Using iPad to Support Oral Language Development in FSL
Presented at SD38 SummerTech Conference, August 2016
By Sarah Beairsto
iPads are an excellent tech tool to support your student’s oral language development in Core
French. Using an iPad allows students to use oral language in a low risk environment because it
allows for a more private sharing of their skills, but also because it allows them to create, listen
to (self evaluate), edit, share (peer evaluation), re-edit, reflect and present in one place. Using an
iPad also allows students easy access to language support materials (i.e. online dictionaries,
YouTube videos for language modeling etc.) so it reduces the need for hard copy FSL resources in
the classroom as well as the need for the teacher to act as language “expert” all the time.
What follows are a few examples of activities that I have used (mostly) successfully in my
classroom. These are just a beginning to get you going because I’m confident that once you start
experimenting with using iPad as a oral language support tool you will come up with some far
more creative and fun activities of your own that I hope you will share with your colleagues (and
me!).
Activating Activities
Kahoot – Kahoot is a website that allows you to create interactive quiz games on a topic of your
choice. Students do not need an account to participate in a Kahoot, they simply go to the website
and enter the code you give them. Kahoot allows students to collaborate as a group and answer
on one iPad or to work on their own. Kahoot also allows the teacher to see individual student
results for a quick and easy formative assessment. There are also literally thousands of premade kahoots on their website which are created by other teachers (you can limit your search to
kahoots made by teachers only) which you can use if you don’t have time to make your own.
Partner Partager – Partager means “to share” in French. Once a term (or once a month if you
want to change it up more frequently) I organize students into partners who will be their partner
for partner partager that term. I also assign each pair an iPad(s) so they can continue to work
from one class to the next. I generally do a partner partager once a week. At the end of class I
pose a simple question related to the thematic area we are covering at the time, such as “Quel est
ton sport favorit? Pourquoi?” I give the partners 5 minutes at the end of class to create a visual
support for someone to answer the question. The visual support could be pictures, sentence
starters, single words etc. At the beginning of the next class I hand out iPads randomly and
another pair of partners answers the question orally using the visual created by the other
partership as a support. If you have enough iPads each student could make their own visual and
answer their partner’s question.
An app I have found useful for this activity is: 30 Hands, Doceri, Audioboo, Tellagami
Single Lesson Activities
Question Safari - In Question Safari students are given a URL from which to download a common
picture (or I download it to the iPad before class). Pairs of students work together for about 15
to 20 minutes to look closely at the picture and record themselves posing a certain number of
questions (I usually ask for 4-6). Depending on the level of the students you could differentiate
the types of questions you expect accordingly allowing for single word answers, phrases or more
complex sentences and beyond. Once this is complete the students swap iPads with another
partnership and record themselves answering the questions. Finally, the iPads are switched
back to the original pairs and the students listen to their peer’s response and complete a short
peer feedback.
Some apps I have found useful for this activity are: Explain Everything, Doceri, 30 Hands
Sample Feedback Sheet for Question Safari
Always
Mostly
Sometimes
I could understand what the speaker was
saying…
To the best of my knowledge the speaker
used accurate French vocabulary…
Premièrement, Ensuite et Fin – For this activity students collaborate with a variety of classmates
to create a petit l’histoire (short story). To start each student (or pair if you don’t have enough
iPads) records the opening to a story (I always provide sentence starters and frames to support
this) and creates a visual for their opening. Then students exchange iPads with a friend who
records the middle and makes a visual. iPads are then exchanged a third time and another
student creates the ending and a visual. Finally, a fourth student (or set of students) listens to
the entire story and creates a picture (by hand or on an iPad) and chooses one word to support
the image and summarize the story. The picture and word summary are then shared with the
class. For beginning students the picture and word summary could be in English and for more
advanced students it could become a full French sentence or phrase as the summary.
Some apps I have found useful for this activity are: Shadow Puppet, Doceri, Book Creator,
Educreations
Pic Collage – Creating collages is a great way for students to practice their vocabulary, especially
for beginner French students. In this activity students work on their own or in pairs to create a
collage of vocabulary and images covering a certain topic (i.e. activities the student enjoys
participating in) once completed students leave their iPads on their desk and mingle around the
room as the teacher plays music. When the music stops students stop beside the ipad they are
closest too (similar to musical chairs, but hopefully without the chaos). The teacher then calls
out an iPad number (assuming of course that your iPads are numbered) and a question. The
student with that iPad looks at the collage in front of them and answers the questions. I then
often let that student choose another iPad number and pose a question to that person (or the
same question if they can’t generate a question on their own.) For students less comfortable
speaking in front of others this can be adapted so that the teacher asks all the questions and all
students in the class answer each time by doing something non verbal such as raising hands,
putting thumbs up or down etc.
