Thank you everyone for being here today.
Day three is about one reliable method to set up your language goals.
This is one that I particularly like for a lot of reasons, which I’m sure I’ll be talking a little bit more
about but essentially I do not see the point of having a huge enthusiasm, the learning of foreign
language, regardless of the level that you want to be at.
To then learn all about great strategies to get yourself going to then not have a plan.
About where you actually want to go.
On day one, we looked at two really important strategies to help you kickstart your brain into either
learning French or improving your French skills by, you know, adapting better strategies on Day 2.
We went a little bit further on talking about resources and the whole blended learning.
I was gonna say attitude. It’s not an attitude, it’s a methodology to help you that a little bit.
Further, so today it’s all about setting language goals and I’m going to talk a little bit about my
background again, because to me it is so relevant to most of the content in this master class.
So as you know, when I started, I didn’t have the experience. I didn’t have the knowledge so.
So quite frankly, I went out there. I bought books, you know, whatever books the BBC was coming
out with or I went into charity shops.
So for those of you who live in the UK, you’ll know exactly what I mean. They are full of books that
people are getting rid of. So that was my Saturday afternoon leisurely activity and.
Everything or anything that I could find. Any methodology, any book, any grammar book. I would just
buy it.
And the truth is that when you follow a traditional French course or a textbook course, you are
following someone else’s curriculum.
And it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It’s normally full of brilliant content.
But it’s not identifying your goals. What you need and what.
You want to learn.
So it is OK to kind of go there. We’re going to do that. But actually, when you go over.
All these resources when you revise what you’ve learned.
You then have another job.
Of picking out what’s important to you.
If you never want to.
Buy a property in France.
Learning all the bits around the dining room.
May not be particularly interesting or relevant, so the idea with today’s master class is that you want
to decide what you want to focus on in terms of what you.
Want to learn
And more broadly.
The knowledge that you want to have acquired by the time you may decide to stop learning French
and just practise it regularly or live on what you’ve got, we all know that. You know, learning a foreign
language, the journey and here at the Academy we really, really.
Want to instill in our
Learners that it is all about the journey.
If you want that journey, however, to be enjoyable and enriching and rewarding.
You need to know where you’re going.
Whether you’ve decided to start next month. And you give yourself 1,2,3,10 years to learn a
language.
Or whether you’ve decided that it’s just simply going to be part of your lifestyle, so it’s something.
That you might do forever.
Regardless, you need to understand where you’re going. You need some.
Sort of road Map. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that you will be discouraged at some point you know.
Let’s face it, I would be lying if I was saying to you that learning a foreign language is always, you
know, kind of flawless and easy, because it isn’t.
Sometimes you do very well, sometimes you plateau. Sometimes you feel that you’re not really
improving. It’s just part of the process.
But when you have an angle or or when you have a journey in mind, or when you have a road map of
where you’re going.
Then even when he gets a little challenging it’s still worth it cause you know where you’re going now,
I did warn you on day one that I love analogies.
So there is one for you and I see Laura smiling cause I use that one a lot cause my favourite so, I love
hiking in the mountains. So I come from Jura. So kind of low to medium mountains. I love skiing. I
love when I’m in Jura.I go, I do what I’ve got Nordic walking. I’m gonna go in the Alps. I just go and
walk in the mountains with my Labrador for hours.
The thing is this: When I take on a path and I am going, you know, at the top of a skiing piste. So it’s
really quite steep in the summer, it’s enjoyable. It is something that I want to do. I know that it’s
going to get hard at some point, but I know when I get to the top I feel really good. Whilst I’m
walking up, sometimes I’m finding it really quite challenging and I get really tired and I really need to
push through not to give up sometimes I think it’s quite a leisurely walk. There’s a bit of a flat bit and
it is quite nice. It’s a bit of a breeze and it’s all really lovely.
Sometimes this happened to me last time I went hiking in the Alps. I ended up in a big field with lots
of wild cows and you know I was a bit like, oh, are they friendly, are they not? You know, come my
Labrador, go and chat to them and play with them. Or are they gonna be a little bit aggressive, I
wasn’t really sure. If I had known where I was going on that mountain I would have probably gone
back down. I probably would not have risked going through the entire herd. But I knew where I was
going cause there was a clear path and it was also indicated where I needed to go, so I knew it was
safe because there was no way they would let people cross this farm if this wasn’t safe. Where, you
know, a lot of people go there, a lot of tourist.And then I got to the top and then I had a little rest.
