La technologie en action – Branchons-nous sur la technologie!

It may sound like a cliché, but technology is all around us . We find it in our homes, vehicles, workplaces,  and schools and use it to ensure convenience and comfort .Les Technologies  d’information et de communication  (TICs) can be useful tools to help teachers of French as a second language and their students meet the main objective of the program: communication, oral and written .

“Comment dit-on?”

Technology has its own vocabulary, which is not always part of everyday life situations. The following non-exhaustive French list of technological hardware and peripherals could be useful for teachers and students:

Le micro-ordinateur de bureau: le clavier, l’écran, le moniteur, la souris, le boîtier tour, les enceintes acoustique.

L’ordinateur portable : le clavier, le lecteur de CD ou de DVD, l’écran ACL, la fente pour carte PC, la fente pour carte mémoire, la clé USB
Le vidéoprojecteur, l’écran de projection, la télé- commande¹

What about vocabulary related to communication, an important part of the TICs?

• educational blog – le blogue éducatif, le cyber- carnet éducatif
• podcast – le balado
• podcasting – la baladodiffusion
• surf the Web – naviguer dans Internet
• webcast –la webémission²

Les TICs dans la classe de français

As any teacher of French knows, it is of the utmost importance to plan according to the curriculum and the needs of students in a particular class. Here is an example how a video podcast could be used in the classroom, to reinforce a theme.

Saviez-vous  que…?

Grade: Intermediate level (grades 7 and 8)

Program: French as a Second Language – Core, Extended, or Immersion

theme: Famous Canadians

Activity: Un roman – Dans la maison d’Anne … aux pignons verts!

Curriculum overall expectation: Grade 8 – French as a Second Language

Core: Listen to and talk about simple oral texts in structured and open-ended situations

Immersion: Listen and respond to a wide range of spoken texts and media works ³

Une mise en situation possible…

1. Following the study of a unit on famous Canadians, ask students to create groups of two, select a topic of interest, and seek some relevant and unique information on that topic. For example: What house in Canada is visited by the most people?
2. Ask students to integrate technology as an element of their presentation.
3. The website archives.radio-canada.ca is a useful source of pertinent and reliable information about Canadian culture. It provides webcasts and podcasts of its radio and TV broadcasts about famous Canadians.

Note: Teachers can subscribe to the weekly Cyberlettre des Archives de Radio-Canada or the Cyberlettre pour les profs by accessing the website radio-canada.ca/jeunesse/pourlesprofs.  These free resources will prove very useful for you and your students.

Teachers who want their students to make fuller use of technology can create a podcast for other students to learn from. This activity can also be used as a means of sharing information with another class elsewhere in the province or in Canada. It becomes a virtual student exchange between two schools or two communities (See page 25).

Une rencontre visuelle et virtuelle

Grade: Junior or Intermediate level

Program: French as a Second Language – Core, Extended, or Immersion Social Studies, History or Geography

Curriculum overall expectation: Grade 5 – Social Studies

Use media works, oral presentations, written notes and descriptions, drawings, and tables to present information about processes or sequences of events⁴

Les étapes à suivre

1. Find a class elsewhere in Canada to twin with your class. You can ask the Société éducative des visites et échanges au Canada/Society for Education Visits and Exchanges in Canada (SEVEC) sevec.ca to help you find such a twin.
2. Students videotape a conversation or a brief message to be sent to their twin class. Trans- mission will be faster and easier if a digital video camera is used. You may also need to obtain permission from parents or guardians to film their children.
3. The initial message may be a presentation of participants. The followup message should address the content as set out in the curricu- lum expectations.
4. There are many possible topics. One sugges- tion is to choose a celebration and describe how it is observed in your family, your school, and your community.
5. These virtual visits could lead to an actual visit between the two classes – what an enriching experience for both groups of students!

La technologie – mon alliée!
The website radio-canada.ca/jeunesse/pourlesprofs provides reliable information for students to use as they research and produce a final task to demonstrate their learning.

Technology  will  never  replace  an  eloquent, friendly, smiling, inviting, and devoted French teacher. Instead,  let’s use this tool and make it our ally and meet the needs of all our students. Que la techno soit votre meilleure alliée!

Notes 

_{1.  Le français au bureau,  Sixième édition. Ste-Foy:  Les publications du Québec, 2005.
2.  Office québecois de la langue française – oqlf.gouv.qc.ca.
3.  Ontario Ministry  of Education, The Ontario Curriculum,  French as a Second Language: Core French, Grades 4-8,  1998.
4.  Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum, Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8, Revised.}