Notes and suggestions on content and method
In class one the children take in everything in a spirit of wide-eyed sympathy and openness. Foreign language teaching takes advantage of this given capacity for imitative identification, basing everything upon choral speaking and singing, mostly accompanied by lively movement and gesture. As soon as possible the children should have the opportunity to speak in groups, and even singly. Poetic language – with rhythm and rhyme – forms one of the main pillars of the lessons. The other, which is in place right from the start, is every-day language. Through the use of formulaic expressions the children can be led, from very early on, into participating in little dialogues.
A very important role in the primary school is filled by games. The children get completely involved in them, and thus also with the verbal activity that goes with them.
Of great importance too is the activity of storytelling. Through the inner activity of listening the children learn to ease themselves into the stream of the foreign language. In this way they can develop the ability to understand the essentials of a story, i.e. they develop a capacity for gist understanding. For the learning process in the primary, middle and high school this plays an important role.
By the end of class one the majority of the children should have a firm hold of everything that was covered in the course of the year. This, however, can only be the case if everything has been thoroughly practised through constant repetition.
Suggested lesson content
(1) The collection Rhythms, Rhymes, Games and Songs for the Lower School offers a wide range of tried and tested material for the whole lower primary school (can be ordered from www.waldorfbuch.de ).
Notes and suggestions on content and method
In grade 2 the dualistic element (question/answer; yes/no; you/I) figures more prominently in the lessons. The children have a more pronounced need to communicate than in grade 1. Both the lesson structure and the chosen activities should be strongly rhythmical and full of contrasts: quiet attention to individual speech-sounds and subtleties of pronunciation alternating with playful (and much louder) participation. Thus a dynamic balance between loudness and quietness, speaking and listening can arise. Dialogue themes need to be varied and extended (e.g. a constantly growing number of possible answers to a certain question: “How do you get to school?”).
Suggested lesson content
The things practised in grade one are taken up again and extended (e.g. new verses and poems, folk songs, more classroom objects, more complicated instructions); in addition:
Notes and suggestions on content and method
In class 3 the children’s increasing capacity for understanding needs to be met. They now have a subtler feeling for the language as regards nuances of pronunciation and the meanings of individual words. They need longer and more demanding texts for practising and learning by heart.
They really enjoy playing and having speaking parts in little scenes (especially funny ones). During this year preparations are made for learning to read and write in the foreign language. Texts that will later be written are learned particularly thoroughly. So far the children have been dreamily “speaking along”, and this is now taken more in the direction of a conscious grasping of the language. Basic elements of grammar are also practised orally (singular/plural, personal and possessive pronouns). Recitation is an integral part of every lesson. The class’s growing repertoire now includes more demanding poems, in which the poetic beauty of the language makes itself felt.
Suggested lesson content
Notes and suggestions on method and content
At about the age of ten the children’s degree of self-awareness increases dramatically. What the class has so far learned communally now has to be individualised. The oral work continues. This incorporates speech exercises, verses, poems, songs and question-and-answer games. Writing and reading are introduced. This is the main focus for the year, and so takes a central place in the lessons.
The lessons now need to be more tightly structured than before. Individual children will need the attention and support of the teacher, because writing brings weaknesses to the fore which were not so obvious before, when the children were mainly speaking or singing as a group.
Writing in the foreign language is introduced using texts that the children know by heart from the first three years of school. Thus it is not difficult for them to recognise the words in their written form, since they are already familiar with how they sound. They read what they have written themselves, before coming to printed texts. Thus their first encounter with the language in its written form is through texts they know by ear and have experienced in play and movement.
As their first reading material the stories that were told to them during the first years of school are particularly suitable. An important point that Steiner made in this regard cannot be called to mind too often: everything that is read in foreign language lessons in the middle school must first be taken in by the ear; i.e. related by the teacher, and not reading along with the children. It is recommended that this reading material then be copied from the blackboard and illustrated by the children. Thus the principle of coming into reading via writing is also followed here. The illustrations help with the understanding of the text. In this way a transition is made to texts that are familiar but not known by heart.
