Since my PGCE, I’ve always thought that games have a place in MFL teaching and learning but they must have a purpose. That purpose could be: the practice of vocabulary or structures, practising spontaneity or revision of vocabulary.
Variations on Sentence Stealer
It always amazes me how Sentence stealer started in Kuala Lumpur and has made its way to classrooms across the UK and Australia and probably further afield. I’ve played it with a variety of classes in different schools and it always seems to go down well. I have come across one or two obstacles in playing with trickier classes
One student gives others their cards so that they win at the end
Students use a mixture of English and Spanish “do you have joo-ey-go al football?”
Some students don’t talk enough
Here are a few variations I have tried to counter this:
Pink writing – While the students make their cards. Write out four using a pink pen (or any colour they are not using). Slip them into a couple of students piles. Winners are now the ones that have the pink writing ones at the end or the ones with the most cards.
English = lose a card – While students are completing the activity, I walk around. If I hear English, I take a card from them.
Sudden death round – 1-2 minute timer (dependent on class size). Each student starts with one card. They continue to play as normal but as soon as they lose their card they return to their seat. Hint to students that the more they talk the less likely they are to be out quickly.
The 10 phrases game
Made this up after a game of 1 pen 1 dice earlier this week. Write ten phrases or chunks on the board. The more advanced the group, the longer the chunks can be. Colour the sentence complements in red (complement = word phrase or clause necessary to complete expression)
Juego al fútbol
Escucho musica
Student A: reads through the sentences trying to finish them in a different way.
Student B; counts how many they manage.
When finished they swap, but here’s the thing…
Student B cannot use any phrases student A has already used.
The game forces students to use what they know. The intention is to move them away from saying what they want to say and instead saying what they have learnt.
The Algo Game
Every now and again, you rediscover a game that works. The “algo” (something) game is one such example. You can find full instructions here (with pictures) and here (bit further down). This activity is great for reading aloud practice and practice of chunks. I can see it being particularly useful with the reading aloud element of the new GCSE. In the past, I have gone with a point per correct word. It motivates them to focus on listening and transcribing what they hear.
Points for sentences
This came from a lovely MFL teacher called Deborah who ran some training for us back in the days of controlled assessments. It works for both speaking and writing.
Verbs 5
Verbs 5
Time Phrases 5
Conjunctions 10
Showing off 20
You can imagine the kind of things that will fill the grid. You can also vary the requirements e.g. “weil” and “obwohl” might score more than “und” and “aber”. Students have a minute or two to make as many sentences as they can.
Student A: just talks and makes sentences
Student B: listens and notes down their points
Swap
Winner is the person with the highest points score. You can then also set it as an end of lesson writing task. The Nice Man Who Teaches Languages (whose blog is well worth a look) has written about getting students to write sticking to what they have learnt and they know from their repertoire. This activity helps with that as students stick to the phrases there as they score points.
Two truths and two lies
One of the easiest activities to do on the spot, likely inspired by the BBC programme “Would I lie to you?” Minimal Prep, maximum effectiveness. This came towards the end of a lesson on negatives in Spanish using the theme of sports and free time. It is easily adaptable to food, clothes, healthy living etc.
Students write two sentences that are true for them and two that are not. Most students do this in the order you say. Make sure they read them out loud to their partner in a different order!!! It’s then up to their partner to spot the fact from the fiction.
Other cultures have always fascinated me ever since learning about Norway in Year 5 or tasting a Stollen in German class in Year 7. My experience of teaching secondary languages suggests that this fascination is true for our students as well.
Was Norway where this fascination with other cultures started? Possibly! It’s still on the list to visit…
We teach culture to build enthusiasm interest and develop the cultural capital of our students. for those students who do not enjoy the language learning process so much, this can be a great way to hook them in.
There are four approaches to the teaching of culture that I have used in my career.
Unit based approach
The obvious benefit of a unit-based approach is that students can gain a deeper understanding of the target language culture full stop. I’ve seen units structured around the films “Innocent Voices” or Valentín. I have seen lessons centered around schools in Latin America or French speaking Africa. I have taught lessons about Cuba (thanks Listos 2), Dali, Goodbye Lenin and the Carnival de Oruro over time. There are schools who use artists such as Miro, Matisse and Picasso as the foundation for some of their early Spanish modules. Some textbooks base entire chapters around a target language festival, country or city. Indeed, one of my former colleagues convinced a class that Mira 2’s “Barcelona Te Quiero” song was once a successful Eurovision entry! The language gym has exercises on La Tomatina. There are plenty of ways to integrate culture into our lessons.
Just as there are benefits to this approach, there can be drawbacks. Culture can be relegated to an end of year project or sometimes a module around culture ends up with grammar or vocabulary “shoe-horned in” as they are good revision opportunities when actually other opportunities might have existed. The way to counter this is to ask the question: “Is this the best learning my students can do with the material that I am presenting them with?”
This might be a slightly extreme example but let’s take bullfighting:
It could be used as an opportunity to describe the colours of clothing worn by matadors, body parts or…
Do you use it as an opportunity to build opinions and justifications?
I think that
bullfighting
is can be
dangerous
as
animals are killed
however although yet
I believe that
barbaric
people risk their lives
In my opinion
unpleasant
the animals have no choice
In my view
cruel
The Pop-up approach
Do we simply just teach about the culture when it just pops up? Festivals in particular lend themselves to this approach. Events such as Las Fallas, Barilletes Gigantes, Dia de los Muertos, Christmas, Karneval and Bastille day are all opportunities to engage students with the target language country and its culture. Sometimes a textbook will have a single or double page spread on something. It does not take long to find a short appropriate video to show towards the end of a lesson.
The benefits of this approach are that it does not take up too much classroom time at the expense of learning the language. The drawbacks are that much can be missed if it is the only way culture is taught.
Displays
There are some wonderful displays out there. I have never quite had the artistic abilities to produce an amazing cultural display of the types one often sees on Facebook groups, X and BlueSky although I have done my best. I managed one on Germany with a lot of authentic materials after a trip to Berlin but our school then made the decision (against my protestations) to phase out German…
If you’re wanting inspiration, you can find some materials here with MFL Magic, Jose Garcia is has some of the most artistic cultural displays I have seen or you can go full mural as seen at this school on X. There are companies who can produce bespoke murals when given a set of criteria. If you are really stuck for inspiration regarding layout and how it could look then the picture below was created by giving an AI image generator a prompt “classroom dia de los muertos display.” Bear in mind these are highly predictive generating tools and will not be perfect but it might spark some ideas.
Like other approaches this does not detract from classroom time and it makes for a pleasant learning environment. The drawback is again that the display may need refreshing every so often and then you have to balance time invested against the return.
Culture slide approach
This is probably my most recent evolution in culture teaching and the one that I actually feel has done it best. Dedicating 2 minutes of a lesson to culture after answers to a starter/do now task and before the lesson fully starts. I prepare a single slide on a topic that includes some pictures and some fun facts. I talk through it for a minute or two and then we crack on with the lesson. The benefits of this approach are that there is largely something for everyone. The students who enjoy history enjoyed learning the history of Spain. The musicians enjoyed learning about singers/songwriters, bands and music. The students who go on holidays learn a bit more about the places they have been. The students – for whom a holiday abroad is unlikely – broaden their horizons. The students who don’t appear to enjoy language lessons often appear to enjoy this part.
Just to unpack what I mean a little bit more by “some pictures and fun facts”…
The Spanish island of El Hierro had a whistling language that was used to communicate between villagers. William Shakespeare was given a barrel of wine from Tenerife as part of his salary. Ibiza and Formentera were used as a base by pirates. Francesco Tarregas’s Gran Vals in A contains a tune known by millions around the world without realising its Spanish origins (seriously, look it up). The Menorcan city of Mahon is home to Salsa Mahonesa, or – thanks to the French – as we now know it: Mayonaise (an utterly disgusting substance with which people inexplicably ruin sandwiches).
I cannot reproduce the slides as they produced in the context of my work for an academy trust and therefore property of the trust, however, here is a rough guide to what you could do:
Year 7
Term 1
Term 2
Term 3
Term 4
Term 5
Term 6
Spanish Islands Mallorca Tenerife Ibiza
Major players in Spain. King, President, famous people
History of Spain Cavemen to present day in 10 lessons. *
Customs / Festivals Mealtimes Siestas Padel Tomatina San Juan
*Simon Barton’s History of Spain was quite useful for this for the division of eras into 10 lessons.
Year 8
Term 1
Term 2
Term 3
Term 4
Term 5
Term 6
Spanish artists.
Spanish musicians
Central American countries
Foods including Paella Mole Negro Pique Macho
Idioms from Spain
Quirky places to visit in Spain + South America Smurf village Water fights in Bolivia Colombian festival of Yipao
Culture can make great cover work
Feedback from the cover supervisors in my first school was that they hated covering Spanish/French/German as they didn’t know the answers, students would struggle with not knowing words and most people sending in cover are often too ill to provide much more than “do these grammar exercises.” Whilst a set of sentence builder activities goes a long way towards solving this, a cultural based lesson could work. A set of cultural based activities means students are still learning, they do not pick up or reinforce misconceptions with unchecked exercises and the cover teacher has a significantly easier job.
I have done this two ways in the past:
Spain Live – This was a great textbook teaching pupils about Spain. It works very like a geography textbook with articles and questions to answer. There are also France and Germany versions.
IT room/library – Write out a list of Spanish speaking countries, periods in Spanish history or famous Spanish people. Give each student a different one so that they have to do their own piece of work. Students have to create a poster / powerpoint / document of some description that explains everything they can find using the computers or the library (if your school has one). To avoid copying and pasting, make them write it in a horrible histories style where it has to be accessible for a child aged 8-10.
Conclusion
However you choose to teach it, there is no escaping the fact that culture can broaden horizons, enrich the mind and enthuse our students. The above are some ways I have done it over the past 15 years. You may have others in which case feel free to suggest them in the comments or underneath the social media posts.
I’ve been a teacher for nearly 15 years. Over the past seven or eight, due to timetable pressures and a variety of other factors, I’ve found myself teaching several different subjects. Often, as a languages teacher, I’ve sat in CPD sessions thinking, I’m not entirely sure how I can apply this to MFL.
In the last seven years, I’ve taught across five different subject areas: History, English, Religious Studies, Drama, and more recently, Computer Science. For those of a footballing persuasion, I guess i’ve ended up as a versatile super-sub*. A mix of Wayne Rooney and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
History
A few years ago, I was given a Year 9 top set history class, shared with another teacher. I like to think this was a mutually beneficial arrangement. They helped me deliver the lesson by explaining content and the activities; I fixed their German pronunciation. Two things particularly stood out from this time.
The first was that the starter tasks—or “do now” tasks —increased in difficulty from question one to question four. The idea was that every single student should be able to answer at least questions one and two. This meant every student in the room came in with an instant chance to be successful and get their lesson off to a good start. They followed the following pattern:
True / False
Multiple Choice
Short answer
Sentence / Multiple Sentence answer
There was a culture of “no excuses” for not answering or attempting question 1 and 2. I was encouraged to circulate and particularly demand extension to answers on question 4 and support those struggling with 3 or 4. I think a similar principle could work with MFL starters.
The second thing that really stood out was how each lesson was framed as a question to be answered. Now, in History, this is significantly easier than in MFL. Take, for example, the questions: What happened at Pearl Harbour? or What did the failure of the League of Nations mean for the future of Europe? Both of those questions immediately build interest, curiosity, and engagement.
In languages, this is obviously significantly trickier. The question: How do we form AR verbs? does not bring with it the same level of curiosity or interest (apart from for a select few of us who love our grammar). Could we possibly rephrase that question to: How can I master 88% of Spanish verbs?