And then I felt really happy with myself. And then I felt, oh, there’s another part there. So shall I just
go home for today, or can I push for another hour or so?
The reason why I’m telling you all of this is to me, me going up my mountain is a little bit like you
learning or improving your French. You know, this is something that you want to do. You know that
sometimes it’s going to be really entertaining and it’s going to be fairly easy. And you’re gonna
breathe through. Sometimes it’s going to be really challenging and you’re going to really doubt your
ability to either learn the language or go to the next level or even be bilingual one day. Sometimes
some unexpected things are going to cross your path.
And then at some point you would have reached a level where you’re going to think “Alright. Is this
good for me?”, you know? “Shall I go a little further or not?”, this is exactly like learning a foreign
language. But the truth is that it is super enjoyable, and you want to be there, no one forces me to
climb up the back mountain with my dog you know, this is something that I really love doing. I find it
relaxing. It’s good for my health. It pushes some of my boundaries. I probably wouldn’t do it every
day, I probably wouldn’t. That wouldn’t be my work, but as a serious hobby is something that I
absolutely adore doing and I recognise a lot of our learners at the Academy in this. That’s why I
always use this analogy.
So with this in mind, Laura and I today really want to help work through those language.
So there are three pillars that you really need to look at. The first one is looking at the different
levels. Let me let me share my screen. So I think Laura wants to share a document. Is that is that OK?
Laura, has that allowed you to yeah.
OK. So number one, let me give you the three pillars and then.
We’ll work through them so number one is looking at the different levels of proficiency when you are
learning a foreign language #2 within those levels is to look at the skills that you want to acquire,
communicate skills, and we’ll look at those later. And #3 is to have that road map that I like to talk
about. 1,2,3 level Skills road map. So if we look at the level language schools across the world, we’ll
have maybe a slightly different opinion on this. But as far as we are concerned, the common
European framework of reference for languages is our Bible. It’s an extremely thorough scheme of
work, so we can look at all the different skills that language learners need to have acquired in order
to be proficient in that language. I think that the different communicating skills and the and the
different steps are very well worked on and structured and outlined. So this is what we will be
working on. So you basically have three different levels, ABC very simple A1 and A2 where you are a
basic user B1 and B2 when you become an independent learner and C1 and C2, this is when you are
reaching fluency. Can I ask you now, Laura, to show us the slightly more detailed version of the CEFR,
please?
Absolutely. So we have received a document from Natalie yesterday by e-mail, which is a very, very
complete guide to this where we have all of the different levels. So A1A2, etcetera, all broken down
into a lot, so broken down into lots and lots of different things that you can really look at what we’re
going to show you today. That’s just kind of the global idea of the levels you can get more of an idea
of what it is.
