This series of posts looks at the implications of the recent Ofsted Research Review for our KS3 curriculum. This post is on the aspect of Communication.
At every turn so far in looking at the Ofsted Review, it has been the lack of focus on Communication which has stood out. Especially compared with what we do in our curriculum. Our priority is to share with pupils how to get better and better at using the language they have learned. To speak and write with increasing fluency, independence, spontaneity, creativity and self expression.
Culture and Communication are stated as major goals in the National Curriculum Programme of Study. The Ofsted Review also quotes them as eventual goals, but says they can be delayed. Ofsted prioritise the learning of phonics, vocabulary and grammar first.
The report repeatedly emphasises that our learners in KS3 are "novice" with only a few pupils at higher levels at GCSE reaching "expert" status. At the "novice" level, they want the focus to be on grammar and vocabulary, word-by-word parsing of sentences. It claims that this is necessary in order for a focus on communication to be possible at a later stage.
They make similar points about authentic texts, preferring input that can be decoded word-by-word with known words and grammar. As pupils move towards the more expert levels at higher grades at GCSE, they may be able to add other skills and strategies such as applying cultural and linguistic knowledge to make sense of more complex texts.
This has raised eyebrows, as in my lifetime it has always been axiomatic that you do not delay the ability to communicate or access culture until "expert" level has been reached. For me, this was part of one of those formative conversations in my very early years, where my parents explained to me that although they had A Levels in languages, they had never been taught to use them, but that things would be better for my generation. I have written about this here for the Association for Language Learning page on Speaking, including the story of my dad using Latin to talk to a French car mechanic.
But beyond personal anecdote, there are strong reasons why communication features strongly in our KS3 curriculum.
Pupils want to communicate
Not all pupils make it to "expert"
Using your French to express yourself has a role in systematising knowledge
Challenging pupils to communicate requires us to create a coherent curriculum that equips them to do so
Pupils want to communicate:
I have written here about the great pet debate. I understand that when you teach pets, you can also teach masculine/feminine endings. But we all know that there is no stronger imperative than the desire of pupils to list their pets. Whether or not they exemplify a grammar pattern. And I wrote here about the way some pupils love being able to recombine language and say silly or nonsense things for the fun of it. Or cry because they desperately want to express themselves. And do get to use their language for real communication in the classroom, online or on exchanges.
When I started as Head of Department, I interviewed pupils and the biggest theme that emerged, was the desire for more tangible outcomes from their language learning. Something they could create, be proud of, show their parents. So we built a curriculum around real projects: an Art Exhibition, a Farm Stamper trail, and letter exchanges with France. I will come back to whether this is in some way an obstacle to learning in the points below.
Not all pupils make it to "expert":
Not all pupils are going to be the few who at higher levels at GCSE or sixth form make it to Ofsted's "expert" level. We need to construct a curriculum that delivers useful learning to pupils who are going to go on to acquire the whole grammatical system, and also to pupils who will cease their study of languages before total mastery is reached. If anything, this would suggest that language for immediate communication is more appropriate in the early stages, with greater grammatical conceptualisation coming later. Fortunately, we don't have to pick between the two. We can devise a curriculum where communication, acquisition of vocabulary and understanding of grammar can all evolve in parallel. Of course we can.
Using your language has an important role in systematisation:
I am going to quote from a guest blog I wrote for the MEITS project.
It is by using the language from the start that the pupil develops the conscious and unconscious schemata that make learning happen. Being allowed to communicate requires the pupil to draw on their entire developing repertoire. Making the links, seeing how it works, and exploring its limits. It gathers their knowledge into a snowball, stopping their language from melting away, and means more and more language will stick to the snowball they already have.
This is central to the ideas behind Task Based Language Learning, where pupils have to draw on their emerging language to complete a task. An "exercise" focuses more on just practising and producing the specific language point that pupils have been learning. With a "task" it is up to the pupil to find the language needed in order to complete the task. And to be able to find the ways the language fits together and how they can manipulate it. And to become aware of the fact that they do have a slowly crystalising interlanguage that becomes more and more coherent and useable.
Challenging pupils to be creative obliges us to create a curriculum that equips them to do so:
This is the point that these posts have kept inevitably coming back to. On Grammar and Vocabulary our curriculum has to deliver. Because we are asking pupils to draw on their language to communicate, we have to curate a growing core of language that they can use. The curriculum has to be coherent, progressive and cumulative. Pupils learn to use their language with increasing independence, complexity and spontaneity.
Communication, which Ofsted almost imply could be an obstacle to learning, seems to be precisely the thing that enables and organises it.
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