New worksheets for Discovering French Bleu

[mnodonne]

Dear fellow teachers of French: April 2009

How long have you been using Discovering French Bleu? I used DF Bleu seven years straight teaching 4 sections of French I ! I don’ know about you, but I find the workbook activities to be a bit on the easy side. Also, I find that they do not ask the students to practice all the concepts covered in the lessons.
I have tried using bits of other texts and methods, but this has always been frustrating. As you know, their vocabulary frequently does not match the grammar of our book and vice versa. Consequently, to supplement the workbook, I wrote and developed worksheets to encourage my students to use Higher Order Thinking Skills.

There are now over a hundred twenty worksheets covering lessons 1 through 32 Eruo edtion and/or Lesson 24 "Nouveau" edition. (There are 2 sets, each with the correct page, lesson and unit number.) I thought that you or you school might be interested in having a set. My worksheets, written with Microsoft Word, are on CD-ROM. They can be edited from year to year. I really enjoy personalizing the worksheets to fit the needs of the classes each year. This is great because I can update information to include new names of faculty, dates of vacations and other time relevant information. You can’t do that with an activity book.

For you to preview and use, I have posted eight randomly selected worksheets at Quia.com. If you would like to have a complete set of the worksheets, they can be in the mail by the end of the week. I will be glad to e-mail all the worksheets of a lesson of your choice as an additional sample.

To cover handling and mailing and the cost of the CD-ROM, a check for 25 dollars or 20 Euros would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

James M. O’Donnell
K-12 French / ESL

Currently French II, III, IV, V-AP Language in Belgium
23 years teaching and still going strong.

CMR 451
Box 87
APO, AE 09708
U.S.A.

Sample worksheets: http://ht<font color="Blue">tp://www.../page91</font>

please ---send your 4 as a start to tharris@lchsyes.org ---ty

Dear tharris@lchsyes.org

Your e-mail did not work. Please try it again or offer an alternative.

Deart James:

I can't say how much I am enjoying these activities. The systematic review and use of the text content are reallly asking my students to use their brains. They are worth every penny.

Thanks also for cluing me into Quia.

S.F.

These are the best worksheets that I have come across in a very long time. I hope that you will have an opportunity to create more in the very near future. I have sent my check for a set of worksheets and can hardly wait to receive them. I only have samples at present.

Keep up the good work. Your students are very fortunate to have you.

J.P.

[mnodonne]

Yes, you are so right.

The Discovering Worksheets written for the Euro and older versions have been reformated for DF Nouveau. All the page numbers, Lesson and Unit numbers have been retyped to coorelate to "Nouveau".

All the worksheets are written in MS Word 2003 and they can be edited.

Bien à vous

James
mnodonne@hotmail.com

[Mr. H]

The workbooks and worksheets are inane and insipid. The students complain about them constantly... I only assign them when I have a sub or just as review for tests. I like to give them projects that incorporate their new grammar and vocabulary. The worksheets and activities are a good starting point, but leave a lot to be desired. For students to actually learn anything we need to make the information practical. They need to be able to use it in real-world context... it needs to be personal for the students to care about learning it. I think the same could be said for most subjects.

[mnodonne]

Greetings to all readers:

Mr. H is not familiar with the Discovering Worsheets that I offer.

His opinion of the workbook is not too different from my own. As such, this is the reason I wrote over 120 assignments for French I using DF Bleu.

Student populations are very different from one part of the country to the next. Please read my initial posting on the suject or click on
http://www.quia.com/pages/jodonnell/page91 to view 8 sample worksheets. Users of the "Nouveau" edition will find a link to samples for this latest edition.

If you take time to read some of Mr. H's 200+ posts, you will notice that there a lot of frustration in his life centering around his work and students.

Amicalement,

James O'
French II, III, IV and AP Language

I also like to assign projects that incorporate vocab. and grammar, I also like to make my lessons relevant, content based, etc. 80% of the time is spent on that in my classes.
HOWEVER, before some students can do that, I think there is a phase where they need to directly practice what has been taught. Some students learning style (I'm thinking of left brain students) need this type of activity (worksheets) to feel safe and supported. Students with memory issues also benefit greatly from this type of practice. In my opinion, the methodologies to teach languages are as diverse as our students and should all be part of our teaching. I'm all for different types of approaches to be used at the same time.
In this perspective, THE WORKSHEETS IN QUESTION ARE WELL DESIGNED AND USEFUL, I've been wanting to order them for a while and keep being lazy about sending the check, but I'm definitely ordering them!
James, I believe yur worksheets have a purpose and are useful, even in a class that is based on the Standards. I will assign these as homework, some students will have more of them (in class also), some students less, it's called diferentiated instruction...
MC

In my opinion, even if these were the worst worksheets ever written, which they're clearly not, it is so rude and impolite to use words such as stupid to describe them. This is a teacher who is trying to do something extra to help his students and yours. If you don't like them, don't order them and keep your mouth shut!