There are, however, some areas of language teaching that naturally lend themselves to this “lesson as a question” approach. The teaching of ordering food in restaurants would lend itself well, for example: How can I order food and drink in Spain? Similarly: How can I describe people? or how can I say what is wrong with my hotel room? By phrasing the lesson as a question, students can walk out knowing they have learnt the start of the answer. How can I master 88% of Spanish verbs? I need to know the six endings; I need to remember to remove the AR and replace with the correct ending. For those wondering, the 88% is from a 2019 analysis of the Royal Spanish Academy Dictionary.
Religious Studies
In 2019, I taught Religious Studies due to timetabling issues. My main learning from this year of teaching would be the idea of spending entire half terms on one thing. For example, one half term was Christianity, one half term was Buddhism, and one half-term was Sikhism. These were Year 7 modules that were about six lessons each.
One popular Spanish textbook I used to use had the following five pages: ages, members of the family, pets, descriptions of hair and eyes, and descriptions of personality. The topics were well presented, the grammar chosen was sensible when linked with the topics, and the activities were, to an extent, useful. However, was this too much for two lessons a week in Year 7? The answer is probably yes.
At the end of each term in Religious Studies, we would assess what had been covered in the previous five lessons—and only that. I wonder if sometimes in languages we don’t teach sufficiently narrowly, and then we don’t assess that narrowly either. Gianfranco Conti recently wrote in a blog about the desire to correct everything that persists in many schools and trusts across the country. Perhaps we need to ensure that they can do fewer things well?
Drama
One year shortly before half term, I had a visit from a member of SLT suggesting that they needed someone to teach Drama for four weeks until the new Head of Drama arrived. To make matters worse, they said it was Key Stage 3 Drama.
I had the fortune to take on a good class comprised of pupils I had taught before. My biggest learning from the Drama department—and indeed from watching the new Head of Drama at work—was that projection was emphasised. Phrases such as “say it again but say it better”, “tell me, don’t ask me”, “say it like you’re really confident”, “say it like you believe it” were all used to develop their students’ ability to project, to sound confident, and to deliver lines with character, or as one of my English colleagues would say “with gusto!”
In MFL, sometimes I wonder if we neglect this in paired speaking activities. Recently, with my classes, when we’ve done short conversations, or short question-and-answer work in pairs, I’ve asked them to stop and then repeat it sounding like they are more confident. This might mean I ask them to sit up straighter, or I ask them to stand up.
If you think about it, most conversations in real life do not happen at a table where the person next to you is directly to your left or right. In a café, they are often opposite or slightly to the side. In passing, they are often stood up. It may be confirmation bias, but I tend to find that the second time students perform the activity, they sound better.
My version of the activity quiz quiz trade helps with this. Here’s how I run it. If you have read this blog for a while, then you will know my fondness for mini-whiteboards. They will help us here:
Students have a question on a mini-whiteboard and the start of the answer on the back. Whatever language you teach, you can apply the examples below:
Side facing student = question
Side facing away from student = help with answer
What do you do in your free time?
In my free time …
Do you play football
Yes/No ….. sometimes / never
Do you swim
Yes / no …… regularly / rarely
Students must 1) ask a question, 2) answer a question 3) swap their whiteboard. They can sit down after 5 ask/answer/swap cycles.
In our school, we have a policy that is known as SHAPE. Lots of schools have this, although I wonder sometimes if we focus on the S at the expense of the P. Languages, like Drama, are an opportunity for us to develop our pupils’ oracy—that is to say, their ability to speak confidently and fluently.
Computer Science
More recently, I have taught Computer Science. It may surprise you that both subjects can learn a lot from each other. As a languages teacher teaching Computer Science, I have found that my appreciation of mini whiteboard checks for understanding can continue. However, this post is about what we can learn from other subjects.
One of the things I’ve noticed in Computer Science is that flowcharts are extremely useful as a means for understanding. By this, I do not mean a bullet point list or a “1-2-3 steps for conjugating.” I mean a clearly laid-out visual flowchart. For example, this could be used for explaining when to use the subjunctive in Spanish:
Am I expressing a wish or desire? → If yes, use the subjunctive.
Am I expressing an impersonal reaction? → If yes, and if the sentence includes “it is + adjective,” then yes, I should use the subjunctive.
This could be a helpful way for students to visualise and decide whether the subjunctive is required using my favourite language teaching acronym: WEIRDO (Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal statements, Reactions, Doubts, and Ojalá).
I have also used these to help students build their opinions when talking about school. Word’s SmartArt can be quite helpful in this regard. An example in English is below:
Similarly, a flowchart might be useful in forming the passé composé in French. Students would then be able to decide easily between avoir and être and then progress onto Mrs Vandertramp (does anyone remember—or still use—the YouTube “Umbrella” version?) or however you choose to characterise the remaining verbs.
The second thing I’ve learnt from teaching Computer Science—and this is more aimed at GCSEs—is what we call the Moneyball approach. Moneyball is a film about baseball where a lower-league baseball club finds value in players that people didn’t rate very highly and their data-driven approach makes the club very successful. In the film, one of the main characters tells his club director that he needs to “buy runs,” not “buy players.”
To turn this into a modern-day football analogy: you are essentially buying goals, not buying a striker. Harry Kane scores you 30 goals a season. Other strikers, although highly thought of, may not reach those numbers but you could buy two players who will score 15 goals a season each such as Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo.
We can apply this Moneyball approach to exams. If the average needed at foundation level for most languages and exam boards (according to ChatGPT) is 60% for a grade 4, and the average for a grade 4 at higher tier is somewhere between 37% and 43%, then we need to consider: How are we going to put our students in the best place to get those marks? What are the things that we can control, that we can drill, and that we can best prepare them for, in order that they may achieve that?
I will leave you to think about those last couple of questions.
Conclusion
I hope this post has shown that, while not every strategy from other subjects will seamlessly translate to MFL, there is a wealth of insight to be gained from stepping outside our own discipline. Whether it’s the deliberate staging of questioning in History, the focus on oracy and projection in Drama, or logical and data-driven thinking in Computer Science, each subject offers something valuable.
By borrowing and adapting these approaches thoughtfully, we can enrich our language teaching and better support our students in becoming confident, capable communicators.
*James Milner was a consideration for comparison at this point but then I remembered his previous club history
The aim in this post is simple: tosave you some time somewhere.
Teacher workload is high and has been for a long period. The DofE set up task forces dedicated to looking at workload around planning, marking and data. The aim was to save teachers 5 hours a week. According to the Teacher Workload Survey in 2019, the average full time teacher was working a 52 hour week. Staff in “outstanding” or “requires improvement”/”inadequate” schools worked an average of 1 hour more than staff in “good” schools.
Over 15 years, I have seen various things contribute massively to my workload. I can recall some 60 hour weeks around 2013-2016 to keep up with the volume that was being demanded of me. I can also name examples of where my workload has been significantly reduced. One subject leader massively simplified our marking policy enabling a set of assessments to be marked within 30mintues. It was then replaced a year later with “deep marking” by a different subject leader.
Sometimes as teachers, we can be our own worst enemies in wanting to do our best for the kids. It’s not wrong but when it leads to a place where you can’t envisage an alternative then something needs to be done. Hopefully, the following paragraphs (long post incoming) will give you some food for thought.
There is a “too long don’t read” version at the end for the time-pressed and stressed teacher.
Step 1: Look at your marking and feedback policy
“Ofsted recognises that marking and feedback to pupils, both written and oral, are important aspects of assessment. However, Ofsted does not expect to see any specific frequency, type or volume of marking and feedback; these are for the school to decide through its assessment policy. Marking and feedback should be consistent with that policy, which may cater for different subjects and different age groups of pupils in different ways, in order to be effective and efficient in promoting learning.” (2018)
By far the biggest driver of my marking load in my career has been schools interpreting “what ofsted are expecting to see.” I think that online pressure from teachers, leaders and unions finally culminated in the clarification guidance that quote was taken from. Over the past 15 years, I have been through the following:
Every book every 3 weeks (13 classes of average 28-30 kids = 390 books or 130 books a week).
2 stars and a wish.
Written comments instead of test scores.
Two targets for pieces of work, pupils then respond by redrafting the work which then is re-marked (sometimes referred to as “deep marking”).
Redrafting the redraft until it was perfect.
DIRT lessons after marking has taken place (directed improvement and reflection time) where students respond to feedback given by reproducing work. Students redraft work with purple pen.
Every class produces a piece of writing every half-term (see maths above) which is deep marked.
Every skill assessed every half-term.
Assessments via Formative with mixture of self-marking and teacher marking.
Don’t get me wrong, pupils need feedback and it needs to be timely and actionable. According to Dylan William it needs to be “more work for the recipient than the donor.” I think sometimes in teaching it is almost inevitable it will be the other way around particularly after marking 30 GCSE 150 word practice questions. The “why” of assessing and giving feedback is clear. We do it because we want our pupils to progress and improve their skills. The big question to answer is: “what are we marking and how often?”
Simple solutions:
Sometimes we can get tunnel-visioned and assume that what we are doing is “normal” and “every school does this.” The table below suggests some ways that you can cut down on the marking without compromising on quality.
Every skill every half-term –>
1 or 2 skills every half-term – maybe complete listening and reading in the same lesson.
All year groups complete assessments at end of half-term
Year groups have staggered assessment windows. Year 7 – Autumn 1 – writing Year 7 – Autumn 2 – reading/listening
Year 8 Autumn 1 – reading listening Year 8 Autumn 2 – writing
Year 9 Autumn 1 – speaking Year 9 Autumn 2 – reading/listening
Assessments in all half-terms
Take a break from assessments between Easter and May half-term. You have Y11 Speaking Exams, don’t over-cook your teachers.
Writing once a half-term –>
Writing once a term
End of year assessments –>
Split between end of year and Easter
Every skill every half-term –>
2 skills per half-term – assess speaking while students complete a reading assessment.
Every book every … weeks –>
Live marking as you circulate around class. Divide your class into 3 sections and aim to get them done over a two week period.
Whole class feedback and practice exercises of a particular grammar point
Speaking assessments in KS3 requiring discussion of a photo and a roleplay type scenario
Live marking as you circulate while students practice questions they have learnt over the term. Quick note in books of any pronunciation errors and how to fix e.g. “nacionalidad” = “na thee on alee dad” Beware the backwash/washback effect
Taking home listening and readings to mark
Do it in class. If pupils are unsure if an answer counts then they highlight it and give you the ones they are unsure about.
Verbal feedback stamps
Ditch them if still using. Permission from OSTED here on P17
With the assessments, it is also worth looking at where that data is going and what is being done with it.
Rawpixel
Step 2:Look at your curriculum and resourcing
What we are teaching is important. I think “intent”, “implementation” and “impact” were very well-intentioned and the right things to focus on. Sadly, i think they morphed into some grandiose intent documents and a high need for consistency between classrooms where teachers need to be all teaching the same lesson. I’m not sure that – apart from Year 11 results analysis – impact is getting as much of a look in.
I have taught in schools with shared schemes of work and a shared resources folder that quickly became a unwieldy behemoth containing everything from resources found on TES to worksheets from a scanned OHP acetate (newer teachers you can google that last one). I have taught in a school with a trust produced shared curriculum. I have yet to teach in a school with booklets and visualisers but see it working for our English department.
Some simple solutions to save time:
Shared resources and curriculum can save time.
To all the teachers out there saying “I can’t teach from other peoples’ resources”, I would have agreed with you, once. Now, I have no choice. I make adaptations for my groups and it’s still quicker than planning from scratch.
To any teachers out there saying “I sell my resources so I can’t share” then maybe you don’t need to give everything away but there could be an ECT in your department who just needs a bit of help? Or maybe results in your department might benefit from you sharing? It is also worth taking into account that if the resources are produced on a school owned device or as part of your teaching duties (even if on a home device) then the school owns the copyright.
If you are developing a shared curriculum then resources will likely be only as good as the person producing them. Put your best people on this and try and free them up elsewhere.
