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

Zero so much to read so little time! .
Bonsoir sorry to pursue this but I am still not sure of what you mean by modern grammar methods taught in French schools.
Obviously work set for holidays is revision but as I indicated in my post I have not seen any different way to teach grammar from the normal textes (apart from more lively presentation)
You say your DD is mainly taught on a whiteboard. Do you think these methods are perhaps not transcribed in the standard textes then? If they are could you let me know the name of one? It would be very useful.

I was never keen on MFL simply because I had no confidence when speaking, and hated the thought that I could be making a fool of myself. Therefore I gave up French as soon as I was able (post GCSE). I also took Latin and ancient Greek.

At university I ended up studying a modern language to fluency, and have since studied others through distance learning courses. I do really regret not having taken French A-Level though when I was at school.

A friend has children at my old school. I was shocked to learn the eldest doesn't have to do a MFL as she's doing Latin (Classical languages are not the same as a MFL), and the youngest, having done a year of French at junior school, is now, in first year senior, doing both Spanish and German from scratch. Next year he will take up French and drop one of the above, and then another can be dropped in third year for Latin. Am unimpressed to say the least!

summerends - you can just buy the relevant BLED

Bonsoir the BLEDS have been around for some time, nothing modern about the way they teach grammar and orthographe, just lots of repetition.

BLED is updated all the time

My nieces and nephews have the latest edition, at their different levels, honestly nothing struck me as new when I looked through them.

I suggest you look a little harder, summerends.

Disappointed that gcse teaching does not focus on grammar as how will they cope if they choose to do A level as it will be such a large gap.

Bonsoir just give me one example, for example sentence structure and conjugaison is taught grouped in the same way to all appearances. Several posts on it would have been simpler if you pointed out at least one aspect of what you find obvious to back up your statement.

MY DD1 learnt both French and Japanese at school.

Japanese taught very formally - lots of grammar, tenses, alphabets etc
French - in the modern 'conversational' style

DD1 went on to get an A at A-level for Japanese, and still studies it for fun in evening classes at SOAS.
French - she really struggled & got a B at GCSE. She always complained that 'they never explained how it worked'
Interestingly, the school is now dropping German from the syllabus (due to lack of interest from pupils & funds) but keeping Japanese (which continues to be popular, especially with the 'geeky' pupils.

summerends - no, it is you who are missing the point. It is the underpinnings of grammar (the theories) that have changed. Of course things like drilling are still used to reinforce learning.

I was sure that I was missing the point . However the bottom line is as far as the DC are involved there is no new easier systematic way to teach them grammar and conjugaison. It is up to the individual teacher to make it interesting. However approach is broadly similar to previously in French schools since 1970s (maybe not to how you were taught French as a MFL).
BTW BLEDs are regarded as the old fashioned drilling type system compared to the more 'modern approach' (modern meaning from 1970s) textes.

I not read the entire thread, but the teaching of modern foreign languages is an utter disgrace in the UK. With the internet it is easier to communicate with french/ german/ spanish people. We also have lots of immigrants who speak different languages.

My five year old is very interested in learning German. My twelve year old used to be enthuasic about languages when he was young. What are British schools doing to turn children off MFL?

Le Petit Nicolas is available online here I'm using it with my home ed group (only 3 kids age 13-16) as a bit of interest in between the GCSE stuff we are doing.