Maximising engagement in the Languages classroom was the focus for this year’s series of workshops with Nadine Fraize. Former WA French teacher, Nadine now resides in Brittany and is Director of Langues et Terre.
She is currently involved in the development of an online methodology training website for European teachers and offers annual two week in-country study tours for French teachers from Western Australia. Read what former WA participants Liz, Caroline and Clare have to say about the tours.
Nadine starts all her workshops by giving a background to what is happening in Europe in Languages education. In Scotland for example the government is implementing a 1+2 Approach. Schools implementing a program that to allow children to start learning a second language from Year 1 and a third language no later than Year 5. During her workshops Nadine highlights the following:
- Language is about communication so why waste valuable classroom time not communicating in the target language? Nadine insists that if the target language is used in context and if the teacher assists to make it comprehensible by reinforcing meaning through gestures and repetition, learners of any age will want to listen and try and comprehend. The key is to remain in the target language at all times. Don’t be tempted to provide a translation in English otherwise learners will rely on it.
- It is important to get students to master the aural word phonetically before introducing the written word. She suggests using chants as a way for students to practise the sounds, syllables and meaningful chunks of language repetitively in a non threatening way.
- Nadine also encourages a range of activities that allows students to move and physically manipulate items including finding a partner with a matching syllable to make a word or a matching card.
- And finally, she is a big fan of the flipped classroom as a way of getting students to learn the content at home and use valuable classroom time to apply language skills and get students communicating as much as possible.
Nadine has kindly made all the resources presented during the June workshops available to all AISWA teachers through the Power Language Platform and if you would like to access these please email me at kreitzenstein@ais.wa.edu.au for password and log in details.
