Mr Apostrophe

 A lovely thing happened with Year 7 this week. We are working on talking about food we like and don't like. In interesting combinations: j'aime la glace avec des cornichons. Previously we had learned some foods using the dual coding keyword technique. So when they hear confiture, pupils have a mental image of a comfy chair covered in... jam. We know this works, because one of the class had done that lesson on a Primary taster day and still remembered the words 6 months later, from a single hour's lesson.

Anyway, this week, I started by going round the class asking Tu aimes le pain avec de la confiture? Tu aimes les hamburgers avec des cornichons? Tu aimes les pâtes avec du fromage? Tu aimes la glace avec des cornichons? And the pupils giving the answer Oui, j'aime... or Non, je n'aime pas... And then me occasionally recapping, Theresa aime... Derek n'aime pas...

Now. One of the lessons of the Ofsted Research Review is that we need to shift the focus away from the fromage, cornichons, moutarde, guimauves and onto the structure of the language and the important words that are recycled across topics. We like to think that our curriculum is already built around this recycling of a repertoire of powerful structures. But the Ofsted Review has sharpened our awareness of how pupils' focus doesn't always lie in the same place as the teacher's. So we might think we are working on j'aime, j'adore, je n'aime pas, je préfère... but the pupils are entirely focused on the idea of eating marshmallows with gherkins.

And that is entirely natural. We don't want to raise awareness of the forms of the language by squishing pupils' enthusiasm to communicate and create meaning. So we are looking for ways to keep tweaking the balance. Our Fluent in 5 lesson starters started out as a way of recycling language from previous topics. They have quickly turned into a way to focus on the patterns and detail of language. 

And we are examining our own attitudes to how pupils consume grammar. Did we use to think that "weaker" pupils were happy to learn to say things? And "stronger" pupils appreciated the insights into grammar, or would spot the patterns for themselves? If so, do we need to turn this thinking on its head? Does a careful and deliberate focus on the forms of the language help those pupils who otherwise have been lost in a swamp of incoherent and unexplained language? It's worth asking ourselves that question.

I don't know if you've forgotten about the Nice Thing I promised you at the start. I haven't forgotten it. We will get there.

So after going round the class and talking in French about their likes and dislikes, I put the word aime on the board four times.

aime

aime

aime

aime

And I told them it was four different words. And that they had heard or used all four of them already in the lesson. And that I had spelled one of them wrong!

Because if we focus on the foods and not on the recyclable powerful words, you end up in Year 8 with pupils who know j'aime as a unit. And say things like Ethan j'aime jouer au foot when they want to use the 3rd person. Or pupils who cannot distinguish je n'ai pas and je n'aime pas because they inexplicably haven't spotted the word aime as central to je n'aime pas. Not because they aren't capable of spotting it. But because they aren't that fussed about that word. They are focused on the marshmallow-gherkin combination. I am not saying we should remove the marshmallow-gherkin feast. (Although I think that the proponents of a curriculum based on meticulous sequencing of high frequency language and structures might.) But we need to keep an eye on the balance. The more interesting we make the content, the less interested pupils are in the language. Could this be true?

My Year 7s correctly identified the 4 aime words. (Are they different words?) I recapped the dialogue a little bit to keep it in context and show them how we had already seen the words. And they spotted all four. All of them with aime hiding in the middle.

J'aime, je n'aime pas, tu aimes, Theresa aime... And I told them about the secret silent s on tu aimes. I also deliberately misspelled j'aime as je aime to emphasise the separate meaning of I. And I left it like that on the board and pretended to carry on. At which point a pupil appeared to shout out, "Mister Apostrophe". Which was the best thing that could have happened. (I told you I would get to it.) It was one of those moments you just cannot plan for, but which are going to stay in your teaching for ever. "Mister Apostrophe!"

Of course, I think they must have said, "You missed your apostrophe". But too late. Mr Apostrophe was born. He is called Mr Apostrophe. And he eats letters!

So je aime was turned into j'aime by Mr Apostrophe. And he reappeared to hungrily change je ne aime pas into je n'aime pas. And he will be back regularly. Every time I use j'aime in fact from now on. With all my classes. And actually it's not to remind pupils to include the apostrophe. It's to make sure they know that it is in fact je aime and that a letter has been eaten.