Category Archives: 1.4 Prof. Commitment

Week 4 of Placement – 3rd -6th of April

Tuesday 3^rd

CE2 – I began the lesson the same way I usually do with asking for the date and the weather in English. The class are getting the hang of this although they seemed to get ‘it is windy’ and ‘it is cloudy’ confused. This could be because they both end the same way and they are not as recognisable as sunny and rainy. After clearing this up, I continued with the topic of items of clothing. I went over the vocabulary using flashcards with pictures of clothes on them and ensured that the class were saying the right words and pronouncing them properly. I then asked them what they were wearing and they had to respond appropriately using full sentences rather than just the vocabulary. They found this easy to do but they have a tendency to copy each other’s answers, probably because it is easier than thinking of their own! I then handed out a simple crossword for the children to do which used the vocabulary we had been learning. The class found this straight forward as all of them had come across a crossword before and knew how they worked.

CM2 – the class teacher wanted to progress from our previous lesson about school in Scotland by getting the children to write simple sentences in English on the topic. I wrote out some sentences, that I thought would be at an appropriate level of difficulty for the class to copy, on the board. For example, ‘Beth’s school is very big, with almost 600 pupils’. The teacher explained to me that it would be too confusing for the children if I wrote in the past tense, so I kept all of my sentences in the present tense. Another issue that we came across, and that I find myself coming across a lot in the school, is that the children struggle to understand my writing. In France, the children learn two ways of writing. They learn the way we would learn in Scotland, but they also learn French script. This looks very impressive but it is also complicated to do. In Scotland, I would usually write on the board without my letters joining up so that it is easier for pupils to read, but in France it is the opposite situation. I need to write with my letters joined up for them to be able to read it!

CE1 – CP were out at a school trip to the local library at the time I usually go to teach them, therefore I swapped CE1 and CP’s English times for the day so I could still see both classes that day. With CE1 I told the class about Scotland and what my education was like. I began by introducing Great Britain to the children, and telling them about Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. They found this confusing initially as these countries obviously have different names in French. I used a map on the projector in order to point to the countries and give the class a visual clue of what I was talking about I then told them that I live in Edinburgh but go to university in Dundee and I had to show them where these were on a map of Scotland. I showed the class pictures of my primary and high schools, and explained to them what age I was when I was to these. Again, they found the thought of wearing a uniform to school very amusing!

CM1 – I began a new topic with CM1 which Madame Royer had requested I start. This was positions of objects or things, for example, the mouse is in, on, under, behind, between, or beside the bed. Firstly, I used a box and a cross drawing on the board to demonstrate these positions, by drawing a cross in a box, the sentence would be ‘the cross is in the box’ etc. The class picked this up well, however it was clear that they were getting mixed up with between, beside and behind, as they look and sound very similar. These words needed some more repetition and examples in order for the children to understand which was which. I gave out a worksheet with two different tasks on it. The first task was to locate ‘Twit’ the clown. The class had to look at the pictures on the sheet and decide whether Twit was under, in, on, behind, beside or between the table/tables. I asked them to read out these sentences, as I could tell that they were going to find the words clown and table difficult to pronounce and I would need to give them help with this. They then had to write their answers on the sheet and as I walked around the room to see how they were getting on I could see that the class were still getting confused with beside, behind and between. In order to get the children to understand the difference I asked a few of them to stand up and demonstrate these words. For example, Person A is behind Person B, or, Person A is between Person B and Person C. This definitely seemed to be easier for the class to understand.

Wednesday 4^th

Today, a few of the classes have sport, which is normal for a Wednesday. Due to this I did not teach any English, but I was able to observe my CM1 classes’ lessons. I was glad to have the opportunity to do this, as the timetable that the teachers created for me requires me to be in different classes all the time, which does not leave me much time to observe. The CM1 class were doing some French dictation, which they call dictée. This is something they do daily, and spend a lot of time on. It involves the teacher reading out a passage and the children having to write down what they hear. I feel that the children do a lot of French, and not much time is left for wider curricular areas. The CM2 teacher explained to me that in general, French children find French very difficult, as compared to English, there are so many grammatical rules and different tenses that the children have to consider. He said that due to this, French exam results across the country are renowned for being poor compared with other subjects. I considered that this was probably why it is so important for the children to have a lot of French in their daily schedule. He also said that this is why the children do not have that much English in their timetable in Primary school, there is not enough time to focus on English when their French still needs work. In secondary school, the amount of English that is taught increases from 1.5 to 5 hours, due to the children’s French being better.

Thursday 5^th

CE2 – Today we began a new topic which was classroom objects. I have already done this topic with CE1 therefore I felt comfortable with the vocabulary and used the same method to introduce it, which was by picking up objects and asking them what they thought they were called. I wrote the correct names on the board, and quickly realised that they had done this topic before, as they were telling me the answers from looking back in their jotters! I asked them to close their jotters so that they could at least try to remember the words for certain objects. They found pen and pencil easy but had never heard of highlighters or sellotape before. Again, I asked the class to repeat the words after me because I feel it is important that they hear the correct way to say the words a lot. I then thought it was best that before they do any speaking themselves, they should write down the vocabulary in their jotters. As I walked around the class checking their jotters, I found that a lot of them were struggling with the spelling of certain words. I think it was mainly because of the way I write on the board, which is different to how their teacher writes. Certain letters look different and this confuses the children. I had to spend a lot of time correcting spelling which also meant I had to use the French alphabet, which is getting easier as the days go by.

