The Best of Both Worlds

 It's been tempting over the course of the last couple of years, to feel as if we are being asked to choose between two different visions of language learning.

On the one end of this spectrum, is the idea that language learning is all about Meaning. Creating meaning by saying things and communicating. Understanding meaning by listening, reading and interacting. It's important that language learning isn't just learning and being tested on your knowledge of a collection of vocabulary and grammar items. You shouldn't wait until pupils have mastered the whole system before showing them they can use the language to communicate.

At the other end, are the new exhortations from the Ofsted "Research Review" and the new GCSE panel, that language learning shouldn't just be a collection of things that pupils can say or understand. We shouldn't be learning by osmosis to give set phrasebook style answers for different situations. It is primarily about learning vocabulary and grammatical concepts. Communication can wait.

Here is a slide from Steven Fawkes from an ALL talk to enthuse new MFL teachers. Here are things that we have always thought are the strongest points of our subject:

and here's a snippet from Common Ground by Florencia Henshaw and Maris Hawkins:

Language learning happens when pupils use the language for real, for purposeful creation of meaning or understanding. Not just by practising the language.

We are being asked to consider what if this approach is not just wrong and misguided, but dangerously counter-productive.

When pupils struggle with language learning and seem frustrated or unmotivated, we reach for the levers of communication, relevance, authenticity, culture, creavity, expression... And we expect these to switch on a love of learning and engagement, a sense of purpose.  But might it be that these levers are the wrong ones? By doing this, we are increasing the cognitive demand on pupils, asking them to communicate too soon? Is it a successful approach only with those learners who come equipped with the cultural capital, awareness of language, confidence, self-efficacy and literacy skills needed to cope with this "in at the deep end" approach? The danger of sink or swim is that some just sink.

Instead, we are being asked to consider an approach focused on the language. Vocabulary and grammar, carefully selected and sequenced. Not so that pupils can say things or understand things. But so they can see how the language works. With everything explained clearly, with no guessing or glossing over or assumptions about what pupils can work out or don't need to know.

That's the thinking behind this slide from an Ofsted webinar accompanying their "Research Review." It is a view of language teaching where everything is planned and sequenced logically, boiled down to the essentials and carefully avoiding rich and complex contexts.

The examples given in the webinar are that we should teach pupils to say red dog, red tortoise but we should avoid green dog, green tortoise because this brings in adjectival agreement. And leaners already have enough on their plate with learning the vocabulary and the word order. A logical step-by-step teaching strategy. But one which is totally distanced from learners using the language to say things they want to say.

This has huge implications for things like our Year 7 French Art Exhibition.

What if...

What if we are focused on the product not the process? There's a deadline and we skip over important learning because we need to get the picture and the text done.

The pupils' attention might be too directed towards the meaning and not enough towards the forms of the words.

What if the pupils' descriptions bring in random words that they are never going to need again? 

What if pupils are trying to say things they can't? So they fall into error but we gloss over it because they are "communicating well."

That could mean that the things we think are the best for our learners turn out to be the worst!

Let's look at that spectrum diagram again. Is it really how it has been painted? How about we move things about a little.

Are those positions really incompatible?

Let's move the things we do want from language learning, into the middle. Language Learning is about Understanding and Creating Meaning. And about Knowledge linked by Conceptualisation. Sounds good to me. Spot on in fact. I want all those things.

How about the things we don't want? Language Learning isn't just a collection of knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. And neither is it a collection of phrasebook style things pupils can say. Absolutely spot on.

So instead of being asked to choose, in reality we are being given the best of both worlds.

So when I teach Year 7 j'ai un chien, I know that we are not going to be spending 5 years remembering words for pets. I know that the important things are j'ai and un/une and the sound-spelling link in oiseau and poisson. But the pupils are focused on a game where you have to guess if people are telling the truth about their pets and their names. Because the meaning and communication and link to reality matter to pupils. More than links and patterns between words at this stage.

And when I teach je n'ai pas de..., we will spend time looking at contractions of je - j'ai and ne - n'. But we will also chante je n'ai pas de over and over again to a video of a rhythmic steam train. The best of both worlds.

And I know that when I teach Year 8, we will separate out the process of randomly using the language in a ridiculous world record length "sentence" and then later working on coherence and quality of expression.

Because both are important, and there is no conflict.

And when it comes to the Year 7 French Exhibition. Why do we teach the grammar of word order, adjectival agreement, definite and definite articles, prepositions and high frequency words? We teach it so that 200 pupils can all create their own art work and they can all write about their own picture. Grammar is creativity and communication. There is no incompatibility.

Pupil Voice in Modern Languages - Year 9 Options 2024

Two years ago I wrote a post on Year 9 pupils' thoughts about GCSE languages and how they were generally positive. Then, last year a similar survey discovered a high proportion of Year 9 pupils who thought that languages was not a useful GCSE for employment or for university application. So we acted to address this, including supportive messages from the Headteachers. In our school, languages are very much supported, although not over and above other subjects. But in this instance we were addressing a specific misconception, and numbers in the current Year 10 were definitely boosted as a result, compared to what our survey had shown in September.

