Associated Teachers TV programme
KS1/2 MFL – Absolute Beginner
I am an absolute beginner with regard to Modern Foreign Languages, I dropped French at High School and failed German. Therefore the prospect of teaching MFL was a scary thought. We started planning for MFL within the Senior Management Team approximately 12 months ago when it was include in the 2007/08 School Development Plan., 2 half day INSET sessions were delivered the local LEA and a scheme of work was devised between the MFL coordinator and the LEA to begin September 07. My greatest fear was the correct pronunciation and speaking grammatically correctly as teachers we all know that new and exciting concepts and ideas often inspire the children and I didn’t want to teach them incorrectly and then the incorrect concepts stick in their minds.
As a school we decided to drip feed French into the curriculum, because of this and the support of the MFL coordinator I gradually developed the confidence to teach French. I would strongly advise non foreign language speakers to adopt this course of action. The weekly drip feed of a few new words enabled me to increase my own vocabulary and correct pronunciation, it also helped with grammar as I spoke very few new phrases or sentences thus reduced the chance of being incorrect.
The use of Pierre the puppet worked very well for me, it inspired the children, kept them interested and allowed me to ‘hide behind him’ ie it was Pierre speaking and not me. Firstly we started by saying Bonjour to answer the register, then Au Revoir at the end of the day building up to using the numbers 1- 10 in maths lessons, colours in PE lessons and then the French words for general classroom objects ie pencil, rubber, ruler.
Top Tips / Resources – Take the teaching slowly at your pace of knowledge it is not yet statutory to teach MFL in primary schools, use French translation websites if you want a phrase, the internet has many resources I particularly used and for display posters, word cards and a couple of games such as colour bingo, if you are going or know someone who is going to France collect French leaflets, magazines etc this made a great display which the children enjoyed using and most importantly be brave, be prepared to make mistakes and learn with the children and teach MFL in a fun way – it is a lovely break from the more formal teaching within the primary curriculum.
Note to teachers
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