Category Archives: 1.4 Prof. Commitment

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 – 16th to the 20th 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 17th

 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 19th

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 20th

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.

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.

 

French Handwriting

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One of the first things that I noticed when I began my placement at L’Ecole Guernazelles, was the children’s handwriting. I was so impressed with my CM1 class and how neat and sophisticated their handwriting was. I compared it to my Scottish primary 5s last year, and considered that this was very impressive for their age. I couldn’t believe the style and detail that was put into every word and how careful the children were with their writing. I have noticed that on the wall of every classroom in my school there is a big poster with the alphabet on it, and how it should look in this style of handwriting. 

This is an example of what these posters look like. I think this handwriting looks very nice and definitely helps the pupils’ writing to become more sophisticated. But I wondered if this was really necessary. In my opinion, surely making sure a child’s spelling is at a good standard before trying to get them to write in such a complicated way. I tried this style of writing myself and have found it quite difficult. Obviously it would take a lot of practice.

I have also noticed that this is the style of writing that the teachers use to write on the board all of the time. This was problematic for me at the beginning of placement because it meant that the children could not read my writing if I wrote on the board. I knew that I would have to practice this style of handwriting and implement it in my teaching. I have been trying to write in my notebook using this style and I am starting to find it easier. The children are also able to see what I have written on the board a lot easier now, and this makes my lessons flow much better, as I don’t have to stop to spell words out nearly as much anymore.

I watched a video called ‘French – Teaching Handwriting’ which is part of a series called ‘How do they do it in….?’, which explored handwriting in the French primary school. It explained that in France handwriting is taught in a formalised manner that allows children to be creative; if their 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”. Handwriting is seen as very important in middle school, and children can be marked down if theirs is not up to scratch. This is why handwriting is taken so seriously in French schools.

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

Week 5 of Placement – 9th to the 13th of April

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Week 5 of Placement – 9th to the 13th of April

Monday 9th

CE2 – this morning I went into the class but they were not quite ready for me to begin as there was some registration issues that Madame Delaroche had to deal with. I began as usual by asking for the date and weather in English, which I write on the board and the class copy into their jotters. I think the children enjoy this challenge at the beginning of the day. I wanted to continue with classroom objects, and Madame Delaroche had a new worksheet for the class to do. It involved me reading out certain objects and saying, “Have you got a pen?”, “yes, I have” and “no, I haven’t”. I thought that this would be quite difficult to explain to the class but they seemed to understand what I was trying to say pretty quickly. They had to complete the worksheet and after this I asked them what classroom objects they did or didn’t have and they would have to reply “yes, I have” or “no, I haven’t”. The teacher then explained to me that her class and the CE1 class are going on a school trip next week and therefore this would be my last week with the class. Due to this, she was keen for me to move on to a new topic that the class have never done before, which was animals. I began with Pets and farm animals, as I thought the children would perhaps already know the English vocabulary for these. I used flashcards with pictures of animals on them to show the class, and they could have a guess at what they thought the word for the animal was in English. The class enjoyed this challenge, and as they said the animals, I wrote them on the board, in order for the children to copy the words into their jotters with the correct spelling.

CM2 – CM2 began a new topic today as well, which was actions. For example, “I wake up”, “I brush my teeth”, “I go to school”. I began by reading out all of the phrases on the worksheet to the class and they repeated them back to me. Mr Apruncule and I ensured that they were saying the phrases properly.  The class were then given another worksheet that had sentences on it which asked them what they did in the morning, at midday, in the afternoon and the evening. The task was to write appropriate sentences in order to answer these questions. The children found this straight forward although some children challenged themselves by writing more than one phrase for each question.

 

 

CP – I wanted to continue with the game that I had played with the class on Friday, as I felt they were enjoying it but there was room for the children to become more familiar with hearing the vocabulary come from me instead of reading it. The children recalled the exercise well, but today I felt that it wasn’t their understanding of the game that was the problem. I could tell that the children were excitable, even with the first group. This isn’t usually the case, as it is usually the last group that are restless because they have already been working for almost an hour. Problems that I came across with the children were them throwing the small coloured blocks that I laid out, shouting over each other and generally not being on task. I tried using all of my French phrases and told the children that they would have to go back to their seats if they didn’t listen to me. Eventually Madame Girault could see that the children were not behaving, and so she came over to the group and told them firmly that if they did not behave properly then there would be no English for today. This panicked the children, as I know that they enjoy it when I come to the class, and so after this I had their attention. It was a similar situation with the next two groups, where because we had done that particular game before, they did not feel they needed to pay as much attention. I feel that now that I am nearing the end of my placement, the children are becoming more familiar with me. Perhaps due to this they are becoming more relaxed and are falling back into a type of behaviour that they would not have demonstrated in my first couple of weeks. I have ensured that I build positive relationships with the children by always greeting them and trying to have small conversations in French with them, but not to the point of them seeing me as a ‘pal’. I find that no matter how firm I am with the children I still cannot get them to behave as well as their class teacher can. Perhaps this is because I have limited French phrases that I can use in order to get their attention! This is something that I will try to work on over my last two weeks.

