5 ways to Get your Students Speaking French all of the Time!

Introduction

When I was a French Immersion teacher, I would constantly hear, “Wow, your students speak French so well”, and “How do you get your students to speak French all of the time?”. It was very rare that my students received poor speaking marks by the end of the second term.

Why? Because my students genuinely enjoyed speaking French with both me and their peers. They wanted to speak the language even outside of the classroom. They were intrinsically motivated to apply the skills that they had learned.

I’ll never forget when a parent sent me a message saying they had travelled to Quebec with my student for a hockey tournament, and my student was speaking French to locals the entire time!

That was the best news I could have received that day. But don’t think that this happened overnight. When my students entered my French Immersion classroom in the fall, they often started at square one, with little to no vocabulary and confidence in their speaking.

Now, I need to ask you a question: Do you want this to sound like the students in your class? Do you struggle for them to even ask to go to the bathroom in French?

If your answer to these questions is yes, you’re in the right place. I’m here to help you out.

Not only will your students be speaking French, but they will be so motivated to speak French that you won’t have to constantly monitor who is speaking in English by the end of the year; speaking French will become your class culture!

You need to change your mindset

Before I provide you with tips to help your students, I want to help you.  It’s really important to first change your mindset. Don’t say to yourself, “Wow, my students do not want to speak French.”

This is not always true.

Many students want to speak the language. I find that there are three major reasons that students do not speak French in the classroom: they either do not feel confident, comfortable or equipped. Remember this the next time you are teaching.

So, what do you do?

Figure out which of the three your students are feeling. It could also be all three simultaneously. I find younger children often do not feel equipped which therefore makes them uncomfortable and then they lose their confidence and possibly lose hope in speaking the language.

This can also be true for older students, but usually, these students have a little more experience with the language and so they simply feel uncomfortable because their peers aren’t speaking the language, which makes them less confident in speaking French often. Over time with less exposure and less use of the language, they begin to lose or forget the skills that they have learned and feel like they are not equipped. There is usually not one standalone reason why students do speak the language in your class. However, you can figure out the root problem and work from there. Once you’ve figured out the problem, support, support, support!

The great thing is, the support is simple. If a student doesn’t feel equipped, provide them with the vocabulary to form basic sentences. If a student doesn’t feel comfortable, you need to change the climate in your classroom, praise speaking French and make speaking French fun and cool, not just something that must be done (with no reason why).

And lastly, if your students lack confidence, they need more practice and exposure. While you are supporting your students with their specific area(s) of need, you should also be implementing the following tips to make sure you get the maximum speaking potential out of your students :

1. Encourage your students

There’s nothing better than hearing “good job” or “I’m proud of you”. When students are taking that huge first step in speaking the language, they should be congratulated!

Think of a baby learning to walk. Every time a baby takes those first few steps, there is usually someone a few feet away with their arms wide open, encouraging the next step with cheers and a smiling face. You need to be that person for your students. It takes a lot of courage to speak a second language, so be sure to congratulate that every.single.time.

When students are just starting to speak French in your class at the beginning of the year, just let them speak! Allow them to make small mistakes without explicitly correcting them to build their confidence. As the year progresses, you can correct naturally by repeating what the student has said with the correct grammar or pronunciation. Here’s an example:

As human beings, we are motivated by emotion. So if we receive positive feedback that makes us feel good after we complete a task such as speaking French, we will be more motivated to repeat that task.

2. Provide regular speaking opportunities

Students learn to speak best through repetition and practice. You need to provide them with authentic speaking opportunities daily. Yes, I said daily. Here are some fun examples of activities that I would do with my students to get them to speak French daily :

1. Partner conversations – use elbow partners and conversation cards or speaking prompts to encourage students to talk to a friend or a partner. Make sure it’s a subject that students are interested in. For younger students, you can provide sentence starters to get the conversation going. This is less of a risk than speaking in front of a whole group. Circulate to make sure students are staying on task – and topic!
2. Debates- This is great for older students. Give them a yes or no question (i.e. does pineapple belong on pizza?) and divide students into two groups – for and against the idea. Provide relevant vocab words and let them talk as a team to develop reasons why they either support or disagree with the topic.
3. Question of the day – this is great for both younger and older students. You can change these questions to be as complex or simple as possible, depending on your group’s ability. Every morning, I would pull out a question of the day (something that I wrote out on sheets of paper) and ask the question to the class. It’s nice to be sitting in a community circle when students are speaking so that there is an inviting atmosphere of respectful listeners.
4. Speaking to the teacher only in French – It’s very important to encourage your students to speak to you in French. At all times. My rule was as soon as we entered the classroom, our French brain was turned on. Recess and extracurriculars were a time when students could speak in their native language if they felt more comfortable with that.

But, in the classroom, I did not answer to students who spoke to me in English. In my primary class, I would be very dramatic and gasp, so that students understood that French was my preferred method of communication. In those first few months, students were able to ask in English how to say certain phrases and questions that they did not know, but once they had a sufficient amount of vocabulary in their toolbox (usually about two months in), it was strictly French speaking.

