Alison Thomas

Bravo, très bien and hallelujah

Times Educational Supplement (October 9 1998)
“The climate and culture have totally changed. I can’t say every student is mad on languages, but the overall attitude is quite different. For me it’s been very exciting.”

This is how Jim Porteous, Deputy Head of Sir Bernard Lovell School near Bristol, describes what has happened to the school since it became a Language College two years ago. It’s not just pupil perceptions that have changed, and staff across the board have become actively involved. The new enthusiasm for languages is reflected in GCSE results, which rose from 24% A-C grades in 1996 to 35% in 1997 and leapt to 53% last year.

Sir Bernard Lovell is one of 58 schools which have been designated Language Colleges since the DfEE launched the scheme in 1995. Comprehensive, grammar, co-educational, single sex, inner city, leafy suburb – every type of school is represented and for the latest round of applications special schools were also invited to make a bid.

So what exactly is a Language College and what has been achieved in three years?

Despite their diversity, all colleges are required to pursue the same specific goals. These include raising achievement, extending language-learning opportunities, developing and disseminating good practice, benefiting other schools and the wider community, promoting an international ethos across the curriculum and exploiting the potential of ICT. It’s a tall order, even allowing for the extra funding which enables them to improve facilities and staffing levels.

“As head of modern languages I couldn’t do it all myself,” says Pat Cram of Gosforth High School, a 13-18 comprehensive in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She has the support of a deputy head of department, whose role includes ICT development, and several younger members of staff who have taken on extra responsibilities.

Staff training is equally crucial, not just for teachers of modern languages but for other departments too. To this end Sir Bernard Lovell school has set up a professional development centre, now available to other schools and organisations in South Gloucestershire.

This is one example of how Language Colleges extend their work beyond the confines of their own premises. Partnerships are established with local schools, businesses and other groups in the community benefit from their facilities and expertise.

Elliott School, a multi-ethnic comprehensive in London, works closely with three primary schools, where French, German and Spanish are taught in Year 6. The focus here is not so much on amassing vocabulary as on developing skills. How to listen. Recognition of parts of speech. The concept of gender. By exposing children to three languages, teachers hope they will gain an awareness of language structure which will stand them in good stead later on.

Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School, a rural comprehensive in Gloucestershire, shares this approach with a slightly different slant. Overseen by secondary staff, primary schools start pupils off with French, the language they will study at Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School in Year 7. This is also when they choose a second language from German, Italian and Spanish. First, however, they follow a language awareness course for half a term.

“Ignorance of grammar was costing us valuable time,” says head of department Janet Lageveen. “So we got together with the English department and devised something to cover the basics.”

Grammar is firmly back on the agenda for all schools and the onus is on Language Colleges to lead the way.

Elliott School responded to the challenge by appointing a head of teaching and learning styles, and instigating a grammar task force. The structures laid down by the GCSE syllabus are incorporated into schemes of work and reinforced by games, drills, memorisation techniques, and music and rhythm, presented in short bursts at the start of each lesson. PGCE students come in to run intensive sessions with small groups, and even low ability pupils practise verbs in a simplified form.

Language Colleges are also spearheading the use of ICT to support and enhance other teaching strategies. E-mail and video-conferencing bring students into direct contact with their peers abroad, the Internet gives access to a huge bank of information in the target language, interactive multi-media materials add a new dimension to classroom teaching, and many colleges are developing their own...