06/04/18

Today the temperature in Orleans reached a high 22 degrees! A perfect day for a day of activities outside of school. The CM1’s from Laura’s class along with CM1/CM2 and CM2 classes all had a day of activities relating to health and well-being, which included nutrition, physical education and the body, CPR and how to react to accidents. The activities were scattered around the Saint-Jean-de-Braye area, around the school.

I started in the school with a group of children, learning about CPR and how to react to incidents. The children were put into 4 groups and each group was given a photo capturing an incident. The groups had to observe and write down what has happened and then write down what the next step to take would be, for example first aid. Then we spoke about phoning the emergency services and what to say in what order. The children were given a script jumbled up and they had to put it in an order that they thought sounded right to them. After we sorted them into a correct order. The teacher then used one of the children to demonstrate CPR and the recovery position. She showed the steps and then each child carried out the steps on one of the pupils she check for understanding.

I then went to the sports hall at the local secondary school, with another group, for a session of physical education and learning about the body. We were in the judo hall and there was stations set up for the pupils to do. One involved learning about your pulse and how to record it. One was about the heart and the other was about the body organs and effects on them. I helped with the pulse station, the children had to run around a set up circuit three time and then record their pulse rate. I had a stop watch so once they had done the circuit I started the stop watch for 1 minute and the children counted their pulse. This was a fun activity to do with the children and I got to join in too.

We then went to the local old peoples home. There we played a game to do with nutrition and the food groups. It was a board game and you got asked question on card to do with the topic of nutrition, depending on your answer you got to advance on the board. There was a mini game on the side, where you could earn bonus points. A piece of equipment was used where by a dart was inserted and you blew into it and it shot out in the end. You had to aim it at a target that had answers on it. I learnt that in France they have another food group than we do in Scotland. This food group involves oils. We then ate lunch outside in the sun.

After lunch we went to a community centre where the children finished off their art pictures they were doing the previous day in school to do with nutrition and sport. I helped a group stick their pained sport silhouettes onto their background. One of the children asked me for a rubber in French and I was able to understand what he was saying which I was pleased about, so I went to find a rubber for him.

They then went back to the gym at the secondary school to do basketball. A lot of the boys in my class do basketball out with school in a club so are very good at it. I got to observe at the side and it was interesting to watch what tactics they have.

I enjoyed this day at school as I got to see how the French teach their pupils about health and well-being.

05/04/18

Today I went between Agnés Courgeon and Christine Aué’s classes (CM1/CM2 and CM2). In the morning I helped CM1/CM2 in an ICT lesson. They were trying up biographies of heros/important people from history. I helped the children set up their computers and format their word document. I also helped the children put the French accents on letter from their keyboards. Some of the people they wrote the biographies on were Anne Frank, Nelson Mandela, etc.

I enjoyed helping the children in this lesson as I had not helped in an ICT lesson before. One of the girls explained to me what happened to their hero. This man was injured in the eye when he was young and he was blinded in one eye. I was impressed with myself that I understood what she was saying.

In the afternoon I was with CM1/CM2 and CM2 again but this time for an art lesson. The two classes are studying health and well-being at the moment, which involves learning about nutrition, physical education and the body, CPR and how to react to accidents. In this lesson they were creating collages out of pictures of fruits and vegetables, cut out form magazines. Each group had a template of their school building as their background and they spent the afternoon cutting out magazines and sticking to create a collage of healthy foods. Some groups categorised the fruit and vegetables into colour and stick them on in groups of colours. For examples one group used all the green fruit and vegetables to collage a tree in the background.

I was in the classroom belonging to Christine and I was in charge of the behaviour and management of this room. I enjoyed this lesson, as I am an artistic person, which meant I was able to help the children.

In Agnés’s room they were painting and drawing on the topic of physical education. I observed one group and they were painting silhouettes of different sporting activities, for example, skateboarding and cycling. They allocated a colour to each sport and then mixed white paint in gradually so that each silhouette got lighter and lighter in that colour.

After break I went with Sylvie Lambert in CE2 to play maths games. I did a game of time bingo with a group of 5 children. 4 of the 5 children had a bingo card and the other child was given an interactive clock face. I read out each time card in French and then in English and got them to repeat the English twice through. The child with the clock would then show the time on the clock and show the rest of the group. If they had the matching clock face on their card then I gave them the time card. We did the game a few times and the children were getting better at pronouncing English numbers. This was a successful game and they all engaged with the English.

04/04/18

It’s Wednesday so I am in the Nursery. Today I was going to teach each of the four classes a song to help them remember the colours in English.

When I arrived I did some puzzles with my first class, I think this is a good activity for the children to do when they first come in as it is stimulating for the brain and engages problem-solving skills.

I then got all the children and gather in the corner to start my lesson. I taught the children the rainbow song;

“Red and yellow and pink and green,

Orange and purple and blue,

Now I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too”.

To aid the children in learning the colours I used coloured pens to help the children identify the colours.

I started off my putting the pens in rainbow colour order and telling them what each colour was in English, pronouncing the words slowly and repeating the word a couple of times. I then mixed up the colours so they were not in the usual order to test if they memorised the colours individually or if they memorised a pattern. I did this a few times to make sure they were learning each individual colour.

I noticed that they were confident with the colour blue, most likely as the word is similar in French but they found green and yellow hard to pronounce and remember.

We then sang the song, line-by-line and then all together a few times so that they learnt it. As we sang the song I held up each coloured pen as the colour was said.

At the end of each lesson I held up a coloured pen and asked the children if any of them were wearing this colour. This also tested their memory of the colour names in English.

After my lesson on colours the children asked me if we could sing the songs I had taught previously. They were very enthusiastic about this. We sang the other songs and I could tell they had remembered them well; this gave me a sense of achievement.

03/04/18

Today is my 20^th birthday! I spent the Easter weekend in Paris with Beth, Briony and Lauren and we went to Disneyland and saw the main tourist attractions of Paris. But today I am back to school.

This morning Sylvie Lambert taught her CE2s about French sentence structure. It was interesting to see how the French teach such a thing. The class read a passage together, starting with the pupil at the back of the class, each pupil would say a sentence, one at a time, and it would pass in a snaked pattern through the class.

I taught Sylvie Lambert’s CE2 about Scotland. This time I made sure to repeat each word being taught twice through. This ensured better memorisation. After teaching about the Scottish animals, the children told me that in France they have red deer and red squirrels also. Once I taught the class the Scottish rhyme, Sylvie asked if I could print out the rhyme and go over it again with the class in a week’s time. This made me happy, as the teacher seemed to want the children to learn from my lesson and continue the knowledge learnt.

Sylvie discussed with me what I could do next week in sight of my Scottish lesson. She explained it all in French and I surprised myself in being able to understand what she was saying. She wanted me to; make copies of ‘hey diddle diddle’ for the children to practice, create an autobiography including things I speak about in my Scottish lesson and get the children to copy my structure but make it relevant to France and themselves and finally she asked if I could do some highland dancing for the children, as a memory of me being here.

At lunch all the teachers asked me how my birthday weekend was and I told them everything they did. They also said happy birthday to me and I got a lintdore chocolate from them all.

After lunch CE2 did a French dictation lesson. The lesson was on the topic of science and interdependence. They are learning about how to plant vegetables and how to grow them, to look at what happens when you change factors working on the vegetable and in its ecosystem, to learn how to make an ecosystem for a vegetable to grow in, to observe the changes in the vegetables and their surroundings over time and look at the different animals that live around the specific plants/vegetables.

We looked at different potatoes, ones that were newly bought and ones that had been left in the warmth and light of the classroom for four weeks. The ones that had been left in the classroom had started to sprout. Sylvie explained the conclusion to the children and they drew out a diagram explaining it.

I got to take five children outside to do part of an experiment we were starting on my own. We went over to the nursery where we filled two plastic boxes full of soil and one plastic box full of sand. I explained to them the words for sand and soil in English and how to use the tools to pick up the materials and put them in the boxes. This was exciting for me to teach. I then helped the children draw and measure out a diagram for the experiment.

We then spoke about how we were going to create our ecosystem for our experiment. In a transparent jar we would layer the soil and sand and then on top of that put compost and the worms. To allow oxygen for the worms to breath we put a cloth, secured with an elastic band, over the top to ensure the worms also didn’t escape. I explained that this jar would be left in sunlight and we would be making an identical jar, which would be placed in the dark. From this the children would be able to observe what happens to both ecosystems.

