Talking about Statistics. Part Two.

 In Part One we found that "on average" is not the same as saying, "generally". So you can't say, "Generally girls are better at languages and boys are better at maths."

My natural aptitude didn't stretch to labelling the axes correctly.

If you take two populations, it's unlikely they will be exactly the same. So there will be a difference in the average. But it doesn't mean that "generally" one group is different to the other. Generally almost everybody is in the overlap.

In fact, tiny differences, carelessly exaggerated, can have a huge effect on young people and the direction they take. We see it in school with siblings where one gets labelled "the sporty one" or "the clever one" because of some insignificant early success. A small distinction that gets fixed and ends up determining their destiny.

For the Social Mobility Tsar and society in general to peddle supposed differences between boys and girls as being "natural" does have consequences for pupils' image, choices, ambitions and lives. Of course it does. And it's our job to liberate young people from these pressures and limitations.

And it's not just in gender aspirations that the misuse of statistics reaches into our profession and damages pupils' lives.

Here's the same curve, back in the 80s, showing grading in O Level and CSE Languages. As you can see, a very few people got As and Bs at O Level. The "average pupil" was barely catered for. And a large number of pupils were not catered for at all.

Today, GCSE grades are pegged to a curve. The number of grades on offer is determined in advance to ensure standards are maintained year on year. If a year group's KS2 SATs are higher or lower than normal, then the number of each grade can be tweaked. But it's still determined in advance.

Pupils are given predicted grades based on their KS2 English and Maths results. Schools can choose whether to use predicted grades that would put them in the top, say, 25% of schools. And in some ambitious schools these are labeled as "minimum target grades." Whereas if it's a top 25% target grade, it would seem more realistic to tell pupils they have a one in four chance of getting that grade! Of course, the correlation between predicted grades and actual grades for the whole cohort matches up. Because that's how they determine how many grades to give out! But for any one individual pupil, it is not statistically valid to say that their "target" means anything at all.

Pupils are confused by the grades because their teachers can't really tell them what they mean. Especially when pupils learn that their GCSE drama target grade is based on their English and Maths exam 5 years previously. If you believe in "ability" then the KS2 SATs could be taken as a proxy for that. Or if you believe in step by step measurable progress, then you can take the KS2 SATs as a baseline for that. But really there's no justifiable link at the level of the individual pupil. This is where the system starts to bring itself into disrepute.

This came to a head in the 2020 algorithm scandal to determine GCSE and A Level grades. Teachers handed in grades based on their knowledge and assessment of pupils, along with a rank order. Then Ofqual manipulated those grades using an algorithm. Ofqual's statisticians know their stuff. And they have oodles of data on schools and pupils. They could have done a brilliant job.

I imagined something, at the very least, like the following: I hand in my Spanish Centre Assessed Grades. Ofqual look at my school's Spanish pupils for the last few years. Ofqual look at the KS2 baseline of my pupils over the last few years, and see how much progress pupils from different starting points tend to make in Spanish. Ofqual then look at the KS2 profile of the current (2020) cohort, and see if my assessed grades are consistent with the progress you would expect such pupils to make in my school in my subject. This at the very least, if not something more sophisticated and beyond what I could come up with.

They did not. What they did was look at the previous year's grades and my rank order. Then they ignored my assessment of the pupils. And more or less issued them last year's pupils' grades. I could see this with my own pupils. And there was the famous case of the school who had previously entered the whole cohort for a science exam, with pupils scoring grades from 9 to 1. But in 2020 they only entered a small number of pupils for Foundation Tier. Ofqual duly awarded them the previous year's grades, spreading the grades from 9 to 1, even though Foundation candidates couldn't have got higher than a 5.

This was not an accident. I said the statisticians at Ofqual know their stuff. And they do. They modelled the algorithm and knew that it meant one in three grades was wrong. So at A Level one grade per student: wrong. And at GCSE 3 grades per pupil: wrong. On average. So if one pupil got all the correct grades, that meant someone else was getting 6 incorrect grades. But they did it. Why? Because Ofqual produce the results they are instructed to produce. And the priority they were given was to avoid "grade inflation." And by issuing the 2019 grades to the 2020 pupils they made absolutely sure they met this brief. The government's priority was to give out the right number of grades. But not necessarily to the right pupils.

This brings us to the heart of the destructive role of statistics in exams. Their role in "accountability" for teachers and for schools.

Why could Centre Assessed Grades not be trusted? Because we have a high-stakes system where teachers and schools are judged and ranked by results. A system where teachers are pressured and pass that pressure on to pupils. So that schools can be ranked for messianic saviour politicians to criticise and rescue with their heroic initiatives. In fact, Centre Assessed Grades would be expected to be slightly inflated. Not because each individual pupil would be given grades they didn't deserve, but because the pupils who could have a disaster in an exam (and by dropping to a U would have a disproportionate effect on the class's statistics) would be more likely under teacher assessment to get a grade that reflected their level.

Of course it all went wrong. When the wrong pupils were obviously being given the grades, the government had to U-turn. Which meant grades were inflated. Bringing the system into very public disrepute.

The whole argument for ranking schools is morally bankrupt. The argument is that competition between schools drives up standards. And yet, while standards are supposedly being driven upwards, GCSE results have to be held down to avoid grade "inflation." If the narrative of high stakes accountability and competition is that standards are going up, then holding grades down is a form of real terms grade deflation. Devaluing pupils' achievement. Except it's not really about the pupils.

