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

statements about how French lessons broaden the mind become redundant.
Your pupils don’t think in those terms anyway, do they? They like any subject,
provided it is fun, taught in a sparky way and they feel they make progress.
I suggested to Dr Vanderplank that – if we are really serious about trying to
turn adolescents into interested linguists, we need to seriously re-think the
way we package what we do. His reply:
“My eyes were opened to the reality of MFL in this country some years ago
when I was co-researcher in a large ESRC-funded project on Year 12
French. I could not believe what I was seeing when I looked at scripts in
‘pidgin’ French written by year 12 students taking AS French. I have formed
the view that attempts at reform are a complete waste of time and effort and
your position, having completely different programmes, is the only positive
way forward.”
Abandoning the GCSE qualification altogether may be a step too far
(although at Bradfield, we have considered this and instead offering the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages– DELF, DELE, DaF etc)
– but perhaps that is irrelevant anyway. Surely what matters is the journey,
more than the end product, and if the pupils have gripping stories and absorbing
plots that keep their interest (and which by definition will be full of
great grammar and vocab) then we’d be doing them a favour, and they could
still succeed in GCSE at the end of it. And it would certainly be different to
what they did at prep school!
I mean, just read this:
Au même instant, deux yeux menaçants la regardaient de
derrière un arbre. Un bruit étrange dans la forêt fit bondir
de frayeur Petit Chaperon Rouge, et son cœur se mit à
battre. "Je dois trouver le chemin et m'enfuir d'ici! Rapidement!”
Petit Chaperon Rouge courut et courut, et retrouva
enfin le chemin. Mais alors qu'elle commençait à se relaxer,
elle entendit un autre bruit étrange derrière elle...
It’s got everything – vocab, grammar, interest, suspense….and
could even inspire some of our pupils to write their own versions
or their own stories – that would beat writing about “My Local Area”. So, to
quote a recent piece of Google-translated homework: “Je repose ma valise.”
Happy storytelling!
Mark Etherington Bradfield College.
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