Center: 
Nantes
Discipline(s): 
Internship Seminar
Course code: 
IN 395
Terms offered: 
Fall
Spring
Credits: 
3
Language of instruction: 
French
Instructor: 
Mme Duportail
Description: 

Teaching English in France: evolution, goals and means. The course is required for students participating in the teaching assistantship program and working with primary or secondary school English teachers in Nantes.

Prerequisites: 

Demonstrated interest in and commitment to teaching.

Method of presentation: 

Teaching English in France today: Presentation, analysis, discussion, practical advice.

Required work and form of assessment: 
  • Regular attendance during assistant teaching placement (approximately four hours per week)
  • Preparation of lesson plans appropriate to the class level
  • “Dossier”  consisting  of  classroom  activities;  a  diary  of  the  teaching  experience,  including expectations, difficulties and highlights, approaches and techniques used, the role of psychological factors in the teacher-learner rapport, observations and comments
  • Final paper reflecting on the teaching experience
  • Mandatory class observations (scheduled by the professor, during and outside of class)

The final grade for the internship will be based on the grade assigned by the cooperating school (50%), course assignments (Dossier + final paper) (45%), and attendance and participation (5%).

content: 
  1. Practical Approach: to be an assistant, to teach
    1. General introduction to the French education system:
      - pre-school, elementary or primary
      - middle school and high school
      - higher education
    2. Public, Private contract-based, private education
      - Observations of teaching in pre-school and primary school or technological and professional high school or “classes préparatoires” (depending on the schedule): knowledge, programs, prerequisites
      - What is an internship in a middle or high school?
          - teacher/assistant relationship
         - approaching the students
         - adaptation to the school: its rules, its educational project
      - Choice and use of pedagogical material
      - Handling uneasiness and mental block: how to prevent and thus deal with those situations
      - Psychology of a teenage student depending on his/her level, social background, school (technical, general, or professional).
  2. Theoretical Approach (subjects might change according to students demand and current events)
    1. Today’s pedagogical system objectives : « to know and to know how »
    2. What does it mean to learn a foreign language? Receptive and productive competence, psychological difficulties, lack of fluency
    3. Methods and technics to enhance language learning
    4. Academic failure, evaluation, grading
    5. Teacher/student relationship
    6. Overview of important pedagogical theories (depending on the requests)
  3. Situation analysis
    Assistants present their activities in middle and high schools for a group critical analysis, express satisfaction (in order to share) or difficulties (in order to look for means to find a solution).
    Proposal of documents and activities by the professor.