Category Archives: 1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment

LfL Experience – Teaching English in a French Primary School

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

Lesson Plan – Gender Agreement / Self Descriptions

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Class/Group:Primary 3 mixed ability Lesson: French Date: n/a

Previous Experience: In previous lesson the class were introduced to the vocabulary used for describing themselves (les cheveux blonds, bruns, noirs, roux, les yeux bleus, verts, marron, grand(e), petit(e)).

Areas to cover in this lesson: understanding that the gender the adjectives use must agree with the gender of the nouns used and the children themselves. (petit/petite, grand/grande)

Working towards outcomes of a Curriculum for Excellence:

Listening / Speaking –I can participate in familiar collaborative activities including games, paired speaking and short role plays. MLAN 2-05b

Writing –I can use familiar language to describe myself and to exchange straightforward information. MLAN 2-13b

Reading –I can read and demonstrate understanding of words, signs, phrases and simple texts containing mainly familiar language. MLAN 2-08b

Learning Intentions:

I will revise the words used for describing myself.
I will learn how to use gender correctly whilst describing myself

Success Criteria:

I will understand how gender agreement works when describing myself both verbally and in my writing.
I will be able to fill out a personal fact file with the aid of a vocabulary list.
I will be able to listen to the teacher describe someone in the class and try to guess who this might be.

Setting the context/Beginning the lesson (Introduction):

Ask class to discuss the vocabulary that they learnt in the previous lesson with their shoulder partner.
Get them to use their ‘show me’ boards to write down any vocabulary that they can remember.
Introduce the concept of gender, (when using an adjective and talking about yourself, you use an adjective that is agreeable with your gender and a noun’s gender).
As the teacher, clearly read out all the vocabulary with correct pronunciation so the class can hear how it should sound.

Teaching the learning intentions (Development):

Introduce myself in French verbally and written on the board. (bonjour, j’ai les yeux verts, j’ai les cheveux roux et je suis petite) explain that the ‘e’ is at the end of petite because I am a female and if I were male there would be no ‘e’. Ensure pronunciation is as accurate as possible.
Hand out worksheets that pupils will work on individually but with the aid of a vocabulary list (this will have eye/hair colours and small/tall).
They will fill these out
Once these are completed ask the children to swap with a partner for peer assessment. Children should check for correct grammar and spelling.
Collect these sheets in and select a few to read out to the class, in French, as a ‘guess who’ activity, where the children have to guess who is being described.
Ask children to turn to their partner and describe themselves using the vocabulary they have just learnt.

Ending the lesson (Plenary)

Use ‘show me’ boards once more to check for pupils’ spelling of the vocabulary, some pupils can use the vocabulary list if need be.

French Restaurant Menu – Lesson Idea

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For our TDT this week we were asked to find a menu, advert and holiday brochure in the modern language of our choice, all with varying levels of difficulty. I struggled more than I thought I would doing this, as it seemed that everything I found would be too difficult for primary school pupils to comprehend. However, I came across this children’s menu for a restaurant that I thought would be suitable for children in the upper primary school to work with.

Questions to Ask My Pupils

I came up with questions that I could ask pupils after they have had a look over the text. These would be asked before the pupils attempt to thoroughly read the text and with the aim of them discovering that they knew more of the vocabulary than they had first thought, and also to look at the wider picture.

What type of text do you think this is? (gets the pupils to think about the structure, layout and style of the text without reading anything).
What is its purpose? (to inform, to entertain etc?)
Can you recognise any of the vocabulary or pictures? (starts to give an idea of what the theme of the text is, again, without the pupils reading very much).
Who is this text aimed at? (school children, adults, a specific profession etc?)
Can you find any words in French that look similar to words in English (cognates)? (this may build confidence in the pupils before they tackle the text fully).
Are there any words that you don’t recognise?

Pros and Cons of the Text

The first thing that grabbed me about this resource is that there are pictures, a great visual aid for pupils who might be struggling with the vocabulary.
The vocabulary is also relatively simple, with potentially a few words that cold confuse them, such as la viande and la fromage, as they are very different from their English translations.
A downside to this resource is that the English translation is directly below all of the French. I would say in order for this to be as effective as possible, the English should be eliminated, otherwise it is too easy and defeats the purpose of the pupils using their prior knowledge to figure out the new vocabulary.

