Local schools celebrate French immersion

YORKTON - Parlez-vous français?

Your answer may be, “un petit peu” but for our French Immersion students, the answer is “oui!”. 

The French Immersion students from Sacred Heart High School and St Michael’s School participated in several activities to celebrate the recent French-Second-Language Education Week in Saskatchewan.

Throughout the week several activities were planned at St. Michael’s School to promote and celebrate learning in French.

The Grade 7 French class prepared outdoor activities along with instructional videos on how to complete the activities in French. 

The Grade 3, 4 and 5 classes learned about francophone history and culture by looking into how maple sugar is made and what role les voyageurs played in our history.

All French immersion classes created and displayed stars that reflected this year's theme ‘From the classroom to the stars! Dream. Act. Realize’. 

Classes were also treated to a bilingual presentation online from Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Older students were paired up with younger students to read in French together.

Teachers documented their students’ learning in French throughout the week so the Grade 6 through 8 students could create videos for each class highlighting their activities. They will be posted on social media (@ecole_michael). 

Students at Sacred Heart High School looked back at their journey in French immersion and wrote notes of gratitude to those educators that helped them realize their dreams. 

Biographies were written about important black French leaders to coincide with Black History Month. 

As appreciation for francophone music, class favourites were played over the intercom for the entire student body to hear.  A music tournament was held to determine the top francophone song of 2022.

Lastly, Grade 9 students created their own music videos to famous francophone songs.

French Immersion starts in Grade 1 at St. Michael’s School and students work toward a bilingual Grade 12 diploma when they graduate from Sacred Heart High School.  These students are not only fluent in speaking French, but can read and write the language as well.

The teachers at both schools are very proud of their students for taking on the challenge of learning a new language and look forward to learning with them for the rest of the year.