My plans for the coming months

All my assignments this year have been handed in and I only have to go into uni for a few more things before my five week placement in June. This leaves me with a lot of spare time until then!

In this time I've organised to go back home to do a weeks work experience at one of my local primary schools. This I feel is important as as good as my seminars at university are, I still feel the best way in learning how to be a good teacher is by getting stuck in and gaining experience in schools. 

I have also signed up for a TESOL (teachers of English to speakers of other languages) course which should help with my communication with EAL children. 

I am also looking at improving my own subject knowledge, currently, I am reading about ancient Egypt.

Should languages be taught in primary school?

I was never taught languages at primary and I have bad memories of learning French and German in my time at secondary. I've had two language seminars now and found myself wondering if having languages in the curriculum is worth while. Don't get me wrong these seminars have been fun and they have given me some good teaching ideas but should it be in the curriculum?

My opinion is that to learn a language you need to be motivated and willing to put in a lot of time. If not enough time is being put in then you will fail in learning and there is not enough time in the primary school day to do languages daily (which I think is needed to properly learn a language). If it is not being taught enough then it will be forgotten. I can't remember any French and German and I now feel it was it was a waste of my time in learning. If the language you're learning is not going to be used then is it worth learning anyway?

For this reason I feel it should be optional like an after school club so the children that want to learn a language and are willing to put in the time then they can. I understand that to learn a language it is going to be much easier to start at a young age but if it is not being taught enough and the children don't see the benefit of learning then surely it's a waste of time? 

First music seminar

 

Today I kicked off the new term by handing in my last assignment for the year and by having my first music seminar. Before today I was never much of a fan of music lessons with my experiences of them being dull, purposeless and chaotic. However, after this seminar I have now changed my opinion on this. 

We started the lesson with various musical instruments in the centre of the room with us students sat around. A modern piece of music was played and we had to join in with the track. 

Another game involves the teacher hiding an object in the room from one child and the rest of the class have to make noise with the instruments in a kind of hot or cold kind of game. 

My group invented a game named "mystory 3" where one child is blindfolded and 3 children have to play their instrument all at the same time. The blindfolded child then has to work out which three instruments were played. 

Turns out music lessons don't have to be boring!