French class makes marionnettistes of mere puppeteers
In Colleen McIntee’s middle school French class last week, the French was in the bag.That’s what happens when students write, edit, rehearse and perform French-language skits using lunch-bag puppets. The puppet shows, captured on video, combined their knowledge of proper greetings in French, ways of expressing opinions and preferences, and vocabulary from their most recent unit on clothing.
Each skit was unique to a story the students wanted to tell, McIntee said—but those stories needed to cover the basic guidelines.
The goal of the project was to integrate, through oral performance, many things students have 
already done this year with new vocabulary from a thematic unit. By practicing for pronunciation and memorizing (for the most part) their skits, students were able to hone in on specific language conventions as well as on the details of intonation, voice quality, projection, and pronunciation of French vowel sounds.
The videos can be seen here:
