Talk so that pupils listen and listen so that pupils talk

Euroean Award for Languages & Mary Glasgow Award 2004

Gordano School

Talk so that pupils listen and listen so that pupils talk.

This creative project develops strategies to encourage and enable students to say what they want to say whenever they want to say it. With a strong element of ICT, the project aims to give students the tools needed to express themselves even in the very early stages of language learning, leading to spontaneity, fluency and technical accuracy. CILTThe project involves the development of a collective and holistic approach to the teaching and learning of MFL. Strategies have been trialled, reviewed, and refined over a period of five years, and have been driven forward by the responsiveness of the students to the methodology and by the tangible improvements in their performance as foreign language users. The project is not the finished article. It is an ongoing process, which we will probably never consider to be finished. The project has its roots in work we initially began about six years ago with FL2 learners. We were exploring ways of accelerating the progress of pupils beginning FL2 in Year 8 so that they would be able to keep pace with FL1 learners at the beginning of Year 10, when the options system would place them in classes with pupils who had studied an MFL for a year longer. Inevitably, this got out of hand and we began exploring how we could accelerate all MFL learners. Ideas were trialled with individual classes and, where pupil responses were positive, shared with others in the team. Gradually individual strategies were connected up into a holistic project, which aims not just to develop spontaneous and accurate speech but also to generate the motivation to promote extended reading and writing.The strategies we have developed so far involve:

a degree of pupil autonomy

a flexible and responsive approach from teachers

an appreciation of the importance of high-frequency language to fluency and progression

a reward system which encourages risk taking in self expression

an improvement in teachers listening skills

the extensive use of ICT to generate, store and adapt the resources we need

the prioritising of high-frequency structures for classroom displays

discussions with pupils about how they are going to learn

Pupil autonomy

At the heart of the project is a concept of pupil autonomy within the scheme of work. From the outset pupils are not just allowed but encouraged to talk about the things that they want to talk about, when they want to talk about them, as long as its in the target language. This might involve pupils commenting on the lesson, the learning process, or the teachers new glasses. However, once given the freedom to do so, students will initiate discussions on aspects of school life such as the Heads plan to introduce a new uniform, two classmates who are going to be late because theyve fallen in some mud, or how its definitely true that Jasons dog eats homework. Events in the outside world, from Bonfire Night to international crises also provide a stimulus for spontaneous discussion. Teachers are also encouraged to provoke discussion when pupils do not take sufficient initiative.

Training pupils to ask for language they dont know has been a key strategy. In their first language lessons we talk them through our approach to learning a foreign language and teach them the most important phrase they are going to need: Comment dit-on .. en franais? / Wie sagt man auf Deutsch? / Como se dice en espaol?. Pupils then ask for vocabulary and structure whenever they need it. (This freedom functions within the norms of school life, so pupils are expected to put uptheir hands if they have a request, are told not to ask for offensive vocab etc etc.) A section of the whiteboard is always kept free, so that pupils vocab requests can be written up by the teacher and are available for all students to use. This vocab is recorded by all pupils in a special section of their vocab book towards the end of the lesson, and the pupils are encouraged to use the language they have requested to enrich both their homework and their spoken contributions to subsequent lessons.

Flexibility

Allowing pupils this much autonomy means that lesson plans have to be flexible. We have a very detailed scheme of work and write detailed lesson plans but allow pupils to hijack the lesson plan when there is something they really want to express. We have learned to accept some slippage with regard to the topic content of the scheme of work because the trade-off has been progression in real language skills. Pupils accept it as the norm that they have to speak spontaneously and fluently, that they have to manipulate patterns they have previously learned in order to create new language, that they need to refer to the past and the future and to use modal verbs and conditionals to express their own ideas, and that they can always ask the teacher for a word or structure if they need one.

The language behind the pupils requests

Once pupils have been trained to ask for the language that they want, they tend to ask for two kinds of language (i) interesting language (ii) high-frequency language.

The requests for interesting language certainly keep teachers on their toes, for example Comment dit-on MP3 player en franais? or Wie sagt man stealth bomber auf Deutsch?. The requests may in extreme cases require a confession of ignorance, a conversation with the assistant at break, and a proud announcement next lesson. More importantly the requests motivate the students because they are being allowed to express what they want to say and are not being restricted just to language presented in the textbook.

The requests for interesting language enrich the teachers experience of the lesson too. Experience has taught us that when working on the topic of Pets with Year 7 they will almost inevitably ask for language such as used to have, dead, cried, and I miss, which will then initiate a flurry of accounts of the deaths of their pets and the grief that they felt. It would be all too easy to dismiss requests such as Comment dit-on used to have en franais? with Thats something you will learn in Year 10, but if the pupils want to express it, then we teach it either as a piece of vocab (as teachers often do with Je voudrais or Ich mchte) or by developing it from a structure the pupils already know. If the students can already say Jai un chat. it is a relatively small step to learn Javais un chat.? If the pupils can say Jai un hamster it is again a relatively small step to be able to say Jai pleur? Over a period of years certain pupil requests, such as the one described above, become predictable and can be incorporated into the scheme of work.

