Thursday 18 May 2017

C Okay Student Twitter chat



One of the highlights of this year was definitely our C Okay student Twitter chat. My 7/8s were enticed by the idea of using Twitter in the classroom and I was excited the connect with other classrooms to chat en français! My students were exploring pop music from a variety of francophone regions when we realized that the C Okay music video had an interesting background story and positive message about resilience.  We also realized that when the video is  played in segments, in reverse, it tells a story.  This piqued our interest and sparked some great observations and conversations!



I wanted to empower my students with the vocabulary and expressions they needed to express their opinions with confidence and ease, so we started by creating a re-tell of the video.

We started by creating a simple re-tell of the music video events in small groups.


Their re-tells worked as powerful scaffolding for their preparation of questions for the chat and to reflect on their answers. Next, we brainstormed questions.














We wanted the questions to be meaningful and thought provoking. This is what they decided on:

 Again they worked in groups to reflect upon how they might answer with joy notes however they were encouraged to leave room for spontaneous interaction during the live chat.  We spread the word via social media and created a little buzz! The kids were pumped and so was their teacher!


Let the chat begin!
Unfortunately it was a Snow Day for some of our planned participants.
Regardless, we were thrilled to have 5 schools join in on the conversation.
The students were very motivated and the hour flew by.  I was so impressed with the level of engagement and their responsible use of Twitter. They displayed true digital citizenship and a very positive footprint.  Can't wait to plan our next #fslbeyond student chat!


In future I think we'll spend more time on anticipating other student responses and prepare ourselves with what language we might need for possible feedback comments. Though the conversation was flowing somewhat authentically, it was definitely trickier in their second language. I'm proud to say
that none of the students reverted to English (though some to emoji!) and they expressed feelings of accomplishment that they were able to do so.
It was definitely a proud teacher moment!



No comments:

Post a Comment