An inspector calls - Vocabulary

 In my last post, I asked myself some of the initial questions an Ofsted inspector might want to ask about our curriculum in relation to Grammar. I think I put our case across coherently. But the question isn't really whether I think our curriculum has a coherent vision. The question is does that vision meet what an inspector is looking for. In this post, I am going to rehearse some honest answers to questions on Vocabulary.

Here we go:

How do you cover and revisit vocabulary in a planned way?

 Our curriculum works like a snowball where new language is added on to the repertoire pupils already have. In this, some language is more important than other language. Rather than parachuting in “revisiting” of a previous topic into a later topic, we try to curate pupils’ growing repertoire of language where it is gathered into a snowball. We focus on this snowball getting bigger and bigger, and pupils being able to use it. We are not obsessed with chasing after every last drop of melting snow, as long as each pupil has their snowball and is looking after it. Compacting it to stop it melting, rolling it around to get more to stick to it, and having some fun with it.

At the centre of this snowball is a core of verb + infinitive structures. Which means we have a strong verb lexicon which is transferred across topics.

About 15 years ago, we stripped our curriculum down to this core, concentrating on pupils getting very good at using the language they know. We are now in the process of adding more language back in, so that it integrates with what they know and can do. For example, weather with “if” sentences in units in Year 8, numbers in different units, clothes…

The words pupils learn are set out on Quizlet, directly integrated with the work they are doing in lessons. Typically the words for each unit start with short chunks. These build into longer sentences and eventually into model answers. The words from Quizlet can also be used to set work in other sites such as Blooket. We are shifting from a punitive “You must learn your words” model, to a low stakes model of, “Meet these words over and over, until you end up learning them.”

 As well as a curriculum designed to not abandon words from one topic to the next, we are using lesson starters and computing work to deliberately re-familiarise pupils with words they have seen before. Our “Fluent in 5 minutes” starters ask pupils in Year 8 and Year 9 to work with words and structures from previous years and previous units. Scheduled work on interactive tasks inWord (dragging and dropping words, putting spaces back in sentences) in the computer room makes sure pupils are regularly working explicitly on structures and vocabulary from previous topics. Our booklets also deliberately recycle examples from previous topics, for example by asking pupils to use a model answer on Holidays to help scaffold work on Jobs.

How do you ensure pupils know high frequency vocabulary?

The fascination with “high frequency” vocabulary and not exposing pupils to unfamiliar words, does not come from the National Curriculum Programme of Study which schools have to teach. It features in the controversial Ofsted Research Review. We ensure that pupils know the structures that we have identified as most powerful for constructing their repertoire. In line with the National Curriculum (and in KS4 with GCSE), this is aimed at developing their ability to communicate. In particular to give and justify opinions, to develop ideas and points of view, to talk about events in the past and future, and to narrate events in detail.

So we have focused on a core of verb + infinitive and a strong verb lexicon. We had stripped our curriculum down to this core, and concentrated on pupils getting very good at using it. We are now starting to add more vocabulary back in, so that it integrates with and expands that core, always while curating what pupils can actually do with their language. And monitoring their ability to communicate is the best way to monitor what sticks, what accumulates, what can be used with increasing fluency, and what might overwhelm. Which I think are also key concepts for Ofsted.

 Our “Fluent in 5 minutes” starters are used to address the balance of the focus on form and meaning. If pupils are focused on meaning-heavy words such as maison, petit or chien, we use the starters as a low stakes regular way to shift the focus to the words like une, est, a . We make sure pupils do know what words in sentences literally mean, for example, “I have 12 years.” We have reintroduced a list of the 100 most common words on the back of pupils’ target language prompt sheet, as a reminder to pupils and to teachers as to what the most common words are.

 We are always looking at what words pupils need to expand their existing repertoire. For example adverbs for setting actions in time are going to be a big focus to be introduced earlier and maintained as part of the repertoire.

 High frequency words are by definition encountered in authentic texts. When we look at songs, stories or poems, we make sure we focus on these words, because they are the words which can unlock any text, especially when it contains unfamiliar low frequency words.

I think I have taken the luxury of being a little more aggressive on the topic of High Frequency words that I would with an actual ofsted inspector. But also I have only asked myself some initial questions here, without further detailed probing. So again, I need to step back and have a good think about my answers here.

Answering an Ofsted Inspector's Questions - Grammar

 What would I say to an Ofsted inspector about our curriculum? I would want to answer openly and honestly, because if they are going to have a good look at lessons, talk to teachers and pupils, and look at resources, then there's no point claiming things that don't correspond to what they will see. So does what we do match what we think they want? Should we change things in the overall approach or in the detail? Or should we be concentrating on making sure that what we say we do, is delivered consistently and successfully across the department?

In this post, I am going to put myself through some potential questions on Grammar in our curriculum, and just see if I can put together a convincing answer that meets the angle of questions we might be faced with. I am doing this mainly as an exercise for myself, so you might want to skip some of the unit by unit detail in italics.

Here we go:

How do you sequence grammar?

 Our grammar teaching is built around developing a repertoire of language that pupils can deploy in order to express themselves. Some powerful structures are much more important than others, and we work on making sure pupils can use these, spending a long time focusing on them explicitly. When they meet other grammar, this is carefully added on to the existing repertoire of language they have. We are very clear that nothing is ever done and dusted. And nothing is ever done and abandoned. Pupils will meet important language over and over, accumulating knowledge and increasing their independence and fluency. The overall curriculum is one of modelling correct use, often in chunks of language to be recombined, with a process of increasing independence of resources, and building the ability to recombine or inflect language for themselves, in order to create meaning.

