Mme B's Classroom

This is my first year hearing about it and you would think it has been around for decades! My students begged me to get on board, and so I had no choice but to go all in. Here is everything I know about Manie Musicale and how to get your class as excited as we are.

So what is Manie Musicale?

Manie Musicale started in 2017 buy a group of teachers wanting to showcase French music to their students. Running along side March Madness (this means nothing to me either – I’m not much of a sports fan), 16 songs are selected to run against each other in a round-robin style voting system. Students get to vote for their favorite songs and there is a new reveal video every few days for the month of March.

Is Manie Musicale free?

100% Manie Musicale is free for everyone and don’t let anyone convince you other wise.

The amazing team puts everything together on their website and teachers just need to follow along. Watch the magic, and the madness, happen.

What do I do other than watching music videos?

As much or as little as you can handle.

At first, I just wanted to listen to the music, vote and watch the reveal videos. Have some sort of theme in between, like Travel/transportation. But the voting and the reveals are so often and captivating, we would get nothing done and be constantly interrupted.

The best part about Manie Musicale is that everything is shared! Teachers from everywhere have access to the teams Google Drive. As teachers make activities, they upload it for everyone to use.

The Facebook group is also a great place to ask questions, showcase your activities and beam with pride at your classroom’s achievements.

We are currently doing a research project, details linked at the bottom of this post.

What type of music does Manie Musicale select?

Everything that is selected has been vetted by teachers, knowing that any age group would be listening.

Videos are provided with English subtitles, as well as a link to their Youtube, Spotify and Apple music playlist for easier passive-listening.

This year is a healthy mix of many genres that are school approrpiate. The themes vary from “I’m overwhelmed by my surrounds” to “call me whenever you need me, I’m here” (that one appeared twice actually), to “Make time for self-care, you only get one life”.

They are universal themes without going into anything too deep or graphic, like much of today’s radio music. I don’t recall a single love song or break up song.

Who are the singers?

The songs chosen for Manie Musicale represent a diversity of French speaking singers. Their country of origin spans across the globe. Their video styles, dance styles and clothes represent their culture nicely, giving students a view of something they probably won’t see outside of this activity.

Part of French-as-a-Second-Language is to provide students with a love of French while exploring French culture. But which French culture? At Manie Musicale, students can see up to 16 different cultures represented, that share only the same language. Even then, dialects differ greatly among many of the artists.

Do the students like Manie Musicale?

Like I said before, I was “forced” into this by my students. And they are more than happy to tell me everything that they did last year that they would like to see again this year.

They have also told me how much they preferred an artists song over the same artists submittion from years before. They are listening to the music and choosing to include them on their regular playlist!

Project Ideas!

This is the best part! Teachers, take a load off, knowing that most of this unit is planned for you. You just need to decide which activities to do, then execute it.

I have 2 very differently-abled Intermediate classes.

1 – My 6/7 aren’t really interested in doing much, let alone French. They are my “hard-to-please” group. For them, we did a “Talent Agency” competition. This was suggested to me by another teacher on Facebook and they are eating it up!

For this, my students are creating a display to win the votes of students coming to visit. I have already told the school about this, so there is no going back. Once we are ready, other classes will stop for a quick visit and they need to be convinced into voting for their artist. The group with the most votes wins.

What do they win? I haven’t thought that part through yet. Probably a fidget or playdough from my desk. Or a hotwheels. They love this stuff.

2 – My 7/8 class are super switched on. They are the ones that convinced me to take this Unit on in the first place. For them, we have a major research project. Majority of it is in French, but the hard parts are in English. This is Core French after all.

This project was inspired by a few documents found on the Google Drive. I have pieced-together expectations and requirements to create a project that I think my students can achieve, find interesting to research, as well as interesting to listen to. Click here for the project PDF.

Students will learn why other countries speak French, how their culture is different from our own, dialects of French and so much more. I enjoy every aspect of this project and students are happy that it “isn’t too much work.”

Trading Cards

Both groups have Trading Cards. I love this idea. I have taken the Trading Cards from the Google Drive and printed 20 sheets of each, cut them up and placed them in my teacher-bag. I have given each student their own brown bag to decorate and label “trading cards”. At the end of each lesson, I hand out a single card to each student that showcased appropriate classroom behaviour. If they didn’t earn a card, they are given specific directions to improve; “You were howling at the door and played Minecraft the whole time. Not how we earn a trading card”.

Once they have received all 16 cards, they can trade them in for a prize. Students are encouraged to trade amongst each other to complete the set. I blind-dive into my bag to dispense the trading cards so I have no idea what I will be giving out. It is a real mystery for everyone involved.

And they love this! My behavioural students are starting to turn it around in order to achieve a trading card, especially if they think they will receive their favorite artist. And when I mentioned that the prizes were negotiable if/when someone won, the lights turned on and they got down to business.

Final thoughts

I am only 2 weeks in and I love this unit. My teacher-brain can take a short breath knowthing that I don’t have to plan anything for a month, and I can focus more on my other classes as well as observations for these two classes.

I enjoy that they are listening to French music that isn’t just Christmas songs or C’est Halloween. I love these songs, but there is more to French music than this and Celine Dion. Again, no hate.

Knowing what I know now, I will definitely be doing this again next year. There will be more amazing activities posted and thought of between now and then, and I look forward to the new music.