In early 2018 I approached the Head of French to ask if we could look at rewriting some research work carried out by Year 6 as a FOSIL inquiry for the following academic year. This was based on observation of Year 6 classes and the work set as homework in the previous year. I believe that the level of engagement of the pupils could be increased if they took a more active part in what they were doing – provided the French teachers accepted that this would mean pupils were not finding exactly the same answers to exactly the same questions as they had previously done. This can be a barrier to overcome with some teaching colleagues, although in this case it was not an issue.
Ideas for an inquiry into ‘Why study French?’, and a proposal for the inquiry, were sent to the teacher with whom I was developing the unit in Spring 2018. We then met to discuss the inquiry which would encompass the topics of:
- French regions and why you might want to go there;
- Jobs that might require you to speak French, and why;
- Francophone countries around the world, where they are and why they would be worth visiting.
As the plan was to begin the inquiry after the October holiday, discussions began properly again at the end of September 2018. Most of the material produced for this inquiry was adapted from existing documents used with Year 6 previously (for a History topic). However, for this inquiry we decided that the text would be in both English and French to widen pupils’ awareness of language and FOSIL terminology.
Resources associated with this inquiry can be found here. Or by searching for “Why Learn French” in the Title search on our Resources page.
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