Primary Teacher UK

More Language in our school

There has been a big leap in the number of primary schools teaching children foreign languages.

Minister for Schools and Learners Jim Knight welcomed news that 84% of primary schools now teach children another language, up from 70% on the previous year and nearly double the 44% in 2002.

Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) published today shows that traditional languages dominate, with French being most popular (89% of schools which teach languages) followed by Spanish (23%) and German (9%). But a small number (under 3%) offer Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Urdu.

Lord Dearing in his major review of languages in 2007 recommended that languages become a statutory part of the primary curriculum, building on the existing entitlement for all primary pupils to learn a language in class time by 2010.

He wanted to make languages compulsory in primary schools so that all pupils learn languages for a minimum of seven years. He believed that learning languages earlier will inspire children with a love of languages and motivate them to continue learning languages post-14.

£340 to support language teaching in school

Primary schools in England will receive about £340 extra each next year to support compulsory languages teaching. This is made up from the £35 million that has been announced for 2008/09 to transform language teaching in primary schools. The money is earmarked for investment in specialist teachers, training and teaching resources as well as joint working between schools to support transition between primary and secondary level.

The focus on primary schools is aimed at reversing the sharp decline in the numbers continuing to study languages to GCSE level, which is now optional.

French - To teach or not to teach?

It isn't often I spark off any debate on here, but I was interested in one of the responses to an earlier post, entitled 'French of Spanish?' that I made a while back.  This was of particular interest:

When deciding which language to introduce, a primary school will consider these factors, among others:

1. Which language do the teachers in the primary school have some knowledge of?
2. Which language has the most teaching resources available?
3. Which language does the local secondary school teach?

And the likely answers?

1. French
2. French
3. French

Around 70% of primary schools are teaching a language now, and of that number perhaps 90% are teaching French.

Schools are just starting out with language teaching and it is understandable that they choose a 'safe' option (French) at this stage.

I maintain that teaching French at primary schools (and at secondary schools for that matte) is a bad move, and in this post I'm going to explain why.

First of all, if those teaching it are not really good at pronouncing it, they are going to pass on mistakes, and with French that's easy to do! How well do they pronounce the 'u' sound in French in 'tu' and 'au dessus'? Can they distinguish between 'au dessus' and 'au dessous'? One minute sound change, in this case, results in opposite meanings. Can they distinguish between 'un' and 'une' sufficiently, or are they pronouncing something in between - one size fits all? The differences between the article in French is as important as adding that extra '-n' before a vowel sound in English.

I'm only saying this because no-one taught me at school, or at 6th form college how to pronounce French properly. I only really learned the correct pronunciation of French through the traditional phonetics classes we were given throughout the first year at university. I can't understand why this isn't taught sooner, but it isn't!

Now, I'm not suggesting that you expose your Y4s to French phonetics lessons - far from it, but if people are going to persist with this fetish for teaching French, they should at least know how to pronounce the language properly, if they are going to act as the language model for their students. That is far more easily achieved in Spanish, German, and even Italian without the phonetics course. For French, though, you really need background on how to pronounce the language, because the sounds can be very different from those of English.

A good rule of thumb to follow in determining how difficult a foreign language will be to pronounce, is to listen to the way many people who speak the language you want to learn as a native language, speaking English, if you see what I mean. Listen to a Chinese person and you'll hear the difficulties that person has with English straight away. That's a good indicator that their language will be a challenge in the pronunciation department for you! Yes, I know that Maurice Chevalier made a fortune playing on the 'Frenchness' of his accent, as did Antoine De Caunnes, but I wouldn't want either of them teaching me English with accents as pronounced as that. To be fair, though, Antoine De Caunnes does speak really good English when he wants to.

At one school where I used to teach years ago, I taught French to one class of Y7s and Spanish to the other. Spanish was easier to learn and easier to teach. Students could pronounce Spanish far more easily and some of them managed fantastic pronunciation. I was really blown away by it at times! In Y8, they were introduced to the other language. I noticed that learning French takes far more effort, an uncommon interest in the language and a good ear to discern those subtle differences and reproduce them convincingly.

In fact I put it to you that the answers to the questions in the quote at the beginning of this post i.e. those that are answered by 'French', in every case - are flawed by false logic. Let's go through them one by one.

Which language do the teachers in the primary school have some knowledge of? French

This is a double-edged sword if ever I saw one! Yes, it can work in the favour of the teacher electing to teach French, if he or she was good at the language and enjoyed it, and may even possess an A level or higher in the language. For many others, however, the prospect of teaching French strikes them with dread, as they recall the misery of those language classes at school they couldn't wait to drop. 

This means that some teachers who are expected to teach French now, and who have been through school hating and avoiding it, are burdened with the bad 'vibes' and memories of trying to relearn French now, because again, they are required to do so. Now that's got to be working against their making progress. Psychologically, these people would be far better off starting a new language with a new approach and a fresh, new perspective. It would take a lot to overcome a negative attitude borne out of the negative learning experiences that so many students have had to endure, so I think it would be far better to start with a clean slate and an easier language...dare I say Spanish?

I'm not blaming secondary school teachers here - I have a foot in both camps. For one thing, learning a language in a school environment is frought with complications. It takes a burning passion for a language to learn it, and frankly, most secondary school students don't want to. I don't blame them for that. It just is as it is. Teachers are doing their best, but in the end, the students' own interests will dictate how well they do in a subject. Languages are the hardest subjects for most students, I believe.

Which language has the most teaching resources available? French

Well, it follows that as French is so popular, publishing houses will create resources for French - supply and demand. If stones ever became popular as pets (They did in the USA!) you can bet someone would start selling them for an inflated price, and 'producing' more pets to satisfy the marketplace.

You can teach a language extremely effectively with limited, but particular, resources and a methodology that works. (Please tell me you're not using text books at primary school! Especially for French!)      

That's the way I teach and it works like a charm! Resources are only useful when you know how to use them effectively, otherwise they're just there for show. I'm serious. OK, a CD of a native speaker pronouncing words is essential if you don't know the language well enough, and certainly posters can make very pretty wall displays, but will you actually use them to teach children the language? How? How will you use them, or will you just slap them up on the walls and hope the children learn the words on them? Will they learn the vocabulary only or will they be taught in a context? Well, they look awfully pretty and...

The truth is, you don't need all that glossy, overpriced junk to teach children a language. Here's a trade secret for you - The only resources you need are: yourself, and a good enough ability in the language you aim to teach to be consistently accurate, and a set of large picture cards. I teach that way, my classes rock, and the students learn because I'm treating the resources as a means to an end, not and end in themselves.

The textbook approach is unsuitable for all but the most lingusitically able primary school children. I know because years ago I tried it and fell flat on my face! Text books that are 'suitable' for all, are probably a waste of money. Again, I suppose how the language is being taught, and by whom, and of course, how bright the students are and what background they come from, also play a role, but I've taught languages at the primary level for over 10 years now, so I know what works best for the group as a whole.

Which language does the local secondary school teach? French

OK, if I demolished this one, it would be gratuitous, because it is reasonable and logical to teach the language at primary school that is going to be continued at secondary. However (...turning the big, bad bulldozer's ignition key...), how many schools actually liaise with the secondary school and draw up a plan that will ensure a certain level is attained at primary, that can be carried on smoothly at secondary level? I'm talking here about a complete plan of required learning drawn up between the two schools that will allow the secondary teachers to build upon what the primary schools have taught them, not just vague guidelines, because without the two-level plan, the argument that what is taught at primary should reflect what is being taught at the secondary school, holds no water.

If you do this, please post here. I'm always looking for the exception that proves the rule!

I have a foot in both camps here, so I can see the issue from a secondary school perspective too. Even there, I still recommend Spanish as the main foreign language that should be taught, but let's stick with French at primary school, for the sake of this discussion.

It winds secondary teachers up when they have to start with classes of Y7s who claim to have 'done' French before, but have learned erroneous French and poor pronunciation from untrained primary school teachers. You only need to read the comments on threads about primary MFL in forums where secondary school language teachers hang out to know that there are problems.

This can be traced back, to a great extent, to a problem I mentioned earlier, that is to say, French is difficult to pronounce properly, and no, approximate pronunciation won't cut it. French is a most unforgiving language, as unforgiving as the French are when it comes to people butchering their language. Trust me on this one!

