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Context:
The background to our approach to the promotion of languages in Primary
schools has been somewhat haphazard, as I imagine it has been in many
areas. Some schools in Enfield LEA have a long established tradition of
French being part of the primary curriculum. Others have after school
clubs generally run by commercial bodies and parents pay for these. After
school Turkish classes are run in many schools for Turkish speakers and
financed by Turkish or Turkish Cypriot Consulates.
In 1995 I was asked
to run a small scale project to evaluate the impact that early language
learning would have on the achievement of pupils at secondary school.
We do not have a simple feeder school approach so we worked with Year
6 in 4 Primary schools and a link Secondary school. We drew up a Scheme
of Work and an external person worked with the existing teachers. The
following year pupils were not put into a separate group in Year 7 and,
although the project pupils had a more positive attitude and greater confidence
than the others, by the end of year 7 there was no noticeable difference
between the achievement of the project group and all other pupils. Some
of the Secondary teachers were hostile to the project.
Hadley Wood Primary
school
One of the schools involved in the project was Hadley Wood Primary school
where the teacher, Marion Vincent, is an excellent practitioner and has
been teaching French at the school for about 20 years. When I got a request
from a primary in our twinned town of Courbevoie (near Paris) to spend
a day in a local Enfield Primary school during a visit to England, Marion
readily agreed. The day was a great success and the teachers wanted to
use the link to develop the language work in each school. At this time
we set up the North London Schools European Network to promote Transnational
projects. Through contacts at Middlesex University, a link school in Italy
was found and a Comenius project started in September 1999. The aims of
the project were:
- to develop, support and improve foreign language learning in primary
education;
- to develop pedagogy
through the mutual exchange of ideas in teaching styles, skills and
approaches;
- to produce bilingual
booklets, classroom materials, a video and ICT plan. A major focus this
year has been the use of emails by the pupils to keep in touch with
each other.
The booklets were
based on the original letters pupils sent in their own languages, picking
out key phrases and interests expressed by the pupils. The French-English
booklet was the first produced. This has been revised a couple of times.
The Italian-English and Italian-French booklets are now being used and
we are hoping to publish these. Marion continues to teach French to Years
4, 5 and 6 and Year 4 pupils have learnt some Italian, helped by a succession
of Italian Erasmus students supplied through Middlesex University.
The Headteachers
of the English and French schools have spent time in each other's schools,
comparing roles. The Conseillere Pedagogique in Courbevoie has become
involved in the areas of pedagogy. The twinning relationship has been
strengthened by the project. The Year 6 pupils were invited to join their
partners in their Colonie de Vacances study visit in June. This work was
part of the school's bid for Beacon status. Marion has disseminated her
work and spoken at many local functions. She gives regular reports to
her Governing Body and writes for local newsletters.
This year's work:
The new Year 6 will use the booklet to write to their French partners;
the new Year 4 will use the booklet to write to their Italian partners.
They will also email their partners. The focus has moved onto the nearby
cities (London, Paris and Florence). The Italians have produced a CD Rom
and the others are exchanging videos and tapes. We also plan to work more
on the link between spoken and written language, ensuring that our focus
on written communication does not hinder pupils' grasp of speaking skills.
We have asked some other schools locally to trial the booklets getting
their pupils to write to their Comenius partners. A final exhibition and
dissemination of the Comenius work is planned for June 2002.
West Grove Primary
school
This is a new
school set up three years ago with Reception age pupils. The Headteacher
sees language development as an integral part of learning. She wanted
to introduce pupils from Year 1 to another language and we got a French
consultant, Jacqueline Hughes, to work with the teachers modelling suitable
activities that could be developed as part of the curriculum. The school
then appointed a French classroom assistant who has been using the ideas
in the QCA KS2 Scheme of Work to introduce language activities. This work
is still embryonic.
Primary Turkish
work
I have, over the years, worked with the Turkish teachers employed by the
Consulates exploring pedagogy and teaching materials. We have skilled
teachers in four of our Secondary schools where Turkish is offered as
part of the curriculum. Recently my links with the Consulate teachers
has lapsed somewhat. I want to rekindle these and work with the EMAG teachers
and our Turkish teachers to develop materials which are suitable for our
primary pupils.
Bernadette Clinton MFL Adviser, Enfield
DELL
Projects
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