Cream or ice cream or custard?

 We all know that the human brain can learn languages. We learn our first language. And if we live immersed in another language we can learn that language. There are arguments about whether learning a language as a child and learning a language as an adult are different. People even talk about a childhood age limit for acquiring fluency in a language. Even though most people who studied languages at university owe their fluency to a year abroad in their early 20s. There's the arguments around whether classroom learning gives enough time and real immersion for an acquisition model to work. And arguments around whether adults have an advantage in deliberately learning (rather than acquiring) a language. Unlike an infant*, adults and adolescents already have knowledge of the world, knowledge of a first language, perhaps knowledge of a second language, ability to read, self awareness as a learner...

*I love that this word literally means unable to talk

As there are no clear cut answers to any of these issues, the pragmatic view is that there are aspects of language learning which resemble acquisition and there are aspects which are more conscious learning.

On the acquisition side, we learn through comprehensible input, real communication, the music and rhythm and earworms of language. Meaning is paramount, error is natural, and patterns emerge as our grasp of the language expands.

On the learning side, we deliberately learn vocabulary and grammar and then practise using it in ways which increasingly approximate to real communication and expression.

Pragmatic teaching uses both approaches in a balance between input/communication and instruction/practice.

We are aware of the potential and the pitfalls of both. There are plenty of things that we explicitly teach, without it guaranteeing success. Let's say the perfect tense in French. We know you can explain it and practise it as much as you like. But it doesn't mean it will be learned*. Likewise you can expose pupils to it as much as you like. But how much exposure to j'ai mangé would it take for a pupil to acquire the rule that they could say j'ai joué or ils ont joué without thinking about it? So we are prepared for a process of plenty of both approaches, lasting as long as it takes, trying to incentivise learning (through testing) and acquisition (through invitation to self expression) until something starts to stick.

*I am teaching my dog to whistle. Really? What tunes can he do? I said I am teaching him. I didn't say he was learning.

What if there were an area we could put our finger on that we don't explicitly teach, but which learners successfully learn?

I think I have found one.

Stress patterns in spoken Spanish. I nearly wrote "stress rules". But I put patterns. Because I don't teach the rules. But pupils do learn the patterns.

In fact it is generally successful and pain free. The stress patterns on Spanish words is an important aspect, and pupils master it without me teaching it. At A Level, I do teach the rules, but I teach the rules so they can understand when and why a written accent is required. Usually on words they are already spelling correctly with/without accents, but would like to know why. And when I explain, it's drawing on knowledge of language they already have, in order to arrive at the rule. Rather than giving a rule in order to say or write correctly.

I was never taught the rules. I worked them out for myself from my fluent knowledge of the language. In fact there are rules around diphthongs that I still don't know properly. For example when students ask about continúa and continua or the accent on leído, I just tell them there are rules around when a diphthong counts as one syllable or two and leave it at that.

It's an interesting one for the new GCSE. Because the premise of the new GCSE is that we don't test pupils on things that they are not taught. So in the reading aloud, are we just testing the sound-spelling correspondences in the syllabus? Or are pupils also marked for correct word stress?

Well, imagine my surprise when I checked. It IS to be taught.

The Subject Content for the new GCSE - DfE

For a start, I won't be teaching the rule like this. It seems backwards. It starts by saying to stress the last syllable of a Spanish word (unless it ends in a vowel or an s or an n).

When I eventually talk to A Level students about the rules, I would do it the other way round. We start with words ending in vowels. And they instantly realise they have been stressing the penultimate syllable: casa, escucha. Then it makes sense that if you change the ending, it shouldn't alter the stress: casas, casan, escuchas, escuchan. Then you look at words ending in other consonants: hotel, profesor, escuchar. And it all makes sense.

But I still won't be teaching it for GCSE. Even with the read aloud and the dictation.

How important is this example? How many other things are there like this that are best not explained? It seems significant that there are aspects of the language that are easily and unconsciously acquired. With the explicit rule too unwieldy to be of any practical use, even if it helps make sense after the pattern has been acquired.

I know that I have more idea of German articles from memorised snippets such as Alle Kinder schauen auf das brennende Haus* than from the table of cases and genders.

*From an inappropriate 1980s joke trend

Can it be that all learning is actually acquisition? You can't will learning to happen. We don't memorise or understand things by just willing it to be learned. It has to be through an extended process of input, making sense, making connections, tentative use and articulation with other knowledge.

I don't think it means we should swing away from deliberate instruction based on selected and sequenced items of phonics, grammar and vocabulary to be learned. But I do think it means we should guard against swinging away from learning centred around meaning, comprehension and exposure to authentic language. We need to keep our pragmatic approach, designed to keep a balance and a richness to our teaching and pupils' learning. I have many great memories of my friend Liz the bus driver. But the first that comes to mind is always her answer to the question, "With cream or ice cream or custard?" Liz always asked for, and got, all three. So we can definitely have learning and acquisition. And plenty of both.

The new GCSE was meant to stop rote learning in the Conversation...

 My position is: I teach pupils to speak spontaneously, developing their answers. So keeping the Conversation part of the Speaking Exam in the new GCSE was a huge relief. But how will it work out?

From 2011 to 2017 we had the controlled assessment GCSE which totally destroyed language teaching. If you wanted to teach spontaneous speaking, you were letting your pupils down. The interpretation of the markscheme, with its emphasis on accuracy, variety and amount of information, meant that the answers that scored best were long rote-learned scripts. If your pupils were speaking more spontaneously, they would deliver less information, make more mistakes, and have fewer fancy expressions.

So we breathed a sigh of relief when the current (now legacy) GCSE came in, in 2018. The conversation was to be unscripted, with teachers able to prompt pupils for further information and to develop their answers. And it was no longer on one specified topic that could be memorised. It could be on any two of the three Themes, and could not be limited in advance to just some of the topics. There were to be marks for interaction, and less focus on delivering pre-prepared fancy expressions. The examiner's reports have commented on the successful transition from rote-learning to more spontaneous speaking.

Of course there is some use of rote-learning still, as I noted in this post looking at research published by Rachel Hawkes and Emma Marsden. But the exam didn't incentivise this memorised answers approach. So we had gone from a GCSE that actively penalised spontaneous speaking, to one which incentivised it. It was easier to teach pupils a core of language and how to deploy it across topics, than to ask them to memorise answers to questions across such a wide range of topics.

At least one person (very close to the powers-that-were) and a member of the panel responsible for creating the new GCSE, didn't realise this. I wrote in this post how he told me that the reason they decided so bizarrely to almost immediately replace the then brand new GCSE, was the clamour from language teachers on social media. The clamour of teachers finding that they couldn't teach rote-learned answers to such a wide range of topics. Which, if he had been in a position to understand, he would have seen was directly linked to the declared desire of the new GCSE to do away with rote-learned answers.

My current Year 11 are taking the "old" GCSE. When it came to starting revision for the speaking exam, they were gobsmacked that I didn't let them get out their books and look at the "answers" they had written on each topic back in Year 10. Instead I went directly to speaking. Tell your partner in Spanish what you remember from your stories in Year 10, using Spanish you know.

This works fantastically for students aiming for a high grade. They are able to speak Spanish, using their repertoire of language, spontaneously and with good interaction with the examiner. This also works fantastically with students who would struggle to memorise answers or pupils who are not necessarily motivated to memorise answers. The important thing is they get good at delivering answers using Spanish they know, without having to memorise word by word.

So I said to the pupils, Here's a blank piece of paper. Write me your answer. Then you can look at your Year 10 answers afterwards and see if there's anything wrong or anything missing.

And this is the sort of thing I got:

Some of it recreated a story they remembered (especially if it was true) from Year 10. Some of them made up new answers completely from the routines we have embedded of opinions, reasons, stories.

But remember, this is for the legacy GCSE with Year 11. These pupils are taking a GCSE which incentivises having narration, interaction, improvisation. And most of all, being able to construct an answer on any of the topics, rather than rote-learning an answer to each of the possible questions across the full range of topics.

The question is, Will I keep this approach with the current Year 10?

I certainly want to. And I am teaching that way for now. But when it comes to the exam, which approach will win out? Will rote-learning once again out-score spontaneous speaking?

The guidance for the conversation still includes this important stipulation:

So teachers can't narrow down the Themes to favourite topics to be rote-learned. But on the other hand, the content of the exam has already been streamlined. This exam has cut down on the "overload" of topics following "clamour" from teachers. Has it shifted the balance and incentives back towards rote-learning?

Have we let testing Listening destroy teaching Listening?

 I once found the perfect YouTube video for doing actual Listening with my Year 10 class. It was someone complaining about how noisy slurpers spoil the experience of going to the cinema. It was in angry full speed Spanish, with deliberate slurping and crisp crunching thrown in. I described how my Year 10s coped in a previous post:

They understood it was a rant. They understood that she used to like to go to the cinema but that it's ruined by noise from the audience. That it can be the best film or the worst film, and she would love to watch it on the big screen and with great sound, but now she would prefer to watch it at home. They told me enthusiastically what they understood.

They did not understand every word. I did not understand every word. You couldn't in fact hear every word over the crunching and slurping. But that only added to the message rather than detracting.

This is going to be a post about GCSE. But meanwhile three more stories.

I wrote a post about listening to the Extra TV series with Year 7 learners. I stop every couple of minutes and we do a quiz. My questions guide them through the programme and make sure they are keeping up:

She dumps her boyfriend by email. What was his name?

She says "Yes, I got the present." What was the present?

They are watching the action, the interaction, the body language, the tone of voice. And picking up on language, but not language in isolation. The next time when we come to carry on watching, I can start the episode again and ask about language:

What does "C'est fini" mean?

What does "Oui, j'ai bien reçu le coussin" mean?

And they can tell me word for word. The language falls into place because you understand what is going on.

It makes me think of when I was learning a musical instrument. The best bit of the lesson was at the beginning when the teacher was doing some "warming up". (Otherwise known as showing off.) Getting to hear someone playing fluently and brilliantly, making music. How about when it came to French lessons? Our teachers were English and had studied French from books at university in the 1940s. Hardly anyone in my class had been abroad. We didn't do school trips abroad. No-one in my class spoke another language or knew anyone who spoke another language apart from English. When we learned, Monsieur Marsaud est grand mais Claudette est petite, was that the extent of what French was and could be? When did we ever get to hear it in full flow and be amazed at the real thing? We owe it to our pupils to show them what a language is!

And the third story. I was in the Czech Republic on tour with the orchestra of a school where I was teaching. I spoke not one word of Czech and in Karlovy Vary no-one spoke a word of English. We had a tour guide/translator. I witnessed a conversation in the Reception of the hotel which I followed very carefully through a lot of back and forward, as the two speakers went through various stages of consternation, disinterest, insistence, reassurance: The hotel had our booking but they had the teachers in rooms of two. This meant that I would be sharing with a female teacher. They couldn't do anything at the moment but OK, I could sleep in the duty manager's office for one night until it got sorted. I followed the back and forth of the conversation without understanding a word of Czech. But being there in the situation, following looks, tone of voice, actions and gesture, I knew exactly what was going on. Is this related to language-learning? Well, firstly I imagine that 5 years of living abroad must have given me confidence in my ability to tune in to what was going on. And secondly, language-learning emerges from exactly this kind of witnessing interaction. I didn't have time to pick up much Czech from one conversation, but much of my learning of Spanish and French would have happened in exactly this way.

