New Trends in Education at An-Najah National University

The Art of the Possible

Didactics of French as a foreign language and the CBL

 

Course Title: Didactics of French as a Foreign language (2) 38418

Tharwat Hijjawi

 

Intended Learning Outcomes:

The learner should be able to:
• distinguish between different pedagogical approaches. 
• analyze needs of the community partner and set educational goals in order to produce a suitable pedagogical project
• analyze a French Foreign Language curriculum; various and authentic learning materials that are used in schools (community partners)
• produce supplementary materials / for this real target. 
• develop certain project management  skills
• develop and enhance the spirit of teamwork
• express his/her point of view, argue and justify his/her choices in class and in front of partners of the community (schools)

 

The new Teaching/Learning Methodology used:

Community based learning:

This course was a community based one: students produced pedagogical material in coordination with a local school that teaches French as a foreign language. They will had to visit Ithar school that is considered as our community partner; did an assessment of needs and corresponded to them by producing a pedagogical project:  supplementary pedagogical material to enhance learning of FFL by students.

 

Challenge

Strategy

Level of satisfaction

CBL partners:

Finding a cooperative and motivated community partner was not easy.  It took more time than expected to find the community partner, and coordinate with them.

The expected partners (well known school that teaches French) deceived us. It was even difficult to establish a communication channel with them.

Preparing a list of potential partners.

Contacting these partners one after another.

Looking for the right person who goes for innovation.

Our B plan was to contact some of schools that started recently to teach French. They may show more need than the ones that have been teaching French from a long time.

Once we found them and they agreed, all went well.

They were highly cooperative.

They always satisfied our requirements and curiosity.

 

 

Redefinition of student’s role and his new tasks:

1. Team work
2. Coordination (student-student-  teacher- community partner)
3. Project and time management

-Plans and time schedules were put to every phase of the course project.

-Teams were formed together with the class group.

-Coordinators were chosen by members of each group. -They became responsible of their choice. They had to manage and solve any internal trouble by themselves.

-Each coordinator had to distribute tasks and follow up the accomplishment of  up.

- it’s been the role of learners to prepare all questions  after having done a brain storming with the teacher-guide. The coordinators to come up with one comprehensive form of questions and requirements.

- conducting field visits, interviews, evaluation (of school students), curriculum analysis that took place were included in their tasks. Teacher has been always there for advice, for official arrangements, communication and organizing with the Community Partners.

 

 

They managed successfully to solve any internal trouble and accomplish their work. For a coming project I’d rather make smaller groups if possible.

 

Teacher’s role

Being engaged in this project demands to spend more time and effort to follow up. Work was not limited to class- time. A constant communication channel between learners themselves and between them and their teacher was needed.

-Certain office hours were dedicated to them.

 -A communication tool like Facebook, a group page for the course, allowed students to communicate with their teachers from one side, and have open discussions with colleagues from another side.

Anyone who ever had a question could ask it there. Either s/he got the answer from colleagues or the teacher gave his advice in the evening and/ or early in the morning.

They were accomplished but not according to the time plan. Delay in deliverables

The class was ahead in theoretical modeling due to delay in shifting from plan A to plan B

For example,

Evaluation of the course

The evaluation didn’t depend only on traditional written exams but also on assignments or parts of the final draft of the pedagogical project they produce as supplementary material, on group's work and management of their own project.

-Phases had to be defined clearly for the project.

- Participants of this evaluation had to be defined clearly.

- Grid of evaluation was prepared and shown to students to be aware of what is required from them.

 

The output needed is a supplementary material for the 5^th grade learning French Language at Ithar School in Nablus. The output expected was a little bit ambitious relatively to time. A period of editing was needed before submitting the final copy to our partners. All groups produced what was expected from them (material for a whole unit). Making a solid and coherent book needed some extra editing.

Thus, the evaluation part concerning the community partner was cancelled.

Added value

Students acquired competencies other than the theoretical ones: competencies such like team work, time and project management, commitment to strict deadlines, some public relations skills, an analytical reflection….etc. 

They could have some practical experience in knowing how things go in schools, had a deep idea of curricula used to learn French, and mostly could produce learning material according to learning objectives and needs.

A good professional relationship has been created with the community partner that forms a future field for our graduated students.

 

Conclusion (Effectiveness and efficiency)

 

Concerning the learner:

Being a future teacher of French language, the student could play the role of the teacher, the author and the student at a time. s/he could have a global vision of his future career and thus estimates what demands such a profession.

Concerning the teacher:

I discovered that as much as we trust students and we let them be responsible of certain choices of their learning as much as they prove to be responsible and productive.

I proved to myself and to others including students that choosing the “safest method of learning isn’t always the most efficient way to achieve ILOS.

Concerning the community:

This course produced a useful pedagogical outcome that is precious not only to our partners that trusted us and believed in our students, but also to those who didn’t even listen to us.

 

 

 

عنوان المؤتمر

New Trends of Education: the art of the possible

دولة المؤتمر

فلسطين

تاريخ المؤتمر

13 يوليو، 2015 - 13 يوليو، 2015

راعي المؤتمر

An Najah National University