Cultural Investigation Portfolio: 99 Independent Cultural Projects for French Students

Teaching the Cultural Component to a foreign language class can be challenging. This collection of 99 independent projects grouped together by interest (art, music, history, internet, etc) has something for everyone. Students select which projects to complete and present their findings in the first five minutes of the class daily. Projects have different point values based on time and difficulty levels which students combine to complete 50 points each semester. This portfolio is the ongoing work and revision of 15 years of teaching cultural topics in foreign language classes. Years later students tell me that these are the projects they found to be the most interesting and memorable in their foreign language experience because they connected to areas of personal interest. Download contains goals of investigation, step by step instructions on how to complete the projects, activity sheets for students, 99 diverse cultural activities, supporting guided adventure sheets for community excursions and an exit survey to collect their feedback year end. You will need a couple of days in class to explain to them how to do the projects and to field any specific questions they might have. I ask students to read the activity list and highlight projects of interest to discuss in further on day 2. Afterwards, every day is a new adventure as your students lead the class in their discoveries. Projects help students hone their presentation/public speaking skills while everyone learns.
This portfolio works great for home-schooled students as well, they can work at their own pace to discover as many different adventures of interest and connect them to other curricular areas such as art, history, music and culinary. Load up your printer, download is 43 pages long!
Note: You will need to insert your own "approved restaurant list" as it will vary depending on where you live and teach.

Keywords: differentiated, internet, culture, French, presentation, community, historical, artistic, culinary, communicative