Illustration taken from Quand je serai Grand…
When I Grow Up…by Bramhall Publishing Ltd
Bramhall Publishing was set up to produce carefully studied, unique children's picture books with English and French dual language text, to support MFL in the primary school classroom and at home by instilling a love of French in children. The guiding principle behind the Little Wolf series is for children to absorb the language effortlessly, through the use of subtle repetition and strategic positioning of the parallel text, whilst the beautiful pictures draw them instinctively to the books. The numbering of the pages in words, rather than numerals, again in parallel, is an innovative feature of the books, providing another subtle layer of learning opportunity.
The author, Jana Synek, graduated from King's College London in 1992 with First Class Honours in French, distinction in the French oral examination and subsidiary English with a mark of merit. She worked in Paris and London before settling down to have children and combining her life-long love of writing with the desire to share French with young children by creating the Little Wolf series of picture books and its corresponding lesson plans.
Milena Synek, the author's sister, is a talented young artist, whose illustrations for Où es-tu, Petit Loup?, the first book in the Little Wolf series, marked her début in children's book illustrating. She has had many private commissions for her work, has now illustrated four of the books in the Little Wolf series and is currently working on Book Five, which is due out in September this year.
The idea for our Little Wolf series of dual language books was first conceived whilst I was teaching French to small groups of children aged between four and ten. I wanted to instil a love of French in these children and to make lessons fun: but I also wanted them to make some progress in reading and writing, a more challenging area, as I felt that the main focus in schools was being placed on conversational French; whilst agreeing that this was a good starting point, and conceding that a mother tongue language is learned in this way, this particular age group were after all no longer babies, and in my opinion I thought that they were quite capable, alongside the conversational French, of learning some reading and writing skills also, and that this ability could be developed easily enough if the right sort of books were to hand.
Search as I might, I could not find what I was looking for: I was frustrated at the lack of appropriate materials for this age group in terms of French/English parallel text, which I particularly wanted. I instinctively felt that young children, when starting out, can feel threatened and alienated by the loss of their mother tongue on the page when presented with a foreign language and can thrash about helplessly trying to figure out what the ‘alien’ language means, no matter how closely the illustrations match the text (although this helps, of course!)
At this stage there was not yet much awareness in schools just beginning to deliver MFL, about dual language and parallel text books. The books mostly being used were quite simply children’s picture books (such as The Hungry Caterpillar) which had been translated into French and had no English text to compare with. I did purchase this amongst others, but even though the children already knew the storyline, I felt that they still struggled to learn what individual words meant and allowed it just ‘to go over their heads.’ In short, because they knew the story already, they understood the overall meaning of the book well enough, but failed to retain any particular French words or phrases.
Dual language books and parallel text books did already begin to appear at this stage, but I was dissatisfied with the quality: publishers seemed to have rushed off series of books which were interchangeable into several languages, from what seemed to me a very commercial perspective, as if just to ‘get on the MFL bandwagon’. The pictures were not up to scratch either. The pictures I wanted had to be special enough and inspiring enough to make children want to reach for the books independently, decode and absorb the meaning. I needed them to be what I like to term ‘an adventure in literacy.’
Books generally seemed to veer between two extremes: being too complicated for the age group with older, cartoon-sketch type drawings, as in secondary school text books, or overly babyish with poor quality drawings, from which I could draw little inspiration - so I doubted that the children would. An example of the latter was my daughter’s primary school French class in which she came home telling me that they were learning about colours by using a ‘baby book’. (This prompted me to create Grey like a Wolf! Gris comme un Loup! – a direct attempt to teach children colours without insulting their intelligence!)
Another thing we found was that it was not quite satisfactory, for our purpose at least, to have the text on opposite pages as we had originally intended, nor even at the ‘top and bottom’ of the illustration. It had been pointed out to us that an almost subliminal absorption of the French (or target language, which in fact is sometimes English when our books are being used in reverse) could be achieved if the texts were completely juxtaposed. (Our typesetter had marketing links and mentioned how it had been remarked that some Marks and Spencer staff had started, without realizing it, to acquire a basic knowledge of French, from the simple fact that the French translations on some of the products were right next to the English descriptions).
