International Leaders

 At our school, the International Leaders are a group of Year 9 pupils who meet each week to work on projects for other pupils in Modern Languages and other areas of the school with an international dimension. It is a first step into leadership roles, such as becoming a prefect. And at the end of the year, if they stay the course, they get their International Leader badge. Which is a great badge to have because it contains the words International Leader and is therefore a very large badge!

I know Language Ambassadors or Language Leaders is something that other schools have put in place. Ours has been running for 10 years now and is completely integrated with our curriculum. Some of the things that we do, couldn't run without the International Leaders.

This week, they spent a hectic lunch hour mounting the Year 7 Windmill Exhibition onto display paper. Making choices about which artworks worked well together, and on what colour backing paper, reading the French and matching it to the picture when pupils had forgotten to put their names on their work. Ready for me to take to the Windmill next week. (Watch this space.) In previous years, the International Leaders have hosted a Vernissage on the opening night at the Windmill, welcoming guests with drinks and canapes.

Meanwhile, they are also simultaneously running the Year 7 vocabulary competition, devising tasks for the pupils to tackle in their Houses, marking them, and maintaining the Leader Board. These happen in French lessons, but with the International Leaders supplying and marking the tasks. It's a good way to bring in low-stakes tasks which go back over previous content.

And then there's the Domino Badge Conga competition which is also almost ready to go. Each pupil in Year 7 gets a badge. The badges come in different colours for the different Houses. With two words on. One in French and one in English. Each pupil has to find out what the words on their badge mean. And then over a couple of days, they have to look out for the pupils in their House who have the corresponding words in the other language. So the pupil who has sugar and arbre is looking for two pupils (in the same House), one with sucre and one with tree. When they find them, they can then help find more pupils to make a long domino conga chain. Something like: sugar / arbre - tree / chameau - camel / pain - bread / voiture - car / sucre. The forming of the conga chains usually happens in a very unusual assembly. Where they try to form the longest unbroken chain (or loop). This year, with pupils still in their own zones of the school, we will do this outside at break time. (Again, watch this space - we are nearly ready to go.)

You can see we are very busy. When you launch International Leaders or Language Ambassadors, you do need plenty of things for them to do. They do also get involved with creating displays, trialing materials, making videos, writing articles, giving presentations, showing visitors around, open evening... But it's running events for younger pupils that they really enjoy.

In the past we have run Are You Smarter Than a Year Seven as the on stage live final of the Vocabulary Competition. Which when lockdown hit, was being re-invented as "The Dog Ate My French Homework". The formats are designed to have pupils up on stage, but with their form Tutors ostensibly as the ones being tested or made to do silly things in French. We have also run TV gameshow themed language competitions for Primary pupils. With games such as The Chase, Pointless, and Million Pound Drop for pupils to compete in. 

It is especially lovely when the Year 9s are organising activities that they remember being part of when they were in Year 7. Projects do come and go, for example the French staff café or the Farm Stamper Trail, the Francovision Song Contest... I definitely recommend it, even though you have to keep a balance between having enough for them to do, and not running things just to keep them busy!

Dictating Phonics Testing

 I am marking Year 8 end of unit tests. I wrote in a previous post about how we have introduced new tests. We wanted to make sure that our tests really did test pupils' knowledge of what they had been taught. And not just label pupils with good literacy skills as "good at languages". And label pupils with weaker literacy as "bad at languages". We also made some changes to focus on phonics and the knowledge that underpins the skills of Listening.

Here is Question 1 from the Year 8 Unit 2 test.

You will see that we are testing careful listening to similar sounds. It isn't exactly NCELP style minimal pairs (vin / vend) and it does have the words in context. Because this is a listening exercise that ultimately is about understanding meaning.

Interestingly, lots of pupils got question d. wrong. In fact I witnessed the gasps of delighted recognition as pupils happily and wrongly circled "je préfère". Familiarity, creation of meaning, making it all make sense, had taken over from carefully listening to what they had actually heard.