Vocabulary, once the words have all been practised sufficiently, can be written down in related lists (e.g. parts of the body, classroom objects, seasons, colours). These lists consist only of words in the foreign language. The children should not write any word-for-word translations. As often as possible the nouns are practised orally in whole sentences which combine them with appropriate verb forms and simple adjectives. The teacher can work on the vocabulary that needs to be practised very effectively by incorporating it into simple stories made up of words and phrases that children are familiar with. Afterwards two or three sentences that summarise the story can be written on the blackboard for the children to copy. The text should contain as many repetitions as possible.
Singing and recitation, as well as short dialogues, remain an important component of every lesson.
The teacher should make sure that the pupils really understand the grammatical forms that have been dealt with. They should work out the rules behind them and formulate them (orally together with the teacher) in their own words (i.e. pragmatic rules, as opposed to the sort of rules usually found in grammar books). Discussions on English grammar should take place in the mother tongue.
Suggested lesson content
Notes and suggestions on content and method
At this age (11) children tend to have a good rhythmical memory. They can and should learn lots of new things. It is also the age at which appreciation for the beauty of language can be cultivated. The important thing is that the children enjoy working with the language, and that this enjoyment be taken as a basis to build on. This can be encouraged by the teacher taking every possible opportunity to stimulate the creative imagination of the children. Suitable exercises, written outside lesson time, can be a good way of doing this. The lessons themselves should be full of lively and varied activity, with smooth transitions and changes of pace. The children also enjoy reciting longer poems, and can now sing more complex rounds. Increasing their understanding of grammar is a further part of the picture, and this involves building upon what they already know. Vocabulary work should now be pursued for its own sake, the children should know what the words mean and actively learn and practice new vocabulary. The children can now take their first steps in exercising their own creativity by writing short poems on particular themes, e.g. the mood of a landscape, or an animal.
Oral work is continued in the form of question-and-answer dialogues, retellings of short sections of a story, speech exercises and many different types of poems. Recitation is an excellent means of developing good pronunciation and authentic intonation in the children. They should only learn the poems by ear, not from the page (which obviously implies that the teacher needs to know them off-by-heart). Learning new words and idioms is also done through recitation. When a new poem is introduced, all the teacher needs to do is say, as simply, concisely and imaginatively as possible, what it is about.
The richer their store of vocabulary becomes, the more confident the children will feel about using them creatively, e.g. in writing little poems. In order to awaken their interest in the words themselves the children should be exposed, through listening and reading, to a wide range of vivid portrayals of people, places and situations.
The meanings of new words can be introduced either before they appear in the reading material, or while the teacher is telling a particular section of the story. Topics relating to the reading material can also come into the picture. Questions of comprehension in relation to the text should be dealt with orally before the whole class. Only later is it appropriate to have the pupils answer such questions in writing, either during or outside the lessons. Suitable readers (with associated tasks) are listed in the “content” section that follows.
In the teaching of grammatical structures the children should be given the opportunity to experience the particular point of grammar in a variety of situations. This ensures that they can take note of the new structure, have a rough understanding of it, and gradually come to recognise the rule it implies. This is made easier if the teacher chooses situations which for the children are clear and unequivocal, and the grammatical usage is typical for the structure concerned. Once this has all happened, and the grammatical phenomenon has been practised and understood, the rules can be entered in simple form in a grammar notebook – in the mother tongue, of course, and in words formulated together with the class. It is best when they keep these rules in a special grammar book, and not in one that also contains, say, exercises and vocabulary. This self-penned grammar book can be introduced in class 5 and continued right to the end of class 8. From class 5 on the teacher should be making the pupils more conscious of the nature of English grammar by giving them the opportunity to compare it with that of their own mother tongue.
The enjoyment of reading can be encouraged by creating a small class library (extended reading). One of the best ways of capturing the class’s interest here is through dramatic scenes and short plays (spontaneously role-playing texts). To facilitate the practical realisation of these diverse aspects of foreign language teaching it will be necessary (where classes are large), by class 5 at the latest, to divide classes into two smaller learning groups.
