Evolution of Starters

Sep 1, 2022Aug 15, 2022 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

Over the time I have taught, the role and types of starter activity have varied massively. When I first started teaching, a starter was a quick activity to get the lesson off to a speedy start, ensure that every pupil was “doing something” and allow the teacher to deal with any admin (forgotten books, registers etc). The best starters were differentiated or had challenge tasks (with added chillis. If you don’t know what I mean by chillis, you’re probably better for it). This post is charting the journey of where I started to where I am now. As I researched for this post, I stumbled across MFLClassroomMagic who has a list of principles we should consider when planning starter tasks. I wish I had this list in the early days.

The Early Years

Match ups, gap fills, anagrams, spot the errors and two way translations were the name of the game in these days.

The Pros:

Quick to produce.
Environmentally friendly (no paper needed).
Accessible for most learners.
Easy to differentiate

The Cons

Were these cognitively demanding enough.
Would these have been better after introduction of vocabulary.
Students had to recall single words not chunks.

The Paper Based Ones

I went through a phase of paper based starters. I got to a point where I was quite quick at condensing them on to a page of 4 to a page (without needing a class set of magnifying glasses. These involved simple puzzles, gap fills or occasional Tarsia puzzles. For those unfamiliar with Tarsia, a tarsia puzzle is a shape divided into smaller shapes with clues along the inside lines that match. If you match them perfectly, you will create the shape.

*Example from Mrbartonmaths.com. Whilst not language-specific, you will see the principle.*

The Pros:

Quick to produce is using websites such as Discovery Education Puzzlemaker.
Every student has something in front of them with little excuse for not doing it.
Students do enjoy puzzles or working things out.
Fallen phrase, double puzzles and letter tiles were my go-to puzzles. Never wordsearches.

The Cons

Were these cognitively demanding enough?
Have enough glue-sticks to glue in the tarsia puzzles. Avoid tarsia puzzles during pollen season.
Sometimes took too long for some students and you would find them completing it in the lesson when they were meant to be on other things.
Again single words more likely so lost opportunity for longer chunks of transferable language.

The Vocabulary Test

I went through a phase in one school of vocabulary test starters based on learning homeworks. All students had vocabulary booklets and were allocated a section each week. 5 were Tl to English and 5 were English to TL.

The Pros:

Students had the resources, they just had to learn the phrases.
Rewards the diligent.
Workload light in terms of administering the test. Tests could be marked by partner.
Easy to differentiate to ability groups

The Cons

Working out what to do with those who don’t revise or process things slowly.
Regular repeated failure for students can be quite demoralising.
Harder to make work in mixed groups.
Some kids with dyslexic tendencies admitted they did not enjoy this part of the lesson.

I moved schools in 2018 and learning resources cannot be shared outside of the Trust so examples of the following cannot be given, even on request, sorry. As the Steve Smith style starters and “return of the vocabulary test” are no longer departmental or trust current practice (at least as starters, some of the activities may inevitably feature at other points in a lesson), then I will share them. The final one titled “The Hybrid” (sounds like a sci-fi film) is still in development and refinement. It may make an appearance on this blog one day.

The Steve Smith Style starters

I would characterise the next phase of my evolution as the “Steve Smith style starter.” This is not because they are solely Steve Smith creations (although they may indeed be) but mainly because they (and variations thereof) all appear in this nifty list on his website! One starter task that I cannot locate the author of (wondered if it might have been Kayleigh Merrick via Twitter. If you are reading this and it is you, and you’re not Kayleigh, then please let me know and I will happily link to your blog/Twitter feed), was “Find 4”. This could have been 4 ways to start a sentence, 4 items of vocabulary on a particular theme, 4 connecting words. One would assume that with such an activity marks would be awarded for creativity and originality.

The Pros:

Start/End the sentences. I always referred to it as “starts and ends.” Students enjoyed the freedom with this activity to finish the sentence. Your most creative students will enjoy finishing some of these, particularly anything that involves their classmates. Sentences such as “at the weekend … is going to” or this weekend (insert past tense activity here) said The Prime Minister (or any celeb, other teacher etc)
Activities like “change one thing” work really well. You can also colour some words so that half of the room change one thing and half of the room change another thing.
Convert the sentence from present to future was always challenging but I found worked better if an infinitive was given in brackets

The Cons

Keeping the creativity going with these is ever so slightly trickier.
Odd one out was a good activity and students would enjoy it but it helps to have some phrases so students can explain their decision in TL otherwise you risk going into English for too long. Phrases such as the ones below, allow for a bit more TL use.
- I think the odd one out is … because of the spelling / length /meaning / type of word
- I’ll be honest, it was a guess

Return of the Vocabulary Test

Our school moved to silent starts of lessons for the first 10minutes for all subjects and all lessons. This meant we had to be creative in what we did with our first 10mins that did not involve talking. In that time, students would have 10 phrases to change from English to TL. They were tested on the same phrases for 3-4 lessons in a row so that they got better at them.

The Pros:

Allowed testing of chunks and single words chosen by the teacher.
A positive marking scheme of “2 points for perfect 1 for close” rewarded effort.
Questions could get progressively tougher.
Students repeatedly tested on the same chunks.
Worked well in remote learning.

The Cons

Bit repetitive.
Hard to stop students checking previous page in book for answers.
Always had to go through answers, some students would copy down during this and maybe not think enough during the test.

The Hybrid

Where we are now, is a place I’m quite happy about. It takes some of the better elements of all the above. It ticks most of the boxes on MFL Classroom Magic’s list. It is not perfect (few things in education are perfect) but the direction of travel seems right There are two tasks to complete in our first ten minutes, with the suggestion they apportion their time appropriately. Elaborating on this will have to wait for another day.

Final Words

Hopefully this post stirs you to thought. Maybe that thought is “I’m really glad my school does … and not what I have just read.” Sometimes it’s quite nice to be reminded we are doing the right thing. Maybe that thought is “I can’t believe Everydaymfl is not doing this awesome thing which we do, he absolutely should know about this awesome thing!” If that is your thought then please drop it straight in the comments.

However, that thought might be “I should really look at our department starters ahead of the new term.” If the ideas above have not hit the spot then I would whole-heartedly recommend this list from MFLClassroom Magic for 25+ more ideas (with added templates). If you’re stuck after that then ask your team, they might just have a brilliant idea.

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!

Outstanding MFL everyday.

Jun 3, 2016Sep 3, 2016 / dlh202 / 4 Comments

‘Hypothetical’ conversation overheard in staffroom:

Experienced teacher 1: “I delivered a number of outstanding lessons today”

Experienced teacher 2 “Ha! Your definition of an outstanding lesson is you putting your feet up while the kids are standing outside!”

Experienced teacher 1: “you saw them then!”

I’ve seen a lot of requests on TES forums, Twitter and Facebook for outstanding activities or an outstanding lesson on (insert topic here). I’ve probably wished for a few myself in the past. There’s nothing wrong with asking for something that works when you’re low on time and your desk is covered by paper and looks like a scale model of the himalayas. What makes an outstanding lesson is highly subjective and is based largely on the observations of the person watching. I think even OFSTED realised this recently. OFSTED say they will no longer grade individual lessons or learning walks. This is good news, although they have to deliver a judgement on quality of teaching and learning across the school so some form of grading still has to take place (in their heads one assumes). Teaching and learning still has to be judged as outstanding/good/requires improvement/inadequate.

This is not a post on “how to play the OFSTED game” as the only OFSTED game to be played is simply high quality teaching and learning. It is a post about the key ingredients for an outstanding lesson and how we might apply those in MFL teaching everyday.

Before we look at the ingredients. Let’s hear it from the horses mouth:

Inspectors will use a considerable amount of first-hand evidence gained from observing pupils in lessons, talking to them about their work, scrutinising their work and assessing how well leaders are securing continual improvements in teaching. Direct observations in lessons will be supplemented by a range of other evidence to enable inspectors to evaluate the impact that teachers and support assistants have on pupils’ progress. Inspectors will not grade the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in individual lessons or learning walks.