Armed with this seductive idea, we were convinced that, providing we chose our text very carefully, keeping phrases short and well-matched, it might be even better, from the perspective of absorbing language, to put the two languages as closely together as possible.To avoid any possible confusion, we also colour-coded the French text in blue and the English in black, under the premise that, psychologically, blue is a colour associated with French and would make it stand out.
Now at last I was going to be able to indulge my great love of children’s literature and traditional picture books and create some books of my own. My task was to come up with some simple but appealing story lines, and these actually came to me in the French first (it was the English translation I had the most difficulty with! The challenge was to go against the grain and offer a translation which was as literal as possible, to allow the children to be able to compare the two texts directly and for them to come up not just with differences, but also with similarities. The juxtaposition of the two texts made this method particularly effective).
My sister Milena Synek, a talented artist, had never actually illustrated books before, but when offered the challenge, undertook it with enthusiasm and originality. The advantage we had was that we could work very closely to ensure that the pictures exactly portrayed what I intended the books to put across, and we also decided on some quirky details which meant that the books could also contain meanings on several levels, as a challenge to older pupils – or even adults. Lots of extra, highly accessible details, also exist in the pictures as something extra for teachers to point out and children to delight in noticing or finding (for example, the character of Little Wolf is hiding on several of the pages in the books and the children have to be able to spot him, and various woodland animals crop up in all sorts of places).
And so the Little Wolf series of books slowly took shape. The lesson plans I created were intended to be a way of – crucially - getting children to use their knowledge of the read and spoken text acquired from the books and transferring this to developing writing skills in the target language- using the French they had retained through familiarization and repetition and creating their own sentences with support where necessary.
It struck me from talking to teachers, including those re-training to teach languages, that with the courses hitherto on offer at primary level, children might have seemed to be retaining the French they were chanting happily in songs and games, but when confronted with the relevant words did not recognize them, and could often neither read nor spell them. Lots of parental feedback also echoed this state of affairs, a typical comment being “My child has been learning French for two years now but can’t write any of the words down. ” Or “[he/she] knows a few phrases, but just doesn’t seem to have progressed.”
Findings from a project by Southampton University, Canterbury Christchurch and the Open University found that a lot of emphasis was spent on conversation, with little or none on reading and /or writing. However, it did also find that, in the small minority of schools which did focus on reading and writing, pupils were able to perform well.
[Ref. TES Pupils parlez ok, but literacy is lagging behind … 9.1.2009]
From my own personal experience with young children, limited as it was to teaching small groups from home, (as well as experimentation on and input from my own children, who, incidentally, are doing very well at languages!) I was convinced that this was a good way forward for teaching young children French – whether at school or at home.
I needed evidence from schools, however, that their findings concurred with my instincts and so managed to obtain feedback and findings which participating schools have agreed can be used in my study, and which will contribute to the wider study headed by research Fellow Dr Raymonde Sneddon. Whilst more material is being collated for our particular study, Dr Sneddon has invited us to share our findings thus far.
It is important to note that we do not consider our dual language books to obviate the need for other materials: at Littletown Primary School in Honiton, Devon, for example, MFL co-ordinator, Julie Fallon, who has taken part in this study, has built on the children's love of the Wolf in our stories to include the character in other aspects of French learning which the class have been covering: combining what they have learned by extending vocabulary to include other wild animals using finger puppets; using the wolf character to learn about items of clothing by complementing with other books available; using the concept of the Wolf hiding in the forest to incorporate the idea of position within the context of the classroom… the possibilities are endless.
Over the course of the past two years, therefore, we have been collating some of the feedback we have been getting from schools which have been using our dual language Little Wolf books. A few of our schools have actively taken part in an in-depth study on the use of our specially designed books.
Feedback from schools such as Littletown Primary, Honiton, confirms that children are finding the dual language helpful: it demystifies the French, allows them to gain confidence and to compare the two texts, enabling them to decipher the language, assisted by closely matched illustrations. The juxtaposition of the French and English means that there is an almost subliminal absorption of language and meaning, as planned. Eventually the English translation can be removed (as MFL coordinator/Year 5/6 teacher Julie Fallon has done in her classroom display) because the children don't need it any more: they have learnt what the French means and have become confident language learners.
