9 minute read
Education Corner Podcast Interview
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH HEAD OF MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Sophie Edwards
FROM ST CATHERINE’S PREP SCHOOL, BRAMLEY
Mrs. Sophie Edwards speaks about the importance of learning languages at an early age and incorporating it as a fundamental part of the curriculum.
At what ages are languages introduced and which languages do girls at St Catherine’s Prep get exposure to?
It is lovely to meet you here today and to be on the podcast. We introduce formal teaching in a modern foreign language, which is French in our Prep School, from age seven. They have language lessons every week through to age eleven. Before that, in the Pre-Prep department, from ages 4 to 7. We have various opportunities where the girls will learn a language, either through a lunchtime club or a club timetable during the day, through experiential play, or through special themed events or linked to festivals.
We understand that language skills are developed in Pre-Prep (4-7). Can you tell us a little more about this?
We are very conscious that language learning and the function of a child’s brain from birth is absorbing language, even in their home environment as an infant. We want those pathways to stay open all the way through, so it is very important that we keep that love of language learning going before the more formal lessons at age 7. For instance, we have the clubs, and a play scheme with our travelling suitcases, which are suitcases that the class teachers can bring into their classes for play, and they have got language materials in them. It can be self-guided play or guided play by the teacher or an assistant with learning numbers or colours in French or Spanish. It is to inspire that love of learning and to keep that awareness of language alive in the children right from an early age. There are also various learning topics such as China and Chinese New Year in Year 1. We have a French-themed Picnic Day. When the girls study Katie Morag they have a Scottish Day! All of these mini experiences are about valuing language and ensuring that the girls have this open-minded attitude to accepting language, absorbing language and seeing the difference between languages. What
St Catherine’s School, Bramley
we want girls to take away is that. Today, I have to say, it’s the European Day of Languages so we always get off to an early start at the beginning of every academic year by celebrating languages and diversity within the school. We’re encouraging the girls to see (not that they only know one language) that we live in a plurilingual school with all these languages bubbling under the surface.
From people’s heritages, from people’s backgrounds. We have many girls who come from bilingual households. We value these languages, language learning is a vital part of keeping the brain open and plastic to all these learning opportunities.
We understand that there is a particular emphasis on the importance of learning through role-play when learning a language. Can you tell us a little more about how this is implemented?
There are many different activities that happen all year round. We do a French Café for Years 3 and 4, where one year group act as waitresses or servers and the other year group act as clients. This helps them to learn and practice dialogue. The whole value of role-play is that we prepare the girls with the language they need, so they are learning full sentence structure. Then they have to practice expressing themselves, for which they have to use their memories. Everybody is a different type of learner, and for some people, going off-piste if you like, without that support of a written text or a visual text to look at.
Remembering their language and using it in a real-life situation. It really catapults their learning forward and more than anything, their confidence. This then translates back to their learning in subsequent years. This, we also see happening on our French residential trip in Normandy where the girls get to have total immersion for the period of a whole week. They come back much more confident, and they really have learned to listen to a language for extended periods of time. They realise that they might not recognise every sound, but they are building up sound recognition and understanding aurally, as it were. On the European Day of Languages, we run a number of activities. We had drop in lunchtime clubs today, where we had senior school girls and sixth formers come to us. The younger children love that, they love looking up to older role models. Today we had Welsh Language, Croatian and Spanish drop in lunch clubs. That, again, creates a lot of excitement. We also do some role-play with the Senior School. We might do a French Café for the older children, or we have the old girls as language mentors running conversation classes as well.
TURN TO PAGE 50 to read about supporting children with ADHD “The fact of learning one language really inspires the confidence and the neural pathways where language learning is seen as being stimulating and fun.”
How are languages incorporated into the curriculum and daily life at St Catherine’s?
The main thing for us is the formal learning of French, for example, and we are very aware that we have this historic allegiance to the language of French, although it doesn’t have to be French, and sometimes we offer Spanish, for example, to younger ages or in a lunchtime club. The fact of learning one language really inspires the confidence and the neural pathways where language learning is seen as being stimulating and fun. It keeps that open mind to all languages, and that is where we really find it. It is almost as if language learning is a transferable skill. When the girls learn French, they relate some of their grammar exercises to learning English. It then
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Learning languages
creates an openness through travel or through cultural awareness of other cultures. We want to make sure that on a day like today is an opportunity for the girls to share their own languages from their heritage, and you really feel like it’s the tip of an iceberg. Beneath the surface is all this richness of language culture within the school body, through people’s families, through their heritage. One year we invited grandparents and parents in, to read stories or picture books in another language from their background and do lunchtime reading club. Any crossover we can get between the family life and the school life all cements the idea of really valuing a language as something positive in our lives in future.
What opportunities do the girls have to visit countries as part of their learning and what sorts of experiences do they have?
We have a French overseas trip for four days for our Year 6 age group. We travel to Normandy and we have a series of day visits, we stay in a French farmhouse with French staff. The girls are immersed in a fully French-speaking experience for mealtimes, for instruction, for organisation. Then we have these lovely day trips; we go to a goat farm, the girls learn a love of goat’s cheese from an early age haha, which is very culturally important. They do an out-and-about canoeing activity, from which they learn instructions and directions in French. The girls go to a market in a town and have to buy their lunch in real life. They are put to the test! If they can’t speak the language then they won’t have lunch that day. It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many children, so we are delighted to be able to offer that.
Can you explain how everything that is established in the Prep School is then developed further on at St Catherine’s Senior School?
We are very conscious of preparing the girls for that more expanded language experience in the Senior School. From the Prep School they go into Year 7, where they are offered three languages, four including Latin in their first year. They learn German, French, Spanish and Latin. We offer German and Spanish tasters in Year 6, so the girls have some sense of what they are about to meet when they join in Year 7 if it’s our Senior School. They also have timetabled Latin in Year 6 in the Prep School, so they already have a bit of a stepping stone. We aim to help them start feeling a little prepared for what’s to come. Thereafter
in the Senior School, they do all languages in Year 7 and then start choosing their languages of preference to GCSE and A Levels beyond. The girls get overseas trips to support their language learning in the Senior School to France, Germany and Spain. They also have the chance to take up Greek. There is also a Mandarin Club in the Senior School, which is enormously popular. The girls can take public exams in Mandarin by individual arrangement.
What do you believe is the benefit of being able to communicate effectively in more than one language? Why is this such a gift?
It is the gift of making connections, isn’t it? It is about meeting different people, meeting and understanding different cultures. It’s about valuing that diversity. If you have a buzzy school where language is celebrated, and role-play oral activities, even with our own home-language of English. If you create that confidence within our student body, then they’re using that within their foreign language learning. It enriches them as people in terms of preparing them for the outside world. They will move to workplaces that are multicultural and diverse. It is really communicating that sense of enjoyment and the confidence that goes with it to make connections and to meet new people.
We would like to thank the Head of Modern Foreign Languages, Mrs. Sophie Edwards, St Catherine’s Prep School for giving up her time to speak to us.
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Many of our parents relocate from London, looking to settle in the area so their daughter can come to St Catherine’s. We’ve created a brief guide to help you explore the local area and consider possible places to call home. Email our Prep School Registrar on prepadmissions@stcatherines.info or call 01483 899665 and we’ll send your guide to you straight away. Good luck with the house hunting!