 In Year 7, the early focus is on meaning. Pupils make the shift from (often) mono-lingual status, to having another language they can relate to their life and enjoy exploring. Pupils learn to talk about themselves, describe an artwork, order food, and describe their house and routine. They select, adapt and substitute language through learning based on modelling and scaffolding, in order to create meaning. As they start to accumulate a body of language, the curriculum starts to shift the balance of attention towards forms, but always in a strong context that links grammar to engagement with meaning.

To summarise:

Unit 1 on Self and Identity – apart from acquiring a body of language with a focus on meaning, the main focus is on Phonics. Other high frequency grammatical concepts are met, principally the verb to have and the indefinite article. These are met in context and for pupils to be able to substitute depending on what they want to say. Pupils are taught the literal meaning of words within expressions, eg I have 12 years.

Unit 2 on describing an Artwork. Word order and adjectival agreement are the main grammatical features. Introduced in very concrete ways starting with labelling shapes and objects in a picture, then adding adjectives and then changing the endings. Pupils also meet prepositions and a range of high frequency words eg is / has / there is. They meet basic opinion words for the first time. The definite and indefinite articles are contrasted.

Unit 3 on Food is mainly transactional, based on substituting items in dialogue and building confidence in speaking. Pupils meet tu/vous forms. It is developed into giving opinions about food and taste, and into talking about eating habits conjugating the verb manger in the present tense. Pupils use opinion + the definite article – j’aime le chocolat. The partitive article is met, often in chunks, with some work on the link between a, the, some.

Unit 4 on House and Routine reinforces high frequency words for is/has/there is, definite and indefinite articles, and opinions. It introduces the concept of reflexive verbs in the first person. And pupils meet the idea of verb + opinion that will be picked up in Year 8.

 In Year 8, pupils develop a powerful repertoire of language they can use across topics. This is built around verb + infinitive for giving and justifying opinions. They use conjunctions to link, extend and develop answers. The focus is on being able to speak and write more and more independently, fluently and coherently, using these core structures across topics. We think of their language as a snowball, getting bigger and bigger, not allowing what is learned to melt, and making it easier for new language to stick to the ball of language they already have.

Pupils develop a strong verb lexicon, for use with expressions followed by the infinitive. Typically they will be saying things like, “I like to … because I can… but if I want to… then I have to… But I don’t like to…. because I can’t… I prefer to….” Having stripped our curriculum down over 15 years ago to concentrate on pupils getting good at using this repertoire of core expressions, we are now adding back in more use of adjectives with the verb to be.

In detail:

Unit 1 on Town revisits definite and indefinite articles, prepositions, and high frequency words such as is/has/there is. It adds opinions and words like can/have to/want to with a strong verb lexicon to talk about places in the local area and what you can do there. We are adding back in more use of adjectives and the verb to be, to add to this established focus on verbs.

Unit 2 on School transfers this language to a new topic, aiming for greater fluency and independence from scaffolding. We are adding back in more use of adjectives and the verb to be.

Unit 3 on Free Time recycles the same grammar. It then adds er verbs in the present tense. We are careful to integrate the use of conjugated verbs into the existing repertoire of opinion and verb + infinitive. For example where a pupil was saying, “I can go to the park with my friends”, this mention of “with my friends” will now trigger the use of a 1^st person plural – “and we play tennis.” This unit also introduces the use of the perfect tense in the first person.

Unit 4 on Holidays. This unit recycles and works on fluency in using the grammar from previous units. It develops use of the perfect tense, still mainly in the first person.

 

Year 9 Starts by applying the grammar learned in Year 8 to new topics slightly more removed from the pupils’ own direct experience and requiring perhaps more complexity of ideas. Year 9 introduces the use of verb tables for pupils to have an abstract concept of the different persons and different tenses. They work on adding on what they can do through methodical rational formation of verb tenses, integrating it into what they can already do fluently and independently. This opens their understanding of the language as a linguistic system, while linking this to the creation of meaning and adding it on to their growing repertoire. It prepares them for GCSE, with a focus on narrating in a range of tenses. It is modelled and scaffolded, shifting from memorised language to an understanding of rules and inflections.

 Detailed summary:

 In Unit 1 on Jobs, pupils take their knowledge of verb + infinitive from Year 8 and apply it to a new topic. There is a shift towards forms talking about the future such as going to / would like to. And a shift to “on peut” rather than “je peux.” The perfect tense for “I have worked” is picked up from Year 8 in the first person. Pupils meet verb tables to conceptualise how there are a range of tenses for worked/used to work and different persons.

In Unit 2 on the Environment, pupils continue to recycle their use of verb + infinitive for can/must/should on a new topic with more complex ideas. They continue to use verb tables to scaffold their understanding of different tenses, including imperfect and conditional. They use verb tables to construct tenses that can be integrated with use of their existing repertoire.

 In Unit 3 on Clothes, pupils consolidate work on word order and adjectival agreement. They pick up their repertoire for saying what you can/can’t/have to wear for different occasions. They pick up transactional language for shopping, including tu/vous. They revisit articles. The unit then turns to focus on combining perfect and imperfect to say what was happening and what happened next. This is built around describing an advert. It links to the idea of narrating events that features in the rest of Year 9 and for GCSE.

In Unit 4, we bring back the topic of Free Time. Pupils have the opportunity to deploy their repertoire on a familiar topic, with fluency and independence. They can apply it to different aspects of the topic, for example developing answers on cinema or sport or shopping. And they put together their whole repertoire from opinions, justifying them, if sentences, what was happening, what happened, plans for the future.

In the summer of Year 9, teachers focus on pupils using the repertoire they have developed over 3 years, for creative purposes. For example story telling – pupils look at films, books and literature in French and then create their own stories for Primary school French pupils.

