GCSE MFL

The Return of the Roleplay

/ dlh202 / 2 Comments

When i was in year 8 (a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away) we looked at how to order from an Eisdiele. It proved to be a useful lesson as two years later in Germany i was ordering ice creams and surprising my classmates with my ability to make sprinkles, cream and flakes appear. Their 99s looked pitiful in comparison. It made the language come alive. I’m happy that it would appear that roleplays are making a return. I remember doing them at GCSEs.  I remember the school coach had broken down and I had to explain where I was on the autobahn and get help (in the the role play -my school trips have been largely incident free).

I have recently been forced to attempt some typical roleplay situations in my third and weakest language such as visiting the chemists after being a mosquito banquet, hiring a car and buying stamps in a tabac. My experiences of this lead me to think that as teachers we are faced with two questions.

  1. What do students need in order to perform well?
  2. What activities might help them?

Transferable language.

Pour students need to be in e habit of transferring language between situations. I often remind students that unlike science, languages require recycling knowledge. Science lessons seem to cover space one half term before moving to plants the next, languages requires a constant revisiting of key structures and vocabulary.  My plan would be that students at he end of each half term have a bank of words they can apply to a variety of topics. Rachel Hawkes’ saco mágico is a good idea here – a page in students’ books where they note down phrases they need to reuse. It should probably b tested regularly to give it value in the eyes of the students.

Confidence

Students need to feel they can talk and they can get out of situations. This needs to be without using je ne sais pas for every situation encountered! Below are some activities that might help in developing confidence.

Schwindler/Trampa – students write cards with key phrases and some cards with just the word trampa. They play the cards face down reading the phrase but if they play a trampa card then they have to improvise a phrase. This developed he abilities of my bottom set yr 11s and saved me from some silent oral exams.

Dialogue chop up – Exactly as the name suggests. Give students a dialogue to rearrange either in terms of words or sentence.

KS3 drama – I have always done dramas when we have covered buying food and drink, buying clothes or going to the doctors. Make it more challenging by giving groups certain challenges to complete eg broken leg – explain how it happened. Sometimes i have included curveballs at the last minute in the restaurant drama such as “lo siento señor pero no tenemos pizza”, it forces thinking and improvisation. Students also feel a greater sense of achievement if they can do something real life. They may not get to talk about their school subjects on holiday but they will likely order food.

Face/shoulder/diagonal partner – Make students practice with everyone. The more practice the do and feedback they receive; the likelier a successful outcome. Face partner is the person opposite and shoulder partner are the people next to them. I never use the terms but it is a helpful distinction for the blog.

If this is the answer what is the question – Borrowed from Mock the Week, students need to know what they are asking if they have to pose a question and equally they need an understanding of what they are being asked. Take the breakdown situation earlier, we do not want students answering blau when the question was “wo ist dein Auto jetzt?”

What do you do? Share what works as it is coming and we’re all in this together. Be the first to leave a comment!

GCSE Revision Lessons

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It’s that time of year again (no, sadly not Christmas).  Most year 11s are taking a pummelling from all sides with a revision sized baseball bat.  How can we do revision effectively in MFL?  It would appear to me there are three key areas. 1) Teaching exam technique 2) Vocabulary refreshing and/or building 3) Revision technique

Exam Technique

Certain things are guaranteed on an exam paper and students need to be aware of this.

  • There will be a question on tenses – can they spot them?  Sometimes time markers play a role here.  Students need to be aware of the features of each tense.  Chris Fuller made a good point that anything future adds and anything present/past takes away in French and Spanish.  If they  spot an infinitive it is likely a future tense unless preceded by an opinion phrase.
  • Higher level papers will often mention all three of your multiple choice options.  The trick is working out the right one.  Two are probably close to right so listen carefully the second time to these.
  • Exam boards have to promote SMSC just as schools do, students need to remember the exam is written for teenagers.  When the question says “What are Karla’s views on smoking?”  The answer is unlikely to be “it is harmless and we should all just light up now”
  • Exams follow a peak-trough model where harder questions are preceded by easier ones.  They need to make sure they do not give up too quickly.
  • Leave nothing blank!  I’ve had students get 5 extra marks in a past paper.  When the kid said he got an A, he shocked most of his classmates!  He later admitted not answering 8 questions but guessed them and was rewarded for it.
  • Some subjects have introduced walking/talking mocks.  I prefer to brief students before they do they paper, allow them to make any notes of reminders and then let them go.  Closer to the exams the briefings get shorter.

