Service Learning

I was able to participate in a service learning project for French earlier this semester. I went to Seminary Hills Elementary School with a couple students from my class to teach less fortunate kids a lesson on French language and Senegalese culture. (Senegal is one of the francophone countries in Africa) The children that I taught are fourth graders and are primarily Hispanic, many of whom don't speak great English. This was definitely a unique experience for me, as I had to communicate with the kids in English and in French, neither of which is their primary language in some cases. We taught a lesson on numbers, colors, and family terms. The students responded very well to the lesson, and although it was a challenge at times to engage them in what we were teaching, they did a great job participating in the activities. They got especially excited for the Bingo activity involving numbers. We gave the kids gummy bears when they got a Bingo, and they had to name the colors of all the bears they got. I was surprised at how well our lesson plan worked. It was the second time I was able to do the service learning project at Seminary Hills Elementary, as I taught a lesson there last semester as well. I consider myself pretty strong in French, but once I was told to teach a lesson, I realized how difficult that actually is when one isn't fluent. Even though I was teaching basic, introductory French skills, the lesson took a lot of planning and was a unique experience teaching the kids.