It would appear, moreover, that it is not just the children who are benefiting from this format: according to teachers from several schools, amongst which, a school in Worthing, East Sussex, which also took part in an in-depth study, teachers too - some of whom are not themselves fully confident in the target language - are finding it easier to deliver the French when the English is still visible: teacher and MFL coordinator at the school in Worthing comments that teachers are able to benefit from the dual language text by building up their own confidence using the English as an aid to comprehension and a reference point, and then 'gradually leaving the English behind in favour of the French.' Children from Littletown Primary were involved in helping to create a wall display based on the Little Wolf books, and also created a tree on which they pinned their own personal comments about using the Little Wolf dual language books. (See below)
Click here to see the photos from Littletown Primary School, Honiton
(press ‘control’ and click on mouse)
What's the time mister wolf? sample pages PDF.pdf
Where are you, LITTLE WOLF sample pages.pdf
Grey Like a Wolf! Sample pages Pdf
The children’s comments, some of which are listed below, speak for themselves. Julie Fallon, MFL coordinator and class teacher, had this to say:
[The children] thoroughly enjoyed both books [Where are you, Little Wolf? and What’s the Time, Mister Wolf? ] often choosing them to read during independent reading times (having a class set of 15 is so useful). The parallel English and French text made the language easily accessible…the books…are an excellent way to instil in the children a love of French and to help them gain confidence in repeating phrases in French and learning new vocabulary.
The MFL teacher at a large primary school in Worthing, wrote:
At our school the teachers find the dual language books a lot easier to use than single language books. The teachers I’ve spoken to say they like the support of the English language there as they know exactly what the French words say.
I like using the English words and sentences to try to pick out what the French words might mean. It's good to have the English there too so I can learn new words- some of the French books only have French words so I find it more difficult to learn new words if I'm not sure what they mean.
(taken from the many comments written on the leaves of the wall display)
I loved the dual language as it explained the vocabulary well. I think children will like your books all around the world. (Ellen)
I think that your dual language idea is fantastic and exciting to read. I like the way that you make us learn and have fun at the same time. (Katie)
I would like to say that I really enjoyed your books, especially the dual language because it helps me when I forget a word. (Robbie)
I think the book was very good because there was English and French in it. I learnt how to read questions and how to reply to them. (Abbie)
I’d like to comment on your amazing dual language books, especially ‘Où es-tu, Petit Loup?’ Firstly [it] is so easy to improve our French and the storyline is exactly what children would like! (Tim)
A measure of the books’ success in reaching the children is the fact that they are retaining many of the French words and phrases from the stories, and this confidence in handling the French is spilling over into other aspects of school life, sometimes in a cross-curricular manner:
At Littletown Primary, Honiton, the teacher and pupils have been using the simple phrase ‘A demain’ from What’s the Time, Mister Wolf? in their day to day communication, and pupils are choosing to read the Little Wolf books during independent reading times, as stated above by Julie Fallon.
The MFL coordinator at the Worthing school had this to say:
The children seem to have retained a lot of language – my year 4 class will often ask to play ‘Quelle Heure est-il, Monsieur Loup?’ when we have a spare few minutes. Now that we have copies of the book available for free reading choice the children will quite often choose ‘Quelle Heure est-il, M. Loup?’ It is not uncommon during quiet reading time for pairs of children to be spotted looking through the pages, finding the clocks and telling each other the time in French.
Whilst the children seem genuinely keen to learn French, it is the dual language books which are the most accessible ones, hence the ones reached for the most often. This has not just been observed by the teachers, but has been commented on directly by the children:
I like looking at all the French books (in the classroom) but I like the Petit Loup ones the best because it has the English to help me if I forget the French words. (primary school in Worthing)
I like the fact that it is dual language, that helped me loads…they were the best French books I have ever read. (Sam, Littletown Primary)
The MFL coordinator at the Worthing primary comments that, after studying Quelle Heure est-il, M. Loup? in their French session:
During a bottom set year 6 maths lesson, the teacher asked what the time was and a pupil responded (correctly) in French!
She goes on to add,
It is not uncommon for the children to greet each other, and me, in French… Children will also wish each other ‘bon appétit’ and although it is something which I started by saying it to the class before going for lunch, it came from the book and is something which is now second nature to the children in my class.
Beyond the books, as well as the use of familiar phrases outside of the language classroom or in a cross-curricular context, the lesson plans we have created (free to download from the website), stress the importance of building on the knowledge obtained from the books and applying that knowledge not just to reading and speaking in French, but also to writing in French and for pupils to create sentences independently using their new-found confidence in language thanks to the dual language and the subtle repetition of key words and phrases.
