Advice wanted on learning French - what is 'normal'?

[breadandbutterfly]

My dd is just coming to the end of year 7 at her semi-selective school and is generally doing very well - she has exams this week and I've been helping her do some revision. All fine. Except French. I started testing her and discovered she had not the faintest idea of any grammar - could not manage any parts of etre and avoir except occasionally by luck, had a vague understanding of noun-adjective agreement but not always applied, seemed to have covered only greetings, basic family, basic adjectives, basic describing one's house and classroom, and a tiny bit of hobbies. That's it. in 5 lessons I think per week. Her teacher apparently speaks lots of English in the classroom, her exercise book (v empty) has loads of unmarked errors and lots of stuff in English. Plus my dd's accent is abominable - way worse than mine (which is saying something) - but apparently they are often introduced to French words in written form before spoken form - something that I, as an EFL teacher would never, ever do as it encourages students to read them in their own accents.

But am I just being fussy? Are my expectations based on my own excellent French education 25 years ago for O Level. Have times changed? Do they just not learn any grammar? Is English routinely used in the classroom? Or should I be complaining?

Unlike nearly all the rest of the class my dd did no French at primary school so this is all new to her - obviously makes it harder.

Anyone?

DD2 is doing a language GCSE at the moment (they do it early, in Y9) ad she knows practically no grammar whatsoever. They learn phrases it seems. Hate it hate it hate it .

My dd didn't even know how to say we. She hadn't learned 'nous'. How are you supposed to cope without knowledge of basic pronouns? Why learn the colour purple or the adjective naughty, as she has, and not learn 'we'?

It seems ridiculous.

That is poor French teaching! To get to the end of year seven without knowing your pronouns and without knowing the declension of être and avoir in the present tense at least (would expect perfec as well to be honest) is pretty poor. I would start making a fuss, sounds like her French teacher is useless - should be teaching in the target language for starters

I'm sure you'll have spotted my intentional mistake one conjugates verbs not declines them...

This is very familiar. My DS did French, German and Italian at GCSE and French and German at A level. Absolutely no grammar until 6th form. Most certainly could not decline etre and avoir present tense at GCSE (got an A* though) and could not buy an icecream in Italian (A). I have no idea what they did in all those lessons but A level was a big shock. Absurd that you only learn der, die, das, die table in Y12 ... I did it in first term of German. And if you do get as far as A level, be prepared to be horrified that there's barely any lit in it!

I spend year 7 being drilled in verb conjugation (17 years ago...). Your DD has a poor teacher. She should know the basic verbs by now.

Very familiar indeed. My son (admittdedly a mathematician and not a linguist) could barely say what he was called in French by the time GCSE came round. Despite me having a French degree and helping him! He was taught no grammar, the written paper at his school was course work which naturally I practically wrote for him. Despite any real knowledge of the subject he got a GCSE Grade B. In my day his knowledge would have earned him an G at best, !! In my day we conjugated all the irregular verbs in Year 7

Dd1s German teacher tried to lure her into A level German with promises of doing grammar as she moaned so much during GCSE (weird maths geek child, loved Latin because of the grammar ). She didn't take him up on his offer in the end as she didn't trust that he would keep his promise. And I was when they said no actual lit at A level either - it's all magazine and newspaper articles.

My DD is doing French and Spanish GCSE and she is being taught grammar. There are grammar tables at the back of their textbooks and they actually chant the verbs! (Just like I did, back in the day.) I'm actually pretty impressed. So does DS2, but DS1 had different teachers from the other two and did no grammar.

I have now and then tutored the DD of a friend (before exams, not all the way during the year) and was amazed that she didn't know her grammar. She had never chanted her verbs and so couldn't recognise the different forms of them.

IShall Is that really true that they don't study literature at A level now? Can't remember what I did for German, but did Racine and Madame Bovary at least for French. No wonder our language students are not doing well. I sometimes teach overseas students who stay with our family for a week or two and they are always so clued-up on the English grammar and vocabulary. It usually the pronunciation that they have problems with.

This drives me loopy.
In order to pass, nay get a good grade in MFL at GCSE, relatively little grammar is required. It's all about 'useful vocab and phrases' these days. And of course we don't want to bore our kiddies with rote learning now do we?

Fortunately DC;'s schools do teach more grammar than is strictly necessary and what they don't teach I cover myself!!!!

As for literature....fondly remembers Lorca for spanish and Moliere for French.

I am quite at this and can understand your dismay. DS is year 8 and has been learning French for 5 years. He is doing Common Entrance in a few weeks time.

He has certainly been taught perfect and imperfect tenses, he can conjugate être and avoir (absolutely essential for passé compose), and he knows direct and indirect object pronouns. He can read simple novels in French by himself (we just read Anne Fine's Diary of a Killer Cat) but that's partly because I speak French and have helped him.

From memory I also learned all these things, plus future and past historic tenses for my French O level about 300 years ago.

It is impossible to make learning grammar easy and fun, but studying a language without it makes the whole exercise a waste of time for everyone involved - doesn't it? Maybe I'm just past-it.

Thanks for all feedback - very interesting.

