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North and North East Lincolnshire Regional Support Group |
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Regular sessions are held at various venues in North and North East Lincolnshire. Date: 31/10/2007 Using photographs and diagrams Richard Dawson (head of a local primary school) and Vicky Johnson (teacher) gave an entertaining account of their residential course in St Omer run by CILT. They were given various tasks to complete in groups. One involved going into a nearby town and taking photographs. Pictures of puppets were superimposed onto the photos, which could then be used in the classroom. Another task involved preparing a French meal. They then went on to talk about a themed day of French activities which they organised in their school. The variety of activities was amazing! This was followed by photographs and descriptions of their recent trip (with children) to Northern France. They have been to France for 11 years and have made some changes so were able to offer handy hints to anyone planning a trip in the future. Finally Richard told us of his invitation to a seminar in Paris promoting partnerships between French and English schools. Date: 06/12/2007 I drove to our venue with 3 nervous FLAs who are based in a 6th form college. Emily told us about Christmas in Brittany. The main meal is on Christmas Eve often after midnight mass. Oysters, turkey with chestnuts, cheese and buche de Noel are often on the menu - no Christmas pudding or cake. Leftovers are eaten on Christmas day and presents are often opened on Christmas Eve. No Christmas cards are sent but cartes de voeux are sent throughout January. Much is made of fete des Rois (epiphany) with special cakes and traditions. The other FLA comes from Ile de la Reunion near Madagascar. Although the food is totally different to that in France, there are some similarities with traditions. The Spaniards go to midnight mass, have a meal on Christmas Eve and eat leftovers on Christmas day. Boxing day is not celebrated in either country. In Spain they celebrate Innocents Day on Dec 28th with jokes being played on friends. 6th Jan is a holiday celebrating the arrival of the 3 wise men. Date: 24/01/2008 Not being a fan of anything connected with art and craft I was not looking forward to this session. I need not have worried. Chris Foster, who is based in Lincoln, began by getting everyone to make a simple hinge puppet out of a piece of A4 paper. He then talked for about 45 minutes. It did not seem that long because he was demonstrating dozens of puppets at the same time. There were stick puppets, puppets made out of paper bags, car sponges, socks, table tennis balls. In fact you name it and I think he would have made a puppet out of it. He gave us lots of hints about where to buy inexpensive materials locally. We then had half an hour to make a puppet. All around the classroom he had put boxes of eyes, raffia, fancy string, sheets of foam to cut, sheets of EVERYTHING - too much to mention. Glue guns were on and everyone set to work with enthusiasm. At the end a few minutes were set aside to "show" our finished creations to the rest of the class. An excellent session. Date: 07/02/2008 This was a very enjoyable RSG and all those that attended went away with many ideas. Chris Foster is an animated character who demonstrated how puppetry is an essential part of teaching MFL, which enhances the children's learning and confidence. A general consensus was that they would have liked more time for Chris to go into greater depth on how to control the puppets as well as them having more time to practise with the puppets. All who attended the group enjoyed the refreshments and do come to every meeting. I would have liked to see more people come as the teachers that did attend really did enjoy themselves. Date: 01/05/08 This was a very enjoyable RSG and all those that attended went away with many ideas. We sampled food and drink from Japan (Sushi), China (dumplings and tea), Mexico/Spain (Nachos) and France (baguette, chesse and pate). A discussion took place on the power of food and how it could introduce different cultures and even topics that the coordinators would be covering. Each speaker covered a different country and either taught us some language or a cultural aspect. This was very well received and all went away having learnt something new. Date: 08/05/2008 The 3 FLAs and the PMFL team met to decide on the topics for the meeting and came up with: a typical day in school, food, daily routine, family life, games, rhymes, TV, films, comics, magazines and computer games. The FLAs did some research into rhymes from France and Spain and we had copies made for the meeting. We began the meeting with the rhymes and had a laugh trying to learn new songs and joined in heartily with the more traditional ones like "Alouette". Those of us with no Spanish struggled with the Spanish ones but we did try! The general feeling was that young people in France, Spain and England watch television, play computer games and go on MSN but one of the key differences appeared to be food. The FLAs had been shocked by the number of people who eat in the street in England and who eat at McDonalds. They still feel there is much more family dining in their countries. All in all it was a lively and interesting discusion. Date: 26/06/2008 People had doubts about this meeting as most of them are not using the QCA schemes of work. However I am pleased we went ahead with it as it proved to be an excellent insight into ways of using the schemes - better than simply looking at the printed page. Heidi used the Smartboard to deliver her "lesson" and most of the schools in her area are equipped with them. Most schools in our area are not! Anyway it was all good fun. There were word reveals, picture reveals and stories to follow. Heidi held up a picture and we held up a word to match. There was a true or false session. The emphasis was all on fun. Learning French has to be fun, she said. Stress should not come into it. (I think she meant for the children!)
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Coordinators: Yvonne Lickerish and Nicola Baker, Education Development Centre, Holme Hill, Heneage Road, Grimsby
DN32 9DZ