 

CM1 – The class had been doing point plotting and directions in their maths lesson earlier on in the day, therefore Madame Royer asked if I would do a similar thing with them, but in English. She had printed off worksheets for me that were about an Easter egg hunt, where there was a grid with eggs hidden in it and directions for the children to follow. For example, they had to go “south-west to the tree” or “east to the statue” and write down the correct points (e.g. 6F or 8D). In order to make this task easier for the class, I began by checking that they knew what an Easter egg hunt was. Once they understood this, I drew a compass on the board and taught them the vocabulary for North, East, South, West and so on. We went through the questions one by one and it seemed easy enough at the beginning, however we found that we had made a mistake because one of the points did not align properly. Madame Royer and I managed to figure out where we had gone wrong, and made sure the children had the right answers on their worksheet. In situations like that I realise that it is a lot easier to communicate when you and the teacher can both speak the same language. We were able to quickly figure out what had gone wrong with the task and fix it so that the children could have the right answers in their books.

Tuesday 10th

CE2 –  Today I taught the class the vocabulary for wild animals, they found this fun because a lot of the words in English are similar in French.  I did this by using flashcards again, and then stuck these up on the board and wrote the word in English next to it so it was clear for the children. I found that today the children did not ask me how to spell the words as much as last week, which must have meant they could read my writing on the board! This gave me a sense of achievement, as I have been practicing my French handwriting. I gave out some more worksheets for the children to fill in that encouraged them to practice their wild animals vocabulary. I think Madame Delaroche likes the class to use worksheets, as they can stick these into their jotters after they have finished them.

CM2 – We looked at a new ‘Kevin and Kate’ script today which was called, ‘The Haunted Castle’. I could tell the children found this exciting as they often read out the same scripts over and over again. The teacher asked them to read the scripts first before I did, to see if they could understand any of it. I then read out the dialogue for the class, letting them hear the correct pronunciation of every word. They tried to give the dialogue a go but they struggled with pronouncing the words ‘this’ and ‘idea’. I had to explain that it is not “i-dee” but it is “i-dee-a”. The class practiced this a few times, standing at the front of the class in groups of three at a time. After they had got the hang of the dialogue for that particular script, Mr Apruncule wanted the class to practice saying the phrases we had learnt from yesterday, such as ‘I get up’ and ‘I watch TV’. One of the children had to ask the question ‘what do you do in the morning?’ for example, and one of their friends would have to read out their answer. There were some harder questions at the bottom of the worksheet such as ‘what do you sometimes do?’ which the class found slightly harder to answer, because they had to say, ‘I sometimes read a book’. I find that the class are quite good at saying sentences in English for their year group. I think this is because their teacher takes English seriously and ensures that the children are pronouncing words properly and speaking in full sentences rather than giving one word answers.

 

CP – I gave the class a presentation about Scotland today. The presentation covered where Scotland is, where I live, who I live with, my primary school, Scottish food and Dundee University. As I was giving the presentation, using simple English sentences, the class teacher Madame Girault was giving the children the translation in French. She would allow the children to try and guess what I had said before giving them the answer. They found this very difficult, as because of their poorer reading skills they could not read what I had typed on the presentation, therefore were just trying to make sense of what I was saying. They had a lot of questions to ask about my presentation. They wanted to know about my family, and they found the concepts of wearing a uniform to school and living at University very strange! They did not like the idea of living away from their parents. I find introducing Scotland and our school system to the children a lot of fun, as it is interesting to see their reactions to how things are done differently. I enjoy answering their questions and seeing that they are fascinated by Scotland and what school is like there.

