5 Things to try tomorrow

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

These may already form part of your everyday teaching repertoire but here are five activities to try tomorrow. Each has a differentiation and challenge added.

Quiz Quiz Trade

Everyone I know seems to understand this one differently. I have seen it used in MFL and English in different ways. It can probably be applied to other subjects too. Here’s how I make it work in my classroom.

Get the mini-whiteboards ready
Project on screen 3 questions students have been learning.
Students pick one of the questions and write it on their board.
Students go around the room. They must ask a question, answer a question and then swap whiteboards.
They must perform 5,6,7,8 swaps before heading back to their seat.

Differentiation: You can differentiate this by getting students to write the start of an answer on the other side of the whiteboard.

Front of whiteboard: ¿Qué llevas normalmente?

Back of whiteboard: Llevo…

Challenge: You could have students put a word on the back of the whiteboard that has to be incorporated into the answer. You could increase the variety of questions used or vary tenses used by questions.

Rewards: whilst the students are doing this, go around, listen and note down the ones who are going for it. Reward them at some point in a manner of your choosing.

MM Paired Speaking

MM are the initials of the excellent teacher who showed me this. It is an information gap activity but I like it as it practises speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Students divide page into 3 columns
Column 1 – write days of week in TL leaving 2-3 lines in between each
Column 2 – pupils draw picture that represents vocab they have been learning such as places in town.
Column 3 – leave blank.
Project on board a question such as ¿Adónde vas el lunes? (where do you go on Monday?). You could also project a model answer “el lunes voy al cine” (Mondays I go to the cinema).
Model the activity with a keen student. This stage is crucial for the activity to work well.
Fiona asks Shrek where he goes on each day of the week. When Shrek answers, Fiona uses her final column to write down exactly what he says.
Shrek and Fiona swap roles.

Differentiation: Weaker students might need this printing out on paper.

Challenge: You could increase the complexity of the sentence demanded by insisting pupils add an opinion. This could be done by adding a column in between 2 and 3.

Car Race Quiz

I resurrected this little gem this week. I cannot find the original car race powerpoint but you will find similar powerpoints here by the same author. Car race, horse race or (at Christmas) race to Bethlehem should work. For those of you big on knowledge organisers, this could be a different way to test them.

Have a list of questions ready to test everything in a unit from key vocabulary to how to form various tenses or structures covered.
Divide class into teams
Teams take it in turns to answer.
If they are right then click the car/horse/wise man (whichever you choose to download) and they will gradually move towards the finish line. If a team is unable to answer, pass it to another team.
Winners are first to the finish line.

Differentiation: This can come through the questions you ask and how you tailor the activity to the students in front of you.

Challenge: you could turn this activity into a translation challenge. First group to produce correct translation of a particular phrase gets to move their car forward.

Song gap fills

I don’t do these too often but a colleague of mine did one with a class recently. Find a song and take out a variety of vocabulary. You could look for words with a particular phoneme that you want students to practice or remove some verbs you have learnt recently. They listen twice or three times trying to put in the missing words and then you show them the lyric video for them to check their answers.

It is best done last lesson of the day or you will be hearing it all day. Whilst my colleague suggested Kevin y Karla (check their Youtube channel out), This one was a hit with my year 9s:

Differentiation: depends on the quantity words you take out.

Challenge: have two versions with words removed. Remove significantly more from one version, or equally put the wrong words in and students correct them.

12 sided dice topic revision

If you have a set of these then great. If not then tell students to roll a six sided die twice and add the numbers.

Set 12 tasks on the screen that link to the topic you have been studying. Give each task a points score according to complexity.

1 Simple vocabulary recall task

2 Explain grammar structure

3 Translate something

4 Make a sentence including …

etc

Differentiation: you could pair up students who are at a similar level. You could turn it into a rally-coach task (the more advanced student does their own task but coaches a weaker individual to help them achieve).

Challenge: depends on the complexity of tasks set

Keeping Year 9 going…

Jun 29, 2016Jun 18, 2019 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

It’s that time of year again. Year 11 have gone. Year 10 are thinking about work experience. Year 9s become that little bit more difficult to teach.

I got lucky this year. I got a rather nice year 9 group. They are a group with a mixture of middle and top set characters with a handful of lower ones thrown in. The words mixed ability make the range of abilities sound wider than it is.

Over the past 5 years I have not been so lucky. This post is an exploration of the variety of strategies I’ve tried. The following picture does not represent a strategy but is definitely reflective of how it has felt at times:

9×4 teaching aid.

Prepare a presentation/poster

Sometimes we do not get enough time to cover the extensive culture and history that surround the languages we teach. Students prepare a presentation in groups of two or three to be delivered to their class.

How to vary it:

Give students a choice of delivery styles: interview, powerpoint and speech, podcast recorded using apps like spreaker , giant A2/A3 poster for corridor complete with text and pictures. If you are a school with ipads then a whole world of possibilities are probably open to you (leave suggestions in the comments section).
To use TL or not to use TL. With groups where most carry on til GCSE then insist on some TL, otherwise make the activity about presentation skills (perhaps colloaborate with English).
Horrible Histories. Having met Terry Deary, the man is on to something. The more gory or wacky it is; the more kids will read about it. Perhaps get your kids to go after the lesser known facts.
Ban certain websites. Wikipedia is not always correct. At university when I looked up the Spanish Civil War it turned out it was Manchester United’s sub goalkeeper! Encourage use of reputable sources.

History	Culture	Geography
Guerra de independencia	Don Quixote	Espana
Islamic Conquest of Spain	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	Bolivia
The Inquistion	Cataluna	Peru
Colombus	Castilla y Leon	Paraguay
Spanish Civil War	El País Vasco	Chile
Franco	Flamenco	Ecuador
Juan Carlos de Borbon	Tango	Honduras
Zapatero	Bullfighting	Costa Rica
Ernesto Che Guevara	Galicia	Puerto Rico
Simon Bolivar	Bunuel	Venezuela
Al Andalus	La tomatina	Colombia
Eva Peron	San Fermin	Los Andes
Evo Morales	Pedro Almodovar	El salar de uyuni
Diego Maradona	Las islas canarias	Patagonia

Spanish survival kit

Everything needed for the casual tourist. What does a holidaying student need?

WEEK	THEME
1	Introductions Name ¿Cómo te llamas? Me llamo …, How are you + opinions¿Qué tal? ¿ Cómo estás? Numbers 1 – 20, Age ¿Cuántos años tienes? Alphabet,
2	Personal information Where live ¿Dónde vives? Vivo en … Holiday dates, times
3	Food and drink Basic vocabulary Ordering in a restaurant/bar/café Complaining – this is not what I ordered etc
	Money and shopping Currency Asking how much Understanding larger numbers and prices I would like Quisiera … I like/don’t like Me gusta…/ No me gusta …
5	Directions Asking where places are in a town ¿Dónde está …? Esta … ¿Hay … par aquí? Understanding directions
6	Revision

There are obvious benefits to this approach. It gives students some revision of the basics and prepares them for holidays. The downside is that it is too simplistic for some.

Start GCSE

This is this year’s idea. As a department we looked at the new specs and decided there was some stuff we have never taught. So we decided to give it a go. The results have been surprising. Most students seem to have taken to it as they appreciate it is necessary for their classmates. Other groups with slightly lower numbers of GCSE students have found it a bit tougher. They do however appreciate the more advanced themes (global understanding) and focus on being able to make up stuff on the spot. Rachel Hawkes writes that students judge their TL abilities based on what they can say and she is right.

A Film

“But SLT would never allow it!!” I hear you scream. You may be right but at the same time there is a lot to be gained, if it is handled well.

Things to consider:

Get permission from parents, HoD and SLT if needed.
Make sure it is already on your scheme of work! History show films regularly, why not mfl?
Create a worksheet with questions to provoke thought.
Give pupils a selection of words to find and switch the subtitles on.
Give pupils a synopsis to translate sections of before starting.
Give the pupils some character bios to translate before starting.
Give the pupils some character bios to fill in during the film with multiple choice options. Eg: Ramón es descapacitado / paralisado / activo
You could show them the trailer to give an overall picture.
You could give them a series of pictures from the film to put in order afterwards .(perhaps with a short Spanish explanation underneath.
You could write some true/false sentences for the students to work out.
You could make a multiple choice quiz based on the film using Kahoot to gauge their understanding of the film.

One of the most difficult GCSE groups I ever taught was spellbound watching el mar adentro. 17 boys, 2 girls and they were transfixed. It also fed quite nicely into their Philosophy, Theology, Ethics lessons at the time.

Grammar Revision

If you have a group doing GCSE then take them on a grammar crashcourse. I believe grammar teaching is important and it can be fun (post on quirky ways to teach grammar is coming soon).

Expo and Mira tend to cover something grammatical and then assume it is mastered at the end of that particular page. The next time it is revisited, it will be similar but with something new added. If you are following one of these schemes then you may find students are not quite as adept with the grammar as you would like. Graham Nuthall (The Hidden Lives of Learners) suggests students need three exposures to new concepts before they start to embed them. If you are using the above textbooks, it is entirely possible that students will only have had one exposure to some concepts.

The Euros, world cup, Olympics, Women’s World Cup, Wimbledon

Use it as an opportunity to teach opinions and the future tense in the third person. You could also use it to revise past tense, weather and a variety of vocabulary. More ideas on Wimbledon can be found here with this shameless self-promotion link.

I think that … is going to win

In my opinion England will win etc.

Perhaps you do something different entirely, leave it in the comments section below!

Pupil Premium & MFL

Apr 25, 2016Mar 10, 2018 / dlh202 / 4 Comments

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We’ll start with some words from Number 10 Downing Street:

“The Coalition Government introduced the Pupil Premium in 2011 to provide additional school funding for those children classed as having deprived backgrounds, and also those who had been looked after (by a local authority) for more than six months. The Service Premium was also introduced for children whose parent(s) are, or have since 2011, served in the armed forces.” Source Material for super keen readers.

Regardless of whether you agree with the idea of the Pupil Premium and the considerable emphasis placed thereupon, it is here to stay. I have to be honest that over the past few years I have had mixed feelings and a lot of questions about it: what about children who fall ever so slightly above the threshold? What about students with parents in the forces that actually do not access the funding and do not want it? Can it make that much of a difference? Are we in danger of over-emphasizing it? One headteacher’s blog wrote about the disadvantage gap being a chasm. It is a complex issue but not one we should shy away from.

Earlier today our SENCO shared this picture:

It reminds me that my job is a teacher is to ensure that every pupil has a chance to achieve. For some those boxes in the picture will equate to extra funding from Number 10 and for others the boxes are the process of scaffolding and lesson planning. For some pupils the boxes symbolise my teaching, my feedback and my attention or time spent with them. Feedback has been covered here, support and scaffolding for lower ability has been covered here and here. Today we are looking at the Pupil Premium.

Why Pupil Premium Students struggle:

Pupil Premium encompasses a variety of different situations. It should never be confused or used as a synonym for low ability or behavioural difficulties. Both might be true but they are not always the case. I have done my best to list the struggles and the type of student in the table below.

Type of Pupil Premium Student	Explanation
Free School Meals	Eligibility for free-school meals is used as an indicator of poverty. It may be that such students eligible come from homes that do not support their education in terms of material resources, or in terms of assisting with homework. Other needs might be more basic in terms of uniform, cleanliness or communication skills.
Service Children	Children with parents in the armed forces are often eligible for the pupil premium. In my experience this presents slightly different issues in terms of T&L. Some students will be anxious as a result of the situation the parent is in and the infrequency of contact. Other students may need no help at all as the other parent works and provides for them. There is a wide spectrum of need when it comes to this type of student.
Children in Care	Inevitably these students will have varying issues. Much depends on the reason these students are in care, and at the same time, the quality of care they are currently receiving. Children in care are often quite well supported but struggle in other areas possibly in terms of development, communication and social skills, or mental health.
Ever 6	This refers to the fact a student may have been eligible for the pupil premium in the past 6 years. It is worth knowing as whilst the student may no longer be eligible; there may still be needs that require meeting or they may only have moved slightly above the threshold for FSM.

What is suggested to be effective?

Having read OFSTED’s report on how schools are using the pupil premium. They mention a number of ideas but many relate to SLT and governance. The following are their suggestions for the classroom:

Effective teaching and learning for pupil premium students – just teach great lessons everyday.
Target support effectively. How are you moving students forward? What support do they have?
Know the desired outcomes for PP students, not always age related but higher.
Know your pupils.
Deploy your TA effectively (see previous blog post here).
Enhance their thinking, study and revision skills (see blog on revision here).