So if we have a look, so we have the different levels going from A1A2 which are considered basic
levels B1B2 which is where you are more independent and then C1C2 where you are becoming more
proficient to know that C2 is more effective of native speaker ability, which means that C2 is an
extremely good level. Not everybody will get to a C2 level and it’s not necessarily the goal of
everyone to get to the C2 level as well. If your goal really is to get to being a very independent user
where you can get by in lots of situations in French, then a B2 is going to be the kind of area that
you’re looking at C1C2 is very much when you’re working in technical domains in English or in the
language that will be French for you and very, very specific specialised language often. Remember as
a native speaker as well you don’t necessarily know every single word in the language sometimes
when we go to technical domains. We don’t know what you know. You don’t know certain words as
well, you don’t know certain expressions, so we have to remember what we’re looking at there so
the goal firstly is never 100% a 100% doesn’t exist. That’s not something that we can achieve for
language.So let’s have a look then at the different steps. Let’s start to begin with with the basic A1
A2. So as you can see A1 is very much with the breakthrough stage. This is kind of where a lot of
people coming to us they say I’ve done a lot of, maybe a lot of time on the apps, things like that. A1
stage is very simple. You can understand very simple expressions, you can give very simple
expressions. For example, you can go into a cafe in France and you can ask your coffee and you can
do the very routine Thank you merci like that If the server tries to speak to you a little bit more detail
about something else maybe you’re not going to understand, so A1 it’s very much using very basic
interaction. This is kind of where you really can go and you can do very routine tasks. You’ve
practised a lot, but you can’t necessarily speak very much spontaneity. Or you can read very basic
sentences. For example, maybe you can manage dispatch read at a train timetable, things where it’s
very where you can really imagine what it’s going to say. So we can really predict whether the kind of
language is going to hop. So A1 is very not basic. You know, just kind of very simple getting by a two
suddenly is where you can actually start to really string your sentences together.So you’re going to be
able to actually have a little bit more of an interaction, for example with your waiter when you arrive
in the cafe, however, again, it’s going to remain very basic, it’s going to stay around topics that you
are familiar with so very much interactions, things that you can do yourself, things that you can
already predict how the interaction is going to go very routine sequences for example you could
explain a little about yourself, you can do a basic presentation, but again soon as the the then the
interaction goes a little bit off your of your script of what you thought was gonna happen. Maybe you
get a little bit stuck, you are very good at the spontaneity at this point so A1 A2 really are kind of the
basics if your goal is just to be able to go on holiday and order in a restaurant and be able to do the
very basic functional interactions A2 is kind of where you’re going to be. The jump between A2 and
B1 is where things get a little bit bigger.
B1 we’re really starting to get a lot more spontaneity and you’re going to be able to have a lot more
wider vocabulary. This means you’re going to be able to understand a lot more different texts and a
lot more different conversations. So for example we have produced texts which are topics of their
interests. So for example, you could read or you can write texts that are about your hobbies, about
things that are talking to you, maybe about your work. Here is also where we can start to really give
insight as to what we’re thinking. So talking about our opinions, our beliefs, things like that. So B1 is
really where we’re beginning to be able to express ourselves and show our personality a little bit
more really is where we can start to actually become who we are and show who we are in the
language afterwards B1 and then leave it to B2. This really is the level where you are very proficient,
a very intermediate user, meaning that you are able to cope with everyday situations. You can
understand the news when you read it, you can understand different magazines or YouTube videos or
things that are of interest to you, you fully understand TV shows if maybe you need subtitles you
might need to look up every now and then a word. B2 is a very good leve if you would like to go and
study for if, maybe not quite for you, but if someone wants to go and study in another country,
usually they ask for a very sort the top level B2 is where you need to be. So at this point you can get
by in a foreign country. You can talk about things that are of interest to you. You can be a lot more
varied iIn your sentence structure, and you can really get by, as I said, B2 is kind of the level where a
lot of people will be expecting to or other people want to get because it means that you can be
independent in your language skills. You can cope with situations that maybe you weren’t necessarily
prepared for. So for example, if you have the, if your car breaks down and you need to call somebody,
or if you have to make a doctor’s appointment, you might expect something like once we pass the B2
level and we get to C1 C2 this is very, very good, good high level. This means that you are very, very
proficient user. It means that you are able to cope with technical situations as well. As an example
you have to cope with academic studies and the language you’ll be able to cope with business
studies in the language or working in a company or something like that. So once we get to the C1, it’s
very very much not exactly native, perhaps there will still be a few little, so if it’s not very native like
expressions in the language or terms of phrases, however, you are going to be at a very, very good
level. So between B2 and C1 I just want to stress that it’s quite a difference between the two and it’s
not necessarily in.everyone’s objectives to get to a C1, and that’s OK because you can do very, very
well in the language without being at C1 level. So this is kind of where I really suggest you take time
to look at the common European framework reference as well and really see if there are any of the
skills which nationals come to in a minute of that level that you want to get to once we get to see
two, this is this is quite rare, I would say in foreign language acquisition. If you are learning from an
adult stage, C2 means that you are effectively at a need to speak like oh, you can understand things
just as well as the need to speak up just about and you can do everything that you would like to do in
language. Obviously there’s that we’re always always learning more. So I don’t really think of C2 as
like 100% as I said because that isn’t something that is realistic for languages because we’re always
adding more and more, but these are kind of the guidelines, the stages that we can go through when
we’re looking at our language development. So as I said it is also really important to think about
where you want to be as well as where you are now, leave it that can actually to to go through a bit
more.
