Mes vacances en France

 

Recently I blogged about the booklet I had made for children going on holiday to Spain.  I said at the time that I hadn't intended to make a France one as hardly any of my students go on holiday to France.  However there were quite a few requests, and so I have done it!  It's available here.

We are going to the French Alps this summer, but I'm not sure if my 20 year old and 16 year old will agree to complete it....

Point à la ligne: dictation in primary languages

 

Dictation is back on language teachers' radar for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, it features in the latest revamp of the GCSE specifications for MFL, which will be first taught in September 2024.  Secondly, last Sunday saw a world record breaking mass dictation on the Champs-Élysées.  I must admit when I first heard this news on Monday morning I was very jealous of the participants, and wished I could have been there!  I used to do a lot of dictations in French at secondary school, in preparation for the O level exam, and loved them.  I took French O level in 1985, which was actually the last year that students had to do a dictation.  That year we were also the first cohort to do a listening comprehension (from the reel-to-reel tape!)  I don't think we had had any practice of this beforehand.

I've had a look at some of my secondary school French books.  It's interesting to note the standard of the language that we were expected to write at that time, which was the spring term of 3rd year, a.k.a. Year 9 (age 13-14).  I had started learning French in the first year of middle school, age 8, and already knew quite a lot when I started secondary school at age 12 (in Year 8 - very odd three-tier system in Surrey in those days!), but it wasn't the same for all my classmates who had come from different middle schools.

And no, in the first dictée above, I don't have any idea what the reference to washing buildings is all about!  You can see that dictations were always negatively marked.  You started off with 20 marks (usually) and then as the person sitting next to you was checking what you had written, they would take off one mark for each error that you made.  I think we were allowed half a point for a missing or wrong accent.  Then our teacher checked them all and gave us our final mark.

I never experienced dictation in Spanish, having only started learning that language in the 6th form (age 16).  O level in Spanish was just listening comprehension for the listening component.  However it can be seen from the examples above just how much more complex dictation is in French compared to Spanish.  My first error was one of adjectival agreement - route is feminine, and therefore I should have written route fermée.  However, fermé sounds exactly the same as fermée, making it more than just an exercise in sound and spelling; it comprises also an important grammatical component.  It would be much more straightforward in Spanish, where the phoneme-grapheme link is much more transparent, and the difference between cerrado and cerrada can be clearly heard.

The pronunciation of French with its myriad of silent letters and homophones combined with its grammar makes dictation a difficult task.  There is a lot to think about.  With Spanish, on the other hand, as long as you know the phonemes and their corresponding graphemes, especially those that make Spanish different to English, you can make a pretty good attempt at it.  In fact the errors that our students make are likely to be similar to the errors that native speakers make when they first start writing.

This is part of a letter that was written to me by a 7 year old Spanish girl to whom I had taught English in Spain during my year abroad.  It can be seen that she wasn't sure which words had silent h and which didn't.  For example e recibido should read he recibido; te voy ha decir should be te voy a decir.  She also confuses b and v, which have the same sound, thus me ba muy vien should read me va muy bien.

Our students might experience similar difficulty with: 

• the three 'th' sounds, represented by the three graphemes ce, ci and z
• the "spitting sounds", represented by the graphemes ge, gi and j
• ll and y, which mostly have the same sound
• the hard 'k' sound, which can be represented by c and by qu
• differentiating between r and rr
• remembering the ñ!
• remembering which vowels have written accents

Year 11 students will be expected to do dictation in their GCSEs from 2026.  This means that all our primary children, who will be taking GCSEs from 2028 onwards, will, presumably, be starting to do dictations in Year 7, as Key Stage 3 begins its preparation for Key Stage 4.  It makes sense, then, for us to start doing some simple dictation-style activities in primary.

There are three main types of dictation for us to consider:

• dictation of single phonemes (in the form of a gap fill)
• dictation of single words (more like a traditional spelling test)
• dictation of a short text

It's interesting to see that the proposed questions at GCSE are a combination of these.  The first is Foundation Tier and the second is Higher Tier, and these are the sample questions from Pearson, who have released the first specification for the new French GCSE.

So there is some gap fill of single words and also some whole sentences, but nothing on the scale of the paragraphs that we used to have to do for O level.

As we do a lot of work on phonics in Key Stage 2, a good place to start is with individual phonemes and graphemes in the form of a gap fill.  This is a listening activity that I have done recently with Year 2.  All that they had to write was the correct vowel - A or O - to complete the word.  The listening and therefore the dictation was very focussed.

