Caroline Wilton, Bartholomew School, Eynsham, Oxon. Robert Woore, Oxford University Department of Education / Note: Weds. 4 th February – ‘companion session’ (here at Piggott) on comprehension and appreciation of literary and other challenging texts in MFL. ‘Great literature’ and other challenging texts in the MFL classroom: working on sound and phonological decoding

‘Great literature’ and other challenging texts in the MFL classroom: working on sound and decoding Aims of session: Consider the benefits of using literature (and other challenging texts) in the MFL classroom Think about some of the challenges involved and how these might be overcome Understand the importance of phonological decoding in MFL learning (and how this relates to the use of challenging texts) Develop knowledge of a range of teaching tasks for developing students’ phonological decoding

‘Great literature’ and other challenging texts in the MFL classroom: working on sound and decoding Session outline: What is ‘literature’ and what are the benefits of using it? Group discussion (10 mins) Overview of a classroom project we did using ‘great literature’ (poems) at KS3 – presentation (20 mins) Phonological decoding – what it is and why it matters (15 mins) Ways of teaching phonological decoding – presentation and sharing of ideas (20 mins) (+ final plenary jointly with primary teachers (20 mins)

What do we mean by ‘literary texts’? ‘Great literature’ and other challenging texts in the MFL classroom: working on sound and decoding Why might we wish to use ‘literary texts’ (and challenging texts more generally) in MFL?

New National Curriculum Purpose of study “Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries”.

Aims The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils: understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources … discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied. New National Curriculum

Linguistic competence … read and show comprehension of original and adapted materials from a range of different sources, understanding the purpose, important ideas and details, and provide an accurate English translation of short, suitable material read literary texts in the language [such as stories, songs, poems and letters], to stimulate ideas, develop creative expression and expand understanding of the language and culture … transcribe words and short sentences that they hear with increasing accuracy New National Curriculum

Professional Development Consortium in MFL pdcinmfl.com

PDC Principle 5 Learners need to be taught how to access a greater range of more challenging spoken and written texts, through explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and in the relationship between the written and spoken forms. PDC Principle 8 (underpinning principle) The principal focus of pedagogy should be on developing language skills and therefore the teaching of linguistic knowledge (knowledge of grammar and vocabulary) should act in the service of skill development not as an end in itself.

Possible responses to learners’ difficulties with L2 reading (and indeed with other aspects of L2 learning) ‘Protect’ learner: keep language short, simple, familiar Challenge learner and help to develop tools for overcoming challenges

Arguments for using simple, familiar language ‘Threshold hypothesis’ – once you know enough language in the L2, you will automatically be able to use the reading skills and strategies developed in your L1. Research suggests you need to know 95-98% of words in a text in order to comprehend it ‘adequately’ (without assistance) (Laufer, 1989; Hu & Nation, 2000) The more vocabulary you know in a text, the better (Schmitt et al, 2011) For fluent reading, you need to recognize words automatically – this avoids overtaxing your working memory (Grabe, 2010) … and to develop automaticity, you need lots of practice – “thousands of hours” of reading (of easy texts) (Grabe & Stoller, 2011) You can’t acquire much vocabulary from reading if the text is far too hard for you to read most of it fluently (Pichette, 2005; Pulido & Hambrick, 2008)

Arguments for using simple, familiar language “It does not make much sense having students read texts for which they do not know 10% or more of the words (…) In the end, more vocabulary [knowledge] is better, and it is worth doing everything possible to increase learners’ vocabulary knowledge” (Schmitt et al., 2011:36, 39) “One of the best ways to move beyond heavy L1 interference in L2 reading is to be sure that students are not always reading texts that are too difficult for them; students should be given sufficient opportunities to read texts that are easy to read and enjoyable” (Grabe & Stoller, 2011:45)

Arguments for using simple, familiar language With increased experience of the foreign language, decoding becomes more automatic and the learner is better able to access his or her higher-level processing skills [developed in L1 reading]. If this is the case, it can be argued that much of the work that is done in classrooms in order to ‘teach’ reading skills or strategies is more or less a waste of time” (Swan, 2008:266f)

What about engagement and motivation? “If we want England’s children to get better at reading and to do more of it, we have to give them a diet that is attractive, nutritious and satisfying. Restricting them to an unbalanced diet, the thin gruel of a phonics-dominated approach, is a recipe for lowering standards and turning children against the written word” (UKLA, 2010:13) How long will it take to develop enough vocabulary knowledge in the L2 for students to read anything interesting? (Milton, 2006 – Year 7-11 students learnt 170 words per year on average).

