November | 2018 | Beth A's Teaching Eportfolio

English is my mother tongue, and I know a small amount of French from doing my National 5 at secondary school. I know a few simple phrases in German and Italian from Primary school (numbers up to 10, my name is…. Etc). I felt Italian and French came a lot more naturally to me in terms of accent and prior vocabulary knowledge, as appose to German which I did not find as easy to pick up.My experience of being taught languages is mainly positive, it was a subject I always enjoyed at school and I feel I picked French up relatively well. I enjoyed learning languages in primary school more than secondary, this could have been because it was made more fun and aimed at younger children, there was a lot of speaking and listening rather than reading and writing.

The ways in which I was taught languages were not always very engaging or exciting, especially in Secondary school where it was mostly textbook based. There was not enough speaking involved when it came to learning languages at school. It was mostly writing, reading and listening. I think that this meant I didn’t have the confidence to take part in conversations, which is a huge part of learning a language. This could also be because I did not begin to learn a language until I was in primary 4. I was taught German in primary school but decided I would rather learn French when I reached high school. At no point did I feel at a disadvantage compared to my classmates, who had learnt French at primary school. This was good for me, but it made it clear that the teaching of modern languages was not that effective, if someone who had no prior French teaching could join the class and feel equal.

French is the most important language to me, out of the languages I have had experience in learning. This could be due to the fact that some of my close family members can speak French very well, and my grandma taught modern languages as her profession. Having gone to France for my second-year placement, the desire to improve my French and my interest in the language grew. I do not value German as much as it wasn’t a language that I had the desire to learn from a young age, hence why I swapped to French moving into secondary school.

I learnt Italian when I was in primary 4/5 so I think being younger meant that the learning was less serious, there was more games, songs and talking involved and it was more enjoyable for that reason. The teacher was a native Italian speaker, and this meant she could share her experiences of Italian culture with us. In Secondary school, we would sometimes watch films in French and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to work out what was being said. However most of the learning was through textbooks and listing to the teacher (who was not a native speaker of French). Having only taken French as far as National 5 level, I did not revisit the language until I went to France for my LfL placement. This is where I learnt a lot about the language in a much more hands on way. I was thrown in at the deep end, but I think this gave me a lot more motivation to understand what the teachers and pupils in my school were saying.

During my second year LfL placement, there was countless opportunities for interpersonal and intercultural communication. I feel that I managed these well considering I know a little amount of French for conversation. Throughout my placement I would need to communicate with the teachers in my school in order to plan lessons and discuss the pupils’ development. This would be in a mixture of English and French, as sometimes I really didn’t understand what was being said. However, the longer I was in France, the more able I was to communicate in French with the teachers and the pupils in my school. This was continued outside of the school environment too as I needed to be independent in everyday life (getting on and off buses, asking for directions, shopping etc).

This blog will look into some of the methods I used when I taught English to French pupils for my LfL second year placement. Throughout the ED31010 module, it has become apparent to me that the methods I used were actually really valid and effective. It has been interesting to take part in the module having been through the practical element of modern language teaching but from the opposing point of view (teaching English to French Children rather than teaching French to Scottish Children).

Gesture, Voice, Mime, Eye Contact

A reason why I feel that my experience was authentic and easily comparable to teaching French in a Scottish classroom, is that my level of French is truly a beginner’s level. This meant that I had to put a lot of effort in for the smallest amounts of communication with the children. I also discovered how important the use of gesture, eye contact, mime and voice is when communicating, and how much it can help to get a message across. McLachlan and Jones (2009) discuss the use of gesture, mime, facial expressions and eye contact in their book. Most of my lessons would consist of me standing in front of the different classes of children (ranging from age 6 to 11), and trying my best to teach them new vocabulary or explain activities using the little French I knew or talking very clearly and slowly in English. On the first few days of my placement I realised that I was talking too quickly to the children in English. I remember one of the teachers asking me to introduce myself in English and see if her pupils could make a guess as to what I was saying. By my second sentence the teacher was already telling me to slow down because the pupils would not understand me. I realised then that if a French person spoke to me at that speed, I would have a similar issue. This corresponds with Krashen’s theory (1981, cited in Johnstone, 1994) on the ‘silent period’, where time is given to pupils to respond or merely take in the information that has been spoken to them. I can relate to the pupils with this, as a learner, as I felt I needed a certain amount of time to respond to French that was spoken to me. Even after the first few days of placement I realised that in order to get my message across to the children, an essential thing to have was patience and perseverance. I felt that the words I used weren’t the most important thing as I was able to teach the children basic English greetings and phrases using a minimal amount of French.

