Bored English pupil -help!

[Mistral]

Because of a mésure de carte scolaire, I have to work 3 hours a week in a collège that has just opened in a small town about 20kms from where I live.

In that collège there is an English-born pupil in 5eme. Apparently he has been in France since about the age of 8 so he doesn't need any help with French. But he is extremely bored in English lessons. His English teacher has asked me what I could suggest to help him be less bored. We are both agreed that he must follow the programme and the fact he speaks English well doesn't mean that he writes it perfectly nor does it mean that he understands the ramifications of English grammar that are so important to the French.

But it doesn't seem fair to leave him to be bored while the others struggle to learn. I know that in many cases, British  pupils have extra french lessons instead of going to English, but this pupil doesn't need them. The English teacher has suggested he integrates a 4eme Spanish or  Italian lesson, but that means he would be bored next year in both LV1 and LV2 and finding a timetable match is probably going to be impossible. So we're back to finding things for him to do during the English lesson which allow him to follow what the rest of the class is doing but at the same time keep his interest.

So what I am asking (yes, I've finally got to the point) is have any of the parents of children who were in this sort of situation got any suggestions or experiences they could share? What did your children's schools offer and what would you/your children have wanted?

I don't mind writing lessons for him and checking them and the teacher doesn't mind me doing it. But it would be nice to know what the people who have been through it think.

[Owens88]

Hi

Just a thought. Can you not tap into the various on-line stuff that teachers in England / Scotland use? Keep him in-line with peers over here AS WELL AS what he is doing there?

My stuff is all Maths but there will also be a lot for English.

http://www.tes.co.uk/main.aspx is a good start point

http://www.tre.ngfl.gov.uk/ can be good as well.

Good Luck.

John

 

 

[Chrisb]

Hi Mistral

See my reply on the 'other side'!!

Chris

 

[Lollie]

Hi

One of mine just went into permanence during English in 5eme and caught up with homework, but when my next one started I asked for an alternative, and in 6eme she went into Spanish LV1, this year in 5eme she continues with her spanish LV1 but because of timetable complications she misses one lesson every two weeks!   Not sure what will happen next year though as I dont see how whe would fit in another language.   All my children study english as an international option.   Her downside is she never gets any permanence to catch up on homework and always has more homework then her classmates.  There is no answer here just to let you know how it worked for us.

[Lollie]

Another thought, could he not become the teachers assistant during the class, and help the other students whilst following the course??

Lollie

[Unknown]

Lollie you took the words right out of my mouth.  My son in 6eme does this and really loves it.  Its great for his confidance and all of his class mates ask him for help with their homework.

[SaligoBay]

Mistral, why does he have to do English at all?

 

[Mistral]

Thanks for you replies. We've more or less decided to go for a combination of activities, mainly based on the material I have available. I've got comprehension/language quesion/composition books (including the excellent bond assessment series) and books on verbal reasoning for short exercises.

In answer to your questions, he has to do English because it is the only LV1 offered by the school, there is no possibility of doing Spanish or German instead. We though of asking for him to start spanish along with a class of 4eme LV2, but it would be difficult to find a 4eme with spanish at the same time as he has English and then comes the question of what to do with him when he goes into 4eme when the rest of the class starts Spanish while he's already done a year. in a way that's making him doubly different.

Of course we could suggest he doesn't come into English lessons and just does the tests, but the teacher thinks that he should still learn all the why's and wherefore's of English (plus spelling always a problem) and he is the sort of pupil who doesn't want to stand out or be treated as "different". He has been in france for a long time and considers himself to be the same as any other pupil in the school. This is also why we don't want to suggest that he works as a teacher assistant. It's not in his personality.

John, I put a question on the TES staffroom even before I posted here. but no-one replied. [:(]

[Tourangelle]

Mistral, did you post on agreg-ink?

[Mistral]

Didn't think of it, but that's a very good idea. I'll try there Thanks

[Owens88]

>John, I put a question on the TES staffroom even before I posted here. but no-one replied.

Mistral

I have found your question there and, its a bit wide open !  Similar to some that get flamed here (smile).

You might have done better to search on 'English Key Stage 3' (or KS3) and follow through the many links, THEN ask a question to help put the stuff in perspective. There is even a resource section within the TES site to help start it off.

I just tried 'English KS3' (Google search UK) and the first page generated some guff about the curriculum, only one offer to sell books and lots of resource pages.

I am now a student teacher (maths) and there is MASSES of stuff available on the web, if you have the patience to trawl and sift. As an aside how much use of IWB's and PC's is there in France ?

Good Luck

John

p.s. FWIW I think the pupil SHOULD be kept in touch with what his English peers would be doing. For his own intellectual development if nothing else (as presumably his 'French' is weaker than that of his peers. I am not suggesting that 'the French intellect' is any weaker than Brits).

 Its not just apostrophes and grammar is it ?

John

[Mistral]

As an aside how much use of IWB's and PC's is there in France ?

Errr IWB? should I know what that means? Is it  (moment of inspiration! ) an interactive white board? I've heard of them. A cousin who is a primary teacher in the UK has mentioned them and I saw a teacher's TV buyers guide programme on them. One of our maths teachers asked for one last year. But (1) no-one knew what he was talking about and (2) it was too expensive. I have never heard of a school that uses them. I can say with great certainty that my kids' maternelle, primary and secondary schools don't have them. Nor does the collège my husnad works in or either of my collèges (one of them being brand new) The collèges do have video projectors you can attach to laptops (our dept is spoilt, every pupil in 4eme and 3eme is lent a laptop as are their teachers- next year the loan becomes a gift- except for the teachers) We have 3 video projectors in a collège of 600 pupils.

PC use is difficult to really calculate. Again my dept is spoilt with all the 4emes and 3emes having laptops (well, if you don't count the kids who have lost, broken, blocked .... theirs) and the conseil general has also got a plan of 1 desktop per 5 pupils (still in collège) This means a computer room with 15/20 computers and a couple of computers per classroom. Of course, you still need to have teachers who are willing to use them and who have the training. I did a course on using the laptops in the classroom last year and sat through three days on how to set up a firewall, how to personalise the school intranet so that they got different things appearing depending on the room they were in and the laws on what you could or couldn't put on internet- when we asked about actual practical use, he sent us to our subject websites on the academic server for inspiration ( which suggested that I could use computers to do webquests or hotpotatoes exercises- I had been hoping for a little bit more) I sometimes use mine to show powerpoint (well actually star office) presentations, but only when I can get my hands on the video projector, I make hotpotatoes exos and send them to the kids as revision help and I get them to record themselves and send me the recordings. That's all. And I'm probably one of the people who uses it the most in class. As for primaries, well my daughter's school has 7PC's (when they're all working and haven't been stolen) so small groups go and type short texts from time to time, but some friends' kids didn't see a computer all the time they were in primaire.

All this is a bit worrying when you realise we are supposed to validate the B2I somehow

Sorry, rant over. [:)]

Yes, I know that if I had had the patience to plough through the TES site I would proably have found loads of things, but I was hoping someone would be able to quickly say "we expect them to do X,Y and Z and we use extracts form books with short and answer comprehension tests" or something like that. I'll have a better look now it's the holidays but I was hoping for a quick fix since it's not actually one of my pupils and I was doing the asking during my lunch break.

[Owens88]

Sorry for the jargon. You interpreted IWB correctly. It seems that there is as much variety in the use of IT in French schools as there is in the UK. Though perhaps there is a richer pool of 'stuff' available on t'web than your tutor managed to point out. Good luck

John