For me, this wasn't a flaw in the test. I was ultimately looking to test accurate understanding of meaning, by offering alternatives which were both possible and where the difference in sound was important precisely because it resulted in a different meaning.

The interesting thing is that following the philosophy of the Ofsted Research Review, this error shouldn't have happened. According to the Ofsted Research Review, when learners read or listen, they arrive at meaning by processing sounds and parsing known words in order to arrive at meaning. The idea that we hold meaning and form in a constant tension is alien to them.

In fact of course, it is impossible to listen to French and process it by turning sounds into words in a one way street from form to meaning. You can't tell if someone has said porc or port by processing the sound and then building the sentence. You have to keep both possibilities in mind as you make sense of the whole sentence. Processing the word as porc or port is not the first step. And it's not the last step either. It's a constant feedback circle between what the sound is and what the meaning is. That's where the Ofsted view falls down.

You can't tell if someone has said ça me dit or samedi even if you have processed the sentence around it. You have to take into account the whole interaction and maybe even ask for clarification before you turn up to a date on the wrong day!

You can't tell, in spoken English, if someone is asking the way to the Eiffel Tower or the weight of the Eiffel Tower without context.

So what is best for the new GCSE phonics dictation test? Isolated words? Known words? Unknown words? Made up words?

I think the guidance is that the dictation should contain genuine French words but which are not all on the GCSE vocabulary list. Because with known words, it wouldn't be testing their ability to transcribe the sound-spelling clusters. So probably words unknown to the pupils.

If, like Ofsted, the new GCSE panel believe that there is no back channel from meaning to processing of sound into words, then this might help pupils focus purely on the sound. But if, as actually happens, pupils have a strong conscious and unconscious pull towards making the sound into something that makes sense, then they may well distort the test words into the closest word they do know. Our brains don't seem to like non-sense, and try very hard to find meaning in what we hear.

So the pupils will be hearing unknown words and writing them down. This isn't a dictation, it's a sort of phonetic transcription. Dictation means writing down what someone says so the words make sense and the sentence is grammatically correct. So the sentence context and meaning would determine the correct spelling of the word - aller allez allé allés allée allées (allais?) / vers ver verre vert vaire verres verts. So a dictation isn't a phonics test at all.

What happens when it's a transcription of the phonics of unknown words? And the pupil can't be penalised for correctly coming up with a spelling that isn't an actual word? Because the whole point was that they didn't know the word. Is there a French utterance that can't be rendered a multiplicity of ways?

Dans, dent, dend, dand, d'ans, d'en, d'an, d'en, dant, dents... And to the ver list we would have to add verrent, vairent as potential silent endings.

Of course, this isn't going to be put into practice by Ofsted researchers or the new GCSE panel of experts. This is going to be a headache for the exam boards. Whose main concern is that the test discriminates well as an instrument for grading pupils from 1 to 9. So the dictation on Higher Tier won't be a friendly phonics check. It will be a test where a Grade 6 candidate has to get half of it wrong. 

Let's hope this is all thoroughly tested and trialed so we can see what works and what doesn't work. Let's hope that schools very quickly have some clarity so we can know how it's going to work. And so we can make sure pupils are being tested on what they have been taught.

The wrong answer to the wrong problem. Ignorant or just ignoring the current GCSE?

 I think I may have been a little unfair to the new GCSE panel. I have thought that their proposals were based on a Review carried out as far back as 2016, without really looking at the transformation in MFL teaching which has happened since then. I have talked about them ignoring or being ignorant of the developments in language teaching and learning since we got rid of the Controlled Assessment GCSE.

I was of the opinion that they were working from a Review of language teaching from a previous era where pupils didn't have to learn how to put language together for themselves. Where the speaking and writing "exams" consisted of rote learning long spiels of language whether or not the pupil knew what it meant or how the structures were formed. An exam where "amount of information" delivered slickly was rewarded rather than pupils who spoke spontaneously. An exam where "variety" of expression scored higher than having a core repertoire of language you could use for yourself. And, as I have written here, a perfect storm of targets, accountability, and hostile Academy takeovers all meant that a GCSE created with the good intentions of making the exam more accessible and less intimidating, led to the destruction of meaningful language-learning.