CP – today was focussed on revising everything I have taught the children so far. The class teacher was keen for me to consolidate this and check for their understanding before we move on to any new vocabulary. So as each group came and sat with me on the carpet, I asked each of them their names and ages. I made sure to clearly pronounce ‘what is your name?’ and ‘how old are you?’, to ensure that they understand that I was asking different questions. I noticed that a lot of the children were saying ‘am I seven’ rather than ‘I am seven’, and were getting the words muddled up. After a lot of repetition, this was sorted out. After this I asked the children to count to 10 for me. Often, they try to do this as fast as they can which means that they are not really pronouncing the words properly, so to slow them down, I held up my fingers and that was their cue to say the number. After this I held up my fingers but in a random order, which threw the children off initially but I knew that if I did this they would have to pay more attention, rather than just chanting out the numbers in the normal order. I can tell that the children are recalling the numbers a lot faster now that we have done this exercise for several days.

CM1 – We continued with positions today, so I reminded the class of the words we learnt yesterday which were on, in, under, between, behind and beside. I handed out some worksheets for the class, which I thought could be quite challenging for them. The sheet was titled ‘Where are the Pets?’, and it had different animals located in different areas of a house. This meant that even more vocabulary was introduced to the children such as cupboard, bed, chair and fridge. Before going over this, I made sure that they were comfortable with the positions vocabulary, as I did not want the class to be confused. One by one, I read out the question and asked for an answer with the children speaking in sentences, rather than just saying the name of the animal. After we had completed the worksheet as a class, Madame Royer asked the children if they had any questions for me about the vocabulary they had learnt. This then encouraged the children to ask me for the English for lots of words that they obviously knew in French, like pillow, mattress, attic, door, vase, blanket…. The list goes on! I spent a while at the front of the class translating household items for the children, until eventually they were asking me about different words like star, spider, even moustache. It was then that Madame Royer thought we should probably end the lesson, before the class got off task.

Friday 6^th

CE2 – The class teacher came to tell me at the beginning of the day that she needed to phone a few people as it was an emergency. She said she would be back to the class as soon as she could but otherwise the class was under my control. This daunted me because she is always usually in the classroom with me when I am teaching, and is my translator when I need it! I also wasn’t prepared for this, but luckily, I knew what exercise the class were supposed to be doing today. Unfortunately, the pages had not been photocopied, so I asked Jessica the classroom assistant if she could do that for me. Whilst that was happening, I filled the time by asking the children for the date and the weather in English. They are definitely getting the hang of this vocabulary now, which is probably due to us going over it daily. I then ensured that the class knew the vocabulary that was needed for the worksheet they were about to do, which were things like ‘teacher’, ‘desk’ and ‘chair’. They copied these words into their jotters after repeating them after me several times. I asked them to do this individually as well because it can be hard to tell if they are all saying the words properly when they all say them at once. I can tell they are not so keen to do this but they know it is just to help them with their pronunciation. After this, the class completed the worksheet that I gave to them, it was another crossword which included the words we had learned on Wednesday as well as today. They completed this quickly but again, there was a few queries from the class about my writing on the board. For the next two weeks, my aim will be to write so that the children can read it!

CM2 – I read the class a book called ‘The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash’ in English. I was conscious that I needed to read this book slowly, as a lot of the vocabulary and sentences were very difficult. Mr Apruncule explained the meaning of the title to the class, so that they would have a small clue as to what I was talking about! I read the class the story and afterwards I could tell they were all very confused, so the teacher went over the book in French with them. They could guess most of the nouns in the book, but it was the verbs like throwing, eating and crying, that the children found difficult to translate.

CP – I wanted to do a different activity with the children today, as we had been doing bingo for a while and I thought the children would start to find it too easy and therefore boring. I had the class in three groups as usual, and with each group I began by asking them all for their ages. I then asked them to sit ‘dans un cercle’ so that we could play the new game that I had thought of. Carrying on the theme of ‘Joe the Pirate’, I thought it would be fun to ask the children to collect “treasure”, using colourful building blocks. I asked each child one by one to find me ‘2 pieces of treasure’ or ‘7 pieces of treasure’ etc. The first group found this very easy, but the second and third group not so much. It took them a little bit longer to figure out what number I was saying to them. I can tell that the class teacher has given me groups of children in terms of ability, as the first group always seem to pick up new vocabulary and understand games well, whereas the last group need a bit more time and repetition. The next time I went around the circle, I asked the children to find me ‘one blue and two oranges’ for example. This meant that they were having to use their knowledge of English numbers and colours together, which I think they found difficult at first as it was double the amount fo words to translate. However, I think this challenging element of the game made it more engaging for them and they found it good fun whilst still practicing a lot of the vocabulary they have learnt since I have been at the school.

