Routes Live - Routes into Language Teaching

Last Friday, I was asked to take part in a Routes into Languages live webinar about Routes into Languages, along with wit Dr. Elizabeth Anderson, Director of Routes into Languages North East, René Kogelbauer, Acting Head of the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences and Director of the North Leadership Centre and President of ALL and Karl Reid, a current trainee teacher. 
It was a fantastic experience, not least because I was able to use Google Hangouts from the computer in my classroom and all of the technology worked!
Here is a link to the webinar, I hope that it proves useful to prospective MFL teachers.

Routes Live - Routes into language teaching

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.

How about a Haiku?

I can't believe it's so long since I last blogged!! Maybe I should try it more regularly, or maybe once in a blue moon is just enough for everybody!

Anyway, in one of my few moments of creativity this term, I came upon an idea which turned out to be a winner.

I discovered that it was National Poetry day earlier in October and decided to mark the occasion with my Y10 and 11 classes by writing Haikus. A Haiku is a 3 line poem that has 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line and 5 in the last line (or atleast, that's what Google told me). Obviously, with the serious business of Controlled Assessments to learn off by heart to ensure GCSE grades are on or above target, we couldn't spend a whole lesson on this, neither do I think a whole lesson needs to be spent on this. However it did work really well as a starter.

After giving them their topic (descriptions for Y10 and holidays for Y11....guess our current CA topics are!) and reminding them what a Haiku was, the mini whiteboards came out and they began work. I can honestly say that I have rarely seen them work so hard! You could feel the cogs turning as they counted syllables while trying to get it all to make sense. They joy when they had finished their Haiku....that quickly turned to despair when I'd point out "don't forget, you say the "e" in German" and they had to try a different way of getting in their 5 syllables...

Needless to say, when they all did manage to get their Haiku completed, they were very proud of what they achieved and were keen for me to Tweet them on our school MFL account, which naturally I did.

Here is a link to our Twitter account, you'll be able to find all of the Y10 Haiku on descriptions (you won't have to scroll down far to find them).

@stmichaelsmfl

iPads and Languages

Back in September, I learned that I had been extremely fortunate because my bid for iPads for the MFL department had been successful. After several hiccups, the much talked about tablets finally arrive in my room on Wednesday.

I was very concerned, that this useful technology would turn up in my room and would just be left unused, thus making it all a huge waste of time and money.  In order to combat that, this week I have spent time with every class I teaching doing "something" with the iPads. Nothing flash, just making sure that each class uses them, is familiar with expectations and protocols surrounding their use and seeing that I'm not afraid for it all to go horribly wrong!

I was lucky, as on Wednesday I had my two year 11 classes. This meant I could start with classes who I know well, who I know are sensible and who I  knew would react positively should I choose to do things that didn't work. I am happy to report that things went very well! 

So, keeping it simple so far what have I used the iPads for?

Consolidating, reinforcing and learning new language with the superb Languages Online.  This has been redesigned recently, making it very easy to use with tablets.  This was great, as normally I'd go into an ICT suite to use this website. The added bonus was, that pupils had their exercises books easily accessible and could make note of new language in their books. They were much more proactive with this, than when I do that kind of activity in an ICT suite. An added bonus was, that "languages" is a tricky word to type (for me!), so to avoid the "mine hasn't gone to the right place" situation, I created a QR code with the link, and pupils accessed the site thought that. Simples!

I also got my y11s using Sock Puppets to talk about what they eat and sports they do (Healthy Living!). They spoke and listened to loads of French.  Much more than had it been a "normal" lesson.

My y8 class used the iPads for a plenary on Linoit.  Much nicer than paper post its, as that Lino is now on the MLF blog for them to revisit!

Finally Socrative. Just fab! I started off creating quizzes from scratch and find it all a bit clunky at first (learning is clunky at first, until your used to it) but after a few goes, it's become like second nature.  I particularly like that pupils can vote on responses, which means they are peer assessing all the time.

I wonder what next week will bring ...

Somethings I am very keen to ensure are...

iPads don't just become and "add on", they become a natural part of a lesson

iPads don't become a hindrance to learn. They need to be used for real learning and not just for the sake of it.

I also think that for them to be successful I have be not afraid to make mistakes, also be prepared to learn from my classes (they've already taught me a lot this week), have faith in my students and trust them to do what is asked of them....but then, don't we do that everyday as teachers, no. After what we are doing in our teaching?

I shall report back more iPad adventures in a few weeks...

Controlled Assessment - an interesting idea!

 

When the GCSE Exam for MFL was reviewed and changed, someone in their wisdom decided to invent something wonderful called "Controlled Assessment".

Designed to move away from Coursework, which was open to "interpretation", Controlled Assessment was supposed to give teachers and pupils more control I suppose, and also take away pressure of the final all or nothing exam (particularly the Speaking Exam). In MFL Controlled Assessment accounts for 60% of the final grade; 30% for writing over 2 pieces and 30% for speaking over 2 pieces.

I have to admit, when I first heard about Controlled Assessment, I thought it was a wonderful idea. I had it clear in my head how I would teach the GCSE and how I would make sure my pupils performed well at their CA...then the complications began...

Pupils were allowed a 40 plan or prompt sheet or...call it what you like, really. Good idea thought I, naïvely. Then it started.

Some exam boards allowed pictures, some didn't.

Some discussed conjugated verbs...were they or weren't they allowed for some they were, for some they weren't.

Then there was the moving of the goal posts half way through the course.

Then there was the changing of job half way through the course, thus changing exam boards and a whole new approach to CA, quite different from what I had imagined.

This is all alongside the poor, almost forgotten about, GCSE pupils who are being subjected to Controlled Assessments and Modular exams every other week of their KS4, stressed out permanently and actually not gaining much in terms of linguistic skill...in languages at any rate. We find ourselved teaching to the test more than ever and what's more, wasting valuable lesson time in the preparation of CA tasks, where we are not allowed to have any input so just supervising while the more diligent pupil prepares but several see it as an opportunity to catch up on the latest gossip.

Over the last few weeks I have been engulfed in the delight that is Controlled Assessment with my Year 11 classes and all I seem to have spent the time doing was apologising! Apologising for not being able to help, apologising for the way the exam is structured, apologising that I'm not prepared to bend the rules, apologising for apologising... I even spent one lesson reading the teachers' guidance for CA out to my Y11 so that they knew I wasn't a big bad (Lang)witch who made up the fact she couldn't help and couldn't correct what they were doing now.

I have heard that there is a plan to go back to the final all or nothing exams and that these Controlled Assessments are on their way out as quickly as they arrived. I have also heard some people (not many) praise CA and others saying that a final exam is the best way forward. I'm not sure I'm the best person to make judgements on how Languages should be tested but I do know that anything is better than what we have now...isn't it?