— 1 Sep 2019 11:04:00
At the Château de la Baudonnière we run truly immersive French language programmes for schools, and strongly believe that a student’s learning is accelerated by being in an environment where they are exposed to a language in everyday scenarios. Our language programmes have been designed to enhance learning offering an enjoyable, inspirational, and memorable experience for students and teachers alike.
Specifically, our French language immersion programmes are designed to reinforce the foundations of the language learned in the classroom. We know that these programmes work because MFL teachers bring their students back to our centres year after year, citing very real improvements in their students’ listening, speaking and language confidence, motivation and increased numbers of students opting to take French as a GCSE.
We are currently undertaking research to back up this anecdotal feedback with hard assessment data demonstrating identifiable markers of student progress. Over the last academic year, we have been working withl language teachers and animateurs in a unique project to evaluate the progress made by students who participate in the French language immersion programme at the Château de la Baudonnière in France, our flagship language centre for schools.
Using a mix of linguistic oral monitoring of each pupil throughout the activity, and a brief, unobtrusive gap-fill exercise given at the end of the activity we are able to assess what students have learned and how well they have learned it.
This means that we will soon be able to truly demonstrate the positive impact of our unique programme on students’ language learning, and are excited to be able to share the results with you shortly – watch this space!
