French 1 participates in ‘The Amazing French Race’

The ranking board for The Amazing French Race.

The ranking board for The Amazing French Race.

During the last quarter of school students are anxiously waiting for summer vacation to begin. Being this close to the two and a half month break, students are tired of doing the same boring schoolwork. The Amazing French Race is completely different offering students an alternative learning method that is based off of the CBS reality T.V. show The Amazing Race.

The Amazing Race is a game show where teams of two people compete against other teams in a race around the world. French I teacher Mrs. Karver came up with a way to mix the show and learning together to make the end of the year less boring.

“I based it off the T.V show The Amazing Race where teams go around the world and do different challenges that require different skills. I thought it would be a great way to do our last French chapter because it’s a pretty easy chapter, in teams just to add some competition and to make the last few weeks of school a little more interesting,” Karver said.

Instead of having only groups of two, The Amazing French has groups from about two to five people who compete by getting clues in French and following the directions.

“We usually get a slip of paper that is completely in French and then we have to decipher what it says. We then have to follow what the task it tells us to do, like go to the Office and find a specific person or assemble a random puzzle,” Alexandria Rappleye said.

The response towards the race is mixed. Students are either loving this way of learning or wishing that they were learning the traditional way.

“I like [the race] because it actually gets us to do stuff because we are trying to get points. It’s not boring because we are not just sitting around all day, we actually have to go outside and do[ing] the work together,” Fatehrajinder Bajwa said.

While some people are more open to this new kind of learning, others were not as happy towards the change from traditional teaching methods.

“I don’t really like [the race]; I don’t like the way we are learning. Personally, I don’t think it’s that great of an idea. There is the part that is encouraging us to try  harder and compete with people, but I think it is making some students fall behind,” Jade Greenburg said.

Overall the Amazing French Amazing Race was enjoyable for most students and teachers.

Karver said, “As a teacher doing the same thing year in and year out [it] can get kinda boring and if I’m bored, then I know my students probably are bored. It is a really fun way to get kids inspired, keep them working strong until the end of the year and of course competition always is a great way to enliven a classroom.”

 

by ONA IGBINEDION