I just wanted to send a quick 'MERCI!' for yur lesson this morning. Even though the sound was not ideal we both learnt so many interesting and helpful things. I really think that your approach is the most advanced I have come across. I managed to go through six years of French at secondary school without understanding the meaning of words. All we did was rote learning and it was useless when I arrived in Paris to study, some years later.
As one of my favourite anthropologists, Claude Levi-Strauss, taught, to understand a culture one must understand its language and both are function as 'bricolage', a way of recombining facets of universal consciousness in new ways for the advancement of that particular culture. It is this psychological bricolage that I believe you offer because you seek to build up cognitive links which wil enable students to retrieve and recombine this knowledge and linguistic grammar in new ways. It's absolutely the only way forward because it goes to the very roots of cultural development. It enables us to understand why French is spoken differently, with diverse styles and flows of linguistic combination but also how these are linked to English (and how much vocab) which builds a sense of continuity with the past and a sense of shared liguistic heritage. I feel that this is very important psychologically for children as they learn that they, and the subjects they study, do not exist in isolation but are part of a fascinating web of cultural life in which we all share. Surely this is an example of REAL One Nationism, or even One Worldism which joins and embraces, not fractures and dissipates.
We like your approach so much that we now use it in everything we teach, from history to science to mathematics. We understand the language, the grammar of the subject. Then we can play! For example, we have spent considerable time building a thorough understanding of mathematical algebraic terminology. Then we add the method. Then the children can solve any equation, any sum. When I read about the classical trivium it appears to follow similar principles - grammar, logic, rhetoric. It just seems that we have moved away from this method over the years and not for the better. You cannot analyse what you do not know. And you do not know if you cannot understand the core of a subject which in turn requires comprehension of language. Maybe this is too much of a challenge for teachers as it requires a deep subject knowledge and personal development many do not have. But clearly 'things' are not moving in the right direction.
I'm sorry you face such vitriol on a daily basis but I am not surprised. We live in a world of mediocrity, after all. The Guardian is no exception. But I must say you are always very gracious. I would have become some sort of evil internet troll by now! When I talk to friends and family, particularly those involved in the Arts, they unanimously lament the passing of real cultural interest. That's why I try to take the girls to concerts, galleries etc. Not to learn but to love. To elevate their souls. And for the really great coffee at the RSNO...
Postmodernism wasn't all it was cracked up to be. As a friend once remarked, "You know Roland Barthes was run over on the Place de la Concorde. He WAS deconstructed!"
Bravo, John. Please keep on annoying people for the foreseeable future.