With fluency, confidence and exploration of French culture as the goals of our annual Year 7 French trip to Burgundy, we were keen to ensure that 2020's Year 7 didn't miss out on all of the benefits of this trip across La Manche, which normally takes place in September.
We linked our classroom weekly with teachers at La Maison Claire Fontaine, the traditional venue of our French trip, for virtual lessons. Alongside this, the children discovered the fun of having a penfriend, and we sent and received video messages and letters.
In the first live lesson, it was a new experience listening to French on Zoom. However, the pupils quickly became accustomed to the new scenario, and enjoyed getting to know Johann, the bilingual teacher at Claire Fontaine. By the second lesson, it was easier and more natural to contribute and converse in French.
The children learnt about the region of Burgundy and the historical towns of Avallon and Vézelay. They tasted local delicacies thanks to a special package from Johann.
They spoke about and described their school uniform and, during a quiz, the children were surprised to learn that French pupils can wear what they want in school (or nearly).
Johann talked us though the children's penfriends’ school timetable. We discovered that French children have seven lessons a day, which start earlier than ours at 7.55am and finish at 5pm every day. The French pupils have a lot of time learning English; one lesson every day! In addition, les enfants Francais have the option to go home for lunch each day, over a two hour break. Our pupils liked this idea!
It was really good fun for the pupils to hear their penfriends responding in English to our video messages in French! It was really nice to see them on our screens.
In total, Johann sent us on five missions, with videos to watch and questions to answer to be able to find out a code. The videos varied from the teaching team at Maison Claire Fontaine introducing themselves, to a video of a visit to Vézelay, a beautiful pilgrimage town in the heart of Burgundy. We completed some of the missions together and we had to do others independently, particularly Mission 3, baking a “Tartouillat”, an apple cake, which is another speciality of Burgundy. Thank you Caitlin and Euan for the pictures of your cakes, what a shame we could not taste them!
I was really keen that we make a special effort to create a link with France and Burgundy and that the children had the opportunity to speak to a native speaker other than myself. As ever, the quality of the lessons and the lesson content from Johann and the team at Maison Claire Fontaine was fantastic. The cherry on the Tartouillat is that the link we have created with our penfriends at the Collège des Chaumes in Avallon is to continue for the rest of the year.
Mme Bennison, French Teacher
Our pupils all have a French penfriend. In this clip, the French penfriend confesses in his letter in English that he doesn't like French! 'Dommage' says Johann! Our pupil then goes on to answer questions on his penfriend's letter in French.
