CHAMPIONING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Start date: Jul 1, 2014,
End date: Jun 30, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
This is a two-year project based on improving the language skills of the teachers/TAs in order to ensure quality pedagogy and to have the skills necessary to be able to teach the full curriculum.
We hoped to develop the language teaching skills and professional practice of our staff, extend language provision, create a team of language champions to promote languages and inter-cultural understanding and target our most vulnerable children and those with low basic skills.
We aimed to create resources and training packages that can be used in our school and made accessible to parents through the website. We aimed to create joint schemes of work with the schools we made links with in Spain and France. We also wanted to develop a French/Spanish programme for the playground to enrich playground activities.
We planned to achieve these objectives over the course of a two-year project involving seven members of staff in visits to Spain and France.
The staff would take part in training courses which would focus on language learning, intercultural understanding and teaching methodology and include time in a French or Spanish school.
The results would be that our teachers would be much more confident and able to teach languages well. They would have much improved language skills and an increased understanding of the similarities and differences between cultures. Staff would be better equipped for the job they are doing and increase their future prospects. All of this would impact on our children’s attainment and the general enjoyment of languages in our school.
TAs would be asked to develop a programme of activities for children to take part in on the playground. This would lead to more use of the target language and also would bring intercultural understanding into our daily routines and our school life.
There would be a broadening in the range of languages available to our learners. There would also be an extension in provision through increased extra curricular activities and the embedding of languages in other curriculum areas. We would also establish a “Language Champion” team who will focus on the development of languages within our school, and the creation of a website which would be accessed by children, parents, staff and other local schools. This would mean that the impact of our project can be spread much wider.
Links established with Spanish and French primary schools will impact on all of our schools as we will be able to share ideas, activities and resources and establish regular communication so that we are all able to develop our understanding of each other’s lives. Having this opportunity will engage our children and make them more interested in language learning. It will also lead to the development of a scheme of work produced between our school and the French/Spanish schools. This will give our school community and more international outlook.
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