Activities

This text could be used simply in a comprehension activity, the text is in French but the children would read and respond to questions in English.
Role play – ordering from a restaurant (further inputs would need to be had in order for pupils to build up their vocabulary for conversations).
Create menus for their own restaurants, could include their favourite foods (research involved if they don’t already know these words).
Culture – look into the traditional food that is eaten in France, food that they eat at different holidays and celebrations.

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.

Week 6 of Placement – 16th to the 20th of April

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Week 6 of Placement – 16^th to the 20^th of April

This week, the CE1 and CE2 classes are on a residential school trip for the week. This means that there is only around 70 pupils in the school, which is very little compared to what I was used to at my primary school in Scotland. There were a few of these pupil that were not going on the trip, who joined CM1 (Madame Royer’s class). This made her class quite full, similar to the size of a class in an average Scottish primary school. There would be other children put into the CM2 and CP classes too, so that each teacher was responsible for a few children.

CM2 – The class were learning a new aspect of English conversation, which was to ask, “Can I….?” or “Can you….?”, and reply “Yes, I can” or “No, I can’t.”. Mr Apruncule wrote some examples verbs on the board, such as to write, to read, to play, to sleep and to eat. I had to ask the class in English “Can you sleep in the class?” and they would have to give the appropriate response. Then once they got the hang of this, they were to ask each other questions, encouraging them to use the new verb vocabulary. A common mistake that the children made was that they would say “Can you to eat in class?” or “Can you to write in the class”. It was difficult to explain why we don’t say the ‘to’. This is something that I have found difficult throughout my placement as well. English is my first language and therefore all of the rules of the language come naturally to me when I speak, without needing to think. Due to this I would have never considered why we don’t say the ‘to’ in these sentences, or why ‘I’ by itself is always a capital letter. These are things that are embedded in my brain and are just facts, it is not something I have to think about when I speak or write. Therefore, explaining this to children is something I have found difficult to put into clear and simple words.

CP – at the first break Madame Girault found me in the staffroom and showed me some resources she had found for today’s lesson. She wanted me to talk to the children about Great Britain and England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to explain the Union jack and why it looks the way it does, and to talk about The Royal Family. She gave me the appropriate flags for this and a couple of photos of The Royal Family. I thought this would be good for practicing our ‘family’ vocabulary from last week. I also considered that these are quite complicated things to explain to 6 and 7 year olds in English, so I knew I would need to check the French vocabulary before the lesson. The different groups of children found this all very interesting and I could tell they enjoyed guessing who was who in the royal family. I found it difficult to remember all the words for sister, brother, son, daughter, aunt and uncle, but I made sure to write them all down and have them in front of me when I was teaching the children. To my surprise, the children all seemed to understand the concept of each nation making up part of the Great British flag, and thought that this was a clever idea. They enjoyed hearing me talk about the royal family and seemed to find it fascinating, as they do not have this type of thing in France.

CM1 – Madame Royer wants the class to do some activities this week that test their English vocabulary knowledge, as a bit of fun, considering how difficult the children found learning the time last week. She gave me a worksheet to complete with the class, called ‘what’s in the picture?’. This had a list of objects in English beside a picture of a countryside scene. The children had to tick whether or not the object could be seen in the picture. I went through this with the class question by question, and the children had to guess some of the vocabulary that they did not already know. They found ‘leaves’ and ‘ghost’ difficult because these are not similar to the words in French, so I had to draw pictures of these on the board to give the children a clue. I asked the children ‘can you see…. In the picture?’ and they had to respond with ‘yes, you can’ or ‘no, you can’t’, as Madame Royer wanted them to speak in phrases instead of one-worded answers.

Tuesday 17^th

CM2 – today Mr Apruncule was keen for me to help the children with their pronunciation of the numbers from 1 to 100. They had obviously already covered this in class in previous years but he wanted them to practice and hear me say the numbers. I thought that their pronunciation of the numbers was very good, although they did get confused with 13 and 30, 14 and 40, 15 and 50 and so on. This is an easy mistake to make even when you speak English, so I was not surprised to hear that the children found this confusing. During the lesson Mr Apruncule had to tell the class to be quiet a lot, it is a nice day outside and I think the children were keen to get outside for break, and therefore were a bit restless. Something that I have noticed is that there is a lack of sanctions and behaviour management strategies used in the older classes. Often, the children are simply sent out of the classroom until the end of the lesson, and this happened today in my CM2 class. In my experience, teachers did not do this until I was at high-school, children in primary school would never be completely sent out of the classroom. There was always reward systems or traffic light systems in use. I find this style of behaviour management more effective as it gives children motivation to behave, whereas if they are simply asked to leave the class they might not learn from their mistake. This is relatively evident in the CM2 class, as a few of the children are repeatedly asked to leave the classroom.

