Category Archives: 3.4 Prof. Reflection & Commitment

My Language Competency

English is my mother tongue, and I know a small amount of French from doing my National 5 at secondary school. I know a few simple phrases in German and Italian from Primary school (numbers up to 10, my name is…. Etc). I felt Italian and French came a lot more naturally to me in terms of accent and prior vocabulary knowledge, as appose to German which I did not find as easy to pick up.My experience of being taught languages is mainly positive, it was a subject I always enjoyed at school and I feel I picked French up relatively well. I enjoyed learning languages in primary school more than secondary, this could have been because it was made more fun and aimed at younger children, there was a lot of speaking and listening rather than reading and writing.

The ways in which I was taught languages were not always very engaging or exciting, especially in Secondary school where it was mostly textbook based. There was not enough speaking involved when it came to learning languages at school. It was mostly writing, reading and listening. I think that this meant I didn’t have the confidence to take part in conversations, which is a huge part of learning a language. This could also be because I did not begin to learn a language until I was in primary 4. I was taught German in primary school but decided I would rather learn French when I reached high school. At no point did I feel at a disadvantage compared to my classmates, who had learnt French at primary school. This was good for me, but it made it clear that the teaching of modern languages was not that effective, if someone who had no prior French teaching could join the class and feel equal.

French is the most important language to me, out of the languages I have had experience in learning. This could be due to the fact that some of my close family members can speak French very well, and my grandma taught modern languages as her profession. Having gone to France for my second-year placement, the desire to improve my French and my interest in the language grew. I do not value German as much as it wasn’t a language that I had the desire to learn from a young age, hence why I swapped to French moving into secondary school.

I learnt Italian when I was in primary 4/5 so I think being younger meant that the learning was less serious, there was more games, songs and talking involved and it was more enjoyable for that reason. The teacher was a native Italian speaker, and this meant she could share her experiences of Italian culture with us. In Secondary school, we would sometimes watch films in French and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to work out what was being said. However most of the learning was through textbooks and listing to the teacher (who was not a native speaker of French). Having only taken French as far as National 5 level, I did not revisit the language until I went to France for my LfL placement. This is where I learnt a lot about the language in a much more hands on way. I was thrown in at the deep end, but I think this gave me a lot more motivation to understand what the teachers and pupils in my school were saying.

During my second year LfL placement, there was countless opportunities for interpersonal and intercultural communication. I feel that I managed these well considering I know a little amount of French for conversation. Throughout my placement I would need to communicate with the teachers in my school in order to plan lessons and discuss the pupils’ development. This would be in a mixture of English and French, as sometimes I really didn’t understand what was being said. However, the longer I was in France, the more able I was to communicate in French with the teachers and the pupils in my school. This was continued outside of the school environment too as I needed to be independent in everyday life (getting on and off buses, asking for directions, shopping etc).

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 17^th

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

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

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

Thursday 19^th

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

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

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

Friday 20^th

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

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

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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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.

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”.