Category Archives: 1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment

Language Learning in Scotland: A 1+2 Approach – Activity

Scenario

You are a primary school teacher in charge of Modern Languages and the implementation of the 1+2 Approach proposed by the Scottish Government. You have a school inspection in 6 months time, where they will be evaluating the successfulness of the policy’s implementation. After reading the policy, it is your task to convince the rest of the staff at your school that this approach will be beneficial, as well as consider how this policy could be implemented in your school and some the issues that may arise as a result of the implementation.

Benefits/Advantages

Multilingualism opens up more opportunities later in life.
Learning a language improves a learners communicative skills, helping them to make more meaningful connections with others in society.
The skills and knowledge developed when learning L2 (foreign language) provide a deeper understanding of a learners L1 (native language).
Language learning coincides with cultural studies and helps build cultural awareness in learners so that they learn to appreciate and respect cultures that differ from their own.
Beginning languages from a young age provides more opportunity for the continuation of language learning to national qualification level.
With this new policy, individual schools and Local Authorities are given more say into which languages they teach, perhaps influenced by geography or culture.
The policy can provide equality for learners across Scotland, as well as creating more equal chances for Scottish children when compared with their European counterparts.
There are great opportunities for creating links with schools in other countries for more in-depth, contextualised learning.

How do you implement/incorporate the policy?

Introduce regular and consistent learning of the language throughout the school (e.g. the daily routine, assembly).
Produce an audit of the staff’s skill level and confidence in languages to determine which language will best suit the school.
Encourage use of Interdisciplinary Learning (IDL).
Support staff and encourage professional development by providing them with opportunities to learn and enhance their practice.
Ensure that planning and resources are exciting and stimulating for pupils so that they become interested in language learning.
Create links with the local secondary school to inform our practice and ensure there is continuation into secondary school.

Issues/Problems/Gaps

Catering for children with EAL, where there L1 is not English.
Lack of teacher competence and confidence in teaching languages.
Funding issues.
Lack of reliable resources readily available to the school.
Time constraints in the curriculum meaning that language learning is neglected and another subject is prioritised to meet the demands on the teacher.
Engaging pupils will be difficult if the teachers are not confident or enthused themselves.
No specific guidelines for pupil assessment.
There is a social stigma surrounding languages that children often pick up from adults.

Reflections on the Policy

It is a good concept but their are many issues regarding the physical implementation. One issue with the policy is that it lacks clarification. There are a number of recommendations, however, they are very basic and the policy provides very little elaboration or examples of how this recommendation might look when implemented in schools. Plus, these are only recommendations and so there is no mandatory requirement to follow these. This does give teachers a lot more freedom, in line with the ethos of CfE, though it does, again, raise the issue of clarification as many of these recommendations are open to teacher/school/local authority interpretation, which will result in mixed results and experiences for children across Scotland. Lastly, the policy mentions a lot about the need for this type of language learning for Scotland’s future, but not a lot of focus on the reality of this policy today, particularly what language learning will look like in schools on a daily/weekly basis, from now.

References

Scottish Government Languages Working Group (2012) Language Learning in Scotland A 1+2 Approach. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0039/00393435.pdf (Accessed: 26 September 2018).

Immigration

In my school, there were a few children who had recently moved to the area from abroad. Specifically, in the the CE2 class I was working in there were two young boys who had recently moved to France from countries in North Africa. The teacher of the class explained to me that both these boys had a very poor level of French when they had first arrived and this was a challenge for both the children and the teachers when they had to communicate with one another.

Due to the pupils’ ages, as upper school pupils, when their classmates studied French Literacy and Grammar, these two boys would work from textbooks aimed at the earlier stages. This level of differentiation seemed quite difficult for the teacher to manage as the boys needed a lot of her attention. I also wondered whether this language barrier ever made the boys feel secluded from the rest of the class. However, due to the teacher’s inability to split her time between her and the class the whole day, the boys took part in other lessons with the whole class in other curricular subjects. This meant that even over the short period that I was in the class, I noticed how much more they had integrated into the classroom environment and were now managing to communicate with their classmates much more confidently.

