First and second grade world language students experienced French storytelling in action when Upper School French 1B students visited their classrooms to perform two classic fairy tales: Les Trois Petits Cochons (The Three Little Pigs) and Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood). More than just a performance, the visit was an interactive listening comprehension lesson, as younger students practiced following along in French, using context, repetition, and visual cues to build understanding.

The Upper School students performed each play entirely in French, using costumes, props, and expression to provide visual and contextual clues to support comprehension. Before and after each performance, World Language teachers Jillian Nicks and Erin Overstreet reinforced key vocabulary and guided students through targeted listening strategies, asking comprehension questions that encouraged them to make meaning from what they were watching.

For Upper School French students, the project served as an applied language experience, helping them strengthen pronunciation, fluency, and expressive speaking skills. The students began the unit by retelling and sequencing the stories in French. They worked on the vocabulary for the stories, considering how movement, tone, and expression would also help the audience connect with the meaning. This work deepened the student's understanding of French grammar, particularly the distinction between the passé composé and passé simple—two past tenses that can be challenging to master. "Because these stories are told in the past, they also provide a natural and engaging context for practicing past tense structures in a purposeful way," Jillian points out. Having studied these concepts throughout the year, students used the repetition and structure of the plays to practice tenses in context while refining their pronunciation of key sounds, such as “é.”