John Bald/language and literacy

French spelling unpacked 3 - accents and the cedilla

Accents can be an object of curiosity to children. Write a word with an accent on the board and ask them what they can see that they wouldn’t see in an English word. They’re likely to pick on an accent or a cedilla. So, why do we have them?

The most frequent accent is the acute, which, as far as I can see, only ever appears as é.  An e in French with no accent says very little, and is usually silent at the end of a word, just as it is in many English words (children who have just learned to read will have this in mind – note the phrasing, which points out the pattern without suggesting it’s a rule)  This accent stretches out the sound of the letter, and is very consistent in the way that it operates. So, it can be linked to pronunciation. I teach this as it arises, and then practise with other examples, so that it becomes a matter of interest.

 

A grave accent also leads to more stress on the e, but with a heavier sound. Its commonest use is probably in père, mère and frère. These are common words, that children meet early on, and make good practice material. The classic example of contrast with the acute is élève, pupil.

 

The grave also appears on a and u in the words à (at) and où (where).  Most of us can’t detect any difference in pronunciation here, but these accents distinguish the words from have and or, which they make without the accents.

 

The circumflex is odd. It was invented, in the middle of the seventeenth century, as part of a spelling reform which removed the s from a great number of words where it was not pronounced.  Estre duly became être. Nowadays, when few French children have the mid seventeenth century in their minds, it is the single largest cause of spelling mistakes in French. A campaign to abolish it in 1990 succeeded for a time. The Académie Française voted to abolish it.  There was then a huge public outcry, resulting in a hasty reconvening of the academy, which changed its mind.  So, it’s retained because French people like it, much as they like the Eiffel Tower. I teach it in this way, saying the children can either think of a mini Eiffel Tower over the letter, or a little hat. All in all, it’s a fashion statement. It makes a text look French. Still, most French children don’t understand it, because it’s not explained to them – they just have to learn it. I’ve told this story to several native French speakers, and they didn’t know it.

Here is a note from a recent lesson.

After singing  être a few times, I decide to try to have the children write it. Who can hear the first sound? All but one can, and they can hear it with careful repetition. Who can hear the t. All can. The r. All can. The e at the end. Most can, but some have to learn it as an extra letter. Write that on your sleeve. Now look at être on the board. What can you see that you wouldn't see in an English word? Yes, that little hat. Who can hear that? No hands go up. Excellent.  I explain the origin of the circumflex accent. We then go into a rhythmic sequence e little hat t r e  ... e little hat t r e...several times, while I remove the word from the board. Now write it on your sleeve. Now on your whiteboards.  All got it right except for one who wrote little hat after the e. More explanation of circumflex, and they all got it right.

Finally, the cedilla. In French and English, c is softened when followed by e, i or y. Sometimes the same word shows this in each language. Face, city (cite), cycle. The cedilla saves a letter by softening a c without the following e, i or y. So, France becomes français. The option is not available for a g, where the same effect is often produced, so we have to learn to write nous mangeons.

French Spelling Unpacked 2.

In French Spelling Unpacked 1, I suggested that the French like their spoken language to flow, and their written language to be as precise as possible. The two elements introduced in the first posting - knocking the vowel off a short word when followed by another vowel, and not pronouncing some consonants at the ends of words –  pose big problems for English speakers, though children as young as six or seven can understand the idea if it is carefully explained and practised.   

 

This posting covers two elements that give precision– adding letters, often not pronounced, to make agreements between verbs and subjects. Accents and the cedilla will make French Spelling Unpacked 3. 

 

To understand agreements, we need to understand verb, subject, and the use of gender in languages. Children also need to be able to transfer and adapt to French their knowledge of singular and plural.

 

Verbs are the most important words in languages, as they give focus to what would otherwise be a heap of words. We can rarely make a sentence without one. A verb is usually described to children as a “doing word”. This which unfortunately excludes the verb to be, which is the most common verb, but doesn’t do anything.

 

I say to children that:

 

·         Most verbs do things – I play, swim, work, eat etc.

·         Some verbs just feel – I feel ill. I don’t want to do anything today.

·         Some verbs don’t feel or do anything – the table is old. 

 

French grammar calls the last two types verbes d’état.  

