French model of special classes at the lower secondary school level – SEGPA classes

Difficulties in teaching foreign languages – on the base of own experiences

Katarzyna Wenta-Mielcarek

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Edition: 1
• Year: 2010
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9783640778942

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Pedagogy - School Pedagogics, University of Szczecin, course: Edukacja Humanistyczna, language: English, abstract: Half-yearly substitution for German language teacher in junior classes of College ( counterpart of Polish junior high school ) where two of classes were the special classes so called SEGPA - and the junior high school belonged to the type of school from the first priority educational zone so called ZEP – brought many observations concerning possibility of language perception and students interpersonal behaviour. I would like to remark that the school head office did not offer any training for working with so called difficult young people and youngsters with slight mental retardation at age 13-14. The first step that led towards interest in functioning of French special schools, state policy in this matter and effectiveness of such education was the desire for improvement of lessons' conditions that slipped away out of control in the first weeks of my teaching. The goal of this article is to enlarge the knowledge about the students form SEGPA classes, in respect to foreign language teaching on the base of subject literature and own experiences. In the first part of article I characterised briefly French schools ZEP – " the first priority educational zone", and its pupils in social context. Subsequently I present peculiarity of both students and SEGPA classes, I tell what qualify students for such a class and what are school program objectives. In the second practical part of article I give examples of educational difficulties that have occurred at the beginning and during my intervention in Collège Sophie Germain in Strasburg, I present also interviews with chosen students about their motivation for learning German language and their opinion about its usefulness in life.