Oracy - Pupil Voice KS3 French

 French is a lesson where taking part and speaking is going to be important. We have done a "pupil voice" survey of Key Stage 3 pupils. This is ostensibly to see what they think of how their lessons are going and how they feel about taking part. But there is a further goal of seeing how well they understand and buy into what teachers are trying to do in ensuring all learners are involved in the lesson. And a further further goal of developing our pupils' propensity to think articulately about their language learning. So I would be lying if I didn't say straight away that while we want to listen to what pupils have to say, we are also trying to shape their understanding and appreciation of what their teachers are doing and why they are doing it.

I am going to concentrate on writing up the Year 7 results. For several reasons. Partly because the Year 8 surveys were fragmented so teachers have individual information and evidence they can use for their own professional development research questions. And because it feels as if Year 7 are new to this and we have the biggest job with them to set up the classroom parameters for language learning.

Here goes:

Year 7 pupils - Confidence in Taking Part

Year 7 Pupils - Getting Answers Wrong

Year 7 - How do Teachers Ask Questions?

I have to say I am very happy with these results and the graphs largely speak for themselves. The big red sector (42%) are pupils who say that they understand the importance of taking part because it's how you learn. They can take part confidently because the teacher has set up the expectations that they want to hear all pupils having a go; not to test them, but because that's how learning happens. The second biggest sector is the yellow (30%) who aren't always confident taking part, but understand that their teacher is deliberately making sure they have the opportunity. The blue sector (18%) are the ones that presumably we would hear from if we only asked the most confident to take part. And we have about 2 pupils per class who are not confident and who are not taking part. I am pleased it's such a small number. And I hope that these are individual cases where the teacher is carefully managing interaction and confidence sensitively. There may be an element of pupils giving the answer they think we want to hear. But even if this is so, this means that their understanding of what we want to achieve in the classroom interactions does coincide with ours.

This confidence in "having a go" is reflected in the second graph, on what happens when you get an answer wrong. We do have a couple of pupils per class who think the teacher will be cross. The majority say that the teacher is helpful. With over 50% of pupils saying that the teacher will be interested in their answer and why they said it, whether it be right or wrong. This would seem to be a hugely impressive verdict on our teaching, if pupils have picked up on this as important to the way we interact and the purpose behind our questioning. It shows that we are using questioning as a way to tease out what pupils think and can do, in order to engage with their thinking and develop their skills. There is also strong awareness of strategies like coming back to a pupil later to give them a chance to show their progress. Again, pupils were choosing from a list of options, so I was shaping their possible responses, but the pattern of their answers shows good awareness of how we want our classrooms to work, in quite sophisticated ways. This goes way beyond thinking of participation as being put on the spot to see if you know the expected answer.

In terms of the mechanics of asking questions, the majority (68%) of pupils understand that the teacher is trying to get everyone involved. And 58% have spotted that teachers ask a question, give pupils time to think, and then decide who to ask. I know that we work this way. The interesting thing is whether pupils understand this. I think we can do more to point this out to pupils. So that they know they are all expected to be thinking and have an answer ready. Even if it's a partial answer, a wrong answer, or even a question. It's clear from the survey answers that teachers are choosing pupils to check that they are paying attention, thinking, and have an answer ready. Interestingly the pupils are not aware of how carefully teachers decide who to pick. And then there's the idea that teachers pick at random which I think is largely because of using am stram gram, which pupils love! Hopefully this all contributes to a classroom where everyone is thinking and ready to take part. 

As well as these questions with options to pick, there was scope for pupils to type their own answers. This is important in developing their ability to think about their learning and articulate their thoughts. Their answers were strong on emotional response - a kind teacher, dislike of participating if their hand wasn't up, fun activities incentivising participation, who they work with, confidence in speaking in front of the class. There was perhaps surprisingly no mention of pronunciation confidence, which may be a sign of the work we have put in on phonics. But maybe we need to do further surveys on this. This is perhaps the most important thing to take from the whole survey. For all our intentions and expectations and techniques, managing pupil emotions is key to learning and confident participation.

Pupils' awareness of techniques the teacher is using was less well articulated. "They just ask the question and get someone to answer it" was a common response.

This shows the importance of this survey. I am not using it to find out what the teacher is doing in the classroom. I am doing it to see the impact of how it feels for the pupils, and how much pupils understand and are aware of how we want to set the classroom expectations for participation. And the survey is only a small part of constant daily communication, relationships and interaction between teachers and pupils around the teaching and learning environment.