La Jolie Ronde French Scheme of Work for years 5 and 6

classroom use

Context

I have used the scheme with Year 5 children, predominantly presenting two half hour lessons per week to a class of thirty children. We were able to link the learning with work on our ‘travel to school’ plan in which a major road has been identified by parents as a major reason for not being able to walk their children to school. The pace of our progress through the lessons was slower than that suggested in the scheme but there were two reasons for this. Firstly, I am not a language specialist and wanted to be sure that I was covering everything very thoroughly and secondly, the children in Class Five are new to learning French, or any other foreign language in a school setting. The language specialist at our school was able to assure me that the timings suggested for the lessons and parts were feasible. It was very interesting to notice that the children who made the most rapid progress right at the start (though this quickly even out) were those who have English as an additional language. We have Smart Boards in all our classrooms and were able to use these whenever necessary.

Student Response

It was very unusual to find oneself in a teaching situation in a Year 5 class where there is a level playing field in terms of experience and ability. I felt this had a very important effect on the class in terms of bring them together as a whole. On those occasions when I have been able to watch the children as they take part in the lessons it has been clear that they have been more engaged than in any other lesson. A good proportion of the children who are less confident of their abilities in Year 5 were able to participate very well and at the same level as their peers. The children and I are all enjoying the scheme very much. The cross-curricular link, for example, allowed us to identify the different types of shops in both languages in lesson one as we simultaneously did our initial studies of the local high street. The children also enjoyed making comparisons between our high street and the evidence presented about France in the pictures contained on the resources CD-ROM. The songs on the music CD-ROM were well-received and the children were very eager to join in with the singing. All of the children have made good progress over the last few weeks.

Personalisation

This scheme is not software-based as such. It is more of a scheme of work with associated planning documents, and multi-media teaching resources on CD-ROM. As such, it does not have inbuilt difficulty levels. From my point of view, the equal start offered by the learning of a new language at this stage is a very positive feature of such a proposition. Our less able learners were able to work at an equal level to the other children.

Assessment and pupil tracking opportunities

In line with our focus on assessment for learning, we have been able to assess how well the children have performed in each lesson and what progress they have made. I would not wish to use the scheme for any sort of summative assessment purposes, however, I do not think that is the expectation of the authors/publisher.