So what we've been looking at is the question of whether we arrive at understanding of meaning by parsing known words and language and working out what the meaning is. And the answer clearly is that we also do the opposite. We grasp overall meaning, and so can get some grasp on the words.

The problem is that our language teaching in schools now, is so governed by testing, that this approach to language as the actual language itself and the ability to cope with it, has almost completely gone. We test pupils' knowledge of known words and known grammar. We teach a bottom up approach of putting together known words and known grammar, to test how well pupils can recall and put together specific known words and known grammar. And we want the texts they see and hear to model how to put together specific known words and known grammar.

The idea that Listening is in some way different to Reading or Speaking or Writing, and is a skill to be developed, is being denied. The word "modality" is deliberately being used to replace the word "skill". The testing of Listening is declared as a process of transcribing known sound-spelling links into known words and known inflections, which are parsed so that you arrive at meaning. The idea that the skill of Listening is to make sense of something when you don't necessarily understand all the individual words, is now lost. Even though when I watch the news in French, I'm not sure I do understand all the words. Or when I watch a film in Spanish, if I catch myself subtitling every word (whether that be in Spanish or into English) I give myself a stern talking to and stop doing it, in order to just be in the film. (This is also the mistake that people make when reading books in a language they are learning.)

You can really see this in GCSE listening. All the things that make it an actual listening are removed. It's read aloud, deliberately keeping tone of voice clues to a minimum. It's slow pace, with no natural interaction or relationship between the speakers. The content is often slightly off-beat, to stop pupils from using assumptions or deductions. The lengths that they have to go to, in order to strip out all the listening cues and use of actual listening skills, is what convinces me that these skills must actually be real. If something was imaginary or illusory, you wouldn't have to remove it.

Then there's the markschemes. Remember my Year 10s who understood a full speed angry Spanish YouTube video in great detail? That it was a rant, that it could be the best film in the world, that you wanted to see it on a big screen with great sound, but that in the end you prefer to watch it at home because of the slurping and crunching? Well that is not what is wanted. Because the markschemes are constructed to make sure that's NOT what gets the marks.

We have so many examples of how what appear to be comprehension questions are not. Because a pupil who gives a correct answer to the question gets 0 marks. What you have to do is show your knowledge of known words and known grammar.

There's these, from memory. Some from Listening, some from Reading:

What impressed her about one school?

She was impressed that one school grew fruit and veg on the school field. Nul points.

She was impressed that they grew fruit and veg on PART OF the school field. Correct answer.

As if that's the part that impressed her. The part that impressed her was that it was PART of the school field. See what I mean? That's not a comprehension question. That is a directly transcribe and translate word by word what she said otherwise I am not giving you the mark question.

He doesn't get on with his teachers. Nul points.

He gets on badly with his teachers. Correct answer.

Comprehension gets you no marks. Direct translation of all the words is what they think listening is.

It's good for your skin. Nul points.

It looks after your skin. Who even says that? AQA. That's who.

She gives talks to pupils about energy saving measures. Nul points.

She gives talks to pupils about HOW to save energy. Correct answer. According to AQA.

This isn't an accident or a quirky markscheme. This is how they see Listening.

I would actually prefer if they got rid of fake Comprehension questions. And just made every question a translation question. And sometimes I feel as if in my lessons every activity is really a translation activity. And I have to make an effort to bring in language that is not directly modelling known words and known grammar, and let them see and hear real French and real Spanish. Or hear me talking to someone in full flow, just like in my musical instrument lessons.

To be generous, we could say it's how they see testing Listening. And it's our fault if we drag that into our lessons and let it deform our teaching. But I'm not being generous when we've been told that Listening isn't a skill anymore. When we're told that Listening has to be made up of known words and known grammar. When we're told that you arrive at meaning by parsing the words in a one way street from decoding to meaning. In my opinion, it's not true, and it's not language-learning. You may not agree with my conclusion, but please at least don't ignore the question!