But I Can't Speak French: More Thoughts on Supervising the Second-language classroom

Sally Rehorick

This is the second article of a two-part series concerning the principal's role in supervising the second-language teacher. In the first part of the article in the 1995 June issue of the New Brunswick Educational Administrator, I delineated some background issues which contributed to a fuller understanding of how an individual acquires a second language and how second-language teaching methodology has developed in recent years. In this second article, I offer some practical suggestions for principal suggestions for principals as they approach their work with their second-language teachers.

How Can the Principal Help Without Understanding the Language

It might seem like a daunting task to provide supervision and assistance to your French second-language teachers if your own French is nonexistent or rusty. Many principals might even feel it presumptuous to enter the French classrooms with a view to providing educational leadership when they are unable to communicate with the students and teacher in the language of instruction.

It is important to bear in mind two points in this regard. First, the long-held view that any English in the French second-language classroom should be avoided needs to be challenged . Discussions held in English about certain topics in no way diminish the overall credibility or atmosphere of the French second language classroom. Thus, a principal who wishes to find out what students are learning in the French immersion mathematics class or what the students personal goals are for learning French or how the recent trip to Quebec was, can easily have these discussions with the student in English.

The second point is that certain aspects of a French second-language class can, in fact, be observed more easily when one does not understand the language of instruction. Some aspects of the class become more noticeable when the content of the discourse is not understandable. As contradictory as the idea might sound, it makes sense when you consider the characteristics of a good classroom.

What the Second-language Classroom Should Look Like?

Many of the characteristics of any good classroom will be shared by an effective second-language classroom. Students will be engaged in task-based, authentic activities which are meaningful and contextualized and which involve real transfer of information. There will be a combination of whole class teaching strategies and pair or group work which involve student-to-student interaction. The child-centered classroom is just as possible in the second-language classroom as in a first language classroom. If a teacher tells you that group work is not possible because the students do not know enough French to hold a discussions in the language, challenge the teacher to devise activities which have more structure to guide students during the group and pair work. I have observed many successful teachers and students interns, in both French and beginning immersion classes, who place high emphasis on student-to-student interaction.

How Can Teachers Ensure that Students Use French in Class?

Sometimes when a teacher will avoid interaction among students through pair and group activities because he or she fears that students will lapse into English if they are not monitored closely, there are a number of ways that a teacher can encourage students to use French as exclusively as possible. The teacher needs first of all to ensure that the students have been adequately prepared for the activity. They must have a clear task or goal which is meaningful and relevant to them. They must have the tools to accomplish the task, such as dictionaries and other stimulating materials. They must have worked through a few examples with the teacher and they must understand and use strategies for communicating which could include use of standard questions for obtaining information, and discourse gambits for taking one's turn, holding the floor, repairing false starts, expressing disagreement, and so on. Use of such strategies are characteristic of the good language learner. Teachers should teach these strategies as part of their lessons.

Some teachers use systems of reward and punishment to help students stay in French. For example, each student is given a number of pennies at the beginning of each week. Every time a student speaks English when it is not appropriate, that student loses a penny. Those students who still have all their pennies at the end of the week receive a prize or privilege of some kind. Those whose penny supply has been exhausted are given additional tasks or homework or, in some cases, a detention. I do not recommend theses methods because they tend to have short-lived effectiveness given the emphasis on extrinsic rewards and penalties. They should be used sparingly if at all. It is better, if perhaps initially more difficult, to instill in students a real desire and motivation to learn French and the knowledge that it is only by producing French that they will learn. A principal can play a role here by facilitating a discussion in English about how knowledge of a second language will help students to succeed in many other endeavors and to understand the global community of which they are a part.

 

Why Do My French Second-language Teachers Seem to Speak More Than Their Students?

Another characteristic of the French second-language classroom which can be easily observed by the principal is the amount of "airtime" which the students have in comparison to the teacher. We know that language can only be learned through actually producing language and teachers who provide more opportunity for "taking the floor" are more successful than teachers who repeat or rephrase questions, who answer their own questions or who seize opportunities to expand on the shorter utterances of students. However, classroom research has shown that second-language teachers frequently either repeat or rephrase the question or answer the majority of their own questions rather than give their students sufficient time to think about and formulate a response.

The need for increased wait-time is one of the way in which the second-language classroom differs significantly from the first-language classroom. Teachers must allow more time after posing a question or making a statement to which a rejoinder is required from all students. The average wait-time in many classes is approximately two seconds. Research conducts in first-language classrooms has shown that when wait-time was increased to three to five seconds, the average length of students responses increased as well as the number of appropriate answers from students who were not called on by the teacher. In addition students asked more questions themselves and the teacher answered their own questions much less often. In the second-language classroom wait-time should be increased to five to ten seconds to allow for the extra processing time required. Increasing the wait-time results in less need for action by the teacher.

 

Why Are French Second-language Classrooms So Noisy?

If your French second-language classrooms are typically noisier than other classes, then you can take some satisfaction from this. There should be more noise since students will b called upon frequently to produce language. During this production, teachers will be attending not only to the message being communicated but also to the form of the message. Because of this dual focus of medium and message, teachers will endeavor to assist students with identifying and correcting their own errors. Teachers who constantly interrupt the flow of communication to correct errors will not achieve as good results with their students as teachers who choose appropriate moment to react to mistakes. Ask your French second-language teachers to articulate their strategies for error correction. If they are unaware of how they do this, ask them to observe their methods specifically and to let you know this at a later time.

It is clear that principals can observe most of these teachings strategies directly without a complete understanding of the language being spoken. The checklist at the end of the article will assist with identifying the important aspects to observe. In addition, a principle who want to know more about the content of what is being taught should not hesitate to initiate discussions in English with either students or the teacher. Such discussions will in no way diminish the efforts of the class participants to learn their second language effectively.

The Principal's Checklist for Supervising the French Second-language Classroom

- authentic communication

- variety of meaningful task-based activities

- sufficient teacher wait-time for student responses

- student to student interaction

- teaching of linguistic code in context

- ongoing formative evaluation.