Suggested lesson content
Suggested grammar topics
(1) See the collection Poems for the Middle and Upper School, Stuttgart 1986. An index for each school year can be found in Forum for Language Teachers, Stuttgart 1997, p. 98-106.
Notes and suggestions on content and method
In grade 6 the students stand at the threshold of puberty. In this school year order, structure and lessons that follow a comprehensible plan are important to them. Their latent intellectual faculties should now be awakened and applied to the structures of the language in the form of a systematic survey of what has been learned so far and what still remains to be learned. At this age it is appropriate to learn the conjugation of verbs. It is now possible to discuss with the students how much there is to be covered, for instance how much they can learn in a month, and this must be regularly checked, for they require visible proof of their progress. How much have we learnt? What have we not managed to learn, and why? It is also possible to discuss the different ways of learning vocabulary.
On the oral side of things, poems with dramatic and heroic content play an important role, as do humorous ones. Short dramatic scenes can be played. All conversations and oral work generally should be interlarded with as many idiomatic and colloquial expressions as possible.
The geography of the foreign language’s home territory, as well as figures from its well-known sagas and personalities from its history are a major theme for grades 6 to 8.
Once a first working-through of basic grammar and vocabulary has been completed, the students can be led towards expressing themselves more freely in English. Among suitable topics for writing exercises are letters, simple descriptions, diaries and summaries of stories.
In grade 6 the teacher has to reckon with considerable differences of ability among the students. This means that the attempt must be made to set tasks in such a way that every level of ability is provided for. Obviously progress in learning is going to be better with relatively small groups. However, it is not in keeping with the ethos of Waldorf education to divide classes according to levels of achievement. Students with very little knowledge of the foreign language coming later to a particular class will require outside help for as long as necessary.
Suggested lesson content
Suggested grammatical topics:
Notes and suggestions on content and method
Teaching proceeds in a manner similar to class 6. Individual lessons should be lively and full of variety; in other words, not too much time is spent upon any one theme or activity (especially in the case of grammar). The students should be supplied with plenty of learning material, and be regularly required to show what they can do in little tests and dictations. The possibilities of group-work can and should be explored. Notebooks should be carried further and kept at a high standard. Where this is not the case the language teacher should speak to the class-teacher and the parents, so that disorderly and incomplete notebooks can be corrected and completed. The students should be able to appreciate the necessity of such measures. Once again, geographical and cultural studies (also of other English-speaking countries) are the central focus. They can also constitute the content of the reading material.
Suggested lesson content
Suggested grammatical topics:
Notes and suggestions on content and method
During this year the students are being prepared for the more demanding and independent work of the high school. A crucial element here is the further cultivation of their tolerance of ambiguity, in other words, their ability to deal constructively and, as far as possible, creatively with the unfamiliar and the partially familiar. Developing a trust in the fact that the meaning of something not immediately comprehensible – whether written or spoken – can be discerned from its context is undoubtedly one of the hallmarks of successful foreign language teaching. To help the students develop this kind of confidence and flexibility, it is important to give ample opportunity for practice { Guiding the students into a predisposition like this involves giving them plenty of opportunities to practise it. This is best done by conducting the lessons, as far as ever possible, in English from grade one all the way through. As a precondition for high school work, developing this skill by the end of grade 8, in relation both to ear and eye, cannot be over-emphasised. Students who persist in believing that they can’t get anywhere unless unknown words are immediately explained will find learning a foreign language very difficult, if not impossible.
In the course of grade 8 every student, according to their level of interest and language ability, can give a short project presentation. In most cases the teacher’s help with the preparation of this will be essential. It can provide practice in using a bilingual dictionary. The students should also be guided towards more personal responsibility for the writing up of their notebooks.
Suggested lesson content
Suggested grammatical topics
General considerations and overall teaching aims for classes/grades 9 to 12
Steiner did not make any specific stipulations on foreign language methods in the high school, apart from saying that teachers should regularly change their methods, thus avoiding any kind of routine that could sap the creativity of the learning process. In order to support the students in the transition to the high school everything should be geared towards awakening their interest in the world and their enthusiasm for figures with high ideals. As a counterweight to the air of sceptical detachment that is liable to be present in the young people, enthusiasm and a sense of humour on the part of the teachers are of ever greater importance. This is where teachers need to be working on their presence of mind, openness and powers of empathy, so that they are better able to perceive the students’ needs and the latent questions they might have.
