This is a transcript from a Voice Memo
So this week, instead of having class, we were encouraged to attend a Pro D Day workshop for professional development. The one that I chose was an introduction for K to 7 French immersion teachers. I chose this one because although I’m not necessarily planning on teaching K to grade 7, I still thought that they would offer some really good resources, and honestly, they could definitely be used at the grade 9 level or even just core French, because this is for French immersion students, and they already know the language, but for core French students, I think this would be super digestible for those all the way until probably about grade 10 or 11.
This Pro D workshop was presented by Idéllo’s Sophie Dion and Heather Daly. Essentially, to sum up what it is, it’s a monthly newsletter, and each month has different resources that highlight the specific events surrounding that month. For example, this month highlights Black History Month as well as the Olympic Games.
It is a resource that is completely funded by the Ministry of Education, and within each newsletter, it’s broken down into learning targets. For example, math, literacy, science, social studies, and art. And they even have sections for core French, intensive French, and French immersion.
I think this is a really awesome resource because it breaks down french information; in the past, the langauge has been very colonized. And it’s learning purpose use to be giving grammar tests over and over until a student could obtain the content. However, Idéllo is breaking down learning into fun and engaging ways. I know that if I were back in grade 7, I would have loved getting one of these monthly newsletters to keep in class.
Something I could see myself doing in my future classroom is getting a subscription each month from Idéllo and getting a physical copy, and kind of having a bookshelf in the classroom where students can go read. Each month, past and present. And I don’t know, just kind of build a network of resources because this is pretty interesting stuff, like, who wouldn’t like to know about the Olympics that are happening right now?
This is the link to the entire 9 page newsletter by Idéllo