Research in Primary School Classrooms:1. An Early Start to French Literacy in KS2.2. Memorising Formulaic Utterances in KS1

Alison Porter

Languages in the Primary Classroom Workshop – University of Essex

22nd-23rd June 2016

Overview

Reciprocity between Research and Practice

1. Research-inspired Practice

– Exploring literacy and oracy pedagogy in KS2 classrooms

2. Practice-driven Research

– Exploring ways to support oracy in KS1 classrooms

Research-inspired PracticeSystematic and explicit FL literacy and Oracy pedagogy in KS2

FL literacy and oracy in Key Stage 2:Starting with Research and the Curriculum• Primary FL National Curriculum (2014) supports literacy and oracy

development

• KS2 practice tends to be oracy-focused, print last (Graham et al., 2014; Jones & Coffey, 2006)

• KS3 literacy practice sometimes lacks creativity & imagination (Ofsted, 2011); texts are undemanding (Woore, 2014)

• Importance of Literacy:

– Cultural awareness– Allows for use, reflection, evaluation (e.g. Little, 2007; Manchón,

2014)– Extends input beyond classroom– Could support cross-curricula benefits (FLES studies – Taylor

Wood, 2003)

The Teaching Intervention• Sound & print together

– Some evidence suggests that L2 literacy skills can develop alongside oral proficiency (Genesee et al., 2008)

– Cross-linguistic influence (Koda, 2008)

• Focus on L2 sounds– Oral sub-lexical skills an essential part of developing word recognition (Hu & Catts, 1998)– Need to encourage production/discrimination of distinctive L2/FL sounds (Genesee et al., Walter,

2008)

• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction– Phonics instruction is an important component in learning to read (Adams, 1990)

• Experience L2 sound and print– Independence & exploration (Mitchell, 2002); creativity and imagination (Ofsted, 2011); active

use…for purposes that matter (Hawkins, 1996)

• Action Research, Years 5 & 6, n=45, 23 weeks.

Primary MFL Literacy

• Read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases & simple writing.

• Link the spelling, sound and meaning of words.

Primary MFL Literacy

• Write phrases from memory and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly.

• Describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing.

Reading words and sentencesSounds, meaning, appreciate stories

• Focus on sounds: ON, AN and final silent letters “PETS” were target GPCs in phonics instruction

• Use of cognates: pique-nique; dansent; désordre• Exceptions: ours• Authentic language: “il tombe des cordes”• Visuals

Learning FL Oracy and LiteracyKey Findings - Core FL measures

• All FL measures showed significant gain at post-test.

• Teaching oracy & literacy together does not seem to disrupt the learning.

• FL general proficiency and FL literacy showed strong, positive relationship at post-test

FL Measures

Pre-Test Post-Test t p value Eta²

Mean s.d. Mean s.d.

FL reading aloud 2.64 1.525 3.67 1.871 -3.886 <.0005 .25 small

FL reading comprehension

2.21 1.380 3.07 1.282 -3.840 <.0005 .25 small

FL elicited imitation 21.09 7.642 25.22 8.393 -5.464 <.0005 .40 moderate

FL receptive vocabulary

18.64 3.220 19.64 3.880 -2.57 .014 .13 small

Learning L2 Oracy & LiteracyKey Findings

• Teaching FL oracy and literacy together appeared not to disrupt the learning.

• FL oracy and literacy developed together and could be mutually supportive??

• L1 reading age, NC reading, NC writing levels and VWM influential across all FL constructs at all test times.

• Teaching intervention could not “compensate” for the L1RAge advantage.

• French sound/spelling links emerge slowly and familiarity (i.e. practice) is important.

• Learners struggled to apply these links to novel words.

Practice-inspired ResearchSupporting FL Oracy in KS1

Supporting Oracy in KS1:Practice-driven research

• Is it possible to develop mini role-play in KS1?

• Do gestures really help with memorising?

• Can I extend my learners beyond numbers and simple greetings?

• Could these children learn utterances to use in daily classroom life?

The Theory

• Stories L1, L2, FL classrooms:

– engage learners, help acquire language implicitly (Morgan & Rinvolucri, 1983; Pesola, 1991)

– contribute to oral skills development in FL (Kirsch, 2016; Tsou, Wang & Tzeng, 2006)

– allow for repetition and chanting – L2 (e.g. Sneddon, 2008)

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More theory….• Formulaic sequences are used in L1A, L2A and FL learning

e.g. (Myles & Cordier, 2017):

– “rote learned or imitated chunks of unanalysed language” – eventually break down – FL learners aged 11-13 (Myles, Hooper & Mitchell, 1998)

• A role for gesture in L2/FL: gesture type; recognition vs. recall; oral vs. written (e.g. Kelly, McDevitt & Esch, 2009); Quinn Allen, 1995)

– Gesture production aids vocabulary learning; better than visuals alone; children aged 4-5 years (Tellier, 2008)

• DCSF KS2 Framework encourages story use and gesture.14

The Intervention• 2 “stories”: one with gesture/one without

• Engaging visuals with related formulaic utterances

• Meaning elicited in English from visuals

• Formulaic utterances learned in French

• Memorisation: formulaic utterances matched for syntactic complexity and syllabic length

• Action Research; Years R, 1, 2; n=24

• Presentation over 3 consecutive weeks – immediate post-test; delayed post test on 5th week.

• Stories presented to children in groups, video-recorded and each participant’s performance examined. Groups of 3-4 children. Scored by word-level (re) production.

Story One – No Gesture

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• Bonjour! Je m’appelle Georges

– 6 syllables/5 items

• Est-ce que tu veux jouer?

– 6 syllables/6 items

• J’ai marqué!

– 3 syllables/3 items

• Nous avons gagné!

– 5 syllables/3 items

Hello! My name’s George

Do you want to play?

I’ve scored a goal!

We’ve won!

Story Two - Gesture

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• J’aime jouer à la marelle.

– 7 syllables/6 items

• Je suis triste!

– 3 syllables/3 items

• Est-ce que tu veux un tour?

– 6 syllables/7 items

• Nous nous amusons!

– 5 syllables/3 items

I like playing hopscotch

I’m sad!

Do you want a go?

We’re having fun!

The ResultsPost-Test Delayed Post-TestMean SD Range Mean SD Range

Story One –No Gesture(14 words – 20 syllables)

5.68 2.709 2-11 5.16 1.537 4-9

Story Two -Gesture(17 words -21 syllables)

10.48 4.833 3-16 7.60 3.817 2-12

• Post-Test Non gesture/gesture T Test: t= -3.385; asymp sig = .004; effect size 0.33 - moderate

• DPT Non gesture/gesture T Test: t= -1.327, asymp sig = .201

• Strong, positive relationship: story 1/story 2 scores (r=.747, n=18, asymp sig. = <.001)

Implications

• Gesture helped memorisation – statistically significant increase post-test

• Memorisation is short-term – no statistically significant difference delayed post-test

• No difference due to gender in performance

• Gesture boosts short-term learning but faster attrition (loss)

• Still need plenty of practice opportunities.

Thank you for listening – A.Porter@soton.ac.uk

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References

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