Reading in MFL often restricted to “those snatches of language which they have been taught and have practised orally”. Instead, students should read texts “akin to, and on a comparable level of maturity and interest to, those which pupils would be familiar with in their mother tongue” (McGowan & Turner, 1994:129f) What about engagement and motivation? “Reading was not taught beyond exercises in course books or previous examination papers and teachers made insufficient use of the wealth of authentic material … to develop students’ speaking, listening, writing, knowledge about language, language learning strategies and intercultural awareness” (Ofsted, 2011:7)

Communicative Competence Grammatical competence evidence of a developed or developing rule system Strategic competence Ability to deploy strategies to get meaning across when in difficulty Sociolinguistic competence Awareness of how language use is linked to the society and culture it is embedded in (+ awareness of how discourse works) Canale & Swain (1980) – communicative competence

A sequence of lessons focussed on ‘great literature’ in German: poetry and song with Y8

To what extent do you agree with the following statements? 1.My students are generally able to read familiar L2 words aloud accurately and confidently 2.My students are generally able to read unfamiliar L2 words aloud accurately and confidently 3.I teach decoding explicitly in my lessons (e.g. how certain letters / letter combinations are pronounced) 4.I assess my students’ decoding proficiency / progress explicitly (e.g. by listening to them read aloud and marking it) 5.I know which particular letters / letter combinations they struggle with (and these are…) Phonological decoding (the ability to convert print to sound – for example, when reading aloud) Strongly AgreeDisagreeStrongly Don’t Agreedisagreeknow

Why does it matter? Impact on language learning and use Vocabulary learning: – ability to sound out new words met in writing; self-teaching mechanism (not reliant on teacher for pronunciation) l’ulmaire “I don’t think I did very well because I didn’t recognise how miss said them… I thought they were pronounced differently!” “There’s... a thing that’s going on in my head trying to pronounce it, but when you hear it [in your head], it doesn’t sound anything like what you’re hearing [from Miss in lesson]” And – lots of learners say they use ‘look say cover write check’ to memorize lists of new vocabulary (e.g. when learning for a test).

Why does it matter? Impact on language learning and use Reading: Erler & Macaro 2012: sample of 1735 KS3 learners of French in England 66% agreed with the statement: “When I can’t read a French word easily, I sound it out in my head” Listening: Strategy of ‘visualizing’ words they hear to help identify them inventé Writing: Macaro 2007: strategies used by Y7s (n=16) when copying from the board. Often involved reading the words aloud then converting back into writing Lay geographeea. Lay collage. Speaking: When reading out or memorizing from a spoken model – problem of ‘spelling pronunciations’ Grammar: E.g. For some learners, there is no clear distinction between spoken forms such as Je regarde / J’ai regardé

Fairly strong evidence that MFL learners do not acquire L2 French decoding proficiency implicitly (i.e. simply through exposure to the language in MFL lessons) (Woore, 2009, 2014; Erler, 2003; Erler & Macaro, 2011) Students know that words should sound different to English, but don’t know how they should sound (Woore, 2010) MFL learners’ strategies for decoding French (Woore, 2010) Some sort of explicit instruction is probably needed (but we don’t know yet what form is most effective). (Woore, 2011) At the very least: it is probably helpful to: draw learners’ attention to differences between the L1 / L2 writing systems; teach them specific symbol-sound mappings and give them practise in applying them

 Some activities for developing knowledge of L2 symbol- sound mappings  How did we do this in our German poetry sequence?  Is there any evidence that it worked?  Some other ideas (video clips and resources)

How could this work in practice? Jenny le dragon toxique le dragon toxique 23 Jenny sounds sounds For more ideas on teaching decoding, please have a look at pdcinmfl.com in the ‘reading’ and ‘listening’ sections NB the above video clips can be viewed at Flo sons problématiques sons problématiques

‘Great literature’ and other challenging texts in the MFL classroom: working on sound and decoding Aims of session: Consider the benefits of using literature (and other challenging texts) in the MFL classroom Think about some of the challenges involved and how these might be overcome Understand the importance of phonological decoding in MFL learning (and how this relates to the use of challenging texts) Develop knowledge of a range of teaching tasks for developing students’ phonological decoding