Immigration is becoming more of a recurring them across Europe and so I feel as though witnessing firsthand how children from other countries with language difficulties are accommodated for was valuable for me in the future. It was also nice to see how the current political climate regarding immigration in France, which is met with some hostility, did not seem to filter into the school and that these children were not hindered by their cultural differences.

School Culture

Throughout my time in Orléans, I have noticed some key differences in the French lifestyle compared to the Scottish lifestyle, which have been interesting for me to experience.

One thing I have observed during my time here is that the relationships between the children and the teachers are quite different from in Scotland. I have noticed an increased level of respect from the children towards any adult, which is evidenced in some of their mannerisms. For example, whenever another adult enters the classroom, the whole class stands up as a sign of respect to their authority and they then wait to be told to sit back down. In response, I feel as though the teachers are more trusting of the pupils and there is an extra level of maturity from the children, even in CP, which I have seen when I have accompanied the children outside the school grounds.

Perhaps this increased level of maturity comes from the difference in the school structure and the ages at which a child reaches each stage. Children do not start formal schooling until age 6, making them a whole year older and more experienced than the children starting school in Scotland. Equally influential is the amount of time they spend in “maternelle” or nursery school. Children can attend nursery school from the age of 3 until they are 6, though attendance is not compulsory.

Recent debate in France has arose from French President, Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that school will be compulsory from the age of 3 from 2019, which has sparked more concern regarding teacher shortages in France, a large issue. Cortes (2018) explains in his article for Marianne that if Macron’s plan was to go ahead, a minimum of 800 new teaching positions would have to be created to accommodate what is estimated as a further 25,000 pupils. This will be difficult for the French Government as they are already facing teacher shortages, with one article explaining that people are not even considering the profession are they are put off by the insufficient wages and how difficult it is to enter the field academically (Bancaud, 2017). Teacher shortages is an issue that has also plagued Scotland in recent years, however, the cultural aspects of the job, such as the difficult testing to achieve the qualification and the inability for teachers to choose where they want to work has made the profession even less desirable to the French.

Not only is the structure of the school different, the management of the school is also slightly different. The main difference is that the Headteacher or “directeur/directrice” is part of the teaching staff and is responsible for their own class. At my school, the teacher was present in the class 4 days a week and the children had another teacher on Tuesdays. The Ministry of Education (2014) outline three main responsibilities of a Headteacher above and beyond a normal staff member, which are: to have pedagogical control, to control the operation of the school and to maintain relationships with parents and partners of the school. In Scotland, the Headteacher would take a backseat from teaching in order to perform these extra duties, however, in France, this is not the case. As a result, I felt as though the Headteacher’s attention was divided quite often as she performed the role of both a teacher and a director simultaneously, which must put a lot of strain on these teachers.

References

Bancaud, D. (2017) ‘How to fight against the shortage of teachers in the primary?’, 20 Minutes, 11 October. Available at: https://www.20minutes.fr/societe/2149171-20171011-comment-lutter-contre-penurie-profs-primaire (Accessed: 6 April 2018).

Cortes, A. (2018) ‘Preschool compulsory from 3 years old: ok, but with which teachers?’, Marianne, 28 March. Available at :https://www.marianne.net/societe/ecole-maternelle-obligatoire-des-3-ans-d-accord-mais-avec-quels-profs (Accessed: 4 April 2018).

Ministry of Education (2014) The Job of the School Director. Available at: http://eduscol.education.fr/cid82065/le-metier-de-directeur-d-ecole.html (Accessed: 5 April 2018).

Les Temps d’Activités Périscolaires

On Monday afternoons at my school, the children participated in, “Les Temps d’Activités Périscolaires”, or, as it was more frequently referred to as, “TAP”. During this time, there is no formal teaching. Instead, adults who specialised in various activities would come in to the school to teach sessions in their specialised field, normally those who have formed some sort of partnership with the school and local government through the community. Espinosa, Barthélémy and Dejaiffe (2016) categorise the activities offered during TAP as, “sports, play activities (for example: big games and board games) and artistic and cultural activities”. On the noticeboard outside my school, there was a timetable, which outlined the activities offered during these sessions and the group of children participating in those activities each week. Some examples of the activities on offer were creating art out of recyclable materials, learning different musical instruments and practicing sports, such as judo.