The pupils requests for high-frequency language enabled us to understand that many structures which we had traditionally not taught until KS4 or KS5, should be taught in an accessible way as soon as students ask for them. In order to anticipate students requests for high-frequency language more effectively we researched the most common words used in English. Researchers have identified a core of about 100 words that constitute about 50% of everything we say, and therefore about 50% of everything we might expect students to ask for. This was a very powerful discovery. (We have highlighted the verbs, plus not in the two following lists.)The first is taken from An Introduction to English Language by K Kuiper and

W. Scott Allan ( Macmillan Press 1996).

Here are the 100 most common words in English:

The twelve most common

a and he I in is it

of that the to wasThe twenty next most common

all are as at be but for

had have him his not on one

said so they we with you

The sixty-eight next most common

about an back been before big by call camecan come could did do down first from

get go has her here if into just like

little look made make me more much mustmy new no now off old only or other our

out over right see she some their them

then there this two up want well wentwere what when where which who will your

Other researchers have produced similar, but not identical, lists. This list is from The Art & Skill of Radio-Telegraphy-Second Revised Edition- William G. Pierpont N0HFF

THE 100 MOST COMMON WORDS IN ENGLISH

go am me on by to up so it no of as he if an us or in is at my we do be and man him out not but can who has may was one she all you how any its say are now two for men her had the our his been some then like well made when have only your work over such time were with into very what then more will they come that from must said them this upon great about other shall every these first their could which would there before should little people

(I and a are missing from the second list. In terms of radio-telegraphy they are perhaps counted as letters rather than words.)

Was is one of the twelve most common words in English, and students will ask for it if given the chance. Furthermore we should be delighted to teach it, regardless of when the full-blown Introduction To The Imperfect appears on the scheme of work, because research shows the pupils are going to want to use this word a lot. When we do reach the point in our scheme of work when the imperfect appears in all its glory, then our students should already have internalised a number of imperfect forms which can be use to exemplify the new grammar.

We have also learned, as a result of the pupils requests and of the above research, not to be afraid of requests for could have done and should have done etc, but to respond to them immediately and positively. Once students have learned structures such as Je vais faire mes devoirs., as they often do at KS3, how much harder is it to develop this knowledge into Jaurais pu faire mes devoirs. or Jaurais d faire mes devoirs. ? It is only complicated if we teach it in a complicated way, and if the words could have and done number among the most common in our language it would seem to be counter-productive not to teach them until KS4.

Rewarding risk-taking

We have also adapted our approach to rewarding spoken contributions from students. We had traditionally rewarded all spontaneous oral contributions with mini-merits (worth a tenth of a merit in the schools rewards system). These mini-merits are communicated by a visual and/or audible signal (such as a snap of the fingers) which do not interfere with the flow of conversation in the target language. As pupils began asking for the language they wanted to say and then set about saying it we encouraged progression by explaining to the pupils that they would in future receive a mini-merit for the risk-taking involved in their spoken contribution, rather than for the contribution itself. Pupils are thus rewarded for manipulating known structures into something more interesting, for progressing beyond the sort of contributions they habitually make, or for developing something that has already been said by another pupil.

Listen so that pupils speak

As well as training the pupils to be better speakers we had to train ourselves to be better listeners. As we wanted pupils to express real attitudes and opinions, we had to learn on occasions to wait longer for pupils to begin speaking, and to restrain ourselves from jumping in ourselves with off-the-peg GCSE sentences before they had had a chance to think. We also had to learn to show the students that we were interested in what they were saying to us, not just that we were assessing the accuracy of what they were saying regardless of the message. As a result we try to respond to the students utterances with an interested and interesting follow-up question or comment rather than with interruptions at the first incorrect gender.

If a pupil says Je suis dsol. Jaurais d faire la devoir mais mon chat est morte. we should not respond with choral repetition of Attention, la classe. Rptez! Mon chat est mort. but with a sympathetic and human response in controlled language. If gender is a recurring problem for the individual or for the class, this should be addressed at an appropriate juncture.