For most of the schools using our books, it has been ‘early days’ in terms of language comprehension, as teachers themselves are developing their own confidence in delivering the French, and the children are becoming enthusiastic learners who are beginning to make real progress in comprehension.
Our future research will concentrate more fully on the ability to move from listening to repeating aloud, to reading/speaking independently, to writing down sentences. Following the words as they are read out loud by the teacher lays down the foundation for this process and will allow progress to be made in writing much more quickly than reciting aloud without a supportive text: it enables pupils to take on board patterns in language formation and pronunciation. The dual language (and in particular, in my opinion, our specially created parallel text) further accelerates this process by facilitating comprehension, and inspiring confidence rather than what might otherwise be a fear of the alien and inaccessible language.
There are several benefits which are derived from using the dual language text as opposed to the French text only. I have already mentioned my belief that (which has been borne out by our findings with the children) for this age group at least, it is alienating to be presented with the foreign language alone. It has also confirmed to us that children are retaining more French by using this method, as it facilitates absorption of the second language and they are finding it accelerates learning and boosts confidence, which go hand in hand.
With the dual language text, children are also able to learn a lot about how languages work by comparing the two texts. They are able to negotiate meaning between the two languages in order to understand the text, identifying patterns in the way each language works. In the Little Wolf books, for example they will note some of the differences: for example that in English we will say ‘fir tree forest’ but that in French this is reversed : ‘forêt de sapins’ but will also note some of the similarities which make the French seem more accessible to them and ‘perhaps not as difficult as they have imagined’: for example ‘forêt’ is very similar to ‘forest’ with the ‘circumflex’ often denoting a missing ‘s’, just as ‘branche’ in French is very similar to ‘branch’ in English.
The children’s comments themselves have shown us that they find the dual language text ‘helpful’ and that it makes them happier to reach for the books independently, confident that there is the necessary support present should they forget a word or phrase.
We had also underestimated the degree to which teachers themselves found the dual language text a supportive teaching aid, and was helping MFL co-ordinators and class teachers to deliver the French with more confidence than with the single language text books.
One trainee teacher I spoke to (she in fact has a PHD but has re-trained as a primary school teacher and is now fully qualified!) had to give a French lesson armed with little more than half-remembered schoolgirl French, but had a reasonable pronunciation so was able to read the books out to the class. She was delighted to find that she could somehow understand exactly what the French meant, because although she was not consciously looking at the English, it was there on the page being subconsciously glimpsed whilst she read out the French. She also showed me lots of examples of French-only picture books she had been given to show the class, and she commented that now that she had seen our dual language text she could not help but feel that those books would also benefit from having the English translation in parallel - for the benefit of both the children and teachers.
This brings me to my next point: whilst some primary schools are lucky enough to have an MFL co-ordinator who is either a French native speaker, or a class teacher/MFL co-ordinator who has a background in languages and may even speak French fluently, these schools are very much in the minority.
To our consternation we have learned that some primary schools, whilst wanting to use our books and fully endorsing both their presentation and the teaching rationale behind them, have not used them for one simple reason: the class teacher is unsure of how to or unable to pronounce the French text and therefore lacks confidence in reading the books out to the children. (Indeed, many a secondary school teacher left ‘picking up the pieces’ has commented to me that there is little point in someone reading the French to the children if they are reading it all wrong and merely creating a bad foundation which will have to be unpicked later on…)
I have to admit that we had underestimated the scale of this problem. For many teachers, it transpired, having the English language text there as a comprehension aid was very valuable, but they needed even more assistance than this: they needed to be shown how to pronounce the sentences in the books! This explained why such schools were reliant on the use of DVDs and CDs with the children: the spoken aspect was done for them; they did not have to worry about it. This, for us, left children sadly deprived of the valuable experience we think the dual language text books can provide them with, for all the reasons outlined above, and undermined all the hard work we had been carrying out over the past four years!
