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The GPP in Crawley, West Sussex |
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Modern Languages teachers in secondary and primary schools in Crawley are continuing their tradition of close co-operation by working together to identify the best teaching approaches for, and attitudes of their pupils in Years 6 to 8 towards the teaching and learning of French. It was decided that, with the need for revision of the original Scheme of Work for Years 6 - 9, it would be useful to concentrate on devising a programme of study for Year 6 which would take account of the Literacy programme, greater inclusion of ICT and lessons to be learnt from EAL pupils.
So far, secondary and primary teachers have conducted attitudinal surveys of Year 7 and 8 pupils. Generally pupils are very positive about their work in the primary (middle school, transfer at the end of Year 7) schools and Year 8 pupils are positive until they have a negative experience e.g. a poor test result, which gives them a fear of failure. Several also feel that they have 'failed' in Year 8, because the work moves too fast for them. However, we have to take into consideration the regression factor during the autumn term of the transfer year (Year 8). An audit of attainment has been conducted in the schools. This shows that in Year 7, a large minority of pupils is working at Level 4 in some skill areas. Pupils were honest in their self assessments but some underestimated their attainment, especially in listening and speaking. Middle school teachers have found that Year 7 pupils would have benefited from more formal work (knowledge of language) in Year 6, so that the amount needed to be covered in Year 7 would not be so great. The increase of grammatical knowledge, as a result of the literacy strategy, will enable more grammar to be taught in Year 6 and will also ease the above-mentioned problems in Year 8
In one middle school the teacher has been concentrating on the literacy aspect. Pupils are enthusiastic about comparing text and sentence level work in English and French and enjoy the bilingual books from Berlitz. Here the work is conducted as if it were a literacy lesson, thus encouraging 'thinking about language' rather than learning a list of nouns or reading only for content. However, the teacher has found that pupils in Years 6 and 7 'shy away' from writing, so she has resolved to encourage creative writing (to get away from worksheets) and the use of dictionaries in Years 4 and 5. One point, which we must take on board, is that pupils' motivation and performance is greatly dependent on the time of day. If there is only one lesson a week (as in Years 4 and 5 in this school), this becomes crucial. Work in ICT is ongoing but hampered in some schools by lack of equipment. We hope that this will be remedied soon. In the meantime, two of the middle schools are setting up an e-mail exchange; one of the teachers is concentrating on evaluating software and considering the integration of ICT into the Year 6 Scheme of Work. Pupils with EAL have been targeted and their progress will be tracked through the secondary school to note whether there are any special issues for reading and writing for these children.
Ongoing work Middle school teachers will visit other middle schools in the area to get a broader picture of MFL in the Crawley area, thus enabling them to develop a Scheme of Work for Year 6 which takes into account the local needs. Secondary school teachers will visit a middle school 'Literacy Hour' session to see what lessons can be learnt for later KS3 work in MFL. The Summer term will be the time to start writing! We will collect all the evidence to date and devise a new detailed pilot SOW for Year 6 and an outline Scheme for Years 6-8. (We look forward to the publication of the QCA Schemes of Work so that we do not 'reinvent the wheel!). The Autumn and Spring terms 2000 will see the implementation, review and fine-tuning of the Scheme which will then be disseminated to Crawley schools in the Summer term. We are pleased with the progress, but, as always, we all wish there were more time available. We are grateful for the support of the project officers, in particular Carmel O'Hagan, and Catherine Cheater, who gave us a stimulating talk on her work with South Gloucestershire. Colleagues at CILT, too, must be acknowledged for their unfailing support and encouragement. C.J.Newman
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