If you are developing a shared curriculum then pick one year group to start with, set out the guidelines and a template and make it really good from the start. Within 5 years, you will have a fully resourced curriculum.
If your trust produced curriculum resources end up increasing lesson planning time then the balance is wrong and you probably need to raise this with superiors.
Don’t go creating reading texts and questions from scratch.
A textbook may have already done the work for you.
I’ve got a post coming on AI but this is one of the areas where it can really help. Where most teachers go wrong with AI is that they do not give it clear enough prompts:
I would like a reading text in Spanish
Aimed at a UK teenager studying Spanish
On the theme of …
It needs to include these 8 verbs
Write using the ___ tense.
Try to avoid any stereotypes
Can you add 5 True/False questions
Can you add 10 comprehension questions in English?
It is also worth bearing in mind an AI model like ChatGPT can consume approximately 500 millilitres of water for every 5 to 50 user prompts so if you’re environmentally conscious then be really clear with your prompts).
Weigh up the time investment. Can I (or an AI) produce it quicker than searching the web?
Have a bank of cover work
If you’re ill, you’re ill. Focus on getting better and don’t spend ages on cover work. Here’s two simple ways:
A previous school had a set of textbooks of cultural information about Spain and France. The non-specialists covering often thanked us for this as they didn’t need answers.
The Language Gym textbooks (whilst excellent for teaching) would also be useful for this but make sure the cover teacher also has access to the answer book!
Have self-marking online homework
Whoever works out how to successfully integrate MFL homework websites with programs like SIMs or Bromcom will be the ultimate time-saver and very rich.
Self-marking online homework is a game-changer. Keep it really simple. Have a set completion amount or requisite tasks and reward or sanction accordingly. I have tried saying “spent a minimum of … mins” but that only works if the site tracks activity as engagement rather than the page simply being open. Quick wins here include https://www.samlearning.com/ , https://www.language-gym.com/ and https://www.thisisschool.com/products/languages . There are others but these are ones I have used.
If you are learning vocabulary, keep it simple
Can you use an online platform to track engagement?
Make sure that if using an online platform that students have a week to complete and an option exists for students to do it in school. This then prevents the argument of “the wifi was down” and “I couldn’t do it last night.”
We went through the whole process of printing lists for every student but it’s time-consuming so have them somewhere they can pick them up and reinforce the message that it is their responsibility to do so. Our maths department has a cupboard for past papers and students are used to fetching them. A similar principle could be applied here.
If you are testing it in class then train your class to do it quickly at the start of a lesson.
creative commons
Step 3: Look at the extras
Our core business is our timetabled teaching and learning. I couldn’t think of a good word to summarize this next section apart from “extras”. I know most MFL departments will look at the list below and think that’s our bread and butter. I’m also aware there are some very small departments out there of 2 teachers who would love to do this stuff but for various reasons cannot. The aim of the post is to save time so let’s look at ways we can save time with these:
Trips – Do you have a teacher you can train up to help you run the trip? Can you give them various responsibilities? There are plenty of trip planning checklists from the major companies. Can you divide some of the list between you? Would a company save time over planning a trip from scratch? Some schools use homestays, would that beat a hotel?
Y11 Interventions – John Tomsett is an experienced leader and wrote this blog about Year 11 interventions. Now, I don’t deny they can yield rewards but how much time is being invested and how much return are you getting on that investment.
After-school clubs – How much value are your after-school clubs adding? Do they need to run all year or just for a couple of terms?
During the 2013-2015 every book every three weeks phase, I was getting in at work at 7 and leaving at 5 as well as working in the evenings to get the marking and planning done. I know I pulled a number of 58-60 hour weeks. It wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t sustainable so I made a change. I came into work for the time I was meant to start at which was 8:30. I felt better but had to work harder in the time that I had. I was still able to get the work done and no less effective than before.
Simple Solutions:
Do you need to be in the building as long as you are?
The extra hour I was spending before school in 2012-2015 didn’t make me any more productive. I didn’t need to be in for that extra hour.
Could you afford a drop in hours?
A friend of mine has dropped to 0.9 on a two week timetable. One day off a fortnight has been a game-changer for him. It gives him time with family and children that he wouldn’t have otherwise had and fortunately for him the only day the school could make it happen was a friday!
Do you need to protect / ringfence your time?
Since starting teaching, I have always reserved one day at a weekend where I will not touch any work. As a Christian, this was important to me and this has almost always been a Sunday. Occasionally circumstances will force an exception to this but my rule remains at least one day of the weekend is work free.
Do you need to program in some “me time”?
I also made time to play football and badminton once a week in an evening preventing me from doing work stuff on those evenings. There will always be more to do. There will always be more ways to improve that particular lesson. Don’t let perfection become an enemy of good and a drain on your mental and physical wellbeing.
Do you need some accountability?
In schools we hear the word accountability and it normally conjures up negative connotations. Here I’m using the dictionary definition of “subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.” In the same way, people tend to keep their gym attendance higher when they have a friend going, do you need a colleague or a friend to challenge you when you’re staying too long? Equally, do you need to be that person right now for someone in your department? On my first day of teaching, I started eating my lunch in my classroom and started looking over my plans for the afternoon. My Head of Department came and took me to the staffroom saying “make it a habit to take your breaks.” Since then I’ve rarely ever worked through a lunch break. Even now with a family and other responsibilities, that habit has carried on. It can be done.
Look at the wider load
As a teacher, you have responsibilities as a form tutor and may have taken on other things as your career has progressed. These were probably right especially if you are looking at gaining the kind of experiences required for promotions. It is worth reviewing things like this every now and again. It occurs to me that I have seen two very experienced teachers retire in my career and each of their jobs were replaced by 2-3 separate TLRs. Just because you are the person doing it, it doesn’t have to always be you. Prior to Peter Capaldi’s Doctor’s regeneration he says this:
“Oh there it is silly old universe, the more i save it; the more it needs saving. The treadmill. Yes I know, they’ll get it all wrong without me!”
I think most teachers can identify with this. The more you do; the more it seems need doing. If you need to leave something because you are stressed, overworked or struggling then it is not weakness. It is a sign that something needs to change. One year, I started work as a Head of Year, which was a job i had been aiming at for a long time. The previous year I oversaw the work with trainee teachers and liaising with the university. I knew by Christmas that one had to go and I couldn’t do both. I approached a senior leader who agreed that two jobs done well was best for the school and we decided upon my replacement together. That replacement was then able to use the experience as part of their interview for a Head of Department role a year or two later. Laying stuff aside for a time might be what you need.
creative commons
Step 5: Look at your school – can they change things?
“We’ve always done it that way” is a phrase you often hear in schools. There are ways to reduce workload and give some flexibility back to staff. Sometimes you need to see the alternative or the next steps to be able to describe it to someone. Here are some things schools are doing that you may benefit from:
Period 5 PPA from home – If you have a P5 PPA you leave early. It is assumed you will do the work anyway and that any doctor / dentist / MOT / service appointments could be booked in that time.
P1 PPA from home – If you have a P1 PPA and no tutor times or similar then basically it’s the reverse of the above but at the start of the day.
Personal day. Give up 5 lessons worth of cover for a once a year personal day (booked in advance). This is done in another school locally and is on an opt in basis.
Reports – Can you shorten the reports writing process?
Parents evenings – Can you do hybrid parents evenings? Can there be a mix of online appointments and in person ones? Do they need to be the same day?
Step 6: The final question: Impact vs Effort
One thing I wish I had learnt about earlier was looking at the impact I was having rather than the effort I was expending and this probably was worth a section in itself but instead probably leaves you on the biggest question: are my efforts having the impact that I want them to have? If not, what needs to change?
TLDR Version
Focus on making marking / feedback policy manageable and not time consuming.
Cut down on assessments, plan them so they don’t all come at once.
How can you save time on planning and resourcing of lessons. AI and textbooks can play a role here.
Keep systems for homework, vocabulary learning and follow up really simple.
What are you doing outside of school? Can you protect time for yourself? Can you help others?
This is a re-write of my most viewed post. Despite being written in 2016 and lessons no longer being graded, it has consistently topped my most-read posts every year. It was probably time for an update.
‘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!”
What makes an “outstanding lesson” is highly subjective and is based largely on the observations of the person watching. It is a positive thing that we have moved away from one word judgement of lessons or lesson snippets and there seems to be a similar move away from one word judgements of schools.
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.
The big three: intent, implementation and impact.
OFSTED’s re-focusing on curriculum with the three I words is now well known. Intent, implementation and impact. The big question is the question every teacher should be asking of their classes “have they learnt it? And how I know they have learnt it?” Is my implementation achieving the intent? They (ofsted) will discuss this with a Head of Department or Lead Practitioner and then visit classes to see it in action. The idea is that what the Head of Department is saying should be visible in classrooms and students should be benefitting from it. Their evidence for forming their opinion will come from that discussion, watching lessons, talks with students, talks with staff and looking at any work in books.
My experience of being visited by OFSTED and our department going through a deep dive last September was that it followed the following pattern:
Part 1: A discussion about the intent, implementation and impact of the curriculum. My Head of Department did this bit so I cannot tell you exactly what was asked but if you want some typical practice questions then you can click here and this one from ilanguages gives some ideas of example answers too.
Part 2: Visits to lessons, talking to students in those lessons and looking at books. The inspector thought my teaching was “enthusiastic” and the lesson “well-delivered.” They expressed some disappointment that there was not any paragraph level writing in the Year 7 books. It was the first week back in September and their second lesson of Spanish. I’m not convinced their expectations there were reasonable but it also explains the levels of energy on display! They are essentially trying to answer a question around implementation. Is what the inspector has been told evident in classrooms?
Part 3: A discussion later with staff that began with some curriculum matters and then opened up to wider issues such as workload, how teachers are supported in school, safeguarding and recent training. To be honest, I thought this discussion would be much tougher but it was conducted in a fair and supportive manner.
Dealing with the drop in
Inevitably at some point a lesson is going to be watched. Personally, I feel a mixture of being short-changed and relived if not seen by an inspection team. Out of the four OFSTED visits, I have experienced, I have been visited on three. All of the below “ingredients” came from the previous post with some updates for 2025. They are not a recipe but definitely things to think about ahead of any lesson drop in.
Key Ingredient:
What it means for MFL teachers:
Consistency
This is a tricky one. In some schools and trusts, it appears to mean every teacher delivering the same slide decks (hopefully tailored to their groups). In others, it means a set of principles of delivery but teachers might be working on different lessons due to one group being ahead behind because a teacher deemed the group to be in need of re-teaching etc. There probably has to be some level of consistency across your team in delivery but again this needs to tie in with what you say in that deep-dive session.
Starting Points
Some knowledge of the students’ starting points is helpful. If most of your students arrive at Year 7 having had strong language teaching, how are you building on it? Are you able to build on it? Are your Year 8 and Year 9s building on prior knowledge? Would an inspector see more challenging vocabulary, grammar and writing in books if they compared between year groups?
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 student who finishes the task seconds after you have explained it? Should they have finished that quickly? Are all students challenged and engaged? How could you reward risk-taking with the language?
Pupils views
ARGH?! What would they say about your lessons? If memory serves, my students were asked: – What they are learning? – Do they remember what they learnt last lesson? – How does it fit in with what they have been learning? – Do they enjoy learning languages?
Enthusiasm
You got into this job for one of two reasons (or possibly both). You love your subject or you love working with young people. Ignore the fact that someone is watching and teach like you do everyday.
Scrutiny of work
From this I understand the following: 1) Books will be looked at. 2) Can you demonstrate that students are improving? 3) Is there evidence of challenge or support and scaffolding? 4) OFSTED do not expect to see particular types of marking/feedback however they do expect to see departmental policies enacted so whatever you say you do, needs to be what you actually do.