Notes and suggestions on content and method
The young people are now entering upon the third seven-year phase of their lives; their thinking- and feeling-life is still in considerable turmoil. Preventing them from jumping to premature conclusions and helping them to develop sound judgement are central aims of teaching here. The development of the power of judgement will remain a leading motif all the way through the high school. Teaching-method needs to be approached with this in mind.
Suggested lesson content
Reading material
The content and style of the set texts, while, of course, being age-appropriate, should be fairly demanding. Richness of theme and language makes for fruitful conversations. For this age-group, however, the texts should still be sufficiently transparent that all the students can follow their contents and the ensuing discussions. At this age many young people forge a new connection with the language: they seek to grasp the “familiar foreign language” with their understanding in a new way and make it their own. The teacher should supply them with material offering abundant opportunities for doing this, material that should speak to the heart as well as the head. Suitable here are abridged autobiographies or biographies, e.g. of Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandi; and in fiction The Sherlock Holmes Stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a slightly simplified version (Penguin Level 5).
Recitation
Here the criteria are similar to those concerning readers. The poems should rather be short and pithy. Strong images speak to the feelings, which now no longer arise largely from the bodily organisation, but from the soul. Prose extracts can also be very suitable for this purpose. In recitation more attention should now be paid to individual speaking.
Vocabulary work
In this connection, it is well worth reminding oneself that it is only through the will engaging with a particular content that a store of vocabulary takes shape at all. A student has to want to say something. In this lies the task facing the teacher. Working with a text, for instance, creates thoughts and feelings, and the images, concepts, judgements etc., that thus arise, seek expression in the foreign language. Thus the classroom conversation, and particularly homework, contribute to building up the store of vocabulary that the students need, and therefore learn.
The fact that the quality of each particular text represents a specialised area of vocabulary is not a problem. A Sherlock Holmes story has a completely different vocabulary from a text about Abraham Lincoln, and will therefore lead to an extension of vocabulary, through work done both inside and outside classroom time. The next text taken up will be a further extension. In each case it is the concrete context that actualises the will to learn new words. So there is no need to work out a programme of special vocabulary themes. The students remember vocabulary connected with concrete experiences far more readily that lists of isolated words.
In the high school the work on idioms gathers pace. This should be designed in such a way that the students experience the character of the language. Many of them particularly enjoy it when the teacher takes examples from every-day speech.
A way of expanding vocabulary which is strongly recommended, and which has far-reaching effects on many levels, is to promote extensive reading. Young people should be encouraged, according to their interests and abilities, to read in the foreign language in their own time. Any support they need in this regard should also be forthcoming.
Among other good ways of expanding vocabulary is creative writing, which at the latest from class 9 on can begin to play a significant role. Experience shows that expanding vocabulary and learning to use the words properly is made easier when the students are engaged in something that touches them personally, and they are motivated out of the core of their own selfhood. Creative writing fulfils this condition, in that it requires and also awakens imagination, the application of which depends entirely on self-motivation. For one thing, offering a range of creative writing exercises tends to make the experience of learning to use the foreign language, which can often be a laborious process, more enjoyable, personal, and productive. For another, creative writing stimulates the students’ desire to seek out new words for themselves and to experiment with more complex syntactic structures. This also means that there is a stronger personal motivation to understand grammar better and learn to use it properly. For all these reasons creative writing is one of the most effective ways of coming to terms with mixed ability learning groups all the way through the high school.