In my school, there was a specific room where they kept some of the resources used for each activity. However, they would also make use of the outdoor area, communal areas and other classrooms throughout the school as the teachers were not present for the sessions. The sessions were optional for the children, though most children participated in them. Due to the school day being very long (from 8.30am to 4.30pm) the children do not have as much time after school to take part in clubs out-with the school. Plus, with the curriculum heavily focused on scholastic subjects, such as French and Maths, this period of time is perhaps the only time children have to expand their creative knowledge and develop skills and talents, all important to a well-rounded education. The extra-curricular nature of the activities also allows the children to communicate with each other in a different, more relaxed setting, so that relationships are given the chance to grow and flourish.

Reference

Espinosa, G., Barthélémy, V. and Dejaiffe, B. (2016) ‘Extracurricular Activity Time (APT): school experience and transversal skills developed by students’, Education and Socialisation, online(41). Available at: http://journals.openedition.org/edso/1718; DOI: 10.4000 / edso.1718 (Accessed: 28 March 2018).

The Impact of Placement

Overall, my placement has been an enjoyable experience and I have expanded my knowledge on several key issues regarding learning and teaching in the primary school, foreign languages and embracing different cultures. One of the main benefits of the placement, for me, was having the opportunity to come abroad and experience a primary school from a different cultural perspective. This has led to me making a lot of comparisons between Scotland and France, which has helped highlight to me some of the great features of school in Scotland and some of the aspects we could perhaps adopt from school in France. I think that having the opportunity to compare two different education systems has helped me to become more critical and reflective, but it had also caused me to become more passionate about education in Scotland and what it stands for. In France, their educational philosophies different significantly, they focused a lot more on academic achievement and teacher-led learning, as opposed to the more creative and child-centred learning through discovery and play promoted in Scotland. These differences were even evident from the aesthetics of the classrooms, which left little to no room for group activities.

Before embarking on this placement, I had began to question whether primary teaching was suited to me after worrying whether I had explored every option. However, this comparison has really opened my eyes and reassured me that I am following the right path. This was further confirmed to me after experiencing some level of frustration when I was not given many opportunities to develop my practice and build a relationship with the pupils through teaching. This was perhaps the biggest challenge of the placement, as I felt as though I was not given the opportunity to reach my full potential and grow as much as I did during first year placement. However, I do understand that the intense period of observation I did in the school was still very valuable to me as a professional, as I was continually receiving new ideas and learning new techniques from more experienced teachers without the added intensity of having to be responsible for a full class for extended periods of time.

Living abroad has also impacted me on a personal level as this has been the longest period of time that I have spent away from home in Scotland. Living in Orléans has had it’s challenges, even simple tasks, such as going to the supermarket, have been made quite difficult due to the language barrier and French culture meaning that shops are not open as regularly as in Scotland and the concept of convenience is very different from back home. I think that from this experience, I have learnt how to be more independent and self-reliant, even just by managing manoeuvring public transport to and from school on my own. My living situation has also brought out more of my communication skills as I have been living in shared student accommodation for the last 8 weeks. This has involved having to share one small kitchen with 30 other people and also working with the other girls on my placement to coordinate meals and travel plans etc.

As a whole, I am proud of how I have adapted to being away from home and how I have pushed myself out of my comfort zone by working in a school where I had to speak French. Being a position where I felt frustrated and unused has made me more determined to prove my worth to a team and so I feel as though when I am on my next placement, I will not be as shy and reserved as I might have been before.

Further Learning

Throughout my time on placement, I have learnt a lot about language teaching, specifically teaching a foreign language. Whilst observing lessons, the teachers advocated using only English in their English lessons, which required some degree of self confidence from them in their abilities. I think that self confidence is the key limitation for me when I speak French, as I lack the confidence to practice my speaking skills aloud. Continuing with my own self-study of French using different resources and building on my vocabulary will help me develop more confidence so that I can execute some of the teaching techniques I observed from the teachers on placement. I am also taking part in the Modern Languages module next year, which when partnered with further reading, will help me develop a more academic and theoretical knowledge of the techniques I saw.