Everyone knows that KS2 SATs are not a qualification for the pupil. They are a school performance measure. But schools, parents, pupils are all made to feel the pressure of their individual performance. It's dishonest and harmful. Some parents think the "ebacc" is a qualification. And ask for their certificate. It's a manipulative school accountability measure. But it's sold to pupils and parents as something they can gain. It's fraudulent. The thing is, GCSEs are not much different. They are really much more for politicians posturing over school "accountability" than they are for the pupils. But the pupils aren't supposed to know this.

I will return to this in the context of 2022, after a slight diversion into grades in MFL.

Ofqual know that grades in MFL at GCSE and A Level are not aligned with other subjects. But it's not their brief to make sure they are. It's Ofqual's brief to make sure standards in each subject stay the same year on year. Within this brief, they have tried to do what they can to move MFL results more into line with other subjects. They looked at the fact that for an elite subject with a high number of A grades, A Level languages had a dearth of A*s. They looked at the effect of native speakers on A Level grades. At GCSE they looked at how levels matched up with European pupils, in a desperate attempt to find something in their legal brief (international comparability of standards) that would allow them to intervene. In the end they were allowed a small tweak to French and German on the grounds that the grading was causing a crisis. Spanish was deemed not to be in crisis, so although it shares the severe grading, it wasn't changed. The evidence and the statistics take second place to politics and the posturing of standards.

Now to 2022 and GCSEs. Pupils are going to take exams. But something is happening. There are pupils who are quietly and without confrontation just losing the will to do well. There are several reasons we can find for this. Firstly, the current Year 11 were half way through Year 9 and now find themselves taking exams. Exams many pupils may well feel they are not prepared for. Secondly, they have been doing "contingency assessments." These are not like mocks. When pupils do mocks, everyone knows that they haven't finished the course, that they will continue to make progress. Contingency assessments are not like this. When you give a pupil a contingency assessment in February, they know that the grade could end up being their GCSE grade. So that means that a pupil who wants to do well, has to revise all their subjects for a crucial GCSE four months early. When they haven't finished the course. All teachers can do is tell pupils not to worry, "It doesn't matter." We are telling our pupils it doesn't matter. We are telling our pupils not to revise. We are setting our pupils exams they can't be ready for. We are breaking our pupils. Or breaking their belief in what we are asking them to do.

The thing is this always happens. With some pupils. They can see the impossibility or can see clearly that they will be amongst the pupils predestined by the system to fail. But this year it is happening to many more pupils, and pupils across the grade range.

At best, they are saying, "It's OK. I'll just get a grade 5. Why should I work for a 9 anyway?" At worst they are giving up completely. Or are broken by aiming for something they can't achieve. Or something that has been revealed as a fraud, a fiddle, a confidence trick. Political shenanigans, statistical manipulation, high-stakes target culture. All passed on to the pupils, for something that had an illusion of value, which has been shattered by the government's desperate attempts to keep us all fooled.

We need to talk about statistics. Part 1.

 We need to talk about statistics. And I'm not going to start by saying, "I'm no expert" because statistics have found their way into the heart of our job and basic statistical literacy is part of being a professional. And they should be used honestly and usefully. But it's also our job to spot when they are being used dishonestly or destructively.

To start with, if someone says to you, "On average" then alarm bells should ring. In a country where some people are stinking rich and others on the breadline, it doesn't help to say that "on average" everyone is nicely off. And that's before you ask them if they meant mean, mode or median.

Here's an example of how averages can be misrepresented.

My naturally non systematic brain has labelled the axes the wrong way round.
Did anyone notice? Or were you being empathetic?

This is for illustrative purposes only. I have NOT found a way of measuring how much emotional aptitude red people and blue people have for hard maths. You can see that the distribution falls into a familiar curve. With not a lot of people who are very emotionally inept, and not a lot of people who are extremely emotionally apt. Most red people are pretty average. And most blue people are pretty average.

But there is a difference. On average on this hypothetical exemplar graph, red people are more emotionally apt than the blue people. How we explain this, is a different matter. Wouldn't it actually be more surprising if they were exactly the same? Just like people are amazed that one foot is bigger than the other. Wouldn't it be more surprising if they were EXACTLY the same size?

In fact, even with this difference in average, almost everybody is in the part where the curves overlap. So even where red people "on average" were more emotionally apt for hard maths, it would be wrong to state that, "In general red people are more emotionally apt for hard maths, with some exceptions of course." That is the exact opposite of what the graph shows. The graph shows that in general there isn't a difference between most red people and blue people.

In fact a whopping number of blue people are above the average red person. And a huge number of red people are below the average blue person.

If a social mobility tsar were to be pushing the idea that generally on average red people are more emotionally apt for hard maths than blue people, then they are either misusing statistics. Or they are making policy based on the tiny number of exceptions outside the purple area on the graph.

Which would seem to be the opposite of their brief.

But of course it isn't. Look carefully. They are not the tsar for equality or social justice. They are the tsar for social mobility. This is closely related to the current political orthodoxy of The Knowledge Curriculum. (Not to be confused with the Cognitive Science which it is using as a Trojan horse.) This political project claims to give pupils the knowledge they need in order to be inserted into the status quo. It is very careful to maintain society as it is, with its elitist structures. It is about offering well-prepared pupils to be selected by the gatekeepers of the status quo. It favours conformity over creativity. It pushes the works and voices of "the best". It wants to fill pupils with "knowledge" rather than letting them think or express themselves. It is not interested in pupils being able to make of themselves what they want. And it certainly doesn't want to entertain the idea that pupils could remake society.

When the mask slips, it is not about knowledge or evidence or social justice. It is about power, hegemony and orthodoxy.

I do have more to say about statistics, specifically in relation to GCSEs and what we are doing to our young people. But Mrs E is convinced that they will come for me and my job after this post, so we'll see...

Keep your eyes on the road, not on the satnav.

 Keep your eyes on the road, not on the satnav. Especially if it's a bit foggy. Slow down and watch the road. You  can't drive safely by following the little bendy arrow on your screen. And the same with teaching. Teach the pupils in the class. Not the scheme of work. 

Firstly just in practical terms: what is it about whoever sat down and planned that scheme that means they knew what your Year 8 would need in late April? And secondly in philosophical terms. A scheme of work that takes the language as the linguist sees it and chops it up, and delivers it in bitesize chunks, is thinking linguistically but not pedagogically. As Scott Thornbury put it, "You don't make an omelet by taking apart an omelet and trying to put it back together to make a new omelet." It's much messier, starts with whole raw ingredients. Involves things getting broken and thrown away. And needs to be cooked. The language that forms in the pupil's brain isn't a chopped up omelet stuck back together. It's an organic creation that spreads and solidifies.

Or for another metaphor I've used when talking about this: When thickening a roux, don't keep looking at the recipe and the quantities or even at how much milk is left in the jug. Your full attention is on what is happening in the pan.

That's not to say I am not very clear about the ingredients. Or what I am trying to make. But it does mean that I adapt the temperature, quantities, time, and do a lot of monitoring and stirring.

My Year 8 group at the start of the year took weeks to get to grips with places in town, il y a, gender, pronunciation and starting to use j'aime, j'adore, je peux, je dois... But then in the next unit, when we started talking about School, they quickly picked up where they had left off, talking about what they liked and why (parce que je peux... parce que je dois...). They went straight to paragraphs and longer spontaneous answers, picking up from where they left off at the end of the previous unit. That's how it's supposed to work. But how well and how quickly, the scheme of work just can't tell. And it's not about "coverage". It's about how well they can do it.

Are their sentences turning into paragraphs? Are their paragraphs linking sentences or are they starting to take one idea and develop it? Is their work scaffolded or independent? Do they understand the pay-off between taking risks (and making mistakes) by expressing themselves, versus playing safe and being accurate (and derivative)? Can they improvise spoken answers? At length? Are they repetitive and incoherent, or do they develop an idea consistently and logically? Do they need more language, or do they need more practice getting good at using it?

When we moved on to Free Time, they had the core of opinions and reasons secure. We were ready to move on from j'aime  to Harry aime... / Debbie aime... And not just because they were asking how to say it and experimenting with changing j'aime into Harry j'aime, Harry aime, Harry aimes... But because it dovetailed with what they could do with their language. We made it a rule that whenever you mentioned someone else, you used one of your new verb endings. So if they were saying J'aime aller au parc avec mes amis, that would trigger, et nous jouons au tennis. Or if you said, Je peux regarder la télé avec ma soeur, that would trigger Elle regarde des films d'action. 

Conceptually and practically what we are adding into the mixture binds to the language they already have and makes something tasty in French.

Last week we were doing Pimp My French, talking about how we could improve a passage mainly made up of repetitive sentences with j'aime. One pupil said "We can get rid of j'aime and change it to j'ai." This worried me. Because thinking that je n'ai pas and je n'aime pas are interchangeable has been an issue! But then he said, "Then you can use j'ai to say I have done something."

The perfect tense is on the scheme of work. But not just yet. But if the pupils are asking for it and coming up with half of the language already by themselves, then it's time to go for it. So it's time for the perfect tense. With the j'ai that they already knew. And the fact that ---ed = ---é (because engaged = fiancé) we have the perfect tense.

All that remains is to combine it with their existing omelet as it cooks. And that's easy. They are familiar with the Conjunctions Dice Game. We just need to adjust it so that par exemple becomes a trigger for the past tense. So that whenever they say (or a partner prompts) par exemple, it is always followed by reference to the past.

Eventually this will develop into what was happening, what someone said, what decision was taken, what you would have preferred to do. But for now, it's J'aime aller au parc parce que je peux voir mes amis. [Which triggers...] Nous jouons au foot.  Par exemple le week-end j'ai joué au foot au parc.

To sum up, I am going to quote from a previous post, again with food based metaphors:

Pupils have an evolving conceptualisation of the language. Which is messy, partial, incomplete. Which evolves as they learn more and which can be called upon to express themselves. The alternative seems to be a collection of remembered structures and rules which if it isn't rolled up into a functioning proto-system, and remains as a set of discrete facts, isn't any sort of language at all.

There seems to me to be an argument which has gone too far. That language-learning consists of learning patterns and rules to be understood, memorised and recalled. And that the step-by-step syllabus is transposed into the learner's brain as a set of structured concepts.

If this then neglects meaning, communication and self-expression, I think this has gone too far. It is an argument seeing language-learning from the point of view of someone who has a vision of the whole grammatical system. And who wants to break that down and feed it to pupils in bite-size pieces. 

To pursue the metaphor, I am sure it's a diet that would contain the correct amount of each micro-nutrient, carefully weighed out and administered at the correct time. But not necessarily with any regard to the taste or appetising nature of the meal, individual preferences, social conventions, enjoyment, participation...

Where are we now?

 So, with the new GCSE proposals proceeding to the next stage, with Ofqual preparing the technical brief for the exam boards to work with, where are we up to with the triple pronged drive (from Ofsted, GCSE and NCELP) for a paradigm shift in languages teaching?

The OFSTED Research Review

The OFSTED prong of the offensive has run into some trouble. A special edition of the Language Learning Journal (open access until 30th May 2022) has picked apart much of the detail of the simplistic assertions in the OFSTED Research Review. But more importantly, it has discredited its claim to be a "research review" at all. Revealing it to be partial, political and prescriptive. It sets out a political point of view about learning, and then adduces some purported evidence.

This LLJ edition contains articles by leading figures in language-teaching research, including some whose work is referenced by the OFSTED report. To say it is scathing, is an understatement. The "research review" is savaged in the specific detail of its assertions, for example in the key areas of pupil self-efficacy or high frequency vocabulary. It is torn apart for its lack of rigour, with Professor Milton taking to twitter to point out that on the key topic of vocabulary, the "research review" does not reference a single book.

A real research review would not have an over-simplistic politically orthodox single point of view. This leaves us in a situation where we have to be familiar with the ideas favoured by OFSTED, but able to see them as "contestable and contested" (in OFSTED's own words).

The new GCSE proposals

The new GCSE prong pushes on regardless. It moves from the nebulous panel of political appointees to the experts of OFQUAL and the exam boards who will try to make the proposals work.

The exam boards will try to make the exam as similar as possible to what we are used to. And in many areas this won't be hard. The Listening and Reading exams are already too focused on testing specific language features instead of meaning. They already test high frequency vocabulary much more than topic vocabulary (unless the 2020 hake signals a change in the nature of the AQA Spanish exams). The new exams will be very similar, but perhaps slightly worse. The focus on testing recognition of items of language, rather than comprehension of the text, will now be explicit. And with the reduced and defined vocabulary, the exams will need to be even more tricksy in order to get the spread of marks required.

The Speaking exam will have very familiar Role Plays and Photo Cards. They will test pupils' knowledge of items of language in short undeveloped responses. There will be a new reading aloud task, followed by questions on the text or on the topic of the text. The big difference will be in once again removing any idea of teaching pupils to develop spontaneous responses. The Writing may continue in a similar form but with even more focus on translation in order to test specific language features. So a damage limitation exercise for the exam boards, but in terms of teaching pupils to develop ideas in spontaneous speech and unrehearsed writing, the damage is already done.

NCELP

NCELP is the third prong of this push for us to change our values and aims. It would be nice to see NCELP as trusted expert body producing quality materials we can use to improve our teaching and the profile of languages. And help us deal with the introduction of a new paradigm. And even better if it had set out to work with schools in areas with low take-up or low achievement in languages and shown how a different approach can transform progress and attitudes.

Unfortunately poor political choices have not helped. Firstly, NCELP has been too closely associated with the controversy around the new GCSE and the OFSTED research review. Secondly, the hub schools were invited based on already having good take-up and results at GCSE. This meant it felt like a reward for a select bunch and a kick in the teeth for other schools. Obviously no slight intended for the teachers working in these schools or the people developing the NCELP materials!

It is worth bearing in mind that good take-up is usually linked to the school's intake of pupils and primarily linked to the way GCSE options are structured, with some schools making languages compulsory for all or for some of their pupils. Good results may be linked to the school's intake or be a feature of the whole school's results, rather than indicating that the languages department is doing something extraordinary. Especially as we are talking about their results under the old highly problematic Controlled Assessment GCSE.

But more important is the fact that they have made it almost impossible to show the effect of their approach in the pilot schools. They needed to have trialed the materials in geographically well-distributed schools with low or average up-take in order to show improvement and to engage with schools looking to increase up-take. When the KS3 Framework of Objectives for Modern Languages came out, it was the result of transformative work in schools over several years. By comparison we are being asked to switch to something untried, untested and as yet unevaluated.

I have spoken with teachers who have used the NCELP materials and they like the planning of recycling of language. It's too soon to say if it has been transformative. Partly due to disruption caused by COVID, of course. I would love to read an honest warts and all research write-up of the NCELP project. But at the moment we have little snippet testimonials designed to off-set their negative association with the OFSTED / GCSE debacle.

Paradigm shift

Of course, in the face of this triple pronged push, we have to make up our own minds what to do. And consider the issues raised. This blog has documented my attempts to understand and engage with the thinking behind the paradigm shift.

In language-teaching terms, it seems that the changes are a response to out of date reactions to how languages may or may not have been taught in the past. So in the 1990s when Languages for All meant a change to the cohort of learners, maybe teachers opted for an approach which meant:

Not showing the written form, in order to focus on good pronunciation, at the expense of the sound-spelling link.

Teaching whole functional phrases, avoiding translating the individual components into English.

A focus on ticking off what pupils could say and what situations they could deal with, at the expense of recycling and building a repertoire.

A focus on meaning, "authentic" communication rather than on grammatical forms. And a syllabus that expected pupils to pick up grammar implicitly by long term exposure to language.

But that was the 1990s. And we have moved on from all of those things.

The OFSTED - GCSE - NCELP push is a push against things we've all been pushing against for over 20 years. Even more explicitly, it's a response to the 2016 Review of language teaching by something called the Teaching Schools Council. This was looking at teaching in the landscape of the old Controlled Assessment GCSE which actively militated against good language teaching. It rewarded the rote-learning of answers containing lots of "information" and fancy expressions over the ability to use a repertoire of language to express yourself. In a loud warning to the exam boards, this was an unintended consequence of the Dearing Review's wish to make the Speaking exam more accessible.

The current OFSTED - GCSE - NCELP push is explicitly driven by this 2016 review. And they are proud of the fact that they are "evidence based" and "research based". It would be much better then, if they had evidence and research that isn't six years out of date. Things have moved on in language-teaching. The new GCSE does not reward rote-learned answers. We can return to how our teaching was evolving in the 2000s. Many teachers have embraced an approach based on developing fluency through scaffolded use of an expanding core repertoire and pupils' ability to use it more and more independently.

But the new orthodoxy is not ultimately based in language-teaching. It is part of a wider political project: the Knowledge Curriculum. It is true that historically a right-wing orthodoxy has seen language as an intellectual system rather than as a means of communication. But the ideology is wider than language-teaching. It is part of a political project that focuses on conformist memorisation of "important knowledge" rather than developing pupils' skills, voices and creativity. With the aim that schools equip pupils to be inserted into the status quo. But without the idea that they can create their own destinies or shape society.

Originally it claimed that the way to teach skills was to break them down into knowledge. And that this was inclusive and democratic, giving the stepping stones of success to all pupils. But it has completely forgotten this promise. The languages version of this is a great example. You might have thought that they wanted thorough sequencing of learning so that all pupils could master the skills of communicating and interacting with the target language culture. But as in other subjects, this has been truncated to a version based on memorisation and testing in the service of gate-keeping for the elite.

Decisions

The failure of this project to engage and convince, leaves us in an uncomfortable position. There has been a lively debate, and we have tried to consider our own teaching in the light of their ideas. The fact that two of the prongs of their push come with considerable force and enforcement (the new GCSE and OFSTED) makes it unpleasant and high-stakes. Along with the challenge to our core values of communication and culture, the idea that we have been doing it wrong, and that we have failed. This way of managing change is very threatening. And we have to try to take it back and make decisions on our own terms.

The ideas we have to consider are:

Do we believe that language learning is primarily about memorisation, concepts and patterns in an abstract intellectual way, rather than learning to communicate?

Do we believe that our focus on communication has given rise to a focus on a plethora of "things pupils can say" but no clear understanding of the building blocks?

Do we believe that the meticulous logical sequencing of the learning is the basis for the language we select to teach, not the things pupils might want to say?

We can base our answers on our own experience and practice and on the wider reading that is missing from the Ofsted Research Review. Steve Smith posted this link to an article by Scott Thornbury where he looks at the answer to the question of whether language learning is about re-constructing the linguist's grammar in the brain of the pupil. Thornbury is very clear that we are not working with the linguist's grammar - taking apart the whole grammatical system as understood by someone looking at the language - and somehow transferring this to the pupils' brain. Instead, he says we should work with the learner's grammar. He doesn't use the word "interlanguage" but this is the concept. Our job is to curate the growing conceptualisation of a repertoire of language.

Thornbury uses an excellent metaphor for this process. He says that you don't make an omelet by cutting up an omelet and trying to build a new one out of the pieces. You make an omelet by taking raw ingredients and letting them cook.

I'm going to finish with what I wrote when I first began to understand that OFSTED want us to be chopping up and re-forming omelets:

The complexity of language is real. But the human brain is up to the job.

The learner's interlanguage is by definition incomplete, partial, and includes misconceptions.

Expressing themselves has an important role in forming the unconscious schemata of the learner's interlanguage. Making meaning from the words and structures they have, exploring how it can be used, how it fits together, and what their current limitations are.

If Ofsted want us to keep a close eye on what pupils can manage and what overwhelms them...

If Ofsted want us to think about how knowledge sticks...

If Ofsted want us to think about how knowledge accumulates...

If Ofsted want us to keep a close eye on how knowledge can be recalled fluently...

...then the best way to achieve all this is the opposite of what they are proposing. The best way is to acknowledge that language has meaning as well as form. The best way is to have a strong focus on curating a growing repertoire of language that pupils can use in order to express themselves with increasing independence, fluency and complexity.

Consequences

 Consequences is a popular parlour game from when people had parlours and didn't have wifi. It involves creating humourous pictures by each drawing part of a person, hiding it by folding it back, and passing it to the next person to continue.

In less artistically talented parlours, there is also a more literary version. In which you create scurrilous stories one step at a time: My maths teacher was... in the parlour with... the vicar's husband, wearing...

A version of this game works well with building longer answers in the languages classroom.

If you are working on this dice game, then you can use the same worksheet for the consequences activity.

Without using dice for this, the first pupil picks an item from the first block of six and writes it at the top of the paper. They fold it over and pass it to the next pupil. Probably best if they point on the sheet to which block of 6 comes next. So after passing it back and forwards 9 times, they unfold the paper and read something like Je voudrais... voir mes amis... alors... je dois... nager... dans ma chambre...

The random hilarity is enjoyable but it's also about pupils recombining what they are learning in new ways. And for me it is part of a process where moving from random sentences to carefully curated coherence is as big a part of their learning as is learning more language.

Once the pupils have got the idea, you can have them all start with a piece of paper each and pass them round in groups simultaneously. It is important that they do indicate to the next person where to carry on. I think this is important in them paying attention to how the sentence works or doesn't work if you miss out important chunks. It's also a good idea to re-use paper for this which has something printed on the back. That way they don't accidentally write on the wrong side.

If you have groups which have used the My Grandmother went to Market... technique (also known as If you Give a Mouse a Cookie) then they can use this for the Consequences game as well. Each pupil in the class has a structure associated with them. So by thinking their way round the seating plan, any pupil in the class can construct a sequence like this:

J'aime jouer au tennis parce que c'est passionant et je peux aller au parc y jouer avec mes amis. Surtout s'il fait beau. Par contre, ma soeur préfère aller en ville. Le week-end j'allais faire mes devoirs mais il faisait beau, alors ma soeur a dit, "Je vais aller en ville." Alors j'ai décidé d'aller en ville avec ma soeur.

The words in bold can be the cues for each pupil to write their segment. It will probably be more random than the example above! It involves each pupil remembering the typical sequence of structures used to move from opinions and reasons to an example narrated in the past. After they have written their chunk and folded it over, they should tell the next pupil what sort of chunk comes next. Slowly they can move away from following the sequence to deciding what needs to come next: I need you to put a verb in the imperfect... You need to say where they went...

This is a quick low prep activity which fits in well with other activities you might be doing in the lesson. And helps move pupils' writing along in an enjoyable way in the process of moving away from scaffolding and towards controlled self-expression. And at the end you get a selection of short pieces of Reading that they will want to translate!

Fluent in 5 Starters

 In September, I wrote about how we are introducing starter activities for Year 8 and Year 9. We called them "Fluent in 5", a name borrowed from the maths department because I think the word "fluent" properly belongs to us. Along with drag and drop style tasks in the computer room, they were intended to make sure all classes were regularly going back over content from previous units. The were designed to be do-able, and quick. There are usually 5 questions to be done in 5 minutes. Then the answers are given, without getting bogged down.

For example in September, in this puzzle, the sentences are backwards. The pupils just had to write them out correctly, to re familiarise themselves with content from the previous year.

We have kept most of the features and how it works. But there have been some changes. In particular, we've shifted from just covering topic content from previous units. Instead we are focusing much more on grammatical features. Sometimes these are the core structures that pupils re-use in every topic for giving opinions, justifying them, and giving detail in past and future.

 But very quickly it became an opportunity to look at areas of misconception, such as the confusion of je n'ai pas and je n'aime pas. And then a way of revisiting grammar features such as possessive adjectives, interrogatives, articles, prepositions, pronouns, accents and even phonics.

It means that we are revisiting concepts explicitly, separately from any topic content or immediate communicative purpose. This, you might hope, gives teachers and pupils a chance to re-balance the focus on meaning of words versus the focus on forms of words. So when we teach pets, I know that in the sentence j'ai un chien, the word "dog" is the least important for their language learning. But the pupils don't see it that way. Our starters can be a way to redress that balance, without squishing the pupils' main focus on developing ideas and their ability to express them.

How have I sequenced it? As this is re-visiting and re-examining concepts they have previously met, I have not sat down and planned the coverage or meticulous sequencing. What I have done is picked up on features which I know are important in the current unit, or where I've spotted misconceptions in pupils' work either in class or in marking their work. So it responds closely to the work in the current unit, while being kept separate as the lesson starter and using language not from the current topic.

How has it gone? Well, it works well as a routine with pupils knowing they will come in and have a task to do in the back of their books. They prefer them to be easy. And I want them to be do-able quickly and quietly on their own. So it's a fine line to make them challenging enough to be worthwhile now we've moved beyond just re-familiarising them with vocabulary, and moving to tackling concepts. One concept will be developed over a series of lessons, with pupils using what they did last lesson in order to tackle something more challenging next time. 

My impression is that pupils do them because it's the routine. But they rarely have questions about them. And they don't get a mention in pupil feedback surveys. What features much more in pupil surveys is their understanding of how a growing core of language equips them to express themselves with increasing fluency, coherence and independence. (My words, not theirs, so you're right to be a bit suspicious, but follow the link in this paragraph for more...)

I think it's important to have the explicit re-visiting of the grammar and concepts. But it does seem that slightly isolating it from the learning of the language for communication is limiting its usefulness. These are groups who are accumulating a snowball of language which they are getting better and better at using. They are moving from sentences to paragraphs, from linking ideas to developing one idea, from formulaic to personalised. And they can see and appreciate this progress, and understand how they can re-use language from one topic to the next. It seems harder for them to hang on to more nitty-gritty nuts and bolts grammar when it's done for accuracy rather than in order to create meaning.

I think that's a good thing. If pupils' primary focus in learning a language is to get better at using it in order to say more, then that's not something I want to squish. It doesn't mean that we'll get rid of the starters, but we need to be aware that there is an overall balancing of explicit and implicit learning; a balancing of how pupils create meaning by recombining or inflecting; and a pay off in terms of accuracy when pupils choose whether to take risks or play safe when using their language.

Teaching Speaking in the 1990s

 This is an example of a speaking card from the school where I did my first teaching practice in the early 1990s.

Pupils would do an individual end of unit test with the teacher based on a card like this. This is for Year 9 and on the topic of the School Day. The pupil would know they were going to have to talk about what time they got up, what time they had breakfast, how they got to school etc. But until they got the card, they wouldn't know what details they would have to give. Their test would be in the form of answering questions from the teacher, "What time do you get up?" And they would have to give the details cued by the card in full sentences.

The card is one tiny cog in the whole resourcing of the department. They had worked together as a team and in co-ordination with other local schools, to create a scheme of work from Year 7 to Year 9 and all the resources to go with it.

There were many cards (this one is particularly complicated) for each topic. Both for teaching and for testing. There were Over Head Projector transparencies and probably some Banda worksheets too. All these were stored centrally and worked through methodically.

Inspired by the Graded Objectives Movement, there was a carefully planned coverage of different scenarios, with pupils ticking off their successes in each topic. Tasks were always presented as "authentic", which in practice meant speaking or writing to an imaginary French penfriend.

There was a progression towards more complexity of language. Much of it was transactional. And it was functional (based on learning "functions" such as asking for something, giving the time etc.) rather than grammatical.

I do remember being frustrated by some aspects of it. I worried that pupils were learning the language phrasebook style with grammatical conceptualisation being left to happen "naturally" and slowly. I felt bound by the tightly controlled language - they even had a list of French boys' and girls' names that the pupils should meet in texts and conversations. I worried that the pupils either spent a long time working on what the symbols were supposed to mean, or could produce a French phrase for a symbol without really knowing exactly what they were saying. I worried about the way language was introduced without showing pupils the written form and the sound-spelling link.

Most of all, I didn't like the way the what they had to say was cued, so they were being tested on recall, rather than giving their own answers and communicating. It felt as if it had taken the strong oral and interactive focus of the teaching of English I was used to, from working in Mexico, and kept all the elements except any real sense of communication. 

Pupils were working their way through a tightly controlled version of the language, being tested on their ability to recall it, with a pretence of "authentic" context. But without ever being given the idea that they could decide what to say or talk about their own lives. This made me uncomfortable. It seemed important when learning a language that the pupils should be using it to express themselves, otherwise it didn't feel like language-learning at all.

It very much felt as if the school were part of a quickly evolving landscape in language teaching. Where collaboration, response to their pupils' needs, innovation, and clear principles were part of a drive to teach languages effectively and inclusively. 

And that evolution has continued over the ensuing 30 years. A whole generation of us have found their own similar but slightly different ways to keep pushing forward with a growing grammatical progression, teaching the sound-spelling link, seeking relevance to the pupil and to the Target Language cultures, building pupils' repertoire and their ability to deploy it.

And that includes the new GCSE proposals and the Ofsted Research Review. Sometimes they seem to be reacting against aspects of how things used to be, wanting to make sure grammatical progression is prioritised and explicit, teaching phonics, and making sure pupils know the exact meaning of what they are learning. Sometimes they share the priorities, such as having a tightly controlled body of language meticulously sequenced and tracked through multiple encounters, with pupils being tested on their recall of what they have been learning. And sometimes they share the weaknesses, such as the marginalisation of the idea that language-learning happens through creating meaning, communicating and learning to express yourself in the language.

Preparing for the A Level Exams

 A list of posts with useful ideas for the A Level (AQA) exams.

Embracing Ambiguity to help structure a literature essay - La Casa de Bernarda Alba

Understanding the ideas in Almodóvar's Volver - Part II

Summarising a Work of Literature Visually - La Casa de Bernarda Alba

Planning and Writing a literature essay as a production line.

How to Approach the Summary Question in Listening and Reading

Teaching the Subjunctive in French and Spanish

A Level Speaking Ideas

Links to posts on preparing for GCSE Exams

Here's a selection of posts with useful ideas for preparing for the GCSE Exams.

Revising for the Conversation Qs without memorising a script.

Having a Game Plan for the Conversation.

Conversation Question - interaction and developing answers.

Moves and Routines for the Conversation - Dance Moms.

Developing an Answer for the Conversation - If you give a mouse a cookie.

Revising for the Speaking Exam Photocard.

Listening and Reading - how to give an "AQA" answer.

Revising for the Speaking Exam Photo Card

 I know a lot of posts on this blog are about speaking spontaneously and developing ideas. But what about when it comes to the final stages of preparation for the exam? And what about when it comes to tasks other than the General Conversation? How do pupils prepare and revise for the Photo Card?

For a start, most of the Photo Card task isn't about the photograph at all. It's a chance to develop answers on the topic of the card, in response to unexpected questions. So all that practice on developing spontaneous answers should come in handy.

The description of the photo itself is just the first question. But since it's a highly predictable part of the exam, it makes sense to prepare for it.

One big question is what to do about the Present Continuous. She is eating some chips. They are playing hockey. In French it is a trap because there is no present continuous. As soon as the pupil says, "They are...", they are in trouble. Teachers get round this by teaching en train de + infinitive. In Spanish it seems odd to specially teach a tense just to be used for one sentence in one question of the exam. So I use the imperfect. Which is not an illogical tense to use if you are naturally describing a photo: This is my brother. He's in Spain. It was very hot and he was eating an icecream. It is also highly regular, has endings that pupils love to use (Abba and Mama Mía), and it's great reinforcement for using the imperfect so they don't forget to add it to their narrations in the General Conversation part of the exam.

Before the Easter holidays, I gave my Year 11s a set of 16 descriptions for different photos we've been using. For example:

Hay un grupo de jóvenes. Son estudiantes. Están en la biblioteca. Llevan uniforme. Estudiaban y leían. No hablaban. Parecen contentos.

The other 15 were similarly formulaic. Some with the addition of sentences about the weather. In the lesson, the pupils compiled a list of all the sentences with Hay... And a separate list of all the sentences with Están en... And another list of all the different possibilities for clothes... They have taken these lists home and are copying them onto cards. They have 7 cards including the one for weather. Then they can pick any picture and talk about it by working through their cards, saying one sentence from each card. Until they don't need the cards anymore.

I do find that over-specifying instructions does help! If you say, "Make some cards for revision" then maybe some pupils (the ones who would have done it anyway) will do it. If you say, "I want you to use different colour cards for each set of sentences" then they start to pay attention. If you say, "You are going to use the blue cards for the There is... sentences, and green cards for the They are in... sentences", then pupils seem to latch on to the instructions and feel compelled to follow them!

Of course the real point is to get them to not just make the cards, but to practise using them over and over...

How do you revise for the speaking exam if you don't learn answers off by heart?

 There are lots of posts on here about how I develop pupils' ability to use a core repertoire to express themselves. Does this mean I just send them into the speaking exam to improvise answers without any exam preparation? Well, for their mock, that is exactly what they did. And they showed me and themselves that they can answer the questions and get a reasonable grade. But in the run-up to the exam, how do we practise and prepare and revise, without ending up with a fixed answer to learn off by heart for a long list of questions?

I do have a list of starter questions. I've seen the lists my own kids come home with and I'm a bit confused. Things like "List the things you do in your day" or "Describe your classroom". Why would anyone ask these questions when there are no marks for listing or describing? All my questions are an invitation for the pupil to talk, giving opinions and justifying them, giving detail in the past and the future, and turning it into a narration. Because that's what the markscheme asks for, and also because it's a great way to develop answers using a good variety of language. And to develop a core repertoire that can be deployed without having to memorise answers. So most of my questions either directly ask for an opinion, or can be answered with one. So I wouldn't ask, "Describe your brother", but I might ask "Do you get on with your brother?"

The pupils know that these questions will not be asked in a fixed order. And that there will be follow up questions. Some by moving from one question to the next, depending on the pupil's previous answer: Do you like music? Do you like to play music or listen to music? Do you like to go to concerts? And more often by little prompts and interjections, such as and... Why...? but if not...? so... for example...?

Preparing for the exam. Here's what I 've been doing over the last couple of weeks, so that the pupils go home for the Easter holidays with material to revise, and confident that they can practise their answers ready for the exam.

When pupils got a list of questions, the first thing we did was attack them in speaking. Not writing. And pupils work through the questions with a partner, just giving a very short answer to show that they can answer the question.

Tu aimes le sport? Oui, j'adore le sport

For all the questions on the list. In speaking. And then only later in the lesson or for homework do they do it in writing.

Then in a later lesson, we will return to the questions and this time their partner will ask follow up questions:

Tu aimes le sport? Oui, j'adore le sport. Pourquoi? Parce que je peux jouer au tennis avec mes amis. Et...?

Moving through the questions quickly, adding a reason to the opinion, or using especially if... to explore it further. Doing it as a speaking, then writing up a version of their improvised answers.

So they might have an answer along the lines of:

J'aime le sport parce que je peux jouer au tennis avec mes amis au parc le week-end, surtout s'il fait beau, mais s'il pleut, je ne peux pas.

Made out of language they know they can use in the exam and which will tick the boxes for the examiner. And joined together with the conjunctions I will be able to use in the exam to prompt for more. Knowing they will always be able to respond.

In the next lesson, we looked at adding a quick past or future reference so that if I say "For example...?" they can say, Par exemple je suis allé(e) au parc le week-end dernier et on a joué au tennis. Or if I say, "so...?" they can say, "Alors, le week-end prochain je dois faire mes devoirs." Again, they build up answers speaking with a partner, working through many questions on different themes during the lesson. Improvising opinions, reasons and adding past and future references. And then add the new ingredient (past tense / future reference) to their written versions.

Then in the next lesson, we worked on narrating, so instead of just saying, "I went to the park", we work on the routines of developing narration with a combination of past tenses and some speech, maybe some conflict or disappointment.

Par exemple, le week-end, je voulais aller au parc avec mes amis parce qu'il faisait beau, mais ma mère a dit non parce que j'ai dû faire mes devoirs.

At no point did they sit down to write a long answer and learn it. They started with short spoken answers. And have added to them lesson after lesson. But based on improvised spoken answers in interaction with a partner.

Then today we added more detailed answers for talking about the future. Quand j'aurais vingt ans... Si j'avais le choix... Ma mère ne veut pas que je... These are useful for obvious future answers to do with jobs or future study. But also for questions like, "Do you prefer to go on holiday with friends or your family?"

So that's where pupils are up to. They have gone home for the Easter holidays with written up versions of answers. But they are answers which were originally improvised in speaking. They can practise their answers and check their verb endings. They can remember what structures they want to show off and make sure they aren't hesitating for ideas. But they don't need to learn word by word, because they already know all the words. How would they have written answers they didn't know the words for? And in the exam they won't deliver memorised answers. Because I will make sure I use follow up questions and prompts to keep asking them for more detail and pushing them in different directions.

For some reason I have ended up giving the examples in French when my Y11 group do Spanish. Because I set out to write it about general principles, and ended up talking about what my group have been doing. By which time it was too late to go back and change the language!