ZPD in Action!

Learning Blog #6

Objective:  Learn the words to a French school song and teach it to my own children.

Background
During my recent trip to Haiti, I spent a day at a remote school in the mountains above Port Au Prince.  The school children were adorable and I especially loved the warm reception I received from the 1st grade class.  They sang me this lovely welcome song and I just couldn't get it out of my mind.  In fact, 2 months later, I periodically find myself singing the song. The only problem is that while I understood the first and last portion of the lyrics to the song, the middle portion is seemingly impossible to decipher.

ZPD will rescue me, I know it will!  Why do I know this?  Because this task is too difficult to accomplish in isolation.  I listened over and over to the lyrics and I just couldn't understand what they were singing.  I realized that I need the help of someone who knew better than I.  Once again, I turned to my French speaking nephew to mediate my learning.  He provided the proper scaffolding by translating and then explaining what the newly translated portion meant within the context of the song.

**Update:  The translation my nephew gave me is obviously not correct (listen to the video recording and follow the French translation - it doesn't match up).  The original version I gave him was an audio only recording of this song and it was a terrible recording I admit!  I don't blame him for not hearing the middle section correctly.  It wasn't until I found this video recording deep within my HUGE file of Haiti pictures that I realized his translation didn't match up.  I had a difficult time editing and uploading the video below so it wasn't until Thursday morning that my nephew received my plea to retranslate.  He promised it would be done by Friday night, but I'm pressing forward with hope, but realizing that the assignment is due on Friday too!  

**I'm going to wait to video my kids singing the song in its entirety until I know the middle section has been translated correctly.  I promise I will update!!

Lyrics en Francais
Bonjour, comment ca vas?
Ca vas bien, merci
Et toi?
Voila, Le demande qui demader comment fait la vie.
Comment ca vas?
Ca vas bien (repeat)

Lyrics in English
Good day, how's it going?
Good, and you?
There you have it, the question that asks how life's going.
How's it going?
Good, and you? (repeat)