I’ve been teaching novice learners for nearly 12 years. When I first began, I was more grammar and accuracy focused in terms of my expectations for students. Over time, as my colleague, the other French teacher in the building, and I, adapted our curriculum more in the direction of comprehensible input, we both took a look at what we expected of our students and adapted it to better suit what we know they are and often aren’t capable of doing at the novice level. We know students acquire language at different rates, so having a variety of acceptable responses and performance indicators helps ensure that students don’t get punished for not being at a level they aren’t meant to be at year. Here are some ways I’ve adjusted my communicative expectations for my novice students over the years:
Not requiring complete sentences for responses, or if I do, providing a word bank in French
We all want our students to use complete sentences. It shows that they can produce more of the language. But in real life, people often don’t use them, and they aren’t always required for comprehensible communication. For off the cuff activities where I discourage students from using any resources, I usually accept one or two-word answers if they answer the prompt or question. Some students, when prompted to use a complete sentence without any resources, will simply write nothing at all if they feel they cannot answer the prompt correctly. I’d rather have a short answer than no answer. It’s all about showing what they know. If I want students to use complete sentences, I provide a robust word bank (in French only), and if I’m grading it, I weigh the comprehensibility of the response more heavily than if it was in a complete sentence.
Not grading spelling or accents
I simply don’t grade spelling in 7th grade. French has a very unique phonetic and spelling system that often comes as a challenge to English speakers. I think it’s just unrealistic to expect first year French students to master the spelling. If I can understand it and I believe a French speaker would too, I accept it! I also provide word banks that students can refer to for many tasks and assessments. In addition, don’t expect students to know what all the accents mean, but I do expect them to understand that they are part of the spelling and not optional or “just for fun.”
Assessing and Grading for Proficiency Over Accuracy
I would not call myself an expert in proficiency-based grading, but I try to weigh comprehensibility and communication skills over accuracy and grammar in my assessments and grades. This is especially true when I give students fewer scaffolding supports to work with. Ultimately at the novice level, they are supposed to be communicating ideas, not being bastions of good grammar. That doesn’t mean we can’t teach grammar as it comes up. For instance, when learning how to describe people, students learn which adjectives come before the noun and which come after, but that doesn’t mean they have to have it mastered yet. I’ve even learned to let go of expecting students to memorize the gender of various objects (I know!). So what if they say “Je voudrais une café” ? Will they not be understood by a French speaker? I think that all comes with time. I do expect students to know that objects have genders and be working on looking for patterns that are associated with each gender to make it easier for them remember the genders, but again, it’s a process that I don’t think 7th grade students should be expected to have mastered at the beginning of the year.
Providing Opportunities for Students to Complete Presentational Speaking Tasks at Home Online
Why would I do this? Well, a lot of students have a great deal of anxiety about speaking, especially in front of their peers. Their affective filter is high. By allowing students to complete the task at home (using a recording or a tool like Flipgrid), that eliminates at least some of the anxiety. It also allows them to use my pronunciation resources to practice before they submit their task, which often results in them better honing their pronunciation skills. Pronunciation can be challenging for students, and I like to give them some opportunities to be able to sit down at home and listen to me pronounce the words they need to use so they can speak with confidence. Last year I was essentially forced to do this because so many students were learning from home, and I learned it does have some benefits. That doesn’t mean they never have to speak in class, though! It’s just one additional tool I use.
Providing Scripts or Vocabulary Lists for Some Interpersonal Speaking Tasks
Yes, I know, the ultimate goal is for students to speak spontaneously, but at the beginning of 7th grade, most students just aren’t there yet. They often freeze up if they know they are being graded or forget the words. I have found that scripts or vocabulary lists (that may or may not contain English translation depending on the students’ current level) help facilitate more fluid interpersonal conversations in the classroom. Another tactic I use is giving a script to the person asking the question, since questions are often harder to form than answers and answers can be short.
Allowing Retakes and Corrections
I was so old school when I first started teaching. I used to think, well, why bother studying if you can just retake it? I do allow retakes now but students must do corrections first to prove they learned the material and are capable of earning a higher grade. I think in the novice stages when students learn at such different rates, allowing retakes and corrections is just the fair thing to do. I consider grades a work in progress until the end of the marking period. Basically, if they can prove they’ve mastered the content by then, why does it matter that they hadn’t mastered it before? The grades should be the most current reflection of the student’s progress in the subject area.
Breaking Multi-Step Projects Into Smaller Parts
This is actually related to my students’ age and developmental level and not their level of language, but for many of us who teach novice learners, our learners are young – often not older than 13 or 14. As a middle school teacher, over the years, I have learned, the more you break something down step by step, the better the end product will turn out. This is not just true for students who may receive an accommodation of this nature in their IEP or 504 plan (those students often require steps to be broken down even further or require more teacher support when completing them). I believe most young students (early adolescent and younger) really require a great deal of scaffolding to satisfactorily accomplish a multi-step project or task.
I created these proficiency level posters to hang in my classroom this year and went over them with students. They also serve as a constant reminder to me that my students are currently at the “word” or “phrase” level in terms of what they can do independently!
What are some of the ways you accommodate your novice learners as they make their way up that proficiency ladder? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!
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