 I created, in essence, a supplemental reader, which is reading, writing, and it cost about $25 black and white version, so again, keeping with that notion of accessible, or it's free on the internet. Since I created this as a textbook, there is that kind of internal coherence in terms of level progression, because I was working off of François Intractif, which has a built-in grammar syllabus, which has the vocabulary and that progression of that textbook. The very first chapter has to do with grammatical metaphors. I chose to begin this textbook. This is meant to be for the very first semester of French, and grammatical metaphor is something that is, once again, assumed to be that kind of benchmark for the division between upper division, language classes, and lower division. One assumes that one doesn't engage in grammatical metaphor at the very beginning of language study. Grammatical metaphor is, of course, the use of one grammar form and changing it, so in this case it has to do with nouns being used as adjectives. And it is, in a way, an introduction to semiosis. I want to get students right from the start playing with that plasticity of language and understanding how meaning is created when we change the grammatical function of a word. And in French, at the very introductory level, the first thing is, of course, introductions learning how to introduce yourselves, but it's also about the language of the classroom, so we go back to this notion of things. And nouns are the first things that are sort of grammar forms that are introduced in French because it introduces students to the notion of gender and singular plural, which are always embedded, encoded in nouns. And when you want to identify who you are, je suis étudiant, for example, I am a student. In French you have to use that as a noun form with the indefinite article, and in French it would be literally, I am student. This becomes a sticking point for English speakers of, okay, why is this, je suis étudiant and not je suis une étudiant, you know. So it becomes a sticking point, and in textbooks this is typically represented as being a certain class of nouns that can be used adjectively. When you want to talk about your profession or your religion or your political affiliation, those are the categories of nouns that can be used in this way. However, as it turns out, any noun can be used adjectively in the right context and with that understanding of the mental imagery of the speaker. So I wanted to play with this and get students working with nouns adjectively, right from the start. And what I decided to do was to write a little poem. So I'm going to show you first, so again, this notion of semiosis, and this very first chapter is called What's in a Name? So of course I'm playing off of the soliloquy of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet who says what's in a name that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So the notion of what is a noun, because in French the word non, n-o-m, can mean either name or noun. So I want students to be thinking about, they're introducing themselves. What is my name? I am, you know, hmm, let's play with this construct. So from the very start, I have not only What's in a Name, but I have Gertrude Stein's Aroses, Aroses, Arose translated into French. She was an American who lived in France. I have these layers of meaning that I wanted to build in right from the start so that that visual is already giving them the same continuity of message that this is where we want to go with this. We want to get into sort of in depth of what language can do for creating meaning. But she's playing with it with Gertrude Stein as a refrigerator magnet. Lots of levels. Okay, so in this case I begin, and the instructional language is in English and which is true for much, this is a conceptual point as a language teacher that you have to sort of confront how comfortable you are. I decided that I am very comfortable in this first year level of using instructional language in English in order to go more deeply into French. So there are some programs that say, no, this is immersion. You can only use the foreign language, the target language. My feeling is, no, I want this to be a rich experience. Let's go deeply into this. So I give them a breakdown of the word non in French, meaning name or noun. And give them the background with the example of Elen et musicienne. Stéphane est ingénieur and translating Hellenism Musician, Stephen is an engineer and pointing out that difference. And giving them also the equivalent because we do this in English to some extent. So examples in English, Sarah is so country. So it might mean that she really likes that type of music or the lifestyle associated with the music. He's totally nuts or crackers or bananas. Ted and John have become really fast food. So we do use nouns adjectively, but we don't use it quite as typically or, let's say as productively as we can in French. So this little exchange at the very top in the French column. Two students arrive in a room to study for an exam. This is their exchange. Tu es plutôt table ou bureau? Now, if I translate that literally, it means are you more table or desk? So it means do you prefer studying at a table or a desk in that question form? Moi je suis très table. So me, I'm very table. Well, in English that sounds awfully odd, but it means I'm more of a table person, right? I'm more into studying at a table. Any noun can be used adjectively in the right sort of context in order to express you're extending the meaning of the noun to something that becomes attributive, right? So il est très ordinateur, he's really a computer freak. He's a real computer freak. Ils sont vraiment café, they're really coffee crazy, etc., right? So getting them, they're introduced to these very basic nouns in the first chapter and where I want to lead them to is a poem that I have written. And I give myself poetic license and I say, if you're willing to play with language, you too can write a poem. And that's going to