Some apps I have found useful for this activity are: Pic Collage
Jeopardy Question Creator – Jeopardy style games have long been a popular activity in my
French classroom, the problem is not everyone is involved. In this activity students prepared
and record (either visual and orally or just orally) themselves giving Jeopardy responses on
various topics. Students can then use these questions to play Jeopardy in small groups or as a
whole class. There is some prep work involved with this activity if the entire class is to be
involved as the teacher needs to collate the responses onto one iPad so they can be played easily
when requied. However, once on the Ipad responses can always be used from year to year or
class to class, which has proven quite comical at times!
Some apps I have found useful for this activity are: None! Just use the built in video recording
capability of the iPad.
Multi Lesson Activities
Narrated Graphic Video – Narrated videos can take many forms, so be creative! What follows are
a few ideas that have worked in my classroom. Students can film live videos of themselves or use
visual supports such as stop motion animation, clip art and photos to enhance their oral
presentation. To make these particularly effective and to help develop the student’s oral
language skills it is important to build in peer and teacher feedback throughout the process so
that grammatical or pronunciation issues can be identified and corrected wherever possible.
C’est Moi: Students create a short video introducing themselves. They can be asked to
describe their physical appearance, introduce their family, talk about likes and dislikes
etc.
Allo?: Students work with a partner to record a short video (or just audio) of a phone
conversation. I generally task the students with asking a few simple questions on the
“call” to gather information such as the opening and closing time of a restaurant, the price
of tickets to an event etc.
MasterChef: Students work with a partner or in a group of three to record their own
cooking show where the present and cook a simple French recipe. They can get really
creative with this and use iMovie to make a trailer or add titles and animation to their
movie if they so wish.
Mon Ècole Extraordinaire: See sample on following pages.
Some apps I have found useful for this activity are: Shadow Puppet, Sock Puppets, PixnTell
Splice, Doceri, iMovie
Mon Ècole Extraordinaire…
The school district needs to build a new elementary school and they want your help! Your task is
to work with a partner to create a 2-4 minute presentation that showcases how your ideal school
would be designed. Try to be as creative as possible, but also realistic. Both partners should
have relatively equal speaking parts in the presentation.
You may use any app available on the school iPads that you feel will help you complete the task
to the best of your ability. You may access language support any way you want – from the
internet, a dictionary, the teacher, by talking to friends and possibly by looking back in your
French duotang. However, all work is to be completed during class time and you may not use a
translation service (such as Google Translate). Remember, everyone is just beginning to learn
French so I don’t expect you to be fluent, but I do expect you to use the vocabulary and sentence
structures that you know accurately and creatively. Most of all I expect you to challenge yourself
and HAVE FUN!
Day One
Select your partner, brainstorm ideas, ask questions and get clarification from the teacher.
Day Two, Three and Four
Work on the presentation with your partner. At the end of each class you will be asked to
complete an individual reflection.
Day Five
Peer feedback day. Your presentation should be mostly completed by this day. Today another
group will watch your presentation and provide feedback to you.
Day Six
Reflect on your peer feedback and make changes to your presentation as necessary.
Day Seven and Eight
Presentations. Your group will present your ideal school to the class. You will also be
responsible for providing peer feedback from one other group’s presentation.
Day Nine
Today will receive written feedback from your peer reviewer and the teacher. You will use this
feedback to help you reflect on the project and set a goal for our next French unit.
Mon Ècole Extraordinaire
Group Members: ____________________________________, ____________________________________,
How did you decide to become partners? What, if any, evidence do you have that you will work
successfully together on this project?
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A few ideas from our initial brainstorm about our ideal school…
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Questions we have…
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Mon Ècole Extraordinaire – Individual Reflections
Day Two
Nom _______________________________________
Aujourd’hui c’est __________________________________________
Briefly describe what your group accomplished during today’s class. ________________________________
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My individual goal for next class is _______________________________________________________________________
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My group goal for next class is ____________________________________________________________________________
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Day Three
Nom _______________________________________
Aujourd’hui c’est __________________________________________
Did you achieve your individual and group goals for today’s class? How do you know? ____________
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My individual goal for next class is _______________________________________________________________________
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My group goal for next class is ____________________________________________________________________________
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Day Four
Nom _______________________________________
Aujourd’hui c’est __________________________________________
Did you achieve your individual and group goals for today’s class? How do you know? ____________
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My individual goal for next class is _______________________________________________________________________
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My group goal for next class is ____________________________________________________________________________
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Mon Ècole Extraordinaire – Peer Feedback
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Reviewers: ______________________________________ et ______________________________________
Sentence Starters and Extenders
Dans mon ecole extraodinaire il y a…
Dans mon ecole extraodinaire il n’y a pas
J’aime…
Je n’aime pas…
Parce que…
Mais…
Vocabulary
I have a great visual dictionary for this unit, but I couldn’t import it into the handout. If you
would like a copy I am happy to send it via interoffice mail to your school, just email via Richnet.