Monday 26th
CE2 – I began by asking one of the pupils to write the date in English on the board. They usually know how to say the word properly but their spelling is often wrong so I have to help them with this using the French alphabet. I continued with the topic of feelings with the class, revising over the words they had learnt the week before such as happy, sad, excited, bored, angry etc. I asked them to repeat after me, and repeated this several times as the teacher said she wanted the children to learn the words orally before trying to write them down in their jotters. I felt that the children seemed quite tired, probably because it was a Monday morning. I feel that this is a flaw in my daily timetable as I see CE2 at this time every day, and often find that their energy is not as high as my other classes. This timetable was implemented by my teachers therefore I have to follow it and try my best to keep up the energy in my CE2 classes at such an early time. Next, introduced some new, more complex words to describe feelings to the class. These were confused, worried, thirsty, upset and surprised. I noticed that the children found thirsty particularly difficult to say, and this is because of the “th” sound. In French, they do not used this sound and I have realised that it is very difficult for the children to say, as well as “h”. Therefore, I had to repeat the word thirsty to the class several times. I had made a mistake in my printing out of the flashcards, meaning that some children did not get certain words. This was very confusing, and the class teacher had to go and photo copy more of certain words so that every child had 12 words on their flashcards. I had the children coming to me and talking very quickly in French which was confusing but I managed to work it out and help the children find the right flashcards.
CM2 – carrying on with the topic of wild animals, Monsieur Apruncule asked me to read out a short report about The Safari in Tanzania. Within this there were many difficult phrases and names of wild animals that he wanted me to pronounce to the class. They then took turns reading out the short paragraphs with me correcting them and explaining what the phrases mean. I then wrote the new vocabulary (zebra, antelope, baboon, lion, giraffe for example) on the board for the class to copy into their jotters. As I walked around the room to check everyone had their spelling correct, I noticed that a few children had put accents on the word elephant, as the French word for elephant is éléphant. I had to tell the class that in English we do not use accents, but I could see how the children could get mixed up as the word is spelt the same.
CP- I continued with the small groups working on learning the colours in English. Firstly, I made sure that each child could tell me their name, age and gender for some revision and to keep up the phrases being learnt. I had new flashcards to use with the children, that had coloured objects on them (an apple, orange, banana etc). I then asked them the question “what colour is this?”, and the children always started to reply with “an apple!” or “an orange!”. This confirmed to me that the children have not really understood what I am asking when I say, “what colour is this?”, they have just merely learnt that the correct response is to shout a colour! So, I made sure that the children knew what I was asking them before proceeding.
CM1 – We continued with the topic of food, asking “do you like?” and responding with “yes, I do” or “no, I don’t”. I began by standing at the front of the class and showing the class flashcards of food to ensure that they could remember the vocabulary we learnt from last week. We then had a quick class discussion about what foods we did like and did not like, with the children answering my questions about their favourite foods. I gave the children a worksheet to do which had a little maze that they had to follow in order to find out which characters liked which foods and then fill in the blanks accordingly. The children had an important question for me at this point, which was why do we always write a capital ‘I’ when talking about ourselves? For example, we would never write “i like bananas”, we would write “I like bananas”. However, Madame Royer explained to me that the children would never usually write a capital letter in the middle of a sentence by itself. I had never considered that the children would find this confusing and I found this very interesting. Once the class had finished this worksheet and stuck it into their English jotters, I thought it would be a fun way to end the lesson to read the children a funny book. It was called “Ketchup on your cornflakes?” The class found this very amusing, as the book asked questions such as “do you like custard on your head?” and other silly questions. The children then had to reply with “yes, I do” or “no, I don’t”, so this was an excellent way to practice the phrases we had learnt but in a new, fun way for the children. I felt that due to this they were well engaged and enjoying learningand speaking English.