Vocabulary refreshing / building

  • Mindmaps, lists, flashcards.  Give students a topic and make them produce a mindmap with the use of nothing more than their brains.  Then let them have access to support materials to add to it and increase their knowledge.  Alternatively get the person next to them to add to it and pass it around a group of 4 to grow it as much as possible.
  • Make a tarsia puzzle.  This involves chopping up a sheet of A4 into 8 pieces and writing matching English and German along each inside edge.  The idea is to put the paper back together again with every English and German definition matching perfectly with no text around the outside.  They can be automatically made here.
  • Lots and lots of listening practice.  Some great advice on teaching listening can be found courtesy of Dr Gianfranco Conti here.  Some reasonably good advice can be found here (shameless self-promotion).
  • Vocab wars – give two students different lists of vocab which they quickfire at each other.  Winner gets a prize.  Make own lists for subsequent lesson.  Allow a mark if they get it right or if they self-correct quickly then allow them a point.  Works on demotivated bottom sets, did it earlier today.
  • Ditch the highlighters, they involve minimal cognitive demand and all the vocabulary is important.
  • Avoid teaching huge amounts of cognates as the students can work them out with considerable ease.  Focus on the more challenging language.  Would you rather a kid knew anrufen or telefonieren?
  • Websites are useful but should not be the sole revision tool of a student.  Linguascope intermediate and languagesonline.org.uk among others will be able to help
  • PQRST Past Paper Method – possibly the best thing I have come across in a while for making a past paper effective
    • Preview: revise the topics before tackling the paper.
    • Questions: now do the paper.
    • Review: see questions below
    • Scribble: note any new vocabulary on the paper that was not known.
    • Test: test yourself two or three days later on that vocabulary to check retention.
  • Past papers should not just be an end in themselves.  Completing a past paper is good but using it to push revision and learning forward is better.  Students should be looking at the following after completing a paper:
    • What new vocabulary is there that I didn’t know?
    • Did I miss out on marks from misunderstanding the question requirements?
    • Did I miss out on marks because I didn’t know the material?l
    • Did I miss out an answer – the crime above all crimes on an MFL paper.  When the odds on a correct answer are 33% or higher, missing answers out is silly.

I have a mixed ability GCSE group with grades ranging from A*-G.  It is a two year fast-track German course.  I have seen many good ideas on the secondary mfl facebook group but due to the nature of the course there is simply not time for trivial pursuit, jenga or balloon towers.  They do look fun though!  Below is a typical revision lesson:

Topic: healthy living and lifestyle

STARTER: activity that refreshes their memory of large amounts of vocab eg: odd one out, make a mindmap, 30 word vocab test German–> English or English–> German.

MAIN:

Present: a revision activity students could do at home on any topic but model it with this one.

Listening practice using past exam questions or revision workbook questions.  Immediate feedback and discussion of where the marks were won and lost.  Suitable for both higher and foundation although leaning towards higher.

Split class into two groups

Highers do some practice reading questions on the topic while foundations do practice listening appropriate to their level on the topic, then they switch.  Students doing the listening will be talked through how to approach the question, what the question is looking for and any handy strategies that come to mind.  We then attempt it.  Those doing reading are largely left to it.

Set homework: revision via vocabexpress / samlearning / past paper / make a mindmap / make a tarsia puzzle / languagesonline

PLENARY: 

Students then may face one more listening text (because you can never practise this enough) or another vocabulary building activity based on my experiences over the course of the lesson.