By the end of each week I am definitely noticing a difference in my understanding of French, even if it is just a few more phrases here and there. I feel that I don’t have to spend such a long time thinking about what someone has said to me, the words are becoming a lot more familiar. I also feel that I am very comfortable in the school now, this has been helped by the teachers and children, who have made me feel like part of the school from the very first day I got there. I am always greeted in the morning and at the end of the day by everyone, and I get the sense that the children enjoy their English time with me. When the children ask me questions I am much more able to answer them than I was on day one! This gives me a sense of achievement, and it means that I can communicate easier with the children which is important to me. I think that I am understanding the rules of the school and the way that things are done differently in France. For example, children are not allowed to ask to go to the bathroom during lessons, they must go at break times. This has been helped by the teachers, who do not hesitate to tell me all about how things work in their school and in French schools in general. Hearing their opinions about education and primary school in France is very interesting and it has encouraged me to consider how I feel about education in Scotland. I would say that there are clear aspects of primary school in France that are taken more seriously than in Scotland, like handwriting and dictation. On the other hand, in Scotland I would say we take the school image more seriously by wearing uniform.

Placement Proposal

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Proposal

My chosen placement is at Orleans University in France, where I will spend 6 weeks in a French primary school as an English language assistant. This will involve me working with individuals and small groups of primary aged children, helping them with their English speaking, reading and writing. I have chosen this setting for my placement as I feel I would benefit from exploring a different culture (in this instance French), not only in a primary school setting but also in terms of food, celebrations and new customs. Being able to compare our primary school system to the French system in a hands-on, practical way would allow me to learn a lot about different teaching styles, learning spaces and a different curriculum. I would be able to work with children from diverse cultural backgrounds which I have not experienced before. Also, due to my placement being in France, I will need to be able to speak some French in the classroom and during everyday life. This will allow me to practice my French speaking in a very practical way, which in turn will mean I can use this new skill in future placements and in my career in teaching. In terms of what I can offer, I feel that I can return the favour and bring a sense of the Scottish culture to the French primary school pupils. Seeing as I will be volunteering in a local primary school and not an international school, some of the children may never have met a Scottish person before and I could give classes an idea of what it is like to live in Scotland and introduce them to some of our traditions. I feel that I am patient and supportive, both as a person and in my teaching, which is important for when children are learning a new language. Therefore, I think I would be a great asset to a French primary school classroom which is in need of an English language assistant.

Audit of Skills, Knowledge and Personal Attributes / Reflections on Experiences to Date

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Audit of Skills, Knowledge and Personal Attributes

I can communicate and report effectively, both orally and in writing
I am systematic, well-prepared, and capable of planning ahead.
I can develop and manage effective relationships with others in the school community.\
I demonstrate the capacity to work with and manage change by thinking on my feet.

Reflection on Experiences to Date

April/May 2017 Teaching Placement at St. Andrews RC Primary, Dundee

Over the course of 6 weeks I had varying amounts of responsibility for a calss of primary 5 pupils. During this I had to plan lessons and implement these to the class. I had to use various sanctions and behaviour management strategies in order to keep the class in order and to the standards of the school and class teacher. This was often difficult, and it took me a few weeks to ensure that the pupils respected me in a way that meant they would follow my instructions. I built a good relationship with my class and this meant that behaviour management became easier and lessons became very enjoyable to teach. I taught subjects across the Scottish curriculum, and found that I was most comfortable teaching English, Maths, P.E. and social subjects. I found that art and drama were my weaker teaching areas as I found it harder to control the class when using a more lenient teaching style. In order to better this, I made sure I was involved in the whole school show where I guided the children through making props and costumes and encouraged them to perform well and enjoy themselves whilst doing so. Doing this helped me to build a positive teacher to pupil relationship with my class and I felt the overall experience of my first-year placement was positive.

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

During my 6^th year at high school, I volunteered at my local primary school twice a week for around six months. I was placed into a primary 2 class, and I would usually help the teacher with art and writing classes. During this I was able to observe a range of different teaching strategies and learn how to plan and deliver lessons to suit early years pupils. I did not get much experience of controlling the class by myself or using behaviour management strategies, as this was the class teacher’s responsibility. Due to this, I felt that the children often saw me as a friend rather than another teacher in the school. I also felt that this could have been because I only went to the school twice a week. I was well integrated into the school over the 6 months and I worked well as part of the teaching team.

September 2014 – September 2017 as a Kids Coach at David Lloyd leisure, Edinburgh

Over my 3 years working at David Lloyd I learned what it meant to work effectively within a team. I became confident in leading activities classes to large groups of primary school aged children, and this definitely allowed me to have confidence when I entered the classroom. During my time at David Lloyd, I had to communicate a lot with parents and guardians and attend to any queries they may have had. Again, I felt this prepared me for school placements well. I found this part of the job relatively easy however there were often times that I had to deal with difficult situations and complaints. I also organised and delivered many birthday parties and holiday camps for members and non-members of the club, which I really enjoyed doing and again, felt that this enhanced my leadership skills.

Emmanuel Macron’s Changes to Primary Education in France

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CP, is the youngest class in the French primary school. Children in this year group are usually 6 or 7 and in my school, there is only one CP class. Something that I have recently noticed in my school is that some of the pupils from the CP class are in the CE2 class at certain times of the day. Initially, I found this confusing, as the next class up from CP is CE1, therefore I did not think this was a composite class. Why were 6/7 year olds sometimes in the same class as 8/9 year olds? I thought that my teacher, Madame Royer, would be the best person to ask as she speaks English well. When I began to ask her about this, she knew immediately what I was talking about, and I realised that this was probably quite a big issue in the school. She said that the CP class is the largest class in the school (this is also something I have noticed during my first couple of weeks), with 29 pupils. The other classes have around 20-25 pupils in them, and therefore the CP teacher can sometimes find that 29 pupils are too many to handle. This is also made worse by the fact that these children are the youngest, meaning they are harder to manage and usually do not concentrate as well. These two factors combined, means that the CP teacher has a lot of work to do, therefore the teachers in the school decided that it would be best if around 5 of the CP pupils went into the CE2 class (the smallest class in the school), whenever the CP teacher saw it as appropriate (for example, if she needed a rest from looking after 29 6 year olds!).