CP – we continued with our work on the Royal Family, and today I introduced the Royal Family tree to the children. Madame Girault said that they have been making their own family trees in class, so they would understand the concept of a family tree. I agreed that this would be a good way to teach them the English family vocabulary whilst also teaching them a bit about British culture. I could tell yesterday that the children found the idea of a royal family strange and intriguing. This was reflected in today’s lessons, as I felt I had the children’s attention. They enjoyed guessing who was who in the family and finding out what the words for son, daughter, husband and wife are. The class teacher and I agreed that the children’s next steps would be to create a royal family tree for them to have inside their jotters. This would probably allow the information to be consolidated as well.

CM1 – Today, Madame Royer had another more fun activity for me to complete with the class. It was about Red Nose Day. I explained that this is something that happens every two years in the UK, where we raise a lot of money for charity by doing fun and silly things all day. Madame Royer had to help me with the translation of a few phrases here, as the children were confused about what I was talking about to begin with. The worksheet that I gave to the class involved me reading out a list of everyday school rules, mixed in with Red Nose Day rules, and the children had to determine which rules were for Red Nose Day. For example, ‘You must dance in the corridor’ would be a Red Nose Day rule, and ‘You must not chew chewing-gum’ would be an everyday rule. These were complicated sentences for the children to understand, so I had to do a lot of actions at the front of the class to give the children clues as to what the rules were. They gave a lot of good guesses as well, and it was good to see that they were thinking hard about what the rule could be in English. I find that this class are always fully engaged in the activity and really want to do well in them. It helps me to enjoy the lesson even more when the children are so enthusiastic.

Thursday 19^th

Today began with a trip to the theatre. We walked to Théâtre Gérard Philipe, which was very pleasant as it hit 27 degrees today! The play was about Louis XIV of France. It was done by 4 young theatre students, two of whom were playing the violin and cello, and the others were dancing and acting for the performance. Luckily for me, for most of the performance there was no talking, so it was easy for me to follow. I think the children found the play difficult to follow, as I was unsure if any of them had learnt about Louis XIV before, and knew who he was. The performers made sure to include the children in their performance, with some of them participating in the play and they brought some Star Wars into it, which the children definitely enjoyed. The play was around an hour, and after it finished we walked back to the school, just in time for the children to have lunch. I asked the children what they thought of the play and they said they had not seen a play like that before, which was the case for me too. They said it was quite strange but they liked the part where they played Star Wars, which didn’t surprise me at all!

CM1 – we went through the topic of colours today. This is a topic that the class have done before but Madame Royer wanted them to complete a Red Nose Day themed worksheet on it. The children had to draw a line from the object to its corresponding colour. I think this task was made easier because there were pictures of the objects for the children, had there not been pictures I think the children would have struggled with some of the vocabulary such as ‘a witch’s hat’ and ‘a leaf’. I felt that the children were quite tired today, but it was probably because of the heat outside, and our long walk for the trip to the theatre that morning. I realised that these children would have to work in hot conditions quite a lot, as it is only April, and the temperature can get a lot higher. If it was 27 degrees in Scotland I’m sure the pupils would be complaining that they were too hot, the pupils in France do not complain although I can tell that it makes it harder for them to concentrate.

CP – To round up my lessons about The Royal Family tree, Madame Girault wanted the children to construct their own royal family trees. Instead of the usual set up, which is the children coming to me in three groups of 10 at a time, we worked as a whole class today. This was with the help of Madame Girault and Jessica (the classroom assistant), as the class is very big and it can be difficult to control 10 of them at a time, never mind 30. The children had photos of members of the royal family, and a sheet with boxes and names of royal family members underneath them. The task was to stick the right pictures in the right boxes. The children also had to listen to my sentences in English such as ‘this is his wife’ and ‘this is her son’, and try to work out who was who. Madame Girault could help with this by translating if the children were completely clueless. The children were sad to hear that it is my last day tomorrow, but this was almost a good thing to me, as they had clearly enjoyed my time with them.