 

At GCSE, we follow the grammatical progression of the textbook. This ensures coverage and takes the pressure off teacher work-load. But we have a strong principle that the pupils are developing a repertoire of language. We make sure that opinions, verb + infinitive, present and perfect tenses are in place early in the course and that pupils are using them on every topic. This way pupils have 2 years to get good at using these grammatical features as part of a repertoire, and we do not delay meeting these core structures. Pupils use their “test and tick” to reinforce their fluency with these key structures.

 

 How do you break down teaching so that pupils are learning one thing at a time explicitly, not through osmosis? And that concepts are revisited in a planned way?

 We break down our teaching so that pupils are spending a long time getting good at using the most important structures. These structures never go away, and other structures are added on to them like snow sticking to a snowball that is getting bigger and bigger. Teachers model and scaffold, so pupils are all producing work of a similar standard, and then reducing their dependence on support.

This may look like osmosis, but it is not. It is deliberate long term internalisation and building of fluency of the whole repertoire. Pupils may meet things in more complex chunks, learning model expressions before they then learn to break down the component parts to modify and manipulate them. They may meet language where more than one simple concept is involved – the key think is that attention be drawn to one thing at a time, and that the teacher monitors what could overwhelm, what sticks, what accumulates.

 We have developed lesson starters, “Fluent in 5” which focus on shifting the attention from lexis to grammar. Pupils naturally focus on meaning and may understandably neglect minutiae of form. The Fluent in 5 starters require pupils to re-address this balance, going back over vocabulary content from previous units and previous years, focusing on eg gender, contractions, plurals, negatives, endings.

 Rather than revisiting, our curriculum makes sure that nothing is left behind. Pupils’ language is formed into a snowball which grows and grows. They develop a repertoire of language they can deploy, which new language is added on to.

Warning - major shift in metaphor coming (from snow to cooking) like a change of key at the end of a boy band anthem.

In reality, and also because we want it to be that way, the curriculum on paper is not as important as what teachers constantly observe in the classroom. Teachers will depart from the scheme of work because they notice a need or an opportunity. In practice what guides us isn't the detailed Scheme of Work, it is the exemplars we share with pupils of what we want them to be able to achieve. Just as when you are thickening a roux, you don't constantly refer to the recipe. Or even worry about the amount of milk left in the jug. Your full attention is on what is in the saucepan in front of you. And it's the same with teaching. What you do is in response to the pupils and their learning. Not a fancy plan you made for Ofsted.

Oh no, I said that last bit out loud! I am going to think about this some more and reflect on how I think these answers might stand up. I've done my best for now. And I need to try a similar exercise on Vocabulary and on Phonics. And what about A Level?

Year 7 love listening to French

 I have written before about using the old Channel 4 Extra series with Year 7 French. I am going to go into more detail here, in case you want to try it out with your own classes.

I use it at the end of a lesson, in the last 5 minutes. Sometimes we re-watch from the start, and sometimes we carry on from where we left off. Pupils love it and it's a great way to get them listening to native French speakers.

The video is available on YouTube. Here is exactly what I do with the first 1 minute 49 seconds the first time we watch it.

1. Tell the pupils it's in French. Otherwise they shout "It's in French."

2. Turn off the subtitles so they are watching and listening like a hawk. 

3. Tell them that you are going to be asking questions. Mainly about what they see but also about what they hear.

4. Play the first 1 minute 49 seconds.

5. Ask the following questions immediately after watching. You can do it for hands up, or give them paper to write down the answers individually or in teams pub quiz style for points and prizes.

What city is this set in?

What are the names of any of the characters?

What is the name of the series?

Describe (or draw) what is on the inside of their front door.

Describe their pet.

She dumps her boyfriend by email. What is his name?

Who rings up?

She says she has received his present. What was it?

What does she remember to say just before she puts the phone down? If they don't remember, remind them it was, "Bon anniversaire."

And just like that, they are comfortable - I would even say enjoying - watching the TV show in French.

Either immediately, or at the end of the next lesson, I then watch the video again from the start. This time I freeze the video as Sasha types her email and ask the class to tell me the meaning of the words on the screen: nouveau message / c'est fini / envoyer. And I ask them what he's no longer allowed to call her.

As we continue, pupils often find themselves calling out what they think she is saying on the phone: "What, Patrick?" "Yes, I got your cushion." "It's over." "Bye." "Oh, Happy Birthday." Putting in much more detail and correctly interpreting sentences all based on what they know of the situation, observation of what happens, and Sasha's intonation.

I can't resist interrupting the post here to point out that this isn't supposed to happen. Ofsted in their recent Research Review are very clear that in a foreign language, you are supposed to work out meaning by parsing known words and grammar. Obviously this isn't true. Not even for people who are fluent. You constantly monitor the situation, the interaction, tone of voice, what makes sense... in a feedback-loop with what you think the words are. And Year 7 can do it too, very confidently, enjoying the story and excited about being able to understand it in French. Including correctly and successfully understanding the meaning of sentences containing unfamiliar language.

Carrying on. We watch the next section up to 4 minutes 30 seconds. And at the end, I ask these questions:

What is the name of the dog?

Did you hear anyone say "dog" in French? This always gets them - avoid confirming if they do or don't until you listen again and then they hear it!

What are the 3 bills that have arrived?

Who is the letter from?

What colour is the post-it?

The letter contains another letter, from her old American penfriend. What is his name?

She says they were penfriends "il y a sept ans". What does this mean?

She reads his letter - what can you tell about his French?

He says, "J'arrive en France". What does this mean?

What number rule is "No visitors"?

When we watch it again (straight away or at the end of the next lesson) I may or may not let them in on the "Je veux dormir avec toi" joke. And we look at the other rules on the printed sign.

Next section. Watch first. Questions after.

When is Sam arriving?

Who is at the door?