They also say the following:

“Where schools spent the Pupil Premium funding successfully to improve achievement, they never confused eligibility for the Pupil Premium with low ability, and focused on supporting their disadvantaged pupils to achieve the highest levels and thoroughly analysed which pupils were underachieving, particularly in English and mathematics, and why.”

Having read around the subject it appears there is a “no excuse” campaign going on. Social deprivation, familial background, home situation, low attendance and level of need are not excuses (see 2013 presentation by OFSTED here).

In short, the pressure is on…

Photo Credit: Jack Zalium via Compfight cc

What can we do in MFL?

There are a lot of questions below designed to provoke thought and hopefully action.

Photo Credit: youflavio via Compfight cc

Data tracking – Analysing data has become a necessary part of the job. Whilst we may find it tedious, it is a means to an end. The end should be answering the following kinds of questions:

Are your pupil premium students where they should be?
Are they attaining in line with their targets (grades 5-9, positive progress 8 score, FFTD, or whatever you use)?
If they are not attaining then you need to be asking why?
Is the underachievement isolated to MFL or is it more widespread?
Where are they achieving? Why?
How can you use that knowledge to your advantage? What has that teacher or department done? What are they currently doing?
Could another member of staff give a pupil a bit of encouragement that causes them to see your subject differently? Is their tutor/head of year/achievement leader (or whatever your school calls the role) pushing them to achieve in all subject areas?

Targeted Questioning

Some teachers would advocate a system of no-hands-up whereby any questions are directed at PP students first and then at other key groups (underachievers, more able, SEND, disengaged boys). On a seating plan I do have key individuals highlighted and will more often direct my questions towards them.

Others might add on to this the idea of “no opt out” where the kid is not allowed to say “I don’t know”. It is entirely up to you how to run your classroom.

Quality first marking/feedback.

A suggestion from another school was to mark all PP books first in the pile as you are freshest and most alert. It is hard to dispute the logic if that is true for you. Personally, I find my marking gets better after the first three or so. I would need to adapt that strategy slightly. I do have some issue with the ethics of this approach, as every student should be receiving decent feedback from me. There are also students out there who may not be in receipt of the Pupil Premium but actually fighting battles at home on a par with, or worse than those who are classified as disadvantaged. It is up to you as a teacher to differentiate accordingly.

Seating plans – Some of my colleagues advocate seating all PP students in the same seat in their room so they always know who they are. Others advocate sitting them at the front of your classroom to enable them to seek help. Yet more suggest surrounding them with pupils who can positively influence them. It is up to you as a teacher to decide and you probably have your own views, but we have to know who they are and we have to be able to answer the question: how are you catering for their needs?

Strengths/weaknesses analysis – this was quite a useful exercise with my year 11s. Looking at the data I had, their performance in class and their books. What are their strengths and weaknesses as far as language learning was concerned? Do they know what their strengths are? Are they playing to them and working on their weaknesses? One of the issues with the new GCSE is the many elements: speaking, listening, reading, writing, translations, photocards, roleplays, target language questions, target language answers, 40 words, 90 words and 150 words. What bits are they doing well? What do they need support with? I have seen teachers on some MFL Facebook groups looking for “quick wins”. Actually, could it be a case of looking at the individual pupils and picking one area they need to develop that is going to make the most telling difference in terms of marks?

Resourcing in school – This could be hotly debated and there is a strong argument from both sides. Lend them equipment or don’t lend them equipment, it’s up to you. Similarly the issue is the same with books, do you let them take it home? Much also depends on the individual pupil. For some pupils you will never see the book or pen again, others will have it back in the subsequent lesson. Perhaps for those who persistently struggle the school could supply a pencil case that could be picked up from a central point and returned at the end of the day? Rewards could also be used to ensure its return.

Bought resources

Revision guides?
- A note on guides – having examined a few I am leaning towards CGP. I just feel their explanations and layout are more accessible.
Revision workbooks?
- Some exam boards offer these full of past paper style questions.
Photocopiable booklets from TES?
Learning websites such as samlearning.com and Vocabexpress.
Twilight sessions.
Revision sheets with QR codes containing links to good sites.
MFL revision conferences (one school in Peterborough did this – found via google)
Half-term revision sessions.

With all of this there is a caveat: you need to evaluate how effective and helpful it was. This is very much something OFSTED and the DofE are looking at. It is no longer simply a question of how are you using the money. The assumption is you are using it; the question is what effect is it having?

Resourcing the student with strategies and techniques

Do your PP students know how to revise effectively? I hear from year 11s various comments on learning styles and about highlighters and gel pens however the research shows these to be largely ineffective. If you are curious about how to make revision more effective then I suggest the following:

The Guardian – The Science of Revision – excellent article with links and research to back up.

EverydayMFL – GCSE Revision – Here’s one I made earlier, nothing like a bit of shameless self-promotion!

Classteaching – quality advice and backed up by research.

Anything to prevent the eventuality below:

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Relationship – Some students need someone to believe in them in spite of their home background. They need that person who sees them for who they are and what they can become. They need someone who sees them as a work in progress and who will not give up on them. They need you to be the person who appreciates them just as they are, but cares too much to leave them that way. I am not saying you have to be their best buddy but you can be the role-model, support and guide to life that they have lacked.

“Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

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Teaching Assistants – Teaching assistants can be the unsung heroes and heroines of your classroom if deployed properly. These are the questions you need to be thinking through:

If you have one then what is their remit in your classroom?

Do you direct them or leave them to it
Do they have a seating plan and know who they are meant to work with?
Do they have an order of pupils?
Could you promote independence by asking TA to move on after 1-2 minutes with a student?
Do they elicit or explain?
Do they guide to the answer or give the answer?
How well resourced is your TA? Do they have your schemes of work? Do they see a lesson plan or do you brief them on what is going to be taught?
Who is working harder: your PP student or your TA?
Could you get some planning time with a TA attached to a particular student?

Parents – Not all PP students have difficult family situations so get the parents onside. Be careful not to patronise. It is very easy to assume certain things when the label PP is on a seating plan or class list. Parents evening is an excellent opportunity to build relationships, develop that link between school and home and facilitate learning and progress. One parent recently asked me “what can they be doing outside of school as I don’t speak any languages?” 2-3 minutes later she left armed with strategies and places to find resources to help. In terms of cost, it was minimal but there is a huge potential yield.