I got four pupils to build the experiment with me. Firstly we put soil at the bottom of the jar, filling 2/6 of the jar. Then we layer sand on top of the soil, filling 1/6 of the jar. Next we layer our final layer of soil of top of that, filling another 2/6 of the jar. To top it off the children layers some compost on top to give the ecosystem nutrients along with the worms. The children were very engaged and excited about taking part in the experiment. I sat back and let the children do it all for them selves after simple demonstrations. Once the jar was looking complete and the children had observed the worms moving around, the children secured the jar with the cloth and elastic band over the opening.

I really enjoyed teaching this as it was hand-on and fun to see the children enjoying themselves, it was also a bonus for my birthday!

When I arrived home from placement, Beth, Briony and Lauren surprised me with a little present and card, along with a birthday cake.

30/03/18

This morning I was observing in Françoise Monclere class, CP. They started their day with a French lesson on the sounds that ‘y’ makes. In French ‘y’ is pronounced as “eegreck’ and the sounds it makes in a word are ‘i’ and ‘ill’. The children put their hands up and came up with words that had ‘y’. Françoise put the words on the board under the correct column of sound – ‘i’ or ‘ill’. She used two colours of chalk to show the ‘y’ in each word. They then did an exercise on ‘y’ sound from a textbook.

CP then did a maths lesson. When they moved onto textbook work I got go round the class and help the children. I sat with one girl and helped her with the pages she was doing. The questions were about; partitioning, finding the numbers before and after, writing the words for specific numbers and what days of the week come before and after each other.

By helping the children I got to practise my French number vocabulary, which the children were able to understand correctly. I guided them with the use of finger counting.

After break CP, CP/CE1 and CE1 had singing practice. One song they did, I recognised as ‘We Will Rock You’. I joined in with the actions for this song. They also did the song they did last week, which I knew the actions to already.

After singing we went back to mathematics in the textbook. I again helped the children. I felt successful when I helped a girl fill in her number sheet with number words and symbols, as I did it all in French.

In the afternoon I went with Agnés Courgeon. She had a mixture of her CM1 and Laura Bellout’s CM1. A guest came into the class and started a lesson on the subject of theatre about a film. I gathered that he was speaking about a film called ’14/18′ and it was to do with the war.

He spoke about costumes and storyboards and explained that storyboards are used to plan a film and describe camera angles. He spoke about wide angles being used so the spectators get a sense or the surrounding setting and then part of the wide angle are zoomed in on with close up shots to focus on a subject. I am interested to see a clip of the film now that I sat in on the lesson about it.

29/03/18

Today is Thursday but I was only in my school until 11:30am as Beth, Briony, Lauren and I had a meeting with our host, Nina, at 1:30pm.

First thing today I was told I would teach three lessons in the morning. Firstly in Agnés Courgeon’s class with CM1/CM2, then in Christine Aué’s class with CM2 and finally after break I would do a lesson in Laura Bellout’s class with CE2/CM1. I taught my Scottish lesson, as these classes hadn’t had this particular lesson from me yet,

My presentation was the same as last time and included; where I live in Scotland, our flag, the Loch Ness monster, castles, traditional food, animals, tartan, traditional sports and Scottish rhymes/poems. I again spoke the lesson in English, as this is how they learn a language in France. The lesson must be taught preferably only in that new language. Now and again for explanation reasons I translated part into French from the children and the teacher was also there to help translate.

I learnt from the last time I taught this lesson that I didn’t know the word for sheep and stomach in French, so this time I taught the lesson I had looked up the translation of these word prior to teaching and this helped me describe haggis to the children. They gained a much better understanding this time.

I also learnt what the national animal of France was. This helped me when explaining that the national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn.

I added into my presentation more about tartan and what it is used for. I explained that tartan could be used as a pattern in all types of clothing. I used the French words for specific items of clothing and them told them what these items of clothing were in English. This added a bit more learning into the lesson. I also said that it could be used for interior design in the home.

I got the children to stand up when I was speaking about highland dancing so that I could get the children engage and physically involved in the lesson. I showed them a couple of highland dancing positions and got them to copy them. They enjoyed this part of the lesson as it gave them a little break from sitting in their seats.

