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?

Photo Credit: mgjosefsen via Compfight cc

◊ 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.

GCSE Revision Lessons

Apr 26, 2015May 14, 2016 / dlh202 / 4 Comments

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).

5 ideas to try this week

Apr 25, 2015Jul 27, 2015 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

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.

New term – a great time to raise your game.

Jan 3, 2015Jul 27, 2015 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

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.

Stretching your best students

Oct 17, 2014Nov 27, 2015 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

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:

Is the work I am giving them going to deepen their understanding?
Is the work I am giving them going to consolidate their understanding?
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.

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.

improving teaching