Grammar
A central theme in this school year is a comprehensive grammar review. Everything that so far has been unconsciously or half-consciously absorbed is now brought gradually into the light of day. In subsequent years grammar is mostly dealt with ad hoc, as the need arises. Being always fully conscious of its grammar is not really necessary for understanding and speaking a language, but as a means towards maturity, and towards raising the power of language from its bodily slumber and lifting it into the realm of individual feeling and thinking, such grammatical consciousness is very important. Here a process of development, that begins at the age of eleven or twelve, and fades out at the age of sixteen or seventeen, reaches its highpoint. Who is speaking when someone speaks? With children up to about the age of twelve we can hear, if we listen carefully, that although they apparently think and speak for themselves, the language of their surroundings (mother, father, teacher etc.) is what mostly sounds through. With puberty these “family ties” dissolve: the growing individual must now produce language out of him- or herself. Grammar, which can only be individually mastered, is an essential help in this. For the students, taking this step is all part of developing their individual identity and confidence in their own abilities.
The livelier the manner in which this occurs, the more feelings of pleasure and interest will be awakened in the students by this experience of coming to grips with themselves; each one becomes the “author” of his or her own learning. Humour can be extremely useful here. To succeed, this work on grammar should ideally be a combination of calm, business-like clarity, keen presence of mind and deft humour.
Various …
Sometimes with class 9 one feels the need to take the work in a “completely different” direction. This could involve doing sketches and short dramatic scenes, starting an exchange of letters or e-mails with students from another country, small projects, reports, travelogues etc. It might also be that the school’s policy on cultural inclusiveness requires adopting completely new educational pathways in the high school. In such circumstances, calling upon the expertise of experienced colleagues will be of immense help.
Notes and suggestion on content and method
The processes of inner transformation that puberty involves now gradually diminish in their intensity and drama. In the grade 10 students, however, there may still be a pronounced tendency to hide within themselves. That this may also entail a degree of communicative reticence is something to be reckoned with, and dealt with as circumstances require. These growing individuals, however, will become increasingly aware of the potential of language to clarify and calm their turbulent inner life. A foreign language can very well be just the thing to help a young person of this age to voice what cannot be otherwise articulated. The richness and power of the language are experienced more and more, especially through the more intricate texts they are now exposed to. What is required is to open phenomena up to individual experience by penetrating them as deeply as possible.
Suggested lesson content
In addition to consideration of a variety of literary works, including dramas, short stories and poems, it is possible from grade 10 on to take a more detailed, in-depth look at the history of a particular country, using authentic first-hand accounts and other relevant texts. Particularly worthy of attention, with a view to strengthening the budding idealism of the students, are historical situations which at first seem hopeless, but then turn out to be successful, as, for instance, the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. But there is no reason not to include thoroughly up-to-date contemporary events among the lesson material.
A further possible theme is the poetical works and biographies of the romantic poets. In many cases there is a contradiction between the difficult lives of these poets and the beauty of their works; this provokes much thought.
Possible avenues of practice
When working with texts in the original they should ideally be treated in such a way that direct experience of their meaning and emotional tone comes to the fore. This is in line with the priority that all students – also the ones who struggle – be enabled to engage with the content. In the explanatory discussions the abler students can be a significant help in this regard. Especially at this age young people have an open and sensitive appreciation for the efforts of others; this intensifies the process of getting to grips with the material.
Fiction and drama both demand a mode of reading that does not slow down the tempo of the lesson with too many word explanations or grammatical interpolations that have nothing to do with the plot. With non-fiction the pace may well be different in the interests of promoting conversation. For both kinds of text, however, the basic principle is that conversation be used as the means of arriving at an experience of the quality and meaning of the content. This can be done with the whole class or in groups. It is also important that the text not be “misused” simply as a vehicle for practising vocabulary or grammar.
Since at this level textual content is more demanding, the associated written work will be correspondingly so, becoming more detailed and thorough as the year progresses. Step by step the exercises done for homework approach the form of the essay, which will then be a basic requirement in the course of grade 11 at the latest. It is essential also to have a good selection of questions and tasks for the purposes of homework, in order both to meet the heterogeneity of the class, and to ensure a personal element of choice. The most animating exercises are often those that involve a change of perspective, or a “reading between the lines”. Being asked merely to summarise what they have read is likely to be too easy for talented students, whereas the weaker ones will tend to prefer tasks like that.
