World LanguageModern foreign languagesMiddle school, High schoolKey Stage 3, Key Stages 4 and 5
How to get students speaking French in class
French speaking practice in class usually gives each student a minute or two. This guide shows how to get every student speaking for the whole activity and hear each one afterward, with a free café activity where students order out loud.
Jemel Fanfan | Founding Member at Flint
"Flint is easily my “go to” AI platform. It is simple to use, very easy to set up and share activities with a class, and delivers an optimal experience for students."
Jennifer Cattaneo, French, World History, and Psychology teacher at Santa Fe Christian SchoolWhy this matters
In a class of 25, each student speaks French for a minute or two per period. In a video study of 105 foreign language classes, all the students together spoke for 23% of class time and the teacher for 51% (DESI, 2008). The teacher can't hold a conversation with every student, and has to wait for the oral exam to find out who can order a coffee.
Speaking activities where every student talks at once
In a spoken conversation, students "interact and negotiate meaning" to share information, reactions and opinions (ACTFL World-Readiness Standards).
- Give every student their own conversation partner
- Keep the whole conversation in French
- Correct by repeating the sentence, then keep talking
A teacher can hold one conversation at a time. Sparky, Flint's AI tutor, holds one with every student in the class at once.
Two students at the same café, at the same time
Maya and Diego started the activity at 10:04. The café, the menu and Sparky's role as the waiter are the same for the whole class. Each chat is one student's spoken conversation, and Sparky reads every reply aloud.
Maya
Sparky
MayaSpoken,0:05
Je voudrais un croissant et un chocolat chaud, s'il vous plaît.Sparky
MayaSpoken,0:03
Non, merci. C'est combien ?Sparky
MayaSpoken,0:04
Voilà six euros. Merci, au revoir !Sparky
Ordered, paid and said goodbye in French
Diego
Sparky
DiegoSpoken,0:06
Um… I want… orange juice? Et une crêpe.Sparky
DiegoSpoken,0:04
Je voudrais un jus d'orange, s'il vous plaît.Sparky
DiegoSpoken,0:03
Oui. Euh… how much?Sparky
DiegoSpoken,0:03
Sept euros. Voilà, merci !Started in English, finished the order in French
Maya orders, pays and leaves without a word of English. Diego starts in English, so Sparky repeats his order in French and gives him a sentence to say, and he says it. Neither student waits for a turn. The students and chats are examples we wrote for this page. Sparky responds to the transcript of what each student said, so it corrects words and grammar, not pronunciation.
How to hear every student's French
Each student's recording stays with their chat, so you can press Listen on any message to hear what they said. The activity page shows who needs help right now, what the class can already say, and what to practice next.
Example activity page
After a French 1 class orders at the café
The school and students are made up for this page. The library copy includes a rubric, so Sparky grades each conversation and you can change any grade.
Set up the activity for free
The café activity is in Flint's public library, with the waiter's role, the menu and a rubric already written. Students' communication is set to Speaking only, so students answer with the microphone, and Sparky's replies play aloud. Open the activity, press Use activity to copy it into a free Flint account, and move it to a class.
To practice another language, change the primary language in the activity's Language settings and rewrite the menu.
For more world language activities, see Flint for world language.
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