 

Subject, in common language, means whatever a sentence happens to be about. To linguists, it means, broadly, whoever or whatever does, is or feels what the verb says. The confusion with the common meaning makes life difficult for all of us, and needs to be explained. We could do with a better term, but children can learn this with practice. It is fundamental to later understanding, in English as well as other languages.  

 

Gender is used in almost all languages in respect to people. In most European languages, it is also attached to objects that have no gender at all. Adapting to this takes a big shift in the way we think, and children are often flummoxed by it. Explanation often has to be recast and rehearsed several times before children understand the idea, but it can’t be glossed over or avoided. A child growing up speaking a European language has their own gender and the attribution of gender to everything around them reinforced in all the language they hear and use. This is the approach I use in explaining it to English speakers, in French and Spanish.

 

·         When we learn a new language, we’re not just learning new words, but new ways of putting them together. Other people do things differently. The main prayer day in Islam is Friday, in Judaism is Saturday, in Christianity is Sunday. People, including people in large groups, such as nations or religions, do as they choose. We need to understand how other people think.

 

·         If we go back to the ancient world, people worshiped gods and goddesses. The idea of male and female ran through everything, and not just people. Most modern religions have one god (not all, but most). In English, we’ve got rid of the idea of attaching gender to most objects (except ships). Other languages have kept the idea. There’s no right or wrong about it – people do as they choose. Other people learning English have to adapt to our spelling, and we, as we learn their languages, have to adapt to the idea of words having a gender.

 

These basic explanations use words and ideas children understand, and don’t take long to give. They do need to be practised and reinforced, though, and I suggest that this needs to happen from the beginning, so that children do not bump into things they don’t understand.

 

Adding s for a plural noun usually operates in the same way in French as in English, although in French the s is usually not pronounced. But, to tie everything together, the French put s on all of the words connected with the noun (articles and adjectives.) And les is the same for girl's and boys' words. This takes practice, and I'd only introduce it after basic gender agreement is clear. Once children get used to it, it becomes straightforward and even amusing.

 

La jolie dame est partie

Le jeune garçon est parti

 

Les jolies dames sont parties

Les jeunes garçons sont partis

 

Additional forms can be taught as they arise - as long as we have emphasised that this is what usually happens, there is no need to go into every variety and exception at this stage. These are better learned once the main pattern is established.

 

So, how to practise?  I begin with singing the verb song written by Joseph Biswell and slightly adapted by me for the less musical. We point with our whole hand as we do so (one hand for singular, two hands for plural) and sing it in negative as well as positive, using Ruth Miskin’s techniques of closed questions with alternative answers to make sure everyone understands.  As we sing the negative – je ne suis pas, tu n’es pas  - we shake our heads as we point, which children find entertaining.  

 

Once children can sing the song fluently, we knock off the verb and just sing the pronouns, making a cutthroat gesture after each one. Pronouns are explained as shortcut words, that save us time, with some examples. We can then add any verb we like to the pronouns, in negative and positive, and begin to see patterns in them.  French second person singular seems always to end in s,  and third person plural in nt. Other patterns work most of the time, but not always. Just as children behave most of the time, and not always.  Practising and singing verbs in this way helps children to adapt their thinking to the way the verbs work, the actions make it fun, and children enjoy being able to do it.  As verbs and subjects are always presented together, in the context of people they know, children gradually build up their understanding of how they are linked together.

 

As they practise, I put the written version of the verb on a board (I usually use a word document, with a pale green background to avoid glare, and the verb in bold blue letters and a friendly font, comic sans ms).  After we’ve sung a verb, I ask the children to spot what letters we don’t pronounce – they enjoy this and, after a bit of practice, become quick to see them.  

 

For gender, I begin with the idea of girls’ words and boys’ words, and that une tells us a word is always a girls word. I'll then say some words with une, reinforcing the idea that gender is nothing to do with people - I wear une cravate and une chemise, for example, and my shoe is une chaussure, though I have big feet and no woman would ever wear my shoe.  I then will say some words with un and une, and have them put their hand up when they hear a girls' word. Children at Queensbridge primary school were interested in animals, so I made a Clicker grid with animals, and had them pick out animals that had girls' words. Identifying the girls' word first had certain advantages - the feminine article, une, is pronounced with more emphasis than un, and so sticks in the mind more clearly. Once children can identify une easily, we can introduce and explain un, and they can pick out boys' words as well as girls'.

