How to Teach The Dates in French

 Les dates

Grammaire: être (to be)- Conjugation

Exemple: Le Noël est le vingt-cinq décembre.

Grammaire: la date

• In order to indicate the date we say nous sommes or  

on est + the date:

                                  Nous sommes le 21 juin

• We use the definite article le in front of the date:

                                 Cannes, le 8 novembre

• We say le premier, but le deux, le trois, etc.

                                 Nous sommes le premier ou le deux?

• The months are janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, 

août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre.

        Nous sommes en juillet.      Nous sommes au mois de juillet.                                        

        Nous sommes en août. Nous sommes au mois d’août.

• The date in French precedes the month (unlike in English) in:

          10/07 = le dix juillet (July 10)

                           24/12 = Le Noël est le vingt-quatre décembre.

Grammaire: Exercices

Exercice:  Écrivez en lettres selon le modèle

                   (Write in letters according to the model)

   Simone de Beauvoir (09/01): 

___________________________________

1. Marcel Proust (10/07)

___________________________________

2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28/06)

___________________________________

3. Marilyn Monroe (01/06)

___________________________________

4. Albert Einstein (14/03)

___________________________________

5. Napoléon (15/08)

___________________________________

Exercice: Répondez aux questions:

1. Quel jour sommes-nous?

___________________________________

2. Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire?

___________________________________

If you would like to check the complete lesson on how to introduce the months, the numbers (0-31), the dates and the holidays in France, please click on this link.

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Step 6 in Organizing a LatinX Theater Event- THE NIGHT OF THE EVENT

Recap: THE STEPS:

1. The text

2. The distribution of the roles

3. Introducing the play to the students

4. Rehearsals

5. Costumes and decors        

6. The night of the event

  

THE NIGHT OF THE EVENT

• Frequent e-mails and reminders about the night of the event;

• Put the date(s) in the school calendar and make reservations for using the school Auditorium;

• Draw a picture of how you would like for the chairs in the auditorium to be arranged and ask the custodians to prepare the auditorium;

• I do the event the first Monday of June and I invite all of the fifth grade families from 6:00 to 7:00 pm; and all of the sixth grade families from 7:00 to 8:00 pm.

• I greet and introduce shortly the plays. At the end of each play all of the actors get together on stage and bow, the audience applauds. When one play is over, I ask the student actors to sit in the first two rows, especially reserved for them, in order to watch their peers from the other class perform ( I have two fifth grade classes and two sixth grade classes);

• At the end of the evening, I ask the parents to help with putting the chairs away;

• Parent volunteers:

• crowd control in the hallway and making sure that the students are sitting and waiting quietly for their turn;

• design of the programs for the event

The programs for the night event

• 
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Step 5 in Organizing a LatinX Theater Event- COSTUMES AND DECORS

   Recap: THE STEPS:

1. The text

2. The distribution of the roles

3. Introducing the play to the students

4. Rehearsals

5. Costumes and decors        

6. The night of the event

COSTUMES AND DECORS

• There are some suggestions of costumes and decors in the books that I have used for the plays;

• I ask the students to come up with their costumes by sending some description of what the costumes should look like for each character via e-mail to the parents;

• I have also purchased some animal ears, horns, tails from Amazon.

• Some of the dresses I use in the plays came from a colleague, who offered me a box with old clothes/theatrical costumes;

• You could ask the parents to help with the design of the costumes and decors. For instance I had a parent build three 2D windmills for the Don Quixote play. Another student made the bowties for the narrators in one of my plays.

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Step 4 in Organizing a LatinX Theater Event- REHEARSALS AND THEATRICAL GAMES

  Recap: THE STEPS:

1. The text

2. The distribution of the roles

3. Introducing the play to the students

4. Rehearsals

5. Costumes and decors        

6. The night of the event

Step 4- The Rehearsals

• I begin the rehearsals about 5 weeks prior to the performances and have students role play; 

• Warm-up (the mirror game or some other theatrical games);

• We do read aloud in the target language; 

• I teach mini pronunciation lessons;

• The students rehearse by scene;

• While the students from scene 1 rehearse, the other students study silently their lines or make index cards of the lines and study their scene(s); 

• At home the students study the pronunciation of their lines with some videos of my reading of the plays that I have sent via e-mail to them and their parents, along with a pdf of the lines in both English and Spanish;

• It is up to the teacher to decide whether to have the students memorize the lines or allow them to use index cards and read. However, the expectations should be clearly stated in advance, including in an e-mail to the parents with any important dates. For instance if you expect the students to have memorized their lines by a certain date, you have to send an e-mail to the parents with the date, as well as reminders.

• Frequent communication to the parents and reminders ( I send emails every week or every two weeks) is the key to a successful Theater Night event.

The Language

• Be present!

• Eyes toward the audience (look above people’s heads)

• Voice- Use a big voice as if the audience cannot hear you well!

