Introduction - getting started

Early Start French 1: CONTENTS | HOME

Your checklist before you start teaching French: 1 Get support of head, governors, colleagues, parents 2 Review your own language skills 3 Prepare a scheme of work 4 Make contact with a French partner school 5 Get a support network around you Back to top

1 Get support of head, governors, colleagues, parents If you first have to persuade your colleagues and the school authorities that it's a good idea to teach French to your class, our page Why PMFL? sets out some reasons that you and they may find persuasive.

The PILOTE INSET pack - click for more details - is a very useful handbook for leading a school community through all the issues involved in introducing foreign language work to your curriculum. CILT (Centre for Information about Language Teaching) has recently produced some videos which give an excellent presentation of the sort of work and standards of results that are possible. CILT - information, resources, conferences, courses, publications - http://www.cilt.org.uk/. The French Embassy has linformation that will help you make a case for choosing to teach French as your language. http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/ Back to top

2 Review your own language skills If you did study French, but need to improve, most areas offer a local adult education course which may prove useful. More targetted to your specific needs are the language courses and other support for teachers of French run by the French Embassy - Institut Français, and by CILT and its associated network of "Comenius Centres" around the country. CILT - information, resources, conferences, courses, publications, includes how to contact your local "Comenius Centre".

Michel Thomas has an interesting approach to language learning that appears to have had successes with some adults who failed to learn with other methods. You might find it worth examining as a possible way of brushing up your own language. He claims to provide "in a few hours a functional working knowledge of a language without books, note-taking or conscious memorizing." - but we have no personal experience on which to judge. The CD provides an eight-hour course to get your French up to speed - other languages also available. This is NOT for children, but some people speak highly of the effectiveness of his methods with adults and older students , so...... Click to find out more: French With Michel Thomas Back to top

3 Prepare a scheme of work England: Key Stage 2 Framework for Languages The Framework document sets out an approach to content and methodology for language teaching in primary schools in England. It isavailable to download from the DfES Standards website at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/languages/.  Part 1 - Learning Objectives and Part 2 - Guidance on implementation) Part 3 - More detailed planning and guidance will be published in Spring 2007. Copies can be ordered from the TeacherNet online service for schools at http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk/ or DfES publications at e-mail: dfes@prolog.uk.com, tel: 0845 602 22 60, textphone: 0845 60 555 60 or fax: 0845 60 333 60 See first the summary on this site: KS2 guidelines Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum Modern Languages 5-14 Guidelines These have been published for consultation, and the consultation period ended in December 1999. Visit the Modern Languages website for more information. http://www.svtc.org.uk/modlang/

Official Schemes of Work for primary schools (KS2) in England & Wales These materials, the advice to teachers, and the course structure have been carefully designed to fit with various official (but not compulsory) guidelines - see above. The QCA/DFEE publishes schemes of work and a teacher's guide, and you can view and download them from the Standards Site in either Acrobat PDF or MS Word format: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes3/subjects/primary_mff/?view=get The non-compulsory schemes have been updated to support those primary, middle and special schools that are currently teaching, or planning to teach, a modern foreign language at key stage 2. The scheme provides a flexible framework designed to help schools to develop or adapt their own schemes for a 4-year course. It comprises an overview and 24 units for French, and overviews (and similar units for Spanish and German). Non-specialist class teachers may find some of the suggested work too demanding, but the Scheme of Work does offer a useful benchmark against which to compare what you decide to do - and it does contain some interesting lesson ideas! Back to top