From a personal and professional perspective, I also feel as though this placement has helped me to become more communicative, as the language barrier between me and the teachers meant that I received little guidance from them regarding lesson plans, resources, assessment etc and work a lot harder to express myself and my ideas. This was very different from the one on one support I received from my teacher in first year and so I had trust in my own teaching ability a lot more, relying a lot less on constant reassurance. I think this was an important step for me to have taken, as by the end of my placement, I was communicating with all the staff and sharing my ideas with them rather than waiting for them to approach me. I would like to continue to develop, as I think it will make me a more valuable and integrated member of a team when in school. During lectures, I am often a person who lacks the confidence to share their thoughts and ideas with the group, therefore, if I work on being a more contributive member in a group of my peers, it will help me build upon the skills and traits I have began to engage with during this placement.

End of Placement Review – Pascale Berthier

Dictation – La dictée

Dictation is an exercise used in schools when teaching language. Brunfaut and Banerjee (2013) describe dictation as, “an exercise in which a selected passage is read aloud to students in carefully chosen chunks at a speed that is slow enough to allow them to copy it down”. Dictation is used as a way to test many aspects of language, such as spelling, punctuation and grammar, which is why the exercise is held in such high esteem in France, as Valette (1964, p431) explains that the student, “is examined on his knowledge of orthography and his understanding of grammatically agreements”, which is a difficult aspect of the French language to grasp.

Through my observations at this school, I have noticed that each teacher approaches dictée differently. Teachers of Cycle 3 approach the exercise in a more traditional way by reading out a passage for the children to listen to and copy, which they then discuss in part. Where as teachers of Cycle 2 tend to recite short phrases for the children to copy before they progress onto full texts. As well, each teacher reads out the text differently, some repeat small chunks as many times as necessary and others limit the amount of times a single phrase can be repeated. I think this highlights how important it is for a teacher to know the pupils in their class well, as they will have tailored their approach appropriately to suit their needs.

As the French language is such a prominent part of the French curriculum, teachers use dictation techniques quite regularly throughout the week. Due to falling standards in French children’s reading and writing skills, with studies showing that, “the CM1s are now significantly behind the average of the European Union countries,” (Pirls Survey) the French Education Minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, has proposed daily dictation nationwide, in an initiative called, “une dictée par jour” (Le Point, 2017). French newspaper, L’express (2018), reported that this initiative was just one of four circulars published by the Government, which Blanquer described as, “a national reference of text” providing recommendations to teachers.

References

Brunfaut, T. and Banerjee, J. (2013) ‘Dictation’ in Byram, M. and Hu, A. (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. Available at: https://books.google.fr/books?id=XxZbhSsqnUQC&pg=PT470&dq=teaching+dictation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizptXA6LLaAhWMHsAKHdrQCj44ChDoAQg1MAM#v=onepage&q=teaching%20dictation&f=false (Accessed: 15 April 2018).

L’express (2018) ‘Dictation, Mental Arithmetic, Reading: the recommendations of the National Education to teachers’, 26 April. Available at: https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/dictee-calcul-mental-lecture-les-recommandations-de-l-education-nationale-aux-enseignants_2003741.html (Accessed: 28 April 2018).

Le Point (2017) ‘A dictation a day: the Blanquer Formula to raise attainment levels’, 12 May. Available at: http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/une-dictee-par-jour-la-formule-blanquer-pour-remonter-le-niveau-05-12-2017-2177440_23.php (Accessed: 28 April 2018).

Valette, R. (1964) ‘The Use of the Dictée in the French Language Classroom’, The Modern Language Journal, 48(7), pp. 431-434.

Placement Overview

For my Learning from Life Placement, I am doing a six-week block at a French primary school called école elémentaire “Bel-Air” in the La Chappelle St Mesmin area of Orléans. As part of my placement, I am observing and teaching in all the classes across the school.