Inspectors will consider:

how information at transition points between schools is used effectively so that teachers plan to meet pupils’ needs in all lessons from the outset – this is particularly important between the early years and Key Stage 1 and between Key Stages 2 and 3

whether work in all year groups, particularly in Key Stage 3, is demanding enough for all pupils

pupils’ views about the work they have undertaken, what they have learned from it and their experience of teaching and learning over time

information from discussions about teaching, learning and assessment with teachers, teaching assistants and other staff

parents’ views about the quality of teaching, whether they feel their children are challenged sufficiently and how quickly leaders tackle poor teaching

scrutiny of pupils’ work, with particular attention to:

pupils’ effort and success in completing their work, both in and outside lessons, so that they can progress and enjoy learning across the curriculum

how pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills have developed and improved

the level of challenge and whether pupils have to grapple appropriately with content, not necessarily ‘getting it right’ first time, which could be evidence that the work is too easy

how well teachers’ feedback, written and oral, is used by pupils to improve their knowledge, understanding and skills.

Source text here P44.

Outstanding (1)

Teachers demonstrate deep knowledge and understanding of the subjects they teach. They use questioning highly effectively and demonstrate understanding of the ways pupils think about subject content. They identify pupils’ common misconceptions and act to ensure they are corrected.
Teachers plan lessons very effectively, making maximum use of lesson time and coordinating lesson resources well. They manage pupils’ behaviour highly effectively with clear rules that are consistently enforced.
Teachers provide adequate time for practice to embed the pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills securely. They introduce subject content progressively and constantly demand more of pupils. Teachers identify and support any pupil who is falling behind, and enable almost all to catch up.
Teachers check pupils’ understanding systematically and effectively in lessons, offering clearly directed and timely support.
Teachers provide pupils with incisive feedback, in line with the school’s assessment policy, about what pupils can do to improve their knowledge, understanding and skills. The pupils use this feedback effectively.
Teachers set challenging homework, in line with the school’s policy and as appropriate for the age and stage of pupils, that consolidates learning, deepens understanding and prepares pupils very well for work to come.
Teachers embed reading, writing and communication and, where appropriate, mathematics exceptionally well across the curriculum, equipping all pupils with the necessary skills to make progress. For younger children in particular, phonics teaching is highly effective in enabling them to tackle unfamiliar words.
Teachers are determined that pupils achieve well. They encourage pupils to try hard, recognise their efforts and ensure that pupils take pride in all aspects of their work. Teachers have consistently high expectations of all pupils’ attitudes to learning.
Pupils love the challenge of learning and are resilient to failure. They are curious, interested learners who seek out and use new information to develop, consolidate and deepen their knowledge, understanding and skills. They thrive in lessons and also regularly take up opportunities to learn through extra-curricular activities.
Pupils are eager to know how to improve their learning. They capitalise on opportunities to use feedback, written or oral, to improve.
Parents are provided with clear and timely information on how well their child is progressing and how well their child is doing in relation to the standards expected. Parents are given guidance about how to support their child to improve.
Teachers are quick to challenge stereotypes and the use of derogatory language in lessons and around the school. Resources and teaching strategies reflect and value the diversity of pupils’ experiences and provide pupils with a comprehensive understanding of people and communities beyond their immediate experience.

So let’s have a look at those key ingredients and what they mean for us in the classroom:

Key Ingredient:	What it means for MFL teachers:
Transition information	We need a knowledge of where the children are coming from. We need some idea of how much language tuition the children have had, what language and how effectively it was taught. This is more applicable to year 7. As far as year 8s and 9s are concerned, you will need an idea of where they finished at the end of year 7.
Challenge	Is your work demanding enough? I don’t mean simply sticking an extension task on a starter or a reading activity. Are you sufficiently challenging that little lass who finishes the task seconds after you have explained it? Should she have finished that quickly? Are your tasks differentiated enough to keep all students challenged and engaged? Could you give different students a different task? How could you reward risk-taking with the language?
Pupils views	ARGH?! What would they say about your lessons?
Parents views	Informed by the above as few parents have likely seen your superb lesson on the future tense!
Scrutiny of work	From this I understand the following: 1) Pupils must be seen to be making an effort and doing well and this should be seen through their exercise books. 2) There must be some evidence that their abilities have improved. You can do this through various ways. Some staff will use charts with “can do” statements or it could simply be that there are less corrections in the book later in the year. 3) There must be some work that is not “too easy” for them where they struggle. Struggle is part of learning so that is not a bad thing. If it is all ticked and correct then it could be interpreted as too easy. 4) Feedback should inform and foster improvements in knowledge, understanding and skills. For more on feedback see here
Subject Knowledge	Must be evident along with questioning. Questioning varies depending on subjects. I think certain subjects have it easier than MFL but students could deduce a grammar rule if given sufficient examples and then go on to some structured practice of that rule. If you are thinking of ways to develop your subject knowledge then look no further: Keeping your languages up!
Effective Planning	No time wasted and all resources readily available and accessible. They may not want to see a lesson plan per se but would expect to see a well planned MFL lesson. This is probably the best thing I have read on planning an MFL lesson.
Behaviour Management	Clear rules and consistently enforced. I would argue that there is nothing wrong with removing a student whose behaviour is detrimental to the progress of the rest of the class, even in an observation.
Adequate practice time	Pupils must be allowed enough time to practice and embed what they are learning. There must then be a definite increase in demand and evident progression in difficulty of the material covered in the lesson. Practice in MFL will obvious take place through different skills but it is worth considering: how do they link to your overall objectives in that lesson?
Checking understanding	Understanding must be checked and any misconceptions identified. You can probably tell who will struggle so maybe set the class a short activity that they can use to demonstrate their learning, while you go and help those who need it.
Challenging h/wk	Homework could consolidate, extend or prepare the students for future work. It should do all of these. More on homework here
Literacy and Numeracy	Whilst numeracy is harder to shoehorn into MFL, literacy is very much the bedrock of what we do. Start using grammatical terms and do not shy away from them. You’re a language teacher and probably a fan of the odd reflexive verb, subordinating conjunction or relative clause.
Pupils know how to improve	Pupils have to know how they can make their French/Spanish/German better. What does their book tell them and what does your classroom wall tell them?
Challenging stereotypes	As MFL teachers we are in an ideal place to do this and hopefully avoid situations like the recent awful match of the day video where the presenters butcher the French language. I’m not giving you a link, as a football fan I find it embarrassing.

OFSTED’s descriptions miss out one major feature of teaching that I believe is key to delivering outstanding lessons and that is relationships. Admittedly you can produce an outstanding lesson that meets all of the above boxes but there is likely to be one question in the observer’s mind that also needs answering: “would I be happy for this person to teach my kids?” Your relationships with your students will answer that. John Tomsett says: ‘Fundamentally students need to feel loved and I really don’t care what anyone might think of that, to be honest, because if I know anything about teaching, I know that is true.’

What could I do now? 5 things to try this term.

If you’re English then make a cup of tea before contemplating the following:

Build those relationships. Grab your seating plans or markbook and find 3 students per class who you are going to develop your relationship with. How are you going to do that? Will you be teaching those kids next year? Who knows? Do it anyway.
Key Ingredients. Pick one of the key ingredients that you need to work on. In your planning for next week incorporate it into every lesson. Yep, that’s every single one. It’s all very well reading a blog post but you have to act on it. My Headteacher likes the phrase purposeful practice. To paraphrase Aristotle, “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is a habit not an act.”
Share. Share the OFSTED descriptors or key ingredients above with your department. What ones do you want to work on over the coming weeks? What do you need to put into place for next year?
Gained time. Can you devote some of it to CPD? Who in your department is good at challenge, differentiation, target language use? Who could you learn from?
Power of praise. I used to do termly phone-calls home to a parent to give some positive feedback on a student. I’ve slipped on this and may well do a few in the coming half-term. Shaun Allison writes about them here. You could also do an email although make sure you personalise it. One simple phone-call has massive potential in terms of relationship with the pupil, their parents and the parents of other students.
Consider September. Yep, right now! September is where we set the tone, set the patterns and culture in our departments, what would you like an observer to see if they entered your classroom? What needs to be part of your practice?
Iron sharpening iron. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (biblical proverb). I love this proverb as it applies to most areas of life. Another person can always be guaranteed to sharpen you and smooth out the rough edges. Most NQTs have a mentor and most PGCE trainees do too. Once we exit that process, we are on our own. Who could you work with to improve your own teaching? Can you get them to pop in and watch? No notes, no agenda, no judgments and no threat, but just someone there simply to develop your practice.

Further Reading

Indicators of Outstanding – a blog post by education adviser Mary Myatt.

Great Lessons – a series of blogs by Tom Sherrington (Headteacher) on what makes for great lessons.

An Outstanding Teacher – short blog post by Shaun Allison

Six Steps to Outstanding – I read this when I was starting as an NQT and found it useful.

Everyday Literary Texts

Apr 6, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

After a couple of blogs titled getting ready for the new GCSE and getting ready for the new GCSE: the sequel (clearly I’m great at naming things). I thought it was about time I made some headway with the various elements required in listening and reading. Literary texts are making an appearance in the new GCSE. Regardless of whether you think it is a good idea, they are coming and this means an opportunity to make the best of it. The government state the following:

“Pupils should be taught to read literary texts in the language [such as stories, songs, poems and letters], to stimulate ideas, develop creative expression and expand understanding of the language and culture” – National Curriculum for Languages

Before going overboard on new resources, budget allocations and looking at every single website for a satisfactory literary text, we need some perspective. It is highly likely that this element of the new GCSE will only be tested in the reading paper.

This blog will look at how we can incorporate the demands from the DfE into our normal teaching practice. Readers of this blog should be advised that my main languages are Spanish and German so French teachers may be slightly disappointed but I would encourage them to head to the excellent Frenchteacher website.

Texts

Our textbooks are technically full of literary texts:

Listos 2 p 92 – biographical text on footballing legend Diego Maradona.
Mira 2 p101 Barcelona Te Quiero – song about Barcelona. One of my former colleagues convinced the kids that this song won Eurovision! To be fair, it is probably better than some Eurovision entries.
Expo 2 Red p93 La Marseillaise – The song that most people know the first bit of!
Klasse 3 – every chapter has a “Lesepause”, what more could you need?!

If your school is on a bit of a “move away from the textbook” crusade then I would encourage you to make use of the texts that are in those books. There is no shame in using a book! You are also doing your bit to promote literacy so on this occasion your use of a textbook is entirely justified. You can also guarantee they have been through proof-reads and revisions, which lessens the time you may spend correcting the errors on a power-point found on a resources website.

Stories

It is likely the story will be only a short excerpt. I would be amazed if they could fit a whole story into an exam paper! To access stories your students will need the following:

To know how speech is indicated in a Spanish text.
To know phrases such as “said”, “mentioned”, “argued”,”insisted”, “replied”.
An understanding of the preterite (events) and the imperfect (description).
To realise that they do not need every single word to understand a text.
Some regular practice texts http://www.cuentosinfantiles.net/ , http://all-literature.wikidot.com/ or http://www.grimmstories.com/de/grimm_maerchen/index You could do this termly or half-termly in class or as part of a homework.

There are many ways you can incorporate a story into your lesson plan. Here are some

Teaching Past Tense: How many past tense verbs can you find in …? I do this with an excerpt from Harry Potter. It tells you if they have internalised the verb endings.
Teaching Present Tense: A day in the life of …
Teaching House & Home: A short text about where someone lives. I normally use Papa Francisco as he could have lived in the Vatican but chose a small modest flat instead.
Teaching Future Tense: pick an unfinished story and get students to write sentences about what will happen next.
Teaching School: A day in the life of … Pick a student in your class with a good sense of humour and write as if you are them.
Teaching holiday experiences: write a tripadvisor review or borrow a real one. Could the students then create their own? Could they take your one and make it better?

Songs/Poems

If a song is catchy or cheesy it will probably stick with the students. Here are some sources:

Lexibexi – German versions of English songs.
Wiseguys – German songs with some English ones rewritten.
Gypsy kings – Spanish songs in Spanish but very clear pronunciation most of the time.
Lyrics Training – gap fill of pop songs. You may need to censor the videos!
Navidad – Christmas is a great time for using songs.

What can you do with a song?

Gap fill lyrics.
Multiple choice questions – which word did they hear?
Make them learn it.
Get them to perform it.
Use it to internalise pronunciation rules
Write another verse.
Predict the vocabulary used in the song – listening bingo
Rearrange verses

Remember we are talking about songs in the context of literary texts so at some point the students will need to encounter the lyrics.

Letters

My assumption is that these will be letters of complaint, emails about holiday experiences and emails asking for information about a job. I think we would do well do let these topics arise as they normally do on our scheme of work.

What I would recommend is giving students a crash-course in letter writing. This can be as simple as teaching phrases like “dear”, “yours faithfully” and various similar phrases. Some weaker students might struggle with “un saludo cordial” as cordial in their minds is something you drink. I really do not think we are treading any new territory here in terms of reading. However, given that the curriculum also mentions registers then students may well need to write a letter using formal or informal modes of address.

Other literary texts

Literary texts may not be encompassed solely by the above so here are some other options you could incorporate:

Newspaper articles eg: Cholita Fashion (clothing unit), Quinoa (healthy eating) or Messi. You could also Prepare your own. After Rosaespanolas superb murder mystery lesson my trainee produced a newpaper article for the students to use so they could write their own.
Websites – one of my ICT-minded colleagues made a brilliant lesson where students were given a budget on an excel spreadsheet and had to buy an outfit for a particular occasion using Galeria.
Signs, adverts and notices:

bastian-sick-tritt-am-27-april-im-theater-an-der_full

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.

5 Things to try tomorrow

Mar 9, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 2 Comments

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I’m snowed under with marking, reports and grades at the moment. So here’s 5 ideas which helped me procrastinate, which you may like to try tomorrow…

Target Language Answers

How do your pupils respond at the end of starters, reading activities, listening activities? I’ve started getting my classes to use the following:

creo que es …A,B,C etc
pienso que es
podría ser …
Estoy seguro que es …

It’s a simple way of drilling in key phrases and it keeps the lesson in the target language. I thought it might slow things down but it hasn’t. Even better is that students are using them and they are appearing in their work.

Dice

Such a simple thing but so versatile. Get a set of 6 sided or 10/12 sided dice. Try any of the following:

1 me gustaría trabajar con animales

2 mi amigo le gustaría trabajar en una oficina

3 mi profesor debería trabajar como domador de leones

4 no me gustaría trabajar al aire libre

5 mi mama debería trabajar con la gente

6 mi papa debería trabajar como profesor ~~estresado~~

1 Give an opinion about … using ich denke, dass

2 Give an opinion about .. using gefallen

3 Give an opinion about … and add a weil clause

4 Give an opinion about … using gern

5 Give an opinion about …. that adds a sentence in another tense

6 Give an opinion about … using meiner Meinung nach

Or vocabulary revision

1/2 Partner names 5 words on topic of …

3/4 Partner gives 5 adjectives on topic of …

5/6 Partner gives 5 verb phrases on topic of…

or create your own…

“Hide your whiteboards.”

The credit for this one goes entirely to a trainee teacher who gets better and better with every lesson. She insists that students keep mini-whiteboards under their chins once they have written and then they raise them on her instruction. Copying other people is one of my pet hates and this eliminates it and also forces the “less motivated” (bone idle) to work harder and produce something or it’s really obvious.

DIRT mats.

cooltext170479354004015

Our school has introduced DIRT time. One pupil suggested it be called “time for improvement, reflection and development” but then realised that “TIRD” had a slightly unappealing ring to it. During that time, my focus needs to be on the students with genuine questions about how to improve their work. The rest need to get on. These mats are editable and really easy to adapt. Despite the fact they are aimed at KS1 and KS2 they can be adapted and used with all years. My experience so far is that the younger years like the Pixar one and my 10s & 11s feel that the force is strong with the Star Wars versions.

Hands up listening

This came courtesy of Nick Mair on a course. It is incredibly versatile and quite effective in terms of assessing the skill of listening. It also shows you who your best listeners are.

The teacher talks in the target language. Students have 3 options: left hand , right hand, both hands. You assign something to each hand. Maybe it is “opinion”, “reason”, “two tenses used”. Or “sensible”, “idiotic”, “mixed”.

Here are two examples using Mira 1, which would lead to students putting both hands up.

“En mi casa hay un salón, un comedor y una cocina. Había un baño en el jardín.”
“En mi casa hay un salón, un comedor, una cocina y un baño. Arriba hay un dormitorio, el dormitorio de mis padres y el dormitorio de mi tortuga.”

Credit to www.cooltext.com for the cool text effects.

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

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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!

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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:

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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?

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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

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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.

Everyday Homework

Feb 16, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 4 Comments

Leading headteacher Tom Sherington writes on his blog “great teachers set great homework”. In fact, he dedicates an entire blogpost to it. I thought I would do the same but with an MFL slant. I’m sure I have set some good homeworks and some bad ones in my time. Below is a buffet of homeworks. It will allow you to add to your plate the ideas you like, whilst avoiding those that you don’t.

One of the best bits of the blog mentioned above is this:

“The research by Hattie et al shows that homes make more difference to learning than schools. So, take away homework and what do we have? Essentially, homes with the greatest cultural capital, typically more affluent and middle class, will just fill the gap with their own family-education as they always have. They’ll be fine. Meanwhile, children from families where home-learning is scarce or simply doesn’t happen are left without structure or resources to fall back on. The same inequalities that give children such different learning orientations from pre-school persist. I’d argue that homework for all is a basic element of an educational entitlement; it is a leveller – provided that schools offer support for ‘homework’ to be done anytime, any place.” – Tom Sherrington September 2nd 2012

So, how can Everyday MFL teachers such as you and I make sure that learning continues outside the classroom? Just as feedback and marking should drive learning forward; homework should do the same!

Vocabulary learning

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Well that was obvious wasn’t it! As MFL teachers, we know the value of vocabulary learning but how can you ensure that they have actually learnt it. One method I have used in the past particularly with lower ability learners or year 7s is the look, cover, write, check sheet. You can find an example on the TES here. There is also one that I would recommend with your weakest students at this link.

Sites such as Languages Online, The Language Gym, Linguascope, Memrise, Duolingo, Pons Vocabulary Trainer all have their place and role to play. The Language Gym focuses quite heavily on conjugation. This excellent with the advent of the new GCSE and the greater focus on being able to manipulate language. Memrise I like as it forces the students to type the vocabulary and produce it, rather than simply reading. I’m a big fan of the phrase “reading is not revision” so this site is right up my street! Languagesonline is also excellent. The only issue I have with these sites is you cannot see which students have done the work! I believe Vocabulary Express does allow such things but have yet to try it.

Rachel Hawkes suggests that students should achieve a certain amount of points from a selection of activities to prove they have done their homework, using a variety of different techniques. Too many students will simply stare at the words and assume that some osmosis will occur unless they are given specific tasks to do.

I tend to teach the students as much as possible about how to learn vocabulary early on. Look, cover, say, write, check can be very effective. Flashcards and mindmaps equally so. By testing it, you will give it value. By sanctioning unacceptable performance, you will find students are more likely to do it. I’m not going to give a minimum acceptable level as sometimes that can vary depending on the student.

A couple of colleagues in another department have recently experimented setting the same vocabulary for 2-3 weeks with lower ability classes. They have tested them each week but only taken in the marks on the third time. Looking at the books, they have found that the students improved and their confidence was boosted by this process. I would argue the amount of reinforcement also helped. You could do this with some high-frequency language for your weaker groups. It is an experiment I would certainly like to repeat.

The multi-skill homework.

Currently my favourite! Why set homeworks that test only one skill??! This epiphany came to me at some point in the middle of a lesson! It has only taken 5 years to have it.

Slow German, Audio Lingua, Conjuguemos and the websites previously mentioned might allow you to set a variety of different tasks. My current year 10 were set the following last week:

Listen to this podcast on audio-lingua
Complete following exercises on languagesonline and samlearning
Produce dialogue for … situation

I’m allowed to set up to 50 minutes worth of work so I might as well go for it! I was not exactly popular when I did this. Once the rationale was explained, most students went for it.

Exam boards also have past papers on their websites, that would easily allow multiple skills. Again the specimen papers for the new GCSE could be used in this way. Admittedly speaking would be out of the question but listening, reading and writing would all be possible.

The worksheet

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There are some brilliant worksheets out there on websites such as TES and the excellent Frenchteacher. Having said that, you might have a low photocopying budget so I would encourage you to create your own or borrow bits from other people and condense it on to a single page. The big question with the sheet is: does it make the students work hard? Does it take them from a level where they might follow a model to get the answer to being able to apply the grammar rule? With the appearance of translation in the new GCSE, this could be a place to include it?

The paragraph

Produce a paragraph on … Produce two paragraphs on … These can often be effective as it gives the student time to work on something using what they have learnt. However, beware the evils of googletranslate. This website, long the bane of the Everydaymfl teacher, is getting. Students shouldn’t need to recourse to it if they have been taught how to use wordreference.com correctly, or if they have sufficient resources on your VLE, in their book or on paper.

Have you considered a point scoring paragraph? Higher point scores generally indicate better work…

5	10	20	25
Simple connecting words	More complex connecting words	More complex structures um…zu ohne..zu ausser…zu ni…ni bien que…	The amazing mindblowing structures to really impress examinersKonjunktiv II Konjunktiv I Si hubiera pensado… French subjunctive
Simple time phrases	More complex opinion phrases	More of the above	More of the above
Simple adverbs	Less common adverbs	Less common adverbs	More of the above

Another idea would be to ask students for an ASL calcuation. Average Sentence Length. They need to divide the amount of words by the amount of sentences. Scores of 7+ indicate they are probably using opinions. Scores of 12+ indicate they are justifying those opinions. Scores of anything higher and they might need to consider the occasional full stop!

Have you considered banning certain words from their paragraphs? Some of the below would be top of my list!

French	German	Spanish
ennuyeux	langweilig	aburrido
interessant	interesant	interesante
amusant	lustig	divertido

The example sentences

Regularly I will set my learners a task to produce some examples using a grammar point we have worked on. This is mainly because I want to see if they can do it outside the classroom without me and also to reinforce the material at a later date. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve suggests they will have lost some of it after the lesson so this is my attempt to fight the curve! Perhaps suggest a theme for their example sentences:

Future tense: “what Homer Simpson will do at the weekend”

Past Tense: what”insert celebrity” did last week

The Culture Homework

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I tend to set one of these once a half-term (homework is weekly). Students are naturally curious and like to learn about the country. I remember, when I was in school years ago, a couple of homeworks from my language teacher: “find out what you can about who won the election in Germany?” Gerhard Schröder was the answer, which seems like a long time ago now, probably because it was! Students like to know about the place, not just the language. However, we are language teachers and so the homework should be proportional to what we do. I would also counsel that you tell them to avoid the blindingly obvious and go for a more horrible histories style in their research. “Madrid is a city in Spain” is the kind of thing you can open yourself up for if not careful!

I have highlighted my favourite one in orange. Google it, you will see why it is such a cool festival!

French	German	Spanish
What is “la marseillaise” actually about?	What is Karnival?	What happens at “la tomatina”?
Find out 10 facts about the French Revolution	Find 10 facts about the fall of the Berlin wall	Produce a poster showing what happens at “las fallas”
What is Bastille day?	Who is Angela Merkel?	What is Yipao and why is it celebrated in Colombia?
What is Mardi Gras?	Produce a timeline of major events in German history starting from 1800	What is día de los muertos all about?
How do the French celebrate Christmas?	10 Facts about any German city	Produce a short biography of Franco or another famous figure from Spanish history
Who was Marie Curie?	Who was Hans Riegel from Bonn?	Who is the current King of Spain?
Find out 10 facts about a city that is not Paris.	Find out 10 facts about a city that is not Berlin or Munich	Find out 10 facts about a city that is not Madrid or Barcelona

Flipped Learning

I’m a bit of a skeptic at the moment when it comes to this. John Hattie claims that along with effective feedback; clarity of explanation is crucial in our teaching. Most youtube videos teach a grammar rule and then explain EVERY exception known to man. If you are not confused by the end then it is because you got up to make a cuppa 2-3minutes in. I think there is a place for it, but video selection needs to be carefully done. Then the students need to do something with the knowledge to reinforce it, otherwise it is just another video. The questions the teacher needs to ask are as follows:

Is this better than explaining the concept in class with worked examples?
Is the person on the video easy to listen to?
What will I do about students who do not watch the video?
Should I use the video to introduce or consolidate?
Is the video clear, too fast, too slow?

If you have read this far then well done but don’t forget it’s half-term. Enjoy yourself, rest, have some fun, have some more fun and be ready to go again on Monday.

Getting ready for the new GCSE

Feb 7, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 4 Comments

It’s almost here. Regardless of the fact that 3 out of 4 exam boards are yet to have their specifications approved by OFQUAL, we have to begin teaching towards it in September. I’ve been thinking about how to prepare my year 9 learners for what is coming, in terms of topics and skills. Here are some things I have tried out:

Modalverben – regular drilling.

German teachers will be familiar with modal verbs. They are 6 most common verbs and are combined with an infinitive The same can be done in Spanish but there will just be more of them and they take different forms. I want my students to be completely proficient with these most common verbs so that they can use them spontaneously with infinitives. If you had 10 minutes to prepare for an exam, having a mental arsenal that contains

I have to / I like / I should / I want to / I can etc along with some infinitives, should be useful to them. We have been having regular sentence making drills on mini-whiteboards. Over time I have added in some opinion and reason phrases. If you are in doubt about whether drilling is effective then the video below is

Roleplays

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I found the old roleplay cards and we will be using them in the coming weeks. If you don’t have them then there are some specimen papers on the exam-board websites. Those can be used and adapted. Rather than writing a section, I will refer you to a previous blog. A recent post on Frenchteacher also is worth a read. Do your students know enough multi-purpose transactional vocabulary?

Spontaneous Speech

Students are going to have to be a lot better at generating language spontaneously. Yes they can be drilled in rubric, roleplays and discussion but there is a greater emphasis on producing the language unaided. With TL rubrics in the speaking elements, this could be even harder. Rachel Hawkes has some worthwhile suggestions here. She also has a Phd so I will leave it in her capable hands.

Speaking from pictures.

Rachel Hawkes illustrated this brilliantly on a recent course I went on. It is about encouraging learners to use what they have learnt. It does not matter if they cannot say what they want to say. The question is what can they say?

What might a year 7/8/9 be able to do with the following picture?

Es una fiesta. Hay un elefante. Me gustan las fiestas.
Creo que es una celebración porque hay mucha gente.

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Equally with this you can get the students to predict the questions that might be asked.

New Topics

I’m borrowing from AQA here.

Marriage/partnerships
Social media
Mobile technology
Customs and festivals in TL speaking countries
Charity/voluntary work
Poverty/homelessness

This looks more interesting than “self, family and friends”. The hard bit is working out how these might be examined. How can we teach them and make them accessible? See the table below:

NEW GCSE
Topic from AQA	How it could be examined	Implications for teaching practice
Marriage/partnerships	Speaking – discussion or picture Listening Reading Writing – essay or translation question	Students need to be able to give their opinions on this topic. Discuss with RE department to ascertain prior knowledge, stumbling blocks and stereotypes.
Social Media	Speaking – do you think it is a good thing? Listening – text about someone who uses Reading – text about social media Writing – essay or translation question	Need to teach a variety of multipurpose vocabulary as the range is so wide. Students need to be able to give opinions on it, use frequency adverbs and explain why it is a good or bad thing.
Customs and Festivals	Speaking – is celebrating things important? Listening – report about an event Reading – text about an event Writing – less likely, possible translation	Teach major festivals at various points of the year. Day of the dead, san fermin, la tomatina, las fallas. Students will need a cursory knowledge of the well- -known festivals
Charity/volunteer work	Speaking – should young people do it? Listening – account of someone’s job Reading – account of someone’s job, charity website? Writing – should young people do it?	Teach students phrases to structure arguments and create extended responses.
Poverty/homelessness	Listening Reading – text on developing world	Echo 3 and Mira 3 do a bit of this. Discuss with geography, is there a case-study or unit of work that you can link this too.

5 Things to try tomorrow

Jan 3, 2016Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

Happy New Year to you all. With the term imminent I thought I would offer the following 5 things to try tomorrow.

Shake up the seating

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College classroom — Image by © H. Armstrong Roberts/CORBIS

Most teachers change the seating plan when the class is not working how they would like. It happens when they realise that little Brendan and little Alex are a positively toxic combination, or when you realise that little Chardonnay has fallen out with little Sinead. However, maybe there is a sound pedagogical reason for changing the seating. This post by David Didau has really caused me to think and I might well experiment with my classes. I have 8 tables of 4. What if I rotate them half-termly? It means the pairings stay the same but the location changes.

Didau writes…

“A few years ago I became aware of a very strange and as far as I know, unresearched phenomena. If I taught a lesson where students knew something in that chair, they would not necessarily know it in this chair. Simply asking students to move seats in the middle of a lesson was enough to disrupt their ability to recall and transfer.”

So give it a go. Didau himself goes on to say:

“So I started experimenting with moving students about and giving them a greater variety of sight lines and thus a greater and more unstable range of visual cues….And guess what? Their ability to transfer what they’d learned within the classroom improved. Now, I would, of course, hesitate to make a mountain out of this molehill, but it does seem worthy of further investigation.”

As they say on BBC News, more on that story later…

Tarsia

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This is one of my favourite plenary activities. It works particularly well if you are the kind of person who has objectives in the “know”, “understand” and “be able to” format. You need to download their generator here. You can then create puzzles like a triangle of triangles. The aim is to get the English and Spanish words to match up with no text around the outside edge. Other shapes are possible. You could equally do sentence halves etc. Make sure that the format is set to “text” otherwise it will squish (yes that is a word) all your words together. Allow 5 mins for an able group and 10mins for a less able group. I might suggest also printing the “solution” tab, or copying it into word to be printed as it will save you massively on photocopying!

Word Association

Simple but great for seeing what vocabulary students can recall over time. Give them a starting word and see how long they can go for.

Gallery Critique

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I wrote a post on peer-assessment ages ago. I have always thought that for language teaching peer-assessment is extremely hard to do effectively. The statistic mentioned by Shaun Allison rings in my head every time someone mentions it. Even if pupils are trained well, I feel it is risky and potentially detrimental to weaker learners. One student once wrote “excellent use of connectives”, which was not a bad comment but there were none! MFL is not like English where one can suggest additions to their argument. And it is not like history or geography where you can examine how closely someone has answered the question. With gallery critique it is my understanding that Student 1 produces work. Students 2,3 & 4 comment on it and then student 1 reviews the feedback using it to develop their work. The same process will be happening with students 2,3 &4. Hopefully there will be some kind of triangulation that leads to more accurate peer-assessment. After all, 8 out of 10 cats did prefer Whiskas…

Starters to make them think more.

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I’m a big fan of gap-fills, anagrams, matchups, odd ones out etc but they do get stale after a while. My new favourite is giving pupils sentences that they have to alter in some way to make their own.

Dans ma ville il y a une gare. – transform this into a sentence with 10 words.

No me gusta el inglés porque es aburrido – say something nice

En mi familia hay cinco personas – say it in a different way

No hay una piscina en mi casa – Change this while keeping the sentence on the same topic. You may not use any words from the original apart from “casa” and “piscina”.

9 ideas para Noel/Navidad/Weihnachten

Dec 2, 2015Dec 2, 2016 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

Christmas is approaching. I’m fairly certain most MFL teachers have done the following over the past few years:

Make a Christmas card
Christmas Wordsearch
Christmas crossword/sudoku etc
Break out the DVDs…if SLT are reading, I didn’t suggest this…

Here’s some ideas that go beyond the minimal with years in brackets as a guide.

