For my French language class, we were asked to take part in CAS, whilst linking it to the French language. Therefore for creativity, I decided to take advantage of the end of the year holiday season by focusing on spreading my home town’s Christmas traditions visually. This was effective as Belgium is a francophone country, and therefore is French-speaking, thus many articles are written in French orientating the traditions. This made the process of research more beneficial, as I was able to utilize and develop both my French reading and writing skills. I decided to create a French poster about the traditions I grew up with based on my nationality, connecting this to our “experiences” unit from our lessons, and utilizing the new vocabulary I had learned. I created a poster on 4 of my favorite Belgian Christmas traditions, as well as a short paragraph in French briefly summarising the poster (found at the bottom of this post).

To create the poster, I started by doing research on Belgian traditions in order to refresh my mind of the traditions I took part in when I was younger, as well as finding details to add to my poster. Combining this with my personal knowledge, I created a simple outline of the poster on a word document which included the different traditions I would discuss, as well as the general layout. I then began to create a draft of the poster on canva.com, adding the visuals and text together in an aesthetic manner. I chose Christmas colors, such as red, white, and green, to create the poster, and make it come across to readers as Christmasy.

Creating the French poster on Canvas

Once I created the first draft of the poster, I shared this with my French teacher, Mrs. Marlene Fert, who gave me feedback and corrections on my French writing. I included a picture of my brother and me, participating in one of the traditions I mentioned, in order to make it more personal and engaging. After this, I created a brief paragraph summarising my poster, which was also checked by my teacher. To share my poster with a larger audience, I presented it during my French class, reading through it and answering any questions from my peers. My poster and paragraph were then published on our French website, which you can find if you click here.

My end of year traditions article on “Les Classes de Madame Fert” website

Below is my French paragraph and poster on the Christmas traditions in Belgium:

Traditions Belges

J’ai choisi de créer ce poster sur le thème des traditions de Noël en Belgique, parce que c’est mon pays d’origine, et aussi, ce sont des traditions avec lesquelles j’ai grandi. J’ai fait un poster parce que je voulais partager mon expérience de Noël avec mes camarades. Chaque pays a ses traditions uniques, et puisque Noël est là, je pense que maintenant c’est le moment idéal. ​J’ai choisi ces traditions spécifiques, parce qu’ elles sont les plus mémorables pour moi et ce sont mes traditions préférées depuis toujours. Par exemple, la tradition de mettre une carotte dans ma chaussure pour les rennes était ma tradition préférée pendant Noël. J’adorais me réveiller pour vérifier si les rennes avaient croqué la carotte. Toutes ces traditions m’ont permises d’être dans l’esprit de Noël, et de célébrer avec ma famille. Ces traditions passeront de générations en générations, et c’est ce qui est important pour moi.

Zoé, classe de Première, Novembre 2020

I was happy with how my poster turned out, as I found it was visually pleasing and was relevant to the theme of the end of year traditions. I was able to develop my French skills, whilst simultaneously building on my creative skills, as I was challenged to make a visually pleasing and informative poster. I did find I could have done a better job with making the green leaf bordering more prominent one the right of the poster to create a balance, however, I struggled to do so due to a large amount of wording I wanted to include within my poster. Overall, I found it was visually pleasing, as mentioned to me by the feedback of my peers, and showed my identity and experiences effectively. I enjoyed getting creative with how I would present the unique traditions in a way that would be both aesthetic and engaging. Working with visuals and text helped me get creative with formatting and layout, allowing me to put my ideas to life through canva.com. I worked through the challenge of being creative with a language I am not yet fluent in, allowing me to develop my weaknesses in both the language and my graphical designing skills.