Monthly Archives: September 2018

French School Culture (my experiences from LfL)

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Handwriting

For my second year learning from life placement, I was lucky enough to be able to help out in  a French primary school in Orléans for 6 weeks. During this time, I discovered a lot of things that were done differently in France compared to Scottish primary schools that I’ve been in. This post will explore a few key things that I noted over my placement and that stood out to me. Firstly,  when I began my placement at L’Ecole Guernazelles, I noticed that the children’s handwriting was very different to their Scottish equivalents. It was mostly neat and sophisticated, and seemed to have a lot more swirls than the way children write in Scotland. These are the style of letters the children were supposed to be using, this poster was on every classroom wall for the pupils to refer to.

I did question whether this was necessary and thought surely making sure a child’s spelling is at a good standard is more important than the style in which they write. When I asked the French teachers about this they said that writing in this style it is a tradition. Also having watched a video about it (called ‘French – Teaching Handwriting’ which is part of a series called ‘How do they do it in….?’), I learned that in France, handwriting is taught in a formalised manner that allows children to be creative. Their belief is if pupils’ handwriting is good they won’t be held back in being creative. This style of handwriting has been used for sixty years and it comes from a font called “La Ronde”.

  • teachfind (2007) France – Teaching Handwriting. Available at: http://archive.teachfind.com/ttv/www.teachers.tv/videos/france-teaching-handwriting.html (Accessed: 15/04/2018)

Class Structure

In France, they don’t have Primary 1-7 in the Primary school. Instead, they have 5 classes.

  • CP (6-7 year olds)
  • CE1 (7-8 year olds)
  • CE2 (8-9 year olds)
  • CM1 (9-10 year olds)
  • CM2 (10-11 year olds)

CP is the youngest class in the French primary school. In the school I was volunteering at for my placement, the CP class was the biggest in the school, at around 30 pupils (the school was in a rural area, only around 100 children in total). Something that I observed whilst I was in at the school was that the CP teacher did seem to struggle with the number of children in the class, and often had to send a few pupils to another class, if things got too hectic. One of the teachers at the school told me that Emmanuel Macron (the French President) was aiming to have a maximum of 12 pupils in every CP class in poorer neighbourhoods of France. This would be so that pupils could receive more teacher attention, earlier on in their education. Something else that was recently implemented in some primary schools (particularly in Nice and Marseille) by The President, is only having 4 day weeks. Typically pupils get a half day on a Wednesday, but this would be changed to a whole day off instead meaning children are out of school for 3 full days a week. In Scotland, schools are open Monday to Friday, with no half days (with the exception of Edinburgh).

Emmanuel Macron also wants compulsory education to start at the age of three, from September 2019. This would be lowering the starting age by 3 years and schools would require a lot more staff.  The President feels that nursery in France should no longer merely be treated as ‘childcare’, but it should be educational too.

  • The Connexion, (2017), “Changes in Store as Children Head Back to School”
  • The Connexion, (2018) “School to Start from Age 3 in 2019”.

 

Exploring European Countries – My Primary 6 Experience

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In our introductory lecture for ED31002, we were asked to think back to our primary school experiences of topic/project work. We discussed the types of topics that usually came up, such as The Victorians, World War 2, and a few that were more specific to different areas of Scotland.  The topic that immediately came into my mind from my primary school experience was when we had explored European countries in Primary 6. I always seem to remember this very well, it has obviously stuck with me because it was a topic that I enjoyed a lot.

My class teacher at the time liked us to work in groups for any topic work that we did. He could probably tell that we liked this too. Our task for the next few weeks would be to choose a European country as a group, and research every aspect that we possibly could about that country. This could include the food, flag, what language they speak, famous figures, famous monuments and the general culture of the country. Each group was to research a different country, as at the end of the project we would all listen to each other about what we had discovered and compare.

My group chose to research and learn more about Belgium. I think this was probably our way of not taking the easy route, which perhaps would have been France or Italy. If I remember correctly, other groups chose Spain, Greece, Ukraine and Germany (a nice mixture, I thought). After this had been established, we were then asked to focus in on a particular area….this is where the individual part came in. I chose to research sport, so this would include any famous sportsmen or women, popular sports in Belgium or if there were any stadiums that were of particular interest. Being a massive tennis fan at the time, I remember really being keen to research about Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, two number 1 players in the world. Being able to research something that I was interested in really allowed me to become enthusiastic about the project. It also gave things a personal feel, I was going to be able to report back to my group about something I was passionate about.