Thank you very much, Laura. So I’m not particularly efficient with zoom, so I think that if I do that
you’ll be able to share another document there with me, which would be here. Can anyone can
everyone see this?
OK, so I really want to touch up on what Laura said. Breaching a C1 or C2 level, whilst it is incredible,
and if that’s really what you want, I will 100% encourage you to do it, don’t think that this is the be all
and handle OK. It is an extremely challenging result to achieve and it’s not always necessary. OK, we
have trained some of our students at that level. I’m thinking of a gentleman in particular who was
Irish, lived here in the UK and worked in the Pharmaceutical industry. He was the European head of
supply chain and he was getting a job in Paris. He needed to have at least a C1 level and that included
an awful lot of technical stuff, which was obviously down to the industry that it was in, but what I
want to say is that.
If you are looking to get by and feel comfortable in your skin when you are speaking French, knowing
that you’re not completely proficient, knowing that you’re not completely independent, but actually
there isn’t anywhere in an everyday situation that where you can be without pulling something out
of the hat if something is to happen to you, that would be a level 80 for example. Of course, if you
want to work in a French company, as as Laura said, if you wanna apply for university then you need
to look at more of a B1 B2. Most European countries used to ask for B2 level to take the nationality
test. It’s gone down to B1 now for most of them. And I would say that the main difference between
B1 and B2 is one is more technical so B1 means that you master all the different tenses and all the
grammar very well. B2 means that you understand it can utilise it, but in a more complex way you are
able to make sentences which are not only correct grammatically, and all your verbs are spot on. But
you are expressing yourself with a lot with a, with a huge variety of sentence structure and
vocabulary, that’s the difference between the two so it would be really interesting for you to take a
moment and for now, because it can change, decide the ideal level that you would like to reach as
you either embark on your French language journey or continue along that journey.
So the next thing that we want to talk to you about are the skills that you need to acquire within
those level. So when you look at learning a foreign language, we like to focus on five different skills.
Spoken production and spoken interaction. I’d very much like to emphasise on the last two because
as a general rule, most traditional courses you hear that it’s about speaking well. There’s a real
difference between spoken production and spoken interaction when you have to speak to someone
and explain something in a casual conversation or because you need help or advice.This is spoken
production.
How well can you express yourself when you start to interact with someone and have a two or three
or 10 way conversation?
This is spoken interaction, and obviously that requires slightly different skills. OK, so another thing
that I would really like you to think about is say, OK, so listening, reading, writing, spoken,
production, spoken interaction. Which skill would I ideally lLike to focus on because you know, when
you learn a foreign language, all the skills are going to be involved all of them but you can decide to
focus on certain skills if you want to narrow your studies. So you could say well, I tell you what,
communication oral communication for me is going to be a huge factor. So I may just focus on
listening, spoken production, spoken interaction, you may think, well, actually you know, I’ve been
practising French for a while. I go to France all the time I live in France, for me, this is kind of OK. I
want to take an exam, so I’m going to have to focus on the reading and writing skills.
This guys is going to be really quite important when you decide to set up your language skills. The
more focused you are on the skills that you want to focus on, the more you’re going to progress
because let me tell you once you’ve started to be comfortable with certain skills the other ones will
kind of flow in naturally. This can sound a little bit you know of a of a simplified version, but I can
guarantee that once you focus on certain skill suit, for example, you knew yesterday some of you
asked questions about bilingual children. Bilingual children will acquire all these skills naturally apart
from one writing writing. They will need to learn but the truth is that it will be much easier for them
to learn it than other children who have not been exposed to the language reading, isn’t it quite
magical that that comes naturally to them sometimes they may stumble across a few words because
the pronunciation might be a little complex, but generally that comes naturally to them, so do you
try and focus on the skills that you think are gonna be most useful to you to start with, and that will
definitely motivate you to imagine the the, the scenarios, the situation that you are going to be in
when you next speak French and decide the skills that are important to you.