Flashcards

I often accompanied the use of clear and slower speech with the use of flashcards. I found this was especially effective for the younger pupils, who needed that extra visual aid. I found flashcards helpful to use as it meant I didn’t need to speak an awful lot in order to practice vocabulary with them. Obviously at the start I would say the words with correct pronunciation, as well as using the flashcards, and have the pupils repeat after me. After this had been practiced I would then just hold up a flashcard, as a visual queue for the pupils. They were associating the words with the pictures, and I knew this would help them to remember the vocabulary better. The use of a visual aid can be described as a scaffolding strategy, where pupils are given extra support by the teacher (Swain, Kinnear and Steinman, 2010). I found that less time was wasted using flashcards, as there was less risk for the language barrier to slow down the learning.

Stories / Comics

I found that I used stories and comics a lot with the oldest class in the school. Their teacher thought that their level of English was at a certain level that listening to stories and comics would not be too much. One of the first books I read to the class was ‘Monkey Puzzle’, which is an English book by Julia Donaldson. It has a lot of vocabulary in it, particularly animals and descriptions such as big, small, stripes, spotty, green, red etc. Again, I found that using gestures and slowing my voice down really helped the pupils to understand what I was saying as I was reading the story. It probably also made it more engaging for the pupils to listen to, using different tones and a range of volumes. Using comics was also a good way to get the older children speaking English, rather than merely listening to me. The comics that their teacher provided me with had a lot of dialogue and role play, meaning the pupils could stand up and practice the conversations, firstly reading from the page and then eventually being able to memorise and recite it. This was good in terms of the pupils practicing their pronunciation of words but I felt there was not enough spontaneity in the activity. Towards the end of my placement I began to read stories to the younger classes, as they got used to me and the English language. I read ‘Dear Zoo’ to them, which is a short story book, again with animal vocabulary and descriptions such as grumpy, scary, cheeky, small, perfect etc. The younger pupils absolutely loved this and they seemed to enjoy the challenge of guessing what each animal was. These were usually educated guesses, using cognates and the pupils’ prior knowledge of English. I feel this could come into context with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximinal Development, (1934, cited in Shabani, 2010), where pupils are given work slightly beyond their developmental level and given guidance by the teacher.

Use of a Character

When I was working with the youngest class in the school, their teacher asked me to give my inputs using a character called Joe the Pirate. This corresponds with Jones and Coffey’s (2006) idea of using a ‘foreign character’ to introduce speaking as a skill to young pupils. She told me that the children were very interested in pirates at the time, and that this might help to increase their enthusiasm towards learning English. At first, I wondered if it might be too difficult for me to get the pupils to understand the concept, and I was right. The youngest children clearly would know the least English, so whenever I went into that class I needed to prepare a lot of French phrases and words, and ‘pirate’ was not one I was prepared to explain! However, despite this, the children did seem to be very excited about being pirates and using the English language through this context. I really did feel that because ‘Joe the Pirate’ was introducing himself, it made the children feel more comfortable about introducing themselves and speaking English too.

Simon Says

I feel I was lucky with the school I was placed into in France, as 4/5 of the teachers could speak English well enough for me to communicate with them easily. However there was one teacher that really did not know much English at all, and she taught the second youngest class. I found this class a lot more challenging to teach in, as there was no safety blanket of someone being able to translate if need be. The class teacher had communicated to me that she wanted the children to learn some classroom instructions and objects in English, and the game that immediately came to my mind was ‘Simon says’. The children called it ‘Jacques à dit’, and so already understood the concept of the game, which made it much easier to play with them. In order to introduce the vocabulary to them (sit down, stand up, listen, look, wipe the whiteboard etc), I had to repeat myself and get the children to repeat after me. This is associate with Skinner’s behaviourist theory, in which children must imitate and repeat in order to acquire language (1957, cited in Kirsch, 2008). I also had to use a lot of actions for the children to associate with the words. After a few lessons of practicing this, the children were able to respond to my instructions with only a small amount of hesitation. As the weeks went on, I began to make the game harder by including some of the classroom objects into it, for example, “show me your pencil”, “show me your jotter”, “show me your rubber” etc. Again, after a few days of practice the children were able to identify each object pretty quickly. The children enjoyed doing this themselves as well. I would ask for a volunteer to come to the front of the class and ‘be the teacher’ by telling their peers some instructions they could remember. The children really responded well to this game and I found it was easy to differentiate the difficulty of it as time went on.

References

Johnstone, R. (1994) Teaching Modern Languages at Primary School – Approaches and Implications, Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Research in Education
Jones, J. and Coffey. S (2006) Modern Foreign Languages 5-11 – a guide for teachers. London:David Fulton Publishers
Kirsch, C. (2008) Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School. Continuum International Publishing Group.
McLachlan, A. and Jones, J. (2009) Primary Languages in Practice: A Guide to Teaching and Learning.McGraw-Hill Education.
Shabani, K. (2010) ‘Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: Instructional Implications and Teachers’ Professional Development’ English Language Teaching. 3(4) Canadian Centre of Science and Education.
Swain, M., Kinnear, P. and Steinman, L. (2010) Sociocultural Theory in Second Language Education: An Introduction Through Narratives.MM Textbooks

My Language Competency

LfL Experience – Teaching English in a French Primary School