Subject Knowledge
This will naturally come through as you teach. Remember you are the expert. Keep your explanations clear, don’t be nervous about the observer, just focus on doing what you normally do. If you are teaching your weaker language then there is some advice here: Keeping your languages up!
Effective Planning
No time wasted and all resources readily available and accessible. They will not want to see a lesson plan but it’s very easy to spot a well-planned lesson. This is probably the best thing I have read on planning an MFL lesson and still one of the best posts on the topic 8 years later.
Behaviour Management
Clear rules and consistently enforced. Again, keep to your school or department policies. 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. If there is a policy to be followed, follow it.
Adequate structured 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 obviously take place through different skills but it is worth considering: how do they link to your overall objectives in that lesson? Is the planned practice going to lead to some production?
Checks for 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 should consolidate, extend or prepare the students for future work or a mixture of the three. 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. Own it.
Pupils know why they are learning what they are learning and how to improve
Pupils will likely be asked about what they are learning. They may be asked about work in their books, what lessons are like and how they feel about their progress in the subject. Do they know what they need to do to improve?
Challenging stereotypes
As MFL teachers we are in an ideal place to do this.
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 relationships go a long way to making all of the above much easier! 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 mark-book 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 old headteacher liked the phrase purposeful practice.
Revisit. Revisit your intent, implementation and impact. Are you doing what you say you are doing?
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 or emails 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.
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
Great Lessons – a series of blogs by Tom Sherrington (Headteacher) on what makes for great lessons and still good years on.
It’s been a long while since I studied A-level German, however I would argue the starters to those lessons constituted some of the most effective and efficient retrieval practice in languages I have ever received. They set me up very well for university and I can still remember the verb conjugations over 20 years on. We had five German lessons a week. This post will explain how four of them began. The other one was a vocabulary test on our “5 a day” from that German student staple: Wort für Wort.
This is a very German-centric post and I can hear Germanists out there saying “es ist an der Zeit” (“it’s about time”). I hope it’s useful and thought provoking. I have tried applying the same in Spanish but I cannot quite get the musicality and rhythm to work, although the processes beyond that stage would probably be applicable to other languages
How it worked:
Our teacher – who I should at this point say was brilliant – would begin the lesson saying “ein paar Verben” (a few verbs). We would suggest a number of verbs ranging from the weird to the actually useful in a sentence. She would add in some that linked with the lesson we were about to do or a lesson that had recently been done and the infinitives would be written down the side of the whiteboard. Weak verbs would be marked with a next to them. Occasionally, where time might have been tight, we were left the verbs from the year above and used those.
We would chant our way through the verbs (working from left to right). There was definitely a rhythm that built up and it even worked with separable ones. I’m aware some teachers prefer to skip the present ones where they don’t change but for the rhythm, I prefer to leave them in.
denken
denkt
dachte
gedacht
essen
iβt
aβ
gegessen
springen
springt
sprang
gesprungen
hören
hört
hörte
gehört
absagen
sagt ab
sagte ab
abgesagt
Next, we would be tested with some quick fire whole class responses on modal verbs.
I can / I want / I must or have to / I like / I should / I’m allowed to
These would also be dropped into the imperfect.
I was able / I wanted / I had to / I liked / I ought to have / I was allowed to
We would then move to “silly sentences” which more often than not included ,weil ,obwohl and other subordinating conjunctions. These sentences often incorporated class members, their interests and quirks. On reflection, I believe this was also used an opportunity to see if recent grammar had stuck such as cases, adjective endings and prepositions.
Quite often the subjunctive (Konjuntiv II) would make an appearance at this point with hätte, wäre and a past participle. Using the verbs above the sentence would likely be “I would have jumped out of the window, if I had thought quicker” or “i would be ill, if i ate the food because it contains gluten.” I can also remember the Konjuntiv I making an appearance to challenge one of the top students in our class (not me) shortly after we had learnt it. Being a skilled teacher, she gave him some reported speech including a genitive and adjective endings.
10-15 minutes of an hours lesson four out of five times a week meant that we did not struggle for verbs or conjugations come the exams. Even if you were not the one cold-called to do a silly sentence, you could be immediately pounced upon if the person doing it had struggled and stopped. You had to be constantly thinking and ready to answer.
EverydayMFL was meant to be a place to share my ideas and there are more of those to come. This post is a tribute to an inspirational teacher that taught me A-level German for two years and probably developed my passion for languages more than most other teachers I have had. She is sadly no longer in teaching but still works with young people as a life/image coach.
After recycling my yearly Christmas blogpost for the last few years, I decided it was time to make a new one. As a result you now have 18 ideas. Enjoy!
Idea 1: Lyrics Training, Christmas songs and mini-whiteboards
Create an account on Lyrics Training. Load up the website. Give out a set of mini-whiteboards. Pick a song, set your difficulty level. Decide on write mode and choice mode (write means writing full words and choice is a selection from four). Project the video on the screen and hit play. Students write the words when the music stops, show their answers and keep a points tally. Ones I have used in previous years.
Santa Claus llegó a la ciudad Enzo- Laura Pausini version
Feliz Navidad si tu quieres – Enzo
Mi burrito sabanero – Juanes – more on this one later.
You can find others just by typing in Navidad / Noel / Weihnachten or Christmas related words.
Idea 2: The Christmas Quiz is the vehicle for teaching about Christmas.
I’ve seen a lot of Christmas quizzes like this one by Alex Rose on TES. My personal favourite is this one although now it will cost you the wallet destroying sum of £1. It’s a bit shorter and cultural knowledge is dropped in with the answers.
Idea 3: Plan to reuse them every year.
I now have Christmas, Easter and day of the dead PPTs with all of the following in. Yes, it makes for a large file size but at least it is all in one place and easy to load up. It took me 8 years of teaching to think this up but it works now. The resources that go with the PPT are all in the same folder.
Idea 4: Mi burrito sabanero (or similar in German/French)
Most UK primary school kids have come across the song “little donkey”, and if they haven’t then they are missing out/lucky (delete as applicable). I like to think that “mi burrito sabanero” in Spanish is the equivalent!
Do now: 12 words on screen. 8 from the song, 4 not but similar sounding. Students work them out or look them up. Avoid “Belén” as to some teenagers, apparently it sounds quite rude…learnt that one the hard way.
Listen 1: Students listen to the song and identify which ones they hear in the song.
Listen 2: lines from the song mixed up on screen / on paper. Students number them in the order they hear them.
Listen 3: Gap fill
Listen 4: With video containing lyrics to check answer.
If i have heard the song too many times in that week then listen 1 moves straight to listen 3.
Idea 5: Class discussion sentence builder 1
Set up a single powerpoint slide with: “What is the best Christmas film?” in your target language.
Opinion phrases
Name of Film
Simple reasons
Agree/disagree phrases
I love
Home Alone
I like the story
I agree, it’s fantastic
I like
Muppet Christmas Carol
it makes me smile/laugh
I disagree it’s terrible
I enjoy
it makes me feel christmassy
I haven’t seen it
Consider it a sentence builder with reactions added at the end.
Students discuss in pairs and then pick a few to listen to.
Idea 6: Class Discussion Sentence Builder 2
I’ll be honest here, I got to 8 ideas when writing. So, take the idea above and change “best” to “worst” and alter opinion phrases and reasons.
Idea 7: Penguins(Spanish only)
Yep, you read that right.
One whole lesson ready to go. Neil Jones’ Madagascar Penguins is a great “off the shelf” lesson that is fun, enjoyable, Christmassy and goes down well with most groups i have done it with. If you are in the kind of school that doesn’t allow films then maybe try adding it to the scheme of work first.
AI generated madagascar penguins
Idea 8: Activity around a short film (French only)
Courtesy of Josiane Cullis on TES. Le Loup qui n’aimait pas Noel is a lesson based around a short film and with plenty of activities including pre and post listening tasks.
AI generated wolf
Idea 9: German Christmas Digital Escape Room
I wish I could make something like this but Ann-Kathrin Latter definitely has some skills. This German Christmas Digital Escape Room looks great fun, is beautifully presented and I can see it going down well with Years 7,8,9.
Quite why Mini-whiteboards tend to divide opinion is a bit of a mystery to me. A colleague once observed my lesson with a well-regarded speaker who often leads CPD around the country. My colleague informed me later that this speaker had said that the best way to improve my lesson would be to “bin” the mini-whiteboards. Had I not used them at that point then I wouldn’t have an accurate idea of what they learnt that lesson and indeed if they had mastered the verb conjugations I was trying to teach. Conversely, another senior leader (and now successful Headteacher) would not teach science without having them to hand.
Adam Boxer writes an excellent blog about Ratio (a concept from Lemov’s Teach like a Champion). I believe mini-whiteboards to be one of the best ways of increasing ratio in the classroom. I have a few principles when it comes to using them.
Principles:
– Everyone writes
– Everyone tries
– Everyone hides their answer until it is asked for
Logistics
I don’t have a classroom and teach in wide range of different rooms. I carry around a box with everything I need to teach. Here is how I manage:
Stock up on a box of 10 new pens at the start of – and halfway through – each half-term. No-one throws away a pen without my say so. “If I can read it from the front, it works.”
Hand out the whiteboards while students are doing the starter task. Do not hand out pens until you plan to use them.
Give out and/or get students to give out pens and rubbers. Rubbers are 1 between 2. It saves time and also means they are less likely to lose them as the other person needs it too! Some students prefer the blazer sleeve cleaning method.
Always insist on trying a pen that a student claims “is not working”. Often this is a misconception and what they are really trying to say is that it’s not a perfect jet black.
Always give a clear instruction of what you want to see on the board. Challenge any non-compliance such as doodling etc.
Always count down giving long enough for those students that need it. Sometimes it can help to have a particular student in mind as a guide and start the countdown when they are closer to finished.
No-one shows an answer until countdown is over and everyone shows their answer.
Whiteboard Activities
Obviously, you can use a whiteboard to translate both ways and practise verb conjugations. You can use them to draft sentences for work. I often like to have them on the desks so when students ask for words I can simply write them down. With the new new GCSE, you can use them to practise for the dictation activities. I would imagine these are regular occurrences for the pro mini-whiteboard MFL teacher.
Wikipedia Commons
Environmentally friendly time-saving battleships.
To save paper, printing and copying out time. Draw a 5×5 grid on the mini-whiteboard. Shade in the top row and first column. Have students add boats in a non-shaded area. Put your battleships game on PowerPoint slide. Explain that the top row and first column match the shaded ones. A quick model on the board where some students attempt to destroy the ships you have obviously put in there and they will be well away.
Noughts and Crosses translation practice.
Wikimedia Commons
Both students in a pair divide both their boards into a 3×3 grid. Have a corresponding grid on the screen with some translations. Students play noughts and crosses. They have to translate correctly to get the X or O. If there is any dispute then they look it up in vocab lists/knowledge organisers etc. The second board is for the inevitable rematch.
Starts and Ends
I tend to use this activity when teaching opinions with reasons. Students get the start or end of a sentence. They have to finish it however they can. It’s quite good for seeing what they can spontaneously produce, what has stuck and what they can do under pressure.
Me gusta ir al cine … (I like going to the cinema)
Me encantan las matemáticas (i love maths)
porque es mi asignatura favorita (because it’s my favourite subject)
aunque me da miedo (although it scares me)
Occasionally, with this activity, I tell students I will give them a score of 1,2,3 depending on how impressed I am with the sentence. This generally has the effect of them suddenly showing they know even more. If they get a score over 10 (keeping track on their boards) they may get a positive point.
Sharks + Icebergs
This is good for practising lots of small chunks. I’ll be honest, I came up with this activity at some point in the past 6-7 years. Soon after trying it with a class, I realised it owes a lot to Language Gym’s rather superb Rock Climbing. Where it differs is that you are not making one long sentence, merely practising short chunks and you don’t have the blood-curdling “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargggghhh” when the man falls off the wall. You do however find some kids rather gleefully removing limbs from the stick man (should I be worried about them?)
