Hello World!

Bonjour!

This is my first professional blog entry ever!

In case you're wondering, the inspiration for the title of this blog comes from interaction with my students.  It was when I started teaching high school French that a student first asked me if s/he needed to add a 'slanted apostrophe' to a word.  After I realized what the student was saying, I reminded him/her that it was actually called the acute accent.  Although the student didn't use the correct terminology, I still understood what s/he was trying to say, and was able to give assistance.  That brief conversation with my student--and the other students who have also spoken of the slanted apostrophe since then--got me thinking about the fact that mistakes are basically inevitable when learning a language and that understanding, rather than perfection, is the goal.  It's okay to make mistakes and you can get your point across to a native speaker despite a few errors here and there.  In a nutshell, this is how I do business in my classroom with the hope that repetition and development of students' understandings of the language over time will lead them to ditch the slanted apostrophe in favor of the acute or grave accent.

I'm not sure how I'm going to take to blogging, but I hope to find the time to share what I learn as I enhance the learning experience with iPads for the first time this year.  I love reading blog posts that include top ten lists and/or links to documents that I can use right away, so I plan to do some of those in the future. To get the ball rolling, here's the link to the French 1 page on my class wiki. Once there, you can click on the syllabus, new letter to students and parents, and my responsible use policy for French class.

Please excuse the mess -- my wiki is always under construction:  http://hammondschoolfrench.wikispaces.com/French+I

Comments are welcome!
As they say in French,

Bonne rentrée!