Bonjour! Making French Class Fun

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, July/August 2021 Issue

By Ellie Chettle Cully

It’s fair to say that languages other than English have never been top of the educational agenda in the U.K., where I live and work as a primary teacher at an inner-city school. Once upon a time, it was compulsory for all students to study a Modern Foreign Language (as we call them here) until the age of 16. However, students are now only required to take a modern language until age 14. This has led to a significant decrease in the number of students who continue their second language studies as far as university. The view that English is “enough” seems to prevail.

Then in 2014, changes to the country’s National Curriculum made it mandatory for children ages 7–11 to begin studying a second language. This was part of a government-led process aimed at helping kids to become multi-lingual and culturally-aware citizens. A great idea in theory, of course, except it still isn’t being put into practice in many places.

Resident French Expert

A few years later, in March 2017, I was sitting opposite my then-principal as she outlined her plans for my return to work from maternity leave. “I was wondering,” she said, “whether you’d like to teach French to the whole school?” I was thrilled. I had a degree in French and Hispanic studies, but since starting my teaching career, had encountered very few opportunities to actually use my languages skills in the classroom. The thought of creating and teaching an official French program for the entire school filled me with excitement.

It was only on the drive back home that the enormity of the task I’d been given began to sink in. Languages had been part of the primary school curriculum for the past 3 years, but the coverage in most schools was patchy at best and ours was no exception. A few teachers, like myself, with some background knowledge were squeezing in about 30 minutes a week amongst other subjects but most weren’t even doing that. To say that modern languages in my school were bottom of the pile when it came to status would be a grotesque understatement.

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Ellie Chettle Cully is Languages and International Lead at an inner-city primary school in Leicester, U.K. She teaches French, alongside extra-curricular Spanish and Latin, as well as runs training sessions in the delivery of languages to teachers in her local area.

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Ellie Chettle Cully
Ellie Chettle Cully
Ellie Chettle Cully is Languages and International Lead at an inner-city primary school in Leicester, U.K. She teaches French, alongside extra-curricular Spanish and Latin, as well as runs training sessions in the delivery of languages to teachers in her local area.

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