Madame Royer explained to me that this was really not popular with the parents of the children who spent time in 2 different classes, as they would rather their children remained in the same class all day, with children of the same age. She then told me that Emmanuel Macron (the French President) wanted there to be a maximum of 12 pupils in every CP class in poorer neighbourhoods of France, in order for the younger children to receive more teacher attention earlier on. Another change that has recently been implemented in some primary schools (particularly in Nice and Marseille) by The President, is that they are only having 4 day weeks (a whole day off on a Wednesday instead of a half day). This means that children are in school for four days, and out of school for three. In Scotland, the majority of schools are open Monday to Friday, with no half days. This is not seen as an unachievable number of days for children to be in school by Scottish teachers.

Emmanuel Macron also wants compulsory education to start at the age of three, from September 2019. This means that schools across France will require an additional 800 school staff in total. The current age for compulsory education in France is six, when children enter the CP class. The President feels that nursery in France should no longer merely be treated as ‘childcare’, but it should be educational too.

In my opinion, I think that three is too young for children to begin compulsory education. However, I do also agree that six is too old. I also feel that 12 as a maximum number of pupils for CP classes in disadvantaged areas seems like not enough. This would mean needing more teachers in every school and from my previous experience, 12 pupils seems more than manageable.

The Connexion, (2017), “Changes in Store as Children Head Back to School”
The Connexion, (2018) “School to Start from Age 3 in 2019”.

2nd Week of Placement 19th – 23rd March 2018

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Week 2 – 19^th to 23^rd of March

My daily timetable:

	CP	CE1	CE2	CM1	CM2
8:45-9:30			x
9:30-10:00					x
BREAK
10:30-11:30	x
LUNCH
13:30-14:45				X
BREAK
15:00-15:30		x

Monday 19^th

CE1 – I began the day in CE1, where the class teacher wanted me to recap the vocabulary we had gone over the week before such as “I have black hair” and “I have blue eyes”. Before this I went over the date and how to say this in English (Lundi, 19 Mars is Monday the 19^th of March). I then used flashcards again to hold up to the children and they would repeat back to me what they could see on the card, for example if I held up a picture of a boy with black hair they would need to say, “I have black hair”. I find that flashcards are very useful to use as it means I do not need to speak in order to communicate with the children. By holding up a flashcard, they know what I am asking them and therefore we do not waste any time with potential language barrier issues.I did this with the class for around 10 minutes, but I quickly needed to change the activity as I could tell the class were beginning to get restless. I then got the children to write down the new vocabulary they had learned by labelling a picture of a face in English. I drew a picture of a face on the board and labelled it for the children so that they knew where to put the right words. We repeated the words a few times as a class, and then I rubbed out the words on the board to make the task more challenging that just having the children copy from the board. I have observed in each class that the children all have jotters for each subject, which they usually stick worksheets into, rather than writing in them directly. This is quite similar to schools in Scotland but we would probably write directly into the jotters rather than using worksheets all the time.

CM2 – I then quickly had to move on to help the CM2 class (the oldest class in the school), where I started with some general questions for the class such as “how are you?” and “what did you do at the weekend?”. The class gave me their best answers, but I noticed that once one of them had given an answer such as “I am fine thank you”, the others after this would tend to copy the sentence instead of thinking of a different one. Therefore I told the children that they had to think of different things to say, to keep them on their toes. I then started to read out a story in English to the children called ‘Monkey Puzzle’. I thought that this had some difficult vocabulary in it for the class’ level of English, so I had to point at the pictures in the book a lot and speak much slower than I usually would, so that it was not too fast for the children to understand. A lot of them already knew the words monkey, butterfly, elephant and snake… but frog, bat and caterpillar were all new to them!

CP – After the break, I went into the CP class to carry on with the work I did with them the week before. It was the same set up, where I had 10 children at a time on the carpet with me, and this repeated 3 times. I had a worksheet for the children to complete and it said; “Hello! My name is Joe the Pirate. What is your name?”. We spoke a little bit about what a pirate was as some of the children were unsure of this. It was a challenge to get the children to pronounce pirate properly, as they were all saying “peerot”. They then wrote their names on the worksheet and we practiced asking each other the questions and giving responses a lot of times. I realised whilst doing this that children of this younger age really learn well with a lot of repetition being used. Worksheets are heavily used by all of the teachers, which they fill out and then stick into their jotters.

CE1 – I found my biggest challenge of the day was towards the end of the day when I went to go and work with the CE1 class. The teacher for this class did not speak any English, and I had found that in the other classes it was very helpful having the teacher speak English as they are able to translate if there is any confusion. Therefore, I knew that this would be more challenging and my communication would need to be very clear. The teacher requested that I teach the class some classroom instructions in English such as; “Stand up!” “Sit down!” and “Pay attention”. After repeating these instructions and using my knowledge of French to help translate to the children, they were able to follow my instructions pretty well. I therefore thought a good way to consolidate this newly learnt language would be to play ‘Simon says’ with the children. This was an excellent way to interact with them without using any French and also practicing their new vocabulary.

