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