There was a silly teacher in Mâcon … Nonsense et écriture créative au service de la polyvalence en master MEEF 1er degré

Abstract

This article describes a series of creative writing projects used in teaching English as a second language to MA students in a primary school teaching degree (MEEF 1er degré), as English is now one of the many subjects they will have to teach. Creative writing workshops based on children’s books such as Julia Donaldson’s Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose, on songs and poems, especially limericks, not only allowed those students to practice vocabulary and syntax, but also to work on phonetics.By involving creativity, these activities did not only improve these students’ sound awareness, they arguably helped to reconnect them with the English language, and sometimes to heal their relationship with English and with the difficult process of learning languages. As schoolteachers, the prospect of having to teach a language they did not choose, with which they sometimes have a difficult history, is a major source of anxiety. Poetry and rhyming children stories allow them to experience language as a sensory material, as a means of creating emotions and fun, which they will then share with their own pupils.