4 Make contact with a French partner school
As you work through the EARLY START FRENCH materials, you will find many times when establishing a link with a French-speaking primary school pays off. It will give your children a real opportunity, not only to use their French to communicate and swap information, but also to motivate them and feed their curiosity about how other people live - and also to see themselves as others see them... Finding a suitable French partner: Some teachers find a partner school through personal contacts - often through town twinning. There are a lot of advantages in cementing a link that involves many other groups and individuals in your community.in France.
Help from the British Council The Global Gateway  is a new international website, enabling those involved in education across the world to engage in creative partnerships. It is a one-stop-shop, providing quick access to comprehensive information on how to develop an international dimension to education your school offers. To find a partner school in France or a French-speaking country (other international links are also catered for), access some excellent teaching materials or to find out what the global dimension is all about. - go to http://www.globalgateway.org Otherwise a good place to start is the British Council's Windows on the World website (http://www.wotw.org.uk). This links to the same online database, where you can browse for overseas schools seeking partners, or register your details for others to see. There is also information on funding (but don't get excited!)	http://www.globalgateway.org
For a link with a school in a French-speaking country outside Europe, you'll find details of the UK Government's Global School Partnerships Programme which encourages the international dimension in education, through links with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Virtual links Partnerships can be developed initially through links by e-mail, fax or posted letters - not forgetting the possibilities of, for example, faxing pictures drawn by children, and sending parcels of everyday objects. The European Schools Project promotes email/telecomm links between primary and secondary schools in 26 countries, including France and French-speaking Belgium: www.europeanschoolsproject.org. The Montageplus website (www.montageplus.co.uk) or http://www.britishcouncil.org/montageworld offers a range of user-friendly curriculum project ideas focussing on the use of new technologies for use internationally across all age ranges. Pupil-to-pupil links Experience suggests class-to-class links usually work better, but if this suits your circumstances, try the schools' website ePALS which operates pass-word protected chatrooms and monitored e-mail accounts used by 4.5 million students and teachers in 191 countries - www.epals.com. Other services are eTandem Europa (www.cisi.unito.it/tandem/etandem) and Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections (www.iecc.org). Setting up a joint project Embarking on a cross-curriculum project with your French partners is an ideal way to stimulate communication between pupils and staff - though perhaps a bit ambitious if this is your first go at an international link. If you have a French partner and are interested in an environmental project, try for the Franco-British Council School Partnership Prize - www.francobritishcouncil.org.uk EU Comenius funding is available for projects involving several schools from different countries - see www.britishcouncil.org/socrates. Search for like-minded partners on the EU Partbase database at (http://partbase.eupr.se). Your local Language College is funded to support language learning "in the community", which includes local primary schools. The College can also take advantage of the Specialist Schools Trust (SST) programme that assists links with French schools to develop a European Section - www.lc-se.net. Teacher visits Set up your link activities with a face-to-face meeting. Look for funding for a trip to meet with your new French partners and to see each other's schools and local area at http://www.wotw.org.uk, or the DfES's Teachers' International Professional Development Programme, at www.teachernet.gov.uk/tipd. Back to top
Virtual visits by video-conferencing ? More schools are enjoying video-conferencing links - it is easier for young beginners to communicate - despite their small vocabulary - with a combination of moving image and spoken as well as written language. For ideas about using video-conferencing within a joint project with a partner school, or to bring a foreign expert or place of interest into your classroom, contact the Video-conferencing in the Classroom Project. They give technical and educational advice, run training, help find partners and can even lend you equipment. They also have a dairy of video-conference events on offer from various providers around the world - see www.global-leap.com for more---->
... or an actual visit overseas? It will help motivate many children to learn French if they know that, later on in the school year, they will be meeting with the children from their partner school.
For most primary schools, a day trip is the most practical way of visiting France - which is why we make information available particularly about the region closest to the Channel ports and the Tunnel - known as 'Nord - Pas-de-Calais': "The other side": is a website to help you plan school trips to northern France - with masses of extra cultural information: www.theotherside.co.uk Health & safety http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/visits - useful info. on UK Government Health & Safety requirements for educational visits, including Guide for Organisers (downloadable). - essential reading to help you avoid the perils of an ill-prepared trip abroad with children.	Many school organise visits abroad - careful planning minimises risk and increases the value of the trip.
Bringing French-speakers into the classroom There is also the possibility of bringing French-speaking people into your classroom from amongst visitors to the local community, and people who live or work locally who are native speakers. If there are French companies in your area, they may be willing to help. It is also worth exploring the idea of having a "language assistant" for a few hours a week - probably shared with other schools, because there is a cost. Foreign Language Assistants' (FLAs) are foreign graduates training to teach English in their own country. Information for Schools and Local Education Authorities is on the Central Bureau's website, http://www.britishcouncil.org/cbiet/assistants/assschl.htm 'The Foreign Language Assistants scheme' is described on the Department for Education and Skills website: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/a-z/.html and look for "FLA" (Foreign Language Assistants).

5 Get a support network around you It's good to meet with colleagues who are tackling similar tasks to swap ideas and discuss how to do things better. You may be lucky to have such a support network if your school is part of a project locally organised by a specialist Language College or a local secondary school or college that is setting out to be a "centre of excellence" for languages and offers to work with its feeder schools; or by your LEA's adviser / consultant, Even if you are "on your own", there are ways of exchanging ideas with colleagues who are interested in teaching languages to young beginners....
Network by e-mail with others interested in teaching languages: For primary school teachers & MFL: Join the (very useful) ELL-Forum mailing list, to put you in touch with lots of other teachers and educators interested in early language learning: Simply send an email to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Leave the subject blank, and for the message, put: join ell-forum first lastname (Type your own personal names instead of firstname and lastname). For MFL specialists: If you are a MFL specialist, you may also be interested in joining another discussion group for language teachers generally: join at http://www.linguanet.org.uk/forum.htm
Sources of on-line advice & info about language teaching The National Advisory Centre for Early Language Learning (NACELL) website is at: http://www.nacell.org.uk CILT - information, resources, conferences, courses, publications.
Assessment & recording On the NACELL website you can now find an electronic version of the European Language Portfolio which can be used as a photocopiable record of achievement for Primary pupils learning languages plus a teacher's guide to using the Portfolio. We recommend this as a potentially very useful record of achievement to pass on to the pupils' next teacher; if properly used, it's a valuable aid to ease transition to secondary school. You are free to download these documents and use them with your own pupils.	European Language Portfolio (L) Pupil's document & (R) Teacher's Guide
DOWNLOAD the European Language Portfolio from the Resources section of the NACELL website, at http://www.nacell.org.uk/resources/pub_cilt/portfolio.htm There are detailed instructions on the web page of how to save and download the documents. Back to top

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