Marking Meetings – One of my colleagues recently suggested this at a meeting. I’m quite keen to try it. It used to be the norm when I was in school. Certain teachers would call you up to their desk and go through your book marking it with you while the class were working their way through exercises. Would a pupil premium student benefit from some live feedback and a discussion of misconceptions? Equally, this could apply to all pupils but if you’re going to work through a group, why not start with some PP students?

Photo Credit: Jellaluna via Compfight cc

Any great ideas? Leave them in the comments section below!

Everyday Feedback & Marking

Mar 23, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 7 Comments

Update: Government publish results of review into marking. It’s worth a read and the three principles of “meaningful, manageable and motivating” are sound.

Feedback and marking conjure up a variety of responses. Some teachers secretly enjoy it. Some would like to drop their marking pile in a woodchipping machine. If you are reading this because you want to improve your feedback then hopefully you find something new to try. If you are snowed under then I would point you in this direction.

We know from research by people such as John Hattie that feedback can be incredibly important. Two videos that demonstrate the importance of feedback and how it can be used well are below. The first: Austin’s Butterfly, has done the rounds on Twitter, Facebook and in schools. Watch for the kid at about the 45-50second mark with his encyclopaedic knowledge of butterflies…

The second video shows that over time with a diet of quality instruction and effective feedback people generally improve at whatever they are doing. Pay attention to his control, his reactions and his speed. It is one way I get the kids to “buy in” to my marking and then the subsequent reflection time.

Feedback or Feedforward?

I know, “feedforward” is not a word but this came from a discussion with some colleagues the other day. Most students do not care about the work they have done once it is over. They care about the next piece. So whilst our feedback is reactionary and responds to what they have done, they are already looking at the next thing. One colleague said that he gets students to copy the target from the previous piece of written work at the top of the next piece of written work they are set, so that it is in their mind while they are producing it. If you are following Mira 2 then you maybe approaching a module on clothes. Here is how you could apply this:

Homework 1: Produce a 75 words on things you wear at different times

Student completes piece of work with the following 2 targets

Try to use a greater variety of vocabulary
Add reasons to opinions given

Homework 2: write 75 words about a party you went to and what you wore

Student writes at top of work

TARGET: Use greater variety of vocabulary.
HOW: no repeated nouns or adjectives where possible.

Suddenly we have a situation where the feedback informs the next piece of work. This means the next piece of work is not only a response to the marking but it is also driving the learning forward.

Do you use coloured pens?

Schools vary on this. Here are some of the ones out there I have heard about:

The purple pen of progress. This is for improvements to work or redrafting of work.
The pink pen of pride. This is for work a teacher wishes to highlight as particularly good or because of how well the task has been met by what has been written
The green pen of growth. This incorporates targets to improve.
The green pen of peer assessment. It’s for peer assessment, the clue is in the name. It is quite a good way of visually defining who did the marking (more for observer than the kid)
The red pen of teacher marking.
The turquoise pen of…you’re just making it up now!

I have seen coloured pens used really effectively in one of our feeder primary schools. The presentation of their work is stunning too particularly given a very tough catchment area. Something goes wrong between the Summer of year 6 and the Autumn of year 7, cynics might suggest it’s adolescence…

Highlighters

My new favourite. This came originally from a colleague in Bristol and a colleague currently on maternity leave. Underlining an entire piece of work in different highlighters.

Green = good leave it as it is
Yellow = something needs correcting

You could add some codes such as (G) = grammar (W.O) = word order (S) = Spelling to aid understanding where needed or just let the yellow stand for itself and force the burden of correction and thought back on to the pupil. Some may disagree but I find this visually powerful for the kids. Weaker ability kids who receive a piece of work that is largely green with one or two hints of yellow get a massive morale boost from this. Even the ones that get more yellow than green benefit as they still appreciate knowing that at least some of it was right!

Stamps

Ross Mcgill who runs the Teacher Toolkit website has a post about verbal feedback stamps. I see no point in repeating him. However many stamps can save time and I have benefited from the stamp stacks supplied by a website out there. The stamps contain things such as:

“please give nouns a capital”
“please take more care over presentation”
“please watch your verb endings”
“great work, keep it up!”

DIRT

I mentioned DIRT mats in this post. There are a number of things you can do to maximise DIRT time. Firstly, make it really clear what you want students to do with the time and how you want them to do it. Secondly, refuse to take any questions apart from ones concerning your handwriting for the first 5 minutes. Lastly in that first 5 minutes, focus on the ones who need your attention most.

Prove to me beyond all reasonable doubt

My Head of Department posed a difficult question last week: “early on in year 7 when you have an able kid getting everything right, what feedback do you give that drives their learning forward?” I happen to have just such a year 7 so here is what I tried. When we have done grammatical exercises, her DIRT task has been to “prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you can apply the grammar points from the previous lesson using pages … of Mira 1,2,3”. She then gets on with exercises that challenge, extend, consolidate and deepen her learning. Sometimes the grammar book used is not the regular one (e.g: listos rather than Mira or the GCSE foundation book if I was feeling really mean). She has responded really well.

Patricia’s problems page.

Patricia is a student I teach who struggled with a new language: German. We decided that at the back of her book we should have a problems page. Initially, I did not mark much of her work to keep her confidence levels high but we had an ongoing dialogue on the problem page. It was not triple impact marking or deep marking or excessive dialogue. It was just an honest conversation where she could ask the questions she did not want to ask in class.

“I get that the verb goes second, what if you have two or three verbs?”
“How do you form questions?”
“Why can’t German be easier?”
“What is the difference between denn and weil?

Feedback sheets

TES is full of these. Rather than writing the comments then they can be on a sheet. This can be very effective but again the sheet has to be meaningful and linked to your assessment criteria. I remember marking an oral exam with another teacher and they suggested I listen to the amount of subjunctives and connectives the student was using. The problem is that the Edexcel Speaking mark scheme does not really mention either. If you are going to produce a sheet like these then make it a good one. The question the sheet needs to answer is not only “what do I need to work on?” but also “how am I going to go about it?”

Formative Comments

For a while we ran with comment only marking and to an extent we still do in that pieces of work are not graded. It can be very easy to get into a rut of formative comments. The following are based on the new GCSE Writing mark scheme (AQA is the only accredited one I am aware of).