I have also done a similar activity with Year 4, but this time using all the vowels, and they could also use their grammatical knowledge to help them to distinguish between the five sounds.  The challenge is for the children to hear 'ee' and think i not e!

Something else that I think is worth our while is using the target language terms for the punctuation in dictations.  This will only serve to reinforce the work that the children are doing in English.  Here is an activity that I have put together today for one of my Year 4 classes, who are getting really good at giving opinions of food and drink, but still need to do a little bit more work on differentiating between me gusta and me gustan.  They are also very ambitious and have been asking how to say "He likes" and "We like".

The children will listen first without writing, then listen again and write in the correct opinion(s) for each sentence.  Then after we have checked the opinions they will listen again and add in the correct punctuation.  I am hoping that completing these sentences will provide them with some useful models for when they start their extended piece of writing soon.

Now to think of some activities that will suit my French beginners!

If you would like to read more about dictation, I recommend:

• Different ways of doing dictation, on Steve Smith's blog
• Beyond transcription: unlocking the full power of dictation, by Gianfranco Conti
• Dictation: the new (really?) kid on the block by Esmeralda Salgado

Let me know how you have tackled dictation in Key Stage 2!

National Creativity Day

 

This morning I found out via the Facebook page of Prinfab (the company that prints my fabric designs) that today, May 30th, is National Creativity Day.  You can find out more about the day here.

The main focus of the day is artistic creativity, although for me creativity is also pedagogical creativity, linguistic creativity and "crafty" creativity.  (Read more about creativity here.)

I engage my linguistic and pedagogical creativity by creating teaching resources for the languages community, which I put on Light Bulb Languages and my Sellfy shop.

I also spend a lot of tine (probably too much!) sewing language-based goodies and more for my Etsy shop, LumenMakes.

Today, as it's half term, I have been having a play with my Cricut machine.  I have been experimenting with printable vinyl to make acetate keyrings.  Now I am trying to find a way to protect the vinyl.  I have tried gloss Mod Podge, which is indeed glossy, but you can see the brush marks.  Any suggestions?!

Another creative thing I have on my list for this half term is sewing my younger daughter's prom dress.  I have until mid-July so it's not too urgent!

So happy National Creativity Day!  What do you do to be creative?

Mis vacaciones en España

A lot of my little students go on their holidays to Spain.  They often tell me about it and ask me about things that they can say when they are there.  When my girls were primary age, I used to "encourage" them to keep a holiday diary, where they would write about what we had done and stick in pictures and other souvenirs.

Inspired by these two things, I have made a booklet for children going on holiday to Spain.

It is designed to encourage them to practise a little of the language, to take note of the culture and sights around them, and it provides them with a record and souvenir of their holiday.

Here in the north-east, hardly any of the children go to France on holiday, so I hadn't thought about making a French version.  However, teachers from other areas of the country have said that some of their students go to France, so I will be making a French version.

Tarsia Maker

I've written a lot about Tarsia puzzles in the past, and have also made a lot!  There is now a new Tarsia puzzle maker on the block, which I have just been checking out.  It's called Tarsia Maker.

As you can see from this screenshot, there are four different puzzle shapes available:

1. little triangle - 9 pairs
2. big triangle - 18 pairs
3. "lozenge" - 11 pairs
4. hexagon - 30 pairs

You click on the puzzle shape you want to make, and then it's just a question of typing in your pairs of words or phrases.  You can toggle easily between the boxes by using the Tab button.  Once you've finished typing in your words, just click "Export to PDF" and your puzzle is ready.  The PDF includes the puzzle solution and a link to your puzzle if you want to retrieve and edit it.

So how does it compare to the Formulator Tarsia?  I've compared them and listed the advantages and disadvantages of Tarsia Maker.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Web-based – no need to download and install any software Much easier and less time-consuming to type in your words and phrases You can use the “shuffle” button to change the position in the puzzle of your pairs of words/phrases and randomise them.	Only one font (although it is a clear Arial-type font) Only 4 puzzle types Not possible to have red-herring or extension words/phrases on the puzzle edges Not possible to add images The PDF provides the puzzle and its solution but not the table that Formulator Tarsia provides. Not possible to create dominoes or “follow-me” activities

It looks like there are more disadvantages than advantages, but the advantages are significant and the program's convenience goes a long way to outweighing the disadvantages.

If you're interested in making Tarsia puzzles to use in language lessons, don't forget to have a look at my guide Ideas for using Tarsia.