Standard of French

[mutley1]

AIBU I am so angry about the poor teaching of French at DDs secondary school. They don't teach them how to decline verbs how to form different tenses etc etc they just have them copying great chunks of sentences out that the students have no knowledge of the meaning of and so cannot use the words to form other sentences. It's just hopeless. Anyone any experience/advice

So, then, what should I say at Y7 parents' evening next week about French? It is not set and - as Clary reports - you've got those chomping at the bit and those who struggle with the most basic of concepts.

Saying that, I was watching a programme yesterday on CBBC about two "bad" girls from a school in Essex sent to an Alaskan school for a sort of boot camp experience. These girls seemed unpromising students and had to do a Latin lesson. But they were conjugating a verb and looked as if they were enjoying the challenge. I can't help feeling that sometimes expectations are too low and, as someone said upthread, grammar isn't "fun".

I personally would ask when they intend to set!

Conjugation in French is not difficult - it is boring and repetitive.

The agreements of past participles are conceptually way harder to master.

Why aren't the conjugations explicitly taught though? It makes it so much easier! My own language teaching (in SHHS, a good girls' private school) was appalling. I came from a state school with no prior formal French education. My teacher simply assumed we would know the conjugations and taught out of the text book the entire time I was there. Eventually my parents realised I couldn't conjugate verbs and taught me themselves. I was amazed as I had no idea there was any rhyme or reason to why the verbs all changed or that you could even predict it all. It's not difficult to memorise the endings ffs! The language makes no sense at all unless you know the rules that underpin it, capricious though they may be.

Alyosha - it is total madness to "teach" French without making pupils memorise and practice conjugation. It is conceptually inconceivable for French people that anyone could "teach" French without formal explicit and repeated teaching of conjugation

I suspect that one of the reasons both my DC have had such rigorous teaching is that the teachers are all French!

I think part of the problem is not starting young enough. Primary-aged children who are well taught can genuinely enjoy a certain amount of "rote" learning - like times tables and so on - there's a particular kind of satisfaction to it. Whereas most teenagers/adolescents become naturally more interested in the reasons behind those patterns, asking why, interpreting etc - as they should at that age. The reasons why French or Latin conjugations or declensions are as they are (and why English mostly works differently) are truly fascinating and enormous fun to teach but you can't teach that sort of interesting stuff at all unless your students know the grammar (or at least grammar in some language) to start with.

French teachers who are proper French people educated in the French system undoubtedly make much better teachers of French grammar and spelling than anyone else. Of reading comprehension or writing I am far less sure!

kalidasa you make an interesting point I think.

For my DS languages are definitely his thing. He started Latin when he was 9 or 10, and had a great teacher who managed to make conjugations and declensions fun. I wouldn't say that DS loved learning all this stuff, but it certainly made it less boring.

He is about to take Latin, Greek, French and Russian for GCSE, and is genuinely interested in the differences in grammar and usage, sounds and pronunciation between these languages. He knows far, far more about the subject than I ever have.

In terms of learning, there are a lot more apps and software around now, which can make the learning a bit more enjoyable, although I appreciate the difficulties teachers have trying to motivate a class of uninterested teens.

Wow your DS is in a great position indrid. Buy him Teach Yourself Sanskrit for Christmas! Learning Sanskrit is the most astonishingly exciting thing if you are interested in comparative linguistics, and especially so if you have some Latin and Greek already.

I agree with Kalidasa although I think 10ish may still be young enough. languages as others have said are about fitting together permutations of patterns. There seems to be an emphasis on learning vocab and set phrases at primary age in French rather than the components of sentences and how to construct basic ones.
My DS's school taught English grammar through teaching Latin grammar. Once you've done it in one language it is much easier to apply to another.

"My DS's school taught English grammar through teaching Latin grammar. Once you've done it in one language it is much easier to apply to another."

This the "traditional" approach to teaching grammar in England. However, it doesn't encompass modern theories of grammar that are applied to European MFL.

Ooh, I'll definitely look into that kalidasa thanks for the recommendation. He has been learning a bit about Swedish recently, and has expressed an interest in studying Classics at university, so if you come across a student of yours in a few years who dabbles in Sanskrit and Swedish, you will know MN is to blame .