There are 8 classes in this school:

CP with M. Habault
CP with Mmes. Da Rocha Foucher
CP/CE1 with Mme Serrait
CE1 with Mme Bertrand
CE2 with Mme Berthier and Mme Rio
CE2/CM1 with Mme Leslie
CM1/CM2 with Mme Sarrant
CM2 with Mme Perrin

The school building spans two floors, with two classes on the ground floor, which can only be accessed from the outside, as well as a music room, the staff room with an adjoining reprographics area and the director’s office. On the top floor are the remaining six classrooms, as well as separate toilets for children and adults, and three other rooms used for different purposes. These three rooms are: a computer suite, a library and a multipurpose room used for T.A.P activities. The classrooms in the school are all of equal size and shape, though some year groups are bigger than others, meaning that the class sizes range from 24-30 children per class.

The grounds surrounding the building are a decent size for the children to play. In the playground, it is mostly concrete; though there are specific areas dedicated to different sports, such as a basketball net, a football pitch and some tables for table tennis. There are specific rules for the playground that the students are aware of that concern behaviour and use of equipment. The atmosphere of the school is very inclusive, and so on the wall outside there is a large notice board, where students can find the rules and rota of the playground, as well as information about upcoming school events and a menu for the school canteen.

Around the back of the building, there is a garden area where the children have planted different fruits and vegetables and I have seen this area being used for educational purposes. As far as I am aware, there is rota to determine which class plays with some of the equipment available on a specific day. The teachers also have a rota for when they are on playground duty and a teacher is always outside 10 minutes before school starts, to welcome the children, then again at 10 o’clock for the 15-minute break. At lunch two teachers return outside 10 minutes before the end to re-welcome any children who went home for lunch, then lastly, they return outside at 3 o’clock for 15 minutes to watch the children during the second break. The gates to enter the school are always locked during school hours with only a teacher possessing a key, so each teacher escorts their class to the gate at the end of the day.

Across from the school, there is a sports area, which is used by the teachers for lessons and activities. There is also a rota for the use of this, with each class entitled to an hour and 40 minute slot each week. The canteen area of the school is separate from the main building and classes take it in turn to eat there lunch there every day. Also separate yet connected to the school is the école maternelle, which is a nursery school for 3-5 year olds.

Week 6

Monday

This morning, I spent time observing in the CE1 class, which was my first time in this classroom. In terms of the layout of the classroom and structure of the timetable on a Monday morning, it is very similar to the other classes in the school; they have the same whiteboard and projector system at the front of the class where the teacher conducts most of her lessons from, they have desk layout of pairs and rows and they have small areas, such as a library and a sink. They also focus a large majority of the morning on French and Maths. However, there was one new activity that I picked up on in the class, which I thought was a nice addition to the day. In the back corner of the room, there is a small table with a box and pieces of coloured card on it. In the box, the pupils can put in any thoughts and ideas they have that they want to be heard by the whole class. The teacher then takes the box to her desk daily and reads out these cards, which are colour coded by content, to the rest of the class for evaluation.

I think that this is a nice addition to the daily routine of the class, and the children have now become accustomed to the protocol and now know that the teacher expects them to share their opinions to then be discussed democratically as a class, rather than shouting out their thoughts when they feel like it. It is important that a teacher sets clear expectations for the children so that they learn to behave in such a manner from the beginning and that they behave in this way consistently. Stronge (2018) points out that effective teachers are those who know how important a role each child plays in the classroom, and therefore involves them in setting the expectations for the classroom. I feel as though this teacher has achieved this through her methods and it is certainly a method of behaviour and classroom management that I will try in the future.

Tuesday

This week, the weather is meant to improve significantly, and so I am curious to see whether the teachers will incorporate the outdoors into any of their lessons. Today, I took part in a sports session, which was outdoors at the local sports centre. I was working with the CE1 class, their teacher and a support teacher on some parachute and ball games. I had heard from the teacher that this class was quite challenging in terms of their behaviour, which is something I did pick up on whilst I was with them as they were very easily distracted from the task, which would quickly escalate to disruptions. This happened more and more as the tasks set by the teacher became increasingly more difficult, which the teacher was also aware of. Though, she had ways of dealing with this, one method was for her to remove a particularly disruptive child from the activity completely for a short period of time, then allowing them to return after they had settled again. When the whole class was beginning to lose focus, the teacher would have them drop everything they were doing, run to one side of the field and back again. This short burst of energy released seemed to refocus many of the children and they were ready to listen again. This session was, therefore, valuable for me pedagogically, as controlling a class in large open space is something that I have been worried about before, and so being able to observe different ways that the teacher was able to command the space was very useful for my professional development.