Cluedo: who killed Santa? (yr 7,8,9,10,11)

Prepare three columns of phrases on whiteboard.

People (Santa, Herod etc)
Places (santa’s workshop, lapland)
Murder weapons (tinsel, christmas trees, presents, satsumas). You will need to pick one of each in your head. Students then give you their opinion on who killed Santa, where, and what weapon. You tell them only how many they get right or wrong. Brilliant game for teaching deduction and reinforcing opinion phrases such as “a mon avis” or “pienso que”.

Euroclub schools (yr7,8,9)

Take them to an ICT room and complete any of the pdf quiz worksheets on http://www.euroclubschools.org.uk/page2.htm. French, Spanish and Italian are on offer here. Whilst not huge on the TL; it is brilliant for their knowledge of culture. Some exam boards are looking at increasing the cultural side of the new GCSE so it cannot hurt.

La pesadilla antes de la navidad

Lyrics are in the description, exploit to your hearts content

Gap fills, multiple choice, missing sounds or letters, translate bits. Over to you… Lamentably, months on, all your students will remember are the words ¿qué es? ∏ë

Letter to Santa (Yr 7,8,9,10,11)

The new GCSEs have writing tasks that involve “write a letter to” (at least one of the sample assessments does). Why not introduce this with a letter to Santa. It is also a great opportunity to revise tenses.

El año pasado recibí … aunque quería …

Este año quiero/me gustaría …

Lots of potential and easily transferable between year groups.

Food-tasting

Some students will never get to try turrón or stollen, why not bring some in? If finances are stretc
hed then you could ask for a voluntary contribution…or hand the receipts to your HoD to claim back under “vital lesson resources”. Serious point: check for nut allergies otherwise a great lesson and experience for the children will end up in the headteacher’s office, putting a downer on any festive season cheer.

Real Christmas (yr 9,10,11)

Typical Spanish animated cartoon telling the story of the nativity.

Madagascar Penguins (7,8,9,10,11)

3025125260_20ae058f42_m This has been my stock Christmas lesson for a couple of years created by sanferminuk on the TES website who has a number of excellent resources

Link to Madagascar Penguins

I know, I know, I made a comment about DVDs but this is an entire lesson planned around understanding a 20 min video in the target language. Surely that’s a different thing, right?! The video clip can be found on Youtube.

Origami santa (Yr 7,8,9,10,11)

For the grammar-lovers out there some revision of imperatives might be in order…

There are plenty of others out there but this might help get you started. Practice makes perfect so get practising!

The Great British sing off (yr7,8)

With names like that I should clearly get a job naming things… Anyway, team up with a couple of colleagues who teach at the same time as you. Each group learns a song and then a sing off is had with an impartial judge. Plenty of carols and songs can be found on youtube.

5 things to try tomorrow

Nov 26, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

5 things I’ve tried this week. You could try them tomorrow…

Picture Starters

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Mira 1 gets students describing their teachers. I wanted to see how much my year 7s could remember so I demanded between 3 and 5 sentences based on a picture I showed them. Initially I typed in angry teacher into google and used one of them before using an image of Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society. I was pleasantly surprised what they were able to generate.

Me gusta el inglés porque el profesor es interesante

En mi clase hay un profesor interesante

Odio el inglés pero el profesor es interesante

This one came from Greg Horton. You can learn more about the work he does here, the big O seem keen on him.

Hands up listening

In an era of no hands up being in vogue this one goes against the grain. The teacher can prepare the listening phrases and it is really good in seeing who in your class has the best auditory processing skills and is an effective listener. It may well surprise you.

Mano derecha	Opinión positiva
Mano izquierda	Opinión negativa
Dos manos	no hay opinión

You read out a sentence and depending on the content, the students put a right hand, left hand or both hands up. This idea came from Nick Mair and I’ve tried it a few times since. It also can be massively adapted with tenses, negatives, comparisons, conditionals etc

Forms and Functions

An idea from the effervescent Rachel Hawkes.

1) Past	A) Future plans
2) Present	B) Uniform
3) Future	C) School rules
4) Negative	D) description of school
5) Comparison	E) Teachers
6) Conditional	F) Other students
7) Sentence with two tenses	G) Homework
8) Sentence linked with subordinating conjunction	h) Stress

The students could do this with mini0whiteboards or a series of exercises could be set on the board and students work quietly through them. The teacher demands a 1A sentence from the students. This might mean that the student has to write about future plans whilst incorporating a past tense in there somewhere. 5E might be easier as students would simply compare two teachers. It is great getting them to think about content, meaning and including the right things in their work.

Literary texts

My year 8s are reading Peter Pan together. I picked it up for 75 centavos. I’ve taught them about reading around both sides of an unfamiliar word (deducing meaning from context).

Deducing meaning from what has gone before

Bob entered the kitchen and saw his son doing the dishes. His son threw a ______ at him.

The most obvious suggestions the students generate are dishcloth and sponge, along with some other, rather imaginative ones…

Deducing meaning from what has gone after.

Bob entered the kitchen and saw his son doing the dishes. His son threw a ______ at him, which hit Bob and shattered into pieces.

Why do it? It is mainly to stop them getting hung up on the one word they do not know.

We have also done a fair bit of work on infinitives and knowing the little words such as “de” “el/la/los/las” “un/una” etc. Someone reads out loud before we look at what is going on.

Authentic Texts

The hotel boca juniors powerpoint on the TES was good for getting students working with some authentic material. Here are some I am looking to try out:

Quinoa – bit of reading for healthy living and food topics

Farting cows – animal/environment topic maybe? Might need simplifying…

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Unsung Heroines: TAs & MFL Lessons

Nov 9, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 2 Comments

I have to admit I do quite like the Guardian column: “the secret teacher”. It doesn’t possess the same power to surprise and entertain as The Secret Footballer (another column in the same paper) but that’s probably because I’m a teacher and I know how the world of teaching works. I did however read one article this week on Teaching Assistants and was appalled at this statement: “the majority of the time, TAs add nothing to my lessons.” The author prefaced it with some positive comments but it’s sadly just a rant at an ineffective TA they work with masquerading as journalism.

I’ve worked with some great TAs over the years. Here is how TAs can add value to your MFL lessons, as they have done to mine…

Resource them

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Give them a copy of the scheme of work, textbook, vocabulary and if they have computer access then let them access what you will be covering so they can plan ahead. Every TA that I have done this for has been thankful and more effective as a result. It might be your TA has no language qualifications and hated languages in school. I’ve found that type of TA is great as they can feedback on things that you do that maybe do not help the understanding of some of your less able students. If you can discuss the lesson in advance with them then do it. Some of the TAs I have worked with have even started using apps like Duolingo and Memrise to build their language skills outside of lessons.

Direct them

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If they are attached to an individual then discuss that child with them. Decide how much you want them to pay attention to that child. Decide whether you want them to step back at certain points or stages of a lesson. You might want to let the child struggle a little bit in the practice stage before stepping in. Equally you might want them to be silent in the presentation stage. Shaun Allison writes about an interesting experiment his school are conducting with Teaching Assistants and how they are focusing less on the tricky kids and leaving them to the teacher. It’s something I want to try with my bottom set year 8s.

Encourage their creativity

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I had one TA who took aside a small group of kids to teach them how to tell the time in English before we covered it in Spanish. That same TA made paper clocks with movable hands. Another printed off flashcards for her student with a statement. A third one suggested a food-tasting so we did it as the group had been particularly good. They were instrumental in making sure it ran smoothly on the day. They are also great at displays. I’m a man and I’m useless at such things. When you let their creativity run wild you get some fantastic results and great comments from senior staff about your displays. At which point you credit your TA of course…

Build a great working relationship with your TA

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TAs normally have a good amount of experience or they are very young and only 2-3 years older than year 11s. The former respond really well to the question “what do you think about…?” The latter respond well to “I would like to do this, shall we give it a go”. Students need to see that you and your TA are like Batman and Robin, Jack Bauer* and Chloe O’Brian, Morecambe and Wise etc. Any hint of that not being the case and students will start playing you against each other. Students need to know that any slight on your TA is a slight on you, and has no place within your classroom walls.

