International links in Modern Languages
Partnership working in Modern Languages
Head of Modern Languages: A long-established area of links that we have with Majorca is with the high schools and each year our pupils go out to Majorca, they're immersed in the Spanish, they have to spend their day in classes, they have to communicate, they're in a situation with young people of their own age and they find that, really, very motivating.
That encourages them when they come back, and has a great impact on their listening skills and their speaking skills because we find, when they do their speaking assessments at the end their Higher year, we find that it has an impact on their performance. They perform better, they're far more confident, far more confident individuals and their spoken Spanish improves.
Pupil 1: What I got out of going to Majorca in terms of my Spanish learning was that once you’d been there, it gave you a boost of confidence to carry on with your studies in Spanish. Because when you were there you were speaking in Spanish the whole week to everyone and you were listening to Spanish because you were around Spanish people so it just … it made you want to keep learning Spanish and do your best in it because it was so interesting being able to speak that language from what we knew already.
Pupil 2: I think my learning benefited because I could find more reason to want to learn Spanish. It wasn’t just something you had to learn because you had to learn it for an exam. With this Spanish speaking course that you get, you learn a lot more conversational, colloquial Spanish – as opposed to the formal Spanish that they always teach you in school. It makes it a lot more easy to communicate as well because you're not just talking at people very politely and formally and the people can’t really relate to you at all, whereas, when you're speaking a more colloquial language, then they find it easier to get on with you.
Head of Modern Languages: I think it’s important to be in the country, to visit the country, to be part of the culture, to see everything, to be involved in seeing the culture and to practise the language in situ. We have a Language Assistant in our schools, North Lanarkshire provided us with a Language Assistant annually, and that, again, is a wonderful cultural thing to have.
But taking the pupil into the … a visit to the country is very important to allow them that opportunity to talk one to one and to be immersed in the culture. It improves their language skills, it gives them a full range of language – it develops their language more fully than if they didn't have that opportunity.
Depute Head: This ongoing exchange has happened for many years with high schools in North Lanarkshire Council and Majorca. This year it was decided to involve our partner primaries, here in Scotland and to involve the primary schools in Majorca.
So, an E-Learning project was set up - a North Lanarkshire Council Majorca E-Learning project. It involved collaboration with our four partner primaries; North Lanarkshire Council funded the procurement of cameras, the use of video conferencing, and set up, for us, a safe room which permits the primary children to go online, with ourselves, and the schools in Majorca.
It’s also provided substantial benefits in terms of the collaborative working approach between the primaries and the secondaries, in terms of building up confidence in language. The teachers in this school are specialist teachers in Spanish and French, and it’s permitted an exchange, a professional dialogue, between our primary colleagues and enhanced their confidence levels - not only in terms of the language, but in terms of ICT.
Head of Modern Languages: It started, initially, with emailing and cultural exchange to develop the cultural awareness, to assist with the teaching of this early stage learning of Spanish. And when we visited Majorca, the intention was to work closely with our colleagues in Majorca, to establish a good way forward to teach early stage Spanish in our schools.
On our return, we continued to email and to write to the schools and to exchange materials, and then we began webcaming. They're able to exchange all sorts of cultural events, their ICT skills have improved, they’ve learned to work with the webcam and they’re far more interested in their language learning and it helps them improve their language skills.
For the staff involved, it’s been a good PRD (Professional review and development) experience – learning how to work the webcam – and it’s been very important for them, in their language learning, to be open to and working with the Majorcan teachers, improving their language skills in the primary schools and it’s been beneficial for them.
For us, working with the primaries has strengthened the bond that we have and we’ve been able to assist them to make this link and when the children arrive, in S1, they're already far more comfortable with their language skills.
Pupil 3: In our class we’ve been doing video conferencing using webcams. It’s a really effective way of studying Spanish because it’s much better than just doing it out of a normal book and just listening to a CD. Because we get to actually talk to children live and practise with people that have the accents and just have a conversation quite naturally.
Pupil 4: I like learning this way because it’s so much more fun and interesting and it also helps you get it into your head a lot more.
Pupil 3: It makes it much more exciting because as well as all the learning, you’ve also good a bit of fun, plus there’s the aspect of making new friends which is a great thing.
Pupil 4: Video conferencing is so much more interesting, it’s so much more enjoyable to learn the subject.
Head of Modern Languages: When we’re video conferencing, any documents that we’ve prepared we can download and pass down to the schools in Majorca, they can save the documents and use them with their classes, planning can be put in place. Usually, there’s emailing going on between schools, planning the lessons, the content of lessons, so that it dove-tails in with your course. So, this planning goes on between the schools before the video conferencing.
Depute Head: Teachers here, at St Margaret’s High School, are able to learn from their colleagues in Majorca and they're able to share, with us, how they go about delivering the curriculum.
One of the major initiatives in North Lanarkshire Council is co-operative learning. It’s heavily used in Modern Languages. Perhaps, one of the main influences on academic outcome, is the use of co-operative learning and via video conferencing we are able to share this learning experience and we’re able to frame lessons in a way which is active. Active lessons are motivational for pupils and teachers.
So, there has been a tremendous sharing of resources and skills and expertise amongst the teachers, here in St Margaret’s High School, the four primaries here in North Lanarkshire Council and the schools involved in Majorca.
- Posted on 11 February 2009.