Modern Foreign Languages 5-11

A guide for teachers

Jane Jones, Simon Coffey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136618826
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The need to introduce pupils to learning languages at an early stage has been widely acknowledged with MFL set to become a core part of the primary curriculum. As schools seek to develop their offerings and make more effective foreign language provision, there is an urgent need for advice and guidance on best practice.Now fully updated, Modern Fore

CHAPTER

1

Starting early: what do younger language learners do better?

This chapter considers the rationale for an early start to language learning since it is important that this is made explicit; it cannot simply be assumed. There are many reasons for beginning learning a language early, not least of all the greater openness of early learners to new sounds and their natural curiosity to engage with new activities. MFL teaching and learning in the UK has redefined itself for the twenty-first century. Children are now being taught to be able to speak a given foreign language, as well as to be equipped with a range of foundational language-learning skills that reinforce whole-curriculum learning and encourage increased social and cultural awareness of difference. These aims are expressed in the national Key Stage 2 Framework, key aspects of which we outline in this chapter. In keeping with the ethos of the Framework we encourage a cross-curricular perspective of MFL, particularly with respect to linking it to literacy development. The emphasis in this chapter is very much on promoting what can be an unmissable, enjoyable learning experience for pupils and teachers.

Key issues

• ▪ MFL learning needs to go beyond the mimicry stage of parrot-fashion learning to encourage creative use of language and experimentation.
• ▪ Popular opinion suggests the younger the learner of a language the more effective is learning. Is there real evidence for this assertion and are there real long-term benefits?
• ▪ Failure to engage with MFL learning represents a myopic view of language education and a missed opportunity at many levels.
• ▪ Progressive cross-phase learning between primary and secondary school is essential to a child's successful school-based language learning trajectory.
• ▪ Is one language easier to learn than another? Which language(s) should we be teaching?

Introduction – can parrots talk?

Parrots are birds of immense fascination, given their natural curiosity, varied personalities and propensity for mimicry. It appears that a certain African grey parrot of some renown, Alex, was trained to use words to identify objects, describe them, count them, and even answer questions about them such as ‘How many red squares? – seemingly with some 80 per cent success. The parrots on the cover of the book can be seen as a symbol of these skills and reminds us of much that we observe in children who show inquisitiveness as well as learning capacity. The primary MFL classroom provides an opportunity for all children to demonstrate more than their powers of mimicry. While teachers sometimes talk of children parroting words and phrases – a natural part of the early stage of language learning – children have the cognitive flexibility and physiological apparatus to become competent and creative language users. Babies visibly enjoy babble and infants thrive on constant chatter and verbal interrogation of their world. As toddlers grow into children and their language use becomes more sophisticated, they retain the flexibility to unconsciously absorb and ‘parrot’ new words in their mother tongue or in any language that they come into contact with, as any parent can testify who has spent some length of time abroad with young children engaged in social contact in a foreign language.

Children at this age are focused on the nature of the communication afforded by language use and are not concerned with the cultural load of which words and which language they are using. This natural, uninhibited use of language makes early learners particularly receptive in MFL and it is a foundation to build upon.

FIGURE 1.1 Parrot

The intrinsic motivation to learn foreign languages cannot be assumed even with younger learners. We know that play and creativity are natural resources but that motivation to engage in particular activities depends on messages modelled by significant others, including teachers, and that feedback should include ‘praise [for] effort rather than performance’ (Goswami and Bryant 2007: 2). It is essential therefore that younger learners develop positive attitudes to languages and that these are maintained throughout the entire primary phase and into the secondary school phase of learning to ensure the success of the primary MFL project. One of the concerns expressed in the MFL community of practice, that is the group of professionals interested in and committed to the promotion of skilled MFL teaching, has been about the decline in interest that is often characteristic of the secondary stage of learning. After many discussions with secondary teachers and interviews with Year 7 children, it appears that there is some justification for this. Let us, by way of illustration, consider comments from two groups of Year 7 pupils (11-year-olds). Year 7 children in a specialist language college in the London area gave the following answers when asked to describe the differences in the way MFL is taught at secondary level:

Here the teacher just says it without explaining and expects you to understand.

At primary school we did colours and answered questions. Here the words are harder.

It's annoying here because there are so many noisy boys who don't do what the teacher says. At primary school it was quiet.

At primary we did all computer games but here it's just tests and work off the board. More homework here. [When asked what sort of homework] Just revision.

Given its language college status, previous funding and requirements, MFL clearly enjoyed an important place in the curriculum at this school. However, the children's views were not necessarily more favourable than those of pupils in a non-specialist comprehensive. Significantly, several Year 7 students who were interviewed as a group were unaware that their school was a specialist language college. Many specialist language colleges have pioneered excellent work in collaboration with their primary colleagues and much of this continues even though funding has now been discontinued.

We also interviewed pupils in another group of Year 7 attending a non-specialist comprehensive at the same time during their first autumn term, where one pupil supported by others in the group expressed enthusiasm for the French and German teacher and the languages:

I just love it. I can't stop speaking French! (Ça va? Tu vas bien? [to the author in the interview]. Miss gets us to sing and move around all the time [seat-dancing movements]. It's not embarrassing as we all do it. The PowerPoints are excellent. Miss gets us to work in teams and we get points when we say something good. If you are not sure, she helps us then comes back to us and asks us again. The German lessons are fun too [group bursts out into a volley of German phrases]. I can't wait to do Spanish.

This comment is a testimony to particular primary and secondary teachers who, working together, have succeeded in maintaining cross-phase interest, motivation and progression in language learning, arguably the cornerstones of this book. Without continuity and coherence of learning on a progressive basis, primary MFL is likely to be perceived yet again as a failed project (see the report by Burstall et al. (1974) on the perceived ineffectiveness of primary MFL). If this is the case, an evident lack of success could lead to considerable disquiet on the part of secondary colleagues, and probably sceptical primary teachers who might feel inclined to challenge the rather over-generalised, albeit contested, notion (see, for example, the National Curriculum Review (DfE 2011)) that provides the basis for primary MFL:‘the younger the better’.