For the games, the teacher had a booklet that she worked from, many of which were simple games, but some required quite a bit of explaining and demonstration. The teacher had clearly planned these activities in advance, but, because I joined the class for the session today, she quickly adapted the activities to incorporate some English. For example, one of the activities required the children to roll a ball around the edge of the parachute, and then when I said a colour they had to work together to get the ball to stop on that colour. It was nice to see how easy it was to incorporate some English into a sports session, which made me consider some games that I could play in Scotland that incorporate basic French, so that the vocabulary is becoming a part of the children’s daily routine.

Wednesday

Today, I was out of school because we had a group meeting with Nina to mark our placement coming to an end. This was a 45-minute session in her office, where we reflected upon and evaluated our time in our schools over the past six weeks. We mainly discussed what we had learned from our experience, which led to the realisation that school in France is quite different to school in Scotland. One thing we all agreed on was that behaviour management is a lot sterner in France than in Scotland, which seems to have advantages, as the children are very respectful towards the teacher and other staff in the school, including me.

Nina was also keen to hear whether we had enjoyed the experience, which I had, though I did share with her that I was disappointed that I had not had more opportunities to teach the children, as there are some classes that I had not taught in the school and there were a lot of days where I could not participate because the teacher was not teaching English that day. I told her honestly that I felt as though my low level of French had held me back at that particular school because I had struggled to negotiate plans and teaching time with the teachers. She took this feedback from me on board and explained how this surprised her because I was there to teach English and that my expertise as a native English teacher should have been exploited more. However, I cannot argue that I have not learnt a lot about teaching styles, language and pedagogy during my six weeks, all of which is valuable knowledge for my future career that I am delighted to have gained.

Lastly, Nina finished the session by suggesting that in the future, if we ever wanted to make a connection between our current school and a school in France for educational purposes that we shouldn’t hesitate to connect her in the future. Having a connection like this is amazing and will be of great value when I teach in the future, and it would not have been possible if I had not taken this big step out of my comfort zone and come to France for my Learning from Life Placement.

After the meeting had finished, we visited the local bookshop in the centre of town, which had

French Stories

lots of children’s books in French. After being asked to read, “The Three Bears” in the CP/CE1 class last week, I was inspired to buy a French book that I could use when teaching French in a Scottish school. After spending some time searching the shelves, I found three great books. One of the books was specifically about colour and so could be used in the early years as an introduction to the topic. The other two were classic stories that the children would know in English, which were, “The Gruffalo” and “Little Red Riding Hood”. The language in the last two books is slightly more advanced, but the children will know the stories well and so should be able to follow them, similar to the children in my class last week with the book I read. Plus, I will need to read these books to my class, and so this is a personal goal for me to practice my French so that I am able to read the book aloud in the future.

Thursday

Today, I did a follow up lesson with CP/CE1 on school uniform and clothes. This was a 30-minute lesson consisting of four main activities. I began the lesson by revisiting the PowerPoint from before, which had all the items of clothing and the name of it in French and English. As I was going through the PowerPoint, I followed the same protocol as before and said the word first then asked them to repeat, with the children showing me that they remembered a lot of the vocabulary as we got nearer the end because they wanted to say it before I said it. Taking on board what the teacher said about extending my time spent on vocabulary, I often asked the children to repeat some of the items of clothing twice or three times, as there are a few words they continually struggle with pronouncing, such as, “trousers” and “shoes”.

Once I was happy that they had recalled the vocabulary from the previous lesson, I moved on to an activity using the flashcards. This activity was, “What is missing?”, where I had each picture flashcard placed on the whiteboard picture-side up, then asked the children to look at the board before closing their eyes, at which point, I would remove one of the flashcards from the board and they had to tell me which one was missing. After a few rounds of this game, I then asked some of the children to come up to the whiteboard and remove a flashcard. After this whole class activity, I had the children work on an individual task using a worksheet I had produced on the school uniform. The worksheet has the outline of the clothes in the school uniform that need coloured in (see Appendix 1).

