This series of blogs is to document our learning as we work on our National Priorities Project. We are looking at what our Year 7 French Art Exhibition can reveal about asking pupils to be creative and to communicate, and its impact on the language learning itself. We are not seeking to definitively answer the questions of language learning as a conceptual grammatical system versus language learning as communicative competence. By looking at the reality of learning in the classroom, we find the messy overlap between all aspects of language learning. What we are looking for are interesting experiences, examples, thoughts and insights to share and to contribute to the debate.
So what have we learned so far?
I do think that there are important and unexpected ways that my perspective has changed.
Going back to when I started teaching in the 90s, I think I was frustrated with the idea of memorising a series of phrasebook style situations where words could be substituted. It didn't seem to lead to a coherent language learning experience where the pupil ever reached the stage of conceptualisation of how the language worked. And could never say things they wanted to say, rather than being tested on their recall of how to say useful things they had memorised. Neither did I believe that using the target language in class to ask to remove your blazer would ever magically lead to being able to speak the language fluently. The 30+ years of my teaching career has been honing the development of a growing repertoire that means pupils can spontaneously express themselves.
So I came into this National Priorities Project with a belief that communication was an important goal, but with no particular romantic belief in its magical powers when it comes to classroom learning.
This doesn't mean that as a department, we don't think communication, self expression or creativity are important. We do. In the past we have worked on projects with tangible outcomes for language learning. Such as a farm stamper trail, a staff French café and, of course, our French Art Exhibition.
And I think that there were two ideas lurking as a rationale. One was motivation. That pupils would find enjoyment and purpose in their language learning through being creative and having real outcomes rather than some funny sounding words and some writing nobody they know can read. This project is looking at the direct impact of creativity and communication on the language learning itself. I think there will be a place to look at motivation when we come on to look at pupils' views later in the project.
The other fundamental idea was that communication was a driver for grammar. That if we were asking our pupils to be creative, we had to equip them with the grammar that meant they could say things they wanted, not just repeat phrasebook style.
This also came with the understanding that communication doesn't just happen. There is a cognitive load to thinking up what to say and judging whether it's something you can attempt to say. This is where I part company with the "Novice-Expert" dichotomy put forward in the Ofsted Research Review. Rather than seeing the challenges of communication as an obstacle to be removed, I saw it as something that needed to be worked on. And which needed to be worked on just as much as you worked on the language itself. In fact it was in refining the coherence and spontaneity of your expression, that you got the many repetitive iterations of the language that are needed in order for language learning to stick.
The framing of this project is this understanding that there is an apparent conflict between the demands of creativity and the demands of construction of accurate sentences and the underlying understanding that delivers this.
Over the last few years, we have been asked to focus on the nitty gritty of grammar, so that one day the goal of communication can be reached. I wanted to use the project to question this. And I had my own reply ready that tried to flip the emphasis to the way that the goal of communication actively demands a focus on the nitty gritty of language learning. I think that although my vision had communication as an immediate goal rather than as a remote goal, I still thought about the process of moving from grammar learning towards communication in the same way as Ofsted proposed.
I think that has shifted.
In our discussions as a department, in our review of all our KS3 resources, in our observations of learning, a new idea is emerging. Rather than nitty gritty grammar learning coming first and leading to communication (whether immediate or eventual), a picture is emerging of the importance of meaning and meaning making in order for grammar learning to take place. Even in the bluntly unromantic terms of "learning as a change in long term memory". Even without taking into consideration the value of communication as a goal or the motivational experience of communication or the self-affirming qualities of creativity and expression. Simply in terms of learning content, mechanical exercises don't make things stick.
In our deliberations over our booklets. In our consideration of removing barriers to learning for different learners. In our engineering of tasks to maximise learning. Repeatedly we have come up against the idea that you can make a task clear, simple and do-able by making it more mechanical. And the pupils can do it and even feel as if they are doing "work". But it does not have the impact it needs to have on long term learning.
It has to be meaningful to be memorable.
Meaning is memorable. Pupils are not focused on the language in the same way the teacher is. What is important to the teacher is not what is important to the pupil. The teacher may be focused on j'ai and un/une but the pupil is focused on chien. We can shift the focus to j'ai or un/une but it won't stick. We have to somehow meet in the middle around j'ai un chien. You can't learn what is meaningless, and meaning is subjective.
Meaning is memorable. Pupils who want to express something, find they have to draw on their repertoire. They have to articulate the pieces of their linguistic knowledge and make them work together to create meaning. This challenge is memorable in a way that putting together some words in order to practise putting together some words is not. It activates the totality of the learner's repertoire and how it can be deployed. Creating meaning is a different experience to constructing an accurate sentence.
Meaning is memorable. Pupils who previously put together some words in order to practise putting together some words just remember that they put together some words. Pupils who put together words to say something that had meaning to them, remember what they said and can reconstruct the process of how to say it, not as a memorised phrase, but repeating the process of articulation of knowledge that they used to say it in the first place.
So I think I have learned something. I have had a change in thinking. If not exactly a change in long term memory. I have moved away from an idea that nitty gritty language learning is necessary for the goal of communication. Towards the idea that creating meaning is necessary for nitty gritty language learning.
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