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?