A Level French students have enjoyed teaching at Sacred Heart Primary School this term.
Six A level French students have taken part in work experience at Sacred Heart Primary School this term, teaching French to a class of Year 6 pupils. Florence Wrake, Isabelle Harris, Joshua Priest, Ciara Simmonds, Wilfred Leith-Snow and Mael Le Paih completed three sessions where they taught food and other items-related vocabulary. In the last session, pupils were then able to request these items in French to complete a shopping list.
The Y6 pupils of Sacred Heart thoroughly enjoyed learning from them and Y6 teacher Jackie Park has expressed interest in carrying on this next year and on a more regular basis. Alison Jean-Jean, professional tutor and French assistante at the Henley College, who set up the link with Sacred Heart, will continue to accompany students and support them through the process next year.
Alison said, "I think it is amazing for the older and younger students in our community who would not normally mix together to have had this opportunity to get know each other and learn together."
Jackie Park, Y6 teacher said, "This pairing of AL students and Year 6 has been a great success. It was lovely to see the AL students work with the younger children. The Sacred Heart pupils have really enjoyed the sessions. All the children were engaged and the small group, interactive learning, resulted in rapid acquisition of French vocabulary. The resources and activities were well planned. A huge thank you to the Henley college staff and to the AL students."
Luc and Grace, Y6 pupils at Sacred Heart said, "We really liked being taught in a way we could understand. The students played some creative games with us that were fun and we were learning at the same time. We liked the shop activity at the end of all our French lessons because it was a great way to have fun and practice all the French we had learnt. We also were able to read how to spell the items on the shopping list. When we made mistakes in our pronunciation, the students politely corrected us so we didn't feel embarrassed."
Florence Wrake, French A Level student said, "I really enjoyed the entire experience, not only was it really rewarding working in person with the students, seeing their French improve and them learning new words across the three sessions, but I also really enjoyed the planning and organisation of the whole thing as well. Having to create the worksheet for the first session and then make a sort of lesson-plan with the rest of the group was a completely new experience for me and I found it very interesting."
A Level French teacher Stephanie Dujardin Viney said, "This has been a great success for all involved, our A Level students were not only able to transmit some of their French knowledge to a younger generation but also have a taste of what it is like to teach languages at primary school-level. They prepared the lessons, created resources and also reflected on what they did. They also developed their work-related skills and it was very nice to see how much fun the Y6 pupils and AL students had during the sessions. We are all really looking forward to continue this partnership next year."
