SECONDARY AND FOUNDATION STAGE COLLABORATE ON HOME LANGUAGE Virginie Turner, Secondary Home Language Coordinator
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t the start of the new academic year, Ms Hooper and I offered students in Years 10, 11 12 and 13 the opportunity to use their Home Language to support their younger peers in the Foundation Stage. The aim was clear: let them have fun in their mother tongue at school. This initiative is now very popular and, through the wonderful support of the Foundation Stage teachers, our Secondary students have developed skills in language learning, social development and sign language to name a few. We are lucky to have a wide range of language speakers in both Foundation and Secondary: Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, French, Hindi, Thai, Danish and Italian. The following testimonies are a sample of the genuine interest our students have in maintaining their culture, native tongue and share it with others. read a book called ‘Hop on Pop’ by Dr Seuss and taught them new prepositions that might be useful when they are told to pack up during lessons. I have also taught them how to say different colours in English such as ‘red’ and ‘orange’.
HINDI: Vaidehi Kothari, 10D “I have really been enjoying spending time with the little ones and especially speaking to them in their home language. It’s amazing to see how some of the students become so much more expressive when they communicate in their home language. I think this service is impacting the Foundation Stage (FS) children to make sure that they don’t lose touch with where they are from – communicating in their home language ensures they are exposed to their unique backgrounds. Personally, I have learned to be more imaginative and creative as I see the youngsters creating their own imaginative stories when they are playing. The FS teacher taught us how little ones copy what they see older students doing, therefore we made sure that we followed the things they do such as following the STOP and GO signs and being good role-models in front of them.”
KOREAN: Jiwon Yoo, 10D “I am a Korean speaker and I am currently teaching two boys called Taemin and Felix from in Foundation Stage. They are both new and cannot speak any English, they have to follow their friends to participate in class. I have talked to them and they told me that they are struggling to understand English and sometimes feel left out because no one can understand them. However, through our sessions, the boys got closer to each other and now they can talk to each other and feel less left out. Additionally, I have also taught them new words in English and Korean. I have
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I think my service is helping the wider community because just by teaching them basic words, they can understand a bit more than before and also help their teachers when they are giving them instructions. The children are feeling comfortable with me as well so they are not shy to talk to me about what they are struggling with, meaning I can help them straight away. I have also found it very interesting that children can learn very fast through playing with each other and just by talking to each other. I’ve been there four times and they remember the things I taught them the previous visit! It is a great pleasure for me to meet them and I would love to help them out as much as I can for them to have a comfortable and fun time in school.” JAPANESE: Ena Hashimoto, 10R “I started this program as my Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award session, however, I am very happy that I joined as it is such a great opportunity for me and most importantly very fun! I think I am very fortunate in being able to participate in this program. My home language is Japanese and I spend time with few Japanese children during lunchtime twice a week. It is very interesting to see how the small children learn quickly through play. For example, I was colouring with one of the girls and I taught her how to say skin colour in Japanese. She quickly learnt this word and used it when we were talking. I was very impressed with her and also surprised at the same time. There is a range in the strength of Foundation Stage children’s home language, but their attitude of wanting to learn is very impressive. I really want to try my best to develop their Japanese as I believe that home language is very important for them. In my opinion, home language is the base for everything when you want to learn a new language. I am very happy to continue participating in this session as long as I can since it is a very good experience for me and also children in Foundation Stage are very
Bangkok Patana School News
02/11/2018