What some MLPS teachers get up to!
Moira Rennie, headteacher of Cornton Primary School, former MLPS trainee and enthusiast of all things with a language and international dimension, writes about getting carried away, literally, during her training!
MAny thanks for your contribution, Moira.
There is nothing more motivating than having a real life situation in
which to use the education you have received. We know this about
children but being motivated to learn will have the same positive impact
on adults. With this in mind, following the MLPS French course, I and
four of my colleagues booked cheap tickets from Edinburgh and flew off
to Paris for a week to practise our French.
We booked everything on the internet including the one star, 6 floors
and no lift hotel. However there are advantages to slumming it French
style because unlike the big hotel chains, no one spoke English so we
were forced to use our French on the hotel staff. This didn’t always
work quite as well as we intended especially after one confusing
situation when the receptionist thought we were telling him that an
elephant had broken into our room and had stolen towels – don’t ask!
We had decided before we left, that the rule for the week would be that
we had to speak in French all week. And we did! OK not at night when we
were on our own but we spoke to everyone we met in French. We were
especially proud of the moment we asked a lady for directions and she
made a joke about not taking the stairs up to Sacre Cour – and we
laughed! We really didn’t think we would understand enough to laugh at
jokes in French.
We got on well together and enjoyed not only speaking in French but
being in Paris. The city has a wonderful atmosphere. There is nothing
better than sitting at a pavement cafe watching people passing by or
walking down the Champs Elysees pretending you are a sophisticated
person about town. It’s very important to understand something of the
culture of the country whose language you are attempting to murder and
we immersed ourselves in all aspects of Parisian life from cafe culture
to art galleries, from shops to bars. I can now even say that I went to
the Sorbonne.
If you are completing the MLPS French course at the moment I can’t
recommend going to France at the end of your course highly enough. It’s
easy to organise and doesn’t have to cost a lot of money but the
benefits are enourmous.
Bonne Voyage!
Leave a comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed