Case Study

Introduction

'Un Jour En France' has been serving a French speaking community of Iranian, Mauritian, British and French people in North London since 1991. It is a small school with 50 children and five teaching staff as well as a number of volunteers helping in the classrooms. All the staff have qualifications, some from the UK as well as overseas.

Lesson observation

The lesson observed was of a junior class, with children aged 7 and 8. The class had twelve students who were able to communicate and understand classroom instructions in French and could read and write basic French. The learning objective for this class was to tell the time on an analogue and a digital clock. The teacher was trained in the UK and was in her second year of teaching. She taught in a maintained primary school and was a native French speaker.

The teacher introduced the learning objectives and explained clearly what they were going to do for the morning. She started by spending a couple of minutes with each student asking them about their plans for the weekend and about their work in their full time school. It was good to see her using two languages and encouraging children to use correct French by rephrasing their sentences. She was very receptive to those who preferred to respond in English. She established rapport with her students from the beginning and this contributed to the pleasant atmosphere in the classroom.

She started her lesson by putting a large clock on the board and asking children to name features of the clock in French, for example the French word for clock, time, big hand, small hand. She then set the hands to six o’clock, and asked if anyone could tell her what time it was in English. Everyone put their hands up. She then asked if anyone could tell her the same time in French. She helped the children by giving clues in French, and repeated the same question by showing different times on the clock.

She had prepared flashcards with various times written in French, and she placed these next to smaller clocks with similar times shown on them. The challenge was to match the writing to the clock showing the time. This made it accessible for those children who needed additional support to make the link with the clock time and the writing that represented it. The class repeated the activity with digital clocks.

The children were put into ability groups and, with prepared resources, were expected to match pictures on the digital clocks to the actual time written. They then had to show the time on their cardboard clocks. The teacher explained the tasks in French and English, mainly using French but supporting it with English.

This was a happy learning environment. The teacher’s calm and softly spoken voice had a very positive effect, encouraging the children to work industriously.
At the end of the session, the teacher brought the whole group back together in a plenary session. It was very lively and it was evident that the learning objectives had been achieved. The plenary was used to extend learning to quarter past and, half past. With the confidence gained from the previous task children demonstrated their understanding by readily linking their learning to the new task. Some children who looked a little unsure were spotted by the teacher and she took the opportunity to note this and make arrangements to support them during the next session. She explained after the lesson that these children were to have extra support the following week and take home sample exercises to do with their parents.

The children were very positive about their experiences in the school. Here are some of their comments:

‘My French has definitely become better since I joined the school. You also learn some of the things you do in your other school. Everyone is friendly. You can talk to anybody. It’s fun being here.’

‘If I learn something new in French I ask the teacher what that is in English and when she tells me I remember it in French. Using two languages is very good. My teacher makes me feel important because I speak two languages. I guess she is right, I am special in this way.’

‘This school is fun. I feel like this is my big family. It’s different from my other school. Teachers don’t have much time to talk to you there. Most of the time they do that when they are telling you off. I like my Saturday school.’

About the School