Seconde bilingue
Start date: Jun 30, 2014,
End date: Jun 29, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
In 2014, an interdisciplinary team consisting of several teachers working in Le Lycée Boisjoly Potier decided to create an experimental year-11 class, originally called “Seconde bilingue Anglais”. This project comes from a common observation. Indeed, Reunion Island is confronted with a double context of insularity and cultural isolation. Most of our students have trouble expressing themselves orally in English and feel insecure when it comes to speaking. The aim of this project was then to make them more confident particularly in oral communication. To achieve this purpose and ensure its success over time, the teachers involved decided to enroll in different courses to improve their language skills and gain a variety of new teaching ideas & motivating materials ready to use in the classroom.
Today 10 training courses have been attended to:
-6 C.L.I.L (Content and Learning for Integrated Language) for two History and Geography teachers, 2 Mathematics teachers, a Physics teacher and a PE teacher. The courses took place in Exeter, a city located in Devon, England. They were hosted by the “International Projects Centre (I.P.C.)”
-1 D.O.F (Developing Oral Fluency for Students) also in Exeter at “IPC” (two teachers came in turns, each one spending a week on the course)
-1 creative methodology for teachers in Canterbury (hosted by “Pilgrims”) for a Biology teacher who had already attended a C.L.I.L course before.
-2 courses dedicated to teachers of English at secondary level in Cheltenham hosted by the “I.S.P” (International Study Program)
This project has had an extremely positive impact on the school. First, we’ve been able to observe a change in the students’ attitude towards English: they participate more often in class and get easily involved in the different speaking activities offered by the teachers. This “Seconde bilingue Anglais” was quickly renamed “Seconde English Time” by the students themselves. The project was renewed in the school year 2015-2016 and will continue in 2016-2017. Moreover these students have also been part of a KA2 « Education for Sustainable Consumption, a global challenge » over the last two years. Not only does it allow them to communicate in English more often by way of the Etwinning platform and mobilities to the different European countries taking part in the KA2, but it also helps them develop their European citizenship. The interest this project aroused quickly spread to students of other classes in the school who would have wished to integrate it. We also noticed a rising number of pupils subscribing to the DNL (Discipline Non Linguistique) option in “Première” which consists in teaching a non linguistic subject (here Biology) in English. And finally, we can callthis experience a success regarding our students’ motivation as well as the growing interest it provoked among the staff members (teachers and administrative members) in our school.
The teachers acquired innovative educational practices and developed language skills enabling some of them to pass the DNL Certification. It encouraged collaborative work amongst us with the full support of the administrative members and the inspectorate. On the long term, the network established thanks to the different mobilities will allow the creation of new European projects.
As a conclusion, this experience proved to be extremely positive for both the high-school staff members and, more importantly, the students.
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