My modern language

I recently had a lecture all about modern language in the primary school.  This got me thinking about my experience of modern languages.  I started learning modern languages in upper years in primary.  I don’t really associate good memories with modern languages.  I wasn’t given any choice in which language I learnt.  It was quite simple; I was learning French and that was that.  Most of my memories include a lot of book work, which wasn’t very exciting.  I had a quite old fashioned teacher who I had throughout primary school right up to senior one. After that I had two French teachers.  The first although she was nice, was quite strict.  She only allowed us to speak French in the classroom, no word English was allowed.  Since I already wasn’t very confident in my ability this meant I spoke very little in the classroom.  It wasn’t until I got my third and last French teacher that I started to enjoy myself.  It’s interesting because out of the three teachers she wasn’t French, she was British.  Maybe this is why I liked her.  She took things slow; explain things in an easy manner; which allowed me to build my confidence.  She also played a lot of games which captured my imagination.  So I think if I teach a language I would like to take this fun aspect, which should hold the children’s imagination.  I will also not speak solely in the language I am teaching.  I do think children need to hear the language but they also need to understand.  If they do not understand they might switch off and not participate in that lesson.  Overall I hope to make my lesson fun and enjoyable so that children have good memories of learning a modern language.

One thought on “My modern language

  1. This is interesting, Kathleen, because what I understand from what you write is that it is all about knowing your pupils. What is perceived best practice at any one time may not be the best for the individual for a number of reasons. I am glad you had a better experience of ML learning in your latter stages of school!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *