Introducing the idea of a Game Plan in KS3

 You may have read previous posts about using a "Game Plan" as an extended metaphor for preparing the language needed for Speaking and Writing at GCSE. Today's post is about building up to that Game Plan, starting in Year 8, in the booklets I am rewriting.

What I am trying to do in rewriting the booklets is show that deliberately teaching meticulously sequenced language items is not incompatible with teaching pupils to express themselves and develop how well they can use their language. Or, to put it the other way round, to show that a curriculum based on developing how well pupils can use their language and express themselves, is not incompatible with careful, deliberate and coherent sequencing of the language.

(It still beats me why anyone would think that by espousing one you have to abandon the other.)

I am working on Year 8 Unit 3 Free Time. This builds on the previous two units in Year 8 on Town and School. Pupils are getting better and better at developing answers which give opinions and justify them using can / can't / have to / want to. So at the end of the previous unit, a typical answer might look like this: J'adore la géographie parce que je peux travailler dans un groupe. Et le professeur est sympa parce que normalement je peux parler avec mes amis si je veux. Mais en maths on doit travailler en silence. Je préfère la géographie.

Pupils are working on developing answers with increasing coherence, spontaneity and independence in speaking and writing. With lots of focus on the quality of the answer, developing one idea rather than stringing ideas together. And focus on the process - what can pupils do with and without support, how can we reduce the cognitive load of thinking up what to say, with activities like Being Ben. These are aspects of our curriculum with a strong literacy and oracy foundation, and based on the fundamentals of learning a language not only in order to communicate but by dint of being challenged to express yourself using what you know. I am not prepared to relinquish them to a doctrine that says communication places obstacles in the way of pupils' learning and that self-expression has to wait until "expert" level is reached.

That previous paragraph wasn't a digression. It was a statement of the content and purpose of the unit. In terms of new language content, we (re)introduce: the present tense of -er verbs, the present tense of the verb aller, the perfect tense in the first person.

What I want to show with the Game Plan idea, is that these are not introduced for the sake of it. They dovetail in to the pupils' growing repertoire of language. And we teach them specific ways and triggers for deploying the new language in order to continue developing the quality of their answers.

Here's a screen shot for the tactics for deploying -er verbs. Have a look at the two examples and see if you can spot the tactics before looking at the answer.

Here's what we get pupils to do next:

So they take a model, typical of the type of answer they have been giving up to now, and they work out how to deploy the new language to take it on to the next level. Their writing has had references to with my friends or with my family. Now these are exploited as a trigger, to use the conjugated -er verbs they are learning. To add them on to their repertoire, and build routines so that as they speak and write, the next idea flows coherently from what they have just said. Every time you say, with my friends, use a verb in the 1st person plural. Every time you say, with my sister, follow it up with a verb saying what she does.

The Game Plan idea continues when the verb aller is introduced. Again, the new language is introduced so that it extends the repertoire. And pupils think tactically about when to deploy it, building routines to extend and develop their answers.

Another example:

As well as looking at individual tactics, the overall Game Plan works as a framework for writing and speaking:

I think you've got the idea by now, but we can finish it off by adding the perfect tense:

Just in case, I should make it clear that there's a lot more in the booklet and a lot more in lessons than these Game Plan activities shown here. They appear regularly as part of how to use and deploy the pupils' language as part of a growing repertoire.

It's part of understanding that communication and self expression aren't something that just happens. Or aren't something too demanding that has been an undesirable obstacle to learning. Communication is like everything else. It needs work, needs developing. And while you work on developing communication, you are practising working on the language. There's no conflict between the two at all. Absolutely none.