CE1 – On Monday with CE1, the teacher wanted me to introduce some new vocabulary to the class, as they were finding ‘classroom instructions’ easy now that we had done it a few times in the class. I introduced the topic of ‘classroom objects’ or ‘objects de la classe’ in French. In order to do this, I began by asking “qu’est-ce que c’est?” (what is it?) whilst pointing at certain objects in the class like pens, pencils, the board, pencil cases, chairs, desks etc. I then told the class what these words are in English and wrote them on the board so that they could see the words. The class teacher wanted the children to write the vocabulary in English in their jotters, then write the word in French, and draw a small picture beside this. This took the children quite a while, but once they were all finished I suggested that we could play Simon says again, just to refresh the children’s’ memories and also to have a little bit of fun as they had just spent a while writing in their jotters. This was approved by the teacher and to my delight the children knew the classroom instructions very well. This gave me a huge sense of achievement, especially because in this class, the teacher does not speak any English therefore it is much harder for me to explain tasks and new vocabulary, as there is no translation.
Tuesday 27th
CE2 – On Tuesday I continued with the feelings vocabulary with the CE2 class. However, to begin the lesson, the class teacher wanted me to write the date in full in English on the board, and also the days of the week. This was so that the children could copy it into their English jotters and have a copy of it to look at in the future. After this, there was a couple of extra words that I wanted the children to learn in terms of feelings. These were, proud, shy, and worried. In order for the children to consolidate their newly learnt vocabulary from last week, the teacher and I agreed that a worksheet would be a suitable task. This worksheet had a number of facial expressions on it, with blank spaces underneath. The class’ job was to figure out what emotion each person was feeling, and write the feeling in English underneath each person. The first few feelings were easily done by the class as they were words like happy, sad and bored. However, when it came to feelings such as, nervous and excited, a lot of the class got the two mixed up. This was the same for confused and shy. I explained to the class that any of these words would be suitable as long as they matched the facial expressions of the people. I didn’t want the class to get too fixated on what the “correct” answers were, as long as they made sense.
CM2 – Carrying on from Monday, the class completed a worksheet about wild animals, where they had to look at a big picture and answer questions such as, “how many giraffes are there?” and “what animal is on the car?”. I read out each question and went through the answers with the class, they found this task relatively easy to complete but their pronunciation usually needs adjusting. After this, the class teacher was keen to move on to a new topic. This was directions, for example, below, above, on top of, next to, near to, far from etc. We used objects that the children already know the names for like chair, lamp, bed, in order to practice these phrases. I used pictures of the objects and stuck these in certain positions on the board. For example, if the bed was below the lamp, the children would need to give the response “the bed is below the lamp”, and so on. I felt that the class found this easy and probably slightly boring, as they are very good at creating longer sentences.
CP – Before the class began on Tuesday, the class teacher came to see me to explain what she wanted me to teach the children. She said that she wanted me to combine the topics I had taught them by playing a game like ‘Guess Who?’. In this I would give each of the children in the small groups a flashcard, with a picture of a food on it. Then I would say, “it is yellow”, and if a pupil was holding a yellow food, they would lift it up. Next, I would say if the person holding my object of choice was a boy or girl, and this would eliminate more children. Then, the other children would have to guess who it was by saying “his name is….” Or “her name is….”. This seemed like a lot for the youngest children in the school to remember but the vocabulary was all things that they had learnt before. This is with the exception of the children needing to tell me their peers names by saying “his” or “her” name, instead of “my name is”. I considered that before starting the game I would need to go over this, as well as the colours in English and what a boy and a girl is.
As I began to start this lesson with the first group of CP children, I realised that this game was going to be very difficult for me to explain by myself, therefore I asked the class teacher to help me with this. Even after the children hearing what they had to do in French, I still felt that they found the task difficult and confusing, and I had to stop the game to explain vocabulary a lot with every group. This confusion then led to the children becoming disengaged in the activity, meaning that I had to tell the children to listen and sit still quite often. I find this more difficult to do with CP than the older classes, as the older classes understand my requests in English like “listen to me” and “stop”, but the CP children are not so tuned in to this. I consequently have to use a lot of actions, so when I say listen, I point to my ears, and if I ask for quiet I hold my finger up to my lips. But in order for this to be effective the children need to be looking at me, which sometimes isn’t the case with the CP children!