The students also claim they have done such and such before in French, when they have barely touched upon it, and cannot reproduce it to any extent worthy of note. To be sure, primary school language education is a thorny topic amongst secondary school teachers. Might it not, therefore, be a better option to teach a language that won't conflict with French, but that might support it?

So is French really the 'safe option'? Is it? Is it really?

I still maintain, for non-specialists Spanish is easier to teach because it just doesn't come with all the 'baggage' that accompanies French.

Having said that, this argument is purely academic, because teachers will continue to choose French, in spite of anything I write here, and publishers will continue to create French resources, while there is a demand for them. So, as valid as I think my arguments for teaching Spanish are, the only way forward is to find more effective ways to teach French to the teachers who are going to teach the pupils.

Spanish or French?

Jim Porter has emailed me with an interesting comment based on Chris' post about languages in primary school.  Here it is:

When deciding which language to introduce, a primary school will consider these factors, among others:

1. Which language do the teachers in the primary school have some knowledge of?
2. Which language has the most teaching resources available?
3. Which language does the local secondary school teach?

And the likely answers?

1. French
2. French
3. French

Around 70% of primary schools are teaching a language now, and of that number perhaps 90% are teaching French. I wholeheartedly agree with Chris's piece. Those of us who suggest that Spanish is a more important language than French on a global scale, and that it should be taught more at primary level, need to be patient.

Schools are just starting out with language teaching and it is understandable that they choose a 'safe' option (French) at this stage. A few years down the line, the situation may be very different. Perhaps then Spanish, which as a language to learn has many advantages over French, as Chris points out, will find its way into more primary schools than we could possibly imagine at this stage.

If not, I'll be crying into my tapas.

FREE Language Learning CDs

For those that missed it yesterday the Sunday Mail is giving away 6 weeks of free language CDs over the next few weeks. They are produced by Linguaphone, which produces top-notch language courses. The courses will be part of their 'All Talk' series. If you want an introduction to a language, they might be well worth getting.

The first CD was sent out in yesterday's paper, so you might still be able to get  a copy, if you're quick and get to your newsagent before returns get sent back.

Why Do We Insist On Teaching French Rather Than Spanish?

Is French really the best language choice for pupils to be studying at primary school, and at secondary school, for that matter? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding ‘NO!’ for reasons I shall offer below.

Before I begin my onslaught, I wish to point out that I have nothing whatsoever against France, the French, or the French language. I learned French at school, and continued to study it at university, ultimately becoming a language teacher.

First, the sheer global scope of Spanish completely over-shadows that of French. In a nutshell, you can use French in France, Quebec, parts of North and Central Africa and, if you’re lucky, in some parts of South-East Asia. On the table of languages spoken in the world, Spanish weighs is second to Mandarin Chinese; French is way down the list! Purely from a point of view based upon numbers of speakers, anyone can see that Spanish is far more important than French.

Although British people are choosing to set up second homes, and retire to France, Spain is visited far more as the ‘traditional’ tourist destination for Britons. Pupils are far more likely to have the opportunity to speak Spanish on holiday than they do French. You only need to leave a tourist destination, and you can find yourself in a place where you can use your knowledge of Spanish!

These are just the statistics, which are reasons enough to learn Spanish rather than French, but factor in the academic side of things too, and you’ve got a whitewash!

For the primary school teacher, too, Spanish is a far better language to train form teachers in, because it’s far more simple in the early stages, than French is. Admittedly, Spanish does tend to get harder at the more advanced stages, whereas French starts off being hard and stays hard, but for the non-specialist looking to train in a language to pass on to his or her class, Spanish is a breeze compared to French. It will take far less time away from other teaching commitments, and a better result, as far as accuracy of pronunciation goes, will be much easier to achieve.

French is a notoriously difficult language to pronounce correctly, for non-French speakers. It requires a good ear, and a high tolerance for making mistakes and working through them. Unless children are raised in a bilingual environment, or unless such an environment is artificially created in a school (bilingual schooling from an early age begun up to the age of 5) their ability to . Many trained and practising specialist language teachers fail to pronounce the ‘u’ in French properly, and stumble over the guttural ‘r’. That speaks for itself.

