12/04/18

Today I was in Benjamine Duplouy class with CP/CE1. I started off the day with an English lesson. My lesson contained teaching of the colours, animals and numbers form 0-10. I used two books to aid the teaching. The books were all in English. One was called ‘Spot Can Count” and was about numbers and animals in English. The other book was called ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?’ and was about colours and animals in English. I really enjoyed the use of these books, as it was very visual for the children, which helped the children answer the questions I asked in English.

I started with the number and animal book. I explained in French that we were going to read this book that will help their English counting and animal knowledge. I started off reading each page of the book in English and the for the first couple of pages I also translated it into French so that the children could begin to understand what I am saying in English, thus I could remove the French translation after a couple of pages and they would understand what I am saying.

On each page I firstly asked the children the question “how many (animal) can you count in English” and for the first couple of pages I also said “Combien (animal) pouvez-vous compter en Anglais?” and I asked the children to put up their hands to answer. Once a child answered I would unfold the flaps on the pages and reveal the number answer. I would then say the number and get the children to repeat that number a couple of times to help memorisation. I then went over what the animal is called in English and got them to repeat that a couple of times also. I used the phrase “en Anglais” through out the lesson along with my English to help remind the children that they should answer in English. If at any point the children got stuck with the number in English I got the whole class to count up to that number from 1, as the children have learnt the numbers in English in an order so counting up can help the memory.

After I had finished the book I went back to the start and we went over the numbers and animals again. I asked on each page “L’animal qu’est – ce que c’est en Anglais?” after I picked a child to answer I then asked “Combien (animal)?” I think going back over and recalling the knowledge they had just learnt was important to helped to settle it in their brain.

I then moved onto the next book for my lesson. This book was about animals and colours. I explained to the children that this book was about animals and colours in English. I read the title of the book and then turned to the first double page where there were coloured stripes of each colour across the pages. I went down the stripes on the pages and went over what each colour is in English. I did this twice through. Next in the book on each page there was a picture of animal and each animal was a different colour. For each page I asked the children “what colour is the animal in English”, again for the first few pages I also translated this into French, “De quelle couleur est l’animal em Anglais?” The children put their hands up if they had the answer and after I picked a child to answer I then asked, “what animal is (colour) in English” For example “what animal is green in English” and they responded with “the frog” and again this was translated into French for the first few times, “Quel animal est (couleur) en Anglais”.

One of the last pages of the books displayed all of the animals and their colours that had been seen through out the book. I got the children to listen and repeat what I was reading. So I said “a red bird” and they repeated it back to me, and this was done for all the animals.

After the book was finished I went back to the start of the book and asked what each of the animals are called in English. On each page I said “Qu’est – ce que c’est en Anglais” which means “what is it in English”. They then put their hands up and responded with the animal’s name in English. This helped the children recall their memory of the animals we had spoken about already.

I really enjoyed teaching this lesson, it has been my favourite lesson yet that I have taught. The children all engaged really well and I think using books to teach worked very effectively, as they were colourful, interactive and visual for the learners. A lot of the children were very keen to answer which showed me they were willing in learning. My action plan is to teach this lesson again tomorrow in CP with Françoise Monclere and see if the different class has the same reactions and enthusiasm for the learning.

After my lesson Benjamine did a French lesson with the CP half of her class. On the blackboard she wrote ‘que ‘ and ‘gue’. She got the children to write these on their mini white boards, one on one side of the whiteboard and one on the other. She then shouted out French words with these sounds in them and the children had to show the side of their boards that fitted the word being shouted. For example she said “fatigue’ and the children should have shown the ‘gue’ side of their boards. She did another with ‘k’ and ‘qu’. An example was ‘kilo’ and the children should have showed the ‘k’ side. She also went over how to properly write a ‘k’ in French cursive handwriting. She then did two more with ‘er’ and ‘erre’, and ‘el’ and ‘elle’.

After break Benjamine then asked CP to spell and write down words on their boards that she dictated. The words were linked to the sounds they had just gone over. She sounded out the words and repeated them a few times for the children so that they could get an accurate go at spelling the words out.

CE1 then had a French lesson about what they are going to be when they grow up. They went over all the ways to say ‘go’ linked to a subject. This included; I’m going, you’re going, he’s going, she’s going, we’re going and they’re going. To finish these sentences they spoke about types of jobs they wanted to do, types of family names they would be called, for example grandma, and also age.

After lunch I went to Sylvie Lambert’s class with CE2 and did a group lesson on Mathematics. Specifically we did the topic of time. Sylvie explained to me how to play a domino game with a group of three children, it involved cards that had a clock face with a time on them and a different written time underneath, I had to read out the written time and then the children had to find a card that had a clock face which matched the time that was said. We started the game and I spoke the times out in French and then again in English and got the children to repeat the English. Whoever had the card to connect to the next domino had to show me the time on the interactive clock too. We played the game until the card that said ‘fin’ was placed and then the children counted how many cards they had left, whoever had the least amount of card left won. We played the game again a few times. I learnt the word for ‘to’ today when speaking about ‘to the hour’ and I was able to use it correctly when telling the time.