And I have said that since the introduction of the current GCSE, we have seen a flowering of pupils able to speak and write spontaneously. Successfully using their knowledge of the language to express themselves and develop their answers.

This may not be entirely true. And I have realised where my understanding may have been incomplete.

I teach AQA GCSE. And the AQA examiner's report after the introduction of the new GCSE did comment on how pupils were able to speak and write successfully in response to unexpected writing questions or skilled questioning from the examiner in the speaking exam.

But my own children's school do Edexcel. And their experience is very different. This may be down to their teachers being slow to move on, and a sign of the continuing woeful influence of the Controlled Assessment GCSE. But it is also to some extent driven by the current Edexcel GCSE.

So for AQA, I teach the Conversation by practising with the pupils. Making sure they can respond to questions with an initial short answer. And then knowing that once they have done that, I will follow up with and... for example... Why...? but what if...? so... to push them for more information and more language, developing their answers spontaneously. And this is rewarded by the markscheme. With marks for interaction and for developing answers. And for being able to deploy a core repertoire for giving and justifying opinions, narrating past events, and talking about the future.

Not for Edexcel. My children's teachers have them coming home and learning long answers from memory. Still. This may be down to the teachers, but it is rewarded by the Edexcel markscheme. The three key differences are: 

Edexcel breaks down the topic content in a different way, so you have to have much more detail prepared on any one single subtopic area, including the ones that aren't particularly well suited to a core of language. So for AQA you might get some questions on the Environment or Poor People but in and amongst questions on Travel and Tourism or Home Town as part of a conversation on Theme 2. Whereas with Edexcel you have to have extended answers ready on all these individual subtopics.

Edexcel specifically rewards fancy language. So you need expressions given to you by the teacher to sound fancy. Planned and learned and dropped in, in order to impress the examiner. Whereas with AQA, having a core repertoire and being able to use it spontaneously to express yourself and develop answers is more important.

Edexcel (according to my children's teachers) will mark you down for hesitating. So having prepared answers scores higher than speaking spontaneously. AQA rewards pupils who can interact and develop answers in response to the examiner's questioning.

There are similar small but important differences in the Role Play. For AQA, as long as you can work out what the card wants you to say (!?!?), it is usually possible for pupils to construct an answer from their core repertoire of language. For Edexcel, it does seem as if they expect you to have swallowed a phrasebook of parrot-learned expressions. Sometimes going way beyond the language pupils are expected to have mastered at GCSE. For example saying, My wallet has been stolen. A construction my A Level class are currently struggling with, as it highlights the different treatment of the past participle when it works with the auxiliary to have compared to the formation of the passive voice with one of the verbs to be. Ouch!

So, yes, maybe rote-learning of long fancy answers and expressions learned parrot fashion without understanding the component parts, is still alive and kicking. Maybe because of the long shadow of the Controlled Assessment GCSE. Or maybe in schools which teach the Edexcel specification.

I am focusing here on the Speaking and Writing exam, because the new GCSE proposals for Listening and Reading, while claiming to ameliorate a calamitous exam, actually offer more of the same. Compounding precisely the things that make the current exams so bad.

If the new GCSE panel start by by basing their outlook on the out of date 2016 Review, and then if they only have personal knowledge of the current GCSE (I don't see them quoting any research) based on the Edexcel version (and not AQA), then maybe we can understand their ignorance of much of what has been going on in language teaching. 

I wrote, back in April, that I thought they were forcing upon us the wrong answer to the wrong problem. It's still the wrong answer. But I can now understand why, if their personal knowledge of the new GCSE is limited to Edexcel, they might still be trying to answer the wrong question.

What if...

 What if the English schools' Modern Languages curriculum is a machine for alienating pupils?

What if the pupils who don't chose a language for GCSE do so precisely because we have a curriculum designed to sift them out? How would such a process work?