This year, a similar survey in September didn't ring as many alarm bells, with 80% of pupils at least considering taking a language, before they saw the structure of the options available. Our interest this year wasn't focused so much on overall numbers, so much as on looking into why certain groups are under represented in GCSE languages. We are very successful in attracting learners with lower prior attainment. Often it's the pupils who you know would "excel in French" or be "a natural linguist" who aren't picking it as an option. (Here's a post where you can see exactly why I am resisting those labels.)

Susannah Porsz of the Beeleigh Languages Hub interviewed a panel of eight high flying Year 9 pupils, some of whom had and some of whom hadn't picked a language at GCSE.

Here's some of what they said:

General Attitudes

They were all very confident in their progress and test results in French. This was something we had been deliberately setting out to achieve with our revised KS3 assessments. And I know some of the pupils had also received emails to parents congratulating them on their results and progress.

They were very positive about the usefulness of languages, mentioning travel, careers and meeting people, and the fact that a language is something that it is "nice to know." They included mentions of parents' attitudes as positive, but other pupils' attitudes as negative. Some of them spoke other languages at home or had international family connections, which were seen as important and positive. They were positive about their lessons, although some said, "It's just not for me." And one said, "I don't dread it, but it's not my favourite either."

Picking Options

When it came to talking about Options, most had been considering taking a language, but were in the situation where there were "Too many choices and not enough options." Several had put French down as a second choice. This is interesting because any changes to the options offer structure would ultimately follow pupil numbers. Are a significant number of pupils putting French as a second choice when there is another column where they would have put it as a first choice if it were on offer?

As we had also discovered in previous years, our pupils make very detailed and specific career decisions very early. Before Year 9, they already had clear ambitions, which included scholarships and international study. But a language didn't seem to them to be directly relevant to their specific career choice.

They spoke about how teachers for each subject "hyped" their own subject. They felt Geography, for example, had been particularly well sold, and some were even starting to wonder if they should have chosen French instead. This reinforces the value of the work we do in talking to pupils about the value of languages. And highlights the importance of them hearing it from third parties such as University outreach or careers advice, because their French teacher "would say that, wouldn't they."

Some pupils talked about hearing from older pupils that French GCSE is hard and a big jump. One interesting comment was that if other pupils talk about taking history because they have heard it is "easy", then you might end up in a class with lots of people with the wrong attitude!

Experience of French in KS3

As we regularly find in the feedback we get from pupils as part of their assessments, their overall aim in learning French is "to have a basic real conversation." Most pupils wanted their lessons to be more varied and to have more speaking French. They were very much aware that this depended on having someone to work with who also wanted to practise speaking French. Someone you would be comfortable working with. They greatly valued it when they could be trusted to work with a partner and to take responsibility for working together. It is important to remember that when it seems easier to manage a class if we reduce the demands of interaction and speaking, these pupils wanted (like us) to be developing speaking. It's important we realise this and we can use this knowledge to make sure it happens.

There was discussion around how much repetition was necessary in French. They again compared it to Geography where they felt there was more variety and excitement. Although they were realistic about the need for scaffolding in a language. This was something I was particularly wondering about, in terms of the level of work and the level of interest for these particular pupils. 

They did mention that they wanted more cultural input. They could list some things they had done, for example food, places, songs, videos, the Windmill Art Exhibition and letter exchanges with France. But they didn't think it was enough. They talked about CLIL immersion approaches they had seen in the video of the school in France we look at, where they do maths in German. They thought this was a great idea but didn't think it was practicable. And on the other hand, some thought that French should be more transactional rather than doing things like the unit on the Environment. "More trips" was their emphatic answer to what would make the biggest difference.

Listening to them comparing Human Geography and Physical Geography, I wondered also if they could talk about French in the same way. Do we give them metalanguage and categories and labels? Would these pupils enjoy more explicit grammar to learn and terminology to make their learning feel more intellectual and less implicit? They mentioned adjectival agreement and a few other linguistic areas, but otherwise were mainly thinking of French in terms of topic content. Do we have work to do here?

But their understanding of their language-learning did come through very strongly in their comments on the school's "Learning Cycle." They immediately said that this was exactly how their lessons worked. Explanation, modelling, scaffolding, practice and feedback. And dual coding also got an enthusiastic mention from more than one pupil.

Feedback

If anything, I think the experience of giving feedback in itself was the most important thing. The more we can give pupils the opportunity to voice their thoughts on their language-learning, and for these to be taken seriously, the better. And for this to be with a neutral third party makes them feel their experiences are being valued. I will think how we can do this more often and systematically, perhaps by involving languages teachers from a nearby school on a reciprocal basis. And I'll have to think about how we can show to pupils that we've listened and discussed their feedback, because I don't suppose they read boring language teacher blogs...