The nature of my placement has allowed me to explore and learn about France’s culture, language and education system. I feel that my placement school has given me many opportunities to communicate and work with different people, whether it be children, members of staff in the school or parents in the playground. In this case, these are people that do not speak my language. This has been challenging but I feel it has had a positive impact on me. Being in France has allowed me to realise that communication with others is not always about the words we speak. Gestures, facial expression, and different aspects of speech such as tone and volume are what allow us to communicate how we feel about things. Being able to work in a teaching team and bring lesson ideas and plans to the school from a Scottish perspective has given me a sense of achievement and an increase in self-confidence. Presenting myself or standing in front of a class of children was something that I did not find intimidating before beginning the learning from life placement, but I had predicted that doing this with groups of children who speak French could be quite overwhelming. With the help of the teachers in my school, who I feel I have built good relationships with over the course of my placement, I have discovered that I can successfully teach English to French children. This has allowed my confidence to grow over the course of the 6 weeks that I have been in the school. I feel that this has shown in my teaching, as I have explored new ways to teach vocabulary and been more adventurous with tasks and activities as time has gone on.
My behaviour management has been tested throughout my placement, as this is an aspect of teaching that can be challenging. It was made even more challenging due to the language barrier between me and the children, which meant that I had to use all of my communicational skills, as my words were often not enough in certain situations.
In terms of the education system, I have been able to see a glimpse of what life is like in Primary schools in France. Comparing the French curriculum to the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland, I feel that in France, the focus is very much on French and Maths as the two core subjects, without much inclusion of other subjects in their daily timetable. Through reflection and experiencing a different curriculum, I realised that my professional and personal preference is to have a wider variety of subjects taught in the day.
The main thing that I will take from my placement is the realisation that learning a second language in primary school is really important. I have learnt that through lots of speaking and repetition, even the youngest children in the school can learn a new language, it is not just for the older pupils.I feel that if a teacher shows enthusiasm for a language that they are teaching, the children in their class are more likely to be enthusiastic about learning this new language, and hopefully continue to learn it after they leave school. My LFL placement has heightened my enthusiasm for learning languages regularly, throughout the primary curriculum, and I aim to demonstrate this to my classes in the future.
