CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING IN THE FRENCH CLASSROOM

WHAKATAUKI

Nau te rourou, naku te rourou ka ora te iwi.

Le travail d’équipe est essentiel. En cas d’erreur, il permet d’accuser quelqu’un d’autre.

1. What do you understand by cooperative learning?

2. How can cooperative learning support your students in becoming more effective communicators in French?

THINK PIGSF

• Positive interdependence• Individual accountability• Group reflection• Social skills• Face-to-face interactions

Positive interdependence

All for one, one for all

Students succeed together or fail together

Inclusion The curriculum is non-sexist, non-racist, and non-discriminatory; it ensures that students’ identities, languages, abilities, and talents are recognised and affirmed and that their learning needs are addressed. (NZ curriculum principles)

Individual accountability

Each member is responsible for:•Achieving the group goal•Their own learning•The learning of everyone in the group

How can the teacher ensure individual accountability?

• Individuals or groups know they can be asked to explain, clarify, and report to the teacher, other groups, or the class at any time.

Group reflection

• Reflecting• Evaluating• Goal setting

Academic AND socialLearning to learnThe curriculum encourages all students to reflect

on their own learning processes and to learn how to learn. (NZ curriculum)

Social skills

Face-to-face interactions

• Maximise talking time• Develop communication skills• Maori-preferred practice (Bishop and co)Collaborating and co-constructing – ka hikitia

GROUPING

• Student led• Teacher led• Random selection• Grouping by ability

FOUR AND NO MORE

Some ideas for random selection

• Matching cards (picture/word, question/answer, first half/second half of sentence)

• Make an animal sound (coin coin, miaou, cui cui…)

• Repeat a sentence• Word groups (food, animals, colours…)

Role cards

• Moniteur du son• Responsable du matériel• Chargé de participation• ChronomètreurAlso recorder, quality checker, questioner,

organiser, spell checker, pronunciation checker, envoy…

Role cards

NOISE CONTROLLERUse quiet voicesOne person speaks at a timeDon’t disturb others

Soundbite: “chut!”“à ton tour”

Some ideas for learning activities

• Students sit back to back, describe people using photos• Doughnut• Dance and freeze• Folded line• Treasure hunt/human bingo• Poster making• Jigsaw learning• Create an activity/write a play for another group• Hide an object

Reporting

Reflecting, evaluating and goal setting

Goals should be academic AND social•Did we use each other’s names? •Did we resolve agreement fairly?•Did we meet the success criteria? •Did we ensure everyone was involved?•Did we communicate in French most of the time?•Did we check our French spelling?•Did we answer in full sentences?•Did we remember to write accents?Etc…SAM the goal!

Goal setting

• Describe what your group did well todayDécrivez ce que vous avez bien fait aujourd’hui• Describe what you could improve on next timeDécrivez ce que vous allez améliorer la prochaine fois• Next time we work together, we will do better by…

E raka te mauī, e raka te katau

L’union fait la force!