*Please do not model your teaching style on Jack Bauer in terms of approach or working hours.

Give them feedback

Most TAs are observed at some point in the year. For some, they will rarely get any feedback otherwise. Most are conscientious people and want to do their jobs well. Feedback needs to be kind, specific and helpful just as you would do with any student. “I noticed you spending a bit of time with Brendan, which was great. Jenny is also struggling quite a bit so next lesson I would like you to work with her and see if you can build her confidence.”

Let them feedback to you

TAs will notice things that you don’t. Although the kids might believe you to be an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent teaching machine, you are not. Stop dreaming. Occasionally, your TA will spot bullying, name calling. Merely being sat lower down next to someone they will notice more than you will. Others might spot a student doing something other than the work you wanted from them. I have had one TA criticise me quietly for being too harsh on a student. She was right. It takes a lot to swallow your pride in moments like that. She did it in exactly the right way, and for the right reasons. Both student and teacher were better off for that quiet post-lesson conversation. If it’s appropriate, then create a climate where mutual feedback is professional and constructive, as I found out, everyone wins.

Get some simple CPD from them with one question.

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If a TA is attached to a class and has been at the school for a few years this question can tell you where to go for some good observation based CPD: “which teacher would you want your kids to be taught by?” If they say you then demand someone else but be secretly pleased inside. That’s secretly pleased; not openly smug! That person has seen at least 10 different teachers a week, possibly more and those practitioners will change yearly or termly. There’s a reason they picked that one so go and find out what it is!

Thank them

Every lesson I make a point of saying “thanks for your help Miss”. It’s a small gesture but goes down well. Since we’re approaching that time of year, Christmas cards are also good. If you have one who you work with frequently, then something red or white and in a bottle goes a long way in terms of gesture but may not go a long way that evening!

TAs do a lot of great unseen and under-appreciated work.

Hopefully some see this post.

Share it, if you have a great TA.

5 things to try this week

Nov 1, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

Half-term – where did that go?!

Anyway, here are 5 simple things to try this week…

Mini-whiteboard Vocab Scrabble

You need some large tables, mini-whiteboards and pens. Start by writing a word across the middle (a long one). Students score points for the following:

Point per letter
Point per letter of word they create and the word it bisects
Double points if the word links to the topic from the previous half term (another way of making it stick).

Alternatively you can use paper but mini-whiteboards are more environmentally friendly 🙂 If you’re feeling nostalgic you can do it with a whole class and an OHP.

Odd-one-out remix.

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Give students a line of 4 vocabulary items on the same topic and a big capital letter at the end. They have to invent the odd one out. Again you could demand that they recycle knowledge from a previous topic.

livre cahier professeur etudiant M

Find 5

Great way to build vocabulary. If you have access to dictionaries, picture dictionaries or Usborne’s first thousand words. Get students to find 5 of something so they broaden their vocabulary. Try to avoid them getting hung up on finding the duck!

Taboo

Talk or write about a topic without using certain words. In the cases of one or two students, I’m going to declare war on the next individual who uses interesante, aburrido, bueno, malo, emocionante.

Mark – Plan – Teach

I’ve been reading a little too much on the Teacher Toolkit website but I like this one. It should be the way we approach marking. I have just marked a set of year 8 assessments and whilst most did what was asked of them, there are a number of errors that I want to sort out.

It would appear most of them have great command of possessive apostrophes in English but these do not exist in Spanish yet nowhere in Mira 1,2, or 3 does it cover this.
Me gusta + Me encanta are often followed by conjugated verbs so that needs sorting.
ie and ei keep getting confused so some phonics drilling is probably in order.

Making it stick!

Oct 18, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

Possibly the biggest lament of language teachers in my department and across the country is this: why do my students insist on writing “me prefiero”, “me gusta juego” and “mi gusta”?! Is my teaching really that ineffective? Are my students so inattentive? What on earth is going on?!!!

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Making it Stick – 5 ideas for increasing the right kind of retention

Palabras importantes

At the end of the unit I talk my students through the key vocabulary that they need to take into the next one. I go through on the board what the most important phrases are and put them into groups. For year 7 Spanish it might look as follows:

Verb phrases	Little words	Question words	Others
(no) Hay	el/la/los/las	Como	y
(no) Tengo	un/una/unos/unas	Que	también
es	de	Por que
necesito	en	Cuando

They are then set homework to learn these phrases and tested on them in the subsequent lesson. I find it gives them value and increases the likelihood of remembering the key vocabulary rather then being able to say “lápiz” and “monedero” but not being able to do anything with them!

Palabras importantes part 2

2-3 weeks later I test them again on the same words. It adds value and reinforces their importance.

Flowcharts and process

Students are used to these in other subjects. They use them in technology, science, maths and even history when composing essays. I have been teaching my year 9s the future tense and the conditional. They have a sheet in their books that has the endings and the persons along with a table of irregulars. Breaking it into steps is working even for the weakest ones. Chris Fuller made a pertinent point in a webinar: the past and present take away from infinitives; whereas futures and conditionals add to them. Most of them in a middle set can now take the majority of Spanish verbs and turn them into a “will” or a “would”. On the whiteboard, I put a flowchart which simply says 1) “what is the English action?” 2) “what is the verb in Spansh?” 3) “go to table in book” 4) “who is doing it?” 5) “add that ending”. The issue now is sorting out the past and present tenses!!

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Photo Credit: orangejack via Compfight cc Scarily I can see my students working their way through this process in their minds!

Practice, practice, practice.

I have increased the amount of grammatical practice in my lessons this year and it is gradually working. There has been a lot of animosity in schools towards textbooks, however they often have some very good exercises and I have seen multiple powerpoints on the TES resources ,which replicate the book word for word. Even Elodie, Patricia and Gert are still in the exercise on the PowerPoint! So why not just give the kids the book?! Again, with my year 9s, I have increased the practice they do using a combination of books, Languagesonline and the Language Gym websites. It is taking effect with the dedicated ones. The question is now what to do about the less-dedicated ones but that is another blog post!

Clarity of Explanation

In a survey of teaching by John Hattie, the following things were found to be most effective:

Daniel Willingham writes in his book “Why don’t students like school” (i’ve blogged on this book before) that “deep knowledge must be our goal”. This is borne out by the effect sizes above of instructional quality and quantity. Willingham explains the following two principles:

We understand new things in the context of things we already know.
We therefore need to ask “what do students already know that will be a toehold in understanding this new material?”

I teach German and one thing I have been trying to do is to link new learning to old learning at every opportunity. For example, we tackled weil with a nice animated powerpoint showing the verbs moving to the end of the clause. We then considered “wenn” and “obwohl” before tackling “ich denke, dass”. Before I introduced ,weil we looked at what they knew of clauses in English and introduced the idea of a main clause and a sub clause. This might sound very basic and something that you do all the time but I find that quite often textbook schemes of work do not have this link from one element to the next. For example: Mira 2 introduces tener que, poder, querer and “le gusta” in the space of two pages. The next chapter does not reinforce them at all. Neither do the three after that!

Learning from the best

Sep 27, 2015Sep 27, 2015 / dlh202 / Leave a comment

Some people have a nice little page of links. I’ll be honest, I have not worked out how to do that, yet! Here are some of my favourite places to go for ideas!

Sometimes you need to look at things in a different way for ideas.

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Here are a few places that I’ve picked up ideas from:

Frenchteacher – Steve Smith, an experienced French teacher has a blog and resources site. I have picked up a lot from his teacher’s guide and his writing on various MFL related themes.

RachelHawkes – Unsurprisingly written by a lady called Rachel Hawkes. There is a wealth of information on here, powerpoints regarding the latest developments in MFL and a real focus on generating spontaneous speech (she has a Phd to show for it). Rachel seems to run a lot of CPD, blogs for the TES and also lectures on PGCE courses. How does she manage that and teach MFL?! Answers on a postcard…or if Dr Hawkes herself is reading this then seriously, how?!

