Arion Study Visit 2006 - Visit No: 05004,17
Title: Good practice in foreign language learning
GROUP REPORT
Members:
Constantin Popescu, Romania,
Harald Niden, Germany,
Etienne Micha, Belgium
Reka Vadasz, Romania,
Brigitte Gruson, France,
Ursula Christ, Germany,
Jolanta Smigiel,Poland
Martine Silhol,France
Louisa Cillero, Spain
The Report will cover the following items:
o Arrangement and organisation
o Learning foreign languages by using ICT
o Learning languages by working in a foreign country
o Learning languages in nursery schools
o Learning languages in primary schools
o Using multimedia to learn a foreign language
o General impressions about the places we visited
Arrangement and organisation
The theme of the Arion-visit 04, 17, GB was 'Good Practice in Modern Language Learning'.
It mainly referred to the teaching of French in East Ayrshire, but also comprised-to a lesser
degree- Spanish, German, Gaelic and Italian.
The Arion-group, consisting of six different nationalities quickly developped a harmonious way of dealing with the upcoming themes. Not only were e-mail and internet addresses and phone numbers exchanged but personal views on the different pedagogical topics in question were also subject to critical analysis and solutions found.
The organizers of the visit had put great emphasis on showing their international colleagues that ICT plays an essential role in fostering language teaching particularly on secondary school level in East Ayrshire.
These schools are well equipped with interactive whiteboards, computers and other media.
Their teachers use the material and the corresponding methods to motivate an increasing number of language learners.
Learning foreign languages by using ICT
A visit to CUMNOCK ACADEMY (22nd May 2006)
Presentation of the Activboard made by a very dynamic, enthusiastic young head of French department, Andrew McLelland:
- there are 20 Activboards in the school; they are connected to a desktop computer which can be found in every classroom; all the desktops are, in their turn, connected to the school network.
- The advantages of the device are many :
> A large pool of exercises comes along with the software when the board is installed, thus providing the teacher ready-made material, which can be adapted and transformed during the lessons , according to students´needs. The transformations or new documents used during the lessons can be saved and recorded for further uses. Thus, the teacher gains time and energy on preparing the lessons and be more attentive to students ´questions.
A visit to AUCHINLECK ACADEMY (23rd May 2006)
Presentation of the “Classroom of the future” by Christine White, a very devoted Head of French department :
- In Scotland, schools are overwhelmed with new laws and guidelines. Teachers feel they are crushed and overworked. Besides, enterprise and education are the key priorities. Consequently the school's motto is : BELIEVE AND YOU CAN ACHIEVE; French is easy you can manage it.
To encourage the students in this idea :
* vocabulary tests are given so that students can succeed
* when you succeed, your name is written on panels in the corridors
* the CLASSROOM OF THE FUTURE is a major element of motivation :
- it is used once a fortnight
- there is competition between the various departments in the school to promote efficiency, achievement and raising students'confidence.
- students work on various exercises bought from an internet site; the exercises are mainly about grammar and vocabulary, concentration, listening; there are few oral exercises .
Our general impressions about the devices described above are the following ones:
- We must acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the authorities, schools and teachers who are willing to encourage the students to be motivated in learning a foreign language.
- The authorities have made a priority of language learning and practice, therefore they don't hesitate to invest a great amount of money in equipment and teacher's training.
- These devices are the best way to give every student an opportunity to be in contact with and practise a foreign language.
- However, we would have liked to attend a lesson implemented with the interactive board and the Classroom of the future, to see how the students' motivation is actually activated;
Moreover ,the question of the assessment of students' progress remains unanswered as no record of it seems to be kept.
Learning languages by working in a foreign country
Two sixteen-year-old students came to talk about their week work experience in JOUE-LES-TOURS (France)
The placement was found by their French partners ; the students worked in Primary schools and were very impressed by the following items :
- The fact they were actually able to work in a foreign country, and use the language;
- They also liked the contact with their French friends, their culture and way of living.
Our impression about this experience is extremely positive:
- It's the best way for youngsters to be confronted to another culture and to adapt to it, even though shortly.
- It's the only way to practice a language and benefit from it in the long term.
- Finally, “being mobile” is one of Europe's key words to suppress unemployment and it's one way of preparing youngsters to it.
- However, this type of experience is reserved to a limited number of students.
Learning languages in nursery schools
Flowerbank nursery school is located in an old house full of interesting, attractive play material and all the facilities needed. There are 32 children whose age ranges from 1-5 years. The nurses are helped by young girls trained on the job and a student teacher.