• Acting- Exaggerate!

Warmups: Theatrical Games

• The Mirror game- Two partners face each other. One partner does different gestures and movements, the other partner is the mirror, so they mirror the actions of partner one.

• "Have you seen Mrs. Mumbly?" Pull both lips over the top of your teeth. Ask this question to the person next to you. They respond however they want.. Stretches the lips, so you speak with more articulation, in a bigger way.

• Send your voice to a place. You can aim your voice like you aim water at plants. You can water the plant right in front of your, or you can aim for a wider area. 

• Pass different sized imaginary balls. The small one is light and delicate. The biggest one is so heavy.

• Build a robot machine. One person starts by making a motion and a sound. The next person comes up next to them, and adds in a different sound and a different motion. Keep adding.

• Walk the space and then walk with a sense of aggression

• Blind fold through obstacles 

• Hold firm eye-contact fluctuating between first friendly and then hostile moods.

• One partner directed and one partner followed. The orders improve and are to be followed instantly; an insightful dynamic

• Two-minute silent performance with a partner

• Walk around tossing a tennis balls, increasing the tempo and number of balls as you navigate the space of the room

• The number game: laying on you backs, count as high as possible without speaking over each other.

• Apologizing non-verbally to a partner

• See and be seen exercise where you watched a group of classmates and they watch you.

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Step 3 in Organizing a LatinX Theater Event (Introducing the Play to The Students) and Why Organize a Theater Event

STEP 3- Introducing the Play to The Students 

1. The teacher reads out loud in the Target language;
2. The students read out loud in English by roles;
3. The teacher could ask questions in the target language about the play;
4. Class discussions about the characters and the settings.

You could check my slide show introducing the play Los pies apestosos (The Stinky Feet)- please, click on the image below:

Why organize a theater event:

• The purpose of organizing a theater event in a school setting is to celebrate the language and the culture(s), associated with the language.

• To promote a language program within the community; 

• to increase the interest toward the target language and culture.

• To develop the skills necessary to work as a team; 

• to help the students feel more confident when speaking in front of an audience;  

• to improve the pronunciation in the target language; 

• to build a community.

• It is fun and engaging; the students take risks and innovate; their motivation of learning the language increases;

• Maybe most importantly, it creates intercultural connections and experiences.

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Step 2 in Organizing a LatinX Theater event- Distribution of the ROLES (Part 2)

 Recap: THE STEPS:

1. The text

2. The distribution of the roles

3. Introducing the play to the students

4. Rehearsals

5. Costumes and decors        

6. The night of the event

STEP 2

1. Since my goal is for every student to have a role and participate in the play, I ask for each to write down on an index card their name and the type of role they would prefer: big, medium or small. Then, I collect the index cards and use them, when I distribute the roles. The index cards system allows me to pick the actors for the main characters. 

2. If the play has 12-14 characters, while I have 25-26 students in my class, then I assign one role to two students. For instance, if Isabella plays the Fox in the first and second scenes of the play Los pies apestosos, Smith could play that character in scenes 3 and 4. 

3. I assign some students to be stage crew members.

4. For the students, who requested minor roles, I assigned them the roles of narrators and/or stage crew members.

5. Some students get to perform other talents and skills that they have such as singing, gymnastics, juggling, playing guitar, etc.
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Step 1 in Organizing a LatinX Theater Event- THE TEXT (Part 1)

                                                             

 THE STEPS:

1. The text

2. The distribution of the roles

3. Introducing the play to the students

4. Rehearsals

5. Costumes and decors        

6. The night of the event

Step 1- THE TEXT

Choose the plays or the texts to adapt into a play. Here s what I do:

• The play The Smelly Feet (Los pies apestosos), which I found in the book ¡Teatro! Hispanic Plays for Young People (see below), and translated into Spanish. This is a simple and funny animal fable that my students really love and did very well acting it. 

• I also used the book Don Quijote in America- Plays in English and Spanish for Grades 1-6 (see below). From that book I have done the play Clothes Do Not Make The Man (El hábito no hace al monje) with my students.

                                                              

• I made an adaptation of the book Ferdinand (Ferdinando) by Munro Leaf (see below). I wrote the play based on the text from the story. 

• I also made an adaptation of Don Quijote, based on the book below:

              

Things to keep in mind when selecting a play/story:

• Finding some compelling, funny, interesting, authentic or of historical value plays and stories

• The complexity of the language and the length of the lines of the characters- preferably avoiding long monologues, since my goal is the story to be presented entirely in the target language and my students are Novice learners from 5th and 6th grade.

• The number of characters: ideally around 12-14

Ideas for texts:

• Plays in English or in the target language (preferably written by native speakers for native speakers). If in English you could translate them and have your translation proofread by a native speaker.

• Texts from children’s books

• Fairy tales, fables or folk tales

• Plays written by your students and performed in groups

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