 

Revision Technique. https://classteaching.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/supporting-learning-through-effective-revision-techniques/ This one blog post gave me a lot of ideas.  I don’t think I can improve on what Shaun Allison has written so enjoy. Lastly, show this poster to your students (thank to Chris Hildrew).

dont-be-upset-poster

5 ideas to try this week

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Sorry for the lack of posts, things got busy at work so here is a double whammy.  One of the 5 ideas to try series and the other is a collection of thoughts on GCSE revision.

1) No ICT at all

I think we can become too dependent on computers.  The phrase “death by Powerpoint” is not a new one.  Kids are largely unsurprised by anything we can do with a computer.  So how about turning it off for a lesson (apart from your register of course).  The other day with my French class we had a lesson with no ICT at all.  They did not have to even look at a screen.  It was great!  Everything was old-school.  We had flashcards, card sorts and all manner of activities but nothing involved a computer.

2) Giant scrabble

Great way of stretching pupils thinking skills and knowledge of vocabulary on a particular topic.  Put as many mini-whiteboards together as you can.  Start with a word in the middle.  Pupils get a point per letter for their word and a point per letter from any word it bisects.  You could make it a team effort if you have large classes so two pupils work cooperatively.  My old German teacher used to do this on an OHP, we loved it but the mini-whiteboard version allows everybody to be involved.  I’ve also tried adding challenges such as: include words on the theme of … (double word score), include a particular grammar item (triple word score).  The possibilities are not endless, as that is a cliché, but there are quite a few.

3) Differentiated dice speaking.

I might have posted this one before but it keeps with the no-ICT theme above.  Give pupils dice.  If you can buy some D12s (12-sided dice) then do.  You then have the following options.

  • Put 2 sets of  numbers 1-6 with vocabulary (eg me gusta and school subjects) pupils roll the dice twice, say the phrase and their partner translates
  • Give them a task per number of the dice to revise material covered over the year.
  • Give them a task per number of the 6 sided dice and then a modifying element with the twelve sided (heavyH on prep but great for stretching the kids).

4) 50-50 Hands up/hands down

I’ve seen some classes where the rule is no hands up and others where the rule is hands up all the time.  I’ve been trying a mixture of both recently and it’s working.  It maintains the engagement as both other methods have two distinct problems.  The no hands up rule is great but only if the teacher makes a point of picking on all class members.  It can easily lead to picking on the brighter ones,  further the learning and progress of a class.  The latter has an issue as it allows the quieter members of our class to hide.  I find this one neatly counters both.  It shows you who is keen but allows you to keep all members of the class on their toes.

5) Murder mystery  https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/murder-mystery-lesson–food-and-drink-6091212

Brilliant resource by the exceptional rosaespanola  on TES revising foods, likes and dislikes.  My only concern is that my bottom set did a better job than my top set.  The language was quite challenging  and the task is not particularly easy.  If you use it then give it the 5* rating it merits.

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

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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

ANIMATEDGLOBE

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

/ 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

DN-SC-85-03546

 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

featured-extreme-sports

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

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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.

  1. Give more able students some authentic materials to work with on a topic – you may have to go to the country to get these!
  2. Listening – give weaker students multiple choice answers and ask them to highlight
  3. 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.

  1. Students could develop their own response to a task eg: podcast, presentation, speech, voki avatar on “things to do in my town”
  2. 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).
  3. 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:

  1. Focus on the weaker students – get to know them.  They may not all be immediately apparent.
  2. Differentiate tasks for the students they are attached to.
  3. Giving students encouragement but praising their effort never their intelligence.
  4. One TA went and produced clocks with moveable hands to help teach students the time.
  5. 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?

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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?

 

New term – a great time to raise your game.

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Happy New Year to you all.  I hope you had an excellent Christmas and a promising start to the new year.

I’ve decided this should be a simple post about things I will try this term, starting next week.  There are numerous aspects of teaching that I want to improve and various ideas that I want to try.  All of it is aimed at trying to make my lessons the very best they can be.  While inevitably some lessons will go better than others, I want the return in terms of learning to be high every lesson.