 

CM1 – Madame Royer requested that I teach the class how to tell the time, but only using the phrases, o’clock, quarter past, half past and quarter to. They would learn all the other bits in between in CM2, so there was no need for me to cover this with them yet . I began by showing them how you would draw 9:00, 9:15, 9:30 and 9:45 on an analogue clock, and they seemed to understand this. Madame Royer and I then thought it would be good if I said to the class for example, “it is quarter past 8” and they would have to write this on their whiteboards in digital time (because analogue can be difficult to read and therefore is not an accurate way for me to see if they have got the right answer or not). The children found this very difficult, and got very mixed up between quarter past, half past and quarter to. We tried to explain this to the children using different visual aids and by drawing and writing the time in different ways. Madame Royer also explained this in French, so that the children might understand it better, but a few of the children were still confused. They found writing ‘quarter to 7’ and ‘quarter to 8’ etc, the hardest, as ‘quarter to 8’ is ‘7:45’, and the children could not understand why there was a 7 and not an 8. This was very difficult for me to explain to the class and even Madame Royer was starting to find it tiresome. We agreed that with practice the class would get better and begin to get their heads around the time in English.

CE2 – I had created a worksheet for the class to complete for the topic of school uniform in school. It was a picture of me when I was their age at primary school dressed in my school uniform and there were arrows pointing to various items of clothing that I was wearing. The class had to write the correct names for the clothes in English next to the arrows, including the colour of the clothes (black shoes, red and grey tie etc). They enjoyed the photo of me when I was younger and I felt it made them more enthusiastic towards completing the task! The class teacher and I had to explain to the class that in English, we put the adjective before the noun, so it is ‘black shoes’ and not ‘shoes black’. This was confusing for the children because in French, they would do the opposite to us, and write ‘chaussures noires’. Once this was cleared up the children were able to complete the task quickly as I walked around the room to check their spelling was correct. I find this class easy to work with as they are well behaved and enthusiastic about English, but find that I need to focus more, as their class teacher does not speak any English, I have to work hard to understand what she is asking me to do. It also means that there is no translator for the children if I do not know a word in French, so sometimes I have to improvise and use actions or draw pictures for the children.

Thursday 12th

CE2 – Madame Delaroche was keen for me to teach the class a new topic, because they will not be here next week. I felt that it was perhaps too soon to move on to new vocabulary as we had not really had time to practice animals, but I understood that we had limited time left. We began looking at rooms in the house, for example, living room, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, garage, garden, toilet etc. I had a poster which I stuck onto the board this had a picture of a house on it with the different rooms. I used this to point and ask the children what room was where. I wrote the words on the board alongside the translation for the children to copy into their jotters. They also had a worksheet to complete, which asked “where is the boy?”, and they had to write down which room of the house he was in. They found the question “where is?” difficult to understand at the beginning but I explained it to them in French as best as I could.

CM2 – today the class had an English test. This was something that Mr Apruncule had created himself, and thought it was an appropriate way of testing the children. The test was on the topic of animals and also positions, so the children would have to look at an image, and write the answer, ‘the monkey is in the car’, for example. I thought the was quite a difficult test, as the class had not done this topic for a few lessons, they might not remember the vocabulary very well. Most of the children got on with this task fine but I could see that a few of them were struggling, which I felt was understandable as these were difficult sentences to construct with no guidance. I can tell that the teacher wants to challenge the children in his class as they are the oldest, as I feel that the work they do is quite advanced, looking back at what I was learning in French in Primary 7.

CP –  the class was even busier today, as the CE1 class had all been split up and put into different classes due to a teacher’s absence. This meant the classroom was very loud and I knew I would have to try hard to keep the children’s attention for the whole hour. We continued with numbers and colours by using the coloured blocks. In general, the children are all getting much faster at recalling numbers and colours, however some still need to use their fingers to count with or ask their friends for help. I did find the noise level difficult to work with but Madame Girault was in the same boat, so we both had to keep asking for quiet in the class. The class are better at responding to my demands in English now, but I feel that because I keep saying the same ones every day, they are not as effective. The children hear me say listen but it has begun to lose its meaning to the children. I will need to use different phrases to keep the children’s ears tuned in to me.

CM1 – some progress was made today in the topic of time with the class! Madame Royer had a new worksheet for the children which involved them writing the time in English in words, digital and analogue. I was apprehensive about this because yesterday, the children really struggled with the time. I understand how it can be complicated, because twenty to seven in digital time is 6:40, and if I put myself in the pupils’ shoes I would think it would be forty to six. The children found writing the time in words relatively easy, and we went over this question by question as a class. They were still getting used to writing the minutes and the hour a different in reverse to how they are used to. I thought I would consolidate this by asking them to put their books away and take out their mini whiteboards. They would use these to write down what time they think I have said in English, in digital time (this is what the children said they would prefer to do). They were getting good at quarter to/past and half past, but the worksheet had asked the children to write twenty to/past, five to/past and twenty-five to/past, so I thought I would try this as well. It was clear that some children had picked this up very quickly, as they were able to write down the digital time seconds after I had said it.Others found this much more difficult, so I made sure to do lots of examples so they could practice. When it came to drawing the hands on the analogue clock or writing the numbers in the digital clocks, the children struggled a lot more. We ran out of time before the bell for break went, so I suggested that I could go over this with the class again tomorrow, when we have more time.