Content	Quality of Language	Accuracy	Language Specific
Stick more closely to the question	Include greater variety of tenses	Check genders	Spanish accents only go one direction: /
What else could you say about?	Use a greater variety of opinion phrases	Check spelling	Please give nouns a capital
How could you make … clearer?	Find more interesting adjectives than “aburrido” and “interesante”	Check verb/adjective endings	Check direction of accents
Aim for longer, more detailed sentences	Include more complex clauses and structures	Check accents	Check use of avoir/etre

If making comments then they should be demanding a response. Mary Myatt has some points to make on this here.

Subtle comments.

The exercise book is a way of communicating with your students. Do not underestimate the power of a well-placed positive comment. Matt Walsh’s blog has a brilliant post worth reading called “to the quiet boring girl in the class“. Sometimes they just need a little encouragement. One of the most talented students I have ever worked with once said to me “why must it always be “to improve”, why can’t I just be good for a few seconds?” Here’s the challenge: pick the quiet kid that doesn’t contribute much in lessons. Look through their book, find a piece of work, single out the positives and finish with a comment about how much you valued the effort and thought that went into it. If you need convincing of the effect you can have then read this.

“I thrived on the quiet praise I was given” – Emma Thomas

Everydaymfl’s Marking & Feedback

I’ve outlined a lot of different stuff here. I’m sure you have lots of other idea. If you saw Everydaymfl’s books, what would he hope you would see?

Underlined date, title and label as to class or homework
Legible work.
Pieces of work marked with highlighters.
Codes where absolutely necessary but very few to force the student to examine their work.
2-3 targets at the end of work with how to improve.
DIRT task for the student to work on (using purple pen).
Some elaborate positive comments – not just “well done” but “this is great because.”
Challenging and redrafting of poor quality or poorly presented work.
Regular marking (half-termly)
A comment somewhere to make the quiet kid feel ten feet tall.

Getting ready for the new GCSE: the sequel

Feb 28, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 3 Comments

“There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.” Phil Knight

I’m not actually sure who Phil Knight is, but I like the quote and it has relevance to this situation with the new GCSE. We will not master the new system in its first few years but we can influence the outcome by preparing our students well. The last post on this topic looked primarily at preparing pupils for the new speaking tasks and a previous one examined the return of the roleplay. This one will focus on the writing element of the new GCSE. I have previously blogged before on writing but this is specifically aiming at the new GCSE. Whilst I aim to be unbiased, three exam boards are submitting 3rd and 4th drafts. This post therefore will be written with the AQA specs in mind. Today’s post is an amalgamation of my own thoughts and ALL South West’s conference in Bristol yesterday.

Here is a summary of what candidates have to do based on the AQA spec.

Foundation Writing	Marks Available	Higher Writing	Marks Available
4 Sentences in TL based on picture	8	90 word task in TL Instructions in TL	16
40 word paragraph in TL. Instructions in TL	16	150 word task based on 2 bullet points Instructions and bullet points in TL	32
Translation of sentences into TL	10	Translation of paragraph into TL	12
90 word task in TL Instructions in TL	16

The question inevitably is: how do we prepare our pupils for this? A quick look at the mark scheme provides us with two themes to be aware of:

Foundation students will need to focus on content and quality of language.

Higher students will need to focus on content and range of language.

From what I can see, it appears the higher students will need to do more, with more. We are looking at breadth and depth, which is great. Teachers of foundation students might this allows more time for reinforcement and repetition of material, once you have worked out how to teach all the topics in 2 years but that is another blog post. Given that we now have 6-7 lessons per CA back then we have to maximise the time on language learning.

Whatever you choose to do the focus will be on preparing students to use the language in a situation where they have no help other than some TL prompts, a picture and what they remember. Some of the ideas below were gleaned from yesterday’s conference and credit has been given below where appropriate.

Folded tests (thanks to Greg Horton)

Greg suggested this idea yesterday. I might have modified it as I couldn’t remember it all. Students have an A4 sheet of absolutely key phrases that they should know (creo que, es, son, pensaba que, pienso que, voy a, espero, me gustaría etc). English is down one side and Spanish down the other. You hold the sheet portrait and fold it in half. The students then test each other: Sherice says the English and Chardonnay aims to recall the Spanish working down the list. They then swap but Chardonnay starts at the bottom of the list and works up. They then check their scores and see who wins. The test reinforces and tests spontaneous production of key phrases. Greg then suggested a penalty shootout between the two highest scorers at the front of the class. This would ensure that the students know quality language and it places value on knowing these phrases. You could also develop the range and breadth of language with higher sets by changing the test papers after a term. A homework task could be to make sentences involving the words.

TL Instructions for all written work

Photo Credit: mgjosefsen via Compfight cc

The new exam is going to be largely in TL. Some exam boards may supply “probable rubrics” but why not start now? The more students are used to it; the less scary the exam will be. As MFL teachers we are used to acting and a lot of gesture and mime can probably help to ingrain the key phrases in the minds of our learners. Failing that then you can teach it to them or have your most frequent utterances displayed on walls or learning mats.

Learning walls

Displays of posters might need to become a thing of the past (perhaps save them for the corridors). What can students learn from your wall? At the moment, I will be honest, they cannot learn enough from my walls. A fantastic idea I saw at Bradley Stoke Community School was a teacher who had pouches on the walls of short summaries of how to do each tense or how to form negatives in French. What do your walls contain that improve written work? Foundation students will need this kind of support. Otherwise they will become too dependent on dictionaries they are no longer allowed to use If I had my way the walls in my room would act like the ones in Minority Report, but we’re not there, yet!

Photo Credit: youflavio via Compfight cc

Equipment checks

One of the curses of controlled assessments is that students memorise entire paragraphs about their work experience but cannot form sentences in a foreign language or hold a basic conversation. Eva Lamb spoke yesterday about engineering situations such as an equipment check and repeating TL that can be used in other situations:

Photo Credit: Nene La Beet via Compfight cc

Eva:Hast du ein Heft?

Boris: Ja ich habe ein Heft?

Eva: Hast du dein Heft?

Vladmir: Ich habe kein Heft

Eva: Hast du dein Heft verloren

Vladmir: Ja Ich habe mein Heft verloren

Eva: detention!

