Here is a snippet of a review I did with my seniors from a unit we are doing on other native languages among Black francophone peoples.
I absolutely loved putting this unit together. We've had a lot of fun coming up with different mini-stories and such. We watched some videos of a Congolese woman teaching basic Swahili expressions in French. We toured some dope places via the interwebs. It has been a blast.
It is worth noting also that this is a group of students who have historically struggled tremendously with French. Recording and then going back and re-watching this video is a good reminder for me of just how far they've come. I have quite a few students here with unique learning styles and challenges, so to get them following along with a discussion of this depth is a huge win, especially when I consider where they were when I met them last year. They are a little less prepared than other classes to respond in complete sentences and series of sentences, particularly in a more fact-based discussion like this (as opposed to when we come up with stories), but a decent amount of that has to do with today being a drab, freezing cold Monday in February, to be honest.
Much of what they were being asked to recall came from what I've been calling Map Talks, which are a really big part of the curriculum that I've written. I've come to realize that, even among the average adult, one CANNOT take for granted that people have a decent sense of geography. So, anti-racism work aside, the very fact that they are learning geography and anthropology is what lends to the cross-curricular sort of learning that I have always aimed to do in my classroom. Among the greatest pieces of feedback that I have received this year especially have been the times that students tell me about how they used some information that they learned in French class in another content area class.
Anyway, thanks again for reading and watching! Please feel free to drop a comment, or (if you feel so inclined), share with your colleagues.