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Core French

Course Description

This course provides extensive opportunities for students to speak and interact in French independently. Students will develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, apply language learning strategies in a wide variety of real-life situations, and develop their creative and critical thinking skills through responding to and interacting with a variety of oral and written texts. They will also enrich their understanding and appreciation of diverse French-speaking communities, and will develop skills necessary for lifelong language learning.

Teaching & Learning Strategies

This French as a Second Language course has been designed to present French language structures in engaging communicative contexts (listening, reading, speaking and writing). Students are supported to practice these skills in a risk-free environment, and to build confidence, before any formal assessment occurs. The teacher of the course will support individual learners' needs by providing timely, detailed, clear, feedback.

Several different strategies such as;

Responding through appropriate body language and facial expression, modeling, repetition, peer coaching, teacher-students conference, note taking, hands on activities, sketching, using cue cards, application of flash cards, phonics.

  • Students will have the chance to reinforce their learning by engaging in small group classroom conversation, writing drills, work sheets (eg, mix and match, close sentences and comprehension questions) and interactive online exercises.

  • Students will respond to selected educational videos orally and in writing.

  • Students will be assisted through follow appropriate presentation skills (body language, facial expression, eye contact, potsherd, use of cue cards, responding to comments and questions while adhering to appropriate codes of conduct and respect.

  • Graphic Tools, brainstorming, mind map- T-chart, venn diagram.

Material, Texts, tools

Material

Books, newspapers, fiction and non-fiction

Tools, audio-visuals

CDs, films from several sources, online resources, props, white board, TV

Language of Instruction: French

Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting Strategies of Student Performance

Our theory of assessment and evaluation follows the Ministry of Education's Growing Success document, and it is our firm belief that doing so is in the best interests of students. We seek to design assessment in such a way as to make it possible to gather and show evidence of learning in a variety of ways to gradually release responsibility to the students, and to give multiple and varied opportunities to reflect on learning and receive detailed feedback.

Growing Success articulates the vision the Ministry has for the purpose and structure of assessment and evaluation techniques. There are seven fundamental principles that ensure best practices and procedures of assessment and evaluation by Dryk High School teachers. DHS assessments and evaluations,

  • are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;

  • support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French), and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;

  • are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;

  • are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the course and at other points throughout the school year or course;

  • are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;

  • provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement;

  • develop students’ self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

For a full explanation, please refer toGrowing Success.

Assessment for Learning - we provide feedback and coaching

Assessment FOR Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for the use of learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to go there.

Assessment as Learning - we help students monitor progress, set goals, reflect on their learning

Assessment AS Learning is the process of the explicit fostering of students’ capacity over time to be their own best assessors, but teachers need to start by presenting and modelling external, structured opportunities for students to assess themselves.

Assessment of Learning – we use assessments as ways of providing evaluative statements about the level of achievement of students

Assessment OF Learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements of symbols (marks/grades/levels of achievement) about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ future.

Grading

  • The final grade is based on performance in 3 areas: products, observations, conversations.

  • 70% of the grade is based on evaluations conducted throughout the course.

  • 30% is based on a final evaluation.

The Final Grade

The evaluation for this course is based on the student's achievement of curriculum expectations and the demonstrated skills required for effective learning. The final percentage grade represents the quality of the student's overall achievement of the expectations for the course and reflects the corresponding level of achievement as described in the achievement chart for the discipline. A credit is granted and recorded for this course if the student's grade is 50% or higher. The final grade will be determined as follows:

  • 70% of the grade will be based upon evaluations conducted throughout the course. This portion of the grade will reflect the student's most consistent level of achievement throughout the course, although special consideration will be given to more recent evidence of achievement.

  • 30% of the grade will be based on final evaluations administered at the end of the course. The final assessment may be a final exam, a final project, or a combination of both an exam and a project.

The Report Card

Student achievement will be communicated formally to students via an official report card. Report cards are issued at the midterm point in the course, as well as upon completion of the course. Each report card will focus on two distinct, but related aspects of student achievement. First, the achievement of curriculum expectations is reported as a percentage grade. Additionally, the course median is reported as a percentage. The teacher will also provide written comments concerning the student's strengths, areas for improvement, and next steps. Second, the learning skills are reported as a letter grade, representing one of four levels of accomplishment. The report card also indicates whether an OSSD credit has been earned. Upon completion of a course, DHS will send a copy of the report card back to the student's home school (if in Ontario) where the course will be added to the ongoing list of courses on the student's Ontario Student Transcript. The report card will also be sent to the student's home address.

Program Planning Considerations

Teachers who are planning a program in this subject will make an effort to take into account considerations for program planning that align with the Ontario Ministry of Education policy and initiatives in a number of important areas.

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