I felt that I had a very successful day and that I had got to know each of the classes even better having been in each one that day. I feel positive about the rest of the week as the teachers are very helpful with planning ahead and keeping me ready with lots of work to do with the children. I also feel that compared to last week my French has already improved and I am able to communicate easier with the staff and pupils.

Tuesday 20^th

On Tuesday Briony and I did not get our usual number 7 bus to Petite Merie, but instead took the tram A to Fleury Les Aubrais, to Condorcet Middle School. We had been asked by one of the English teachers there to come in and talk to her class about Scotland and how life is there. I was apprehensive about this as this what not the age group of school children that I was used to communicating with, and reflecting on my past experience of high school, I realised that it is not always easy with older children. We arrived at the school before the pupils and met Sophie, who told us what the plan was for that class. We would be helping the class with their work on William Shakespeare, where they had to create a timeline of his life. I considered that this seemed like a very difficult task for a group of fourteen year olds learning English. Reflecting on my own French education, I didn’t think I had ever had to do something as difficult as that. When the class arrived, Briony and I introduced ourselves and then Madame Charbonnier gave the class the instructions they needed to complete their task on William Shakespeare. I noticed that she spoke to the class in English the entire time, and they were expected to talk to each other in English throughout the class, not just the teacher. Again, I compared this to my own education and concluded that the way that English is taught in French schools is perhaps taken slightly more seriously than French in Scottish schools.

We helped the pupils with sentence structure and putting words in the correct order, as apparently this can be confusing for students learning English. Before we left, we showed the class picture of Dundee and the University, our home towns, things that are traditionally Scottish (haggis, kilts, dancing) and played the National Anthem for them. They seemed very intrigued by all of these things, and we explained that we find their schools and traditions interesting too!

Wednesday 21^st

On Wednesday, I was told by the CE2 and CM2 teachers that I would not need to go to their classes in the morning like usual, as their classes both do sport on a Wednesday morning. Therefore, I spent the morning with my own class, CM1. Before break the class were correcting their French dictation and reading a couple of chapters of their class novel, meaning I did not do much work with the class at this time. This gave me a chance to write up some of my blog and reflect on the past few days, as I do not get much of a chance to sit still throughout the day. After break, two girls in the CM1 class had created a Power-point Presentation about the history of Edinburgh that they wanted to present to myself and the class. I found it quite hard to follow, as the girls had put a lot of information into the presentation and it was in French. I also learned some things that I didn’t know about the history of Edinburgh, which is slightly embarrassing considering this is where I live. After the girls had finished their presentation, Madame Royer asked me to come to the front of the class to answer any questions that the children had about Edinburgh. They asked about the food, weather, if there are any rivers, and they asked what the houses are like in Edinburgh. I then showed them pictures of my Primary school and High school, to show them what the uniform is like in Scotland (as they do not have uniforms in French schools). They found this fascinating and strange that we have to wear uniforms all the way through school. It felt good to be able to show them some of the Scottish culture and give them an idea of where I am from.

Thursday 22^nd

CE2 – I began the day following my usual daily timetable, by starting at CE2 from 8:45 to 9:30am. Before the children entered the class, the teacher explained to me that she wants the children to be able to say the date in English every day, “apprendre par cœur”. This is the French equivalent of saying “off by heart”. Taking this on, I said that at the start of every day we can talk about the date and this will help the children to practice saying the days of the week, months and numbers. We then continued with practicing our facial features vocabulary such as, ears, eyes, nose, mouth etc. They consolidated their knowledge by filling out a worksheet, they managed to do this very quickly which confirmed to me that they know the vocabulary well. After doing this I thought it would be fun to play a game of ‘Guess Who?’ with the class, where they have to describe one of their peers and everyone else guesses who they are describing. This was a difficult concept to explain to the class in English therefore their teacher explained to them what the game involved. The class definitely enjoyed this game and going forward I think I will use a more interactive approach to learning, like playing games or singing songs, as this is more enjoyable for the pupils.

CM2 – With CM2 on Thursday we continued with script reading and role playing in English. I read out two more ‘Kevin and Kate’ scripts for the class to hear how it should sound, and they then took it in turns to act out the scenes in English. This works well as I can interrupt them if they are not pronouncing certain words properly and help them with use of volume and expression, the more advanced aspects of speaking a language. We then went over some of the vocabulary they had heard on Monday when I read ‘Monkey Puzzle’ to them. This included animals like, a butterfly, monkey, caterpillar, elephant, bat and frog. I thought that these were quite complex words to be learning for their age, therefore I used the pictures to help me portray what word went with what animal.

I only spend 30 minutes with the oldest class in the school daily, therefore I find it difficult to fit all of the content that I wanted to teach the children into that space of time. However, as they are older and therefore have more English knowledge, they can pick up the vocabulary quicker and don’t need as much time for repetition as younger pupils do.