Crosshouse nursery is in a modern building with a lot of space and a playground outside. About 40 children attend this nursery. An assistant teacher from Spain supports the teaching programme.
The program of the nursery starts about 8 clock and finish around 18 clocks.
The pupils of both schools are organised in small groups. They use lots of visual and audio material and practical techniques to make music, play games and learn new words.
At Flowerbank the pupils have reached a relatively high level of French. They perform a sketch by heart enjoying themselves and the interaction, which has been made possible by the enthusiastic and very committed staff that invest a lot of time, energy and patience to make the children advance.
Flowerbank nursery in particular shows in an impressive way that it is not only possible but also a good idea to make children start learning a foreign language at a very early age.
At both primary and secondary schools there is time in the evening and at weekend to perform extracurricular activities.
Learning languages in primary schools
Primary education is divided into seven years, P1 to P7. Children start at the age of five and end when they are 11 or 12. Foreign languages are compulsory from the age of 10 when pupils are in P6. French and German are mostly taught in Primary. Only one school offers Gaelic to keep the language alive. Woodstock Centre, the local authority, provides resources and a ready-made curriculum and offers training sessions. The approach used to teach is mainly based on playing games, singing and acting. The key word is certainly motivation and having fun.
o Motivating the children to speak foreign languages is an important issue because most children don't feel they have to learn a foreign language because English is spoken all over the word.
o Teaching a foreign language is a way of raising the awareness of the students that they are members of the European Community and of showing them the opportunities the Community offers.
o Teaching Gaelic is one way of showing them their cultural heritage.
Our visits to two primary schools showed us that these objectives are met. Nevertheless we noticed some problems:
o The lack of trained teachers
o Too long teaching sessions
o The late start of foreign language teaching
Reviving ancient languages
Because Scotland is such a rich melting pot of peoples who invaded it, settled on its territory and influenced its history, preventing ancient languages from dying appears as a priority. Scot and Gaelic are revived in some nursery and primary schools and Ayrshire is the only county to do it. Jean Nisbet and Stuart Wilson gave us a smattering of these two languages , stressing how important their practice can be to broaden the children's minds, thus preparing them to learn foreign tongues.
Thanks to Stuart Wilson who copied and read for us a poem by Robert Burns (To a mouse), we now can better understand that poet's immense role in the forming of a national spirit that enhances Scotland's place in Europe.
Using multimedia to learn foreign languages
Project : Partners in Excellence, “PiE”, website: www.pie.org.uk
Partners in Excellence is a virtual centre of excellence for languages coming from collaboration between three educational authorities.
Partners in Learning - is a Microsoft education investment initiative, delivered in Scotland as a partnership between the Qualifications Authority and Microsoft, and guided by an Advisory Council with representative from Learning and Teaching Scotland, HM Inspectorate of Education, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland and others.
Their aims are:
- to raise the level of all modern language students
- to increase the number of students who learn foreign languages
- to develop an appropriate learning environment using ICT
- to build a community of language learners and teachers
Activities:
1. Film making weekends
- PiE has pioneered the use of film-making as an activity to motivate language learners . Students do everything in groups : on Friday they start with the planning and write the script, then on Saturday they learn the technique how to use the cameras and on Sunday they make the films, edit and watch them.
- This gives them the opportunity to practise their skills in innovative and engaging contexts.
- The activities allow them to develop their confidence and proficiency in a foreign language, their social skills and creativity.
- The culmination of this activity is the annual Film Festival which brings together the PiE community with its partners abroad to celebrate language learning and creativity.
2. Language Zone “www.languagezone.org”
- an online learning environment specially created for both students and staff.
- password protected
- offers formal and informal learning
- opened 24 hours a day
- among others the website offers: new audio technology through podcast (downloadable radio programme), which provides information, news and learning on a regular basis; and verbcast, which makes grammar easier for foreign language learners.
We were positively impressed by:
- the enthusiasm of the students involved in the project (they are very proud to wear the purple bracelets of PiE “What is learnt with fun is never forgotten.”)
- the enthusiasm of the whole leadership team
- the full support of the authorities on regional level (e.g. East and North Ayrshire)
- the professional manner in which the Film Festival is organized (“Oscar” statuettes, formal dress, red carpet, special guests from abroad, Scottish TV coverage, etc.)
- the “professional” quality of the films (musical background, animation, etc.)
We wonder if it is possible to set up such a project in our countries. The obstacles we could meet are: cost, teachers' knowledge of using ICT, collaboration between different authorities, support of the community (parents, teachers, students), convince the volunteers to work in their free time.