The reason why this booklet that we’ve shared with you is like a little Bible. It’s our little Bible. Now,
this is not something that you have to learn by heart. This is not something that you have to use
every day but ideally I’d love for this to be your companion, your learning companion then,
throughout your French cities, it is something that you should always have with you is something
that you can always go back to
It’s something that is really going to help you to structure your learning and motivate you as well
because you can put a name on what you’ve achieved and just a quick word as well before I’ll show
you the booklet and explaining to you and ask you do a little bit of work on it in my opinion and in all
my years of of of more my 20 years of teaching French. What I have found is that people stop
learning when they don’t feel they are progressing or they’re not sure where they’re going. They may
start to feel a little bit more comfortable with the language, but they’re not really sure where they’re
at, where they’re going. And I think that’s why going back to a little booklet like that, which I think is
quite easy to use, can make a real difference.It’s important for you. Remember we we keep talking
about it. It is a journey. Ideally you want to adopt learning French and speaking French as something
that will be just be part of your life style to going back to something and kind of checking regularly is
going to make a difference for you. So when you look at this booklet, it will go towards each skill. So
for example here we have listening and then we have the different levels that Laura talked about
earlier, A1 level, A2 level, so listening basic level A1 entry level. I can understand basic greetings and
use phrases such as hello, good morning. Excuse me. Sorry and thank you. Are you working towards
it? Have you achieved it now?
When you feel that perhaps you’ve achieved all of that, lots of little ticks in the boxes, you can go.
OK, so where is my next step? I can understand simple phrases, questions and information relating to
basic personal needs such as shopping, eating out, going to doctors. What’s great about this little
booklet is that it can not only motivate you to tick the boxes and tell yourself that you’ve done it, but
it also clearly shows you where your next step should be, and that’s the bit that’s important when
you learn a foreign language. It is rather disheartening to keep learning without really understanding
where you’re at.
So that will help you but you may also not be really sure what the next step should be and that will
help you, because professionals are telling you you don’t have to second guess that professionals are
telling you that if you can now do I can understand short simple instructions and directions given in
classless speech. You know that the next step is I can understand basic information about people,
their family, homework and hobbies. Great. Let me work on this. That is why, to me, this little booklet
should truly be your learning companion. We also use it a lot with people who are fairly proficient in
French, they come to us and say I think I know a lot, but I need you to help me analyse what I know
and where I should go. That’s our first port of call for our little booklet. You see? So here we’re in the
listening and then you go to B1B2. So if you read the booklet, you’ll see how you’re going upper level,
upper level, upper level, small steps, but ideal to show you the progression that you should work
towards and by the way guys, it doesn’t mean that you. have to do all of them. OK, if it says for
example when you get to like B1B2 level in things such as proper spoken production, it will say things
like you should be able to do an entire presentation in French to an audience at work in a topic that’s
kind of related to your industry, you may look at that and go Idon’t want to work with friends, this is
not for me, great. You can use it or interpret it in a different way it could be about describing what
your work was like it could be describing what your holidays have been. You know it it. It doesn’t
have to be professional. What that booklet is showing you is the situation in which you will be and
the skills that you will need to have acquired. So all of it is a description of every single skill, so the
five skills that we’ve spoken about and all the different levels. What I would love for you to do now is
do your own personal homework on it and first of all, would you be keen to share what skills you
would ideally like to focus on reading, writing, listening, spoken production or interaction.Whether
you are experienced at learning and speaking French or you are very new to it. Do you have skills that
you feel will be more useful to you in the short term, to start with just checking them.
Anyone wants to share?
