with the students now in February, his first observation was that the conversations were longer – the students were able to sustain a longer conversation in French. Each and every student had improved!

Do you want to hear it for yourself? Listen to this conversation the students are having about different foods that they like to eat.

And then we asked the students what they think about the program and how it is helping them to learn French.

This is what they said:

  • We like the projects. They are fun to do and keep us excited to learn French.
  • It is good to learn memory verses in French.
  • The program has more talking and less writing.
  • It helps us to learn French because it is all in French. If we don’t understand something Madame Tripp does not say it to us in English, but she keeps explaining it in French using different words to help us understand.
  • We like that we get to spend more time in French. We get to experience more in French.

Are you interested in knowing more about our Extended French program?

Contact the school to arrange for a visit. Our students would love to meet you and tell you about the joy they have found in learning French this year.