Ok…so she didn’t say the last line…but it is a very simple way to recycle language and one I am itching to try. She suggested doing it with year 7 from the very first lesson. It forces every student to speak and the haben verb paradigm is instantly being absorbed. From then, change it to homework, who won the Manchester United Arsenal match (sorry Arsenal fans) etc. It is also not much of a stretch from knowing “ich habe, some personal pronouns and some past participles to being able to use them in written work.

More Grammar practice; less nouns.

Students can find the nouns for homework on Wordreference. Textbooks are massively guilty of presenting nouns, nouns and more nouns. Students need verbs. Every sentence on this blog contains a verb, some might even have more than one. Verbs are going to be key. Foundation students will need a stock of them that they can deploy at any point. Higher students will likely need a greater range of them but know what they can do with them. For example: knowing that adding é ía to a Spanish infinitive will change the meaning and equally removing the last two letters and replacing with o or é will also change the meaning. Irregular verbs will likely need to be learnt. This could be done for homework.

Core language

Two of my colleagues from English recently tried testing their bottom set 3 times on the same vocabulary. They took in the marks from the third time. They also made the students then write some sentences using the vocabulary. Unsurprisingly the scores increased each time, even for the weakest.

MFL departments need to nail down a core of language that students should know at the end of years 7,8 and 9. If you work with primary schools then you can do even more of this. Every student should be able to produce certain structures. Why is it that last year’s year 11 bottom set could also remember juego al fútbol (pronounced “joo way go al fut-ball”)? Yet a simple pienso que, debería, tengo que or other verbs was beyond them. They need a core and they need testing on it regularly to give it value. They also need testing on their ability to apply it.

Some phrases need to be procedural in the same way that students are taught a procedure to approaching a simultaneous equation, expanding brackets or a quadratic formula. We do this with ,weil clauses but do we do it with other structures?

Transferable structure plenaries

Most of our lessons contain some nouns but it is the grammatical structure that is important. Take for example the Expo 1 lesson on “dans ma ville”. The structure that the book is teaching is a very simple “il y a” and “il n’y a pas de”. Quite often students will remember this in the context of “dans ma ville il y a” but the question is can they apply the il y a elsewhere?

Photo Credit: eldeeem via Compfight cc

This photo could be shown at the end of the lesson. Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans le photo? Suddenly the students have to apply their knowledge of the structure along with the previous topic of house and home. Get them to produce the sentences on mini-whiteboards. This way you can measure their spontaneous production of the TL (thus managing the first task of the foundation paper) and also check their understanding of the structure. Then try it with another photo (maybe the one below). Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans le photo?

Say more

Photo Credit: zenobia_joy via Compfight cc

Greg Horton had a slide which simply had question words on it. One of his class would sit at the front and be given a simple sentence to read or you could give them a picture. The students ask questions to elicit more detail from the person sat at the front. Continuing on from the previous idea, the starting sentence could be: “Hay un perro” Pupil could then ask:

¿Cuántos? ¿Dónde? ¿De qué color es?

More advanced students could ask:

¿Por qué? ¿Qué hace? ¿qué opinas tú de los perros?

Again it is about spontaneous production. Students could note down the answers on whiteboards to test their listening. They could change the verb forms to practice grammar. They could even do a tabloid version on mini-whiteboards where they exaggerate every claim that is made or completely misrepresent what the student says:

Student: en la foto hay un perrito tierno.

Students: en la foto hay un perro agresivo y violente.

Improving teaching so my students don’t wish they went to Hogwarts.

Aug 31, 2015Aug 30, 2015 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

Photo Credit: TRF_Mr_Hyde via Compfight cc

Over the summer I worked my way through Daniel T Willingham’s book “why don’t students like school?” It is an exceptionally readable book. Willingham introduces the principle that underpins the chapter, developing it with explanations, examples and humour before applying it to the classroom. The cognitive psychology presented is therefore easy to understand, yet remains academically satisfying. I’ve learnt a lot from this book and would recommend it as excellent CPD. The book considers questions such as “Why do students remember everything that’s on television and forget everything I say?” “Is drilling worth it?” and “How should I adjust my teaching for different types of learners?” The final chapter then directly challenges teachers. It is also greatly helped with a summary table at the end that sets out the cognitive principles of each chapter, a question to prompt your thinking regarding your students and important classroom implications.

What am I taking from the book?

◊ Changing the way I do starters. My starters often take the form of testing some knowledge from last lesson to see if it has been retained. Now, I want to assess further back and make sure that the starter tests the requisite knowledge for the lesson I am about to teach.

◊ “Memory is the residue of thought”. How can I get my students to think more? I’m planning to make sure I give more time for thinking rather than simply picking a fast-thinking student. More think-pair-share might be used in eliciting grammar rules that I present students with. What would a mentally demanding MFL lesson look like? Would my students be able to cope with it?

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◊ Proficiency requires practice. I’m planning to set longer and tougher homeworks this year (in keeping with school policy). I wonder if sometimes homework does enough consolidation. I also want students to take more responsibility for their learning outside the classroom and Teacher Toolkit has an idea of “takeaway homework” that I would quite like to try. Why is it that the musical students are happy to learn their lyrics or their scales but cannot apply the same drive to vocabulary or conjugation? Is it a question of payoff or do I need to tailor the practice to them in some way?

Photo Credit: madabandon via Compfight cc evocative of my own piano playing…

◊ Proficiency requires practice 2. I’ve also considered experimenting with DIRT time (directed improvement and reflection time). Some very funky editable mats can be found at the mathematics shed. Willingham suggests thinking about what material students need in their working memory and long term memory and practising it regularly over time. Spreading out the practice (or interleaving schemes of work) is something I need to consider. The idea my students need to gain is: “It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended periods of practice.”

◊ Relationships are key. Willingham reminds us throughout the book that the “emotional bond between students and teacher – for better or worse – accounts for whether students learn”. He also makes the point that this has to be combined with a teacher who makes boring material interesting and accessible. I want to make sure that every child in my classroom gets some of my time. I’m planning to trial live marking with a class this year. Live marking is where the class work on a task while you go around marking some books allowing students to see what you think and discuss it with them. As well as marking and handing back books that I have done after school, I want to give this approach a go here and there, particularly with the students I feel get less of my attention.