CP – We moved on to a new topic, as I felt that the children in this age group had practiced saying their name, age and gender a lot. I would practice this at the start of every lesson but I could tell that the children were beginning to get bored because of how easy they were finding the ‘introducing myself’ topic. So, on Thursday, I introduced the colours to the class. Again, I had the children in 3 groups of 9 or 10 at the back of the classroom with me. There is another blackboard and carpet area at the back of the class which the teacher lets me use in the hour that I spend in her class. I often find that the younger children get restless whilst sitting on the carpet, therefore when I am teaching them my energy has to be high and I should be enthusiastic. With each group, I began by asking each of them their name and age, to check that they could remember how to say this. I then used flashcards with the colours on them to introduce the new vocabulary. Once we had gone over this a few times, I began to ask the children “what colour is this?” whilst pointing to a coloured object. The pupils would then have to raise their hand and tell me in English what colour it was. I noticed that the children found it hard to distinguish between green and grey, and felt more comfortable pronouncing colours like pink and black.

I really enjoy teaching the children in small groups like this, without the teacher’s assistance, as it gives me a chance to have small conversations with the children and get them used to me being in charge. However, I feel that this method would probably work best with younger children instead of the older classes as their vocabulary is more advanced, therefore it is more difficult for me with the language barrier as well.

CM1 – On Thursday I continued with the topic of food with the CM1 class. I used flashcards with pictures of food on them to hold up to the class and say “is it a …..?” and they reply with “yes,it is” or “no, it isn’t”.

They found this relatively easy as it was just revision from what we had done on Monday. I was also conscious that this did not really help the children to learn the food vocabulary, as I was saying the words and they had the aid of a photo as well to know what the food was. We moved on and I started to ask the children a new question which was “do you like…..?”. They had to respond with “Yes, I like it” or “no, I don’t like it”. They had already learned about saying their likes and dislikes but not within the topic of food so this was semi new for them. I began with the class sitting in their seats and answering my question of “do you like?”, but I felt I needed to get the class to interact a bit more and I wanted the children to practice pronouncing their newly learnt words. So, I asked for a volunteer to come up to the front and take a flashcard. They then had to ask a peer “do you like potatoes?” for example, and their friend had to reply, “yes I do” or “no I don’t”. The children definitely enjoyed this better and my teacher confirmed this by saying that the children clearly liked the exercise. In the future I will consider this method when deciding what activities to do with the children as I felt that when they were more active they were more enthusiastic about speaking English and perhaps less shy.

I used this as a starter for the class by reading it out and letting them hear how the conversation should sound. The children then read the conversation out in their best English and I could correct them with their pronunciation if need be.

Friday 23^rd

CE2 – On Friday I began my class with a discussion about the date, reminding the children about Friday, March and the number 23. I asked one of the children to write this on the board for me and we came across a language problem as this was happening. I began to spell the word Friday for her in the English alphabet, which of course made no sense to her. Therefore, I had to switch to the French alphabet which I found quite confusing but we managed eventually. I introduced a new topic to class which was feelings. To my surprise when I began to go through the vocabulary, the children already knew quite a few of the words, in particular ‘happy’ and ‘sad’. I had printed out flashcards for each of the pupils to have to stick into their jotters, which on one side had a picture of a face with an expression, and on the other side had the word to describe how that person was feeling. We looked at words such as, happy, sad, excited, bored, angry, frightened, hungry and upset. The teacher thought that this was a good amount of words to start the children off with the topic of feelings. Once I had read out the words a few times and asked the children to repeat after me, I began to ask individual children the question “how are you?”. I received a few blank faces by asking this, so then I asked “ça va?” and there was a large noise of recognition made from the children. Now that they knew what I was asking, the class could respond with things like “I am happy” or “I am bored” etc. For the next lesson, I think I will introduce a song in English to the class as I think they will enjoy this and it’s a better way for them to learn the vocabulary.

CP – I continued with the topic of colours again in smaller groups of 10. I felt that today the children were more restless, perhaps due to it being Friday and they were feeling tired. However, I found this quite difficult to manage. Usually I do not find behaviour management to be much of an issue but when I cannot speak their language I find it hard to portray what I want to say to the children. I can tell that the children find it difficult to sit still on the carpet for a long time and this means that they start to wander around instead. I need to keep up my energy and change the task frequently to keep the children on task and entertained. They seem to enjoy the game where I say, “what colour is this?” and they shout the colour of what I am pointing at. They have also become very good at saying their name and age in English, but I will continue to ask these questions so that they do not forget.

1st Week of Placement 13th – 16th of March

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Tuesday 13^th of March 2018 – Day 1

On Tuesday, I had my first day of placement at my assigned Primary School, École Les Guernazelles in the South of Orléans in France. I was picked up from the halls of residence and driven to the school by Nina, our guide, alongside Briony, as our schools were both quite far away from where we stay and we needed some guidance on our first day. I would need to get the bus by myself after today.

(this is the CM1 classroom).

