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

No. I don't want to be too specific but not IB and not UK curriculum.

Bonsoir, our experience is that outside Paris, teaching of English in France can be pretty awful. A friend whose children have mother tongue English found they were regularly marked down for small errors, some of which probably weren't errors anyway.

By secondary the group my daughter knew seemed to have lost any interest in learning English, seeing it a dull subject involving long exercises. She was quite shocked, when helping one friend with some homework, at how little her friend understood of what she was doing. I doubt at any point, and my daughter had spent quite a lot of time in France, that any of the French kids attempted to speak any English to her. If anything, and this is despite all the exposure French kids have to English via music, the Internet and games, their English was worse than the French, English children achieve at GCSE.

Paris is different and we know children at private Parisian schools who get sent as a matter of course to the UK at about 10 to spend a month in the UK to gain a solid foundation. We have more excuse. English is THE international language. From my observation the French don't get it any more right than we do.

Very interesting loopy to hear such a concise description of how MFL teaching can really be made to work, if the will is there. But as you say, it is a pretty big culture shift from what most UK schools offer - even most private schools, I'd have said. Has anyone experienced language teaching of comparable quality/intensity within the UK? The teaching I received for A level Latin and Greek was comparable to this I'd say, and though I didn't do an MFL at that level what I saw of what was going on suggests that it was similar, but that was at a very unusually academic school, and it was obvious as an undergraduate that even within the parameters of an Oxbridge classics intake, the teaching I had had at A level was matched only by one or two other schools.

That's really interesting Loopy. Having a good vocabulary is one of the key's to fluency. What are your techniques for learning vocab?

When I was at school I had a small booklet on 1000 French words - grouped into topics of about ten words, and I found that this was very helpful. The book was small enough to slip into a pocket and I could pull it out whilst waiting for the bus etc. and learn a small section. Other teachers seem very dismissive of this method though, but all I can say was that it worked for me, but it would be good to know what other methods are recommended.

I also take NeedsMoreSleeps point - English is at present the international language, so it makes sense for others to learn this. We are a bit stuck as to which to chose - French, previously the diplomatic language, German - useful for Central and Eastern Europe and trade, Spanish - up coming, especially as parts of the USA are becoming increasingly hispanic, Mandarin - possibly the coming language.

I think everyone needs to try and use a variety of vocab learning methods. The most effective are really obvious - writing over and over again, reading aloud, making little flash cards (I particularly like these to be kept in a box and grouped by category), address books used as vocab books and read over, little flip books, posters stuck to the outside of the shower, labeling in room etc. Flashcards are the most versatile - I will always start the new year by teaching a number of games and methods for using flashcards.

I spent some time with a memory champion, who talked through the 'rooms in a house' method, and I like to look at these as well as other memory strategies (mnemonics, telling a story etc.) with students.

I have to say, that the majority of students do prefer the online/app methods. Language Perfect is very expensive but customisable, they will upload all vocab from textbooks, has teacher tracking tools, and the students compete against each other and against the clock. Certainly the younger students spend more time on this than other methods. There are other, cheaper software possibilities - textivate, task magic and lots of others. I personally am not too much of a fan of any websites that don't allow you to customise content, as I feel the range of vocabulary is often very limited in these. Fine for a bit of a change, but better for the younger years and less aspiring linguists.

NeedMoreSleep - even in Paris the teaching of English is dreadful!

My comments below are about the teaching of French.

I'm a great believer in learning MFL vocabulary with a picture (or label on an object) and not with a translation. I've learned 4 MFL, only one through English (the others were direct method, these days called immersion) and the one I learned through English hasn't stuck like the others. DD has only learned through immersion techniques and her vocabulary in Spanish, 14 months in, is impressive. No vocabulary lists ever!

I think we dropped on lucky at DC's prep school. The French teaching was excellent.

But then it was a large school that had the resources; three permanent native speakers, plus peri staff too.

The HofD was both formidable and boundless in her energy, securing plenty of time and space in the curriculum for her baby .

There was also regular homework ( which I know many find anathema at primary age) which meant the basics were consolidated early. Plus setting.

Both left that school both well versed and enthusiastic to continue and learn other languages.

Loopy (or indeed anyone else) it's interesting to hear about the resources you mention. Outside of school is there anything you would recommend for 13+ (scholarship) exams which will be well beyond GCSE level and probably more complex than AS in some aspects? (Think long, long passages of deliberately obscure French from perhaps technical, historic, or very serious journalistic essays. I have A 'Level French and have found the past papers I've looked at horribly challenging.)

