kitchen table math, the sequel: balanced literacy in France

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

balanced literacy in France

Liz Ditz left a link to an editorial that appeared last fall in Le Figaro (right of center, supported Sarkozy in the election, good newspaper), which was discussed by Language Log. Quite a lot of this sounds wrong to me; it sounds so wrong, in fact, that I'm not going to take the time to track down everything I have around here on left-brain, right-brain, language, mood, etc. to sort it out. I have 8 months of filing to do, after all. Not to mention another 2 or 3 hours of geometry homework.

[update: oh, good. Language Log says it's wrong, wrong, wrong. That's what I thought. Ed, translating over my shoulder, "Is this right?" "Can this possibly be right?" "This sounds off-base to me."]

Nevertheless, the section on whole language -- and what I take to be balanced literacy -- is useful to read because it could have been written by Louisa Moats.

Definitely take time to read the entire post at Language Log, as well as Liz Ditz's post.

À quand une vraie réhabilitation de l'enseignement primaire ?
Par Lucien Israël * «Des quantités de choses échapperont à tout jamais à ceux qui n'ont pas accès à la grammaire »
15/10/2007 | Mise à jour : 03:25 |
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Les difficultés que rencontre l'institution scolaire et, plus généralement, l'évolution des comportements des jeunes ont fait couler beaucoup d'encre ces dernières années. Étonnamment, en dépit de l'importance des enjeux, ce sujet n'a pas vraiment été abordé jusqu'à maintenant par les candidats à l'élection présidentielle. L'ampleur de la tâche en effraie sans doute plus d'un ! Pour l'aborder, voyons sereinement les faits, les conséquences et les causes.

Je commencerai par le constat suivant : en décembre 2001, l'OCDE a mené une étude dans trente-deux pays sur la capacité de lecture et de compréhension à l'entrée en 6e. Pour la compréhension de l'écrit, la France était au 14e rang. Et ce n'était guère plus brillant dans les domaines techniques et scientifiques, domaines dans lesquels les pays anglo-saxons nous devancent largement.

Un niveau médiocre ou faible en lecture, écriture, grammaire, etc., compromet l'avenir des jeunes et de la société : il existe quelques dizaines de milliers de mots dans une langue qui servent à comprendre, à s'exprimer et à s'imprégner d'une culture. La richesse du vocabulaire et l'usage de la grammaire sont les principaux moyens d'acquérir le sentiment d'appartenance à un groupe culturel. Celui-ci est en effet basé sur son histoire mais aussi sur sa langue. Et cela concerne tous les enfants, et pas seulement les enfants d'immigrés.

Par ailleurs, nous ne cessons de nous parler à nous-mêmes. Un vocabulaire restreint, des significations imprécises, empêchent de se parler à soi-même : non seulement on ne lit pas, non seulement on ne communique pas correctement avec autrui, mais on ne communique pas non plus avec soi-même, donc on ne se connaît pas. Si on n'a pas de subjectivité soi-même, on n'a pas la notion de l'existence d'une subjectivité chez autrui. Par conséquent, en cas de désaccord avec autrui, on ne discute pas : on tape dessus !

La neurophysiologie est à cet égard très éclairante : elle permet de faire le lien entre les faits constatés plus hauts et leurs causes : le cerveau gauche est celui de l'analyse, en particulier de l'analyse des mots (cela est valable pour les droitiers et pour un certain nombre de gauchers. Pour les autres, c'est l'hémisphère droit qui remplit ce rôle). L'hémisphère gauche est celui de l'analyse des idées, de leur perception, de leur enregistrement, de leur comparaison à d'autres, de leur critique ; celui, aussi, de la mémorisation. L'hémisphère droit, au contraire, est celui de l'émotion - positive ou négative -, de la perception non analysable, du sentiment. Les enfants, par exemple, perçoivent par leur cerveau droit ce qu'ils regardent à la télévision. S'ils ont un cerveau gauche « en bon état », ils sont capables de comprendre et de critiquer ce que leur cerveau droit reçoit, car les deux hémisphères communiquent. Si au contraire le cerveau gauche a été « abandonné », ils sont entièrement livrés aux images qui leur sont montrées.

Il se trouve qu'une révolution pédagogique a eu lieu à la fin des années 1970, qui concernait l'ensemble des enseignements de l'école primaire. Si l'on prend le cas précis de la méthode d'apprentissage de la lecture et de l'écriture, on sait que la méthode utilisée aujourd'hui est celle de la méthode globale (la semi-globale revenant exactement au même). La méthode syllabique fait appel au cerveau gauche puisqu'elle consiste à décortiquer les mots en syllabes et en lettres. La méthode globale, qui consiste à reconnaître la forme des mots, s'appuie au contraire sur l'hémisphère droit puisqu'elle est basée sur l'intuition.

Les méthodes d'apprentissage actuelles laissent en friche l'hémisphère gauche. Il ne reçoit que peu d'informations et de sollicitations. Le registre lexical est pauvre et, par conséquent, la compréhension du monde, de soi-même et des autres bien moindre. Je prendrai l'exemple concret des Esquimaux : leur langue comporte une soixantaine de mots différents pour évoquer la neige : ils perçoivent, par conséquent, une foule de nuances que nous-mêmes ne voyons pas. Des conséquences sont déjà visibles et ne peuvent que s'aggraver : la place est libre pour l'impulsif, la violence et la capacité d'être dominé par autrui ou de se donner à lui sans réfléchir. De même, des quantités de choses échapperont à tout jamais à ceux qui n'ont pas accès à la grammaire. Qu'attendent les candidats à l'élection présidentielle pour annoncer une véritable réhabilitation de l'enseignement primaire ?

