In Part One and Part Two of this series of posts, I have looked at what I want a published textbook/coursebook to provide in terms of cultural reading texts and texts which model the types of answers pupils are learning to give. I have concluded in both of these posts, that I am treating the published resources as Text Books (with resources and texts I can exploit) rather than as Course Books (a course I will be following). Of course that's personal to me and you may disagree.
In this post and subsequent posts, I will continue to try to analyse what it is that I want my GCSE course and Scheme of Work to look like. So I can compare it to what the published books are offering. Which ever book we decide to buy, I will have to supplement it with other materials, and it is entirely possible that we will tackle the course in a different order to the textbook.
Firstly I definitely want pupils to start the course by developing a rock solid core repertoire that they can use across all topics. Here's some reasons why:
- I don't want the early topics in the course to be below GCSE standard.
- I want pupils to have the full 2 years to get good at using their repertoire.
- In French (but not Spanish), our pupils have had at least 3 years already working on this.
- Pupils should be able to transfer their core repertoire across any topic.
- When pupils have a strong core of language, more and more language sticks to it.
For Spanish, where our pupils are beginners, I want the course to start with a topic where they can really work on their repertoire of opinions, reasons, and tenses, to work on their ability to give extended answers and develop them into little stories. Then that would be transferred to subsequent topics as in our current curriculum.
For French, I am toying with the idea of having a cross-topic start to the course, maybe continuing our booklet approach from KS3 rather than starting straight in with the textbook. We will work on developing extended writing and spontaneous speaking using their core of language, showing them how it can be used across the GCSE topics.
Either way, the topics I want to see near the beginning of the course, are the ones best suited to this repertoire of opinions, reasons and tenses. Once pupils get very good at this, other grammar can be dovetailed in. So the best topics for me for the start of the course are:
- Holidays
- Free Time
- My School
- Where I live
They lend themselves to saying what you like and why. What you can do, have to do, want to do. If sentences. Other people's opinions. Where you went. What was happening. What people said. What happened. What you would have preferred to do. Like this example in a previous post. Pupils need to have it as a deliberate game plan they can deploy on any of these topics.
The new GCSE won't reward fancy phrases thrown in for the sake of it. But I would have preferred isn't just in the repertoire to show off to the examiner. It's there as the culmination of a conflict of opinions, decisions taken, hope and disappointment as in these examples. In the new GCSE, the criteria for "good development" are I like to play football, it is exciting. But pupils will still have to speak for five minutes. So even if the criteria don't reward extended answers, they will still need to be able to deliver them.
Anyway, it works, so I am keeping it. Here's an example of where this approach has taken my Year 10. They started in Year 9 with one lesson a week after school. By April of Year 10 they have a solid repertoire they can deploy on any topic, and all the other grammar they are learning is easily added on to that core.
Next I would like to tackle the topics which are a little more remote from the pupils' own lives, where they will need a slightly different set of language:
- Media and Technology
- Work
- The Environment
Media and Technology works as an extension of the Free Time topic, but with a little more Describing Of Things, which is going to be a major feature of this new exam. I will tackle this in a future post.
The topic of Work will pick up on the core of opinions, can, can't, have to, want to, but add in a mini-repertoire for dealing with the future.
The Environment is slightly more remote from pupils' experience but will develop can, can't, have to with woulds and shoulds.
Then I want to tackle the topics which are less first-person:
- Celebrity Culture
- Customs and Celebrations
By this stage, the pupils have a strong repertoire and are ready to add the French needed to move away from talking about themselves. We've been working on this since Year 7 and Year 8, but having the grammatical knowledge and being able to deploy it fluently aren't the same thing.
This leaves the nasty topic that I want to leave until later.
- Self, Family and Relationships
It doesn't lend itself as well to the coherent repertoire. The Family and Friends topic is full of little things that have to be learned but which don't gel well together. If it comes later in the course, the random little bits of grammar and vocabulary can stick to the pupils' coherent repertoire of language. If it came earlier in the course, it wouldn't provide a strong cross topic core. It is too bitty.
This would be my rationale for ordering the topics of the course. With a strong core repertoire of language running through all of the topics. And I would use every opportunity to work across topics, developing the core of language and pupils' ability to use it. It is NOT the order of topics I see in the textbooks I am looking at. This isn't a disaster, as I am not intending to use them as a coursebook to be followed.
It is also only one strand of what I think is going to be important. And some of the other strands may push me into a different way of ordering the learning. I am thinking already of Describing and of Unexpected Questions as major elements of the course. Watch out for future posts on these strands!
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