 Friday 13th

CE2-  Today was my last day with CE2, as next week they are going on a school trip, and will miss my last day on Friday. This meant we had a lot to squeeze in to 45 minutes. I needed to finish of the topic of farm animals with the children, as there was a worksheet that we still had to do, we also needed to go over the rooms of the house again because we did not do that for very long yesterday. The children found the farm animal worksheet easy, apart from there was one word on it that I had not taught them. This was ‘cockerel’, and I explained what this was to the class so they did not get it mixed up with ‘chicken’. We moved quickly through that worksheet as I was conscious of what little time we had. I stuck the poster of the house on the board like yesterday, but decided to make the task more interactive today. I asked one of the children to come to the front of the class at a time, and I gave them a small bit of paper with a piece of furniture on it. They then had to use a magnet to stick it in the appropriate room in the house. I wanted the children to say, ‘it is in the kitchen’ or ‘it is in the bedroom’, after they had placed it on the board. They liked this activity, and I can tell that they have enjoyed the interactive activities a lot. After working on the pronunciation of the rooms a bit more, we moved on to a different activity. I decided to read the class ‘Dear Zoo’, which is a simple children’s book that I used to read when I was younger. The English in it is simple, so I thought it would be easy for the children to understand. It has animal and feelings vocabulary in it, both of which I have done with the class so it was perfect. Madame Delaroche thought this was a lovely idea for my last lesson with the children. They really enjoyed the book, as it is interactive with flaps and the children were able to shout out the animals they could see in English.

CP – Madame Girault wanted me to introduce the topic of family members to the children today, as I had spoken about that a little bit in my presentation about Scotland on Tuesday. I started by telling them what mum, dad, sister and brother was in French, as I thought this would be plenty of family members to begin with. By the end of the lesson I wanted the children to be able to tell me how many brothers or sisters they have. I gave my example in English with a clear, slow voice, so that they could hear what I was saying. I wrote the vocabulary on the board for the children to refer to, and helped them to create their sentences and be able to say them to me. I think they found this hard, as these were new sentences that they had to learn. Again, I felt that the pupils were very restless and were not as focussed as I would have liked. The teacher said that she thinks this is because there are so many of them, it is always noisy and this is not an environment where children can concentrate well. I have to try my best to get the children to be quiet and listen to one another, as it can be difficult to hear if they are pronouncing words correctly, and that they are all in the right order!

CM1 – Today Madame Royer was not here, she does not work on Fridays. Therefore, I knew I would have to tackle time with the class by myself. This was not too worrying, as I knew that the children were beginning to understand the vocabulary for this. We practiced writing the time in digital and saying it out loud. I think they prefer to write instead of speaking, as they often get their words the wrong way around. They would often say, ‘it is 5 to 25’ instead of ‘it is 25 to 5’, because of the way they say it in French. I feel that the class really enjoy my lessons because I allow them to come up to the board and write for me and it is interactive for them. From what I have observed, the children don’t get to do this much in their other subjects, which consist of a lot of textbook work.

School Trips

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On Monday (9/4/18), I was informed by Madame Delaroche that her class (CE2) and CE1, are going on a school trip next week (my last week of placement). She told me this because she wanted to squeeze in one more English topic before I leave, seeing as I won’t be there once they come back from their trip. I then went into CM2, where Mr Apruncule told me that his class were going on a trip to the theatre next week and I was welcome to join them. He also mentioned that the CE1 and CE2 classes were going to be away the whole of that week. He said that for his school trip with CM2 he goes kayaking, not far away from Orléans. The reason behind them not going very far is because the school do not want to put pressure on parents to spend a lot of money for their children to go far away on school trips. He said that even though the school is not situated in a deprived area, there are still some children in the school whose families cannot afford to pay for extravagant school trips, and it would be unfair for them not to be able to go.

Every Friday after school, there is a bake-sale, where the children can bring in money to buy a few things to take home. I had never questioned why they were raising money every week, or what it was for. Mr Apruncule explained that the reason for the weekly bake-sale was to raise money to allow every child in the school to be able to go on the trips that the school runs. So, if there is a child whose family cannot provide the money to go on a school trip, the school will use the bake-sale money to allow that child to go on the trip. I thought that this was a good and simple idea.