General impressions and social events
On the very first day of this Arion study visit, we realised ,whilst listening to our colleagues from six different countries presenting their educational system, that there weren't so many discrepancies :
- same grades from Nursery to Primary and Secondary schools, same cycles too;
- more or less the same types of exams and certificates at the end of each cycle.
We also seem to meet the same difficulties :
- recruiting new teachers and training them;
- teaching too large groups (over 25 pupils in most cases) with uneven levels of skills and achievement in foreign language learning;
- dealing with children who haven't had the same opportunities of learning a foreign language in Primary schools.
We felt that , through goodwill and cooperation , things could and will change in Europe in terms of education.
As regards social events, during our stay, we visited several places such as Glasgow and Culzean castle. On Tuesday we attended the 11th Showcase at the Palace theatre in Kilmanock. We watched four primary schools and one secondary school delivering various performances. Among those, we enjoyed watching children wearing Scottish traditional dress, reciting poetry of the national poet Robert Burns and performing a small “ceilidh”, a Scottish evening of dance. We greatly appreciated this true flavour of Scotland.
On Wednesday, we were invited by the team in charge of the visit to an informal Scottish-Themed dinner. For us, it was an opportunity to taste typical Scottish food ; it was delicious. Besides, we saw our hosts, Brian and Stuart, wearing the kilt and the whole regalia. But, unfortunately, we were not allowed to look under the kilts.
The cultural programme as a whole was wonderfully organized. It really gave us the feeling that we were mostly welcome and the opportunity of discovering the Scottish way of life. We are very grateful to the whole team, it has been an unforgettable experience for all of us.
We would like to thank Jean Nisbet and her team ( Stuart Wilson, Kay Mcmeekin, Pam Kavanagh, Geoff Miles, Brian Green and Chrissie) for their help, their warmth, their kindness and their availability to us during our stay. They all made of this visit a very special occasion. So our thanks to them again.
Colleagues - you may have heard that a case of avian flu has been found in a swan on the east coast of Scotland. This is not so surprising: cases have been found recently in northern Germany and in central France and, at this time of year, there is more of a chance that disease will be brought here as a lot of Scotland is like a large bird reserve, with many wild birds migrating here to breed.
I'm sure it has not even crossed your mind, but I want to reassure you, first of all, that there is no evidence that any human being is in danger from avian flu here and, secondly, that our public health and veterinary services are keeping a very close watch on developments.
I look forward to meeting you all at the end of May.
This message is for colleagues in Scotland who will be involved in the Arion visit as well as our visitors. Here's a first draft of a programme. Can I have comments, please?
East Ayrshire Arion Visit 2006
Dates: 22-26 May 2006
Venue: Kilmarnock
Draft Programme
Monday 22 May
9.15 Meet at Park Hotel - welcome by John McCarney (Head of Service) + presentation by Arion colleagues of issues in education and languages teaching in their home areas
10.45 Coffee
11.00 Presentation by young people from East Ayrshire on education in Scotland and their personal experience + members of the International Group + 15 minute DVD about languages in EA and time for questions, comparisons and discussion
12.30 Lunch at the Park Hotel
13.45 Leave for Cumnock Academy
14.30 Introduction to language work in EA schools: visit to Andrew McClelland and ML department - using ICT - coffee and discussion with the department
15.45 Leave for Park Hotel
Tuesday 23 May
9.00 Leave for Auchinleck Academy
9.45 Visit to Classroom of the Future
10.45 Coffee with ML department and Head Teacher
11.15 Leave for Castle PS - presentation of German Lingua material
12.30 Lunch at Castle PS
13.45 Leave for Onthank PS
14.15 Visit to Onthank Gaelic classes and Sradagan (Gaelic Youth Club) (JN to make sure it's running!)
15.45 Leave for Park Hotel
Wednesday 24 May
9.15 PiE Presentation - Kay McMeekin and Mark Pentleton
11.00 Coffee
11.30 Presentation by Mary Morris and young people on Work Experience abroad
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Leave for Crosshouse Nursery
13.45 Presentation of Spanish in the nursery
14.45 Leave for Park Hotel
15.00 Round table discussion of visit so far
16.00 Comenius Briefing by British Council for Arion visitors and school staff interested in setting up a link via Comenius, eTwinning, video-conferencing, etc
Thursday 25 May
9.15 Park Hotel - motivating teachers - courses and resources - Kay McMeekin
10.15 Presentation by JN, PK and SW of EAC policy documents on ML and International Education
11.00 Coffee
11.30 - room for another session here in a school - Annanhill? New Farm?
