Category Archives: 3.1 Teaching & Learning

LfL Experience – Teaching English in a French Primary School

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This blog will look into some of the methods I used when I taught English to French pupils for my LfL second year placement. Throughout the ED31010 module, it has become apparent to me that the methods I used were actually really valid and effective. It has been interesting to take part in the module having been through the practical element of modern language teaching but from the opposing point of view (teaching English to French Children rather than teaching French to Scottish Children).

 Gesture, Voice, Mime, Eye Contact

A reason why I feel that my experience was authentic and easily comparable to teaching French in a Scottish classroom, is that my level of French is truly a beginner’s level. This meant that I had to put a lot of effort in for the smallest amounts of communication with the children. I also discovered how important the use of gesture, eye contact, mime and voice is when communicating, and how much it can help to get a message across. McLachlan and Jones (2009) discuss the use of gesture, mime, facial expressions and eye contact in their book. Most of my lessons would consist of me standing in front of the different classes of children (ranging from age 6 to 11), and trying my best to teach them new vocabulary or explain activities using the little French I knew or talking very clearly and slowly in English. On the first few days of my placement I realised that I was talking too quickly to the children in English. I remember one of the teachers asking me to introduce myself in English and see if her pupils could make a guess as to what I was saying. By my second sentence the teacher was already telling me to slow down because the pupils would not understand me. I realised then that if a French person spoke to me at that speed, I would have a similar issue. This corresponds with Krashen’s theory (1981, cited in Johnstone, 1994) on the ‘silent  period’, where time is given to pupils to respond or merely take in the information that has been spoken to them. I can relate to the pupils with this, as a learner, as I felt I needed a certain amount of time to respond to French that was spoken to me. Even after the first few days of placement I realised that in order to get my message across to the children, an essential thing to have was patience and perseverance. I felt that the words I used weren’t the most important thing as I was able to teach the children basic English greetings and phrases using a minimal amount of French.

Flashcards

I often accompanied the use of clear and slower speech with the use of flashcards. I found this was especially effective for the younger pupils, who needed that extra visual aid. I found flashcards helpful to use as it meant I didn’t need to speak an awful lot in order to practice vocabulary with them. Obviously at the start I would say the words with correct pronunciation, as well as using the flashcards, and have the pupils repeat after me. After this had been practiced I would then just hold up a flashcard, as a visual queue for the pupils. They were associating the words with the pictures, and I knew this would help them to remember the vocabulary better. The use of a visual aid can be described as a scaffolding strategy, where pupils are given extra support by the teacher (Swain, Kinnear and Steinman, 2010).  I found that less time was wasted using flashcards, as there was less risk for the language barrier to slow down the learning.

Stories / Comics

I found that I used stories and comics a lot with the oldest class in the school. Their teacher thought that their level of English was at a certain level that listening to stories and comics would not be too much. One of the first books I read to the class was ‘Monkey Puzzle’, which is an English book by Julia Donaldson. It has a lot of vocabulary in it, particularly animals and descriptions such as big, small, stripes, spotty, green, red etc. Again, I found that using gestures and slowing my voice down really helped the pupils to understand what I was saying as I was reading the story. It probably also made it more engaging for the pupils to listen to, using different tones and a range of volumes. Using comics was also a good way to get the older children speaking English, rather than merely listening to me. The comics that their teacher provided me with had a lot of dialogue and role play, meaning the pupils could stand up and practice the conversations, firstly reading from the page and then eventually being able to memorise and recite it. This was good in terms of the pupils practicing their pronunciation of words but I felt there was not enough spontaneity in the activity. Towards the end of my placement I began to read stories to the younger classes, as they got used to me and the English language. I read ‘Dear Zoo’ to them, which is a short story book, again with animal vocabulary and descriptions such as grumpy, scary, cheeky, small, perfect etc. The younger pupils absolutely loved this and they seemed to enjoy the challenge of guessing what each animal was. These were usually educated guesses, using cognates and the pupils’ prior knowledge of English. I feel this could come into context with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximinal Development, (1934, cited in Shabani, 2010), where pupils are given work slightly beyond their developmental level and given guidance by the teacher.

Use of a Character

When I was working with the youngest class in the school, their teacher asked me to give my inputs using a character called Joe the Pirate. This corresponds with Jones and Coffey’s (2006) idea of using a ‘foreign character’ to introduce speaking as a skill to young pupils. She told me that the children were very interested in pirates at the time, and that this might help to increase their enthusiasm towards learning English. At first, I wondered if it might be too difficult for me to get the pupils to understand the concept, and I was right. The youngest children clearly would know the least English, so whenever I went into that class I needed to prepare a lot of French phrases and words, and ‘pirate’ was not one I was prepared to explain! However, despite this, the children did seem to be very excited about being pirates and using the English language through this context.  I really did feel that because ‘Joe the Pirate’ was introducing himself, it made the children feel more comfortable about introducing themselves and speaking English too. 