Completed Worksheet

The aim of this task was for the children to listen to me as I told them what colour to use when colouring in each item of clothing, for example, I would say, “colour in the trousers red”. From this, I was able to see which children had understood what each item was because they would have a sheet filled with clothing items of the correct colours. Equally, the children had the opportunity to practice their knowledge of the colours in English, and some of them even picked up that I had read the colours out in order of the rainbow from the song they had learnt, which was very perceptive. I think that an activity like this was a good assessment method for the class as I received some of the sheets back from the children and they had all managed to follow the instructions. Before doing the lesson, I had considered adding blank captions for each item and then had the children fill these in so that they had a resource sheet with the pictures and the words in their jotter. However, I now realise that this would have been too difficult for this year group as they are just in the earlier stages of writing French and would therefore struggle to spell English words, so I am glad I removed this element and kept the lesson purely focused on listening and talking.

Lastly, I finished the lesson by reading the book the teacher gave me to the class. The book was great because it incorporated all the items of clothing I had previously taught them, as well as including a few extras, which the children could guess from the corresponding pictures. The book was written in short phrases that rhymed, so it was easy for me to read and would have been pleasing for the children to listen to. They also recognised and got excited by the pictures of the animals despite it all being in English, which was great to see.

As a whole, I think the lesson was good, as the children participated in a variety of activities to keep them engaged and occupied for the full lesson. One thing I would criticise is my transitioning between activities as these were quite clumsy and the children became restless. I think this may be partly down to the language barrier, as in Scotland, I would fill the time between handing out sheets with speaking but this is difficult when the children only understand basic English and I do not speak lots of French. As well, the lesson ran slightly longer than I had expected and so if my transitions between activities had been sharper, I would have avoided this issue.

Despite this minor setback, I did think that the lesson was successful and I received good feedback from the teacher regarding my resources and the delivery of the lesson, which I was happy with. Even the children expressed how much they liked my lesson, which was great to hear. I think that this lesson has shown how far I have come over this placement as I was much more confident throughout the lesson and I think this showed in my delivery of the lesson.

Friday

It is the final day of my six-week placement at école Bel-Air and I have returned to the CE2 class. Before the day began, I received my completed “End of Placement Review” from my teacher, which she had filled out. She briefly discussed her answers with me, which I mostly agreed with. I was glad that she thought my lessons were interesting and that she expressed how much the children had enjoyed having me around, as I feel I have bonded with quite a few of the pupils over the past few weeks. The learning points the teacher has provided for me are very helpful and I feel as though I have learnt this and more from observing and practicing teaching. It is a shame to hear that she wouldn’t want to take a student next year as the school is a great school with lovely children, but I do agree that they do not have the time to incorporate a student into their timetable as I struggled to obtain opportunities to teach and I feel as though I have not progressed as much as I would have liked to because of this, but I was glad to hear that they were pleased with what I did do and the issue was not my ability.

To finish off my time at the school, I had the opportunity to teach one last lesson to the CE2 class, which was a continuation of the body parts, which I had done with them the previous week. The opportunity was quite spontaneous as the teacher had planed to do the lesson herself but offered it to me, so I had to quickly review the resources and the plan for the lesson. Luckily, I had thought of this idea before for teaching body parts if I was ever asked to do a follow up lesson, which meant I could jump straight into the lesson. The activity was a worksheet with a circle in the centre. From this, the children had to listen to my instructions in order to create a drawing of a monster. For example, I would say, “draw three heads”, and the pupils had to draw these onto the body outline and this continued until I had said each body part.

As part of this activity, the children were practicing both numbers and body parts in English and, because they are nearing cycle 3 in their learning, I wrote the instructions on the board so that they could see the spelling of the word. The children seemed to manage this task quite well, however, they sometimes struggled with understanding the body part as I was saying the plural of the word, which can sometimes be quite different from the singular, such as feet. Apart from this, the children were showing signs that they were solid on body parts. Having the opportunity to finish my time here by teaching was a nice way to end; especially when I could see how engaged the children were with the lesson.