“Our rich multicultural nation maintains a frustratingly monolingual mindset”, begins a recent scholarly article. It is a reality with which teachers of mandatory high school language courses are all too familiar. Rachel Moore, my guest blogger, is a Year 7 French language teacher at Nepean Christian School. In this post she shares her approach to unlocking the hearts and minds of her students to understand the value of language learning. Rachel writes:
"Although there is a wonderful sense of achievement in finishing their first year of French, the majority of my students concede that learning a new language is harder than they thought. By mid-year they realise real effort is required to learn a language and that they are not going to be fluent by the end of the year! Some students question why they need to learn any other language, let alone French, which to them may seem irrelevant. To address these challenges, I attempt to engage all my students, regardless of their ability or interest, with this question: Can you walk the walk and talk the talk for Jesus in your French studies? We begin with a Biblical overview: His-story of languages and hospitality. Then I issue a Heart Challenge for the year, for my students to consider how they will respond to Jesus’s call to put a change of heart into a change of actions. At the end of the year, after assessments are concluded, I revisit the challenge by placing a heart on the front of their exam papers before handing them back. Intrigued as to why, one student this year asked: “Do you love us, Miss?” Assuring them that I did, I responded with another question: “No matter how you did in the exam, how has your heart grown over the year?” Guided by a series of questions, the students participated in a reflection on their language learning experience. We concluded by reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 together, replacing phrases like, “speaking in different kinds of languages”, with “perfectly fluent French”. “I may speak in {perfectly fluent French}. But if I don’t have love, I am only a noisy bell or ringing symbol.” I Cor 13:1 (ERV) I asked students to honestly reflect on a final question: “After a year of learning French, what is the most important way that you have changed? Head knowledge, heart knowledge or both?” Here are some of their candid responses:
Rachel Moore
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