Setup:
Students: The board needs to be portrait. Divide the board into a 7 x 3 grid. 7 rows, 3 columns. Students shade a map from one end to the other (see diagram). One shaded box per line. On the back of the board they draw a stick man.
Teacher: On your board/projector screen you will need a set of 21 short sentences using language the students have been learning.
Front of board(facing student):
/////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////
Back of board (facing away from student):
Wikimedia commons
Students try to guess their partner’s path across the icebergs (shaded bit) avoiding the sharks (unshaded). Each time they guess wrong, their partner removes a limb from stick man. The winner comes when either someone has made it across the icebergs, or their partner has neither body or head. You can still win if you make it to the other side like the Black Knight in Monty Python. As long as something is left, you are in the game.
Wikimedia Commons. It is surely a crime that Dara never got to properly participate in “Scenes we’d like to see”
Future Tense Scenes We’d like to see.
Copied from the popular game show mock the week, this works best with the future tense. Pick carefully the class you use it with. Students tend to overcomplicate here, restrict them to the language they have been learning.
Things that Mr /Mrs … will never do..
Things that His Majesty will never do
Things I am not going to do at the weekend
Unexpected things that … is going to do this evening
Environmentally friendly strip bingo
Early in my MFL career I was introduced to strip bingo. I admit I tend not to use it too much however it is very simple to hold a whiteboard portrait, write down 5 phrases and rather than tearing off the strips, students simply cross off the phrase that is at the top or bottom of the list. Lots of paper and time saved. Mini-whiteboards can also work well for any form of bingo game to break up a lesson.
Updated from original in 2014. This is a summary of things that I have tried and their various strengths. For any ECT/NQTs looking for a more detailed walkthrough, I would recommend Silvia Bastow’s website, particularly this
The one thing my PGCE never prepared me for was what to do in the first lesson of the year. I’ve now had 8-9 attempts. As a result of different heads of department, changing schools a few years ago and different policies, I have tried many different ways of doing the first lesson of the year. I’ll come to these later.
The biggest help you can give yourself is a strong start. As readers of this blog will know, I’m a big fan of football and a particular club which might explain the lack of Liverpool/Man City in the following examples. A strong start normally makes for a good season:
1960 Tottenham – won first 11 games, won the league.
1993 Man Utd – won 13 out of 15 opening games, won the league. This made EverydayMFL very happy.
2003 Arsenal – won 10 out of 13 opening games, won the league.
I would argue the same applies in teaching, however if you don’t manage a strong start with a class, then let me assure you that it can improve over time. If you find after a few weeks that you are struggling then I would suggest:
Talking to someone in your school.
Observing others with similar classes and seeing how they manage them.
Bill Rogers “Cracking the hard class” is also worth a read.
How do you give yourself a strong start?
Have a Seating Plan. Students enter the room and I tell them where I want them to sit. Seating plans are an invaluable tool in pre-empting behaviour, learning names and establishing that it is your space they are entering. Students with various needs will have arrangements made for their seating. This can be done entirely in the TL (again setting standards high). Students line up outside the room and are greeted before being asked in TL to sit in a particular seat. As for where to sit students, I generally go with boy/girl pairings never in alphabetical order. Some with particularly tricky behaviour records will be strategically placed, according to any intel that we have on them. SEN/PP are also carefully considered. Knowing who your SEN/PP students are is important. I had one colleague who had texts of 2 tables put together, students would essentially be sat in a square and they would put them on the top right and top lefts (as they looked at it from the front). That way they always knew. If students disagree with the seating then I will offer them the opportunity to discuss it at the end. If they refuse to take that opportunity then follow your school’s policy regarding defiance.
Have every resource ready and accessible. Slick and professional is a good way to start. If your school has a number of sheets to glue in then make sure you have the sheets. Make sure you know where you can get more from mid-lesson if needed (a friendly colleague or a central supply). Make sure your PowerPoints, mini-whiteboards and whatever you intend to use are ready. This highlights that you are in control, you are organised, you pay attention to detail and you want to maximise the time they have in the classroom. Transitions are smooth and disruption free.
Be prepared, start to embed routines and look calm. Most groups will likely be quite compliant in this lesson. It is a honeymoon period. Do not be fooled, many students will push your boundaries over the next few weeks. This could be through disruption, defiance or non-completion of homework. Be ready to use the systems and don’t be afraid to do so. Don’t be afraid to call home positively or negative in the first few weeks. Don’t be afraid to keep a student back for a few seconds at the end for a quiet word (if time allows). Routines are key. If you are using a 5,4,3,2,1 silence/silencio/Ruhe system then make sure it is clear and there are consequences for anyone who falls foul of it. It will pay off in the long run.
Consider the student. Some students will already have written your subject off. Consider painting the big picture briefly at some point. How is this subject useful? Draw on experiences you or others have had. I could line up 20 teachers in my school who openly have expressed regret at not learning a language. How can you convince them that learning languages is: fun, relevant and useful? Consider how you can create a feeling of “can do” and success in the early weeks. Rosenshine suggests that students need a success rate of 80%. How are 8×6 and 9y5 going to have a success rate of 80% in those early weeks?
Smile while being firm and fair. I remember being given the “don’t smile until Christmas advice” on my PGCE. No! You can smile as long as you are doing your best to be firm, fair and consistent. It’s ok to get things wrong occasionally, we are human beings and it does happen. The key thing is how you learn from it and what you do next.
Do not lower your standards at all. High expectations are crucial. It may sound harsh but will pay dividends long term. I learnt this the hard way in my first few years. Behaviour matters, effort matters, trying matters and homework matters. Reward the good stuff and make sure there are consequences for the negative stuff. Stick to the school systems as pupils will realise that you are not to be trifled with. Occasionally, you may need to adapt your approach depending on how the class have come in. For example, if there was a fight at lunchtime, everyone was soaked by a sudden shower or students have just come from an extremely boisterous lesson elsewhere. This does not mean lowering your standards, expecting less work or being soft. It is simply adapting to the evolving situation in front of you.
If that is how we are to be in our first lessons, then we can now consider: what we do, and more importantly, what the students do. The first decade of my teaching career involved a variety of approaches. Here are a few “first lessons” that I have tried.
Admin first approach
The pros of this approach is that everyone starts from the same point and all the necessary stuff is done. Rules can be established and students are very compliant in this lesson, often regardless of ability. In the past, this has included gluing in various sheets, going through and copying out some classroom expectations. My rules generally were phrased positively. Sometimes I asked students to sign underneath if they understood. This meant I could hold them to it later if they were not playing ball. I cannot remember my exact rules but I imagine they would have been something along the lines of…
In this class:
We try our best every lesson, every week.
We use Spanish wherever possible.
We are kind and we respect others.
We present work neatly.
We start tasks immediately.
My main issue with this is that sometimes there is not enough time for a language based activity or fun. This means that students are left waiting until the next lesson for the real learning to start. A lot of subjects also take this approach and it can get a bit monotonous if students have done it 5 times before they reach your lesson.
Lesson learnt: if showing the kids what to put on the front of their book never write an example name like “Lionel Messi” as some Year 10s don’t know who he is…as a result I taught Lionel Messi for a year, and she did alright in Spanish.
Information Gleaning Approach
Often following shortly on the heels of the “admin first” approach, the teacher may set the students a series of sentences to complete in the back of their books.
My three “go to” sentences were these:
I enjoy Spanish lessons particularly when …
Aspects of language learning I find difficult are …
If my last Spanish/French/German teacher were here they would say…
The latter generally is answered quite honestly. They also give you an idea about which activities the class enjoys least (often listening, remembering lots of vocab, speaking in front of others or writing long paragraphs). This then informs your planning for the first few weeks as you can build up to these and scaffold accordingly. It is also quite helpful with some pupils to follow up on it later in the term. “You said you found writing long paragraphs hard last year, has it got any easier?”
Sometimes I phrased them as questions:
What aspects of language learning have you been good at/struggled with in the past?
Which skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing) do you feel you are good at, and why?
If your previous teacher were here, what would they say about your performance in their lessons?
This can often be quite useful as long as students are silent when doing it. The information needs to come from them unaffected by their peers. If you refer to the information gleaned in subsequent lessons then this shows the students you value them.
Lesson learnt: really effective if kids are silent but also if they are lazy or unmotivated then they will probably not finish this. That in itself is information enough. The question is then what are you going to do about it?
Engage then admin.
In my second year of teaching, I tried this approach of having a normal lesson first with a number of good fun activities to start the year. It really worked with a couple of year 7 groups and year 8 groups as it allowed them to have a sense of achievement and the emphasis was on learning rather than admin. We then completed the admin in the second lesson. A short summary of rules were given and I made sure students kept to them. There was a focus on speaking and listening as students had no paper to write down anything.
Lesson learnt: Short summary of rules is crucial and mini-whiteboards need to be available. Routines around the use of mini-whiteboards need to be established quickly.
The Quiz
I tried this once and I know a great many colleagues who do this. I even saw it on a Sixth Form Induction day lesson. A short quiz about Spain in the first lesson is one way to fill the remaining time after admin and expectations. I can understand the pros. It neatly introduces the subject. It teaches the students some cultural knowledge. It allows you to show what you are passionate about: Spain/France/Germany/Italy. However, I have a few reservations. Firstly, students with low cultural capital are instantly disadvantaged. These are also the students less likely to value MFL for the reasons in the quote below:
“The reasons commonly put forward for the low levels of student interest are usually that English adolescents (a) do not see the relevance of foreign language learning to their future careers ; (b) since most people around the world speak English, they do not feel the urgency to learn it; (c) see foreign languages as some kind of hobby, that you do in your free time or before a trip to get by in the country you are travelling to; (d) do not feel culturally close to the target language civilizations.” Gianfranco Conti 2015
Secondly, Gianfranco Conti highlights the importance of self-efficacy as a factor in motivation. Why start the year with a quiz that most students will fail on a subject to which they are not “culturally close”? Conti describes self-efficacy using Bandura’s definition: “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments.” Why would we not take the first few lessons to really build confidence? Surely it is more important that students leave our early lessons with the motivation and the belief: “I can do this.”
Lastly, there is an opportunity being missed to embed routines around target language, speaking activities and having fun using the language.
That’s a lengthy answer to “Why don’t I do quizzes in the first lesson?” Feel free to disagree in the comments below.
The Hybrid
In my current school, we seem to manage a hybrid of both “admin first” and “straight in”. Books and sheets are swiftly given out. Rules and expectations are outlined. We then get straight into learning or revising content from a previous year. If it is Y7 then we will start on meeting and greeting. If it is Y8,9,10,11 then we will get started on the topic for the term. Personally, I have never been a fan of quizzes about the country in the first lesson. I prefer that they leave my room feeling that they can do something in the TL, or have learnt something. That doesn’t mean that the cultural stuff is not important but when it comes to culture, I prefer teaching them the various cultural aspects as they arise, or linking them to a topic. I have yet to write a post on teaching culture so maybe that will come at some point.
Lessons learnt: So far this hybrid model seems to be may preferred method. It makes expectations and rules clear but then gets on with the first priority: learning.
A very Happy belated New Year to you. If you’re reading for the first time then you are very welcome! Over 10,000 busy teachers visited last year from countries all over the world. Hopefully, you found something useful. Anyway, to kick off this year, here are 5 things you can try tomorrow.
Some schools have vocabulary sheets, some have knowledge organisers. Get some 12 sided dice and set 12 chunks/items for students to test each other. They need to produce the Spanish for this activity to be most effective. Students test each other on 5 things. My year 8s are working through a foods topic so the phrases they were testing each other on primarily concerned restaurants.
3pts – perfect recall without help.