Glad it appears to not just be my dd's school - or am I? Bit worrying, clearly. I think I will follow some of your leads in attempting to teach the grammar myself, whatever the teacher does.

Interesting about the A Level comments too - my dd2 (still at primary) is fantastic at languages and picks up the speaking element easily but has little interest in literature so that would actually suit her rather well... Though personally I aree that reading the literature is what makes it all worthwhile... found Virgil and Homer much better in the original. (modern languages not so much my thing.)

When I learned French, on day one I was given a picture textbook (not dissimilar to Janet and John but it progressed faster) and that was my year 7 work and homework.y daughter has just sat GCSE French and has never once brought a textbook home. It's all been phrase book type stuff. A pity, because I didn't go to France for 25 years and when I did a quick refresher on verbs, and I was away. It flooded back.

I was first horrified when a friend's son got B at GCSE and then couldn't order two croissants on holiday, mine age 11, 8 and 4 could.
My DD has a tutor, her teacher doesn't understand why she needs one. But then they jump around from present to perfect to future, with no idea what they are doing. The tutor is making sure she has a clue.

Language teaching has been dire for a long time! I know, I have been teaching MFL for nearly 18 years. I do not agree with the way we have to teach them and fortunately have brought (over several years) my head of dept round to my way of thinking, with the result that we are introducing far more grammar teaching from this September and are actually basing our Scheme of Work on grammar rather than on topics. So we have figured out what grammar to teach; in what order; then what topic would best teach it.

Becksharp - the teacher is probably just as frustrated by how he/she is having to teach languages, so it is unfair to call him/her useless.

The NC textbooks are all dire - they introduce grammar with little boxes of information and no practice whatsoever in applying the rules.

The National Curriculum for languages does not focus on grammar, therefore teaching doesn't either. However, the new GCSE is significantly easier if you know your grammar.

Indridcold, it is absolutely not true that you can't have fun with grammar - I already do loads with my Spanish groups and they really enjoy it.

Textbooks for Common Entrance are much better and more rigorous than National Curriculum books - we home ed our own DCs and I use Galore Park books for languages, which are fab, grammar-wise.

OP I second Tinuviel - the Galore Park 'So you really want to learn French' books are very good. I have been through books 1 - 3 with my Y8 DS and there were so many 'oh so that's what it means' moments. As a bonus I've enjoyed brushing up my own v basic French. The books can be found on amazon and you can get CDs to go with them which are expensive and not necessary if you can speak French with a bit of an accent.

Tinuviel Oh, I do agree that learning grammar can be made much less of a chore and more palatable by careful teaching. DS quite enjoyed being made to stand on chairs and desks by his whacky Latin teacher while conjugating and declining verbs and nouns (although I'm not sure those methods should be widely promoted!).

I read an article about Mary Beard recently who said that the only way to get to grips with Latin is to learn all the grammar by rote. She's right, and a good grounding in grammar and a certain amount of rote learning is necessary for most other languages too.

I agree, but please do not blame the teachers too much! The way the curriculum is structured and the content is awful; students have to be taught to pass an exam rather than have any real understanding of the language and controlled assessments are merely memory tests of set phrases. We have been criticised by both the local advisor and an Ofsted inspector for having 'too much unnecessary grammar' in our schemes of work (things such as conjugation of avoir and etre in Y7 for all subject pronouns and trying to stretch G&T students with the past historic and subjunctive) and one department member failed an observation for drilling which was deemed old-fashioned and not helping the students to make the necessary amount of progress in the 20 minutes observed. I agree that MFL teaching in most schools is sadly lacking but the blame lies further than the teachers in many cases.

What about use of English in the classroom? Is that common? It shocked me as 25 years ago my French teacher spoke only French in the classrroom right from the beginning - is it normal to have exercise and text books full of English too?

Shall have a look at the Galore Park books.

Also, does anyone have a link to the curriculum for French?

Tinuvel is my kinda teacher

My DD1 is doing Spanish and French A levels, and has done Maupassant for French and The House of Bernalda Alba for Spanish. So there is some literature in the end! She is also able to hold a debate in French (after A2) on topics such as immigration, the environment, etc, and knows lots of obscure vocabulary on these sorts of subjects. The strange thing to me (language teaching at their school still has a lot of grammar in it, so we've escaped that problem) is the uselessness of the topics they do to GCSE for ordinary life. I mean, if you do an MFL to GCSE but no further, you are surely most likely to use it when on holiday, so surely situations such as "ordering food in a restaurant" and "my father has just had a heart attack" would be the most useful? (my DH did indeed have to deal with his father having a heart attack on holiday in France when he was about 15!) Instead, the GCSE topics all seem to be about things like sport or the environment, which is not really the sort of vocabulary that you are most likely to need if you only know a language to GCSE level? It all seems a bit odd to me.

Bump.

DD is studyong both French and German and GCSE and seems to have a much better grasp of the language, since both teachers have insisted on incorporating grammar into the lessons.

For the oral exam, she has to rote learn phrases and cannot deviate from these. Both of her teachers appear to be very good, but are constrained by teaching what they have to teach, rather than useful and potentially life-saving phrases.