Classroom observation: Junior High (eek!) French

Wow, junior high is . . . busy.  Today I sat through four French classes at Stillwater Junior High.  The system is set up like this: 7^th graders choose a language and take it every other day.  8^th graders continue in that language and they take it every day for one semester.  9^th graders take the language class every day for both semesters.  The system is set up to make the public school more competitive, because then it can claim that language starts in 7^th grade, but to me it seems like a system that makes it harder for the students to learn the language.  First of all, there is less exploratory time, second of all, because of the one eighth grade semester; some kids can go 9 months without having a French class, and then have to integrate into a class where some students only went 3 months.  It requires a lot of review time.  Also, because of the different timing for each grade, the classroom is not a multi-grade environment and a student cannot get into a language after 7^th grade.

The thought that hit me hardest was: wow, there’s hardly any time.  You get the kids, have them for about an hour, and they’re gone again.  It’s really important to maximize every moment you have with your students.  Also, with 7^th graders, you’re dealing with the transition into junior high.  The 7^th graders had their first test today and one girl cried the whole period because she didn’t know a couple of the answers.

It seemed like the junior high students were going through their second round of being a toddler.  They definitely like to explore boundaries and it becomes really evident in a language classroom because the most popular answers to every question were, “Non, je deteste!” or, “Non, pas de question!” (I hate! Non, out of the question!)  Not because they actually hated hockey, but because they loved being able to say that they hated it.  In each class there was at least one wanderer – a kid who didn’t feel bound to their desk or what was being studied, he or she would spend the class time exploring the room or getting supplies to make pictures for the wall.  What seemed to be the most important for these kids was to see how much physical contact they could have with the other sex during the classroom.

I asked the French teacher about how she felt about straying from the book a little bit.  She said that when she became a French teacher she initially had all of these aspirations to integrate culture and diverse learning activities into her classroom, but the reality of teaching for her seems to be getting by with the time she has with her students.  She doesn’t feel she has enough class time or outside of class time for the cultural activities – what’s most important is that her students are prepared with the vocabulary and grammar they need to succeed at the high school level.