As part of a serving learning project, French professors Daddah and Hirt took their French conversation students to the Bellbrook Middle School, Springboro Junior High School and to the Kettering High School on March 14, 18, 21, 23, 28 and 29 to promote the French language.
The French conversation class taught the students some fundamentals on learning the French language. During the sessions, Wright State students delivered a great presentation to the classes. The main topic was centered around “why speaking French” can be an important skill to learn. After the presentation, they engaged the students in fun activities to help them learn some basic words or phrases.
Some of the activities included learning colors, numbers, and cognates (words that sound the same in both languages). Classmates worked in groups to play learning games. In one of the games, Molecule, children were split into groups based on numbers they were assigned. This exercise was intended to provide a hands-on learning experience. The WSU students also showed some song videos to help further their learning of numbers. In another game, about cognates, children were shown a picture of an object and asked to match it to the correct word.
Over the course of our project the students also learned to introduce themselves in French. Since virtually every child texts as a way of communicating, we also taught them how to do it in French. That was a lot of fun!
They were also introduced to French gastronomy by playing a “jeopardy” game to match pictures of food and popular French dishes to names. Students also played a variety of matching games, including movies, artists, and monuments. They even had the opportunity to dance to some popular French songs!
This service learning project was a wonderful experience for all students. It helped get started a conversation around why choosing to learn the French language was a worthwhile educational endeavor to pursue. The experience for our students at Wright State University was extremely valuable as it allowed them to not only practice their language skills, but also participate in promoting the language to future university students.