be the writing afterwards will be a poem. So I lead them into this. The first reading has to do with leading into this poem is the title. C'est tout un poème, c'est tout un poème. So seems like a very simple title. This is, it's literally once again would be, it's a whole poem. And in English, it occurred to me afterwards I didn't make the association. We do say in English, it's a whole story. Okay, in French, it's a whole poem has that notion of it's quite something. It's really something or she's something or he's really something. So I asked them to think about once they've read the poem, what is the relationship between the content of this poem and this title of, it's quite something, it's a whole story, it's a whole poem. So what I'd like to do is to read out in French and I'll give, for those of you who are not French speakers, I'll give you a gloss. And then when we get to these nouns as adjectives, I'm going to ask you to tell me what you think the meaning is given in this context. So, je vous présente Aaron, il est étudiant en science politique mais en linguistique. So let me introduce Aaron to you. He's a student in science, a political science. But in linguistics, il est plutôt escargot. So escargot means snail. So he is rather or pretty slow, okay? Snailish, slug-like, okay? In the classroom, there is a blackboard, a piece of chalk. Et un exercice avec le verbe être. So in the classroom, there is a blackboard, a piece of chalk. This is all the vocabulary of introductory textbook, right? And an exercise with the verb être, which is the verb to be. Mais Aaron est très fenêtre. So fenêtre means window. So he's very, very distractible. He's really engaged in looking out the window. He's very into looking out the window. Aujourd'hui on est lundi, après il y a la semaine et puis, samedi, dimanche, mais au. So today is Monday after there's the week and then Saturday, Sunday, but au. Le weekend Aaron est très labo. Labo is an abbreviation for laboratory. So on the weekend he's, he's studious. He's hard working. He's labor, he's engaged in experimenting and doing laboratory work. Comment, qu'est-ce qu'il fait? Ben Aaron apprend le français. Sa nouvelle petite amie s'appelle Marie. So what, what does he do or what's he doing? But well, he's learning French. His new girlfriend's name is Marie, elle est de Paris. She's from Paris. Getting them to play with those, that basic vocabulary that they're learning, extending that meaning, putting it into a different context, a different mental landscape, and introduction to semiosis. So what is the relationship with the title, c'est tout un poème. It's a whole story. So he's, he's the snail in, in linguistics class. He's, he's distracted. He's looking out the window. But on the weekends, he's learning French, because he met this girl. So. Textbooks. They're serious parts of speech, but they never say that you can play with the punch. And so at this level, first year of French, they have a lot more now than they had adjectives. And suddenly what she's done by showing them that there is this productive, it's a very productive instruction in the very French. She has been kind of turbocharged, their semiotic ability. They can say so much more when they realize, oh, I can just make this construction. He is able, and you are chairing. Wow. Okay. So that's the notion of metaphorical extension that she was introducing before. You can play with language, play with categories of language. Matching language, making meaning by investing, putting language into a particular context. So you play, but you have to play thoughtfully. And so that your interlocutor can actually understand what it is that you're saying, what your mental landscape is. Okay. So afterwards, I have these various activities, you know, going, taking a closer look. And I ask them to identify, to find those examples of base nouns used as adjectives in the text, to write them out, to write out their word associations in English and then possible English translations. I then, going even further, I have them listen to the poem right out loud by the instructor, find the rhyme scheme, underline the words that rhyme or nearly rhyme, because one of the difficulties, let's say, with French is the relationship between sounds and spelling. Right? So I wanted to get them to start to recognize that there are many different ways that the same sound can be produced in French. So writing that out, comparing their answers. And then choosing three nouns that they're currently studying, because I want this to be available to any textbook as a potential supplement to any textbook. So choose three nouns from whatever textbook that you're using and try to think of what sort of associations, how could you extend that meaning, what kind of context can you put it in, which would generate the meaning that you would like. And to compare those answers as class, be ready to support your meaning, meaning you're going to have to explain how it is that you arrived at this. Okay, and then the writing exercise, which involves writing a poem, write a simple poem on the theme of introducing a fellow student, real or imagined, to the class. By characterizing an aspect of his or her interests, activities or personalities, use the vocabulary of this chapter in your textbook to incorporate rhyming and the use of base nouns as adjectives for standard and metaphorical meanings. You may use any format for the poem that you wish and include a title. So I've included here as preparation a number of links for resources on the internet. So one has to do with, well, if they want to come up with a name, a French name, maybe they don't know French names. Well, here's a link to the kind of site that gives you girls' names, boys' names in French. And you can often listen to those names, the pronunciation of those names and choose something that might work within your rhyme scheme. If there's vocabulary that you want to use in your poem, but that's not in the textbook that you can then listen to for your rhyme scheme, I