Ingleton Middle School

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Modern Foreign Languages

Children in all three years study French. The work we do is based a course book in line with the National Curriculum and the MFL Strategy, supplemented by additional material where that is felt to be appropriate.

Lessons are taught largely in French and the children are required to use it wherever possible in classroom interactions. They all write to pen friends at the College St. Joseph, Herbignac, throughout Years 7 and 8 and are also given the opportunity of an exchange visit with the pupils of the college. Year 7 pupils experience an authentic French breakfast and we have regular visits from theatre groups who perform plays and stories in French. We share a French assistant with the Settle schools who spend one morning a week in school.

In Year 8, our pupils are introduced to a second Foreign language leading up to their transfer to Settle College.

We are currently working with schools in France, Finland, Norway and Bulgaria on the Comenius project 'Creative Approaches to Teaching Languages'. 

Pupils are able to pursue another Foreign language such as Spanish or Japanese during enrichment time.

French Breakfast
Each year, Aidan Monks from Pain de Paris in Kendal talks to all Year 7 pupils about French bread and pastry making. He describes his routine as a boulanger and the processes and ingredients involved.

Pupils enjoy their fill of French bread, croissants, pains aux raisin and pains au chocolat, washed down with steaming cups or bowls of hot chocolate. C'est vraiment formidable!

Theatre
Theatre is a very motivating and fun way to develop language. Not only do we use drama and rôle play within our lessons, but whenever the possibility arises, we also invite theatre companies into school or attend their performances locally. The 'Courgette Volante' and 'Théâtre sans Frontières' travelling theatre companies have produced some fantastic and very entertaining performances which have been thoroughly enjoyed by all. The companies provide preparatory and follow up teaching materials to ensure that our pupils get as much as possible out of the experience.

French Exchange
The partnership with the Collège St Joseph, a school for 11-14 year olds in the Loire Atlantique region of France began when the headteacher of the collège visited Ingleton with the twinning group from La Chapelle des Marais, Ingleton's twin town.

Frère Berthe and Kate Butcher worked together to establish a penpal link initially, and soon after, in 1993, a full exchange. At IMS we believe an exchange to be the most valuable type of trip abroad as far as linguistic, social, personal and cultural development are concerned. More challenging than a trip to a seaside hotel with English school friends, its benefits are far greater, not forgetting the exciting and interesting experience of hosting a youngster from France.

Groups as large as 36 pupils have participated in the exchange which involves pupils from France spending a week in Ingleton and soon after, IMS pupils spending a week in Herbignac. Originally open to Year 8 pupils only, both Year 7 and Year 8 pupils can now take part. In 1994, Settle College pupils were also given the possibility of exchanging with the older pupils (quatrième and troisième) and since then the two schools have hosted and travelled together, with staff working very closely together on the planning and review of the exchange process. It is now possible for our pupils to travel to Herbignac inn Years 7, 8, 9 and 10. Trips in France may include any of the following depending on size of group and finance.

Local trips - Herbignac and La Chapelle des Marais, Marais Salants, Brière - Parc Naturel, La Côte Sauvage et L'Océarium, Parc des Naudières (Nantes)

Other trips - Paris par TGV, Vannes et L'Isle aux Moînes

Comenius Project - Creative Approaches to Language Teaching 2006-2009

Ever mindful of the need to develop our own teaching skills and increase our repertoire of teaching activities, we have committed ourselves to a three year 'Professional Development Project', working with schools in France, Finland, Norway, Latvia, Turkey and Bulgaria. The work is funded through the Socrates programme.

Within the project, we will be looking at different styles and techniques used in the teaching of foreign languages to make learning attractive. Initially we will look at current practice in each school, collating what we consider to be the best ideas and learning from each other. Using this as a base, each school will explore a different aspect of language teaching - such as the use of ICT, rhythm and music, differentiation for high and low ability, games, target language, personalised learning, drama and poetry, contact with other schools and so on, trialling activities in lessons. Results will be shared at project meetings, which will include both workshop and evaluation as well as project management. Each school will write up their contributions in a common format in order to produce a website, a manual or both. Pupil mobility will be used to explore the value of visits/exchanges and the most effective activities that can be used during the visit to develop language skills. The group of teachers are all committed and enthusiastic with a wealth of experience between them. Together, we hope to produce something that will be a widely used and powerful teaching and learning tool.

