Making sense of Languages in the Primary school - the multi-lingual language awareness model

Written by Peter Downes and published in PETER DOWNES was a modern languages teacher before becoming a headteacher in 1975. He was President of SHA in 1994-95 and President of the Association for Language Learning in 1999-2000. He is now a Lib Dem County Councillor in Cambridgeshire. Information on this project is offered on a personal basis and is not party policy. Those who wish to know more can contact Peter at: peter.downes@cambridgeshire.gov.uk; tel: 01480 398082. on Sat 12th Jan 2008

From 2010 the government wants all primary children to be learning a foreign language. This sounds like a good idea in theory - children learn more easily when they are young - but the practical implementation is riddled with problems. Secondary schools draw their pupils from a range of primary schools. This makes continuity from primary to secondary extremely difficult to manage. One solution would be for the government to require all children to start the same language at 7 and this would probably be French. That may have been appropriate 50 years ago but certainly not in today's world.

For the last two years, seven primary schools in three LEAs have been trialling a different way of introducing languages into the curriculum. Instead of teaching just one language, the classroom teachers, non-specialists in MFL, have been learning and teaching the basics of six different languages. They have been using this exposure to different languages to raise their pupils' 'awareness of language'. This is intended to provide pupils with a good foundation for starting their linear language learning in Year 7 of the secondary school.

This 'Discovering Language' project is being directed for the Association of School and College Leaders (formerly the Secondary Heads Association) by Peter Downes and is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

In each term of Years 5 and 6, the class teacher (i.e. a non-specialist) is teaching (or co-learning with) his/her pupils the rudiments of a foreign language. The time allocation is 60 minutes per week. The teacher is supported by commercially produced materials, comprising videos, cassettes and CD ROM, flashcards and OHT masters for oral work, posters, worksheets , songs and Teachers' notes, emphasising the language awareness dimension.

The teacher can take a cross-curricular approach, bringing in geography, history and current affairs but the principal focus is the language. The syllabus is basic: numbers, colours, animals, everyday greetings, family and home, classroom objects; all four skills are included but the emphasis is on speaking and listening (training of the ear).

French, German, Latin, Japanese, Punjabi and Spanish have been chosen to give a range of experiences. Latin may seem the 'odd man out' but it has proved to be popular with pupils and teachers and an excellent vehicle for teaching aspects of language such as word order, verb patterns, agreements, gender and language evolution.

The linguistic concepts reflect the National Literacy Strategy and the syllabus is compatible with the Key Stage 2 Framework for MFL, (Inter-cultural Understanding and Knowledge about Language).

Early evaluation work shows that the course is popular with teachers, pupils and parents. The University of Manchester is conducting a quantitative and qualitative evaluation to measure whether the Language Awareness approach will enable pupils to make more rapid progress in Years 7 and beyond. At the end of Year 7, all the pupils in four secondary schools (including those who have not done Language Awareness in primary) will be assessed in terms of linguistic achievement and attitude to MFL. The value-added factor for all pupils will be calculated. We will then see if the multi-lingual language awareness model has made a difference.