* Professeur émérite de cancérologie.

translation:
October 15, 2007
Many things have forever escaped those who don’t have access to grammar

When will we have a true reform of primary schooling?
by Lucien Israel *

The difficulties encountered by public schools and more generally the evolution of young people’s behavior: both of these things have caused a great deal of ink to be spilled in recent years. Surprisingly, despite what’s at stake here, this subject hasn’t really been taken up by the candidates in the presidential election. The size of what’s at issue undoubtedly terrifies more than one of the candidates. In order to take the subject on, let’s look calmly at the facts and consequences and the causes.

I’ll start by saying the following thing: December 2001, the OECD undertook a study in 32 countries about the ability to read and understand à l'entrée en 6e. [Ed say: not sure which grade this is, but it’s “still young”] In comprehension and writing, France was number 14 out of the 32. Our country was hardly more brilliant in the areas of science and technology, realms in which Anglo-Saxon countries are far ahead of us.

A mediocre or weak ability or result in reading, writing, and grammar compromises the future of the young people of our society. There are a few 10s of 1000s of words in a language which allow people to understand, express themselves and participate in a culture. The richness of the vocabulary and the usage of grammar are the main ways of acquiring a sense of belonging to a cultural group. This group is in a sense based on its history but also on its language. And this concerns all children and not only the children of immigrants.

In addition, we never stop talking about ourselves. A narrow vocabulary with imprecise meanings prevent us from talking about ourselves. Not only do we not read, not only do we not communicate correctly with others, but we don’t even communicate correctly with ourselves, which means that we don’t come to know ourselves. If we don’t have a subjective understanding of ourselves, then we can’t have an idea of the subjectivity of others. As a result, whenever there’s a disagreement with someone else, we don’t discuss, we come to blows.

The neuropsychology in this case is enlightening. It allows us to make connections between things that are said and their causes. The right brain is the part that analyzes and in particular it analyzes words (and this is true for all righthanded people and a certain number of left handed people; for others it is the right hemisphere that fulfills this role). The left hemisphere is the one that analyzes ideas, their perception, their memory or their recording, and their comparison with others and their criticism. It’s also the hemisphere where memory takes place. The right hemisphere, by contrast, is the hemisphere of emotion, positive and negative; it’s the hemisphere of non-analyzeable perceptions, of sentiment. Children, for example, perceive in their right brain what they see on television. If their left brain is in good shape, they are capable of understanding and criticizing and understanding what their right brain perceives because the two hemispheres have good communication with each other. If on the other hand the left brain has been “abandoned,” kids are completely at the mercy of images shown to them.

There was a pedagogical revolution that took place at the end of the 1970s and it involved the primary education in its entirety. If we take the precise case of the method of teaching reading and writing we can see that the method used today is méthode globale (partially whole language turns out being exactly the same thing). The méthode syllabique [phonetics] activates the left brain because it forces the child to disaggregate or untangle words into letters and symbols. Whole language, which involves only the form of the words themselves, activates by contrast only the right hemisphere because it’s based on intuition.

Current pedagogical methods leave the left hemisphere out of the picture. It receives only a small amount of information and is rarely activated. As a result, our whole lexical register is poor, our understanding of the world and of ourselves and others reduced from what it once was. I’ll take the concrete example of eskimos. Their language includes over 60 different words to evoke snow. They can see, as a result, a whole array of nuances that we ourselves don’t see. The consequences are already visible and can only get worse. There is now a much greater possibility to be governed by impulses and violence and a much greater likelihood of being dominated by others, or of allowing ourselves to be unwittingly dominated by others. At the same time, a great many things will escape forever all those who don’t have an understanding of grammar. What are the presidential candidates waiting for? We need to begin a real reform of primary education.

Professer emeritus of oncology

It's a global conspiracy.

7 comments:

Katharine Beals said...

I wonder what Monsieur Isreal would say about students in China. They use an ideographic writing system which, I suspect (having studied it myself) can only be acquired by a whole-word (or, more precisely, a whole-morpheme) approach. Does practicing this "right-brained" strategy (and some studies suggest that it is, indeed, right-brained!) impair their analytic skills? If so, then it's a wonder that increasing numbers of Chinese students are outpacing Americans--even those who had the good fortune of phonics-based instruction--in math and science.

Catherine Johnson said...

Have you read McGuinness' book? (I haven't - it's part of my great unread.)

She argues that the Chinese system isn't visual... (Myrtle can summarize her argument, I think.)

Katharine Beals said...

I haven't! I would be very interested in hearing what McGuiness has to say. I'm pretty sure my strategies reading Chinese are visual, but then again I was never close to being a fluent reader.

Catherine Johnson said...

I bought a pack of Chinese character flash cards for Chris several years ago after reading that study about Chinese kids doing better at math possibly because their visual memories were so good....

I'll have to see if I can find it again.

Of course I never used them.

Catherine Johnson said...

I had a wonderful conversation with Zeffiro, the dyslexia guy at Georgetown, a few years ago.

He said dyslexia definitely has visual as well as phonological elements (or can have - ?), which seemed not to be the reigning view at the time.

Anonymous said...

They count grades backward in France. :-)

6e is the first grade in middle school (age 11-12), but not all students go all the way through academic high school (some go to technical schools for apprenticeships).

When I was an exchange kid (can't say student really, it was a month in the summer) in France in the mid 1990s, I claimed to be going into 2de. Apparently I should have said 1e since there's also Terminale. One of my "sisters" at the time was either in or a graduate of a technical program for hairdressing, I don't remember which anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_education_in_France

-m

le radical galoisien said...

*Finally* someone here links to Language Log. :D