Teaching Core French Through the Arts

“This study is concerned with Grade nine applied level students’ attitudes toward learning French. The following paper provides an in-depth case study of one group of 18 students from a Core French class in a South-Western Ontario inner city high school. Specifically students’ attitudes toward learning French through the Arts were examined. Guided by the tenets of Constructivism and Arts-based research, with the collaboration of the classroom teacher, French/Arts lesson plans were prepared through which I examined students’ motivation, attitudes, and enthusiasm to speak French whilst in the process of creating art. Students’ comments of learning French through Art were compared with their stories of past experiences within Core French programme. Grounded theory, an emerging theme design using qualitative methods of data collection and analysis was used to address the research concerns of this study. Observational data, questionnaires, and focus group interviews were conducted in order to triangulate the data collection for analysis. Students’ attitudes toward learning French via Arts-based activities found that students learned French in meaningful ways in the Arts (visual art, music, movement, and drama) and their enjoyment, motivation to learn, and spoken French in the classroom increased.”