He has brought back their "lait d'il y a trois semaines." What does this mean?

When he sits on the sofa he does something stupid. What does he do? Apart from looking at her bum.

Annie has to ring him up. What does she ask? What is the answer?

Stop at 6 minutes 22 before the glass of coke actually appears if you like and see if they can still get the answer to the last question.

I think you are getting the hang of it now, but I've been doing it for over 15 years, so I may as well let you know the questions that seem to work their magic.

When Annie tells Nico that Sam from America is coming, what does he think?

He is jealous. What does he do?

What gets him thrown out of the flat?

Next section, next lesson? You are now ready for Sam to arrive. 

What is he wearing that makes him look odd?

What happens when he tries to introduce himself?

He shows them a photo and they think they are toy ones. What are they?

He shows them his house. What do they think it is?

How many bedrooms are there in the flat?

How many bedrooms does Sam say he has?

How many do they think he means?

Watch it again, and see them picking up on whole sentences, and of course, picking on much more than they would if we were just parsing known vocabulary and grammar.

There's a whole series of this, ending with a marriage proposal. And I think you can probably make up your own questions from now on. Watch first. Ask them questions which focus on things they can see and hear, and which do guide them gently as to what is happening. Then watch again and see how much more they can understand.

Before you know it, it will have become a regular feature of your lessons, and you will have Year 7s confident in listening to native French, focused on interpreting the situation, the relationships, the intonation, words they know, and adding all that up to a successful experience of listening to French.

Muddled thinking - Magical thinking

 Really enjoyed talking to teachers from the Inspiration Trust yesterday about how to get pupils developing spoken answers spontaneously. Ideas like Being Ben and building a story round the class and what I don't call "sentence builders". But I wanted to write a post on the couple of slides that I cut out, on getting pupils to speak in the target language for classroom communication.

I have written here and here about ideas for encouraging and enabling pupils to use the target language to communicate in the classroom - so please do follow the links for some positive ideas of things you can do. I am going to be looking in this post at the rationale, because I think that teachers being clear about what they want to achieve is key to success.

What do we want to achieve when we say we want pupils to use the target language to communicate? Do we want them to have a few set phrases they can use for classroom routines such as greetings and requests to remove their blazer? Do we want pupils to interact in the target language when conducting activities with expressions for turn-taking or commenting on each other's work? Do we want pupils to be able to express themselves and talk to us fluently and interact with us naturally?

Routines, interaction and fluent self expression. Are they very separate ambitions or are they on a continuum? Does asking to take off your blazer lead on to being able to have a conversation about whether the film Titanic is based on a true story or not? (See comments below.) Or is that a vain hope, an act of self-deception, an illusion?

To try to get some clarity on exactly that point, I have some more questions.

Do we want pupils to use the target language for classroom communication because:

... because there is an expectation that we attempt this? It's for show really. Because it's expected. And people judge us on it.

... because it's a nice thing? It may or not be important, but it's fun. And pupils like to try out their language and love to challenge themselves to use as much French as possible.

... because it might be a small start but it's an important one. If we don't start using the target language for little routines now, pupils will never switch over to using it, even when they know lots of language.

... because we believe that communication plays a role in acquiring a language. Real communication. That it's only when you use language to say something you mean, that the brain's language learning mechanisms are set in motion.

And separately from these four possible reasons, are we aware of any of these possible negative sides:

It can get in the way of clear explanation. It's not really where learning happens in the classroom.

It can alienate pupils. Including pupils who just want to get on with learning a language without all the pantomime.

Because routine expressions are not real communication. Especially when you have to say it.

My biggest worry is this: Insisting on pupils using the target language isn't enabling them to communicate at all. It's silencing them. Or limiting them to a few transactional parrot utterances. Dr Florencia Henshaw tweeted yesterday, "We want students to be multilingual, so why are we imposing monolingualism in the classroom?" Florencia can always cut through the debate, the side-taking, the orthodoxy and the heresy, and focus clearly on what she wants to achieve.

Here's some heresy. Is it OK to allow pupils to mix French and English when they want to say something? Many pupils can trot out, "Est-ce que je peux enlever ma veste?" How many of them ever ask "Est-ce que je peux..." something else that they want? Or when we work on verb + infinitive, how many of them ever recognise "je peux" as something they've known for years?

The pupil who says, "Can I take off ma veste" may in fact be engaging more with the words than someone who knows the whole sentence like an incantation. Or a pupil who says, "Est-ce que je peux help give the books out?" Or "Est-ce que je peux put ma veste on the radiator?" Is this an abomination, or is this a pupil engaging with the language to express something they want to say?

Some of the answer will depend on our answers to the sets of questions earlier in the post around the purpose of using the target language in the classroom and how we hope that routine expressions can morph into self expression. Perhaps these examples are showing the pupils' communication in the process of transmutation, and we should celebrate it.

And more of the answer is in the slides that I did deliver in my talk yesterday - it is in the classroom activities that we scaffold, model, develop, and practise pupils' ability to communicate. So what happens in the lesson activity and what constitutes real communication can converge. So when Year 7 watch a video about French table manners and have a keep talking sheet to discuss it, the language-learning activity merges into an ability to communicate about the video they have watched. Or if they learn to listen to a song in French and give their opinion on it. Or describe an artwork and say how it makes them feel.

I think I could have done more to turn this post into one with a lovely extended metaphor around magical thinking: 

Expressions as an incantation pupils use when they want to take off their jacket. 

Target language use as an orthodoxy to pay lip service to, if you don't want to be burned at the stake.

Thinking that because you want something to turn into something else, it will happen through the power of belief.