Friday 20^th

Today is my final day of placement, and I can safely say it has flown by. I have enjoyed my time at Ecole Elementaire Les Guernazelles so much, I could not have asked for a more welcoming school. I feel that in comparison to when I arrived, I am more confident in my English teaching abilities, and communicating in French. I feel a sense of achievement at how well I have got on with the staff and pupils at my school, and how well the children have come along with their English since I arrived.

CM2 – the children had constructed some sentence in English that they wanted to ask me about my time here in France. They asked, ‘is the food the same in France and Scotland?’, ‘What do you like about France?’ ‘is school the same in France and Scotland?’ and ‘what do you like about Orléans?’. I was very impressed that they came up with these questions and could ask them so well! I told the children that in France, the bread and cheese is nicer and they have snails here which we don’t have in Scotland. I said that they have longer lunch times and they have two break times instead of one, like in Scotland.

CP – I decided to read the children ‘Dear Zoo’, like I had with CE1 and CE2, as this book is very simple and easy for them to understand. It has some nice animal vocabulary in it as well which I knew the CP pupils would enjoy, as well as the interactive parts. I read the book to the children in their three separate groups, which was easier for me as they can be very noisy as a whole class. I taught the children the new animal vocabulary and they repeated after me several times. I think they found the names for the animals quite entertaining, as there was a lot of hilarity at this point! After the story, I played lotto with them, as this seemed to be their favourite game that I had played with them. To my delight, the children knew the numbers in English very well, and rarely had to ask me for help, which showed how much progress they had made over 6 weeks. I also asked them one last time for their name, age and gender in English, and again, I could see a great improvement from when I taught them this on the first week. The children were adamant that they all got a photo taken with me and Madame Girault, so at the end of the lesson Jessica took this for us, which I thought was very kind of the class.

Nature of Organisation

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Organisation: Ecole Primaire Les Guernazelles

Address: 4 Rue des Anciens Combattants d’Indochine 1940-1954, 45100, Orléans, France.
Public School
The school is situated in the region of Orléans-Tours in Zone B (along with; Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Caen, Lille, Nancy-Metz, Nantes, Nice, Reims, Rennes, Rouen, Strasbourg).
Number of pupils: 112

There are 112 pupils who attend the school. They are split into 5 classes, 1 for each stage in the primary school (CP, CE1, CE2, CM1, CM2). CP stands for Cour Préparatoire, CE stands for cours élémentaire and CM stands for cours moyen.

There are five class teachers at the School:

CP – Madame Alexis Girault
CE1 – Madame Mulon (also acts as headteacher).
CE2 – Madame Delaroche
CM1 – Madame Royer
CM2 – Monsieur Apruncule.

They teach the same year every year, this has been the case for a while in the school.

School’s Weekly Timetable

Most French primary schools in the Zone B area have a Wednesday afternoon off of school.
Lunch time is 2 hours, unlike in Scotland where it is around 1. At lunchtime the children are looked after by the dinner ladies and parent helpers. The teachers can go home at lunch time if they wish.
There are two break times, the first is at 10am for around 20 minutes, and the second is at 2:45pm for 20 minutes also.

Written Reflection

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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.

CV

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Beth Arbuckle

b.c.arbuckle@dundee.ac.uk

07540 827 665

56B Reform Street, Dundee, DD1 1RX

Key Skills

Communication

Communicate effectively with teachers, colleagues and other professionals during school placements in order to meet the needs of pupils.
Politely and professionally, listen and respond to colleagues and member enquiries at my part time job as a kids’ coach at a leisure centre.
Communicate with the members of my university netball team on and off court by discussing tactics and implementing them through play.

Organisation

Able to manage my time effectively in order to meet university deadlines and take part in extra-curricular activities such as netball and golf to maintain a healthy study to life balance.
Plan lessons and teaching that meets the experiences and outcomes expected in the Curriculum for Excellence and that particular school.
Organise large groups of children aged between 3 and 11, plan activities and think through daily routines for the holiday camps that took place at my part time job at David Lloyd leisure.

Interpersonal

Create positive relationships with the children from my placement schools and part time job through inclusive practice.
Use behaviour management strategies and reward systems consistently to encourage high standards and positive behaviour.

