Welcome back and getting started!

Hopefully you have all had a fantastic summer holiday.  Here's 1+2 in a nutshell to try to help you to get started:

Aims

• Drip-feed French (and Spanish P5-7) into the school day, i.e take a little and often approach, particularly P1-4 where it doesn't and shouldn't always be specific French lessons.
• Help  pupils to learn and understand the language in real situations within school and ENJOY the language through music, movement, games, stories, activities and project work.

P1-4

As this is the first year, all P1-4 should start with the following topics:

1. Classroom language
2. Praise
3. The register
4. Introductions (name, saying how you are, key "getting by" vocabulary, i.e hello, goodbye, please and thank you)
5. Numbers
6. Colours
7. Days of the Week
8. Months of the Year

All of the resources you need for this are housed under the P1 tab but there are additional resources under each specific year group.

Then, pick a story and something cultural too.  As this is the first year, it can be from the P1 tab or your own year group, whatever works best for your planning. 

P5-7

The curriculum for each year group is explained under each relevant tab together with resources.

Going forward

As the year progresses, we will listen to feedback and continue to work on providing you with the support and resources you would like.

In the meantime, bon courage and please feel free to make contact about anything you need.  I'm still on maternity leave so the best way to contact me is through the blog and I'll get back to you.

Laura

Bravo et Merci Beaucoup!

A huge "merci beaucoup" to all pupils from Bantaskin and Carmuirs who entered our praise poster competition.  All of the entries were excellent and it was very difficult to decide on the winners.  Hopefully you will spot the poster in your primary school classrooms:

Les Ateliers du Primaire

The French Institute in Edinburgh is offering a free training session on the first Thursday of the month to share ideas for teaching French through stories, songs and games for P1-3.  Here's the link with more information, it looks good.

http://www.ifecosse.org.uk/Les-Ateliers-du-Primaire-French.html

Merci and Information on CPD Opportunities

Un grand merci to all staff from Bantaskin, Carmuirs and Comely Park who came to the information session after school today.  Merci also to Bantaskin for hosting it.  Hopefully this will now open up communication so that we can deliver the best possible programme for pupils, beginning roll out in 2015.

One of the topics discussed was CPD opportunities.  Here are some options on the horizon:

• Book in with Kathleen and/or myself and we would be delighted to come out to your school to deliver CPD, tailored to what you feel would be helpful.
• The Alliance Française in Glasgow is offering French CPD workshops for Primary teachers in February and March.  Here's the link:  http://www.afglasgow.org.uk/cpd-workshops-for-primary-school.html
• There is the Flame course at Camelon Community Centre.  Here are the details (there is also one for Spanish):
  

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  French Primary Language Learning (PLL)- FLAME Programme

• LFEE (Le Français en Ecosse) is an Edinburgh based company who offer courses for primary teachers.  I have been on the ICT workshop they run, which was excellent.  Here's the link: http://lfee.net/european-projects/primary-teacher-training-in-scotland-mlps/

Please feel free to contact us with any ideas and feedback at any point.  All comments welcome!

How to subscribe to the blog

I think/hope this is what to do to subscribe to the blog:

• Type in your email address in the box below the blog title
• Hit submit
• You will receive an email from the blog with an address that includes "feedburner" in the address
• You then click the link included in the email and follow the steps

Phew, hopefully that works: bon courage!

• Spanish online training

SCILT (Scotland's national centre for Languages)

News from SCILT website:

The Spanish embassy and Instituto Cervantes are offering Spanish online courses suitable for Primary and Secondary teachers. Courses will run from April till October 2015

Information and link on SCILT website

Link =(Online Spanish course for teachers Apr-Oct 2015)

Calling all P6 pupils: it's competition time!

Time to get creative and enter our competition to have your work included in an important poster that will be displayed in Falkirk High School's associated primary schools' classrooms.

Interested?

Here's what you need to do:

• Pick your favourite French "praise phrase" from the table below (just the French, you don't need the English translation)
• Tap into your artistic side and display it in a way that you think will stand out and catch people's eye
• Send your entry (via your class teacher) to Falkirk High School by le deux mars 2015
• The winners' artwork will be included in our French praise posters to be displayed in Falkirk primary schools
• The winners will also receive a prize 
• All ten praise phrases will be displayed on the poster so don't all go for the same one!

Here are the praise phrases:

Bravo!	Well done!
Bon travail!	Good work!
Génial!	Great!
Super!	Super/Great!
Fantastique!	Fantastic!
Excellent!	Excellent!
Très bien!	Very good!
Bien!	Good!
Bon effort!	Good effort!
Bon essai!	Good try!