Primary French Programme
By 2010, a foreign language should be taught to all Primary age children from Y3 onwards. North Yorkshire Local Authority have taken this directive on board and schools have been invited to work within a county network to introduce or develop primay language teaching in their area. At Ingleton Middle School, we have piloted a system whereby foreign language teachers from the middle school teach French to year 5 pupils in all our feeder primaries. Year 4 pupils have had half a year of French and also European Studies, taught either by the class teacher or our Comenius Assistant.

Topics covered in the primary curriculum, which is based on the commercially produced 'Early Start' programme include basic greetings and information about oneself, numbers, colours, months and days, places around town, family and the alphabet. We use songs, games, speaking and writing activities as well as the DVD which leads to interesting cultural discussion as well as making the subject alive and real for our pupils.

This introductory programme at primary level serves to provide a solid base on which they can build at the middle school.

Parent Support

You don't need to be able to speak French or German in order to support your child at home.

Pupils get foreign language homework every week. They should have everything they need to help them complete worksheets in their vocab or exercise book, or their Cahier d'Exercice'. They may need help in finding the necessary support and in checking their work. Examples will usually have been given in class or on the worksheet / exercise. As for learning vocabulary, the pupils have been given learning strategies in class and should be able to use them. Parents can help by testing their children - all this requires is for you to say the English word / phrase and your child should write the foreign language equivalent down from memory. You and your child can then check against the vocab sheet and identify problem spellings which they should work on further.

Knowledge of vocabulary and spelling patterns is essential in the learning of a language. Please remember that everything they learn is preparation for their GCSE exams.

Having a French / German - English dictionary in the house will prove very useful. All pupils should have one.

French Week 16th to 20th June 2008

To tie in with our Comenius project - 'Creative Approaches to Teaching Languages' as well as the demands of the Revised KS3 Curriculum, all Year 7 and 8 enjoyed a week long cross-curricular project week on the theme of France / French.

The activities were planned by the teachers who delivered them and each had a different curricular and skill emphasis. Here is a brief summary of the main activities.

Le Champs Elysées

Pupils were challenged to produce an Ingleton Middle School version of the Champs Elysées down the library corridor of the school. Pupils had to conduct research on what they would find along this famous Parisian street, plan build and paint it.

Les Maths

Mathematical Simulation Challenge

Resources - map of France, tourist brochures, text books

Pupils imagined they were travelling in a family of four in a car through France on holiday.

They had to log their journeys:
- identifying places to visit (at least 10)
- showing a tourist attraction (with costs)
- identifying the route to be taken and km travelled
- calculating fuel consumption in litres for car per Km
- identifying overnight provision with costs

They then presented:
- conversion graphs for gallons v litres
- conversion graphs for miles v Km
- conversion graphs for £ v Euros

On completion of the above, they had to create a spreadsheet identifying costs and total spending for the holiday.

Le Préhistoire

After having looked at the similarities and differences between British and French prehistory the groups considered the wonderful examples that can be found in France that have no known equivalent in Britain. They looked at the French painted caves and what we know of the people who painted them, the subjects of the paintings and their significance. Places studies included Lascaux, Peche-Merle, Le Font de Gaume, Cougnac, Le Roq St Christophe and Les Eyzies. Pupils had to prepare an on screen presentation about a particular prehistoric site, a leaflet about the prehistory of a small area or a fictitious newspaper report about the discovery of a previously unknown painted cave. Pupils also got to try their hands at cave art. 

Le Tour de France

Pupils studied the history of the Tour de France, some of its famous characters and some of the controversies that have surrounded the Tour including the use of performance enhancing drugs. The achievements of Lance Armstrong were also discussed at length. Pupils had to either produce a report on the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport with special reference to the Tour de France, a study of the advantages of having a positive attitude in sport and in life in general or a profile of Lance Armstrong with photos and text. They looked at the Tour de France route for July 2008 and had the opportunity to see video clips of famous moments from previous tours. The initial presentation was prepared in French with the aid of one of our partner schools.