Teamwork

Enjoy working as a member of a team with my university netball team, in schools and at my part time job as a kids coach.
Work efficiently with peers on my university course in order to create and deliver presentations.

Education

2016-2020 University of Dundee MA (Hons) Primary Education On going

Education modules have included, discovering mathematics, teaching across the curriculum and Values: Self, Society and the Profession.

Additional module in Psychology.

2010-2016 Craigmount High School, Edinburgh

2016 – Advanced Highers: Geography and Physical Education (C)

2015 – Highers: Geography(A), Physical Education(A), Mathematics(B), English(B), Biology(B)

2014 – 8 national 5s including French and chemistry (7 As, 1 B).

Work Experience

April/May 2017 Teaching Placement (as part of my degree), St. Andrews RC Primary, Dundee

I taught a class of primary 5 pupils for a six-week period. During this, I built a good relationship with my class and planned a wide variety of lessons to teach, including the subjects maths, art and science. I developed excellent time and behaviour management skills throughout this, having to sometimes deal with difficult behaviour and plan my days in advance. I was involved in the whole school show where I made props and costumes and encouraged pupils to perform well and enjoy themselves, which allowed me to display creativity and to set a positive example for the children.

November 2015 Teaching Placement (work experience), Corstorphine Primary School, Edinburgh

I volunteered at my local primary school twice a week for around six months. During this time I worked with a primary 2 class and able to observe a range of different teaching strategies and learn how to plan and deliver lessons to suit early years pupils. I worked well as part of the teaching team, offering help where it was needed and assisting the class teacher with activities that the class did. I developed excellent my leadership and communication skills by helping the class through tasks and activities.

September 2014 – September 2017 Kids Coach, David Lloyd leisure, Edinburgh

I developed excellent customer service skills by attending to customers needs and answering their questions. I learned how to work effectively within a team and with my other colleagues in the company. I am confident in delivering activities classes to children aged 3-11 and communicating with parents and guardians with any queries they may have, this means that I have good leadership skills and can communicate with people of all ages. My organisational skills were enhanced as I delivered birthday parties and holiday camps as part of a small team for members and non-members of the club.

Skills and Interests

Netball: I have played netball competitively since the age of 10 and I am now a member of Dundee University Netball club in the 2^nd out of 4 teams. I also used to play for Edinburgh club and Edinburgh District at U15 and U17 level. During this, I have been placed into different teams with lots of different people and this has enhanced my teamwork and communication skills.

Music: I have a keen interest for live music, having been to various concerts over the past few years. As well as enjoying live music, I played the violin during primary school and throughout high school. I learned many musical techniques, for example being able to read music.

Identification of Learning Opportunities

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Being an English language assistant – in my previous placements I have taught English to my classes, but a new experience for me will be to teach English outside of Scotland, to children who do not speak English. The school I am going to is not an international school therefore all of the children will only speak French. Being an English language assistant is different to teaching English because the language will be a lot simpler, mainly consisting of vocabulary and short, useful greetings and phrases. It will also mean that I won’t be teaching other subjects such as maths and science, as the vocabulary will be too difficult for me to be able to teach.
Learning the French Language – having studied French at high-school to national 5 level, I feel that I have a good idea of the basics of the French language. In terms of conversational French, I think I will be very much a beginner. This will be challenging but I think spending 6 weeks in a French primary school will allow me to listen to how the language is supposed to sound and to practice speaking French in a friendly environment where learning is encouraged.
Primary Curriculum in France – during my first-year placement I was given a good view of how the Scottish curriculum (Curriculum for excellence) works and how it is implemented in schools. I was also able to practice this in my teaching and explore the different curricular areas. Teaching in a different country will mean that I will learn about the French curriculum and how it compares to the Curriculum for Excellence.

Identification of Skills and Knowledge to be Developed

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By using research and evidence that I gather I will be able to make decisions and make choices within my placement using a rational and critical approach.
I want to be able to create and justify my own opinion and personal stance on educational issues, particularly those surrounding my placement, by gathering appropriate research through reading, having different experiences, and listening to others’ opinions.
I will be able to self-criticise through reflection and set myself goals in order to improve my skills and knowledge throughout my experience.
Increase my understanding of education as a life-long process and not merely taking place in the classroom but at every opportunity.
Knowledge of the French language and curriculum is to be developed throughout this placement. I will do this through oral communication and by researching and having an active interest in my surroundings.