What if a focus on Communication in the language is putting demands on learners which they are just not ready for? If asking every pupil in the class to give their own personal variation on an answer means we end up teaching a plethora of nouns to cover all the options. What if the content of the course ends up being driven by a random collection of things pupils might want to say, rather than a logically planned curriculum? What if most of the things we teach are dispensable? And what if the focus on Meaning and Communication is the wrong focus. In the sentence j'ai un chien, we should not be focusing on the word "dog" but on the other two words. We allow pupils to accumulate the fluff, not the substance of the language. Except for a small minority, already skilled in language and literacy, who spot for themselves the importance of the words we gloss over in our rush towards self expression.

What if the same process happens with our structuring of the curriculum around Topics? In a similar progression from "random" to "abandon". If we first select the topics and then fit the language to those topics, is that the best way to sequence the learning? When we finish one topic and move on to the next, how much is just left behind? Except for a small minority of pupils, who challenge themselves to hang on to the most important bits. Have we been focusing on the wrong language, and teaching it in the wrong order?

What if talking to pupils in the Target Language is fine for pupils who can confidently predict what the situation is, what the gestures mean, and maybe even recognise one or two words? But is hugely alienating to pupils who don't want to be put on the spot without knowing exactly what is being expected?

What if authentic materials -where pupils are expected to use their cultural knowledge of the resource, to be able to extrapolate, putting together clues to deduce meaning, constantly checking the feedback loop between understanding some words, making sense of the content, hypothesising unknown words, accessing their knowledge of similar words and word families in English - what if this is something only a minority of pupils are confident in tackling? 

What if our tests are explicitly a machine for filtering and labelling pupils? Well, no denying it: they are. And what if those tests are based on labelling pupils with confident literacy skills as "Good at languages" and those with weaker literacy as "Doing badly in languages"? Because our tests don't simply test how well pupils are learning what we are teaching. They test it "in context", asking pupils to make cognitive leaps, to deal with familiar language in unfamiliar contexts or mixed with unfamiliar language. Which only certain pupils can deal with.

What if all the things we do to try to remedy the situation are a misdiagnosis, actually exacerbating the situation? We have seen this in the past. Using pictures instead of clearly telling the pupils exactly what things mean. Not showing pupils the written form, so they end up inventing their own mental spellings for wazo and pwasson. Teaching transactional practical language phrase book style, so language learning was all about parrot memorisation. So what if reaching for more "engaging" topics and self expression and culture and authenticity is actually pushing pupils away, not drawing them in?

This is the spectre that the Ofsted Research Review and its associated webinars has awoken.

Scary stuff. And we are right to be scared. These are the things that haunt us every lesson, every day. We are NOT unaware of them. We interact with pupils, their successes and failures, their misconceptions and lightbulb moments. This is the key. Our curriculum, with its topics and its focus on expression and communication, isn't a thing that exists just on paper. It has evolved through constant contact with real pupils. They, the pupils, bring a desire for meaning, for personalisation. And we wouldn't have it any other way. Would we?

I prefer something robust which has evolved in the natural habitat, which engages with pupils' growing ability to express themselves. Which is firmly built around the pupil. And their growing repertoire, their emerging conceptualisation, their slow shift from focus on meaning towards a greater focus on forms. Which balances immediate take-away in terms of learning something to say, with long term development of understanding. Rather than something that is meticulously planned on paper, but based on a deconstruction of the language, rather than on the complexity of what is happening in the experience and agency of the learner.

The curriculum happens in the classroom. In a constant process of successes and failures, tweaks and leaps. With immediate feedback and diversions and occasional culs de sac, with a long term vision and sense of direction.

If this post has given you the shivers and left you doubting your reasons for teaching, quickly click on this weekend's other post, looking at how pupils love extending their repertoire and developing their answers spontaneously and fluently.

A Game of Two Halves

 With my Dance Moms French Year 11 intervention group, we spent 3 sessions working on our Game Plan for the GCSE Speaking Exam. I have used it as a metaphor before, as a way of thinking about tackling the Speaking Exam, but now I am using it as a class activity.

Here it is in Spanish from my Year 10 lesson this morning.

