Oral Development in Second Language Learning

One of the most effective ways to develop fluency and confidence in second language learning is to do it through "repetition."  But how is "repetition" an inspiring and interesting experience?  

During class, I aim at building in many opportunities for students to review what they have learned but at the same time increasing the level of complexity. For example, once the students are confident in saying "hello", they are asked to greet each other.  This means that they have the opportunity to practice both the "response" and the "question."  By doing role plays or taking a survey, students have many opportunities to practice the same sentence structures.  This is far from "dry repetition!" 

Grade 3 and 4 students begin to create more realistic "dialogues" which go back and forth between interlocutors.  This creates a learning context that is authentic. This is also meaningful and interesting as we learn languages in hope that we can carry on conversations with others.  These realistic dialogues serve exactly this purpose.  In addition to that, they are working on using vocabulary they have learned from the "colours" unit and the "body parts" unit to describe a monster they have created.  This allows them to practice the vocabulary yet again but at the same time, "combine" vocabulary in a new context.   

Quel temps fait-il aujourd'hui?

We talked about "oral development" being a distinguishing feature of the neurolinguistic approach.  Last week, students continued to build on their oral development by learning phrases and vocabulary about weather.  Grade 3 and 4 students applied what they know about body parts and colors to describe "monsters".  


If you are interested in learning some French traditional songs, I encourage you to look up the following comptines jeunesses:

• Sur le pont d'Avignon
• Violette à bicyclette

Towards "Oral Development"

Last week, I made reference to a neurolinguistic approach to teaching and learning French.  One distinguishing characteristic of this approach is that it begins with oral development, very much like the process in first language acquisition. It focuses on learning to use the language rather than learning about the language.  

In class, many opportunities have been given to students to practice their oral skills because it is through the development of "internal grammar" that one becomes spontaneous when conversing with others.  By now, Grade 1 and 2 students should feel comfortable telling you their name, their age and perhaps, the colour they like.  They can respond to the question "how are you?".   Grade 3 and 4 students can respond to AND ask these questions.  They have had the pleasure of conducting a survey as to how their peers feel.