Tour de France / Tour du Collège
No yellow jerseys here, but class honour was at stake! For fifteen minutes each day classes ran around the 200 metre school track. with each person's individual score being tallied as they completed the laps. Each person's total contributed towards the class score which was then converted into kilometres onto the giant map of France. It was a close run race, eventually won by 7D. There were some fantastic individual achievements and everyone managed to improve on their first run.

Eurogâteau - an enterprise experience

The whole of Y7 was divided up into seven companies or boulangeries. Each boulangerie had to produce as many beautiful - but virtual - cakes as they could in forty-five minutes, sell them and make a profit. 

Starting with a stock of basic ingredients and some petty cash, they had to plan carefully, work as a team and produce products they could be proud of. Our French speaking Euro Agent bought the cakes and also sold additional ingredients. All transactions were in French. Boulangerie 'Bon Appetit' managed to make the biggest profit and were rewarded with a delicious 'gâteau au chocolat'.

La Cuisine
During the French Week, Year 7 pupils had two lessons of French Cuisine. Pupils discussed a little about regional French Cookery and made a traditional Quiche Lorraine.

Year 7 pupils with the help of some children from Y6 and using research from the internet made a French Cuisine booklet. The contents were French food in general, meal times, regional foods, a glossary of cooking terms and some French recipes.

Le Shopping

Pupils learned thirty two words through the supermarket shopping game, which required them to use accurate pronunciation and exercise their memories.

Film
Not only is "Mr Bean's Holiday" a very entertaining story, with Rowan Atkinson's acting talents leaving us in stitches, but it is also an amazing resource of details about Paris, France and French language and culture. After answering a series of questions about different scenes in the film, pupils got the opportunity to follow a script and act out some of the scenes - in French of course.

Franglais Raps
Pupils were introduced the idea of 'Franglais'; that you could mix English and French sentences and indeed words within sentences.
J'ai oublié mon jotter. Je suis hungry. Avez-vous a cuppa tea?
Pupils composed a rap or altered the words of an existing song........ and used keyboards or drums for a back beat. 
They performed their compositions at the end of the lesson.

Histoire: La Révolution Française

The main points of the revolution were examined and the reasons for the French people taking action.

Year 7 pupils produced tableaux for the 8 main starting points of the revolution. 
These were photographed and then made into comic book form by adding speech and thought bubbles as well as sound effects.

1 Summer 1788 - Louis desperate - short of money....
2 June 1789 Louis is forced to call parliament to raise money
3 July 1789 The Bastille is stormed
4 October 1789 The march to Versailles - woman march...
5 June 1791 the Royal Family escape from France
6 January 1793 The King is executed - Marie Antoinette 9 mths later
7 Spring 1793 summer 1794 The Reign of terror Guillotines!
8 July 1794 The end of the terror...Robespierre leader guillotined

La Géographie
A way of introducing pupils to different geographical areas of France.
The class was divided into 4 mixed ability, mixed gender groups.  Each group was given a different area of France to research: Bretagne, La Vallee de la Loire, Les Alpes or Provence (these areas were chosen for their geographical differences). 

Each group had the same list of information to find about its given area: its location in France, main towns, rivers, mountain ranges, climate, local cuisine/recipes, types of houses, wines, tourist attractions, any famous people in history, any famous artists, maps and pictures.

Groups were given a set amount of time to research using internet, books and information obtained beforehand from l'office de tourisme of the different regions.  They then had to present their findings to the other groups in the class.  Presentation could be by means of a wall display and talk or a power-point presentation and explanation.

Le Football
The lesson used football as a vehicle for extending foreign language skills. The starter required pupils to share what they knew about French football and then they moved to read a short passage about Thierry Henri in French and answer questions about it. Pupils also enjoyed a novel pencil and paper game of football. They studied some of the language that would be used by players on the field e.g. Passe-moi le ballon! Faute! Tire! and then played football in the gym using the new language. The penalty for speaking English was a free kick to the other team.

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