CE1- the class teacher was keen for me to continue with the topic of classroom objects with the children. So, I made sure to go over the vocabulary we had learnt the day before, by pointing to objects like the board, rubbers, pencils, water bottles, and ensuring the class knew what they were called in English. I wrote the words on the board too, so that the children could see how these words are spelt. I then got the class to repeat the words after me several times, as the teacher was keen for the children to have good pronunciation of the words. Something else which all of the teachers are keen for the children to be able to do is put vocabulary into phrases and sentences. For example, if I ask, “is this a pen?” and point to a pen, instead of reply with “a pen”, the teacher wanted the children to reply with “yes, it is” or “no, it is not”. I said that this was quite difficult for the children to do at this stage, as I had been doing this kind of work with my CM1 class, who are two years older. But my teacher seemed adamant that she wanted to have the children speak in proper sentences, which I thought was fair. I then used the Simon says game that the children have gotten to know well, in order to consolidate the vocabulary for classroom objects. For example, I would say to the class “Simon says, show me your pens”, and the children would have to lift up their pens. They really enjoyed this, and I considered trying this game with other classes seeing as it has gone down so well with CE1.
Wednesday 28th
CE2- on Wednesday I wanted to start a new topic with the class, as I felt that they knew feelings very well and were ready to move on and learn new vocabulary. I spoke with the teacher about what topic she felt they would be ready to focus on, and she suggested weather. This suited me just fine as learning the weather in French when I was at school was something that I felt confident in. I proposed the question “What is the weather like today?” to the class. Obviously by asking a complex question like this in English, I am going to receive a confused response. Therefore, when I ask questions like this I make sure to use facial expressions and gestures. So, when asking these questions, I raised my arms and pointed outside. The children soon caught on, and I heard one pupil shout “Il pleut!”. They were right, it was raining, so using this, I taught the class the phrase “it is raining”. The phrase part of talking about the weather was relatively easy for the children, as you just say, “it is” and then add the weather. They grasped this concept quickly, and this made it easier to learn the rest of the vocabulary, such as sunny, snowing, windy, cold, hot, foggy and thunder and lightning. So that the children could refer to this vocabulary I asked them to write it into their jotters, first in French, then English and then draw a picture, like I had done on the board.
CM2 – The class continued learning their vocabulary for positions, which I feel they know very well and I was impressed with how well they can say the sentences, due to how complex they are. Knowing that the class find this easy, I moved on to something that I knew would engage them. This was the ‘Kevin and Kate’ scripts that the class teacher provides them with. They come up in pairs and have to act out the little scenes in English, which I can tell they really enjoy. The scrips have different names, for example, ‘It’s Halloween’ or ‘The School Photo’, and the children can choose which one they want to act out. I’ve noticed that a few of the children try to memorise the lines on the scripts, which I think is great because it means they are able to speak English without having to read it off of the paper, and I think this is advanced for 10 and 11-year-old children.
CP – I did not need to teach the pupils today, however the class teacher suggested that it might be interesting for me to sit in and watch how the class get on in a normal lesson, and I agreed. The class were doing maths, and I could tell that they had to think of numbers that you could add together to make 20. The teacher was using the smart projector, that they have in every classroom, to show the children visually what adds up to make 20. The class all seemed engaged in this exercise, but I noticed that she did not stay on the same subject for very long. She mentioned to me that this is because young children can get restless and bored and therefore they need a change of scene. In response to this, she told the class they were going to do French, which initially did not get a very enthusiastic reaction! She then explained that they were going to tell me about themselves in French (e.g. My name is, I am 6, I am boy), like what I had done with them for English, and they thought this was very exciting. Each of them took turns to stand up and introduce themselves. The class then moved on to do some more French grammar, which I actually found very helpful to listen to, as this was very basic and it refreshed my memory well. During the lesson, I noticed the teacher use a couple of behaviour management strategies, which I had not seen much of in other classes. I considered that this could be due to the high number of children in the CP class and their young age. In the first instance, she asked a boy who she felt had not been listening to her to come and take a red card from her desk, and keep it on his desk until she told him he could put it back. I considered that this was maybe the equivalent of a traffic light system. The next time, it was another boy who was not behaving and she asked him to sit at a desk at the back next to me. I did not feel that this was as affective as I could tell the boy still was not paying attention to the lesson, and had been moved from the front to the back of the room, so the teacher could not keep an eye on him as well.