The importance of this is consistency. You cannot accept students speaking to you in English a few times a week because you can’t be bothered. You have to stick to your rules, even when it’s hard (and trust me, the first few months will be hard!)   

3. Provide your students with a reason to speak French

Have your students ever asked you “Why do I have to do this?” That clearly shows they lack motivation and direction.

Those are two things that students need to be successful in their speaking. You have to tell them and show them why.

For older students, this would be a great project to begin the year with – ask them to create a video, poster, brochure, etc. indicating 3 reasons why students should learn French! This is a great way for them to understand the why and you’ll be amazed by the reasons they come up with.

Sometimes students may need an incentive to get started with speaking French before it becomes a habit.

This is another form of positive reinforcement and celebrating small wins. I like to start the year with my classroom management mystery reward squares. Not only are these customizable to your class, but they help reinforce intrinsic motivation so that it becomes a habit. Eventually, you will not need to use these as regularly.

How to use these:

1. I like to sit in a community circle and compliment my class, and then let them know what I have been observing (in this case, it might be more English in the classroom than you would like).
2.  Then, as a class, we will brainstorm what expectations we should be meeting. How often should we speak French? Where? With whom? Try to create 3-5 expectations for your class. You may even want to post this list in your classroom.
3. After you have co-created expectations with your students, you want to then introduce the mystery reward card. Explain that if the class meets the expectation 9 times, they will receive a reward. Be sure not to tell them the reward! That’s the best part. As students show expected behaviour, the reward will slowly be revealed as you add a card each time.
4. As the reward is revealed, students will become even more motivated and excited to reach their goal. It’s important that you choose a reward that interests your students and motivates them. In this product, there are over 30 rewards to choose from.
5. Once the 9 reward cards have been placed on the task card and the reward has been revealed, sit with your class and commend them for their hard work. Make sure to discuss when the class will be receiving their award. You want to make sure that this is within 1-1.5 weeks of achieving it. Just like assessment, we don’t want to give 3 months to give feedback! The information will be lost. So give immediate positive reinforcement and try to provide students with their reward as soon as possible.

If you’re interested in using these reward cards in your class, click below!

4. You must speak French

This may be obvious, but you have to lead by example. There’s not much to say here except this. Your students will begin to mirror you if you are constantly speaking French. You can’t expect your students to speak in French if you speak English to them. Bonus: Speaking to your French colleagues in French only solidifies this (if possible)!

5. Provide your students with feedback

This is a huge one. Once you’ve applied all of the other tips in your classroom, you’ve got to reflect on how it is going. And I included a FREE surprise for you, so you’re going to want to read this. Have you ever provided your student with written feedback on their speaking? No, I don’t mean after a presentation or on their report card. I mean regularly for their everyday speaking.

This is so important, and it applies to children of any age! When I started my second year of teaching, I began implementing this evaluation tool and it completely changed the game for me and my students.

This is because teaching takes a village. There is a whole community that is supporting your students’ learning, parents included. So with this assessment that I made, parents are involved in their child’s speaking. I created a FREE speaking evaluation resource that you can download below to evaluate your students’ speaking every month. This will allow for recurring feedback, parent involvement, and student awareness.

This is how it works:

1. I explain the evaluation sheet to my students. We go over the success criteria of what great speakers sound like, and the choices they make. (This sheet is editable if you would like to change the success criteria to meet your students’ particular needs!)
2. Once that is explained, I observe for the following three weeks. I use the accompanying tracker sheet that’s provided to make quick notes and record how students are doing. Keep in mind, in the beginning, students may get an “R” for rarely on everything. Do not stop. Provide feedback monthly, and you will see a change. The key is to provide students with opportunities to improve, and as mentioned before, congratulate their wins, even the small ones. If a student isn’t seeing even a slight improvement after 3 or 4 months, the student will not be motivated to try. It takes teamwork!
3. Lastly, you have to be consistent. I usually would use my planning time once a month to fill out the evaluation form for students. It would take me about one minute per child to complete. And trust me, this will be a very valuable minute for both you and your students.

Notes:

• You can start this at any point of the year (maybe not the last month of the year, but you get the gist). Ideally, the second or third month of the school year is ideal, because students have become more comfortable with your class routines and understand what is expected of them. Sometimes with a weaker class, I would start this in term two to give them more time to learn vocabulary that they can use when speaking.
• I like to provide students and parents with the yearly tracker, the explanation sheet, and the student evaluation sheet each time I send the evaluation home. This allows students to see how they are progressing, explains what their “grade” means and lets them know what they can improve upon.
• This will eliminate parents asking how their child can improve their French speaking mark, and it will help you and your students understand your success criteria for a great French speaker. The best thing is, there are no surprises when report cards go home!

If you want a fluid speaking evaluation system in your classroom, download these editable speaking evaluation sheets below for free!

Interested in more free resources to guide your French programming? Check out my Free Resource Library here.

Good luck with your teaching,

Nikki