Lynn wants to take an exam. Am I right, Lynn? To think that you wanna obtain the French nationality,
is that right? Yeah. OK, so indeed in order to do the test then there are certain skills that you need to
work on which could be completely different to someone who just wants to go out and live in France
without taking the exam. So for that you need two things. You need to use the booklet, but also you
need to look at the exam requirements. I don’t think it is that complicated, but you do need a solid
B1. We have a student who’s just done it and she said that it was much easier than she expected it to
be in most skills in most skills, but she said that the fact that it was easier than she thought it was
going to be kind of through her a little bit she pushed herself to a B2 she’s been studying here really
hard and then thought. Ohh it’s easier and I thought. But yeah B1 a good B1 level. No, it’s definitely
not so bad. So Usha, I love it. So you wanna reach B2 and so spoken production and interaction are
right for you. I would definitely having spoken to you personally, I would definitely agree on that. You
know you want to interact with your son’s family, with your being able to understand your
granddaughter because she’ll be brought to bilingually spoken production and interaction are
absolutely gonna be key for you and absolutely amazing if you wanna reach a B2 level because that is
some level. So well done. So Lynn, you said look at your booklet, I feel I’m a low level B1, OK. This is
something that I was going to cover later but whilst we’re on that topic, let’s talk about it now. Lynn,
have you ever actually done a formal test to find out what I think you should? We can actually help
you with that. We’ve run online tests that our students can do so we do two things. We do
consultations and informal learning assessments with our students where we use this booklet. So it’s
a guide of where we feel there may be, but then we put them through an online test which lasts
about 25 minutes and you answer a series of questions, and then it tells you exactly at the end where
you’re at and it’s really, really quite good as well. We don’t, we don’t mark that test by the way we
want it to be impartial so it’s done by a company in France, we partner with. You might want to, you
might want to do that. You might want to do that.
The Chloe test? Yeah, we know the Chloe test. We do CPF as well.
Let us know what you let us know what you get with the Chloe test, but it will be really interesting.
Take the result limb with a little bit of a pinch of salt this is the Chloe test or the pipelet test which we
use are all an indication of your overall language skills the test for French nationality is slightly, and
that’s why I think that when you are working towards an exam, you should work with someone who
knows that exam.
Doing the level test and doing the analysis and looking at the booklet should be the groundwork, and
then the programme that you do should be based on what the exam requirements actually are,
because as we all know, there’s a huge difference between speaking a foreign language and actually
passing a language exam. So she said. I’m so pleased I’m not doing this for test examination. I really
want to have fun. Yeah, absolutely. You know absolutely. And so for you, you see that’s the thing that
that’s a really good point cause today we’re talking about language goals and for you Usha, it’s like
there’s no pressure you do what you want, how you want it. But the reason why I think what we’ve
spoken about today will be relevant to you is just so you keep on track because when there isn’t, I
mean you have a great reason with your granddaughter for for wanting to do it but a lot of people,
when there isn’t, you know, a huge carrot at the end or something. They absolutely have to do such
as lean and French nationality. You know, there’s no two ways around it. You want French nationality,
you have to take the exam As for you Sir, like you could just have six months of lesson and go well,
you know, I know enough for my pushing. You know, the pushchair. I’ll be OK. And that’s why I think
that all we spoken about today is great because it should be a really good motivating factor for you.
So what I see I wanted to show you. Let me show you this as well, let’s see here. See, this is one of
our customers language programme. So once we once she’s hired some of our students, have a
one-on-one consultation when we do an informal but thorough analysis with one of our language
coaches to figure out where this person is, where this person wants to go, and then we give really
good guidance on what should happen in the language programme. Other students decide. On top of
that to have an online a slightly more formal assessment. Then we put a language programme
together such as this one and that’s what I mean by road map. And this happens whether people
learn with us in groups or one-on-one.
So once all of this has been analysed, you can decide on the linguistic objective of the student. OK, so
you. See this lady, she wants to focus on listening skills, reading skills, spoken production.
Here it’s a lovely lady called Liz. She has had a counters with the French language before. Several
times she I think she did a course years and years ago. She’s gone to France a little bit. She learned a
little bit at school, but now she’s decided that this is something that she’s really going to do. So we’ve
done a consultation with her. We didn’t feel that she needed to do the task because her knowledge
was too basic and so we looked at the booklet and worked on this and asked her the skills she
wanted to work on then we put that language programme together. So this is again something that
we do with students, whether they learn one to one or groups. So as you can see, she talked about
listening, reading, spoken production and writing skills you will note that there’s no spoken
interaction here. That’s because she said I’m not really going to and like this is a six month
programme and she said for the next six months, you know, I’m not really going to be interacting
with anyone. I really want you to give me a solid grounding on all the other skills. So we’ve listed the
things that we believe she should focus on now per skill. Give examples. OK, then we look at the
topics that we are going to cover with her and then how we are going to formally largely informally
assess her throughout the next six months. That’s what our little VICI road map looks like. Yours
could be different. It depends how you like to work, but this is how we organise the programmes for
our students. What’s great about this is, you know, what you’re going to learn you know the topic
that we’re going to cover, but it isn’t a really heavy and detailed document that you’re likely to ever
read or where you get a little lost. It’s condensed, it’s compact, but it’s got all the right information so
you know exactly where you are going and what you’ll be studying in the next six months.