We need to follow Florencia's example and cut through to what really matters. The lesson can't be separated into a false dichotomy of routines that pretend to be communicative because they are incidental versus activities which because they are planned are deemed to be not part of using the target language for communication. I'll leave you with Florencia's final tweet on the matter: "Let's focus on increasing students' communicative engagement with the language." 

Read the music, play from memory, improvise?

 Here's the plan for a Year 9 lesson this week. It's an interesting group, as the Head of Year reshuffled them from Year 8. I'm picking up pupils who've had different experiences through lockdown and also staffing changes, plus some new ones who have come in from other schools. So I am trying to continue to push ahead at the same speed with the pupils I taught last year, while scooping up the newcomers and making them feel secure.

We are working on the topic of jobs and future careers. It is designed to pick up from all the verb + infinitive work done in Year 8 and make sure the fluency is still there.

They have written a paragraph on one job. Saying what they would like / can do / have to do / want to do / don't want to have to do etc. You can see the sort of thing in the green Year 9 exemplar text for Unit 1 in the picture.

The first thing we will do is, working in pairs, just read your paragraph from last week to a partner. I will listen for correct pronunciation - picking up on phonics has been a big part of what we have been doing post lockdown. Then we will go to read-look up-speak. So the pupils can look at their paragraph, memorise a chunk, look up, and deliver that section to a partner. Concentrating on communicating a sensible chunk at a time, trying to remember whole clauses or sentences. Then the partner will take their book and prompt them in English so they can deliver the whole paragraph in French without needing to look at the text.

At this point, I am going to show them a video of a Tchaikovsky piano concerto and we will talk aboutthe orchestra reading the music. And the soloist doing it from memory. Then I will put on some jazz piano. Probably boogie-woogie. And talk about improvisation. Because that's what we are going to build towards next.

I will rearrange the pairs by asking the pupils on one row to turn their chairs round and work with the pupils directly behind them. We will do the activity known as Being Ben. One partner will think up what to say. And they will say it in chunks, in English. Their new partner has to say it in French. So when it comes to improvising, we are splitting up the task of what to say, and the task of saying it in French. Of course the partner saying the English may well just be re-hashing their prepared paragraph. But their new partner has never heard it before.

Then we will swap roles, with the other pupil doing the French. Then one row will move one place along, so they have a new partner. The pupil thinking up what to say has had the chance to hone their ideas with their previous partner. And the partner doing the French is having to say something new. They can use whatever resources they need - jobs vocabulary or verb + infinitive expressions for new pupils. And as they move from partner to partner, they decide when they want to stop using the support. Or have it there for moral support but not really use it.

After working wtih a series of partners, they will return to their original partner. They will have practised with several partners, each one making them say something different. And they will have practised coming up with something to say which is coherent and develops their ideas. They will have become less and less dependent on resources for support. So now with the original partner, it is time for their bravura performance. They can deliver a coherent, fluent and impromptu speech on the topic.

In the following lesson, I will play them a jazz duet - maybe Dr John and Jules Holland playing boogie woogie. And we will work on interacting spontaneously with a partner. The partner can ask them to talk about different jobs: "Tu voudrais travailler comme X ?" that they haven't prepared for. Or prompt them with et..? alors..? pour quoi? par exemple..?

Sorry. Drifted off there watching the Dr John and Jules Holland video. Hopefully that won't happen in the lesson. I used it last week with Year 11 to talk about how we are going to prepare for the speaking exam and it made a lot of sense to them in talking about what it takes in order to be able to improvise. Will let you know how it goes with Year 9.

My Granny Went Shopping and She Touched a Starfish

 Here's how I get Year 10 quickly up to speed with GCSE speaking and writing. They started in Year 9 with a lesson a week and covered some of the basics, but now we need to really get going. We are now at the stage where they have everything they need to do well in Speaking and Writing. And another year and a half just to get really good at using it.

Three lessons this week.

1. We worked on the core structures on their Test and Tick sheets. You have to be careful with this because if you say, "Tick all the words you know," it sounds like "Tickle the words you know." So then the Test and Tick sheet is only one step away from a testicle sheet, and that wouldn't do. Then we re-did a familiar listening from the textbook and harvested some verbs from it. Here they are on the board:

You can see, there is: Go to the aquarium, see the fish, touch the star fish, take photos, drop my phone, cry.

Immediately you can see what is going to unfold. As a group, the pupils created a model answer on the board in Spanish, telling me what had to be in the story and how to say it in Spanish.

Here's what we wrote:

I like to go to the aquarium because I can see the fish but I don't like to touch the crabs [where did they come from?]. My brother likes to touch the starfish. So when we went to the aquarium, I said, "I want to go and touch the fishes." I was touching a crab and I was taking photos when unfortunately I dropped my camera in the water. I cried.

2. [Next lesson] When they came in, each pupil found written on their desk in board pen, one of these structures:

me gusta        porque puedo        

si...    pero si...    prefiero

a mi hermano le gusta    fui/fuimos

quería        dije    dijo    decidí    

____aba/___ía    ___é/___í

hubiera preferido

These were very deliberately in order around the classroom. And on the board were the infinitives from the aquarium story. First we went round the class and each pupil said in Spanish their part of the story: Me gusta ir al acuario ... ... porque puedo ver los peces...

The complete version is:

Me gusta ir al acuario porque puedo ver los peces sobre todo si llueve porque si hace sol prefiero ir a la playa. A mi hermano le gusta tocar las estrellas de mar. En el verano fuimos al acuario. Mi hermano quería tocar los peces. Dijo, "Quiero tocar una estrella de mar." Dije, "Yo no quiero." Decidí sacar fotos. Mi hermano tocaba una estrella de mar pero dejé caer mi móvil en el agua. Lloré. Hubiera preferido ir a la playa.