Recycling language

In order to gain the maximum mileage from pupils requests for language we have learned to recycle their vocab requests into our own classroom language and into the materials we produce for them. If a pupil has asked Wie sagt man confused auf Deutsch? in a German lesson, then the teacher will try to weave the word verwirt into the planned lesson content and into subsequent lessons as well as responding to the immediate message. We also realised we would have to generate materials of our own so that pupils would experience the vocabulary and the structures they were requesting in the materials we were giving them to read. To this end we set up an ICT Shared Resource Area on our school intranet. This Shared Resource Area is organised into languages, years, and topics. It has been built up steadily by the MFL team at Gordano over 5 years and now contains over 1000 texts and activities which combine the vocab and structures prescribed in the scheme of work with the vocab and structures requested by the pupils. The following is an example from our Year 8 German materials.

Ist Sunnydale besser als Springfield?

Guten Tag. Ich heie Bart Simpson und ich bin total niedlich. Ich komme aus Springfield in den USA. Ich wrde lieber in Los Angeles oder Las Vegas wohnen.

Springfield ist eine interessante Stadt und hat 50 000 Einwohner. Springfield ist viel kleiner als Sunnydale Sunnydale hat ber 100 000 Einwohner.

Springfield hat kein Baseball-Stadion und keine Konzerthalle aber wir haben den Kwik-e-Mart (Apus Supermarkt) und eine fantastische Bar, wo mein Vater Duff-Bier trinkt. Die Bar heit Moes Bar.

Ich wohne gern in Springfield und ich gehe oft zum Skate-Park oder zur Bowlinghalle. Ich gehe nicht so gern zur Schule. Wir haben auch ein Atomkraftwerk in Springfield, wo mein Vater arbeitet.

Es gibt hier viel fr junge Leute zu tun. Man kann hier Minigolf spielen oder von der Brcke spucken. Ich habe in Springfield ein Alien gesehen und gefilmt, aber das Alien war Mr Burns. Springfield ist die beste Stadt der Welt!

Sunnydale ist total langweilig. Sunnydale hat kein Atomkraftwerk, und keinen Kwik-e-Mart. Langweilig! In Sunnydale gibt es nichts fr junge Leute zu tun. Sunnydale hat viele Probleme mit Vampiren und Dmonen. Ich habe das aus dem Fernsehen gelernt.

Hast du die Fernsehsendung Buffy im Bann der Dmonen gesehen? Das ist eine komische Sendung! Ich mag Buffy aber ich hasse Sunnydale, weil die Stadt so langweilig ist.

As the texts are stored electronically they can be quickly adapted to the needs of individual classes. Vocab and or structures requested by a class on Monday can magically appear in the pupils reading materials on Tuesday. Futhermore, high-frequency vocab and structures are made to appear with a high frequency. Past tenses appear in virtually every text and are not simply restricted to the topics of What I did on my holidays and What I did at the weekend.

Anticipating need and providing support As we developed these strategies over a number of years we became able to anticipate some of the structures pupils tended to ask for in relation to certain topics on the scheme of work. As these structures found their way into the ICT stimulus materials we were writing, we also began to include them in the scheme of work wherever we were confident the pupils would request them (eg Javais is now in the Year 7 French Scheme of Work in the Pets topic.). We have also filled the walls of our classrooms with high-visibility displays of high-frequency sentence patterns. The following example is one of several displays from a French classroom:

Jai

Je nai pas

Tu as

Tu nas pas

Il a

Il na pas

Elle a

Elle na pas

On a

On na pas

Nous avons

Nous navons pas

Vous avez

Vous navez pas

Ils ont

Ils nont pas

Elles ont

Elles nont pas

ecout

oubli

trouv

fini

perdu

appris

compris

fait

crit

vu

lu

eu

rpondu

trichmon cahier

mon livre

le texte

lexercice

le dialogue

le devoir

le bon mot

le mot ******

un problme

la question

la phrase

la cassette

la solution

la rponse

beaucoup

The displays within one classroom cover a range of useful tense and modal patterns and are referred to as soon as pupils begin asking for the structures. As a result, Year 7 has become a kind of linguistic foundation course in which pupils acquire a working command of different tense and modal verb structures in addition to the topic and structure content of the text book. Where wall space is not available pupils are given handouts of the patterns to stick in their vocab books. Pupils written work is now displayed in the corridors rather than on the classroom walls.

Talk with students about their learning

Although we aim to maximise the pupils use of the target language in class we also invest class time in explaining to our pupils in English

that they will learn the target language by using the target language

that they are expected to build on what they know to create new sentences

that they can ask for vocab and structure whenever they want it

that the language they ask for is special and makes the lesson more interesting

that they will be rewarded for risk taking

that the teachers will try to be good listeners as well as good speakers

These talks take place at the start of the school year and at any time the teachers feels is valuable

The project has been awarded a European Award for Languages and the Mary Glasgow Language Trust Prize for language teaching that is innovative, measurable and replicable.

Gordano School MFL Faculty

Contact: pmorris@gordano.n-somerset.sch.uk