When I arrived at the school, Nina and I met the head-teacher, who is also the teacher for CE1 (this is the French equivalent of primary 2/3). She greeted us in French and explained that she could not speak English. This was daunting to me as I then wondered if any of the other teachers would be able to speak English, as my French was poor. The school is also in quite a remote area, and is therefore smaller than what I have experienced before. I also thought this might mean that the teachers English would not be good. I was preparing myself for a day of pointing at the dictionary and feeling very lost. Nina said goodbye to me and I began to feel apprehensive as my only known source of translation had just left me. The head teacher then took me to my classroom where I was met by Madame Royer, the CM1 teacher (Primary 4/5 in Scotland). She welcomed me into the classroom and let me have a seat at the back of the classroom and observe the class for a little while just to settle in. Luckily Madame Royer can speak English, so this made it easy for us to communicate initially. As I sat at the back of the class observing I found myself feeling quite lost as everything was being said in French, however I liked the challenge of trying to work out what was being said. The children were doing French dictation, which meant Madame Royer would read out a sentence in French and the children would write it down as they heard it. During maths, the children were looking at measuring. I noticed that the class were all given the same level of work as each other, there was no differentiation. This is quite different to primary schools in Scotland, where differentiation is frequently used in maths. They were working from a textbook, working on questions and then discussing the answers as a class. Some of the children would go up to the board and write down their peers’ answers. The children had a break at 10 o’clock, and during this, another teacher spoke to me about helping out with English in her class after break time. She also spoke English well. I went with her to introduce myself to her class (CE2, primary 3/4 in Scotland). The pupils had to try and ask me questions in English and understand my response. I found that this helped my understanding of French a little bit as they were talking in French to each other and to the teacher. Throughout the day I went around the other classes CP, CE2 and CM2 (there are only 5 classes in the school) and introduced myself. It was daunting having to stand up in front of 20 French pupils at a time and have them speak en Francais!

Before getting to the school I was expecting to find that there would be a language barrier between myself and the teachers and pupils of the school. This was true to a certain extent, but I felt I could communicate well enough with the teachers in order to plan my schedule for the next 6 weeks. I felt very lucky that most of the teachers could speak English well. I was also surprised at how calm I was throughout the day, despite there being an obvious language barrier. I thought that I might get frustrated by this but I felt I took it in my stride and tried to communicate as well as I could. Overall, I think that my first day at my placement school went well, and that I made a good first impression to the pupils and teachers. I felt that they were happy I was there and that I would be helpful for the children’s acquisition of English. Throughout the day I learned a few more important French phrases that can be used as greetings or in the classroom and this will help me to create bonds with the children and get integrated into the school better. I also noticed certain aspects of the school that I thought were different to how things are in Scotland. For example, the pupils do not wear uniform and the teachers’ dress code is also very casual. In addition to this, the children take off their shoes at the cloakroom area and put on slippers to wear around the classroom and the rest of the school. Throughout the day, the children have 3 breaks, unlike 2 in Scotland. They have their first break at 10am for around 15 minutes, then they have lunch at 11:30am for two hours which is a lot longer than the children in Scotland have for lunch. In addition to this, there is then another 15 minute break at 2:45pm, before the children finish school at 3:45pm (around half an hour later than Scottish primary schools). Comparing my placement last year to my first impressions of this placement, I also felt that the pupils were very well behaved and the teacher did not need to discipline them as much.

As I get further on in my placement, my aim is to get better at speaking French in order to make it easier to communicate with the teachers and pupils in my school. I also hope to improve the pupils’ understanding of English and Scotland’s culture, by showing them our traditions and sights to see.

Wednesday 14^th of March 2018

I was not feeling as apprehensive about this day compared to Tuesday, as I now knew what my teachers and pupils were like and how to get to the school by transport, and felt I had had a good first day the day before. However, my first hurdle of the day occurred earlier than I thought it would. Our host Nina assured me that the only bus I needed to get was the number seven, the entire way to my placement. But on Wednesday morning my bus stopped 3 stops early and I had to converse with the bus driver in my best French about why the bus had stopped. After a lot of confusion and gesturing between myself and the bus driver, I found the right bus and was on my way to school. When I got to school I made sure to say “je suis perdu!” to my teacher so she knew why I was late.

In France Zone B, the children are only in school for half a day, which means that they would leave at 11:30am. Due to this, I did not have much time at the school on Wednesday, and so just observed the CE1 class doing their maths work. During this I noticed that the teachers often get their pupils to interact with the white board, either by drawing or writing on it. The children work mainly out of textbooks from what I observed, and have certain jotters for the different subjects they learn. In cycle 2 (CP, CE1, CE2), the children are expected to be taught 10 hours of French per week, 5 hours of Mathematics and 1.5 hours of English. I have also observed that these are the three main subjects that children learn daily in the class, and there is not as much teaching of creative subjects or sciences. Sciences are introduced into the curriculum in Cycle 3 (CM1, CM2) as well as social subjects.

Since the four of us all had half days at our schools, we took the rest of the day to explore the centre of Orléans some more.

Thursday 15^th of March 2018

On Thursday morning, I was invited to go along with the school to observe the orchestra rehearsal for the production of My Fair Lady, which is showing later on in March in Orléans. As a school, we walked 30 minutes to a small building where there was a stage inside, and lots of seats laid out for us to sit and watch the rehearsal take place. During the walk, I felt pretty frustrated, as usually I would take this time to talk to the pupils and get to know them a bit more, but with my limited use of French I felt I could not have much conversation at all. However during the rehearsal, the conductor was making references to My Fair Lady in English, and this meant I could translate for my class which made me feel slightly more necessary.

Image result for my fair lady orleans

Due to the class being out of school in the morning, Madame Royer was keen for the children to work quietly on their French and maths work for the rest of the day, meaning that I would just observe the lessons. This gave me time to make some notes about French vocabulary and learn some new phrases that I heard being used in the classroom that I may need to use later on.

Friday 16th of March

The first class I was teaching in on Friday was CE2, where I was teaching the children how to say their hair and eye colour. This was definitely challenging, but I stood at the front of the class and used what little French I had to try to communicate with the children. I realised the importance of using hand gestures, actions and repetition when teaching because we cannot use much of the same language. I also taught the children how to say the days of the week in English, with the use of flashcards and again, a lot of repetition.

