Reduced to Filling in the Blanks

My applied grade nine French students are not confident with grammar and writing. The exam is three weeks away. I have tried some creative activities, but am now dealing with perhaps the most abstract and irrelevant lesson to them: the past tense with être. They won't memorize on their own. Most don't understand how to apply the structures to their own ideas. 25% of the students in this class have been away for rugby and track over the last couple of weeks. If I launch them into more independent, creative work, they stall, balk and banter.



I have therefore reduced the work to inserting the correct answer in the blank from a list of elements to choose from (essentially, a multiple choice exercise). It bothers me that there is no creative thinking going on.

The other thing that bothers me is my tendency now to rely on the almighty "pass" mark to goad them on: "If you do this, you will pass"; "If you don't do that, you will fail." It is what they are used to thinking and hearing, and it does get most of them moving. But it's not how I want to educate. The crunch is the curriculum and evaluations that drive the teaching, a rather paltry pedagogical menu!

Reduced to Filling in the Blanks

Two things are bothering me today. One is that I'm limiting my teaching three weeks before the exam to my grade nine applied French students