Learning Portfolio

SELF-ASSESSMENT 

After taking a couple of years off from school, I returned to KSU for the spring semester. Currently, I’m a theatre major with a concentration in musical theatre. I’ve always wanted to take French since I was in high school, but was intimidated because it seemed difficult. The French language is beautiful and I want to create art that can be appreciated internationally. My objectives this semester were to improve upon my pronunciation skills, increase my knowledge of French culture and hold longer conversations in French. Below, you will find three examples of my work this semester. I chose these examples because they reflect my progress as well as areas for me to improve.

1.) For the interpretive activity, I chose the 5A worksheet, “À quoi ça sert de faire du sport?” With this activity, we had to watch a Youtube video and answer questions that related to the structure of the video and French culture. Since this activity required comprehension and analysis skills, I prepared for it by watching the video repetitively and paying close attention to context clues. This activity was helpful in how it assisted in improving my listening skills. Since this activity was introduced in the beginning of the semester, I would have preferred a couple of preliminary activities or exercises before completing this assignment. The pictures in the video as well as subtitles helped me understand the main objective of the video. The frustrating element was that, during some parts in the video, the narrator would speed up. Although it was frustrating at the time, this helped me with interpreting a natural French speech pattern. For future assignments, I broke the video up into groups and wrote down what I heard and saw. This helped me tremendously on the worksheets that would ask which element was present or absent in the video.

2.) Next, for the written composition activity, I chose the activity from the Unit 5 evaluation, “Un parc à visiter”. In this assignment, we had to chose a French park or public garden and then write a description about it based on its website. The objective was to compare French and American parks. In order to complete this activity, I referred to our vocabulary words to understand the basic information about the park such as size, location and admittance fee. This activity was much easier than trying to interpret audible French because you can physically see the words and use context clues to discover its meanings. Yet with this activity it was difficult because I wasn’t sure whether or not to paraphrase or copy information straight from the website. Being able to look at the other student’s blog and see what information they were including in their posts helped me in determining what information to use. It was a bit difficult to understand the structure of French websites. Even though they are relatively similar to American websites, the difference it language made it harder to comprehend. Although this was my least favorite assignment, these elements helped me to develop a more dynamic understanding of French language and culture. I changed my approach to future assignments by comparing multiple French websites, with similar topics, to discover a similarity in their structure.

3.) Finally, the final assignment that I chose is the animated presentation entitled “Chez Moi” in unit 8A. This was my favorite assignment and I was able to see an improvement in my pronunciation. The objective of this assignment was to explore the different lodgings in France and use our vocabulary words to describe our household. In order to complete this assignment, I reviewed vocabulary words and made a diagram of my house in order to complete this assignment. The animated presentations allowed me to be creative which helped me to retain the information. Since I was describing something personal, I was able to be descriptive during the narration aspect of the video. Honestly, I didn’t find any weaknesses or things to be improved upon in this activity. I’m a visual learner and working with pictures and videos helped me learn. I also felt more confident to incorporate new words in my narration while doing this activity. As the semester was coming to a close, I found myself exhausted and it was difficult to retain the information each week. However, the elements in this activity were helpful because it ignited a desire to learn. If I could change my approach to future assignments, I would try to first get the overall concept of each unit and take advantage of its relatable aspects.

This course had many enjoyable elements, but was definitely my hardest class this semester. I think that developing an effective study routine is crucial to this class. Also, practice is important because it helps you retain pronunciation and vocabulary words. I found that this course correlated the most with my Theatre studies class because I read a couple of plays that were set in France or inspired by its culture. I’m excited and proud about my progress this semester and will continue to take French for my remainder years at KSU!