2pts – needed sheet to prompt
1pts – needed sheet but not correct
0pts – silent response
Quick run-through:
Harvey rolls dice, rolling a 9. He looks at the screen. His partner Lewis has to do task 9. Lewis reads task 9. “Order a dessert”. Lewis consults his vocabulary sheet and says “quiero un helado de chocolate”. Lewis has achieved 2 points. He then rolls the dice for Harvey.
Double chance to win bingo
Students divide a mini-whiteboard into 6. They put three adjectives and three nouns into the spaces. This worked best with school subjects and opinions. Bingo was one of the go-to games for my German teacher in year 7. I find doing it this way forces learners to listen to more of what you say. I guess you could do it with 9 squares and alter the verb too. The Year 7s loved it this week.
me gusta la geografia porque es útil
Bomb Defusal
Using a writing frame, put a sentence from it on a mini-whiteboard. Learners have 10 opportunities to defuse the bomb or a set time limit using this website. Very simple guessing game but actually allows you to check their pronunciation of the target structures. Make it more interesting by having the first person pick the next person, who picks the next person. Or use a random name generator.
Live Marking
This was sold to me a year or so ago as a way to “dramatically reduce your marking load”. This idea from a history teacher was that you went around the class adding comments to kids work such as “how could you develop this point further?”. The kid then had to respond instantly. In humanities subjects I can see it being effective. I came up with a variation recently designed to help a class that are not particularly confident speakers.. Here’s how it works:
Find a text in TL (textbooks are great for this).
Work student by student having them read out the text – no prior preparation.
With each student write a quick note in their book on their speaking. Here are a few examples:
15/1 Speaking: “superb today – no issues.”
15/1 Speaking: “check words with LL otherwise fine.”
15/1 Speaking: “check words with “CE.”
15/1 Speaking: “pronunciation fine, now try to sound more confident.”
If you feel that they need to respond in some way, write out a series of words containing the target sound and work through them with the student. Or get them to redo the line.
Students seemed motivated by it and seem more confident as a result. As a teacher, it is quick simple feedback and if a response is needed then you can do one very quickly! It takes very little time to do a whole class.
Sense/Nonsense Listening
This is a really simple warm-up activity prior to a recorded listening on a similar topic. Recently year 8 working through the food topic and have arrived at restaurant situations. This one was a bit of a “off the cuff” thing. Read out a sentence. Students have to listen carefully and decide if it is “sense” or “nonsense” based on vocabulary they have covered recently.
De primer plato quiero una tortilla española con helado de chocolate.
De segundo plato quiero una sopa de manzana.
De segundo plato quiero un filete con patatas fritas.
After a far longer break than planned, EverydayMFL is back. Prior to this hiatus, I had worked my way through a number of the less desirable GCSE topics to teach. After going through global issues, customs and festivals and charity and volunteering. I decided school and study should be next. Kids have mixed feelings about the topic. Teachers might also have mixed feelings. It comes with some nice easy grammar in Year 7 but then it is less fun to talk about in Year 11.
Flowcharts are used heavily in other subjects but rarely in languages. I’ve often used one set out as follows to allow students to give their opinions on the best teacher. It is also great CPD as you can find out the one they genuinely believe to be the best and then learn from them. Quite often the one described as a “legend” is different from the one they feel they learn best from.
Opinion phrase
Teacher
is the most …
because (positive reasons) because (negative reasons)
although he/she can be
positive adjectives negative adjectives
You could achieve a similar effect with a writing frame but I think the flowchart gives a slightly different feeling of progression.
At the end you could get them to apply it to a different topic. Whilst the phrasing is slightly artificial, it should show the students that the same structure can be applied across topics.
I think that <insert sport here> is the most … because … although it can be …
Hogwarts Conditional
The majority of students still appreciate the Harry Potter books. This allows you to teach conditional clauses: “if I went to Hogwarts, I would study …” “If I were at Hogwarts, my favourite teacher would be…”
Again teaching conditional clauses, you would be surprised how many students want to talk when they are given a writing frame on school improvement.
“If I were the head, I would…”
“If I had the choice, I would…”
“If I could, I would…”
Clause structures & Descriptions
Early in year 7 students are likely to have learnt how to describe people. It is often worth revisiting in year 10-11 but I have tried to do it with more advanced clause structures:
Not only…but also
Both … and …
Neither … nor
Regardless of whether … is …, I think that …
He/she can be … but can also be …
In spite of being … , he/she is also …
Germanists can have a field day here with “weder…noch…”, “egal, ob…”, “zwar…aber…” and “sowohl…als auch”. I’m sure French and Spanish teachers can come up with a few.
Describing your school
This has got to be one of the most tedious bits to teach. I cannot imagine many students enjoy relating the facts that their school has classrooms, modern science labs and a small playground. Here is an activity to make it ever so slightly more interesting:
Teacher gives half of the class mini-whiteboards. The other half are given cards containing a description of a school (parallel text in both languages). Starting in the top corner students draw in the rooms as they are told where they are. The whiteboard is then passed to the other person to check. They then rub out any wrong rooms and read those parts again.
You will need two sets of descriptions so that both people can have a go.
This could also be done as a whole class listening task. You could even do the school you are in and get students to spot the mistakes you make.
After School Clubs
Again, another topic to enthuse…
Essentially from this you want students to come away with a structure such as: “después del instituto”, “después de haber terminado mis clases”, “après avoir fini mes cours”, “am Ende des Tages” combined with the preterite/passé composé or perfekt tense
Have students look up some slightly more interesting activities in advance of this lesson. Fencing, bungee jumping, quidditch, gaming. They can then practice the structure you want them to learn. I can imagine some quite creative efforts once you add in TMP (Germanists only).
Future plans Cluedo
ah…the good old days
I was introduced to “who killed Santa” cluedo in my NQT year by two super language teachers I worked with. The structure can largely be applied to anything. Another popular language teaching website calls it mind-reading.
Give students the following table on a slide.
They pick three phrases and write them on a mini-whiteboard or in books. The student guessing needs to read out the verbs at the top and the infinitives. The person with the three answers can only tell them how many they are getting right.
Weather phrases in foreign languages are odd. I have never really understood quite why “il fait” or “hace” makes more sense than “it is”. However, we have to teach them so here are a few ways to make it more interesting.
Predict the weather
As a plenary activity students write 5 sentences predicting the weather in various locations on the day of your next lesson. As a starter in the subsequent lesson, they check if they were correct / incorrect / bit of both.
The maps on El Tiempo.es are really good for this. See exhibit A below
Photo Response
Show students some photos and have them write sentences quickly on mini-whiteboards. If you use Spanish speaking countries you can generate quite a bit of interest as pupils will inevitably ask “where is that?” Exhibits below include Peru in the height of summer and Bolivia during rainy season. That falling grey mass is rain, not a tornado, as one of the kids thought.
Today at Wimbledon / Euros / World Cup Scripts
Students in year 7 cover present and future tense. It will take a little bit of revision of verbs but they should be able to produce the following using the near future
va a jugar va a ganar va a perder va a llover
va jouer va gagner va perdre va pleuvoir
They have hopefully covered simple time phrases such as “today”, “tomorrow”, “later on”.
All of this leads to being in a position to present a TV programme. Students need to produce a script for the Today at Wimbledon programme. Click here for the theme tune, which will remain in your head for hours afterwards. They should include
Weather today
Who plays who today
Weather tomorrow
Who is going to play who tomorrow
Opinions on who is going to win or lose.
They then perform this and can peer-assess each other on whatever criteria you set. Personally I would go for the following with scores out of 5 for each:
Fluency – does it flow? Can they sound natural?
Confidence – do they come across confidently?
Communciation – can they make themselves understood?
Pronunciation – How strong is their knowledge of phonics?
Translation Tandems
This idea came from Greg Horton on a CPD course about 2 years ago. He used it for vocabulary tests so this is a small tweak.
Hold an A4 piece of paper portrait. Divide the piece of A4 paper. into 2 halves down the middle.
¦ ¦ ¦
Students write sentences alternating between English and TL. Students then fold the piece of paper down the middle and sit facing each other. They have to translate whatever sentence their partner reads out into the other language. This is a great activity to practise translation both ways. It does require a fair bit of pre-teaching so that it is challenging but not demotivating.
Mira 1 Rap
Mira 1 has a listening text that might be a song or a poem. It can be found on p103 and works rather well as a rap. Challenge your class to turn it into one. A good rap backing can be found for free at this link here on TES. If you have VLC media player then you can alter the playback speed and slow it down if needed.
Real life listening
I experimented the other day. I listened to a weather report on eltiempo.es and the guy was super fast. I picked out 10-15 words that my students might pick up from the video, and then added some more that were not there. I challenged them to listen and see how many of my words on the board they would find. I was pleasantly surprised with the results, and so were they.
If you have managed to read this far then this weather report did make me chuckle.
A lot of subjects rely on questioning. Teachers of English, History, Geography, Science and RE can elicit huge amounts of discussion, understanding and thought through questioning techniques. Maybe your SLT are keen on Blooms, SAMR, lolly sticks, think/pair/share or pose/pause/pounce/bounce. It is first worth remembering that MFL is very different. This quote sums up much of my thinking around questioning:
“language teaching is not like the teaching of, say, mathematics or history. Much of our questioning is of a special type, with the purpose of developing internalised competence with grammar, vocabulary and, ultimately, fluency. Language teachers must therefore treat the most recent recent pronouncements on questioning technique with at least a degree of scepticism.” Quote from Steve Smith Frenchteacher.net
Steve mentions scepticism, not rejection. I believe that other subjects do have a few things to teach us and some of the CPD I have experienced around questioning can and has been useful.
This post is about some ways to sharpen your questioning in MFL lessons in the classroom. Some of the thoughts come from experience, others from seeing other colleagues.
Hands up or no hands up?
In one school that I trained in, hands up was considered pure evil, you simply did not do it. In the other school, hands up was fine. Since training and teaching I have tended to take a 50-50 approach. I personally like to see the enthusiasm and speed of recall that hands up reveals. I also like to challenge my students and keep them on their toes.
It seemed worth summarising the three approaches in a table below so you can make your own decision:
Hands up
50-50
No hands up
Pros
Enthusiasm clear.
Students rewarded for effort.
Clear engagement and participation.
Effort rewarded.
Opportunities to build confidence.
Keeps pupils on toes whilst rewarding
keenness.
Keeps everyone on their toes.
Clear engagement
Students forced to pay greater attention.
Might be less likely to pick same kids.
Cons
Some students will not put their hands up.
Tendency to pick the ones who know it.
Some students remain unchallenged,
Students will not always be clear on which
is required.
Some students find it very disconcerting.
Could be demoralising if they genuinely do
not know.
Think/pair/share
A much-used technique from other subjects that we can use in MFL. Tom Sherrington writes about this as “washing hands of learning”. I was slightly alarmed by the title but I see his point. This can be a really useful technique when you have presented students with a grammar structure and you want them to work out how it works, rather than simply telling them. Here is how it works: THINK: Give them at least 30 real seconds thinking time on their own (“teacher seconds” are a completely diifferent time frame). PAIR: discuss with partner or table group. SHARE: share with the class or another group. Tom writes “in doing this you are creating a small bubble of security around each pair; a safe space where they can think for a while and say whatever they like.”
Going off topic for a second. Tom Sherrington was a headteacher and his series of pedagogy postcards and great lessons blogs were really useful in my first few years of teaching. Worth a look.
Targeted questioning
Who are you selecting? Who is contributing in your lessons? One of my colleagues (who will probably read this), talks about first responders and second responders. I have tried to emulate this. First responders are any of the following:
Pupil Premium, underachievers, disengaged.
Second responders are the rest of the class.
More able.
English as an additional language.
Special educational needs & disabilities.
The rest of the class.
Random name generators
Targeted questioning could also be brought about by random name generators. I’ll be honest. I am not a massive fan of lolly sticks. It seems like a lot of preparation every year, you have to have somewhere to keep them and there is a yearly cost implication. I used to use random name generators and have not used them for a while. So that is my mission for this week.
