Summer 2013 - The Independent Schools' Modern Language ...

Avant (Nuffield project?) A Votre Avis (for the middle groups) and Le Français
d”aujourd’hui (for the top set).
It was O level and CSE in those days. I could never quite understand that
CSE was meant to be easier and yet when you looked at the textbooks designed
for CSE they were pretty demanding and surprise, surprise hardly
anyone ever got a top grade. My first school used the AEB GCE board. I am
fairly sure we did dictées as part of the examination (which I have to say I
think are still a good teaching tool when getting over the gap between what
you think you hear and what it means; essential for highly developed listening
skills later on). We also had to train O level pupils to be able to do the
Use of French paper and this involved a good knowledge of the past historic,
being able to convert it to the perfect, and turn direct speech into indirect
speech and vice versa. There was a brilliant book to support this task called
In your own Words by Tony Whelpton and Daphne Jenkins. It really
stretched pupils to think about the interplay of words when you changed language
around; not for the faint-hearted.
For a long time (until we adopted the Cambridge Board in about 1990) literature
and coursework essays were done in English not the target language.
(As an aside to that, I was once at one of the Cambridge Colleges a few
years ago and I asked if undergraduates submitted literature essays in English
or the language they were studying. The answer I received took my
breath away; English, as it was not felt that the students had the subtlety of
expression needed in the language of study to convey their thoughts and
ideas. Pause for thought. Why do we expect this of pupils at A level barely
out of the nappy stage of GCSEs? ) Listening passages changed from being
read out by teachers to real language (delivered by native speakers) sometimes
delivered at dizzying speed. I do not mind admitting I had to do some
serious private work to improve my listening skills. That was also the time
when candidates did not have the ability to use their own machinery and play
passage over and over as they do now.
Many different changes have come and gone. I recall the move to GCSE and
all that ensued. The move to languages for all saw my creativity for engaging
the very lowest groups sorely lacking although I did my best, but at enormous
cost to my well being I have to say. Thank the Lord that I always managed
to get out of choosing a National Curriculum level for a pupil; it seemed
only to be necessary in a department just as I was leaving. Once in the Independent
sector it was not needed. I never did understand the amount of
time that seemed to be wasted on deciding whether someone was 2b or 2c
and whether at the end of the day it really told you anything. And as for SLT
wanting targets for languages learners, and who do not understand that very
few year 7 pupils having only started a language in year 7 are hardly able to
get to a level 5 or 6 after one year, is so daft you almost think it cannot be
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