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split-attention reduced format split-attention reduced format ‘First, the theory itself needs to be guided by our knowledge of human cognition – how we learn, think and solve problems. Second, the effectiveness of the theory’s recommendations must be testable and to have actually been tested with positive outcomes using randomised, controlled  trials.’ John Sweller During the past few weeks, I have been reading ‘Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory in Action’ by Oliver Lovell and I personally found it informative and accessible with many practical examples. Below is my summary of the first part of the book. The 5 key principles that underpin CLT: A – Architecture: the cognitive architecture of human memory – looking at how our memory works,  the different types of memory we have, how they are different and what influences them (environment, working memory, long-term memory). For more information see my previous post here. B – Biology: Biologically primary information (knowledge that we have evolved to acquire, can not be taught – basic social functions, such as ability to speak/listen/recognise faces…unconscious, effortless) and biologically secondary information (knowledge that has become relevant only in last few thousand years, such as academic subjects taught at school…conscious, effortful). C – Categorisation: Categorisation of intrinsic load (core learning we want our student’s working memory to be occupied with) and extraneous load (extrinsic – represents the manner and the structure of the instruction, takes attention away from core learning) – we need to reduce this load. Both loads cannot exceed the capacity of working memory if we want learning to occur. D – Domains: a field in which an individual can develop from novice to expert. Domain-general knowledge (biologically primary knowledge) refers to general capabilities, transferable across range of task such as problem-solving, communication, creativity, teamwork, domain-specific knowledge (biologically secondary knowledge) refers to knowledge within specific subject such as languages, maths, arts… E – Elements: Element interactivity – for learning to take place a number of elements have to be considered in working memory and then incorporated into long-term memory. The more elements of new information a student has to think about and process in working memory during a task and the more complex the relations between these elements are, the number of interactions the more challenging the task will be – this is described as ‘elemental interactivity’ – source of all cognitive load. Cognitive load is classed as anything that takes up the capacity of working memory. The fundamental recommendation of CLT is to reduce extraneous load and optimise intrinsic load in order to increase students’ learning. The elements of information that we store in our long-term memory increases in complexity over time. We combine smaller elements to form larger elements – this is called ‘chunking’ – this allows us to conduct more complex tasks/thoughts. For language teachers it could reflect Conti’s Sentence Builder Methodology where new language is taught in ‘chunks’ via SB rather then teaching vocabulary in isolation. As educators we face the challenge of reducing the cognitive load for our students. New information takes up more working memory capacity than information that is familiar to us. When information becomes familiar, it becomes automatic and effortless (recognising words, recalling times tables etc.) and this is how working memory load is reduced. This is what we are aiming for! Model from Oliver Lovell’s Sweller’s CLT in action book Intrinsic load can be optimised by well planned curriculum sequencing, pre-teaching, segmentation (sequencing and combining) and extrinsic load can be minimised by good instruction. So how can language teachers apply this theory to their teaching, their resources/instruction and to their delivery in languages classroom. We can reduce the extraneous load by: eliminating unnecessary or replicated information – CLT suggests that using spoken (listen) and written (read) input simultaneously or using images + written word could be classed as redundant. However, we have to be cautious when it comes to languages!!! In languages, especially for novice learners with weaker decoding skills, based on research referenced in the book, read + listen is preferable – in this case hearing with reading is not redundant – without it the students in the study couldn’t connect the sound to text as their letter-sound connections weren’t secure, so here it was vital! However, for expert learners with stronger decoding skills, read-only might be the best as listen-only was too fleeting and listen and read was redundant as students already had letter-sound connections. This draws on the redundancy element being different for different learners/classes. What is redundant for expert isn’t redundant for novice! avoiding split-attention effect – integrating the necessary information together in space and time. split-attention format split-attention reduced format modality effect – by presenting new vocabulary via auditory and visual channels in tandem we can eliminate visual split-attention. using dual modality to eliminate split-attention – if both pieces of information which need to be combined are presented in visual form there will always occur a delay when students look at the first piece of information and then at second piece before integrating them. Therefore, if we present one piece visually and second one is pronounced/spoken aloud, so that students can hear it, the two pieces can be truly presented simultaneously and split-attention can be eliminated completely. (See below) Examples of different formats: split-attention format split-attention reduced format split-attention eliminated Modality effect refers to how we present new language where dual coding refers to how we remember new language. I have been looking specifically at how I could adapt some of the resources I have been using, to reduce the split-attention format and make them more accessible to my students, using what I have learnt from this book about the CLT. Presenting new vocabulary: traditional text book format vs sentence builder format (idea to use light blue for English translation by @TeacheryDiaz) – for expert learner remove the blue translation and just point and say the word in tandem. This way the split-attention effect will be eliminated. Split – attention format  using a text book Split-attention reduced using a SB Other resources: Split – attention format-tangled translation Split-attention reduced-tangled translation Split-attention format – translation 1st letter Split-attention reduced – translation 1st letter Split-attention format – text analysis Split-attention reduced – text analysis There is a lot more that can be explored about CLT and its application to language teaching. I have looked only at a fraction of it. There are many worked examples for various subjects and evidence why they work; ideas on self-explanation and self-explanation prompts (general and specific) that support learning. Example of subject specific self-explanation prompt The aim of this post is to give a summary of some of the key concepts and a few of my own ideas on how they could be applied in my own practice. I would value any ideas and thoughts other language specialist might have as well as other ways of applying CLT to language teaching. Please, feel free to leave a comment with suggestions either here or an my social media sites. All resources available and adaptable on my resource page. * original resource by Wendy Adeniji – adapted. #elements #extraneousload #intrinsicload #cognitiveload #elementalinteractivity #instruction #domains #sequencing #CognitiveLoadTheory