In addition to the individual research that we were assigned, our teacher also gave us some other home activities to do that would bring in different areas of the curriculum. The first thing I remember being asked to do was to create a model of a famous building, monument or statue from your country of choice. This was to be done at home, using only household items where possible. This was certainly bringing a more creative streak to the topic. I chose to create a model of the Atomium (crazy, I know). Just to give you an idea of how difficult this was, here is a photo of the Atomium in Belgium.

When I got home and it came to creating my model, I seemed to regret my choice. However, I accepted the challenge and managed to create something that looked slightly similar to the Atomium using the simple household item that is tin foil. This activity definitely encouraged me to think about 3D shapes, materials and how to keep a basic structure upright! The activity stands out the most for me, firstly because of how challenging it was but also because I had never been given homework like it before. It wasn’t your usual sheet of paper with 20 sums on it.

The aim of doing these activities was to allow us to incorporate different curricular areas into the topic and to explore a culture that we had probably never considered before. After all these weeks, the models, posters and research we had created and found were not going to waste. Our teacher had organised a day for us to show what we had been working on to our families and friends. We set up different stalls in our classroom for each group, with everything on display for our parents and guardians to see. We had all made (or tried to make) special dishes from our chosen countries, using traditional ingredients (I had made Belgian chocolate cookies). I remember being very excited about this day, and it really allowed the whole topic to come together in the end. It felt like there was a goal to work towards, we had to impress our families! It was also exciting to see what my peers had been doing, and I was able to learn little bits of information from their stalls too.

1+2 Approach – Language Learning in Scotland

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1+2 Approach – Language Learning in Scotland

(Notes taken from https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0039/00393435.pdf)

  • Children’s mother tongue with the addition of two other languages is recommended by the European Union and has already been implemented in other countries around the world.
  • There has been a “significant and worrying” decline in the last decade of pupils continuing their learning of languages to SQA level.
  • Young people are not being challenged or motivated enough whilst learning a new language.
  • The need for young people to learn additional languages will become increasingly important as the world becomes more globalised.

In order to deliver this framework:

  • An additional language needs to be introduced at an earlier stage in primary school.
  • Needs to be an enhanced partnership working between primary and secondary schools.
  • Needs to be a closer collaboration across all sectors of the curriculum.
  • More use of technology when teaching/learning a new language.
  • Regular access to native and fluent speakers to stimulate interest in learning language and other cultures.

Why does learning language matter?

  • Life enhancing
  • Opens doors to experiences which are not usually available to those with only one language
  • Enhances understanding of L1
  • Enable young people to participate fully in a global society and economy
  • Learning a language relates to the 4 main objectives in primary school (effective contributor, confident individual, successful learner, responsible citizen).
  • Business community recognises the importance of communicating in another language of potential clients.
  • ‘damaging perception’ that we don’t need to speak another language because everyone speaks English, has to be challenged.

 

  • The Working Group believes that the 1+2 approach is for all young people wherever they live in Scotland, urban or rural, schools big or small.
  • So much of children’s’ communication is in English (with their families and social media etc) that it does not seem as important to learn another language.
  • Only 6% of the world’s population has English as their L1.
  • English represented 51% of language usage on the internet but by 2011 this was down to 27%.

Starting Young

  • Lots of evidence to prove that young children learn languages more easily than older learners – mental flexibility.
  • Can enhance natural curiosity
  • Help to foster a positive attitude towards languages
  • Learning French, German, Italian and Spanish will continue to hold its importance.

Challenges

  • Staffing, training and funding issues
  • Other curricular areas seen as more important to teachers
  • Teachers not confident enough to teach another language or deliver lessons

 

  • The best lessons include a variety of approaches such as games, songs, direct teaching, group and paired work.
  • Most effective teaching is where teachers implement language learning across the curriculum and not just in their allocated time slot for modern languages.
  • Learning about the culture of a country frequently arouses enthusiasm for learning the language.
  • Challenges for introducing L3 are similar to those for L2 (staffing, funding, training).

Time Allocation

  • The Working Group does not recommend a fixed number of hours for the learning of language in primary schools.
  • Building blocks of language learning into the daily routine for learners, plus the use of the target language across other aspects of learning can avoid the danger that a ‘language hour’ is the first to go when there are timetabling issues.