AP+French+Language+Summer+Institute,+Summer+2009

AP FRENCH INSTITUTE AT SMU, TEXAS This summer I attended a one week intensive AP French Language workshop at SMU in Texas. The program introduced several techniques to enable AP students to master difficult authentic texts. For example, one technique emphasized the students abandon the method of constantly consulting the dictionary to look up the meaning of a single word and instead try to read paragraphs globally. The idea is to get students of off words and into general comprehension of text as a preparation tool for the AP exam. An additional technique for oral in class readings is to have students alternate reading line by line from a text and ignoring punctuation. The theory behind this is to get the whole class into the flow of the text and gaining a global understanding. Moreover, during this oral exercise students will alternate spontaneously without being prompted by the teacher to make both the exercise and the comprehension more fluid. The above described techniques are considered cutting edge according to my AP instructor. Furthermore, I have employed these new techniques in all my classes and I am very pleased with the result. With the oral technique, students are a little awkward and silly at first because they are so used to being directed but once they got used to it, the whole class becomes involved and everyone is on their toes and benefiting. I would encourage other language teachers to give this technique a try. The final portion of the seminar was devoted to grading and the sharing of internet sites. The grading techniques taught are adopted from the AP exam formula. The internet sites give the teacher a broad array of sites to reinforce the four skills we are concentrating on: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Some good contacts were made and I am staying in touch with the instructor and some of the participants sharing experiences as the school year continues.