Tag Archives: Languages

French Workshop 23 /10/15

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Workshop 2

 

Today in the French Workshop we were looking at numbers. Immediately I was significantly more relaxed than last week, I believe it was because I am more confident with numbers than with greetings.

The most memorable part of the workshop was the ‘Kings and Queens’ game, we sat in a circle and all had a number associated with the chair we were sitting on, and had to say a number and if someone made a mistake then they had to go to the end of the circle. I found this to be quite stressful, in that I was really very nervous about being in the hot-seat and really did not like everyone looking at me when I spoke. Though I had to think about how I would feel if I was a primary school child. On one hand, if I was a nervous type of person I would be thinking that I wanted to not lose and may feel quite stressed about being the only one to get things wrong. If I was more of a confident person, I would be concerned with winning, possibly beating my friends.

I think that the activity was good, but I think that I would have to be aware of the different personalities in the class, I may split the class into smaller groups so that they will be more confident that they are not speaking in front of the whole class. Another option would be to play the game in English for a few week so that they could become really confident in the game so that it would not be too stressful in French.

I left feeling less panicked and stressed than last week, but I am not feeling very confident and would like to have done a lot better. Next week I am going to try to participate a little more and boost my confidence levels.

Out of 5, I would give my anxiety levels a 3.

To Comma Or Not to Comma? Or is it: To Comma, or Not to Comma? Let’s find out…

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Ordinarily, I would say that I am quite good in my grasp of English language, but I have an Achilles heel, in that I am rubbish with commas! I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I cannot get them right. I have identified it previously in my OLA as a weakness, but I have never made much of an effort to tackle the problem, until now that is!

I took to the internet and found a video on Youtube:

The video goes through the 3 main types of comma: listing commas, joining commas and bracketing commas. It explained what each is and how and when to use them.

Around 4 1/2 minutes in, you are asked to look at 4 sentences and pick the ones with incorrect use of commas. I originally thought there was a trick, as all looked correct to me. I think my problem is with the joining comma. I find that I use commas too often, and in place of other punctuation, such as full stops and semi-colons which would be more grammatically correct.

I also looked up a video about the Oxford comma. Which is a comma which comes after the word ‘and’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLMawsZ4vdo

The Oxford comma was something I had heard of, but not ever learned to use. The video explains that it is neither correct or incorrect and can avoid ambiguity. The problem is that a text will be consistent, either using it or not using it. I wonder if I have been using it when the OLA will not recognise it and mark it as wrong.

I looked through one of my essays to find an example of my own use of commas:

‘On placement I observed a classroom which utilised space effectively in this way, all small resources – pens, crayons and show-me boards – were kept in labelled trays at the front, meaning pupils knew exactly where to find them and where to return them, so the gathering of resources was kept to a minimum and did not affect learning and teaching time.’

This is all one sentence, and it is clear that it could be broken down and does not need anywhere  near as many commas as I have used. This is a good example of what I do regularly and therefore what I need to teach myself out of. I am going to resit the OLA and try to improve the points I get specifically around the comma questions. I’ll update when I have done so…

The Fearful French Workshop

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Before I start, I feel I should point out that this post is about me, not the tutor leading the workshop or the other students that are part of it.

I went up to the room feeling normal, walked into the room and the tutor greeted us by saying “bonjour!” and I could feel myself begin to panic. I am not ‘bad’ at French, I got an A at Int 2, and I still remember quite a lot of what I was taught. The second that the tutor started speaking French, however, I was transported back to sitting in French class in high school feeling awkward, uncomfortable, and wanting to hide under a desk the whole time. It may sound dramatic but that’s how I’ve always felt about French. I hated speaking it in front of anyone or doing anything in a french class to draw attention to myself!

This workshop was particularly stressful. The tutor had us doing actions to go with some of the vocab, I avoided joining in as long as possible, then when I had to I put in as little energy as possible. When she was asking unto say things out loud I found myself pretending not to know things, or pretending to write just to avoid making eye contact and being asked to participate by speaking out loud.

Looking at the workshop objectively, I thought what we were learning was very good, I thought that all the games and speaking out loud would be fun to most people. I think it is probably a very effective way to learn a language. I wonder if my reaction to French could be similar to ‘Maths Anxiety’ (explored in another post), do I have some kind of a phobia of French? If so, then it will need to be sorted. As a teacher I cannot pass my own feelings about the subject on to the children that I work with. If I do not come across confident in teaching a language, then the children will not be confident in my ability to teach them, which would significantly impact on their education.

I decided to look up my feelings and came back with ‘Foreign Language Anxiety’. It is described as  “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the (foreign) language learning process” which makes a lot of sense to me. I also found the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLACAS). It is a questionnaire which asks participants to read statements and rate how much they agree. Questions include “I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class.” and “It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class.” Looking at the questions, almost all of them apply to me!

So what should I do now? Realistically I think that languages are always going to be the cause of some anxiety for me. Now that I am aware of it, I have to deal with it. I think that I should start participating more often in class, there are only 20 people, and realistically they are not there to pounce on me if I speak and make mistakes! For all I know, many of them may be feeling the same way that I do. I think knowing this will make it easier for me to teach languages to children who feel nervous or anxious too. I will be able to differentiate better as I will be able to recognise children who feel this way and perhaps allow them to do slightly different tasks, for example working with a partner as opposed to a large group.

I feel that this small amount of research and reflection has been very useful to me. I now know that I am not alone in panicking over learning a language and I am confident that I can overcome the worst of such feelings to be an effective teacher in the future.

Out of 5, I would give my anxiety levels a 1.

Al-Saraj, Taghreed M. (No Date) FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY: WHAT IS THIS? Available at: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ssemme/file67903.pdf (Accessed: 16 October 2015)

Horwitz, Elaine K., Horwitz, Michael B., and Cope, J (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. Available at: http://www.studyabroad.purdue.edu/Resource/InterculturalLearning/ForeignLanguageAnxietyScale.pdf (Accessed: 16 October 2015)