Simon Says

I feel I was lucky with the school I was placed into in France, as 4/5 of the teachers could speak English well enough for me to communicate with them easily. However there was one teacher that really did not know much English at all, and she taught the second youngest class. I found this class a lot more challenging to teach in, as there was no safety blanket of someone being able to translate if need be. The class teacher had communicated to me that she wanted the children to learn some classroom instructions and objects in English, and the game that immediately came to my mind was ‘Simon says’. The children called it ‘Jacques à dit’, and so already understood the concept of the game, which made it much easier to play with them. In order to introduce the vocabulary to them (sit down, stand up, listen, look, wipe the whiteboard etc), I had to repeat myself and get the children to repeat after me. This is associate with Skinner’s behaviourist theory, in which children must imitate and repeat in order to acquire language (1957, cited in Kirsch, 2008). I also had to use a lot of actions for the children to associate with the words. After a few lessons of practicing this, the children were able to respond to my instructions with only a small amount of hesitation. As the weeks went on, I began to make the game harder by including some of the classroom objects into it, for example, “show me your pencil”, “show me your jotter”, “show me your rubber” etc. Again, after a few days of practice the children were able to identify each object pretty quickly. The children enjoyed doing this themselves as well. I would ask for a volunteer to come to the front of the class and ‘be the teacher’ by telling their peers some instructions they could remember. The children really responded well to this game and I found it was easy to differentiate the difficulty of it as time went on.

 

References

  • Johnstone, R. (1994) Teaching Modern Languages at Primary School – Approaches and Implications, Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Research in Education
  • Jones, J. and Coffey. S (2006) Modern Foreign Languages 5-11 – a guide for teachers. London:David Fulton Publishers
  • Kirsch, C. (2008) Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School. Continuum International Publishing Group.
  • McLachlan, A. and Jones, J. (2009) Primary Languages in Practice: A Guide to Teaching and Learning.McGraw-Hill Education.
  • Shabani, K. (2010) ‘Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: Instructional Implications and Teachers’ Professional Development’ English Language Teaching. 3(4) Canadian Centre of Science and Education. 
  • Swain, M., Kinnear, P. and Steinman, L. (2010) Sociocultural Theory in Second Language Education: An Introduction Through Narratives.MM Textbooks

Lesson Plan – Gender Agreement / Self Descriptions

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

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

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

Working towards outcomes of a Curriculum for Excellence:

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

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

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

Learning Intentions:

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

Success Criteria:

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

Setting the context/Beginning the lesson (Introduction):

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

Teaching the learning intentions (Development):

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

Ending the lesson (Plenary)

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

 

 

French Restaurant Menu – Lesson Idea

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

Questions to Ask My Pupils

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

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

Pros and Cons of the Text

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

Activities

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

Exploring European Countries – My Primary 6 Experience

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In our introductory lecture for ED31002, we were asked to think back to our primary school experiences of topic/project work. We discussed the types of topics that usually came up, such as The Victorians, World War 2, and a few that were more specific to different areas of Scotland.  The topic that immediately came into my mind from my primary school experience was when we had explored European countries in Primary 6. I always seem to remember this very well, it has obviously stuck with me because it was a topic that I enjoyed a lot.

My class teacher at the time liked us to work in groups for any topic work that we did. He could probably tell that we liked this too. Our task for the next few weeks would be to choose a European country as a group, and research every aspect that we possibly could about that country. This could include the food, flag, what language they speak, famous figures, famous monuments and the general culture of the country. Each group was to research a different country, as at the end of the project we would all listen to each other about what we had discovered and compare.

My group chose to research and learn more about Belgium. I think this was probably our way of not taking the easy route, which perhaps would have been France or Italy. If I remember correctly, other groups chose Spain, Greece, Ukraine and Germany (a nice mixture, I thought). After this had been established, we were then asked to focus in on a particular area….this is where the individual part came in. I chose to research sport, so this would include any famous sportsmen or women, popular sports in Belgium or if there were any stadiums that were of particular interest. Being a massive tennis fan at the time, I remember really being keen to research about Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, two number 1 players in the world. Being able to research something that I was interested in really allowed me to become enthusiastic about the project. It also gave things a personal feel, I was going to be able to report back to my group about something I was passionate about.

In addition to the individual research that we were assigned, our teacher also gave us some other home activities to do that would bring in different areas of the curriculum. The first thing I remember being asked to do was to create a model of a famous building, monument or statue from your country of choice. This was to be done at home, using only household items where possible. This was certainly bringing a more creative streak to the topic. I chose to create a model of the Atomium (crazy, I know). Just to give you an idea of how difficult this was, here is a photo of the Atomium in Belgium.

When I got home and it came to creating my model, I seemed to regret my choice. However, I accepted the challenge and managed to create something that looked slightly similar to the Atomium using the simple household item that is tin foil. This activity definitely encouraged me to think about 3D shapes, materials and how to keep a basic structure upright! The activity stands out the most for me, firstly because of how challenging it was but also because I had never been given homework like it before. It wasn’t your usual sheet of paper with 20 sums on it.

The aim of doing these activities was to allow us to incorporate different curricular areas into the topic and to explore a culture that we had probably never considered before. After all these weeks, the models, posters and research we had created and found were not going to waste. Our teacher had organised a day for us to show what we had been working on to our families and friends. We set up different stalls in our classroom for each group, with everything on display for our parents and guardians to see. We had all made (or tried to make) special dishes from our chosen countries, using traditional ingredients (I had made Belgian chocolate cookies). I remember being very excited about this day, and it really allowed the whole topic to come together in the end. It felt like there was a goal to work towards, we had to impress our families! It was also exciting to see what my peers had been doing, and I was able to learn little bits of information from their stalls too.