Recitation
In addition to poems of the Romantics, works by a variety of more modern poets can also be used, e.g. Yeats, Eliot, Robt. Frost, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, Mary Oliver. Extracts from historic speeches which are part of the work in progress in the lessons – for instance, by Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King etc. – can serve very well as pieces for recitation. With a bit of imagination and an appropriate text it is possible to turn a class 10 into a “speaking orchestra”. Humorous texts and speech exercises can also help to ease things along.
Vocabulary work
Vocabulary work can be enlivened greatly in this school year by the topic of synonyms. The difficulties the students may have with the translation of certain words and passages of writing can be made into problem-solving exercises. In connection with poetry inner reactions can be investigated, e.g. how well the sound of a word corresponds with its meaning.
Creative writing
The exercises begun in class 9 (q.v.) can be taken further. In class 10 writing poems and all the preparatory exercises that lead up to this can from a significant part of the curriculum.
Grammar
Through the work done in class 9 the students will have become more secure in grammar, and have developed a new relationship to it. Their feeling for style can now begin to unfold. Familiar structures like the often-used gerund or participle can now be considered in terms of their stylistic effects. Subtleties like the way these constructions can act by turns as nouns, adjectives or verbs (sometimes simultaneously) can be discovered. Passive sentences are no longer construed as simply alternatives to active ones, but as welcome ways of avoiding many a direct utterance.
Drama
The practice by many schools of doing a foreign language play – half way between those of class 8 and class 12 – has proven an excellent way of immersing students in the language and overcoming inhibitions, while at the same time providing an in-depth experience of a particular play. Especially with weak and shy students the foreign language play has shown itself capable of producing a tremendous surge in their level of learning, the effect of which continues in subsequent years.
Notes and suggestions on content and method
In the grade 11 year the overarching task teachers have of combining thinking and will in young people in such a way that they become moral beings capable of moral action attains an unprecedented importance. Here language teaching has a significant role to play.
Seventeen-year-olds have left puberty more or less behind them; they are now receptive to intellectual and aesthetic issues. They are at a transitional stage: between the morality they have learned from the first two seven-year periods of their lives and the ethics they must develop as adults. The exploration of their own inner life now grows in its intensity, depth and subtle distinctions. They develop a sense of responsibility in relation to the quality of their thoughts. The worldly experience of young people at the beginning of the 21st century is manifestly of a scale much larger than was the case two or three decades ago. This means that the polarities of life impinge upon them in much greater variety and intensity then than before. All the harder must it be for them, therefore, to combine their already large stock of contrary impressions with their own sense of self in such a way as to engender inner stability and continuity. Language is what renders us human. Richness of language is the condition for richness of thought. Learning two other languages in addition to the mother tongue strengthens young people in their relationship to the world, for in another language they encounter another way of thinking, feeling and acting in the world. Literature here offers rich possibilities for dipping into the store of “representative experience” which is now available to them. Besides the extension and refining of writing and speaking abilities, self-discovery through aesthetic experience is the central motif of foreign language teaching in grade 11.
Suggested lesson content
In dramas the reader comes up against clashes and conflicts that can perhaps be of help in coming to terms with his or her own inner life. They are replete with conflicting tendencies, not just in the constellation of characters, but even within the central figure. To read a play and fully imagine your way into a character, to inwardly identify with this character, even defend or accuse it, is a good exercise, because it requires a great effort of will to think this through , and mobilizes feeling to act as mediator between thinking and willing. No dramatist offers so much in this regard, and in terms of literary and aesthetic appeal, satisfying the critical standards of universality, topical relevance and internal coherence, as does William Shakespeare. Steiner’s recommendation of Shakespeare as reading material for this age-group has established a rich and long-standing tradition in Waldorf schools. On account of the high quality of dramatic writing in English since the 1950’s, it is also a good idea, and likely to be pedagogically worthwhile, to focus upon a modern drama.
It should not be forgotten, of course, that plays are not intended as reading material, but as what Steiner called “scores”. It should be made clear to the students that only when gesture, facial expression, choreography, scenery, costume, light, or masks come together with the word do we really have a play. The stage is its proper home. This does not mean that a full stage performance should be aimed at. Nonetheless, short extracts can be dramatized and the students clearly shown how these theatrical elements can be applied. They can be asked, for instance, to design the costumes, masks, choreography or scenery for particular scenes, and to justify their choices.
