French workshop
The French workshop was conducted in school and at the Hotel Sofitel. This workshop was organised to help our class 12 French B and Ab initio students get some valuable practice to better understand the exam components - the Interactive and Individual orals and the new component of the programme-Written Assignment.
It was also planned in a way that the students obtain an opportunity to relax and work in a stress-free environment and the programme therefore included some creative activities as well. The workshop activities included watching a film, a karaoke session and a cooking session.
Activity 1 – Film viewing
(Fri Sep 14 – 13h30-16h00)
Activity 2 – Interactive orals
(Sat Sep 15 – 9h00-10h15)
After watching a film on Friday afternoon, they went home and had time to reflect on what they saw.
The French B students saw the film Entre les murs which won the Best Film award (la Palme d’Or) at the Cannes Film festival in 2008. An interactive oral based on the film was conducted the next day. This oral is a graded assignment that will be part of the final oral marks. The students prepared role plays that they found very interesting and all had an opportunity to speak which greatly reassured them. They were also filmed during the oral to facilitate grading and for maintaining records.
The Ab Initio students saw the film Les Choristes which won more than 10 awards in 2004 and is counted as one of the most successful films in the history of French cinema. The students responded well to the various activities that were planned around the film. Ab initio does not have any interactive orals so the teachers also worked around image description which is the main component of the individual oral.
Activity 3 – Written Assignment
(Sat Sep 15 – 10h30-11h45)
This is a new component of the language acquisition programme and has a weighting of 20%. Instead of making the students do an assignment, we used examples of work provided on the occ. The students had to read and grade the work according to the IB criteria. It was very fruitful as the students had the occasion to re-familiarise themselves with the criteria and understand how to respond precisely to them in order to present good quality work.
Another objective of this activity was to let the students work in a relaxed manner and not stress them out after having already participated in a graded oral.
Activity 4 – Karaoke
(Sat Sep 15 – 12h00-12h30)
Students had been given song and karaoke websites available on Youtube in the week leading to the workshop and had been told to choose some songs and prepare them. They were eagerly anticipating this and participated with great enthusiasm. They sang in groups and impressed the teachers and each other with their ability to pronounce well and keep up with the tempo of the songs. The Karaoke session was filmed.
(Sat Sep 15 – 13h00-16h30)
We were warmly welcomed into the hotel by the staff that was waiting for us from where we moved to the first floor into the loft kitchen.The students were divided into two groups of 16 and 17 students each to make working easier. There was a long counter where the Chef Blaine Gilbert with his team of talented sous chefs proceeded to show us how to make the classic French baguette in a mini size and a chocolate mousse. Each student received a personalised dossier of the recipes and once they had donned their aprons and chef’s hats they got started.
After the chef explained details about the ingredients and the various steps of the recipe, the students proceeded to roll out their own baguettes and put them to bake in the oven.
After this came the chocolate mousse for which the finest Belgian Caillebaut chocolate chips and vegetarian German gelatine were used.
The students enjoyed mixing the ingredients together and piping the final mixture into moulds. Each student plated a mousse much to their delight.
This was followed by a relaxing time in the Salon Pompadour where the students enjoyed their baguette sandwiches and dessert.
We also were given the unique opportunity to tour the hotel. Chef Harshyl Tamhane took us for a guided tour of the hotel and showed us not only the restaurants and the kitchens but also the laundry and the butchery. We met the chefs of the restaurants specialising in North West frontier food and the vegetarian cuisine of the Tuskers restaurant.
The end was special too as the students got to take home the baguettes that they had prepared as well as those offered by the hotel.
It was a memorable day for all of us and the students in their feedback form have expressed their enjoyment at having participated in this workshop - they definitely thought it was worth spending a Saturday doing all they did as they got the opportunity to work and learn something new. The students have worked to produce short essays on the workshop and reproduced Facebook posts and will also be doing a board to showcase their activities.
Participants- 33 French students of std 12.
Teachers – Rajanigandha Deshmukh, Hélène Harlé, Cécile Marie, Smita Ullal, Pushpa Sherighar