Does that make sense?
What I wanted to say is on Sunday, which I believe is I’m just checking day 7. Sunday is going to be
very much a session based on what we call the customised learning assessment. So we are basically
going to have a hot seat you are very welcome to join us and lie. Tell us where you are, where you
want to be, and we’ll just talk about you. You won’t leave for 5-10 minutes depending on how many
people are asking, and you’ll be on the hot seat, and we will try as much as we can in the short space
of time we have to tell you exactly what you should focus on to tell you, you know, we’ll go back to
everything that we will have covered this week, the personality and colour, the type of learner that
you are.
Everything OK? All the different resources that you need to put in your bland and then we will look at
examples of language programmes like that. So this is happening on Sunday. By the way, which gives
you actually Wednesday today’s next, which gives you time to go over that little booklet you could
have very general questions such as I’m here. I want to go there. Or do you think I should do or you
should say I decided that I want to focus on that area. What resources do you think I should use? I
am this type of learner?What do you think I should do? What resources should I use? Does that
make sense? And do you have any questions on the three pillars, IE the levels, the skills within those
levels and the road map? I’m just checking on questions.
As I said, I think it’s important to stress what Natalie and I have said that again, the goal isn’t to get to
100% of language. It isn’t to get necessary to see two level so I see that both Lynn and usually have
really thought already about what you would like to achieve, obviously lines were different. We
should have the exam and you should like what am I pronouncing your name right?
Yes, you should get excellent. You should.
Well, Sir, I see you’ve said a long time you want to get to the two level, which is great.
Like, really ambitious. I love it. But I think it’s important to always while you have the idea of what
you want to get to, it’s very important to be looking at the booklet and thinking about what you need
to do next as well. So rather than, you know it’s good to have some high I Love, I’m a very visual
learner so I have my booklet. I’m using the Spanish one as well, so I highlight really where I am at the
moment you know, then I go through I highlight where I want to be. But in between that it’s very
important to know the next steps to take and to not you know otherwise you get a little bit
overwhelmed it can be a lot, so it’s really important to sort of look at the specific steps that you need
to be taking next whether that’s with guidance from an expert such as us or on your own, but yeah,
just to make sure that do you know, like Nancy said, with her mountain, you don’t just see the top of
the mountain. You need to know which path you’re gonna take before you get there as well.
So just to be aware of that to make sure, you really are looking in the detail as well, and I love that
Lynn says that UshA, you’re just reminded, Lynn, that she’ll potentially have to speak to
grandchildren as the one I hope you do.
Yeah, that’s very true. Excellent. Ohh, timeline of that tenses.
Do you mean in terms of when you use?
What terms and when?
Yeah, for my students, I find that they react really well when they can visualise it on a timeline.
Now the past, the future and the tense is being used with the little lines and the things for
continuous etcetera. I have searched high and low for one in French and I cannot find one and I need
one.
Well, let me I don’t have one myself. Definitely something we can.
Isn’t that interesting? Not being a visual learner, that doesn’t speak to me very well.
Love the idea. OK. And but I know exactly what you mean, cause I remember learning English at
school and the teacher was using one. If I’ll, I’ll ask the team we’ve got, I’ve got tonnes of French
resources everywhere, but I’ll ask the team and I just want to say that what Laura said is really great.
It’s amazing to set yourself a high target. What’s also brilliant is to have steps and tick and say I’ve
achieved this. I’ve achieved this, I’ve achieved that not only you know where you’re going, but it
keeps you motivated as well and you need to celebrate, by the way, is you allowed to go to a French
restaurant and have an expensive bit of red wine or any other wine.