Here are 4 ideas I want to try in January:

1) Experiments with excellence

I’ve been reading a little about Ron Berger and his “ethic of excellence” and his insistence on feedback and how it can drive improvement. Whilst Berger teaches in a relatively unique setting I wonder if his ideas can be applied in an MFL classroom.  My year 8 Spanish class will produce a postcard from a holiday but rather than it being a week long homework at the end of the topic, we will draft it over 2 weeks before they do a final version at the end of the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqh1MRWZjms

2) Speaking/Translation tandem

Inspired by a Bristol colleague.  Students have phrases on a sheet of A4 with alternating Spanish/English.  They have to say what they think is the phrase and their partner can nudge them towards a correct version.  It should have the effect of reinforcing grammar structures, raising translation as an activity (with the new GCSE in mind) and could work quite well.  Probably will try it with year 7s or year 10s.

3) Insistence on TL

All students have phrases in their books they can use but I’m really going to push it this term.  I want to see if we can get lessons where there is an 80/20% ratio of Spanish – English.  To this end I plan to have 3 things in place:

i) A TL monitor – a student I trust who can monitor my TL usage and that of the class.  They will have a traffic light card to indicate this.  In lower years this will probably be referred to as the Spanish Sy

ii) TL phrases on wall – students need to use these in responding after a listening exercises or wherever possible.

iii) Rewards for students who use most TL, this will be monitored by my TL monitor.

4) Live marking

That is “live” in the sense of “in the moment” not live as in “live, breathe, eat, sleep marking.”  I saw this suggested on another post.  A teacher picks 8 students and aims to mark their books whilst the students are on a task of some description.  The marking then finishes with a question relating to what he/she has seen and demands a response.  Our students have to respond to our marking, this might be a way of encouraging it.  They are more likely to respond if I am stood next to them marking their neighbours book.  It might also be a way to reduce the marking load.  We will see.

Listening Activities

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Hit a milestone with visitors on this blog today.  thank you to those of you who read it.  I hope you find something useful that helps your teaching, or at the very least it triggers an idea.  Drop a comment if you want a particular topic or skill exploring .  You could also be the first comment (another milestone).

GCSE Languages places a heavier emphasis on writing and speaking, which can lead to listening being neglected.  Listening activities can be time consuming but they are vital in being able to understand a language.  They allow students to experience a range of accents, ages and speeds of talking without leaving the classroom.  Some are contrived and others are effective but how can you exploit a listening text for all it is worth?  There seems to be a school of thought emerging that if teachers teach using maximum TL then that counts as listening.  I think there is still a place for the recorded material.

Listening can be differentiated for pupils of various abilities.  Below are some of the ways I have used in a classroom that work.  I wish I did them all more often.  The majority will work at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

This takes some planning but consider how you could stretch your more able and support your less able.

More able

  • Ask them to look for particular things.
  • Have a column of extra details if completing a table and get them to fill it in as they go.
  • Could they do a dictée on a particular line?  You could suggest to a class that all those with a target grade of … could do this?
  • Can you do a higher level listening with your more able while the foundation students do a reading activity and then swap.  This works for mixed ability groups.
  • Could they write their own extract afterwards based on the recordings they have heard?

Less able

  • Multiple choice – you can give them this on a handout or on a slide.
  • Write down the words that they hear that they definitely know.  Essentially give them a chance to understand bits before asking them to find answers.
  • Give them the script for the first recording so they can read along
  • Give their TA the script – TAs appreciate this as the teacher’s guides generally have the answers afterwards.
  • Give them the answers and have them highlight the ones they can hear this should help you see how much they comprehend,
  • Teach them skills to help them – key words, cognates, sound patterns, discerning plurals etc
  • VLC is an excellent media programme and has a facility to slow down recordings, I would not go much below 0.90 but it can help.