Each pupil in turn added their section as we went round the class in order, using the structure each pupil had on their table. And they felt very pleased with what they had done. Then it was time for Granny to go to market. We went round again. This time each pupil said their section. But then the next pupil had to repeat the story from the start, adding their chunk. Of course we went back to the first pupil and got them to do the whole thing! And they wrote it up in their books, comparing it to the version from the previous lesson.

3. Next lesson, after a bit of testing and ticking (careful!), I put these words, also from the textbook listening, on the board:

ir a un parque de atracciones    comer helado

montar en una montaña rusa    vomitar

In no time at all, we went round the class, each pupil building their part of the story using the same chunks (bad word given this story) as in the previous lesson. Then they worked on telling a partner the whole story. As they did this, they looked around the class at where the other pupils were sitting in order to remember what each person had added. 

Now all of the class have a model answer that they can adapt to any topic. It is built around opinions and reasons, if sentences, differences of opinion, an example of what happened, a conflict, a conversation, a decision, what was happening, what happened, and what you would have preferred to have happened. 

I wrote here about how my previous Year 10 got to the point where they would give me a topic to talk about. I would put the verbs on the board and they would improvise the story, either as a group or individually. And in the exam, all they have to do is visualise the class and remember what structure each pupil represents.

Update. Starting writing/speaking on a new topic (A school trip) 3 months later, pupils used their allocated expressions they have had since October and wrote this model answer. Individual answers on their own school trips to come next week...

The Nicest things about teaching Year 7

Several bizarre and wonderful experiences teaching Year 7 this week. Firstly a colleague coming in to whisper something to me. Secondly, finding myself standing there miming video game, video game, fish. And then video game, video game, chicken. And thirdly, being out maneuvered in a game of logic.

I think the first one was bizarre for my colleague and wonderful for me. She popped in ostensibly to excuse some pupils who were late because they had got tangled up the wrong line on the stairs. But mainly to whisper to me with a huge smile that my pupils had been busy practising their key phonics sounds and actions together, which must have been quite a spectacle, even if it pales by comparison with my video game, video game, chicken actions of which fortunately she remains blissfully ignorant.

I have written here about how we use Dr Rachel Hawkes' francophoniques, using key words for the sounds, and actions to go with those words. Year 7 are now at the phase where any time we learn new words, we link it to the sounds and the actions. The fish gesture has now lost its direct link to poisson and is just an automatic cue for the oi sound. So when we are reading aloud, we do the gestures simultaneously as we read. Or if a pupil is speaking, I can cue correct pronunciation with a gesture instead of spoon-feeding them the sound.

Today we were going to be playing the Guess Who game, involving hair and eyes. So we were meeting the new words for hair and eyes. On the board were:

les cheveux longs    les cheveux courts    les cheveux frisés    

les cheveux blonds    les cheveux noirs    etc.

So the e / eu sound in cheveux is from the key phonics word jeu vidéo, with its action of thumbs on a console. And then variously we have sounds from pont, poule, midi, bébé and of course poisson. So if I mime "video game, video game, fish" - the pupils interpret this as the sound eu eu oi. They put their hand up and say "les cheveux noirs." Or if I mime "video game, video game, bridge" they know it is eu eu on. Here there are two possibilities: les cheveux longs or les cheveux blonds. It's great fun and has them all pronouncing the words correctly immediately. And then because they can have the written form with no issues of mis-pronunciation, they can get straight on with playing the Guess Who game and have a great lesson in French. But standing there miming "video game video game, chicken" (yes, you got it, les cheveux courts), is one of those moments when you wonder quite how you got to where you are.

The other one unfolded over several lessons. We were learning pets. Which was bizarre in itself given all the recent debate about this topic. One lesson I quite simply wanted pupils to start with the sentence, "J'ai un chien" and take it in turns to change one thing. We did this round the class, then they did it in pairs. I was expecting things like, "J'ai un chat." But the first pupil I called on, started with "Je n'ai pas de chien." Which showed how they were going to play this. 

Anyway, after that we got back to "J'ai un lapin" and "j'ai une tortue" and "j'ai deux oiseaux". Which was fine as long as we were speaking. Then we started again but this time I wrote it up on the board. Now the change from "J'ai un chien" to "J'ai deux chiens" needed much more attention. But they understood that if you changed one word, then another one had to change too. And they were strict with un / une too, helped by the "lune" action from our phonics keywords. This led on to doing it on mini-whiteboards. Again starting with j'ai un chien. Working in pairs to change the sentence, rubbing out words and seeing if the word you put in meant other words in the sentence had to change too.

Next lesson I made it into a challenge. Only changing ONE word. This brought them up against the fact that they couldn't swap easily from j'ai un chien to j'ai une tortue. Or from j'ai un chien to j'ai deux chiens. Because more than one word has to change.

Their challenge was to get from J'ai un chien to J'ai une tortue. And they did it. Eventually. And meanwhile while they were attempting it, they were saying and writing sentences in French and evaluating how many words had to change. I am tempted to leave you with the puzzle, but I will give you the solution so you can appreciate how my Year 7s got stuck into this:

J'ai un chien. J'ai un fils. J'ai deux fils. J'ai deux souris. J'ai une souris. J'ai une tortue.

Just a thought about the great pet debate and the questions Ofsted may ask of us in a deep dive: 

If I am asked about my teaching of pets, I know I can say that I'm not really teaching pets at all. The important things that I want pupils to grasp are phonics, masculine and feminine, and how spoken French is different to written French. Talking about pets is a medium for all these big fundamental concepts to be made concrete. This was at the heart of the lessons I have described. But really? This is a very intellectual line of quizzing about the micro planned intention behind a lesson... Am I really any better than the person in the classroom next door who just does a good job of teaching them to talk about their pets?

