Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
activité propre
English translation:
self-directed activity / child-initiated activity
Added to glossary by
Charles Davis
Nov 20, 2015 06:11
8 yrs ago
1 viewer *
French term
France
Environmental sciences
Native in: English 
Works in: French to English, English to French
activité propre
French to English
Social Sciences
Education / Pedagogy
Hello,
I'm trying to find an English equivalent for the term "activité propre" being used in an early childhood guide for professionals. Here are a few examples use:
"que pouvez-vous dire de l’intérêt de l’activité propre de l’enfant?" or
"Entre activité propre et activité dirigée, quel choix pour l’enfant?"
My first instinct was to use "free-play" or something like "individual play", but something tells me there might be another way of wording it.
In French education programs in nurseries, we often talk about "jeu libre", however "activité propre" I've hardly come across, and if I did, I just assumed it meant "jeu libre"
Would you have any suggestions?
Many thanks for the help!
I'm trying to find an English equivalent for the term "activité propre" being used in an early childhood guide for professionals. Here are a few examples use:
"que pouvez-vous dire de l’intérêt de l’activité propre de l’enfant?" or
"Entre activité propre et activité dirigée, quel choix pour l’enfant?"
My first instinct was to use "free-play" or something like "individual play", but something tells me there might be another way of wording it.
In French education programs in nurseries, we often talk about "jeu libre", however "activité propre" I've hardly come across, and if I did, I just assumed it meant "jeu libre"
Would you have any suggestions?
Many thanks for the help!
Proposed translations
(English)
| 4 +7 | self-directed activity |
Charles Davis
|
| 3 +1 | Doing their own thing |
Rowan Morrell
|
Change log
Nov 22, 2015 08:41: Charles Davis changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/1738822">Ashley T. Sibille's</a> old entry - "activité propre"" to ""self-directed activity""
Proposed translations
+7
18 mins
Selected
self-directed activity
In practice I think it does amount to what is commonly called "free play", but this jargon term is quite regularly used in literature on early childhood education and seems to me to match the specific French term:
"However, adjectives such as ‘structured’, ‘adult-directed’, ‘purposeful’, ‘child-initiated’ and ‘planned’ have also been linked to play. In addition, phrases such as ‘self-directed activity’ or ‘active/experiential learning’ are used to describe the play experiences of children when these are freely chosen."
Free Play in Early Childhood: A literature review
http://www.playengland.org.uk/media/120426/free-play-in-earl...
"Comparing Models of Early Childhood Education
Teacher’s Role
[...]
Directs unobtrusively as children individually or in small groups engage in self-directed activity"
Early Childhood Education Today
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0132286211.pdf
"Reflective abstraction
According to Jean Piaget, part of a child's self-directed activity that allows the child to think about and reflect on what he or she is doing [...]"
https://books.google.es/books?id=ispqH-v-8PAC&pg=PA282&lpg=P...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 27 mins (2015-11-20 06:38:52 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
By the way, in the second passage you've quoted in the question, where "activité propre" is contrasted with "activité dirigée", I think you could use "self-directed and teacher-directed activity". "Teacher-directed" is pretty standard. Or "adult-directed" if you prefer (see my first source above). See, for example, this paper, whose abstract contains the following:
"Two daily routine profiles were identified using a time-sampling coding procedure: a High Free-Choice pattern in which children spent a majority of their day engaged in child-directed free-choice activity settings combined with relatively low amounts of teacher-directed activity, and a Structured-Balanced pattern in which children spent relatively equal proportions of their day engaged in child-directed free-choice activity settings and teacher-directed small- and whole-group activities."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3365587/
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2015-11-20 18:33:21 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
If you want to avoid using "directed" twice, and maintain "teacher-directed or "adult-directed" for "dirigée", you could use "child-initiated" for this, for example. Personally I don't think repeating "directed" is a problem at all, and it doesn't seem to have bothered the authors of the abstract quoted above.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2015-11-20 18:56:56 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Or indeed "self-initiated", which is also pretty common. There are various ways of doing it.
"However, adjectives such as ‘structured’, ‘adult-directed’, ‘purposeful’, ‘child-initiated’ and ‘planned’ have also been linked to play. In addition, phrases such as ‘self-directed activity’ or ‘active/experiential learning’ are used to describe the play experiences of children when these are freely chosen."
Free Play in Early Childhood: A literature review
http://www.playengland.org.uk/media/120426/free-play-in-earl...
"Comparing Models of Early Childhood Education
Teacher’s Role
[...]
Directs unobtrusively as children individually or in small groups engage in self-directed activity"
Early Childhood Education Today
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0132286211.pdf
"Reflective abstraction
According to Jean Piaget, part of a child's self-directed activity that allows the child to think about and reflect on what he or she is doing [...]"
https://books.google.es/books?id=ispqH-v-8PAC&pg=PA282&lpg=P...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 27 mins (2015-11-20 06:38:52 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
By the way, in the second passage you've quoted in the question, where "activité propre" is contrasted with "activité dirigée", I think you could use "self-directed and teacher-directed activity". "Teacher-directed" is pretty standard. Or "adult-directed" if you prefer (see my first source above). See, for example, this paper, whose abstract contains the following:
"Two daily routine profiles were identified using a time-sampling coding procedure: a High Free-Choice pattern in which children spent a majority of their day engaged in child-directed free-choice activity settings combined with relatively low amounts of teacher-directed activity, and a Structured-Balanced pattern in which children spent relatively equal proportions of their day engaged in child-directed free-choice activity settings and teacher-directed small- and whole-group activities."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3365587/
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2015-11-20 18:33:21 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
If you want to avoid using "directed" twice, and maintain "teacher-directed or "adult-directed" for "dirigée", you could use "child-initiated" for this, for example. Personally I don't think repeating "directed" is a problem at all, and it doesn't seem to have bothered the authors of the abstract quoted above.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2015-11-20 18:56:56 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Or indeed "self-initiated", which is also pretty common. There are various ways of doing it.
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Hello, I appreciate all the suggestions from everyone. Thank you very much. I chose Mr. Davis's reply because the tone and vocabulary correspond best to the document that I'm working on. I also appreciated the supporting documents where the terms are used. They opened up some new doors and have answered other questions that have popped up. So once again, many thanks!"
+1
28 mins
Rowan Morrell
New Zealand
New Zealand
Native in English
New Zealand
Committed to the Customer
Native in: English (Variant: New Zealand) 
Works in: French to English, German to English, Spanish to English
Related KudoZ points
:
4
Doing their own thing
"Between doing their own thing and supervised activity, what options do children have?"
It could also be something like "free time", but perhaps that's too close to free play.
Essentially, the idea of "activité propre" seems to be children doing their own thing in their own time rather than being supervised or organised in their play by a teacher or other adult.
It could also be something like "free time", but perhaps that's too close to free play.
Essentially, the idea of "activité propre" seems to be children doing their own thing in their own time rather than being supervised or organised in their play by a teacher or other adult.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
philgoddard
: I think this is a better solution because it avoids repeating "directed".
11 hrs
|
Something went wrong...