Once again, when I had finished the lesson I asked the children if they had any questions. The questions were a good way of checking my understanding of French, as the children asked me questions in French. I was able to pick out key words and understand what they were asking, but other time I would have to look to the class teacher for help with translating. Although one girl is very good at trying to speak some English and she asked a lot of questions I was able to answer with no help from the teacher for translation. This is the same girl who was able to have a conversation with me on our way to see ‘My Fair Lady’ at the theatre,

A question that came up was about our traditional Scottish music, which I had not covered in my lesson. This gave me an action plan for the next time I teach this lesson. I needed to speak about the bagpipes and include a picture of them.

After my lessons had all finished I sat in Laura’s class until lunchtime. She did an interesting exercise with the children. She got them the fold their arms flat on the table and rest their head on them. This exercise help relax the children after a busy lesson. They did this in silence and the teacher whispered instructions. I liked this idea and thought I could use it in my future practice.

Once it was lunchtime I headed back to the ESPE centre to have our meeting with Nina. The meeting was a half way catch up to see how we were getting on at our schools and if there were any problems that needed to be discussed. Beth, Briony, Lauren and I all spoke about our experiences so far and Nina looked pleased with our progress. She told us we would have a final meeting on the 18/04/18 to finish up our placement.

28/03/18

Today I was in the nursery for the morning. I stated in one classroom and I played with the puzzles with a group of children. One of the puzzles was a number puzzle. You had to fit 0-9 into their accompanying slot in the board. I played it with one of the boys and after he completed it I taught him the numbers in English. I repeated the number again and again with him until he was comfortable with them. I was proud with his progress and his pronunciation was really good. He then picked out numbers and put them in pairs and asked me what the resulting number was called. For example, the boy picked a 2 and a 9 and I told him that was ‘twenty-nine’.

I then sang rhymes with all the children in the class. We did the rhymes we sang last week to see if they could remember them. They remembered ‘head, shoulder, knee and toes’ really well. I reminded them what each body part was in English and translated it into French for them. We also sang ‘1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive’, ‘if you’re happy and you know it’ and ‘insy winsy spider’.

I did these songs in all 4 classes in the nursery until 11:30am.

One of the teachers did ‘isny winsy spider’ with me. She did it in French and did it in English and the children joined in with both of us, including the actions.

During the morning I witnessed behaviour being dealt with. I was quite shocked with how rough the teacher can be and are allowed to be with the children. One boy was being badly behaved and one of the teachers grabbed him and made him sit in a spot with quite a force. You would not see this type on physical contact in Scotland.

My action plan for the next time I am in the nursery is to teach the children a song to do with the English colours.

27/03/18

Today was exciting as I got to go on a school trip to Paris. The trip was linked to their topic on kitchen objects and we went to a museum that displayed vintage and historical kitchen utensils. I went with Agnés Courgeon, Christine Aué and their classes CM1/CM2 and CM2.

We left for Paris at 10am so before we left I observed CM2’s history lesson. Agnés Courgeon took this lesson with Christine Aué’s class, as she knew more about the topic. I gathered it was about the history of kitchen objects in France, in particular a utensil for chocolate. They were studying fro a textbook and the children we asked to read and discuss passages with the class.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

We left for Paris on a bus and stopped for lunch when we were half way to Paris. Once we arrived in Paris I already recognised some streets and architecture for my previous visit. When we got to the centre I knew exactly where we were. The museum we went to was called, Musée des Arts Décoratifs and was within the complex where the Louvre is, I visited the Louvre on my last visit. We were welcomed into the museum and a tour guide took us to a classroom. From our classroom window you could see the Louvre and top half of the Eiffel tower. What a view for a classroom!

Our tour guide spoke to the children about what kind of things we were going to see in the museum. She asked the children to name kitchen objects that we might see. We were then taken on our tour round the museum. We first came across an old dinning room and she spoke about its features. Throughout the tour we saw a lot of vintage and antique looking objects, mostly made from china. I was fascinated to hear and see what the French used to use in their kitchens.

During the tour chocolate was mentioned and discussed a few times. I was able to gather at one point they were speaking about a special container that hot chocolate is poured from. We then came across this container, which was like a coffee pot. We would call this invention a ‘chocolate pot’.