Lastly, if you appreciated the photo at the top of this blog, then check out Hogwarts’ OFSTED report.

“Sir! When are we going to the computer room?”

Feb 8, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 3 Comments

Whilst not a pre-requisite to good teaching or good learning, some ICT room input is useful every now and again. Students enjoy the occasional trip to the computer room. I should use it more and my classes often remind me to do so! Here are my regular ICT room lessons. If you have a good idea drop one in the comments section below.

Sell your sibling (thanks to a former colleague for this one)

https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Sell-your-brother-on-Ebay-6193621

Surprisingly, I have never got into trouble for this and the kids love it. If they are an only child like the writer of this blog then suggest they sell their teacher. Currently I am for sale on the wall of my own classroom. In the event that your pursue the latter course, you may wish to correct any factual inaccuracies that ensue from the pupils description of you (which can often best be described as skewed, misinformed or just wrong). If you’re wondering, I went for €1500.

WANTED

Great way to reinforce descriptions. Give the pupils a helpsheet with phrases like “armed and dangerous”, “do not approach”, “reward” and then get them to find a celebrity and go for it. A good plan is to tell them they are doing this lesson and have them think of someone beforehand, otherwise the normal battle of pictures vs content ensues and content loses out. Ideally, they should probably avoid doing one of their teachers but if they’re learning and being creative with the language don’t stop them. Display it in the corridor for maximum effect!

Gap Year

Students plan a gap year using the future tense. They need to explain where they are going to go, would like to go, intend to go etc and why. If you have access to www.youtube.com then “where the hell is matt 2008” could provide some inspiration, although it might have more of an effect on your travel plans this summer.

Students could add more details and description. The trick is to get them to focus on the language first and the pictures later.

Lebenslauf

Designing a CV. Great way of teaching a range of vocabulary and revising a variety of topics. Microsoft word has some good templates for this that can be customised. You could set homework prior to this lesson so the pupils find the vocabulary they need and then produce the CV, or equally do it the other way around and teach them how to use http://www.wordreference.com properly.

Audio guide using audacity

Students produce a radio advert to encourage people to visit their town. This can be done using the program audacity (free to download – or it used to be). The difficulty is recording it. Most students will happily do it but in an ICT room it does mean there is a lot of background noise. Maybe suggest they do it at home or if your school allows then use http://www.spreaker.com/

Past listening exam papers

If you have a mixed ability group the ICT room is a great place for these. Give the pupils the papers and put the listening tracks on the system or intranet where they can access them. It also allows them to control volume and work through at their own pace. This is good when you are developing exam technique. Obviously some in-class or exam hall practice is good but this helps build confidence. It allows you to cater to higher and foundation students if you have a mixed group.

Google Earth Directions

Why not create some directions that the pupils have to use google-earth to follow. They could also create directions for their friends. If they get to the right place then clearly they understood the directions – very easy way to evidence progress. There is a good resource on the TES for this but if you know where you are and where you are going then do your own. I tried some with Madrid and got pupils going around the main square before being dropped elsewhere in the city and having to find the Bernabeu stadium.

Languagesonline.org.uk and samlearning.com

Both of these are superb websites and are improving all the time. The former has recently been improved to facilitate use of tablet and smartphone. The latter is gradually building up its stock of listening practice. Languages online is free to use and has a lot of good exercises for practising grammar. It also offers the explanations and hints to remind students of the rules they are practising and links well to Key Stage 3 schemes of work.

Little explorers picture dictionary

Great resource for early years or lower school. My students have recently found this a great help on the house and home topic. Whilst they see the title of “little explorers” as patronising, the website is very good. Useful resource for weaker learners and perhaps getting students to make their own vocabulary lists.

Christmas Webquest

Worksheets 1 and 2 are great for developing cultural knowledge. I’ve only just discovered the rest of the site and there looks to be some really good material for French, German and Spanish.

5 ideas to try this week

Jan 25, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

Dear readers

Just a few simple ideas this time. Thank you to whoever is tweeting this site as the views go rocketing up. I haven’t ventured on to Twitter yet but it might happen soon.

Extreme battleships

You’ve probably done the normal mfl version with a 4×4 grid and phrases that students have to use to sink their opponent’s ship.

How about an 8×8 grid with two people playing against two other people at the same time using the same board? It sounds mental but it can work. You need a very competitive class, very clear instructions and a certain arrangement of desks.

Differentiated Quiz Quiz Trade with mini-whiteboards

Get students to write a question on their whiteboard and the start of the answer on the back of the whiteboard. Students must ask and answer a question before swapping whiteboards. I tried this with ¿Qué estudias? and ¿Qué vas a estudiar? Students had “estudio” or “voy a estudiar” on the other side so when the person was answering, they had help with their answer. Went down well with a low ability group.

Extreme holiday consequences

A fair amount of pre-teaching of verbs needed here. Give students a long piece of paper, tell them to put their name at the bottom (this throws them a bit). Then lead them through the following insisting that they fold over and pass the paper on each time. At the end return it to the original person. Writing and reading task in one 🙂

Somewhere you went
who you went with
how you got there
el primer día + 2 activities
Opinion
el Segundo día+ 2 activities
Opinion
el ultimo día + 2 activites
Volví en + transport

You can adapt this to your heart’s content. This could work with what you do at the weekend, what you plan to do at the weekend. It could be done with school. Very flexible activity that allows for a high degree of creativity and teaches some useful phrases at the same time.

30 second summary

A great plenary activity that allows you to check on the learning of a class or even better an individual. You know how some students do not give much away by their facial expressions, set the class the task of summarising the content of the lesson or explaining a grammar point in 30 seconds., Go over and listen to that particular student.

Youtube

There is a lot of dross out there but if you find something good, make it part of your practice. I am not a massive fan of songs given that my ability to sing is …well.. “limited” would be putting it kindly. The school insurance probably does not cover the resultant broken glass.

Particularly enjoyed using these two recently:

We exploited them by listening, gap fills, finding phrases, and then trying to sing it. If you have VLC media player you can slow the play speed (0.85 is good)

Everyday Differentiation

Jan 11, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

Differentiation is key to developing the abilities of ALL of our learners. Often you hear about “differentiation by outcome”. This is the idea that wherever the learners end up is differentiated, as some will inevitably produce more or better quality work than others. I’ll summarise the types of differentiation I use below and then give you some ideas you can try tomorrow for each. The graphic above explains what differentiation is. The picture below explains why we need it.