The younger the better? The ‘optimum age’ issue

Age-related issues have been discussed extensively and reviewed by, for example, Johnstone (1994) and Martin (2000). It seems that decisions about when to introduce foreign language learning depend, in different countries, on local and/or national schooling contextual or politically influenced factors. In various European countries the ‘optimum starting age’ for language learning has been researched, yet there is contradictory evidence on almost every count. Across Europe we can find starting ages ranging from 5 to 11, even younger in some countries and in many private schools. Research on the optimum age includes the field of neurobiology and has led to an ongoing debate. The Swiss linguist Georges Lüdi, from the University of Basel, working with colleagues in neurobiology on brain activation and the capacity for the development of early bilingualism has asserted, for example, that the optimum age for the development of early bilingualism is before the age of 3. Lüdi does, however, stress the need to be conscious of children's individuality and their flexibilities in different areas of acquisition and at different ages. While the neurobiological research of languages has yet to come to a conclusive result, and the Swiss context is somewhat different to the primary school classrooms under discussion in this book, as well as our language learning aims being rather more modest, such relatively new research continues to fuel the ‘optimum age’ debate.

In view of the discussion of ‘earlier the better’, Martin rightly questions the meaning of ‘better’ in respect of children's learning: is it ‘proficiency and the ultimate level of attainment’ or ‘the rate of acquisition… and… which aspects of language learning are they best at?’ (Martin 2000: 10). However we choose to interpret ‘better’, the key lies, according to Martin, in the planning of an appropriate age-related programme that capitalises on what younger learners can do better and with the greatest enthusiasm in order to maximise their advantages. Examples of age-appropriate pedagogy can be found in the CfBT Report (2012: 69). Similarly, MFL provision at the secondary level needs to be planned to exploit the advantages of the secondary-aged learner by consolidating and building on, but not repeating, terrain already covered. It can be seen from this that the case for an early start is not so much age-dependent but rests on a range of other more influential factors. These are reflected forcefully in the following statement of Jurgen Meisel of the University of Hamburg (cited by George Lüdi in an address to the Education Department in Basel, 16 June 2004), according to which ‘monolingualism can be regarded as resulting from an impoverished environment where an opportunity to exhaust the potential of the language faculty is not fully developed’.

Primary MFL provides, assuming training, funding and support for teachers and schools, added value in the primary classroom and indeed the whole-school environment. It offers language-learning opportunities for all children on an equal basis, whatever their ability or language background, and can make the most effective use of children's full language learning potential, and thus give that all important head start.

What, then, are the advantages of an early start?

Throughout this book, we address KS2 teaching and include KSl, as we believe, in line with Sharpe and Driscoll, that ‘foreign language learning should begin at the start of compulsory primary schooling’ (2000: 83). However, we recognise that the gains of such an early start may not always be clearly quantifiable linguistically. Much of the research looking into the nature and benefits of early language learning has tried to measure the success of children's ‘acquisition rate’ compared to peers who did not have an early start. The most famous example of this was the Burstall et al. NFER report (1974), which ultimately led to the disintegration of the pilot Primary French Project started in the 1960s. When children who had studied French at primary were compared to those who had not, and to older secondary children who had studied French for the same period of time, it was found that children who had started learning earlier did not demonstrate greater proficiency. It could be argued, though, that the research data were flawed as they were based on testing linguistic gains when children had already moved on to the secondary school and so had started learning French ‘again’ as beginners in Year 7 along with peers who had not previously learnt any foreign language in their primary school.

In linguistic terms, there is some evidence (Singleton 1989; Tierney and Gallastegi 2005;Vilke 1988) to show that an early start helps to improve foreign-language listening skills and pronunciation. Johnstone's review of evidence related to early learning indicated some ‘positive effect on auditory capacities’ (2003: 15). These studies seem to resonate with Lenneberg's (1967) ‘critical period hypothesis’, which claimed that the brain of a child before puberty was more receptive to imitating native-like pronunciation (though subsequent evidence of successful acquisition in older children has contested this theory). Contentious gains in linguistic proficiency cannot be the only reason for advocating an early start for language learners, for we would maintain that the main benefits that early MFL learning engenders lie rather (as reflected in the rationale KS2 Framework) in:

• ▪ enjoyment of languages;
• ▪ mutual reinforcement of first-language development (the long-term effects of which will be monitored in the light of the KS2 Framework once implemented);
• ▪ international awareness and enhanced understanding.

The Key Stage 2 Framework for Languages 2005

The value of language learning to a child's cognitive, social and cultural development was evident in the official recognition with the launch of the National Language Strategy's Framework for Primary Languages at KS2, a framework that remains in place at this moment in time. Andrew Adonis, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, introducing the Framework wi...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Modern Foreign Languages 5–11
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: developments in primary MFL learning
• 1 Starting early: what do younger language learners do better?
• 2 Leading the way: the importance of a shared-leadership approach
• 3 Planning and use of resources: doing the groundwork
• 4 Teaching the four skills: practical ideas and activities
• 5 Teaching approaches: differentiation, motivation and learning across the curriculum
• 6 Learner strategies: helping to overcome the ‘tricky bits’
• 7 Assessment for learning: How am I doing? What have I achieved? How can I progress?
• 8 ICT and language learning
• 9 Cultural learning: opening the classroom door and broadening horizons
• 10 Transition from primary to secondary: continuity, cohesion and progression
• 11 Training and professional development: establishing a community of learning and practice
• References
• Index