You can do classics with sanskrit at Oxford, ingrid. Just saying!

Bonsoir neither myself and my generation or my family's younger generation going through a European country school system at the moment have experienced any 'modern' approach. It is still the same just with more textes in between the grammar bits. Please tell me what they are missing out on .

That sounds just exactly up DS's street, kalidasa. Or, as he would no doubt say, totally awesome .

"My DS's school taught English grammar through teaching Latin grammar. Once you've done it in one language it is much easier to apply to another."

Well yes, but actually English grammar is different from Latin (and French) grammar in lots of ways. It's impossible to get a handle on the very complex English tense system via Latin and French. My Latin grammar is excellent, as is my English usage, but once I met a German who had studied English properly and I just could not answer all his grammar questions.

Sorry, bit of a random rant there.

I cannot write a grammar book in an MN post . The underpinnings of grammar in French that my DD learns (in a French NC school) are different to those my DP learned. And if you read a book on grammar for EFL you will find the same underpinnings as my DD learns in French.

I agree, Irene. French or Latin conjugation are boring and repetitive but actually a lot less conceptually difficult than English tenses and one does not provide enlightenment as to the other.

I am talking about basic grammar here, Irene you overestimate what primary school children are learning in the UK. Basic English grammar from basic Latin comprising what is an a noun, direct and indirect object, possessive etc. Certainly not comparing gerund and subjunctive equivalents in English .
Bonsoir does your DD go to a normal French school or a private school with international pupils? I have seen no evidence of 'modern methods' used in normal state French schools to teach grammar even now.

My DD goes to an école privée sous contrat with Education Nationale teachers and standard text books, inspected to the usual Education Nationale standards.

Bonsoir In that case I am missing a point in how grammar is taught (I am not a trained linguist as you are.
My siblings' and cousins' DCs CE and CM textes as well as devoirs de vacances seem to teach it in a very standard way although obviously aimed at younger children. The textbooks are definitely more colourful though than when we were at that stage.

The cahiers de vacances are drilling exercises, not lessons.

My DD's class teachers use the interactive white board for teaching grammar most of the time.

I teach French in a non-UK school. Most of my students have been learning French for 3 years, and I would say that the majority of my year 8 class could comfortably sit and pass a GCSE. The main difference are, in my opinion:

Students with an international mindset - languages are seen as very important
Many more lessons per week than you would have in a UK state school
Small classes of motivated students (with motivated parents)
Lack of tight control over how we teach
Large budget
Teacher-set assessment (no external assessment)

I focus a lot on grammar, and most of my students find my grammar lessons the most engaging. Personally I think grammar can be really fun (but I am a bit of a geek). I don't have much time for themed content - although of course I use it in class, all homework is vocabulary learning, as I feel that is something that needs to be done individually and in their preferred style. I teach them various ways of learning vocabulary and they choose what works for them. We have invested heavily in expensive vocabularly learning software, which means that even those students who might not enjoy sitting down with words to memorise really do have a vocab learning method that they enjoy.
This means, I can spend lessons focusing on delivering content, facilitating group tasks/speaking activities etc. I do not mark homework, but I spend a long time in individual consultation with students about their work. I can do this because of the increased hours and smaller classes.
I have purchased a massive range of readers, ranging from picture books to guided readers, bilingual novels and full monolingual novels. I expect each student from year 6 to read to themselves regularly in French, and I take time to hear them read, just as a primary teacher would.

Yes, I think the GCSE syllabus is set at a low level, but I think this is a reflection of the ridiculous expectations on schools nowadays. Timetabling for MFL is rarely a priority, and when you have large mixed sets for only an hour or two a week alongside a tiny budget, it is impossible to do what we really should be doing for our young linguists.
Only when languages are prioritised as a core subject will we see a return to GCSE students being able to function properly in their languages. For now, teachers are judged by the exam grades (and judged incredibly harshly). So, they have to do what they can to drag students through the GCSE. This means focusing on where they can get points, and this means learning set phrases.

Are you teaching in an MYP school, Loopy?