Thursday 29th
CE2– on Thursday I had flashcards to use with the class which had pictures of different types of weather on them so that I could get the children to practice their pronunciation. I did this by holding up a card and asking, “what is the weather like?”, the class would have to reply with the correct phrase we had practiced the day before. I had to help the children with their pronunciation of certain words, such as thunder and lightning as this was quite a mouthful for the children. I was conscious that the class remain seated quite a lot, and thought of a way the class could learn the weather in English in a more interactive way. I stuck the flashcards onto the board one under another, and wrote sentences like ‘it is sunny’ and ‘it is windy’ next to them, but in a different order. I then asked the children to come up one by one and draw a line to match the flashcard to the corresponding sentence. This was good as it got the children to read the sentences, instead of just hearing me say them. I also felt that the class appreciated a more interactive task. After we had discussed the weather a bit more the teacher was keen for me to move on to the topic of clothing with the class. So, to introduce the vocabulary I began pointing to items of clothing I was wearing and asking what it was. Of course, they all began shouting the words at me in French, so I wrote those on the board, and using my French knowledge, translated them into English. I went over the pronunciation of certain words like shoes and trousers, as these contain confusing sounds for French children.
CP – On Thursday with CP I continued playing the game ‘who is it?’ with the small groups of children. I was apprehensive about doing this as the class had found it very difficult and confusing on Tuesday. This then led to the children not being very engaged and once this happens I find that it is difficult to regain their attention. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the children all understood the concept of the game a lot better this time, which is what the teacher predicted would happen, she said sometimes it just takes a bit of repetition and persistence with younger children. After I had played this game with all three of the groups I got the children to fill in another ‘Joe the Pirate’ worksheet which asked, ‘what colour is my boat?’. The pupils’ task was to colour in each of the boats the correct colour and then choose a colour to write in the space. They found this easy and enjoyable.
After this I had to return home as Nina, our host, requested that we have a mid-term meeting with her to check that we were all getting on fine at our schools.
Friday 30th
CE2 – I began my lesson by asking for the date in English (which the class are getting the hang of now) and what the weather is like. I thought this would be a good thing to do daily so that the class do not forget the weather vocabulary we learned. For the final day of the week with CE2, I progressed with the topic of clothing with the class. I added a couple more important words to the list of vocabulary for the children, and these were, pyjamas and boots. These were easy enough to quickly teach the children as the French for these words is ‘pyjamas’ and ‘bottes’. I asked the children to write the French and English words for each item of clothing and draw a little picture beside it, just like they did for the weather. I definitely found that the children were responding to my requests much faster, even though they were in English, and I find that this is the case in most classes. I think this is because they are learning what my demands mean, and are then able to respond appropriately.
CM2 – On Friday myself and two other girls in the class were going to present to the class about what school is like in Scotland. We showed the rest of the class a picture of a Scottish primary school and told the class about what times we attend school, what we wear to school and how many children there were in my school. They were shocked and fascinated to hear that my school had around 500 pupils in it, as their school is so much smaller. They were also very intrigued by the idea of wearing a uniform and asked why we had to do this. I explained that it was for identification purposes and that we think it is smarter to wear a uniform to school. The class agreed but said they preferred to wear their own clothes! I told the children that our lunch times are only an hour long, instead of 2 hours. The teacher thought that this was much better, and that two hours is too long. He said that the children always come back to school too excited after a 2-hour long lunch break.
CP – The class teacher and I had discussed at the beginning of the day that we would go over the numbers in English with the class later on. I thought to myself that this would be relatively easy for the children as I have heard some of them counting to 10 in English already. Therefore, I thought about how I could fill my time of 15 minutes that I have with each group, in order to keep the children engaged. I began by going through the numbers from 1 to 10 with the flashcards that the teacher had given me, and as I thought, the pupils found this easy. I then got the children to count backwards from 10, which they seemed to find slightly harder but not very interesting. I thought it would be a good idea to play bingo, where I would say the number out loud and the children would have to use their English listening skills to figure out what number I was saying, and tick it off their card appropriately. This definitely got the children more engaged and they really found this exercise fun. This is something I will play again with the class in order to practice numbers up to 10.
