An exercise that could help Ms. Woods would be to have her students listen to an audible recording of sentences and passages being read in the French, while they read them silently to themselves. Having the sentences/passages recorded will allow them to stop, rewind, and repeat where they find the need to. Repeating this practice will allow them to see the mechanics and grammar in used in print.

Ms. Wood needs to pull those students that seem to be confused and remiediate. Students need more writing instruction. Sometimes small group instruction makes the difference.

I am not sure of the grade level however, I think she should use sentence frames written in french and then ease them off one to two words at a time. She could also have them work together with a peer with pictures and the words written on cards to create a correct sentence which allows them to manipulate something that is done but has to be put in the correct places.

One possible solution would be to have students work in partnerships. Could start by each writing a sentences about themselves. Then they can trade cards and have their partner read the sentence aloud. Their partner will decide if they wrote it correctly, because it won't make sense if they did not do so. Another activity could be for one partner to say a sentence aloud while the other records. Although in English, this has helped my students ensure they are using subject verb agreement correctly.

Ms.Wood could modify her lesson to allow students who are struggling to use sentence stems or complete cloze paragraphs. She could also have a class day where students are only able to communicate through written french. I think having students try to transcribe french audio and then reviewing/modeling to the class after their attempt will give the students an opportunity to improve their writing skills.