 

I then repeat the process with la and le, again beginning with the feminine. Once the idea is established, we can apply it to everything else involving gender. The idea of adding e to make une is central to the whole question, and it almost always involves increasing emphasis when the word is pronounced, so we are teaching pronunciation at the same time as spelling. Recently, Year 5 children at Harrington Hill; reading my French translation of Not Now Bernard, have been able to understand the role of gender in possessive pronouns - son père, sa mère:

 

tbc

French Spelling Unpacked 1

There is more than one way to teach French spelling. So, I am offering here what seems to be one solution to the problem. I’ve been working on it since 1983, when I published my first version of it in The TES.  This version is working well in Hackney primary schools and worked well with secondary schools in a short project with pupils with SEN.

 

I begin by explaining that French people like their language to flow when they speak, but want their written language to be as precise as possible. To achieve this, they use two main techniques.

 

1.  If two vowels clash, such as e and a in Je ai,  they produce a jerky sound a little like a glottal stop.  To avoid this, they usually knodk off the first vowel and insert an apostrophe, just as in English when we remove a letter.  I begin with Je ai in big letters, ostentatiously rub out the e and insert the apostrophe to make j'ai. Children then look away from the board, and write j’ai on their sleeve with their finger. Who got it right? Who remembered the apostrophe?  I’ll then compare apostrophe and catastrophe with their English equivalent. Each time this phenomenon occurs, I’ll reinforce it the same way, eg in c’est. The process reinforces children’s understanding of the apostrophe, and takes just a few minutes – it has taken longer to write this than it takes to do it. Very nearly all French apostrophes are used in this way, and over three-quarters involve taking out e – the remainder usually take out a, as in l’école.

 

To reinforce the point, I explain, if children are old enough to understand it, that vowels aren’t just an arbitrary collection of letters, aeiou, but, in the first place, sounds we make with our voice.  I demonstrate this by saying a word like cat, and leaving out the vowel. The reason we need a vowel in every word is that without a vowel we can’t hear it clearly – it’s not just a spelling rule. If the children seem interested, I usually add a note on the origin of the word vowel in the French for voice - a bit like roi, royal moving into English unchanged, but with voix, changing the y to w. This is a slight simplification, but broadly true.

 

In French, they use six letters to represent vowel sounds, and we might write them as

 

a	e	i	o	u
		y

The French word for y, igrec, is, literally, greek i, which is only used in words of Greek origin. This arrangement varies from the English vowel letters I use only in w, which is double-u in English, and hence a vowel, and double-v in French, and hence a consonant.

2. If sounding a consonant at the end of a word is going to cut the flow of language, it is dropped.  The most frequent examples are t and s, but other letters are sometimes dropped – d, b, g – and maybe more. I’m not an encyclopaedia.  So, we make j’ai un chat with Clicker and write it on our sleeve. When we’re confident, we move to a small board and later to a small notebook.  If you don’t have Clicker – which makes it very east to have a child choose between je and j’ -  you can use cards or a board.

 

The technique of writing with finger on the sleeve has been approved of by everyone who has seen it, including one or two teachers who don’t agree with me on some points. Children benefit from saying the word as they write it, and I sometimes have them spell it out rhythmically first – eg etre e – little hat –t r e.  (And yes, I explain the origin of the circumflex to children from Y3 onwards. They find it fascinating. More on this and other patterns in a later post).

 

As we proceed with other work, including Zim Zam Zoum and Little Tails, I point out letters that aren’t pronounced at the ends of words wherever they occur, and show extra patterns such as pronouncing s when followed by e.  We don’t write much at a time, but concentrate on understanding underlying principles, which apply to reading as well as writing. It is working. How far and how well will take a lot more research, but I can say with confidence that it makes the early stages of learning to write in French painless and interesting. A LEA consultant who saw it at a Comenius conference has said that it made “a big difference”. And there’s an extra spin off for English as well as the apostrophe – as we don’t write much, we can concentrate on getting the handwriting as neat as possible.