Promoting Independent Learning in MFL

A few months ago I was contacted by Eva Lamb about running a session during the ALL Yorkshire winter series on independent learning. On Thursday therefore, I headed down the A1 and M1 to Sheffield to do my session.

Over the course of 90 minutes I covered a range of activities that I use with my classes in the hope of getting them to be more independent language learning. Below is a copy of the presentation and also I have linked below that to posts that I've written in the past on this blog that describe how they work. Whilst all of my examples are MFL specific, most of these activities can be adapted to any subject area.

Promoting independent learning in mfl all from Helena Butterfield

Quiz Quiz Trade  description
Read Clare Seccombe's guide to using Tarsia here
Follow me description
Show down description
Infinite scrabble description
Download a template for infinite scrabble here
Lingo bingo description
Haiku blog post

Fan n pick 
You can quite easily use your QQT cards for this activity.
You will need:
- cards
- your "manage mat" (it helps keep the pupils focused) Download my French / German versions here
-  groups of 3 or 4

How it works:
Person 1 fans out the cards, face down
Person 2 picks a card and reads / shows it to person 3 (just the question or the English / TL phrase to translate) and passes the card to person 4.
Person 3 answers the question, with coaching and praise from person 4.
When complete the card is returned to the pack, manage mat is moved round to next person and this time Person 2 does the fanning.
The best way to work out how this works it to try it as it all becomes clear then.
I've also tried this with open ended questions for speaking practice and where I used that, person 4 gave WWW/EBI feedback and praise.  This also worked really well.

Jot write
You will need lots of small bits of scrap paper for this activity.

Give each group a collection of paper / post its / scrap paper

Give pupils a topic or theme

Pupils all write their words at the same time AND say the words out loud and place their pieces of paper in the centre. The key is they all work at the same time, individually but by saying their words out loud they ensure that no one repeats the words and you get a variety in the centre to work from.

From this they could then categorise the words / peer assess – proof read / find the odd ones out / find meanings / create sentences / etc…

It you wanted to add an element of competition (not strictly cooperative learning, I know) you could give out achievement points for most words / the groups with words that no one else came up with  / etc...

Rally Robin (Talking Tennis) 

Ask a question, give 5-7 seconds thinking time, pupils take it in turns to give their answers

Round Robin 

Same as above but in a group of 4

In both of the above pupils have their go either by turn taking or by allocating time – use a timer on your board  and give 10/20/30 to talk– you could do this for speaking practice / spontaneous talk

All write round robin 

The same as above but what each person says, the whole group write down at the same time, so they have a record, probably in the back of their book…

I hope that I've covered everything here and that you find it useful.