Imagine you are in a French speaking country this week, somewhere that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  It’s an American holiday, after all, so you wouldn’t expect other countries to celebrate.  Woud you miss celebrating Thanksgiving?  If so, what would you miss most of all?

Welcome, new 6th grade students!  This week, all 6th grade students who have been taking Spanish are now switching to French.  Do you have any words of advice for them?

If you had unlimited funds and could go to any francophone place in the world, what is the first place you would visit?  Why?

Ok, now that we know why so many of you like French, what is your most FAVORITE part of learning French?  Is there something special we do in class that you love?  Were you excited the first time you could say something you always wanted to know how to say?  Do you get excited when you see something new in French and you can actually understand some of it?

THe time is already near when students in 6th grade will be switching languages.  So, whatever they have done in one language will now be pretty much repeated in the other language.  Then in January, everyone in 6th grade has a chance to decide if they want to take French or Spanish for the rest of their time in middle school.

Many of my 6th grade students have already declared “I’m taking French!”  or “I’m definitely taking Spanish” though they haven’t taken Spanish yet.   Let’s wait until you’ve had a full experience in Spanish before you decide for sure.

For my 7th and 8th grade students, and those of you who aren’t my students but love French, what are some of the reasons you take French?

I just learned about a really cool site where you can record yourself speaking French and then I can hear it !  I created just one example so go try it http://lingtlanguage.com/frenchymms  Make sure you submit it at the end- you don’t have to have an email address.  Just use your first name and that should be fine.  For this one, you can have extra credit but eventually, you will have to do this kind of thing as an assignment!

We’re about to create our first video to share with our French friends in Mme. Kolendo’s class in France!  In 7th grade, we are working on schedules, favorite classes, etc. and that is the same thing she is working on with her students in English!  She’s going to have her students make a video to send to us and we’re going to work on one for them!  Let’s see how much French you can speak! Have you checked out her blogs in my blogroll?  Look on the right side, toward the bottom.

6th grade- we’ll work on something later in the year, when the students who have chosen French are with me for good in terms 3 and 4.

8th grade- we’re working on something for you too!

Can anyone tell us the name of this place in  Paris?  Can you tell us about it?

Les Francais have no problem driving tiny cars.  Here in America, when the Mini came back and the new Smartcars were introduced, some people thought they were way too small and dangerous.  In France, most cars are small like this.   This picture is of an old car in France, but many are this size.   Since large cars are not all that common, it’s not so dangerous to drive a smaller car because you probably aren’t likely to hit a large truck or car.  Why do you think the French drive smaller cars?