Have you tried stacking the generator slightly? The first of the two above websites allows up to 40 names and maybe your class is only 28 strong. Some names could accidentally find their way in there twice or three times. If the kids start to question this then perhaps remind them that random means the same name could come up 3 times in a row.
You might want to consider when to use these generators as they will not always be appropriate:
Steve Smith (author of The Language Teacher Toolkit) writes the following:
“I understand the theory that we should have the same expectation of all students and that students need to be challenged and ready to respond at any time, but I also believe that as teachers we should be using our skill and knowledge of our students to pitch questions at an appropriate level. This is sensible differentiation. Each student can be challenged at their own level and we know all too well how great the variability is in language learning aptitude.”
With that in mind, let’s look at the next bit…
Planning your questions
There is a story that suggests a child was asked by an inspector what their favourite part of a lesson was. The child replied “the plenary”. The inspector was impressed that the child knew the word and pressed them as to why. The child responded: “because that’s the bit when we get to pack up and go home”.
Most language teachers will conduct a plenary at the end of a lesson. How many of the plenary questions do you genuinely plan ahead of that time? Similarly, when you are teaching grammar, what questions have you planned to check understanding? How are you going to seek the answers? Who are you going to ask? What questions could you add to challenge your high achievers?
No opt out
This comes from Doug Lemov’s “Teach like a Champion”. Doug insists that “I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer. I would largely agree unless you have asked a question that all students might not know the answer to. Looking at his ways of implementing this, my personal preference would be for formats 3 and 4.
Format 1. You provide the answer; your student repeats the answer.
Format 2. Another student provides the answer; the initial student repeats the answer. Format 3. You provide a cue; your student uses it to find the answer. Format 4. Another student provides a cue; the initial student uses it to find the answer
Occasionally on a reading text when going through answers I may accept that a student didn’t know the answer on number 3 but will tell them that I want the answer to number 8. They have until I get there to find it. This way you maintain your standard of everyone trying hard but accept they may simply not have found the answer. You know your pupils and can decide when this is appropriate.
It might seem odd to some teachers out there to read a book about teaching, particularly during the holidays, when one should be relaxing. However, there is definitely a lot to be gained from some of the literature out there. Here are the ones I have learnt the most from when it comes to MFL teaching. To some readers, it may come as a shock that “The Language Teacher Toolkit” is not on there, however I have only just purchased it and have only read a couple of chapters.
The Craft of the Classroom – Michael Marland (1934-2008)
This book was immensely helpful in my PGCE, NQT year and early years of teaching. Although it was written in the early nineties, the wisdom it provides is timeless. The late author covers relationships, discipline, establishing habits, parents, pressure, classroom layout, displays and more. Michael Marland, the author, comes across as a man who loved teaching. This book leaves nothing out. The effects of adverse weather on pupils is noted and the presence of plant-life to brighten up the classroom is suggested. His emphasis on the power of positive strong relationships comes across throughout. Having lent the book to an NQT, I am indebted to the Guardian for the following quote from the final page of the book:
“The craft [of the classroom] won’t work without a spirit compounded of the salesman, the music-hall performer, the parent, the clown, the intellectual, the lover and the organiser, but the spirit won’t win through on its own either. Method matters. The more ‘organised’ you are, the more sympathetic you can be. The better your classroom management, the more help you can be to your pupils.”
Target language use varies widely between classes, teachers, students, lessons and schools. This book has 90 ideas to increase TL usage in the classroom and is great to dip into for ideas occasionally to avoid getting stuck in a rut. Having picked it up again recently I am very tempted to try the following:
List of 100 phrases. This is a list of 100 phrases or utterances that all pupils should be able to use. I think a mixture of testing and rewards may get them to use them more.
Talk Time – 5-10mins speaking at the end of a lesson using whatever prompts the teacher brings. This could be objects, photo, music, something to eat. The author mentions she tried a blindfolded taste test of dark, milk and white chocolate with learners having to explain which kind they were eating, and which they preferred. I may make this one a teacher-led activity!
Emergency flashcards for TL-shy classes – series of flashcards with the most basic phrases “yes”, “no”, “please”, “thank you”. I may adapt this slightly to have pronunciation on there too so that the learners can build their confidence.
Other areas covered include routines, games and activities, developing TL beyond the classroom and having a department wide TL policy. If you are considering a purchase, a longer review can be found here courtesy of Steve Smith. You can also follow the author on Twitter @AllisonChaseMFL.
Why don’t students like school? – Daniel T Willingham
This is quite simply a superb book. The blurb on the front says “a cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom.” It sets out this vision and sticks to it. A selection of chapter titles includes:
“Why do students remember everything that’s on television and forget everything I say?”
“How can I help slow learners?”
“Is drilling worth it?”
“How should I adjust my teaching for different types of learners?” This chapter ripped apart the Learning Styles Theories that I was taught on my PGCE.
The questions above are ones teachers ask themselves regularly! Each chapter is easy to read and answers the question it poses. Some chapters contain examples that the author explains. Sometimes there are examples that he lets you follow and work out, before presenting you with the answer, along with how your brain got there. Each chapter concludes with “implications for the classroom” and the book concludes by turning its attention to the reader. It asks the questions we should ask at the end of any educational book: What have you learnt? And what are you going to do about it?
Upgrade your French / German / Spanish – Margaret Jubb, Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass, Silke Mentchen, Abigail Lee Six.
30 days of grammar, vocabulary and language development lie within the pages of these books. The books are generally designed for those between Sixth Form and University to shore up the basics of their language use. I would suggest they are excellent for MFL teachers who wish to work on their weaker language, but cannot access evening classes or are pressed for time. They may also be a good resource for your G&T students or native speakers.
Self-testing quizzes allow you to track your progress and see how you are doing. Answers can be found in the back. The first week of the German one is as follows:
Cases
Describing people -acquaintances, hairstyle, eyes, glasses, character, attitude, being keen on someone
Pronouns
Family and Society – genitive and possessive pronouns
Nouns – genders and plurals
Leisure – sport, verbs using fahren, meeting up with friends,
Bill Rogers is a bit of a favourite on PGCE courses. None of the books on behaviour seemed to deal with some of the classes I encountered. This one gets close. It looks at the features of tough classes and how to deal with them. There is an entire chapter on how to establish the right environment with a tough class at the outset and how to effectively follow up disruptive students. One of the later sections suggests how more experienced colleagues might support members of their department. An idea – from this book – that changed my practice was having my tougher classes in teams that worked together. There would be a prize for the top two at the end of a term, and a transfer window at the start of a the new term. This book will not solve all your problems, but it might help you to find some solutions. If the picture that headed this review summarises how you feel, when that group (you know which one) appear on the timetable; it may well be worth a look!
A belated Happy New Year to any readers and huge big thank you to almost 7500 people who read my ramblings last year! It is quite humbling to see stats like that and also how far across the world it has gone. Having said that, I’m sure there are some NFL fans out there wondering quite how they ended up on a language teaching website!
A bit of a reflective one to kick off 2017. Looking back at 2016, there are some things I did for the first time that I want to keep doing. Here they are…
Core Language Sheets
My 8s,9s and 10s have a sheet glued in the middle of their book where the staples are. These sheets contain key verbs (conjugated and infinitives), time adverbs, conjunctions (not a fan of “connectives”), opinion phrases and much more. They are used regularly by the majority of students in my class. They are adaptations of ones that can be found on Rachel Hawkes’ website. I changed some vocabulary items and also gave the fonts a slight upgrade. They are great for learning homeworks such as “learn time adverbs section” or “write a sentence using each infinitive with no repetition”. It has also stopped some of the “me gusta juego” that pupils often default to.
50-50 no hands up/hands up
I’m a fan of “hands up” and “no hands up” when questioning. I am aware that some teachers will advocate a 100% no hands up approach. This was suggested as an “outstanding” technique when I was training. I’ve listed the pros and cons in the table below. Hopefully you will see why I favour a mixture of both…
Pros
Cons
Hands up
1) You see student enthusiasum for learning.
2) You gain an idea of student competence
3) Occasionally low-confidence students will go
for it so you have a good opportunity to build their
confidence with success!
1) Some students will never put their hands up
2) Some students will be too passive in lessons
3) The two above may become learned behaviours
No hands up
1) Keeps everyone on their toes
2) Does not allow an “opt out”
3) Allows teacher to target questions to
underachievers, pupil premiums, G&T etc.
1) High anxiety for some students low on confidence
2) Some students will go with “don’t know” and resist your attempts
to lead them to an answer.
3) If targeting underachievers, pupil premium etc too often, you
may miss others.
Find someone who…
My new favourite speaking/listening task. For a detailed explanation look at 2.7 on Gianfranco Conti’s blog. The example Gianfranco shares links to free time. I have used it for future tense practice “find someone who will…” or past tense “find the person who did…” It requires a little bit of preparation and printing. The hard part is making sure that the students stay completely in the TL.
Teacher-led listening (Nick Muir / Gianfranco Conti / Steve Smith)
Listening activities in textbooks can be useful. However, I object greatly when the listening text involving types of transport contains sound effects! I have started to do some of my own with varying successes.
Sense or nonsense – Students work out if the sentence given is sense or nonsense.
LH, RH, BH – Allocate three categories in advance, students close eyes and put hands up. This can be done with tenses, opinions, negatives etc
Left hand = future tense
Right hand = past tense
Both hands = present tense
Spot the word missed. Sentences on board, teacher reads out and students spot missing word or word added in.
Mr Men/Real Madrid listening – used at the start of the year to help develop sound and spelling links. Students have to spell the name of the Mr Man having only heard the Spanish. Can also work with members of Real Madrid’s reserve team.
Invitation only twilights.
Finally, we get to some of my own ideas! That being said, I’m sure that it is not original. I know a number of teachers who organise twilights and invite their entire class and attain varying attendance figures. This is compounded when you are up against core subjects, intervention classes, after-school detentions and some departments with more clout. I tried a different tactic. I invited 2-3 students each time. Only one did not turn up. Ways to make it work are as follows:
Invite the student personally a week in advance, have them note it in a planner.
Make it really clear what they are going to get from the session.
Bring something of a sugary nature
Having a smaller GCSE group helps, but even with a larger one you could plan it out over time.
L shapes game – conjugation and translation
Produce a grid of conjugated verbs in TL or English (8×8, 6×8, 10×5 whatever size suits you or whatever preparation time allows). Students start in opposite corners but can only move in L shapes like the knight on a chessboard. To be able to shade in the next square they need to be able to pronounce the word accurately and translate it. They keep going until they cannot move any longer. Winner is then the one with the most squares.
This came from one of our newer teachers. She has three boxes in her room. Green, yellow and red. Pupils put their books in at the end of the lesson depending on how well they feel they have coped with the material covered.
Green = I’m fine, no problems
Yellow = I struggled a bit
Red = I found that really tough. Help!
You can then mark in an order that deals with the greatest need first, and target your marking more effectively.
Snakes and Ladders with heavy TL use.
I tried this with a low ability group and then with a higher one. Pupils have to do a task if they land on odd numbers. If they fail they move vertically down a square. Pupils also have to do a task to ascend a ladder or stop themselves slipping down a snake.
1 – sentence with fui a + country
3 – sentence with fui + transport
5 – sentence with fui + people
7 – sentence with fue +opinion
9 – sentence with fueron
Ladder ascension: sentence with fui + country, transport and people
Snake Stopper: sentence with fui + country and 2x activities in preterite.
Save your money by doing the following:
Get 8-10 boards photocopied for your class.
Counters are rubbers, sharpeners, pen lids, 5 pence coins etc.
I’m learning new words with this topic! Here are a few:
delizar – to swipe
tuitear – to tweet, hotly debated – should it enter the Spanish language or not?
unidad de red – cloud storage
So how do you teach it to tech savvy teenagers? I’ll be honest. I haven’t cracked it and I’m teaching the module at the moment. I’ll add to the ideas below if I stumble on anything useful.