give them a link to French English Dictionary where you can listen to words. Also a rhyming dictionary. And you can plug in the syllable that you want to have rhyme, etc. So all of these, just getting them to start seeing, wow, even with these simple words, table chair, I can start to create a little poetic text that reflects a sense of excitement and creativity. I'll just get to the question of assessment. I build in peer editing into my lessons. And research shows that when we live students to their own devices, when it comes to peer editing that they tend to focus on grammatical accuracy and spelling. And for me, that's not where I want to bring them. I want to bring them into this more holistic sense of meaning making. So for this particular poem, the first is topic development. Is the theme of the poem, which is introducing someone to your reader and characterizing an aspect of the person's interest activities personality, successfully developed? Is there a sufficient amount of information for you to have a clear picture in your mind of the person being described? If not, what further information could be provided? So I want them to think about how is my partner developing this topic? Choice of use of base nouns as adjectives, so here's that grammatical focus. I'm asking them to play with this grammar. Circle all the instances of base nouns used as adjectives. Tell your partner what you think the meanings are and see if they correspond with what your partner meant, etc., okay? Incorporation of a rhyme scheme. So to read your partner's poem out loud, underline words that would seem to rhyme. If you do not know the pronunciation of a word, ask your partner to say it out loud. Is the rhyme scheme successful to your ear? If not, indicate where you think there are problems, etc. Here is the rhyming dictionary. Can you provide another suggestion? And then, once you've gone through this peer editing, then each student revises his or her copy. And in your teacher guide, because we gave you the hard copy, the last page of the teacher's guide is the, I show you the rubric. So on the last page, the rubric, I take the actual, so when I grade based on the criteria that I give them for the peer editing. So that they know exactly where, what to expect from the grade that I generate because that's what they've been working on, what those criteria are. And I put those criteria and I can change them each time I have that writing assignment in the left-hand column and I just have a simple rubric. Of course, people can generate go as far as they wish in the detailing of their rubrics. For me, it's very important that there are no surprises, right? We're all working on the same page as far as the grading, what the expectations are. And the students can actually fill out the rubric for their partner or they can fill it out for themselves initially. And then when I get that text, they've gone through that peer editing. They also, I give some other resources for doing some basic editing themselves, for checking certain things themselves online. But what I get as the final product is the best work that they can give me. And that means I only grade once at the end of the process. Because they've already worked through it several times. So that is a time saver as well. Questions? I see it reminds me of a poem about Aaron. So, where Aaron didn't like studying birds in his class, but he had a French girl that he motivated and put it only with. But there's no empirical evidence that says that a grammar-based syllabus of studying the birds in the ground seems to be normally lined them up strictly, reduces any better results than doing a lesson like this. So if you only have three contact hours a week or three hundred hours a week, this kind of lesson is probably more engaging. Just going to get students to take more English and actually internalize them. And go and mark it for your upperclassmen on the program. They actually understand concepts such as negotiating language and maintaining appropriate registers. I teach at Cornell. Students tend to get excited about this kind of thing. And I do feel I've heard very good feedback from each other. So again, it may depend on your student population. But I do find that students enjoy the sense of agency that they gain from it. And they're willing to extend themselves. They're willing to take those risks because they know if we're helping each other out, we're probably going to get a better grade. You know? Well, I think also it moves language study so far beyond skill acquisition. That's right. That's right. Translatable to a course they're taking in English or a course they're taking in another humanities discipline. So that's probably why they get excited. Right. And that, again, is the notion of transdisciplinary work. Right. So I'm trying to find those common bases of these things because it's not as if each time you have to start at zero. Right. We have all of this, which is why I feel comfortable using English because it brings in that common base. Yeah. And students like to feel that they can be sophisticated. From the very first day of classes, first week they can actually engage intellectually in a way that in immersion classes, they may not have that experience. But this is only one. Obviously, within the context of a class, if you're covering a chapter in two weeks, this is one class day. Everything else can be immersion. But the reading and writing is where you can go in depth into languages. But even if it's once every other chapter or once every you know, so it can be incorporated even on just a small scale. Any other questions? OK, this is not word. What is this? It's a Google doc. You can download it in Word. And you can change, for example, it's an activity that I felt that first year, first semester. If you wanted to use the same type of an activity at an intermediate level, you can just change all the instructional language into French and still do the same basic activity, the same text, but actually just bring up the activity level.