Katherine Arkins

RE: Magic moments of language learning I remember being on my year abroad in the middle of my French degree and waking up one morning to realise I had dreamt in French. I was so impressed with myself - even though I couldnt remember a thing about it. It felt very much like learning how to drive a car - when you first start you are concentrating so much on what you're doing with your feet/hands etc. that you don't really enjoy the experience. After a while though you find that the things you first found difficult are happening naturally without any thought and - hey presto! you're driving! Despite this "breakthrough" though I still, years later, find myself making the odd embarassing error. On my French placement quite recently as part of my PGCE I was enthusing to my French colleagues about the standard of French Primary School Food and how terrible it seemed to be in the UK. I was getting rather carried away and found myself explaing that there were rather too many "préservatifs" in the meals! The look on her face said it all.

I am currently studying for my PGCE in MFL upper primary at Goldsmith's College University of London. I have a degree in French and Politics from Loughborough and hope to start teaching upper KS1 lower KS2 in September. I’m especially interested in MFL and EAL and teaching MFL in primary schools.