Without the bilingual, immersive environment, English remains the teaching/learning medium in the primary school classroom. An integral part of primary school education is the study of English, and the spelling of English, obviously. Now, while I won’t ever disagree that studying a foreign language is immeasurably helpful in improving knowledge of one’s native language, the spelling of French, although logical to French native speakers, goes right against the learned spelling of English on many occasions.

At secondary school, this leads to immense difficulties, with regard to accuracy, for both learners and teachers (which is just one reason I advocate teaching Spanish in favour of French, right across the board), but at primary school, it can only be a recipe for linguistic mayhem! Spelling combinations such as ‘-euil’ ‘-oir’ will play havoc with the English spelling you are trying to drum into your class. I won’t even go into the potential difficulties for less able students!

Spanish is what I like to call (as a corruption of a computer-geek term) a WYSIWYS language: what you see is what you say. Not so with French! ‘Il mange’ and ‘ils mangent sound exactly the same – where did all those letters go? – yet, ‘(El) come’ and ‘(Ellos) comen’ look different, sound different and are far more logical to grasp.

You could argue that the language could be taught without reference to the written language, which is possible if you use the right methodology. However, on average, 50% of your learners are visual, which means they will learn faster and more easily with a written cue, say, on a flashcard. A written cue in French looks like gobbledegook to someone, whose leaned language patterns are English. Most Spanish is readily pronounceable from the written word, with relatively few exceptions, so the interference would be kept to a minimum.

Spanish offers very few of these vast and confusing spelling variations, and even fewer if you accept that Latin American Spanish is also a viable form of the language. This means that it can be taught more effectively without detriment to learners who prefer either the visual or the auditory channels for learning.

So, given that, at best, the language taught at primary schools will be ‘introductory’ rather than that of an ongoing course, Spanish is a far easier language to adopt, all round.

Spanish is often taught at the few secondary schools that offer it, as a specialist subject for those opting to choose to do languages. Many students have already been put off language for life, by the difficulties of French, and are unlikely to choose to want to study another language. Given the difficulty of French, in relation to Spanish, and the sheer dedication required to learn it, it would be far more productive in my opinion, if Spanish were offered as the main language from Y7, and French as the specialist language for the keen linguists who are ready to step up to the challenge. The benefits of studying a foreign language will still be preserved, yet I feel far more pupils will benefit at every level.

This is unlikely to happen at secondary schools, however, because most language teachers are French speakers, having fought their way through the language that was imposed upon them from their first year at secondary school, but if you were to teach a language at primary school and you want to do it yourselves as non-specialists, I would recommend you look at Spanish for all its benefits, rather than the bemusingly popular choice of French.

Do You Diglot?

If you’re teaching your classes a foreign language, and you have a fair amount of awareness into how the foreign language works in terms of structure, in relation to English, I have an unusual technique to share with you that you might find of use. It’s called a ‘Diglot Weave’.

‘Di’ means ‘two’ and ‘glot’ means ‘language’ and, just in case you’re interested, it comes from Greek. So a ‘Diglot Weave’ is a technique that uses two languages: the native language of the learners and a foreign, or ‘target’ language, that you’re aiming to teach.

A ‘Diglot Weave’ introduces the foreign language to the students through their own language by way of stories. The stories are carefully crafted, so that a certain number of new words and phrases are presented during the story, in both the context of the story and, hopefully, in appropriate grammatical/idiomatic context too.

It works kind of like this:

"Once upon a time, there was un hombre who lived in una casa pequeña in the great land of Somethingorother. He fell in love with a beautiful mujer who lived in the castle. Unfortunately, the man was pobre and the mujer was the daughter of el rey de Somethingorother..."

OK, I’m not claiming to be a children's fiction writer here, and this is just an example off the cuff, and obviously the story needs to be captivating for the children, but hopefully you can see what’s happening within the story. Certain words and phrases have been replaced with the equivalent in Spanish, but only a select few. The story is then presented to the children, preferably with storybook quality pictures, and the children learn through listening and repetition of the story.

You can make ‘Diglot Weaves’ yourself, as long as you’re careful not to overload the story with too much foreign vocabulary in the early stages of learning. One word or phrase per two or three sentences is probably enough to start with, allowing you to teach 10 such words or phrases per story. The cringe-worthy example I created above is probably a little too overloaded for first stories.