Talking to pupils about Languages

 I got the "Why can't everyone just speak the same language?" question again this week. So we had the conversation. "And that language... would it by any chance... be English?" "Yes!"

Oh dear.

Unfortunately it has been tried. And it was English. Whole nations of people. We even took their children away and put them in special schools and banned them from speaking their own language. In the USA and in Australia in my lifetime. I don't start with this fact - I normally save it until the pupil is agreeing with me that on reflection language diversity is a good thing.

I ask them if they also want everyone to have the same names as us, the same foods, the same clothes, the same jokes, stories and songs. On reflection, very few pupils want to persist with the question.

They may shift to another question, "Why do we have to learn French?"

This question can mean four things. Why learn languages? Why only learn one? Why learn French in particular? Or it might just mean, "I am tired and want to go out and play in the sunshine." Giving pupils these alternatives helps frame the conversation that follows. Unless it's the fourth option in which case the answer might be, "Get on with your work and you can go outside and play at break."

"Languages are such an important part of what makes us human and what makes our world what it is. I am so sorry that you only get to learn one, I know it would be great to learn several. Perhaps you will, but let's start with one and then you can go on to fall in love with other ones throughout your life. Meet people, go places, read stuff, listen to music, watch films, play games, expand your horizons, live life as a human on our planet."

"But why French?"

Honest answer to close down the discussion:

"To be honest, the reason you learn French is because we have people to teach you it."

Political answer to stir up more debate and ultimately engage them in a genuine conversation that I think they will enjoy and appreciate being taken seriously:

"It's our nearest neighbour and used to think it was an important country in the same way England thought it was important. But yes, it's no more important than Polish or Thai or Guajarati."

Anecdote to side track and then return to work:

"It's part of our culture that an English person understands some basic school French. I have a friend who learned Russian in school which she enjoyed, but she feels left out culturally because she has literally no idea about things in French that everyone else knows."

Flippant answer:

"Yes. I am asking if next year, Year 7 can start with American English as their foreign language. There's load of cognates and accessible cultural material. And then they can move on to Australian English after that."

Linguistic answer:

"It's a good place to start though. Because it is a language that is different from English in lots of ways, but also closely related. It has the same alphabet and is one of the languages that English has evolved from." 

Which brings me on to linguistic conversations.

Starting with the famous equation. English = French + German.

Or English = Spanish + German.

Based on the fact that English is made up of words of a Latin root (via Norman French) or a Germanic root (via Anglo Saxon). This is useful for understanding why French or Spanish syntax is often different from English. Pupils can see that English often has two ways of saying things, and that one will be the "German" way and the other will be the "French" way.

The most prominent examples would be House of Fraser or Fraser's House. Later or more late. So  if you say ma soeur's chambre, you've just done it the German way in French when you should have said the bedroom of my sister.

It also amuses pupils that you can rearrange the equation to get all the knowns on one side:

English - French = German

So if you ignore everything I tell you in French, you will be speaking German!

Often when French syntax is different from the English, the question "Why?" isn't a real question, it is just an expression of discomfort. But having an answer can go a long way to allaying the discomfort and the explanation can make the linguistic feature more memorable.

Now for the nightmare question. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's handy to have an explanation ready. "Un sandwich au jambon. Why does that say A sandwich to the ham?"

OK. Here we go.

For a start, it would be much easier if it was a sandwich of ham. Un sandwich de jambon? But to a French person's mind that might mean that it was literally a sandwich just made of ham. Which isn't a sandwich. It's some ham. Inside some ham. That might be enough to hold them off. They nod, happy to have had an explanation. 

Which is fair enough. After all in science: "Why does this apple fall?" "Oh, that's Gravity." "Oh, thank you very much." That's not a real explanation but everyone's happy. "Why do brakes rubbing make them get hot?" "That's friction." "Oh, thanks very much." When friction is just literally a fancy word for "rubbing."

But not this group. Someone had obviously done a good job of teaching them the equation à + le = au. And they wanted to know. And the answer also helps understand other questions about prepositions such as "Why can à mean so many things?" And, "Why are there so many words for in?"

Wish I had taken a picture of the board now, to illustrate the explanation. But basically we need the concept that one language is not built with reference to another. There is no deliberate correspondence between French and English. (Although other more disparate languages might make for a better example.) There is the illusion of a match up between words. Because French refers to the real world. And English refers to the real world. So when a word refers to something concrete, it is likely that the other language will have a word that does the same job. But a word at the other end of the concrete-abstract spectrum will behave differently. And when it comes to au in un sandwich au jambon, then this is a word that doesn't refer to any identifiable concept in the physical world. Its role is to define the relationship between two other words. In this case sandwich and jambon. Its role is entirely internal to the language. To the French language. So there is no reason whatsoever why English should have a direct corresponding use of the word.

I reckon if they're asking that kind of question, they deserve that kind of answer! Or if they don't appreciate it, then maybe they can stop asking questions that begin with "Why" and get back to work. 

To be called or Not to be called?

 Je m'appelle. Why do we teach it? As Greg Horton shows in his conference talks, if you ask someone their name, they just tell you their name. Without a verb or a sentence. Or if they are introducing themselves, they say, "I am..." And then there's the ridiculous situation as you go round the class, calling upon the pupil by name to answer the question, "Derek. Comment tu t'appelles?" We've all done it.

I suppose the answer is that it is a cultural expectation that English people know how to say, "je m'appelle" as part of their general culture. And so they can understand memes about actress Gemma Pell. Otherwise would I happily skip it and start straight off with more recombinable chunks?

Or maybe there's some underlying grammar that is what we are really teaching. And by grammar, I don't mean -er verbs in the present tense. Or reflexive verbs. Or the radical changing verb appeler.