Every time that you reach that step, but I just to me, those 3 pillars like level skills and road map are
really crucial to help you navigate around your French learning without getting lost, because if you
get lost, undoubtedly you lose the motivation I’ll tell you what I I wanted. I’m just checking the time,
if that’s OK with you, I’ll let you have a little chat and I’m going to see if my colleague Cecile is
available to have a chat with you because I was chatting to her about our session today. She said
something that I thought was hugely relevant about her past experience of working in a different
company where it was very much about the entertainment element of learning the foreign language
and how she felt things were different when she came here and we still wanted our students to have
a great time, but we put real structure into their learning she said to me, if you’ve got a few minutes
left, I’d love to come and chat to your participant about it. So what I’m going to do, if that’s OK, I’m
going to stop the shares. You should all see each other and I’m just going to go and see if she’s
available for a minute. Bear with me.
I want to introduce you to Cecile. Cecile’s, one of our French coaches. So I’ve just told our lovely
participants to today’s French master class. We talked about, as you know, you know levels and and
skills and road maps and we showed language programmes and we showed the booklet to the
European framework for languages and I said that I mentioned to you yesterday, what we were
gonna talk about and you came up with this great idea of the difference between the comedy you
worked out before, where it was all about the entertainment element of learning the foreign
language and then you came here, where we still want people to have a great time, but we’re pretty
kind of needs to be structured needs to be like that, need to understand this data and I said that you
had like great insights on this, which I felt would be really useful to share.
Hello. My name is Cecile. I have lived in the UK for quite some time and now I will sell the exact
number and I was this ready to become a teacher, when I was very young. And therefore, when the
business route I had a career stopped my career to have my son and eventually always the
background was always teaching languages. So I worked and experienced various settings as well as
various methods. In other words, I’ve worked in schools, I’ve had a licence of of a very formatted
methodology and you know all methods are always approaches to language and teaching and
journeys. Had they pose an account. But what I love Vicki, is that we do structure. Yeah. Fun
structure. Yeah. Spontaneity. It’s all about creativity and also it’s an exchange. Languages are about
exchanging, so it has got to work for the person receiving that information and and the teacher. So
this is where I think the key allows us to be. You know, use a very elaborate way of teaching
languages which the European framework does, and it gives us great landmarks, but we can also, you
know, have great fun and also the other thing that I particularly like is the fact that we can tailor our
programmes to suit each of our learners and the way they learn their learning style and this is very
new because normally you know you have a methodology and that methodology is just applied like a
blanket whereas here we use some methodology but we also take into consideration who it is we are
teaching and how they like to learn best. And I can’t express it. I just love it so much because because
it is the only way really to learn and have experience. The other methodologies, I mean a very strict
rigid structure tends to end up in. Yeah. So following a like a curriculum as in the school can be great,
but eventually it might be too rigid and lead to demotivation and equally having a lot of fun or being
less structured means that at some point you might not feel that you’re progressing and therefore
we have to have a bit of both in order to to be successful and in my opinion this is where which is so
successful at supporting our clients language journeys and and yes I think that’s about it.
Thank you. Thank you. I think it it really sums it up, you know. There are loads of methodologies out
there, and people who pretend to have found the magic pill for you to learn a foreign language are
liars for one of a better word. However, there is a way of looking at, you know, this student as a
whole, and we talk about being student centred and that’s why, you know you talked about looking
at, you know, the personalization of the programme, that was a huge part of what we covered in day
one and day two and obviously today we talked about the entire path to make sure that what you do
is motivating is structured, is planned, that you don’t lose your way whilst learning and so you are
always engaged with you know the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, but also you’re
engaged. But you’re also very satisfied about where you are because you feel you’re making
progress.
Thank you, Cecile. OK.
Thanks, Lynn. That’s very kind of you. It is spot on one o’clock here in the UK, so that is the end of
day three. Master class happy to stay a little bit longer if you have any questions at all. All good.?
OK. Well, we will see you tomorrow and tomorrow I will be presenting with my colleague Lana.
Tomorrow. It will be about ways of living the language.
So I very much look forward to seeing you then and thank you for being here today, merci.
Thank you. This is very interesting. Thank you.
You’re very welcome.