You can see the general layout as a football pitch. With on the left, our defensive half. And on the right, the goal we are attacking. At the top, the pupil has written an explanation of the difference. In the defensive half, we concentrate on keeping the ball, moving it with confidence, taking few risks, and playing out from the back. We pass from defender to defender, using and, but, so, because, especially to keep the ball moving. We can even play a one-two by using a pair of if sentences: if I go with my friends... But if I have to go with my family... Or If it is sunny... But if it rains...

The language we use in the defensive half is the structures we are confident with. Opinions and reasons. Verb + infinitive. We can use it to talk about any topic. And we can do it as long as you like, with no danger of losing the ball or slipping up.

Something like:

I like to go into town because I can go to the shops, especially if I can go with my friends, but I don't like it if I have to go with my family because I prefer to spend time with my friends, and there is a cinema so I can see a film if I want but normally I just go to the shops because it is expensive to go to the cinema and when...

That's the defensive half. On now to the attacking phase. Here again, the pupil has spelled it out. In the attacking phase, we take risks. We show off. We score goals. Our attitude to "difficulty" is that we want to show it off. Just like at football training, no-one wants to practise passing and receiving the ball correctly. Everyone wants to practise their Maradona turns, their Ronaldo chops and their rainbow flicks (Ardiles flick, for the older fan). So here we have our fancier language:  I was going to, I decided to, I would have preferred to... And an attacking version of the one-two with I said... But she said...

In the middle of the pitch, you can see two words highlighted in yellow. These are important. Firstly "por ejemplo". In football training, imagine an exercise where the coach wants the players to move from the defensive phase to the attacking phase. The players start by playing the ball out from the back, passing and moving, protecting the ball, taking no risks. Just as we do with opinions and reasons and conjunctions. Then the coach blows a whistle and the player with the ball bursts into the attacking half and has to use some tricks to beat the defenders, and try to score. The for example is the whistle.

As we are in pairs (or as a class) doing the defensive drill, a designated member of the class can call out por ejemplo. At which point the pupil speaking will swap to the attacking half. I will show you in a minute how this looks. But first I must point out that this is exactly what happens in the actual Speaking Exam. As the teacher-examiner, I don't have to say, Please give me a recent example in the past. I just say ¿Por ejemplo? and the pupils are drilled to attack.

So the whole drill (in Spanish) in pairs or as a class will look something like this:

I like to go into town because I can go to the shops, especially if I can go with my friends, but I don't like it if I have to go with my family because I prefer to spend time with my friends, and there is a cinema so I can see a film if I want POR EJEMPLO at the weekend I was going to do my homework but my friend said, "I am going to the cinema" so I said, "I love to go to the cinema" so we went to the cinema and we saw a war film. I would have preferred to see a romantic film.

I forgot to mention the offside rule. The other word highlighted in yellow is "When". Before you are allowed to move into the attacking half, you have to set the timeframe - in this example it was at the weekend... So now you understand the offside rule!

Are you worried about the lack of full stops in the example? Firstly, in speaking, there aren't really any full stops, and we just want our pupils to keep talking. Secondly, in the actual exam, a lot of the conjunctions actually come from the teacher-examiner. So a pupil will say, I like to go into town. And it's me who says ¿por qué? or ¿entonces?

And if you look at the AQA exam criteria, you will see this is exactly what scores marks in the Conversation. Develops answers, extended sequences, narrates, opinions and reasons, past, present and future, reacts naturally, spontaneity, fluency. And the markscheme even acknowledges the idea of taking risks in the attacking half, allowing for errors in attempting more complex structures.

Pupils love it. They really enjoy having a clear idea of how to approach the exam, how to extend their answers, how to wow the examiner. All the language they have been learning falls into place with a clear plan of how to deploy it for any of the Conversation topics.

Can't leave this without a sad look back to the Controlled Assessment GCSE where all this counted for nothing, as what was rewarded was fancy rote-learned answers recorded perfectly. And a sad look forward to the proposed new GCSE where being able to extend answers spontaneously, narrating and developing stories, will no longer be needed.