Modern Languages
About The Department
The Department has its own suite of rooms, each equipped with listening posts around the walls, TV and video. We also make use of the computer room for power-point lessons and language learning programs. Lessons at all levels are conducted for the most part in the target language, with the emphasis being on the accurate communication of ideas and opinions.
There are four members of the Modern Languages Department, in addition to language assistants in French and Spanish.
Teaching And Learning
All 2nd + 3rd formers study a ‘Core’ Modern Language. This is normally French, but could be Spanish. In addition, those choosing French may choose Spanish as their Option (or Latin or General Studies).
For GCSE, pupils normally continue study of their Core language, with a number choosing to take French and Spanish. French classes are set (normally 3 per year, with 5-18 per set depending on the pupils’ needs)
Both languages are taught on 4 lessons per week, following Encore Tricolore in French (books 2, 3 and 4), Caminos 1, 2+ 3 in Spanish. We follow the OCR GCSE, taking the Coursework option in 5th form.
In the Sixth form, AS French can be studied in 2 columns, Spanish in 1, allowing for languages to be taken with a wide variety of other subjects. We follow Edexcel, where the 3 units are : Listening and Writing, Reading and Writing, and Prepared Oral topic. Pupils have 8 lessons, split between 2 teachers , with an additional ‘conversation’ class per week with the assistant.
French and/or Spanish can be studied in the Upper Sixth to A2 level, where we prepare pupils for practical Interpreting (unit 4), literary texts (unit 5) and the synoptic language paper (unit 6), where listening, reading, writing and translating are all tested. The literary texts studied are Le gone du Chaâba and Un Sac de billes in French, and Requiem por un campesino español and some of Lorca’s plays in Spanish.
Activities
The Department recognises the need to give pupils of languages the opportunity to spend time abroad, and trips to France and Spain are regularly organised eg Easter 2004, a French / Art trip to Paris , Easter 2005 , French trip to Tours and Spanish trip to Andalucia, Easter 2006 French trip to Paris.
All these trips are ‘home-stay’, whereby pupils stay with a French family, either individually or in pairs, thus ensuring that they speak the language as much as possible.
For Easter 2007, we are planning to set up an exchange program with Lycée Louise de Marillac (Paris).
In addition, French films are regularly shown in school, and discussed with the assistante eg Amélie and Les Visiteurs. Sixth formers are encouraged also to read the language magazines in the library (L’Express, Les clés de l’actualité, Cambio 16), and keep abreast of French / Spanish news using the Internet.
What Pupils Say
"There is a trip each year. I've been on 2 now - one to France and one to Spain. They definitely helped for my oral exams."
"It was good to have the chance to practice the Spanish we learn in class with a real Spanish family on the trip"
"Most lessons are done in French or Spanish, which can be hard at first, but within a few lessons you understand most of what is going on."
"For my AS oral topic, I was able to research and talk about a Spanish painter that I'm interested in."
"In the Upper Sixth, I was dreading having to read a novel in French, but the literature has turned out to be the best bit of the course."
"Having one to one lessons in the sixth form with the assistante really helped my spoken French."
James Burnet (Head of Department)
A Yorkshireman at heart, even though he was born in Margate, James was educated at Pocklington School then the University of St Andrews (MA in French and Spanish) and Moray House, Edinburgh (PGCE). He taught for just over three years at Forest School, N.E. London, before moving to the relative calm of Loretto in January 2000. James has spent a lot of time abroad, notably a year as an assistant in La Rochelle, a term in Barcelona, and a year teaching English to Spanish children in Cantabria. Holidays are invariably spent travelling around France or Spain and even his honeymoon was a linguistic exploration of Andalucia! But he is not completely sad – James is a very keen sportsman and is also in charge of Boys; hockey at Loretto and helps out with girls’ hockey and cricket too. He is an active member of Colinton Castle Squash Club.
Monique Galloway
Monique studied French at Edinburgh University, then spent ten years working in various government departments before taking time off to raise her family. It was during this period that she taught French at the local primary school for a year, taught swimming at the school for five years and qualified as a professional translator. More recently her passion for French language, literature and culture led her to Aberdeen University to embark on research leading towards a doctoral thesis; while there she immersed herself fully in undergraduate teaching at all levels and found it to be even more fulfilling than research! Her leisure interests centre on music in general and musical theatre in particular.