By grammar here, I think I mean pupils' basic understanding of how the term is constructed. I don't let pupils get away with thinking je m'appelle means "My name is". That makes no sense. Perhaps "I'm called" would be closer but then it leads to the mistaken spelling "Je'm appelle". So I do make sure pupils know it's "I call myself". It's one of those examples we tell pupils about - "You are learning how different languages say things differently and you'll learn to look at your own language in a different light." And this is a great example. Followed soon afterwards by "What age do you have?" Already pupils are realising that a language isn't a code with French words substituted for English words. A language will say things a different way. And that is exciting and interesting. And has implications for how they have always spoken, thought and seen the world in their own language.

When we start Spanish in Year 9, I do start with "me llamo" as part of a conversation to crack all the sound-spelling combinations. It has an important role in embedding the ll sound. Pupils learn me llamo and in the question form they also see te llamas. In the accelerated learning that happens with Year 9, it is only a couple of weeks until the paradigm of the present tense comes in, and llamo, llamas is a pre-learned automatically retrievable version of this that can help with fluency in using other verbs. And then later when they meet the concept of El desayuno se sirve a las siete - Breakfast serves itself at seven o'clock, then the idea of is called/calls itself works as a model for the way Spanish avoids the passive by using reflexive or impersonal forms.

In Year 7 French, er verb endings are further away, so I am not claiming that they learn Je m'appelle as anything other than a phrase to be memorised and spoken.

So what is it really for? It is part of pupils acquiring a starting nugget of French around which more can crystalise. To try the feel and the sound of the language. To try out the sounds they learn in French phonics more and more fluently. To hear the same phrase with different elements substituted. Here the simplest substitution of different people's names. To interact in an easy and confident way exchanging the most basic information. And maybe right at the start of the year, they don't all know each other's names. Or who has twelve years already or which is the date of their birthday. Or what pets they have and... how their pets call themselves.

It's not about a theory of language-learning. It's about real people in a classroom, getting started with learning a language. 

So communication, interaction, sounds, tongues active with the new language, low stakes, memorisation. Starting to change the perception of self from monolingual to a confident language-learner.

In the same way as Year 7 love picking up "Am stram gram." It's meaningless, but it starts their snowball of French ready to pick up more and more. 

Dangerous Current

 There is a dangerous new fad in education and for modern languages. But I don't think it is the Cognitive Science that we hear so much about.

The main points of Cognitive Science that we keep hearing at the moment are:

Don't study something in a big Unit only to then discard it and move on to something else. A useful reminder, and a helpful guide to planning a curriculum. And some nice jargon around spacing, massing, interleaving, curve of forgetting for anyone who likes to cling to some scientific sounding jargon.

Testing is really important as part of the learning process. Just think how you learn pupils' names at the beginning of term. You constantly test yourself. In seating plan order, in register order, as you meet them in the corridor, between lessons when you write their names in your planner. And you make mistakes and carry on, until you haven't "memorised" them; you know them.

Pitch the learning so that pupils are engaged and thinking, but not overwhelmed. This exhortation is hardly revolutionary and doesn't actually give any help in finding that sweet-spot, apart from making it clear it is absolutely crucial.

Use pictures to help conceptualise, not for decoration. With a big mantra about not distracting pupils, but also the need to make learning memorable and not too "samey". And Dual Coding, although as no-one agrees on what it means, it's not too useful.

So, important basic insights into learning which are uncontroversial in that they are fairly obvious, and in that while they direct us towards important considerations, they are vague about how to find the exact balance. That is down to the teacher in the specific individual circumstances of their classroom and their learners.

The problem is that Cognitive Science has been hijacked by the powerful fad of the "Knowledge Curriculum".

The Knowledge Curriculum is a right wing educational philosophy that hides behind the "scientific neutrality" and blandness of Cognitive Science just as it previously hid behind "Learning Styles". 

It uses the language of "standards" and "duty" to coerce us into accepting its diktats. Ian Cushing in this paper looks at how it is used to promote "standard" English as the morally correct variety of English to be teaching. It leads to a situation where the Runnymeade Trust reports on the shocking lack of diversity in the voices pupils hear and the literature they study. Even at a time when teachers are talking about "de-colonising" the curriculum. Because the moral imperative of doing their best for their pupils is presented as teaching them the "important knowledge of the elite" that allows pupils to be inserted into the status quo. Pupils memorise the "important knowledge" about books rather than actually reading them, thinking about them and critiquing them. Conformity is valued above creativity and expression.

This knowledge is presented as a shibboleth which pupils will require in order to pass the gatekeepers of success in our society. Rather than seeing education as a way to show pupils that they can make of themselves what they will and re-make society in the process. It is done in the name of social mobility but ultimately to rigidly maintain the status quo.

In languages, this is mirrored in a down-grading of the importance of learning to communicate with "foreigners". It comes with a view of languages as an intellectual system, rather than as a way of communicating. Dead languages are elevated to the same (if not higher) status as modern languages. And the word "foreign" is reinstated in the name of the subject.

The language pupils learn is to be a carefully selected medium for them to spot patterns and practise the grammar point being taught. Not for them to express themselves. The pupils are to make connections within the language as an abstract system, not to create meaning or communicate. Learning is defined as memorisation. Skills are declared defunct. And communication is a hurdle mistakenly placed in the way of learning.

If it was honest, then the Knowledge Curriculum would bring interesting ideas to the debate. How best to integrate memorisation, understanding, thinking, communication, creativity? How can skills be broken down into micro-skills? What is the balance between learning through engagement with exposure to the language and learning by explanation?

But because it hides its political nature behind the more neutral camouflage of Cognitive Science, and dresses up its elitism in the moral blackmail of "standards", and because it sees consistency as more important than agency, then it is dangerous to deal with. Let's see if it tries to bite back at me.