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parlez-vous français?

Parlez-vous Français?

Parlez-vous Français? is an imaginative project that works well for teaching modern foreign languages to Year 6 primary school children. It also helps to develop speaking and listening skills and increases cultural awareness and understanding. The project involves a visiting French storyteller and is ideal for creating links between secondary schools and their feeder primaries as the project can also involve sixth form students by giving them the responsibility of filming the storyteller's visit, this enables the older students to help the younger students with their language skills and to act as role models. Parlez-vous Français? uses drama games as an introduction to French which works well, especially with pupils who may have only just started learning the language. It rapidly develops vocabulary and helps the pupils to listen in another language. Fairy stories and folk tales which the pupils know well and understand are used as the primary source material. This enables pupils to guess any words that they don't know in French and allows them to develop their confidence enough to recognise key vocabulary and to develop their own 'interpretation skills.' The older students can help to mentor in these sessions and the impact on the younger children is immediately apparent, they are often very proud to work with older students and happy to learn from them. The drama workshops apply a number of principles used regularly in language teaching; repetition and re-iteration - explaining the same thing in a number of ways and speaking in both languages. Warm-ups are conducted entirely in French, but are simple, encouraging retention and focus for the tasks ahead. A similar approach is taken to name games and ice breaking exercises which are used to facilitate improvisation. The drama preparation work is followed by the visit of the French storyteller. Using a French performer gives added value to the project and pupils are respectful of the fact that the storyteller has travelled to their country just to meet them and tell them stories. The storyteller focusses on the ritual of storytelling and pupils are asked to join in with words and phrases that they know and to physicalise elements of the story. The fun nature of the project means that children naturally remember the words that go with the actions, both in English and in French. The project can be filmed by the older students as a linked language project, including voice overs (in French), and can be shown to the participating group or used as a teaching resource for the other language classes in the school.