Modern Foreign Languages in Primary

[jenroy29]

My dcs (10 and 9) have been enjoying French and German lessons for a few years now, granted it's only 30 mins a week but they both know a number of phrases and really enjoy the role play and other aspects of the lessons. Their school employs a specialist language teacher for these lessons.

I wondered how many other state primary schools provide MFL lessons and what you think your kids get out of it?

Great, that's what it's all about!

pointylug you are so right - it was/is very variable in primary for my DC's, and although DD now at sec and doing very well with both Spanish and French, the modern methods leave me speechless! I am teaching her to conjugate verbs at home

I absolutely agree, by the way, about conjugating verbs. I used to do some A-level tutoring in languages and found potential A-level students who couldn't write out ich bin, du bist! How could they ever pass????

I am, however, a very sad person who actually enjoys conjugating verbs and even did at school.

The sadness of all this is that MFL was supposed to be statutory this year. For the first time since the 'entitlement' was produced there are a pool of MFL-trained primary teachers, coming out of BEds and PGCEs with specific training in how to teach at that level, and now finding it hard to find work. Schools (and some resource providers-Nelson Thornes' French Dragon is ace) do the best they can, but the chance to really sort this out may have vanished into Gove's incoherences on the curriculum.

KS2/KS3 transition is major issue at the moment, and much work is being done to address the disparities, which most KS£ tecahers would describe as 'those who learnt at KS2 crusing and falling behind' not being advantaged.

Personally, having learnt to speak four langauges and read three others, I couldn't give a stuff what language was taught or whether verbs were conjugated. The real problem is getting young learners to understand that langauges work differently (not word-for-word translation), that they express different thoughts, and to be confident in thier use and it being corrected. Once you've got these, applying them to other langauges is not hard. It womight be of much more use to future French libnguists to have learnt Polish from a present native speaker at KS2 than French form a presentation delivered by a non-speaker....

You don't give a stuff if verbs are conjugated and yet you want pupils to understand how languages work and to be confident in using them?

Pupils need a good understanding of grammar to understand how diferent languages work and to feel confident in reading, writing and talking. Conjugating verbs is an important part of grammar.

Oh God, not the 'no grammar myth' again!

Most pupils 'learn' to conjugate French reflexives in the present tense by learning to introduce themsleves. Learning formally that that is what they are doing comes further down the line. If someone can confidently use verb forms correctly-using different forms for different persons-then they have learnt to conjugate. Generally most learners work better from an established body of examples which can then be patterned and made sense of than from making that knowledge explicit and then working on the use.

There is a huge 'declining standards' myth that 'grammar' isn't taught-it is (just look at any resource). Neither do teachers let poor grammar go in favour of 'creativity'. The question is how and when that knowledge is made an explicit focus of study so that old school parents can tick the 'done conjugation' box.

And, at KS2 in particular, surely getting use right from a series of learned examples, and the process of langauge use enjoyed, is more important than being able to recite the rules themselves?

Didn't realise you were just talking about ks2 at that point, adela. We're going round in circles I think. Everyone has agreed that explicit grammar not needed at ks 2.

Sorry, I was harsh in my previous message, but it's best thought about by thinking (as the OP wanted) about delivery.

I recently watched a Yr1 class learn some French. They started by repeating the names of five different classroom objects. The teacher then removed an object and asked what had gone, then they did the same. In the next 30 minute slot one of them came to the front and chose and object in secret. The class asked 'as tu...', they replied 'oui, j'ai..' or 'non' until it was guessed, then the class aid 'il/elle a....'. Because some of the girls wanted to be a group and work together, this varied a little into plural forms. It doesn't require great lingusitic knowledge or time, and didn't at any stage involve writing tables of the verb in the present tense to have nicely on the board.

But those pupils had learnt to 'conjugate' and that: French verbs have more forms than English, that French distinguishes between 2nd person singulars and plurals, and that French is gendered so that 'a' is not always translated the same. Had they been doing it in Hungarian they would also have learned not all languages distinguish between he and she!

The teaching is communicative and game based, but has a serious grammar point that teachers are aware of and that can be made explicit at KS3. I fail to see how, beyond tecahing pupils to be bored, introducing a reading and writing element to pupils who as yet struggle to do that in English, and rewarding those who are good at non-contextual repetition, giving them a verb table would have been a brilliant move. But it was a lovely lesson to have been part of delivering, and a lingusitically valuable one.

The thread is on PRIMARY provision!

And, if we are discussing about KS3 and above, then it's daft because grammar is taught explicitly there. Just look at a tecahing resource!