Headguruteacher – Tom Sherrington writes a lot of very insightful material relating to all sorts of issues. He is not an MFL teacher but there is a lot you can take from his writings on teaching and learning. His series titled pedagogy postcards is worth a look. The recent post on Maths Mindsets could equally apply to languages.

Gianfranco Conti – is a prolific MFL blogger. His posts relate research and theory to our classroom practice. He also has a website for students called the language gym and I’m reliably informed that there are exciting plans for that site, although the name does remind me of: this. His most recent post well worth a read, along with his thoughts on resilience in MFL classrooms. Inspiring and thought-provoking material every few days.

Classteaching – Shaun Allison’s blog with it’s titular play on words is well worth a look. Shaun’s posts tend mainly to focus on teaching and learning with a view to constantly sharpening our classroom practice. He also blogs on assessment after levels and other areas of school life. His diagram “expert teaching requires” sums up his philosophy as far as the classroom is concerned. There is also a plethora of resources, links and ideas on the site. This blog is eminently readable and updated weekly.

Morgan MFL – This has not been updated since March but contains some useful material particularly for teaching tenses. This “Yorkshire lass” also has some good youtube videos on her site. If enough people click on the link maybe the spike in views will convince her to keep it going!

Teachertoolkit – If Gianfranco Conti is prolific, then Ross Morrison Mcgill is the blogging equivalent of Duracell. He just keeps going and going and going… It’s also high quality stuff. Again, not a specific MFL blog but regularly updated, very current and relevant material. His 5 minute resources reduce some of the administrative burden as well as providing food for thought. His most recent post concerns verbal feedback stamps, which fortunately have not yet darkened the doors of my school. The first bit is a good-humoured rant, the latter half is particularly applicable to the classroom (see mark-plan-teach).

Dom’s MFL Page – Possibly one of the first MFL blogs I read, mainly by searching MFL blogs via google! Some good resources for teaching and also includes A2. Try not to get freaked out if your speakers are on full and the French word of the day blasts out. His posts contain a great deal of useful ideas and are often peppered with good humour.

Chris Fuller – I came across Chris Fuller on an ALL webinar. He comes across as a great guy and enthusiastic MFL teacher. His website has a number of creative ideas including the Shelterbox Challenge, PE in Spanish and teaching year 9s about the legalisation of marijuana in Uruguay. It’s a far cry from the traditional year 9 topics of “me duele la cabeza” and “para llevar una vida más sana…” (although I could see those slipping neatly into the marijuana module).

Lastly, for those who like the feel of paper in their hand, or new book smell, I wholeheartedly recommend the following:

The Craft of the Classroom – Michael Marland

Cracking the hard class – Bill Rogers

Why students don’t like school – Daniel Willingham

Teaching numbers, dates, days of the week & the basics

Sep 16, 2015Aug 30, 2016 / dlh202 / 2 Comments

Bored of doing the same thing year after year. Have a look below, be brave, dare to be different!

Numbers

I have blogged on this before, you can find it here

Photo Credit: Kodjii via Compfight cc

“Burro” – students are in a group of 4 or 5. They count up to whatever number you choose and down again. They can say one, two or three numbers at a time. Any student made to say a number in a particular times-table (of your choosing) gets a letter. If they spell out “burro” (donkey) then they are out.

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Last man standing – Sometimes called Irish Bingo. Students write down four numbers in a given range and stand up. Teacher or a student calls out numbers. If all four of their numbers are called out, the student sits down. The aim is to be the last man standing (or woman if you are being politically correct).

Write either side – give students some numbers but they have to note down the numbers either side, rather than the number itself. This tests comprehension and recall.

Photo Credit: StreetFly JZ via Compfight cc If M&Ms did calculators….

Sums – make them do maths. Or better still make them create sums for their partner to do. Insist that they can be as nice or cruel as they like. It generally depends on how much they like the person next to them.

Months

Ordering – possibly one of my favourites. Students put themselves into birthday order using only the TL. Teach them phrases like “to the left” or “to the right” and how to say their birthday. Do it by academic year or calendar year. It allows the July born ones to not feel quite so young!

Class surveys – students go around interviewing people. Avoid them going straight for their friends by insisting that they cannot talk to people in their tutor group, or their English class, or people with the same colour eyes, hair etc.

Days of the week

Yabba Dabba Doo!!!!!! The kids will likely have no idea what memories this song evokes but they’ll sing along anyway.

Repetitive but scarily effective.

Key verbs

Avoir = Mission impossible works for this. Unfortunately there is not a youtube video, you will have to sing! Failing that…

Etre = Oh when the saints works reasonably well with this

It’s that bad it deserved a mention!

Tener

Ser

Latin American Spanish so misses out vosotros form.

Catchy and fun song. Never used this one before so I’m going to give it a whirl this year.

Teaching the alphabet can be found here. If you’re already ahead of the game and looking at present tenses then try this page.

Is there anything I have missed? If you can think of something then add a comment and share it with others!

5 things to try tomorrow

Sep 9, 2015Sep 9, 2015 / dlh202 / 1 Comment

It’s the start of the year and perhaps the caffeine is wearing off… Stuck for something to do with a class? I would say look no further, but that would mean ignoring the rest of this post. Read on my friend…

Doble identidad.

Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/98115025@N00/3341865537/">stevecadman</a> via <a href="http://compfight.com">Compfight</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

Photo Credit: stevecadman via Compfight cc

We’ve all done activities where students talk to various people in the class. Tell your class they are practising their skills for joining MI-5 (not 9-5). How about having them create an alter-ego, a spy identity. They have to convince people that they are indeed Bastian from Bremen, that their birthday is 24sten Dezember.

Fonetica con fútbolistas

Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/57511216@N04/6973721008/">daniel0685</a> via <a href="http://compfight.com">Compfight</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>

Photo Credit: daniel0685 via Compfight cc

I have tried introducing more phonics this year to some boy-heavy classes to hopefully eradicate “choo ay go” (juego) and various verbalised atrocities. La Liga has been immensely useful. Teach them the vowels first and see how long it is before they realise they’ve been saying the names wrong.

Bomb Defusal

High stakes activity. Students are given 4 questions on the screen. Each question has 3 possible answers. Their partner selects an answer for each. They have 5 attempts to guess their partner’s selected answers or the bomb goes off.

¿Adónde vas normalmente de vacaciones? + 3 more similar questions.

Voy a la playa con mis amigos
Voy al campo con mis padres
Voy al extranjero con mi familia

Alphabet Song

Year 7s absolutely love it!

If you have VLC media player then use the dial in the bottom right hand corner to speed up or slow down as appropriate. You will hear this in your head all day, guaranteed. “Ah Bay Say Day Uf Eff gzay Ash…” etc

Deny Everything Baldrick

Taking inspiration from a British comedy classic. The start of Mira 2 has students practising verbs with questions and answers e.g: “¿escuchas música?” “¿Sales con amigos?” etc. Give your class the command to deny everything and introduce them to negatives such as no, nunca, ya no, jamás, nadie, ni…ni…. Insist they use each over the course of their answers. More advanced groups could add reasons.

¿escuchas música? Ya no escucho música
¿chateas por internet? Nunca chateo por internet

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

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

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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.

The Return of the Roleplay

Aug 9, 2015Nov 27, 2015 / 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.

What do students need in order to perform well?
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!

Everyday MFL

Ideas for the everyday MFL teacher.

lesson ideas

Evolution of Starters

Keeping Year 9 going…

Outstanding MFL everyday.

Everyday Literary Texts

Everyday Feedback & Marking

5 Things to try tomorrow

Getting ready for the new GCSE: the sequel

Everyday Homework

Getting ready for the new GCSE

5 Things to try tomorrow

9 ideas para Noel/Navidad/Weihnachten

5 things to try tomorrow

Unsung Heroines: TAs & MFL Lessons

5 things to try this week

Making it stick!

Learning from the best

Teaching numbers, dates, days of the week & the basics

5 things to try tomorrow

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

The Return of the Roleplay