Vidéos Brain Pop

Four reasons why Brain Pop Français videos will work in your
Elementary French Immersion classroom:

1. The actual video graphics are simple, professional and self-explanatory.  Without understanding all of the narration students new to French will understand many of the concepts presented.
2. The francophone narrator speaks very quickly, I would say even for grade 3 and 4 students.  BUT, there is a closed captioning option (for *MOST videos).  In the image above there is a play button, the fast forward button is next on the right and then the a black oval with "ST" in it, that is the closed captioning option, click it!  You can mute the video and read the narration (more slowly) yourself for your students, pausing to allow for questions and discussion.  Students could even watch the videos in small groups, then regroup to discuss what they gleaned.  Strong readers can narrate for the class as well.
3. The videos are very well organized into topics and subject areas.
4. Each video is followed by an intereactive "quiz" to check for understanding.  Beware, you will want to review the quiz questions if you plan to use them with a young class, extra discussion will be needed to answer the questions.

* It seems every video has the button but not every video is showing the text when I try multiple videos.  I have sent a message to Brain Pop to find out why as this was a key feature in terms of making the video understandable for young French Immersion students.  Will post the reply!

Needs of Plants and Animals Unit?  Voilà!

(don't take my word for it, check out that site!)

                               amphibiens                    oiseaux                 reptiles
                               chauves-souris               poissons              chats
                               chiens                              dauphins             chevaux
                               manchots                        pandas                 insectes

Could students choose their own animal/video to base their learning on?  Could they watch a few videos at home and come back to school with a choice, even if the entire video was not understood (that almost sounds a little bit like a flipped classroom trick)?  Could groups of students be responsible for certain video topics of interest to them?


Up next:  How do barely reading and writing French Immersion
students demonstrate their learning in a research project?