I've already put Le Bon Usage on my Christmas list - but suspect I'll be the only one opening it.

(Current school is as described by Word.)

Scholarship at 13+ is really intense. I think it does depend on the schools you are applying for - of course practise papers and past papers from them are going to be the best thing to start with, but wide reading will be hugely beneficial, as would essay writing and translation/prose. As for resources, I'm not sure what there is that's specific, but I'll take a look.

not looked properly but this might be of use?

Oh thanks!

KS. Past papers thoroughly covered in school.

Of use but almost certainly covered in school.

Zero - that doesn't quite match my exposure to 13+ scholarship papers - although admittedly DS is a year away from actually taking them so I have only seen the "common scholarship" papers so far. To me, they looked pretty much like O Level (so yes, probably beyond GCSE ) but the passages, apart from having lots of compound nouns, were not deliberately obscure.

6 months ago I was despairing of DS's French teaching. I am still not entirely happy, but they do seem to have upped their game and/or something has clicked with DS, as he has suddenly started to manage to put together sentences (written and orally) which, whilst not perfect, are comprehensible and make fairly correct use of tenses, etc. His vocabulary (and therefore comprehension) are still way off where I would like them to be, and he is definitely not at the point of reading novels in French (which yes, I did do at 16, as we had to read them in the summer before our first year of A level, so I would have been just 16) but then (a) he's only 12, and (b) I strolled through French O level without any noticeable amount of effort (much to my teacher's frustration) because I had been taught very well, by native speakers, at primary school, so I am not sure how accurate a view I have of how good "average" O level French really was...

Anyway, he refuses to be shipped off to live and go to school with his cousins in France so I just have to cross my fingers and hope that another 12 months will be enough to get him where he needs to be.

It's a bit hit and miss, but Memrise can be very useful for building a good vocabulary base. You create an account, then can either use content that is already there, or create your own.

I was thinking about this earlier, and realised I missed two other factors off my list of differences between the system I have/implement and the normal UK state school model.

These are choice and autonomy.
All of my students choose their languages. They just take two until the age of 14, then can choose to continue both or neither. We often, in the UK, have students who feel they were forced into a language that doesn't suit them, when another might have (this used to be a particularly frustrating phenomenon for those, often boys, who would have suited German but had to prove aptitude in French before being allowed to opt for it.
The second is something that I feel very strongly about. I refuse to stress any of my students. If they don't want to learn, I will not force them. They have to choose to succeed for it to work. Poor results are far more effective a deterrent from laziness, in my opinion, than me moaning at the kids. I worry that the stress involved in trying to force students through exams, especially those for whom the subject hasn't clicked yet, is counter productive.

And yes, bonsoir, I agree re pictures, but that's not always possible with complicated or intangible concepts.

loopy - another thing I get cross about in MFL teaching is the insistence on teaching DC literary vocabulary before they have any mastery of everyday/domestic/social vocabulary. The other day a friend's DS was struggling with a short story full of words such as "wither" in a figurative sense. He doesn't even know "wrist" or "elbow" FFS!

Crikey - wither? I'm not sure I know what it means!

oh, I'm being stupid. As it 'wither away'?

wither as in a withering glare, rather than whither as in "whither thou goest I will go", presumably?

Actually, Bonsoir, you raise an excellent point earlier in the thread. In an effort to increase DS's reading comprehension, I think I shall be investing in some Asterix (he has a beautiful tome of "comtes de fees" ('scuse lack of accents) which was a christening present, but I don't think that's going to appeal in quite the same way). I might even get him to compare some bits with the English ones he has and critique the translation...

Stealth the best way we have found to improving reading comprehension for slightly older DCs (who don't need pictures to understand) is to use a Kindle, buy books from Amazon.fr (obviously for French books) at level that is perhaps easier than their first language level. Then make sure there is an appropriate dictionary loaded for when they highlight words they don't understand.
Asterix is brilliant but some of the humour with jeux de mots may be beyond the average English DC

Agree with summerends that Asterix quite complicated due to the puns. I can heartily recommend the Petit Nicolas book though, all available on Amazon.

Books - there are many of them.

My Amazon fr. basket is bulging. Just wish I could transfer it all intravenously to a child ...