Post 311: Yvonne Teaching Face to Face French

I started teaching face to face French at UCLA while I was still studying for my graduate exams for my PHD in French.

I was a TA for the French UCLA Beginning French class. At the time, Madame Hamel Bacash was the head of the department.  At 8AM, all the novice TA's like me would watch how the senior TA taught the class for that day, then we would teach the later 9AM-3PM classes in exactly the same manner using the same examples the senior TA used.

We would watch the Senior TA teach for two semesters--one semester of French I and one semester of French II. Afterwards, we would teach the French sections on our own. I loved being a French TA because I got to know my UCLA students, and my French TAship helped pay for my books and my tuition.

In Madame Hamel Bacash's  French textbook, she believed in teaching French using The Natural Approach and using TTP (Total Physical Response).

In other words, you teach students in the target language right from the very first day of class with no translation into the native language.

The advantage of using The Natural Approach is so students connects the meaning of the word directly to the target language without translating into English first.

When students learn using the Grammar Translation method where French vocabulary is learned by translating them into English, when American students attempt to speak French, they have to stop in the middle of their conversation to find the English translation of the word and then find that French word in their head.

Teachers use visuals, blackboard prompts, common cognates, brand name words, and TTP gesturing (Charades) to have students understand the French the teacher is speaking without saying one word of English.

When I was teaching pronouns for instance, I would point to myself and say, Je m'appelle Prof. Ho. And then point to a  female student and say, "Elle s'appelle Jane." then point to a male student and say "Il s'appelle Steve." Then once students understand my French through context, I would reinforce this new comprehensible input (student exposure to French) by pointing to other students and referring to Jane, "Comment elle s'appelle?" and if the students had been listening, then they would know the answer is "Elle s'appelle Jane, and then pointing to Steve, I would ask another student, "Comment s'appelle-t-il? and get the correct response from students.

By using a lot of gesturing, pictures etc...I am able to teach entirely in French from the very first day of class.

It takes a lot of practice to teach using The Natural Method and the teacher has to be really good at charades.  I remember spending a lot of time cutting pictures out of magazines of common household objects, or trying to find action pictures so I could point to the picture of a boy drinking orange juice and say in French, "Le garcon boit du jus d'orange."

Students learn the French grammar by being exposed to the French structures in the course of conversation just like when little kids pick up their first language by listening to their parents and learning their parent's grammar structure.

When teaching grammar, I would put up a bunch of sentences on the board and have students extrapolate from the sentences on the board, what grammar rule I am trying to teach that day. In that way, students construct their own knowledge rather than the teacher giving a boring grammar lecture.

le garcon
le stylo
le chien

la femme
la table
la nationalite

les femmes
les tables
les nationalites

les garcons
les stylos
les chiens

In French, there are feminine nouns (la) and masculine nouns (le). I put up a bunch of French nouns, each with the correct masculine and feminine definite articles (le, la, les, l'). Then I ask students "What kind of nouns take a 'le' masculine noun?"  and "What kind of nouns take 'la' the feminine noun?" in French.

Students are then able to see the spelling pattern that French nouns that end in a consonant generally take the masculine 'le' while French nouns that end in vowels generally take the feminine noun 'la'. Students understand 'les' to be used for plural from the spelling in these sentences.  This is how the grammar is taught in the French textbook.

It is this method that allows students to be totally immersed in the target language for them to more quickly learn the target language.

In my future post, I will show you how Rosetta Stone, a popular online FL program uses this same method to teach students the target language without translation into English. Students listen and receive comprehensible input and learn French naturally, hence the name, The Natural Method.  The Natural Method has many names, The Communicative Approach, Communicative Competence, and Rosetta Stone calls it Dynamic Immersion Method.  I will introduce you to how I teach French online using the popular Rosetta Stone program.

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