Planned carefully, you could teach quite a lot of target language through this medium. The more captivating stories you create, the more target language you can teach. So far so good. Actually, though, there’s a potential problem but it can be easily overcome if you take the following into consideration:

You need to be aware of the differences between the language you teach and the target language. For example, ‘grande’ meaning ‘big’ in Spanish usually follows the noun it refers to, in this case ‘casa’. So I’ve chosen to take that whole phrase and put in into Spanish. ‘Una casa big’ or ‘una big casa’ have been avoided. Choosing to put just ‘casa’ into Spanish in this case would work, but again, you need to look at what you’re teaching linguistically to ensure you aren’t teaching something that will be detrimental in the long run. Think in terms of phrases and collocations where necessary, and you might be able to benefit from this unusual and unconventional technique as a supplementary teaching medium.

International Links

By 2010, we will all have to offer a Modern Foreign Language to all of our Key Stage 2 pupils. Rather than seeing it as a 'bolt-on' initiative, it could be a great opportunity to develop other areas of the curriculum:-

• sending e-mails to an International Partner School
• setting up video-conferencing facilities
• development of speaking and listening skills
• enhancing writing across the curriculum
• having 'real-life' experience of multi-culturalism etc.

A great place to start, is by visiting The Global Gateway site. There are lots ideas there of how to introduce these ideas in school and also information about international schools you could create links with.  If anyone has any other ideas, post your comments using the links below.

Languages in Primary School

We knew it was coming to but today it was officially announced - Learning a foreign language will become a compulsory part of the curriculum for 7-14 year olds.  Alan Johnson said the Government would support making languages compulsory for primary schools when the primary National Curriculum is next reviewed, meaning at least seven years language learning for every child in the country.  There will be an annual budget of over £50million a year to support teaching in primary and secondary schools and to help fund supporting organisations.

Is it just me but are we having to fit more and more into an already tight curriculum?  Is it any wonder that some subjects don't get the attention that they deserve?

KISS Goodbye To Complicated Lessons!

A few years ago, I listened to a course by a communication skills expert, and one of the principles I remembered about writing was the KISS principle. In case you haven’t heard of it before, KISS stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid!”

Over the course of my, now, many years of teaching languages to classes of young children, I have often had to remind myself of the same principle with regard to lesson preparation. As an ethustastic novice, I would go all out making complicated activities and games, and they would often end in confusion, and not just on the part of the children, so now I’ve KISSed all that goodbye, and I plan my lessons according to simplicity.

A KISS lesson could simply include: (1) Presentation of language, (2) Practice of language through game or activity and (3) Summation.

Further ideas:

(A) Choose a clear learning goal for the lesson, such as 8 words, and a question and reply that uses those words. For example, 8 sports and ‘I like ___?’/’What sport do you like?’ It's easy to learn, easy to teach and focussed. What could be better?

B) Include games and activities in your classes by all means, but make them easy to understand, and easy to carry out. Adapt a simple card game that the pupils already know how to play, like ‘Old Maid’ or ‘Uno’, and you’ve got yourself a prime activity for language practice.

Explain the activity in English. It may be tempting to explain the activity in the foreign tongue, if you speak it fluently, but all you are doing is confusing the pupils, because they won’t really understand any of what you are saying. Immersive learning such as this only works when pupils are exposed to several hours of the language per day, and only then, when they are very young. The aim of the activity is, after all, to practise the language you are teaching in the lesson, so keep that as your primary aim.

(C) You don’t need an awful lot of resources to deliver a highly effective language lesson. I use flash-cards, specially made playing cards and a couple of toys now and again – that’s it! In fact, all I really need is a set of flash-cards, and I don’t even need those if you give me a stick of chalk and a board to draw on!

That’s not to say that interactive white-boards and the such like shoudn’t be used. If you have the skills and the inclination, you could create some very nice language presentations. But think about it: is your presentation via IWB ultimately any more effective than picture cards, and is it really worth the extra effort and preparation? In the end, it’s a matter of personal taste, but I find flash-cards so much more interactive and hands-on, they’ll be number 1 in my teaching arsenal for a long time to come!

If I sit down to prepare a lesson these days, I often write KISS at the top of the page, to put myself in the right mindset to create a suitable lesson plan.