The love affair of chocolate that us humans have with chocolate extends back thousands of years. The Spanish introduced chocolate to Western Europe in the 17^th century. Hot chocolate was discovered and made in a ‘chocolatiére’, its very own pot. At this time, drinking hot chocolate was how people enjoyed the luxury of chocolate. This was before any other invention was made to prepare chocolate.

Louis XIII of France married Anne of Austria in 1615. Anne had a large enthusiasm for chocolate and this spread to the French aristocracy. During that early modern period, the French had refined the dining experience to the point of extravagance. In that outlook, they made the chocolatière, an invention for preparing chocolate.

Chocolatière.

The chocolatière sat on three feet, a tall, thin body and had a decorative handle, which was situated 90 from the spout. The lid was of most importance. It had a delicately hinged lid; this crated a small opening for the ‘moulinet’. A moulinet was made of wood and used to mix the hot chocolate to make it frothy before serving.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, chocolate pots were made form the most expensive and valuable materials at that time, sliver, gold or porcelain. In these times, chocolate was considered exotic and a luxury to have; therefore it was paired with expensive materials.

As the industrial world evolved and chocolate become more widely available, the popularity of the chocolate pot started to die down by the 1950s. It disappeared from French households after the industrial revolution. Very few, if any, are made today.

After the tour, the children had a sense of what kitchen objects looked like in history. It was now their turn to create their own unique kitchen object. The guide took us back to our classroom where she explained how to make a bowl and decorate it like the ones we had just seen. To make the bowl we would use card and fold it in such a way to make a bowl shape. She explained that when we were to decorate it we would have to take into account which part of the card would be covered when folded so we would have to think about the flow of our design so no part of our design got cut off. I was impressed with my French language knowledge at this point as I was able to follow what the guide was saying.

I got the opportunity to join in with the activity and create my own bowl too. The design we were asked to put on out bowl was one that involved bamboo plants. She showed us examples of bowl, cups and other kitchen objects that were made out of card with the bamboo pattern on them. The design would be drawn in blue watercolour pencil and then water washed over to create the vintage china look.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip as I was able to take responsibility for the children safety whilst out of the school and I was able to see how the classes topic was taken further into a school trip so that the children could put their learning into a context and see the physical kitchen objects that used to be used.

References:

Righthand, J. (2015). A Brief History of the Chocolate Pot. [Website]. Smithsonian.com . Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/brief-history-chocolate-pot-180954241/ [Accessed 28/03/18].

n.b. (2016). The Evolution of the Chocolatière: From French Innovation to Retirement in Museums. [Website]. Chocolate Class. Available at: https://chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/the-evolution-of-the-chocolatiere-from-french-innovation-to-retirement-in-museums/ [Accessed 28/03/18].

23/03/18

Today’s school day was slightly different, in that Lauren and I went to a secondary school to help an English class. The school was north of the city and called Collége Condorcet. We met Sophie, who was the English teacher, at the school and she explained to us we would help her in two English classes. The age of the children in the first class were 12-13 years old and the age of the children in the second class were 11-12 years old.

Collége Condorcet.

In the classes we introduced ourselves to the class and got the pupils to ask us questions in English so that they could find out more about Lauren and I. It was made clear to us before the classes started that in English class they are only allowed to speak in English when speaking to the class, speaking French is frowned upon. Also we were told to make sure we speak slowly to help the pupils understand what we were saying.

We then helped them with a Shakespeare worksheet. They had to create a dialogue between Shakespeare and an interviewer in English. I went round their tables helping them on how to form a question sentence in English. I told them you must start with a question word and that there are five main question words; what, where, why, when and how. This made sense to them and they were able to form the sentences.

After they had created a small dialogue, Lauren and I were the interviewers and the pupils were Shakespeare. We stood at the front of the class with one pupil and we asked the pupils questions in English and they had to respond in English as Shakespeare. I noticed that used the correct words when speaking in the past, present and future was something the pupils had to watch as a lot of them got confused with this rule.

I found this experience interesting to see how they teach an English lesson in France. Unlike in Scotland they teach and communicate within the lesson only in the language being taught. I think this is beneficial as the children are forced and will get more used to using the speaking the language, this means improvement is more likely.