The thread has covered primary and secondary provision.

A very good friend of mine is a mfl teacher and we have spoken about the move away from teaching grammar explicitly in the first years of secondary.

I know how mfls are taught in primary, I teach it.

Your patronising attitude is annoying.

My apologies, I sometimes get rather frustrated by the 'doom and gloom' postings here which hold up one thing as a litmus test of knowledge, and then bemoan the lack of provision and the collapse of civilisation. Always seems a huge disservice to teachers and pupils.

I am still at a loss, from working specifically with KS3 learners as part of a programme to develop language skills for later, why your friend thinks grammar is not 'explicit'. True, it is now most often taught by examples, then elicitation of patterns to produce nice tables, then repetition of those patterns in use, with the emphasis on correct usage not simply knowing the grammar, and is therefore not the focus itself. But even those resources aimed at lower level learners make it explicit, and provide reams of tables. And they are helpful in forming patterns for those who haven't quite got there.

As for primary provision, it does clearly vary alarmingly, and I'm sure you're brilliant at teaching conjugation implciitly. But even if it isn't taught at all, there is so much else to be gained from exposure to a language that it seems odd to write as if something not being optimal must mean it's a disasterous waste of time (which is the sense I got from your postings).

I don't believe conjugation of verbs has a place in primary schools.

I am in Scotland which might make some difference and teh curriculum for excellence is pushing some teachers and department heads along very strange directions in terms of blanket bans on rote learning. Things vary a lot just now between local authority areas and individual schools.

I am regularly impressed with the education my own children receive, its high standard, the quality of their learning and the huge number of extra curricular trips and activities which staff organise.

May I ask why, and what you mean by 'ability to conjugate' (implicit or explicit?), and in particuaklr if you mean 'rote learning verb tables'

I think I would tend to agree with you that explicit conjugation is useful. A typical KS3 class will have some learners who 'get' the rules form examples, some who don't, and a significnat proportion who get the rules once explained, and need that explicit help. And, as I've said, I've yet to see a resource that doesn't respond to that model, for all the stress on communication. I'm still not convinced that starting with it is helpful-the metalanguage is off-putting, and it may not necessarily aid usage (and surely the aim is to get people using language correctly, not just knowing how it should be used?)

Why do you feel this model ceases at KS2? I imagine quite a lot of other teaching you might do is about eliciting rules from examples. I can understand why you wouldn't want to start with rote learnign the forms, but why not introduce them explicitly?

Hostility to 'rote learning' must annoy you. Seems bizarre to me that the pupils in the exercise I described would not be described as rote learning (when they were), but would be if given a verb table.

I am genuinely interested, and really sorry. I'll be returning to primary tecahing next year, and MFL provision is a key change I'm trying to get my head round. If I've seemed hostile it's because I've assigned you to a group claiming 'just get them reciting tables' which i've found most unhelpful, and repsonded to them not you. Sorry again.

How can we not teach verb conjugation in primary schools?

Mrz,

Indeed, you need it to be able to use language. Is the discussion really about rote learning verb tables?

Perhaps I need to begin then I wouldn't get so many "I goed" or "They is"

Yep, and that's surely one of the problems for MFL-that the form of a verb table (or, worse, a declension since English doesn't have them as forms) is alien, so hard to introduce and use as a learning tool.

I find it hard to get involved in long debates on a message board and tend to avoid it and go for snappy imperfect responses instead. Also, I am working and making tea at the same time.

However, I'll try to put forward my point of view since you have asked.

I don't beleive that primary school pupils should learn verb conjugations in mfl. The most successful lessons pretty much follow the pattern you outlined earlier. Some rote learning of vocab (I liek whole class chanting, very helpful and no one is put on the spot early on in the lesson). However, I sometimes refer to verb conjugation in passing. I have also referred to it during english language teaching.

Verb conjugation has to be covered in secondary and grammar shoud be made explicit. This is only one part of a mfl, however. Pupils should not be sitting reciting tables day in, day out. Talking is just as important as writing adn reading.

Well said pointy

I meant to say since you asked so politely, adela. You sound a bit of a charmer

Hi, I'm South African and my boys are more recently expressing an interest in learning Afrikaans.

I am eager to catch up with someone that could help with teaching them I work full-time and have 3 boys so I am pretty much flat out most of the time.

Having recently purchased a CD for learning they are willing to take forward learning Afrikaans and whilst I can help them with the talking element of it its unlikely I will have the time to assist any further.

Please let me know if this is a language you would help with I live in the E17 area. Boys are 9 and 10 years.