Versatile Vocabulary in French
Kit Davies, Digital Design Creator
It is Friday morning, first lesson, and in Wing House, Year 9 are on their feet. There is a sea of iPads in the air, pointed at the board, racing to scan a QR code. The air is tense with competition and anticipation.
A QR (quick response) code is a type of barcode, which vaguely resembles a chessboard. The iPad can read the QR with an app and the camera, and reveal what is hidden inside. Head of Modern Foreign Languages, Ms Catriona Kyle is positioned by the board. She picks girls who have decoded the code to read aloud the hidden messages in French, pausing to query words and request synonyms.
The theme is set, the QR codes decode to vocabulary relating to media genres. Itâs straight to Google Drive, the cloud storage service we use to share files, to find a pre-prepared Explain Everything file. It takes just a moment for each of the girls to locate and download the file over wifi. All heads are down to match up the English and French phrases.
Explain Everything app is versatile, and what might otherwise have been a paper matching exercise across the desks is completed individually and digitally in two minutes by pressing and dragging vocabulary around the screen. Today Year 9 are just moving the shapes, but if they wanted to, they could record their thinking and movements within the app to replay and share.
Photo: Explain Everything matching activity on student iPads, and unsolved version Airplayed (broadcast) to the interactive whiteboard by Ms Kyle.
Following their iPad activity are rapid questions to check Year 9 have correctly matched their items. The girls try to predict which of the vocabulary set Ms Kyle is thinking about, speaking aloud their guesses in French. Her good humour keeps them trying, and there are plenty of raised hands offering to speak.
Now the girls have established the vocabulary, itâs time to explore it in more detail. With the interactive whiteboard, Ms Kyle illustrates suffixes, encouraging the girls to take notes in their exercise books. As a possible misconception about comics is discussed, I glance around the room to spot that some girls are using Google Translate to further explore the vocabulary and possible translations. It is instinctive to use all the tools at their disposal to discover, and embellish their written notes.
Not a moment has been wasted - weâre only fifteen minutes into the lesson. Following another round of questioning, itâs back to Explain Everything to finish the last slide in Explain Everything with a bit of pairs work under the watchful eye of Ms Kyle.
The girls appear excited by the pace. As the lesson continues, Year 9 switch attention back and forth between the iPad, their teacher and the board at the front. There is much opportunity to speak new vocabulary aloud, plenty of smiles and good humour. It is a supportive, happy atmosphere as Year 9 practise speaking and listening in pairs, referring to their iPads as needed for the vocabulary in Explain Everything.
Although the iPad is embedded in the lesson, it is just one resource the girls use to build up vocabulary knowledge. They close the iPads on request, and recite their vocabulary in unison, correcting their pronunciation collectively.
We are almost halfway through the lesson, so the girls turn their focus from speaking to reading and writing by using Quizlet. Quizlet is a fantastic site designed to help learn vocabulary, and Ms Kyle has combined this weekâs vocabulary on genres with the previous weekâs work on giving opinions.
The girls independently practise phrases on books and films, typing them into the iPad to answer questions Quizlet poses, matching translations. They continue to quietly read aloud the questions and their answers as they work. It is an industrious scene.
With twenty minutes to go, all iPads are closed again. Itâs time to demonstrate their new vocabulary in conjunction with last weekâs, speaking aloud phrases from the Quizlet. Ms Kyle encourages the girls to listen and critique each otherâs answers, and further illustrates important aspects such as correct apostrophe use.
Itâs a surprise for me to realise that the girls have been studying a vocabulary list for almost three quarters of an hour now, albeit combining it with knowledge from the previous lesson. Stranger still, Year 9 appear overjoyed to be presented with a test...
I soon understand why. As well as providing the girls with vocabulary lists, flashcards, and automatically generated practice quizzes for the girls to use to revise independently, Quizlet offers âQuizlet Liveâ. Ms Kyle sets up the test at the front, and the girls use their iPads to join and enter their name. Once everyone is connected, the girls are automatically grouped into teams of three or four, according to an animal. They shuffle themselves around in the room to sit together.
Once Quizlet Live begins, each girl in her team is presented with the same question and a bank of possible answers. Only one girl in her team has the correct answer, and they must work together to tap the right one.
Photo: student view of Quizlet live, the team clustered around the desk.
For each correct answer the team gets, they win a point, and the total increases on the board at the front of the classroom. They are racing each other in teams to achieve 12 points, and the pressure is on! Precision is key, as for each incorrect answer, the whole team loses all their points and they are back to the beginning. They have to work together, keep calm and know their vocabulary to be victors.
There is an urgent hubbub amongst the teams, high-fives at correct answers, gasps at sudden reconsiderations on the answers and cries of dismay at choosing a wrong answer, until finally a triumphant cheer from Team Bison, who are first to 12 consecutive correct answers.
Photo: Year 9 testing their vocabulary with Quizlet Live. Each teamâs score is updated live on the interactive whiteboard (IWB).
The girls are keen to try again, and thereâs just time to fit three rounds in, as each round is faster than before, the girls recalling more vocabulary without error. This is definitely a highlight in what was already an action-packed lesson.
With five minutes left of the lesson, Year 9 return to their places for their homework briefing. Ms Kyle leads them through some examples of written work shared with them on Google Drive, setting out how to challenge their writing skills for better marks.
An hour has flown by incredibly quickly, yet so much has been achieved. The pace is enabled by technology, allowing the girls to delve deeper into their language while keeping learning fun, energetic and captivating.
Merci beaucoup de m'avoir invité Year 9 and Ms Kyle!