Differentiation by resource
Resource is often a euphemism for worksheet at this point. It can be effective if you are somebody who rarely uses worksheets. Students like to have things they can go through at their own pace and given that other subjects use them, why not MFL? However, resource does not have to mean worksheet.

Give more able students some authentic materials to work with on a topic – you may have to go to the country to get these!
Listening – give weaker students multiple choice answers and ask them to highlight
Reading – give weaker students a post-it note and encourage them to tackle the text line by line (covering the rest). It reduces the amount of visual stimulus.

Differentiation by task/choice

This can take various forms. I think it is best employed in the production stage of a lesson or equally the practice stage if you are covering a grammar point.

Students could develop their own response to a task eg: podcast, presentation, speech, voki avatar on “things to do in my town”
Students could pick from a selection of tasks that all achieve the same aim. With lower ability sets I like to do this when we teach the clothes topic. The boys can design sports wear (the new United shirt) and the girls respond really well to designing their prom dress. Some boys also like the opportunity to “suit up” so give them the prom option too; in the same way some girls have a staunch allegiance to a football club so don’t be too restrictive. It is a great way of teaching clothes, colours and dictionary use (corsage, bow tie, cufflinks, high heels – all words I learnt from this lesson).
In revision lessons, if you have access to a revision guide with graded activities. Give students a series of activites you want them to work through but with different starting points. Students who are more confident could start on more advanced activities but make sure wherever they start that the activities gradually increase in difficulty so as to ensure they are pushing themselves.

Differentiation by support (TA)

Whilst I realise that differentiation by support could mean significantly more, I wanted to devote a section of this to the use and direction of TAs. Here is what the best TAs I have worked with have done:

Focus on the weaker students – get to know them. They may not all be immediately apparent.
Differentiate tasks for the students they are attached to.
Giving students encouragement but praising their effort never their intelligence.
One TA went and produced clocks with moveable hands to help teach students the time.
Another took a group of students and taught them how to tell the time in English so that they could do it in Spanish.

Check out my post on TAs, unsung heroes of the classroom

Differentiation by interest

Sometimes students want to write or speak about things unique to them. It may be that comparing modes of transport or the environment hold little interst for them. Sometimes differentiation is not about ability but about interest. I find I can get a lot of kids engaged if I can make links to things they are interested in (football is very useful). The pets topic works for a lot, as do clothes, food and holidays However, we must be careful to engage all kids, what about the one who reads? Could he/she do their coursework on a book rather than a film?

Quiz your students at the start of the year – ask them about their strengths and weaknesses within MFL, their hopes for the year and their interests. This will allow you to plan lessons that get them onside immediately.
Make links to real-life situations – if a student has been on holiday recently to a French/Spanish/German speaking country use that in your lesson.
If teaching school subjects to year 9s (mira 3 does this) then rather than just teaching them school subjects, get them to debate their options in Spanish. What are you going to study? Why?

Lessons learnt teaching MFL to KS3 bottom sets

Oct 4, 2014Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

I’ve not quite cracked it with KS4 yet but i’ll have a go at ideas for key stage 3.

Having taught a number of bottom sets in the past 3 years I’ve learnt the following:

1) The next level is quite a big jump in their minds

2) Memorisation, literacy, behaviour and confidence are your main battlegrounds

3) Positive reinforcement has to be relentless – yep even for that kid you just thought of. 🙂

4) Relationships and rules are of equal importance.

5) They are reluctant to use the TL.

Some teaching ideas that regularly work:

1) Writing challenge (adapted from Rachel Hawkes)

Rachel Hawkes’ idea is to give an answer to a question that is exactly … words long 9/11/13. The idea was to get students extending sentences with ,weil. I’ve changed it a little. Get a student to pick a number between 35 and 55 (whatever range you choose). Then tell them that whoever can write a piece using everything they’ve learnt, the textbook and their exercise book gets a merit or whatever reward system you run with. 80-90% of kids will give it a good shot and be surprised that they can be quite successful.

2) Running dictations

Really good way of practising speaking, listening and writing. Just make sure the runner does not have a pen or they will write the difficult words on their hand. Caught a budding tattoo artist the other day. Another thought: don’t make them too long. Or if they must be longer put part II on another piece of paper somewhere else in the room and that way it doesn’t look like so much!

3) Bingo/Last man standing bingo

Bingo is exactly what it says. Last man standing bingo is similar. Write down four items of vocabulary on topic then stand up. One student is a caller and goes through words. If you have all four crossed out then you are out and sit down. Winners are the last few left standing. Good mini-test of listening skills and injects some fun into the lesson. Think it might work well with Queen’s “another one bites the dust” music as they start to be “out”

4) Speaking bingo grid.

You make a 4×4 grid of phrases you want them to use. Students then have a time limit to use as many as possible making sure they make sense. Their partner notes the ones that they use. The person who uses the most in the time wins.

5) Points for speaking/writing.

You make another grid but the top row has various point allocations for what they say. So depending on what you want them to use then give them various points (keep scores in 2 or 5 times table for easy adding). Again give a time limit and set them off. Award winners appropriately.

6) Teams idea (massive thanks to Bill Rogers “tackling the tough class).

Get the students to write down someone they respect and someone they like. Put your class into teams and give them points for everything: uniform, presentation, work rate, use of TL in lessons, helping others, helping put out equipment, being kind, answering questions, winning team games etc. Take off points if they talk when you are or break other rules. Keep this going over a term with a prize for winners at the end of the term. Seems laborious at first but can engender really good habits and cooperative/collaborative learning. Allow students to submit transfer requests at end of term that you will “consider”. Have done this 3 years in a row with tough groups and find I have far less bad behaviour and far less detentions. Kids, particularly boys are used to team sports and it plays to their sense of competitiveness.

7) Reading reduction paper (thanks to my HoD although he swears he can’t remember having this idea).

If students with weak literacy are tackling a tough reading text then give them a post-it note or an opaque ruler and encourage them to tackle it line by line. I have found that the reduction of information bombardment helps and they can then work at their own pace. It is a simple way of catering to students who find reading difficult. It is also successful with dyslexics.

I think this post requires a part II sometime. I’ve enjoyed writing it, hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and have something you can use.

Everyday MFL

Ideas for the everyday MFL teacher.

differentiation