If you have been following the series of articles about assessing French language competencies then you have made it all the way to the last one! And I’m not going to lie, this is my favourite one! I love teaching French grammar!
I honestly don’t know why because as a student French grammar was one of the subjects that I struggled with the most. As a teacher, I feel as if my experience learning French has helped me better understand what my students need and what they are struggling with and because of this I actually like assessing French grammar.
You may be thinking, “I already know how to assess grammar”, but please give me a chance. Most of our students don’t like working on their grammar so we have to be creative in the ways that we practice and assess French grammar in our classrooms so that our students are encouraged to improve their writing and speaking.
This is 100% my wheelhouse (I am currently running PD for my board on this), give me a chance. If you come out of this with one or two new activities that you can do for assessing or practicing French grammar then it was totally worth it.
I’m going to go over 5 activities for assessing French grammar and if you would like more please register for the mailing list here and you will get a document with 15 more activities that you can do and it will go directly into your inbox:
** Disclaimer – These activities have mostly been mentioned in other blog posts for other competencies but when you add a grammatical component you are getting “more bang for your buck”!
Let’s get started!
Histoire courte
Asking your students to write a short story (1-2 pages) is a great way to assess any grammatical concept. Either allow the students to choose their topic, or provide them with options that easily allow them to use the concept.
You can assess them on their content and development of the story, as well as the grammatical concept you are looking at assessing. Sometimes we think that we need to correct every single error when our students write stories, but if we focus on 1-2 concepts, it is way easier on us, and the feedback is more effective for the students as well.
Mini-sketch
My younger (Gr 5-7) students LOVE doing plays. Do we do them all the time? Nope..they are very time consuming. Also, unpopular opinion = Students writing a script and memorizing it IS NOT a speaking assessment. I know, I know, there may be a time or a place, but for me I don’t see it in French Immersion. BUT, having kids write a script and perform a play allows for a great writing assessment in regards to content, structure, and grammar. And the kids LOVE it!
Recette
If a student doesn’t take a “Foods/Cooking” option, are they ever taught how to read a recipe? This is a basic skill that our students need and a great opportunity to tackle multiple language competencies. Teaching your kiddos to read a recipe introduces them to the structure of the recipe as well as the verb tense used. You can work on reading comprehension, writing structure, and verb conjugations all while teaching a basic life skill.
Jeux d’improvisation
Balancing your French grammar assessments between written and spoken is imperative. And, who doesn’t love improvisation games!? THIS is my favourite way to authentically assess students’ verbal ability to use proper grammatical concepts. There are tons of different types of games that you can play. This can be a whole period or 10mins every couple of days, you pick. If you have no idea what kind of games you could play, check out this post about large group games.
Planifier un voyage
I do this project with my Gr 8 students every year and they EAT THIS UP! Asking the students to plan a vacation (I have them plan one for me) and write up a trip plan. I have my students ask me questions that I can answer by yes/no to help them make decisions. The final product is a trip plan and itinerary written in the future tense. You can assess research, speaking, writing structure, and grammar. We have so much fun and I choose the Top 3 Vacations that I would actually like to take.
If you would like to see more ways that you can incorporate grammar into your everyday activities, sign-up here to receive 15 more activity ideas:
This is the last post about assessing French language competencies. If you missed any of the posts, you can check them out here:
Assessing French Verbal Production
Assessing French Verbal Comprehension
Assessing French Reading Comprehension
Assessing French Writing – Content
I hope this has been helpful and inspired you to try out some new activities in the classroom.
Let’s have fun with our kiddos!
One comment