On Wednesday (14th of March), I attended my first class of the children’s original mother tongue, as ISS aims to offer lessons that both encourage the development of English, but also maintain and improve their home language. A boy that is in the homeroom class that I am working with this week invited me to come along to his German lesson in order to see the difference in the teaching.
The class was completely in German, emphasising the need for consistent exposure to a language to fully grasp the skills needed to communicate appropriately and effectively.
As soon as I entered the room, I was transported to a world that was entirely in German. The classroom layout emphasised the learning of the language in a fully encompassing manner. Every phrase on the board, every poster and every activity was in German. This, I feel, allowed for the students to become completely tuned into utilising the language for themselves. Although this level was of a mother tongue standard, I believe that we can take the types of approaches towards language-learning as a whole to evaluate the practice in Scottish education.
The specialist teacher spoke to the class entirely in German and expected responses in the language. Furthermore, their capabilities in the language were very strong and they had great confidence in their delivery. Now, although the teacher was German themselves, we can see that the teaching of another language is best established when the practitioner has a great profound understanding of their subject knowledge and how best to explore that knowledge with the children.
Also, the students within the grade I am working with, are getting prepared to start their bicycle training course, which will ensure they are safe when cycling on the roads in Germany. So, the teacher incorporated this topic into her lesson and focused the theme of the vocabulary on road signs, laws of the road and the dangers of cycling. The teacher introduced the topic to the class through and introductory video that was in German, which had humour intertwined with a strong message of the dangers that can occur when cycling. Then, she engaged the class in a discussion about the video itself, which tested their understanding of questioning and competence to respond. The abilities of such young children, that I had only a lesson ago heard them speak in perfect English, were now talking fully and clearly in German. Something that I find both incredible and envious. It also emphasises a point that I began exploring in my school first placement where I had a student that had English as an additional language. Their capability to grasp the language so quickly was astonishing to me, however, ISS has only further emphasised this point for me: children are at a unique position in terms of gaining new language. Furthermore, Hood & Tobutt (2009) have found that this is predominately the case due to children being at a unique advantage in terms of having the capability to grasp the correct pronunciation of another language much quicker than their adult counterparts (however, the age at which a person begins their second language-learning does not determine their entire capabilities within the language).
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that the teacher used to test the knowledge of the students in the laws of the road that they needed for bicycle training but it was completely in German.
An interesting approach that was undertaken by the teacher was in the usage of technology:
They used a platform known as Kahoot! to test the children’s knowledge of particular vocabulary and sentence structures with the topic of road safety. However, she had given the responsibility of the game to one of the students in the class to prepare prior to the lesson. This, for me, showed a great emphasis on ownership of learning, not only for themselves but also their peers in the class. The children were each given an iPad and they had to complete the quiz that the student had made and try and score the most points in order to win. The task was both engaging and stimulating as the students took great joy in seeing their names on the leaderboard. However, the teacher also used the wrong answers well as she then explored it in detail with the students to clarify any misconceptions – one example being with the Stop sign. One cannot simply just stop to a complete halt, they had to take into consideration their surroundings and look around them to make sure it is safe to stop, but also they need to put their foot on the pavement as cyclists when they stop.
Overall, I have taken away great points for reflection from observing and aiding in this lesson (as much as my German would allow me to!) and it has further emphasised my educational philosophy upon the importance of language-learning as a whole. A practitioner needs to be well equipped in order to get their students fully engaged with another language from the one they are so used to, even if they have had lots of prior knowledge within the language. I hope to take these points, on top of the new vocabulary about road safety, when I am teaching modern languages within the Scottish primary school setting.
Reference:
Hood, P. and Tobutt, K. (2009) Modern languages in the primary school London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