After the short morning break I then went into the CP class, where I had the children in groups of 10 at a time, and their teacher wanted me to help them with saying their name, age and if they are a girl or a boy in English. This was definitely the most challenging teaching I had done that week, as the class teacher was not there to translate to the children if I needed her to. Therefore, I had practiced some small French phrases that I thought I might need to say to the children. For example, “Vous les dites?” (you say it?), “et toi?” (and you?). During my teaching I used a lot of hand gestures and pointing, I also wrote the sentences that the children were learning on the board so that they could read it. I spent around 20 minutes with each group, and to my surprise, by the end of the 20 minutes, the children had got to grips with their new English phrases. This definitely gave me a sense of achievement and I felt proud that I had managed to communicate with the younger children so well.

Towards the end of the day I was asked by the CM2 teacher to read out some English comic strips that the children had been practicing, so that they could hear how to correctly pronounce each individual word the characters were saying. They then acted out the scenes in English as best as they could, and I helped them to say the words properly. I could tell that the children found this helpful, which finally gave me a feeling of being useful, as at the beginning of the week I was worried that my lack of French speaking would make me a bit of a hindrance for the teachers.

Over the past few days I realised that in order to get your message across to the children, the most important things to have are a loud, clear voice and perseverance. I feel that it’s not really about the words that you use when it comes to teaching a language, as I managed to teach the different ages of children some basic English using barely any French at all. At the end of the week I felt a real sense of achievement, as I never thought I would be able to help the children learn so much in such a short space of time. I am looking forward to teaching the different ages of children more English as the weeks go on, but I am also concerned that I will therefore need to learn more French, and this would take practice!

Arrival in Orléans

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Briony, Erin, Lauren, Natalie, Brooke and I, set off from Edinburgh airport early in the morning on Sunday the 11th of March. Aside from our luggage being too heavy, having to pay a significant fine and rushing through the airport to make our flight, we arrived in Paris at the Charles de Gaulle airport successfully. We met our mini-bus driver Francois, who was holding up a sign for us, and he drove us to Orléans which took around one hour. We were all relatively quiet in the bus, probably due to tiredness and nerves of what was ahead of us. The language barrier was already becoming clear, even after 1 hour, as we had to converse with Francois about directions to Orléans. Despite this we all made it to the train station where we were met by our host Nina. Brooke and Natalie set off to Blois, which is where they are doing their teaching placements, and Nina drove us the rest of us to our accommodation at ESPE Loire Valley. She showed us to our rooms in the halls, where other French and international students stay too. We met a couple of Irish girls in the kitchen which was a relief as I knew we would be able to talk to them with no language issues. We were then left to settle in and get our bearings of the city we would be staying in for the next 6 weeks.

Image result for orleans france

On Monday, we were shown around the town centre by Nina, who showed us the important parts of Orléans and helped us to get our bus passes sorted out for getting to our placement schools the next day. None of us speak French very well, so walking around and talking to people was a good way of easing us into speaking the language. We then went to the other teacher training centre in Orléans, where we met a woman called Claudié, who spoke to us in French which, again, was a shock to us all but I felt this helped us to recall some of the French vocabulary we would need to be using in our schools. She introduced us to the French Education system and certain aspects that were important to know about before placement. There were some important differences in the education systems of France and Scotland which I will highlight:

The main features of the French education system are:

The schools are mostly public
They are free for all
It is compulsory for all from ages 6 to 16.
They are “laïque” (secular).
Nursery in France is called “Maternelle” and is in ‘Cycle 1’
Early years is called ‘Cycle 2’, which consists of CP (age 6), CE1 (age 7) and CE2 (age 8).
The middle and upper stages are part of ‘Cycle 3’, which is CM1 (age 9) and CM2 (age 10/11).
‘Cycle 4’ in the French system is collège which children attend from the ages of 12 to 15.
From 15 to 18, children attend Le Lycée.

Laïcité

This is a concept that we were introduced to by Claudie which she said was particularly important in French schools.

“Laïcité” cannot be directly translated in English. Due to this, there are difficulties for French people when trying to explain to people from other European countries, and particularly from Britain, what “Laïcite” actually means.

A law was voted in over 100 years ago in 1905, where there was the separation of the state and the church. However, the secularization of French State schools had started long before the 1905 law. In 1881 primary education in France was already free and compulsory for those aged 6 to 13 and already “laïque”, with no religious education being taught. And today, any show, by clothing, badges, speech or in writing, of religious beliefs or political opinions is strictly forbidden. This is agreed in order to avoid any religious opinion being expressed, but mainly to show that everyone is equal and we can live together and respect each other, whatever our differences are.

Today, the basic principles of “laïcite” and of the separation of Church and State are well established and understood in France. The different faiths recognise that by having this law in place, they have the freedom to practise their religion, which in France is considered a strictly private thing. It took centuries and a lot of terrible struggles to get to this point in French society.
Few countries in the world have adopted the principle of a secular state, but there are some examples: for example, Mexico, a country almost exclusively Roman Catholic, and to a certain extent, Turkey, a Muslim country. Yet some Christian groups in the United States disagree with this type of state and it is seen as controversial.

S, Writer. 2018 La France : un état laïque, French Entrée. Available at: https://www.frenchentree.com/living-in-france/culture/la-france-un-etat-laique/