Primary education languages strategy - advice for teachers
Thursday, 21st May 2009
As outlined in Sir Jim Rose’s recent report - Independent review of the primary curriculum: final report (30 April 2025) - Languages will become a statutory requirement of the National Curriculum at Key Stage 2 from 2011.
One way primary school teachers are developing their school’s languages strategy in preparation for this, is to undertake a 2-week programme in Europe.
Participating teachers spend two weeks in Europe, benefitting from training and immersion in their target language, with one week’s language tuition and one week’s job shadowing at a partner school. Teachers need to have some past experience of or a qualification in the target language, but they are not expected to be fluent. On completion of the two-week programme the teachers will have widened their linguistic competence through active participation, observation and teaching, be able to use their knowledge and experience to benefit the teaching of a foreign language at their school, and wherever appropriate plan for mutually beneficial partnerships with the host school.
Cactus, one of the world’s leading language training companies, has been working with several schools arranging for their teachers to undertake this kind of training. For example, In February this year Cactus organised a trip to Nice for 10 teachers from various primary schools in Brighton & Hove. Working with International House in Nice, Cactus arranged a two-week itinerary for the individual teachers, incorporating 5 days of French lessons and 5 days of shadowing in a local primary school, with the weekends left free for the teachers to explore Nice. Accommodation was also arranged by Cactus, with the majority of participants opting to stay with local host families, exposing them to the real community in which they were staying, and giving them a chance to practice what they’d learnt in their French lessons.
Comenius funding is available for teachers undertaking this kind of training, more detail can be found at www.britishcouncil.org/comenius.htm
For more information on programmes with Cactus Language .
Tags: french, languages, cactus, language, brighton
Posted by Michelle Curtis under Teaching Languages,
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