Recitation
Short extracts can be taken from the chosen Shakespeare play. It is perfectly feasible to begin these in advance of studying the play itself. Recognising the lines later and already knowing them by heart will be an enrichment of the classroom conversation. If a modern play has been chosen, it would still be possible to use lyric poetry from Shakespeare’s time (Donne, Shakespeare, Herrick etc.) A glimpse into the life and worldview of the Elizabethans can be conveyed in this way.
Another topic that can be introduced through recitation is a short survey of the history of the English language. From Shakespeare’s Early Modern English it would be possible to take a jump back into the past – Middle English (e.g. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) and Old English (Beowulf) – or forward into Modern English. The whole sequence could be set within the context of a short outline of the historic events that have influenced the development of the English language. To have the students write these things down would be sensible, in view of the topic of English as a World Language that is an option in class 12.
Vocabulary work
Vocabulary work should be a by-product of interpretational discussions. How can I (as a grade 11 student) speak and/or write about what I have felt or observed from reading the text with sufficiently accurate choice of words that the others can understand my impressions and either agree or disagree with them? In addition to providing the vocabulary of literary appreciation and critical dialogue, it will also be worthwhile to work on elements of language by which the students’ written English can be refined. Among these could be various way of using connectors between clauses, as well as expressions that impart structure to a text (firstly, secondly, in addition, eventually, moreover etc.), lending it formal-logical coherence. To render the students’ diction more authentically English, every opportunity should be taken to bring in phrasal verbs, such as ‘to call for’, or ‘to give up’, as well as frequently occurring collocations and lexical-grammatical word-combinations (chunks), such as ‘be that as it may’, ‘without further ado’.
Creative writing
In class 11 the possibility exists for the students, after the relevant preparatory exercises and the study of various short stories (see also classes 9 and 10), to try their hand at writing their own short stories. This would be done at home over a longish period of time (about 6 weeks). Experience shows that with the right preparation both the weaker and the stronger students are capable of meeting this challenge, and indeed, according to their individual abilities, producing work of unprecedented quality. For some students this can be a matter of two pages, but for others it could encompass 15. It is precisely in the diversity of the results that the effect of creative writing upon individual student development becomes apparent. This places creative writing among the most effective methods of dealing with mixed-ability classes, particularly in the high school.
Grammar
In this school year grammar exercises, as they would ordinarily be called, also serve the sole purpose of improving the students’ powers of expression, especially in writing. “Improvement” here means coming closer to speaking or writing authentic English. If there are constructions that are typical of English, then undoubtedly among them are the infinitive, the participle, the gerund, the special use of the article, and transformations between noun and verb. To this end it would also be appropriate, with the help of short texts specially composed for the purpose, to employ these grammatical tools in practising some aspects of what are the essential features of the spirit of English: brevity, conciseness, power and diversity of expression.
Notes and suggestions on content and method
Eighteen-year-olds approaching the end of their Waldorf career are ready and willing to meet the world of the present with energy and discernment. This puts the teacher in the position of being able to choose material from the whole diversity of contemporary English literature, both fiction and non-fiction. On the non-fiction side, the theme of the challenges and opportunities offered by globalisation is a strong contender, associated as it is with the preeminent importance of English as a world language.
By the end of class 12 the students should be well-versed in the following set of skills:
Current events are regularly discussed in the lessons, and can be thematised to a certain extent. Part of this involves regular reading of a serious newspaper, such as The Guardian or The New York Times.
One of the main things in class 12 is the individual encounter with English literature. Every student could choose, according to their ability, a text that interests him or her, and present it to the class. In this the artistic quality of the presentation of the chosen scene, chapter, poem etc. is just as important as the personal interpretation and its written expression. Artistic projects in small groups, such as preparing for performance a scene from a play, or dramatizing an extract from a prose work or a modern poem, can become the highpoints of this school year and perhaps even be performed for a wider public as an artistic “grand finale”.