Languages News

Be Part of the Conversation

In all of our years of teaching, we language teachers always recognise the speaking skill as the most dreaded when it comes to assessing.  Students are visibly nervous, their mouths dry up, and their voices often shake compounding the problem.   

We have been working tirelessly with our students of MCA Languages to help them to gain confidence in this area, through poetry, song, plays and generally exposing them to as much conversation as possible in the classroom.

In addition to this we are piloting our speaking program: Be part of the conversation, which all boys are encouraged to come along to on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings weekly from 8.00 till 8.30 in the languages classrooms to either sit and listen to others speak, practice for their speaking tests this term, or get stuck in and just converse about any given topic in French or Japanese. 

The benefits to the boys coming along are many.  We can help them to overcome their nervousness in this skill, find ways of helping them to use more sophisticated language in more relaxed environment, help them to be part of a relaxed language community, and  enrich their general capacity in the language.

All boys are welcome to come along whether they study a language or not and at whatever level. They may bring their breakfast with them and generally “be part of the conversation”.

We’ll be there and hope to see you there too!