12.30 Lunch at Park Hotel or school?
14.45 Gaelic and Scots - JN and SW
Friday 26 May
9.15 Report-writing - BG and video crews from schools interview, edit and present film
12.00 Leave for Culzean Castle
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Tour of the castle and the grounds
Colleagues - we are starting to think about the programme for your visit. We would like to suggest that on the Monday YOU will start us off by doing a presentation about language teaching in each of your countries. We will then invite some young people from our schools to tell you about the Scottish education system in general and about language learning in particular.
On the Friday, our schools are on holiday, so we would like to suggest that you write your group report in the first part of the morning and go on a tourist visit for the rest of the day. We can arrange for you to visit a castle (Dean Castle here in Kilmarnock or Culzean Castle in Ayr) or the home of our national poet Robert Burns in Ayr - or you may want to go to Edinburgh, our capital city, for the day. We will arrange for you to go shopping in Glasgow on the Thursday evening, so you will have the chance to see a large vibrant and exciting city.
Please join the blog and tell us what you think!
Welcome to the blog for East Ayrshire's Arion Visit 2006. This visit is due to take place between 22 and 26 May 2006. We are looking forward to meeting you.
Who are we? We are the members of East Ayrshire's International Education Group, all teachers who volunteer to look after visitors to this beautiful area of Scotland.
Some of the people you will work with will be:
Joanne Graham, Administrator - joanne.graham@east-ayrshire.gov.uk
Pam Kavanagh, International Consultant - RKavampsev@aol.com
Jean Nisbet, Quality Improvement Officer - jean.nisbet@east-ayrshire.gov.uk
Stuart Wilson, retired Depute Head Teacher and Chair of the International Education Group - stuart.wilson56@btopenworld.com
To see our photographs - and a few photos of last year's Arion Visit, go to:
http://jeannisbetarion.blogs.com/photos/arion_album
Here are the names and emails of the people who are in your Arion Group:
Reka Vadasz - reka_v@hotmail.com
Constantin Popescu - popcon1953@yahoo.com
Jolanta Smigiel - translat@acta.torun.pl
Martine Silhol - Silhol.martine@numericable.fr
Brigitte.gruson@bretagne.iufm.fr
Josep Bofill Deu - jbofill1@pie.xtec.es
Etienne Micha - Etienne.micha@cfwb.be
Gudrun Meier - gudrun.meier@neuseenland.net
Harald Niden - H.Niden@t-online.de
Maria Luisa Cillero Garcia - mcillero@edu.xunta.es
Ursula Christ - u.christ@f.ssa.hessen.de
Our complete programme will not be ready for some time but I want to assure you that we will be showing you best practice in the teaching of languages and, in particular, in the use of ICT in language teaching.
Your visit will include visits to schools - nursery, primary and secondary - with presentations by young people and their teachers.
The programme will “showcase” unique features of East Ayrshire's languages provision:
o French and German Work Experience
o Partners in Excellence
o Saxony Summer Camp
o Enterprise activities
o use of video: film-making and -editing
o Teacher education - pre-5, primary and secondary - at home and abroad
o ICT: online support, Quia webpages, smartboard, eTwinning, classroom of the future
o 3-18 language policy
o International links
o the deployment of Foreign Language Assistants, visiting teachers from Italy, Switzerland and Catalonia
o the place of Scotland's national languages: Gaelic and Scots
Please note that our schools teach mainly French with some Spanish and German and a little Italian.
Practical Information
The timings of the course: the Arion course will begin on the Monday morning and will end after lunch on the Friday. To get a cheaper flight, you will have to travel on the Saturday or the Sunday.
Getting here: there are 2 airports near Kilmarnock: Glasgow International (30 minutes away) and Glasgow Prestwick (15 minutes away). It doesn't matter where - or when - you arrive, we will arrange to pick you up and bring you to Kilmarnock. At the end of the visit, we will take you back to the airport.
Accommodation: I would suggest that you stay at the Park Hotel in Kilmarnock - you can see it at this website:
www.theparkhotel.uk.com
You probably already know that hotels are very expensive in the UK. We have negotiated a lower rate with the Park Hotel and can book it for you. It costs £58 per night for bed and breakfast. Let me know if you want us to book for you.
Meals: we will give you lunch each day from Monday to Friday and a formal dinner on the Thursday evening. You are responsible for your other evening meals.
Preparation
Before you arrive, please prepare a 10-15 minute presentation about education and in particular language education in your home area.
We hope that during your Arion visit, we'll be able to add to the blog - perhaps even use it to write your group report......