Resist it as I might, there was only one thing for it: several teachers, including Julie Fallon at Littletown Primary School suggested that I adapt our Little Wolf series into Powerpoint versions, which not only could provide an alternative for our ‘bigger book’ versions which some teachers requested for holding up at the front of the class, but also has the advantage of providing teachers with the French voiceover, which can be activated or deactivated at the touch of a button, and either used with the pupils, or merely serve as a training aid, with teachers able to practise or check the French pronunciation before themselves reading out from the slides to the class (who ideally should still be holding their own individual or shared copies of the book). This is something which I have spent the past couple of months working on, and which will be up and running and available for schools to order from March onwards (check back at www.bramhallbooks.co.ukfor details).
A slightly surprise finding has come to us whilst collating feedback and examples of use from primary schools – and that is that, whilst we of course realized the potential for ‘reversibility’ of our books (i.e. they can of course be used in the same way exactly but for French speaking children learning English) we did not realize that, thanks to the uniquely simple layout with engaging illustrations, our books would also come into their own for helping children from other countries settling in schools to learn English.
In particular, many of the primary schools we are in contact with have acquired Polish children who, typically, have little or no English on arrival. We were delighted to learn that in our local school, one of the teaching assistants was taking in her own personal copies of our Little Wolf books to teach a young Polish boy English, citing the suitability of the pictures, and simplicity of the text.
Of course I straight away felt how much nicer and easier it would be for the child in question if he could somehow have the Polish translation in proximity. I had the Polish translation for our first book done, and stuck it onto the space beneath the French and English text, effectively creating a trilingual picture book! We gave the little boy two such copies: one for school and one for home. My daughter, who is very keen on languages and was fascinated at the opportunity to learn some Polish words in return (!) asked if she could sit next to the Polish boy in class, and was allowed to read out the English text to him, whilst he was able to follow the meaning with his Polish ‘subtitles’. My daughter tells me that he is doing very well, now, and I like to think that our book played a part, however small.
A similar need was noticed amongst the feedback from the children at Littletown Primary: Inge, a Polish girl who had arrived with no English, had written in Polish on her ‘leaf letter’ after taking part in the French lessons using our books that ‘it would be even better if it had the Polish’ – again confirming our belief in the importance of keeping the mother tongue present.
Several other schools mentioned similar difficulties for Polish children, and whilst there are obviously other publishers now creating Polish-English picture books for children, we thought it would be great if the Polish children could also use our books to join in with French lessons and polish up their English at the same time. We have now had professional literary translations in Polish created for all of the books in our series, and I am shortly to set up something on the ‘resources’ part of our website to enable teachers to order our ‘Polish subtitles’. We hope that we can in this way help these children with both their English and their French, whilst providing at the same time that all-important link with their homeland - their mother tongue.
Our findings so far show that children have responded with enthusiasm to our dual language picture books, not just because the illustrations are intentionally beguiling, but also for the very fact that the parallel text allows children to absorb the language almost effortlessly, so that they can actually understand and enjoy the story. We have found that teachers, too, are finding them easier to use than single language text books – not just for teaching a second language, but also for teaching English as a foreign language.
We hope to be able to report back on findings from an even wider network of schools once more feedback is collated, and additionally, when observations can be made using the books in conjunction with the Powerpoint presentations. We feel privileged to have a close link with the schools in which our materials are being used, and one of the advantages to be gained from this is being able to build on the resources we have created by listening to the teachers’ and pupils’ needs and adapting to them.
I hope that, with a proven track record and increasing evidence in their favour, high quality dual language picture books will find their natural place in the primary classroom, allowing children to pick them up by choice at independent reading times, as well as using them in language lessons, so that not too far off in the future, learning a second language will become second nature – even to English pupils!
As this research will be ongoing, please feel free to contact me if you wish to share any examples of dual language books in the primary classroom, or if you would like to know about any of our resources.
Are you an MFL coordinator or language teacher at primary level? Or perhaps teaching year 7s at secondary school who have only a basic knowledge of French and feel that they might also benefit from the dual language resources? Perhaps you are home-schooling your children or just want them to benefit from exposure to a second language…
If you are interested in giving us some input, or in trying out our resources, please contact me.
Email me at: jana@bramhallbooks.co.uk or visit our website at: www.bramhallbooks.co.uk Our books are reviewed on the following link by Raymonde Sneddon, dual language research Fellow at the Cass School of Education and Communities : www.uel.ac.uk/education/research/duallanguagebooks/bookreviews.htm
© 2011
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