Respect for all: La Réunion

This activity was used with children in key stage 2, years 5 and 6.

Context

This activity was conducted in a mixed primary school in a provincial city with few children from ethnic minorities in the school population. All year 5 and 6 children in this school learn French as part of the school's key stage 2 curriculum.

Aims

• To introduce the geography and way of life of a non-European French-speaking country.
• To investigate other cultures in order to encourage pupils to compare their own experiences and perspectives with those of young people in that country.

Activity objectives

• To find out about a little-known French-speaking country.
• To speak and write in French using that country as a stimulating context.
• To communicate in French while engaged in work covering other curriculum areas.

This activity has specific links to the French scheme of work unit 12 'Un pays francophone'.

The activity also relates to the following units in the French scheme of work:

1. 'Je parle français!'
2. 'Je me présente'
3. 'En famille'
4. 'Mon anniversaire'
5. 'Moi et mon école'
6. 'Les sports'
7. 'Les vêtements'
8. 'J'habite'.

Activity description

The teacher organised an enrichment day using a curriculum pack based on La Réunion, a former French colony in the Indian Ocean with a multi-ethnic population. The pack was developed by a local teacher training college. It includes many photographs of La Réunion, which give a good impression of what the country and its people are like. The photographs include: children in school, at home and playing games; housing; markets; different foods; places of worship; and landscapes. There are also more unusual subjects, such as photos of pirates' and duellists' graves. The pack includes an audio tape of folk music from the country, a video made in a school in La Réunion with pupils speaking in English, and objects including pieces of solidified lava. Large-scale maps of the whole island were available for the children to look at. They could see, for example, how a volcano is represented on a map. The teacher found the photos and the video most useful as they had an immediacy that appealed to the children.

During the enrichment day the materials in the pack were used as the basis for work covering geography, drama and French. The teacher asked the children to imagine they were travelling by plane to an unknown destination in the Indian Ocean. She asked them to suggest what they saw when they landed. Any stereotypical suggestions were compared with the reality of the photographs. The children were struck less by differences than by similarities with their own lives, such as a photo of a boy at home with his computer. They enjoyed re-enacting an imaginary duellists' scene and creating a short play to explain the presence of a pirate's grave on the island.

French language work started with personal information that the children might give when introducing themselves to people in La Réunion. The children took part in a food tasting session with fruits found in La Réunion. For this they learnt French vocabulary for fruits, colours, size and shape. They were asked to guess the colour inside a fruit with an outer peel, such as a passion fruit. They described whether they liked the taste or not. The children also described landscapes and other photos using simple language. They wrote postcards as if to introduce themselves to someone in the school in La Réunion. They stated their opinions in simple terms, saying what they liked or disliked about La Réunion.

Commentary

Through imaginative use of the materials the teacher led the children to explore their preconceptions about other cultures. Their ideas and opinions were challenged by referring to the materials from La Réunion. The teacher also exploited the materials to create more unusual contexts for learning and using French, as well as for work in other curriculum areas.

Resources

The modern foreign languages schemes of work can be found at www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes
The online national curriculum can be found at www.nc.uk.net