Translation challenge
Divide students into A and B before revealing a slide with these:
Translations A
Translations B
5
Sentence in Spanish here
Sentence in English here
10
Tougher sentence in English here
Tougher sentence in Spanish here
15
Equally tough sentence in Spanish here
Equally tough sentence in English here
20
Horrible sentence in English here
Horrible sentence in Spanish here (present subjunctive anyone?)
Student who gets the highest points score wins. They can start wherever they like.
A3 Answers B2 Responses and C1 sentences
This is an adaptation of an idea from the brilliant Rachel Hawkes. You give the kids questions like the ones below but tell them that you want an A3 answer. The kids then have to include those things in the answer to the question.
¿Para qué usas Facebook?
¿Tienes un blog?
¿Cuántas seguidores tienes en Twitter?
A use perfect tense 1 use a linking word that is not “y”
B use a sentence containing lo/la 2 use an opinion without the word “gusta”
C use present tense 3 include a time phrase
D use opinion 4 include an item of vocabulary from last lesson
5 lines up
Whilst this is not in anyway linked to the internet topic, it is something I am experimenting with. All learners rule off their page 5 lines up from the bottom. This new section of book is for any new vocabulary. This could be something they ask me for, something they find in the dictionary, or a new word encountered in a reading or listening text that they plan to look up later. It has the advantage of allowing them a means of retaining the new language and also shows it linking to the learning that took place in that lesson. Hopefully that should mean that words heard once or seen once, are not simply forgotten. My hope is that by processing it a few more times that they will retain it. It might also foster some independence.
Language Gym Verb Trainer & Boxing
The topics in the AQA book have a hefty amount of grammar (perfect tense, verbs with prepositions, por/para and the present continuous).
The Language Gym website has a great verb trainer but also in the “games room” section there is a boxing game on technology. It is a nice way to consolidate and extend vocabulary. It could be very effective in the practice phase of a lesson or equally as a consolidation homework. The rock-climbing game is really clever although I feel terrible when I get it wrong and hear the “aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh” sound.
This one is all about conversation. Give groups of 3-4 students a series of cards with questions and maybe some support via a speaking mat if needed. Nominate a starting student. Explain that student 1 can question any of students 2,3, and 4. After 2,3 or 4 has answered then they have 3 options. The first is to ping the question back at person one. The second is to ask someone else the same question. The third is to ask another question of someone else. Tell the group they have to keep the conversation going as long as possible. Write up on the board the amount of minute and half-minutes they have managed to keep the conversation going in Spanish. I think some teachers call this group talk. It may well be that but I want the focus to be on the time aspect. They tend to feel more confident and sit taller when they realise they have just managed 5 minutes in Spanish together.
Perfect Tense – “Have you ever…?”
The AQA book uses the internet topic to introduce the perfect tense so once the students have got the concept then you could get them generating a series of 5 questions for their partner on any topic.
Tarsia is one of my favourite activities but does take a while to set up. It is a good plenary or starter to recap something you have taught in a prior lesson. You will need a printing and photocopying budget! Clicking the link will take you to the website where you can download the program. It allows you to make activities such as dominoes. You can also make triangles of little triangles where all the vocab must match in both languages. Maths teachers use it for formulas. Remember to set the form of entry to “TEXT” or it will crush your letters together. If you can trust your students with scissors then they can chop them. If not, employ the skills of your tutor group and bribe reward them for their efforts.
2 options for use:
English – Spanish vocabulary matching “deslizar” = “to swipe”
English word – Spanish definition “Youtube”= “Sitio para videos” “desinstalar” = “proceso de borrar app”.
If the lesson plan and resources on TES are not enough then how to exploit songs can be found in the Teacher’s Guide section of Frenchteacher.net
Spanish Text Lingo
I believe the kids call them “group chats” now but teach them some basic Spanish phrases for this purpose. See if the students can work out any of the following:
grax – gracias
tqm – te quiero mucho
bss – besos
komotás – ¿Cómo estás?
de nax – de nada
50538 – I’m not telling you this one. Turn your phone upside-down and read it
Verb Tables / Verb Stars
There is a lot of good grammar in this topic if you are following an AQA scheme of work so make use of it as an opportunity to teach them verb tables and how to use them.
descargar – to download
descargo descargüe voy a descargar he descargado etc
Whilst I am not a massive fan of learning styles theories, I appreciate that some learners prefer to lay out information in different ways.
Lists – colour-coded subdivisions:
Descargar
Present: descargo
Past: he descargado / descargüe / descargaba
Future: voy a descargar / descargaré
Make sure students stick to the same colour coding or they are simply going to cause themselves confusion.
Brainstorm / Star
Put infinitive in the middle and add others around it. To make it more asthetically appealing putting a star around the infinitive is useful.
How many different ways can you use that infinitive?
There are many verbs in Spanish that precede an infinitive. Students could use those as well. Germanists will know what I mean by Modalverben.
Puedo / Quiero / Tengo que / Debería / Me gustaría etc
For some reason, despite lessons being no longer graded, people are still searching for outstanding MFL activities. Please bear in mind that this post was written in 2016 and reflective of the current prevailing educational landscape of the time
‘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.
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!
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.
Sorry for the lack of posts, things got busy at work so here is a double whammy. One of the 5 ideas to try series and the other is a collection of thoughts on GCSE revision.
1) No ICT at all
I think we can become too dependent on computers. The phrase “death by Powerpoint” is not a new one. Kids are largely unsurprised by anything we can do with a computer. So how about turning it off for a lesson (apart from your register of course). The other day with my French class we had a lesson with no ICT at all. They did not have to even look at a screen. It was great! Everything was old-school. We had flashcards, card sorts and all manner of activities but nothing involved a computer.
2) Giant scrabble
Great way of stretching pupils thinking skills and knowledge of vocabulary on a particular topic. Put as many mini-whiteboards together as you can. Start with a word in the middle. Pupils get a point per letter for their word and a point per letter from any word it bisects. You could make it a team effort if you have large classes so two pupils work cooperatively. My old German teacher used to do this on an OHP, we loved it but the mini-whiteboard version allows everybody to be involved. I’ve also tried adding challenges such as: include words on the theme of … (double word score), include a particular grammar item (triple word score). The possibilities are not endless, as that is a cliché, but there are quite a few.
3) Differentiated dice speaking.
I might have posted this one before but it keeps with the no-ICT theme above. Give pupils dice. If you can buy some D12s (12-sided dice) then do. You then have the following options.
Put 2 sets of numbers 1-6 with vocabulary (eg me gusta and school subjects) pupils roll the dice twice, say the phrase and their partner translates
Give them a task per number of the dice to revise material covered over the year.
Give them a task per number of the 6 sided dice and then a modifying element with the twelve sided (heavyH on prep but great for stretching the kids).
4) 50-50 Hands up/hands down
I’ve seen some classes where the rule is no hands up and others where the rule is hands up all the time. I’ve been trying a mixture of both recently and it’s working. It maintains the engagement as both other methods have two distinct problems. The no hands up rule is great but only if the teacher makes a point of picking on all class members. It can easily lead to picking on the brighter ones, further the learning and progress of a class. The latter has an issue as it allows the quieter members of our class to hide. I find this one neatly counters both. It shows you who is keen but allows you to keep all members of the class on their toes.
Brilliant resource by the exceptional rosaespanola on TES revising foods, likes and dislikes. My only concern is that my bottom set did a better job than my top set. The language was quite challenging and the task is not particularly easy. If you use it then give it the 5* rating it merits.
Just a few simple ideas this time. Thank you to whoever is tweeting this site as the views go rocketing up. I haven’t ventured on to Twitter yet but it might happen soon.
Extreme battleships
You’ve probably done the normal mfl version with a 4×4 grid and phrases that students have to use to sink their opponent’s ship.
How about an 8×8 grid with two people playing against two other people at the same time using the same board? It sounds mental but it can work. You need a very competitive class, very clear instructions and a certain arrangement of desks.
Differentiated Quiz Quiz Trade with mini-whiteboards
Get students to write a question on their whiteboard and the start of the answer on the back of the whiteboard. Students must ask and answer a question before swapping whiteboards. I tried this with ¿Qué estudias? and ¿Qué vas a estudiar? Students had “estudio” or “voy a estudiar” on the other side so when the person was answering, they had help with their answer. Went down well with a low ability group.
Extreme holiday consequences
A fair amount of pre-teaching of verbs needed here. Give students a long piece of paper, tell them to put their name at the bottom (this throws them a bit). Then lead them through the following insisting that they fold over and pass the paper on each time. At the end return it to the original person. Writing and reading task in one 🙂
Somewhere you went
who you went with
how you got there
el primer día + 2 activities
Opinion
el Segundo día+ 2 activities
Opinion
el ultimo día + 2 activites
Volví en + transport
You can adapt this to your heart’s content. This could work with what you do at the weekend, what you plan to do at the weekend. It could be done with school. Very flexible activity that allows for a high degree of creativity and teaches some useful phrases at the same time.
30 second summary
A great plenary activity that allows you to check on the learning of a class or even better an individual. You know how some students do not give much away by their facial expressions, set the class the task of summarising the content of the lesson or explaining a grammar point in 30 seconds., Go over and listen to that particular student.
Youtube
There is a lot of dross out there but if you find something good, make it part of your practice. I am not a massive fan of songs given that my ability to sing is …well.. “limited” would be putting it kindly. The school insurance probably does not cover the resultant broken glass.
Particularly enjoyed using these two recently:
We exploited them by listening, gap fills, finding phrases, and then trying to sing it. If you have VLC media player you can slow the play speed (0.85 is good)
Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had an excellent Christmas and a promising start to the new year.
I’ve decided this should be a simple post about things I will try this term, starting next week. There are numerous aspects of teaching that I want to improve and various ideas that I want to try. All of it is aimed at trying to make my lessons the very best they can be. While inevitably some lessons will go better than others, I want the return in terms of learning to be high every lesson.
Here are 4 ideas I want to try in January:
1) Experiments with excellence
I’ve been reading a little about Ron Berger and his “ethic of excellence” and his insistence on feedback and how it can drive improvement. Whilst Berger teaches in a relatively unique setting I wonder if his ideas can be applied in an MFL classroom. My year 8 Spanish class will produce a postcard from a holiday but rather than it being a week long homework at the end of the topic, we will draft it over 2 weeks before they do a final version at the end of the topic.
Inspired by a Bristol colleague. Students have phrases on a sheet of A4 with alternating Spanish/English. They have to say what they think is the phrase and their partner can nudge them towards a correct version. It should have the effect of reinforcing grammar structures, raising translation as an activity (with the new GCSE in mind) and could work quite well. Probably will try it with year 7s or year 10s.
3) Insistence on TL
All students have phrases in their books they can use but I’m really going to push it this term. I want to see if we can get lessons where there is an 80/20% ratio of Spanish – English. To this end I plan to have 3 things in place:
i) A TL monitor – a student I trust who can monitor my TL usage and that of the class. They will have a traffic light card to indicate this. In lower years this will probably be referred to as the Spanish Sy
ii) TL phrases on wall – students need to use these in responding after a listening exercises or wherever possible.
iii) Rewards for students who use most TL, this will be monitored by my TL monitor.
4) Live marking
That is “live” in the sense of “in the moment” not live as in “live, breathe, eat, sleep marking.” I saw this suggested on another post. A teacher picks 8 students and aims to mark their books whilst the students are on a task of some description. The marking then finishes with a question relating to what he/she has seen and demands a response. Our students have to respond to our marking, this might be a way of encouraging it. They are more likely to respond if I am stood next to them marking their neighbours book. It might also be a way to reduce the marking load. We will see.
next to them. Occasionally, where time might have been tight, we were left the verbs from the year above and used those.
Everyday MFL 