It's a good thing.

My language curriculum requires a lot of authentic resources, anything from maps to restaurant brochures to train tickets to shampoo bottles to news articles. Of course, a lot of easy authentic stuff to incorporate in the class is for the lower levels, which I don't teach. And for a lot of those things, you really need a garage-sized space. Or maybe a barn.

Thankfully, the Internet exists. Websites have been quite helpful to language teachers recently. But what's more is that the French news is available streaming online, and comes with a search box! Ever since Matt found a (free) program that allows me to capture news stories and save them to my computer, my AP course planning has become infinitely easier and more fun. My students love the videos because they are short (1-3 minutes), relatively easy to follow, and they get a glimpse into the culture through visuals, gestures, and sound. Plus, "watching TV" doesn't seem like "work" to a teenager, and it's just the right kind of break from other activities. It's really great.

So great, that I've begun to think that my level 3 kids could handle videos (with easy questions). Over the last few weeks, I've accumulated quite a few news clips that relate to their themes or their cultural readings. And then it occured to me: I'm becoming my father!

My dad has been a teacher all his life. When he taught biology at my international high school, he was super popular (for a lot of reasons!) because he especially wanted his curriculum to relate to kids' lives. So every day, he'd tape the news (we're in the 90s, don't worry), comb through it for relevant material and keep a log: "GM foods: from 1:38:07 to 1:40:25". We learned all kinds of stuff about DNA research, cloning, genetically modified foods, diseases, cancer research, etc... Looking back, it must have been a lot of work to keep all of that information organized, especially with VHS tapes. He had a whole cabinet full of them! Luckily, computer data is much smaller and more convenient. And kudos to the person(s) who invented the search engine.

I don't mind at all that I've adopted this technique from my dad. I just wish I had done it sooner.