Conducting a listening effectively

  1. Try not to talk too much
  2. Consider the following order
    1. Play recording all the way through without stopping, students do nothing.
    2. Play through and students try to get answers.
    3. Play through and have breaks in between for students to either write answers or check their answers.
  3. Make sure students are clear on what they are listening for.
  4. Don’t tolerate chat in between.  It needs to be their own work
  5. Try to do them regularly.

Make it lead to something.

Could your students do a similar thing later in the lesson?  Perhaps they could record it and you could use that instead (providing you have permission).   Could they do a speeddating style activity and use some of the phrases from the listening recording, or any other activity for that matter?

Stretching your best students

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Whatever your view of G+T, it is clear that the brightest students in your class need pushing to achieve.  In a climate where languages takeup at GCSE is rising as a result of performance 8 or EBACC measures, A-level and university courses are experiencing decline.  A simple google search shows that in 2012,2013 and 2014 a major newspaper reported on the decline in A-level languages. Our best students should be the ones going on to study it yet most are not. There are blogs which explore and consider why.  Rather than do that, I thought I would share some of the things that I have tried, with varying successes.

Before looking at some ideas there are three questions you need to consider with extension work:

  1. Is the work I am giving them going to deepen their understanding?
  2. Is the work I am giving them going to consolidate their understanding?
  3. Is the work I am giving them suitably challenging and is there a suitable time frame in which to complete it?

Ideas for the classroom or outside of the classroom

Reading

  • Encourage regular independent reading in TL – encourage use of sites such as http://www.cuentosinfantiles.net
  • Authentic materials – what is there that they can go and get and work on if they finish early?  Can they spot the grammar point in a real-life context?
  • For boys encourage them to read www.juanmata8.com , the lethal mediocampista (midfielder) has a bilingual blog.

Writing

  • Picture response activities really allow for creativity. Show students a picture, they could then…
    • write the conversation that is taking place
    • write the events that are taking place  (present tense)
    • write what they think will happen next (future tense)
    • write what would happen if … (conditionals and hypothetical statements)
    • write what happened before (past tense)
    • do a mixture of the above (combining tenses)
    • write what the people should do (modal verbs)
  • Never settle for anything less than their best.  Insist on expanded answers in any plenaries/activities involving mini-whiteboards
  • Dictionary usage – encourage use of dictionary to improve and develop all written work.  Do you have a TL thesaurus?
  • French/Spanish penfriend scheme – get them involved if you can.

Listening

  • What else can they listen for?  Could they do a dictee from the listening recording if they get the answers first time around?
  • www.rtve.es/noticias/directo/canal-24h/    – Spanish news
  • www.france24.com/fr/  – French news     (opportunity to watch live on right hand side of page – pop up window opens
  • www.ard.de – same as the two above  Tagesschau is good short snappy news burst
  • Encourage listening to musicians: Manu Chao (FR/SP), Juanes (SP), Amaral (SP), El Tri (SP), MC SOLAR (FR), WISE GUYS (GER).
  • Encourage them to try a foreign film with subtitles in the TL and the audio in the TL.

Speaking

  • Interviews with TL speaking person are always good.
  • Insist on TL in the corridor, in class and if they have to use it then they will.  It will also develop habits and confidence.
  • Run a twilight session with a focus on improvisation and spontaneity.  They really do benefit from this.
  • Insist on elongated answers comparisons, contrasts, subordinate clauses, do not accept them lowering their standards to fit in.  If you have to then do the speaking test with them in the class but have everyone else working.
  • If playing the trampa game mentioned on this blog,  quietly challenge one to cheat on every go, or alternatively stack the deck.  I tried the former with one student and the intellectual challenge was something that they thrived on.  The morals are debateable but then the game is called cheat.

2 final salient points

1)  Encourage use of previously learnt language in all written and spoken assessments.  G&T students always want to do something new but the challenge should also be to include EVERYTHING they already know as a means of consolidation and a showcase of their abilities.

2) Check they are not sprinting before they can walk.  It goes against everything I have said above but they if they are playing around with subjunctives and still struggling with present tense forms, then you might want to sort the foundations out before building any more of the house.