22/03/18

Today I did a couple of lessons, in the morning, on the topic of Scotland. I first taught in CP with Françoise Monclere, and then with Benjamine Duplouy and her CP/CE1 class.

My presentation included; where I live in Scotland, our flag, the Loch Ness monster, castles, traditional food, animals, tartan, traditional sports and Scottish rhymes/poems. I started by introducing how to say “Scotland” and its translation in French. I then showed them our flag and explained that we also have a flag for the whole of the United Kingdom. I spoke about the Loch Ness monster and explained that its existence is a matter of own opinion. Nobody knows if it really exists or not. This got the children thinking what their opinion was on the mystery. I told them that castles are found all over the country and that I even live right beside one. This amazed them. I moved on to speak about the traditional food in Scotland. I taught the children how to say, “I like”, “I do not like” and “I love” in English. After this I had traditional pictures of foods on the board and I got the children to listen and repeat the food names. In particular, Haggis was an interest. They asked what it was so I had to explain that it was sheep stomach. Their reactions to this weren’t appetising. But the teachers explained to the children that this was similar to the fact that they eat snails and frogs. If you were not French you probably would turn your nose up at them. We put together sentences about which foods we do and don’t like. We then moved onto animals and I did the same, asked the children to listen and repeat the names of the animals. Unicorn was one of the animals I had on the board and I explained that this was our national animal. From this discussion I found out that their national animal is a roaster. I next showed them tartan. I explained that tartan is a pattern that can be used in anything, from all types of clothing to decorating furniture/interiors of houses. I then spoke about traditional Scottish sports, these included; highland dancing and the sports involved in the highland games. I got the classes physically involved and demonstrated, and got them to copy, highland dancing moves. They enjoyed being up out their seats and physically active for a couple of minutes. I finally read the classes a Scottish rhyme and poem. I tried to get the classes to say the rhyme with me but they found this quite advanced.

The children were fascinated and asked loads of questions at the end, as they wanted to find out more. I got asked questions to do with; school uniform, if the Loch Ness monster is real, if our homes are the same, if I’ve seen the queen, if the castles are occupied, our traditional breakfasts, if I do any traditional Scottish sports and what the weather is like in Scotland all year round.

This was a great experience as I got to teach about my home country, which I am proud of. I learnt that I had to speak slowly so that I was understood and the children could accurately repeat back what was being said. It was good how interested and engaged the children were. I think having them physically involved helped keep them interested.

When I do this lesson to the other class I think I will consider the rhyme section at the end as the children today found that bit quite challenging.

During lunchtime Laura Bellout found four leaf clovers in the playground and she gave some of the other teachers and I one. I explained to them that they are lucky in Scotland and especially Ireland.

After lunch I was with Sylvie Lambert in CE2. I took a small group of four pupils to do time in mathematics. We played a game of bingo, in which they had a card containing six clock faces. I had a deck of cards which said different times in 24 hour time. I said the times on my cards in French and they had to see if any of their clocks faces corresponded. After I said the time I went round in a circle asking a pupil to show to that time on a interactive clock face. Once they got that correct I told them that time in English and asked all four pupils to repeat it. After that then the pupils could check if they had the matching clock face on their cards.

This activity helped the children learn clock times in English whilst improving their French time knowledge.

Zénith d’Orléans

After school I went to see the ‘My Fair Lady’ musical with Agnés Courgeon, Christine Aué and Laura Bellout, with their classes CE2/CM1, CM1/CM2 and CM2. We left the school at 5:15pm and got the tram to the theatre. The theatre was called ‘Zenith d’Orléans’ and was located across to water in the region called Olivet. The journey there was really enjoyable as I was with one particular girl from CE2 who is very good at speaking English. I was able to understand her French and English and have a conversation in both languages. She was willing and really wanted to help explain what she was saying when I didn’t understand what she was saying in French. I was impressed with how willing she was to communicate with me.

Once we got there we had a packet dinner and then took our seats for the show. The show was half in French and half in English. The song were in English as the play was originally English, so every time a song came on the girl, who had sat beside me, would look at me and ask if I understood, as she found it exciting that I understood what was being said.

The experience was good as I got to see how the teachers connected to the children learning to an experience. In Scotland we would call this ‘experiential learning’.