One of the biggest myths that I was taught during my ITT many years ago and started my teaching career with, was that our learners fit into three groups of differentiation – some are high ability, some middle ability and some low ability. These have been often based on SATs results or later on based on how students perform in the core subjects. Throughout my teaching career, I became to realise that if I have in my class 30 students, I have in fact students of 30 different abilities with this ability prone to change depending on what type of skill, task or concept I am teaching, how much my students have recalled from their last learning episode, the time elapsed since this learning episode, the time of the day, the events that happened during lunch or break time, the amount of sleep that my learners have had etc. ‘Differentiation as an idea, in principle, is a good one in that we make the curriculum accessible in so far that it is possible for every child in the classroom.’ (Mary Myatt, The Stuff that matters, DynamicsDeps – Russ and Steve, Episode 44). However, what do we understand under the word ‘DIFFERENTIATION’? We all might have a completely different definitions for it! Many educators have understood differentiation as having to produce different work sheets for different groups of students, also influenced by the fads of VAK and the Chilli Challenges. Unfortunately, by giving one group easier work and another more difficult work we are widening the gap as we are pre-determining what some students can do and achieve and some can’t. The better students will get even better, but the weaker ones still won’t get any closer to them! Let’s think… how do our learners feel about being ‘labelled’ and ‘boxed’ in terms of: you can have this challenging work and you cannot because is beyond your ability! How can we know what a learner is capable of if we do not give him/her the chance to tackle the challenging work? I remember once a colleague discussing in a meeting the difficulty of how to teach adjectival endings to her ‘bottom’ set and a suggestion being made to the extent that maybe the colleague could show the learners the declension table and mention how to apply this Grammar concept so the content is ‘covered’ (notes in the ex.book) but not bother to practise it with them or get them to use it. Well, that is like teaching a student how to make a cake, but never actually allowing him/her to touch the ingredients and have a go at it… In my teaching career, I have also gone through the tiered LOs: must, should, could; all, most, some…all suggesting that some parts of the curriculum are only for some – not all! I have realised that this intentional and explicit approach was widening the gap and underachievement, especially amongst disadvantaged students. For me, differentiation is: me – the teacher applying different levels of support and scaffolding (through guided practice, questioning, writing frames, feedback etc.) to the needs of my learners to achieve the same aspirational goal. We all have the same goal, but some of us will need more help, more time or more guidance to reach it. Language learning is also a multi-sensory experience! There is not just one learning style for one student, we process information different ways depending on the content, skill or activity. We should provide the challenging tasks to all of our learners and support them via scaffolding, where necessary. This scaffolding is only temporary and can be removed! Instead of providing a poorer or diminished diet (Myatt) we should be providing different levels of scaffolding which is proven to be impactful. Students, if supported appropriately, like the challenging work, they embrace it and work really hard if the conditions are right and in my class I have seen a significant shift in attitude, confidence, engagement and achievements. Building a culture of high expectations is the key, ensuring our classroom is a safe learning environment where the students understand that learning is a complex process. We all learn at different pace, some of us learn faster then others. We have different working-memory capacity, some of us will retain more than others. This is completely natural and needs to be relayed to our learners. Even students who genuinely struggle to access their year group’s work should have access to the same curriculum, objectives and types of activities as their peers, they just need to be skilfully adapted/scaffolded. We should strive to avoid the ‘glass ceiling’ on learning at all costs. We differentiate everyday in our classrooms – whether it is by carefully selecting the seating plan that is flexible and caters for students’ ability, SEN, physical difficulty (i.e. hearing or visual impairment), behaviour, personality or by circulating around the classroom providing additional support where it is needed, encouraging our students to work at their best level – building on the challenge. So how do I differentiate in my classroom if not by creating different activities? Differentiation by questioning: I recently wrote a post on effective questioning and the different ways students can be questioned using different styles of questioning here. Things to consider: What language? L1 or L2 or both, cognates, key words, additional details. How many questions? The student has the choice or the teacher decides – be wary that some students will always go for the easy option, so at times the teacher as a professional might be better to make the choice. How difficult are the questions? what – yes/no, true/false, who…, multiple choice, why & how -opinion or justification questions, open-ended… Differentiation by instruction and scaffolding: Scaffolded translation tasks: more on translation activities here. Consider CLT and Dual coding (I don’t mean icons/pictures, but how you design your resources so they are maximising learning and not causing distractions). For early finishers translating into different tenses or an extension question provides differentiation with minimal prep for the teacher – the effective teacher responds to the needs of the learner and places the ownership for learning back on the learner. Activities inspired by Gianfranco Conti. Scaffolded writing tasks: I would model this also live on my laptop (see below ‘live’ modelling) or under a visualiser. Also consider the more advanced learners who might not need any scaffolding at all! Scaffolded listening and reading tasks: students annotate the sentence builder/parallel text/KO to support pronunciation and phonics awareness students repeat after the teacher students highlight the sentence the teacher is reading or write it down the teacher starts the sentence – the students finish it – aural gap fill one student starts to read a sentence another student finishes it the teacher asks questions students use SB to answer them the teacher uses SB without L2 translations – students highlight the sentence that is read out. Disappearing text listening for individual words/cognates/ word groups – parsing skills reading the transcript whilst listening gap fill exercises and finally comprehension questions. More on listening skills here. Scaffolded retrieval tasks: more on retrieval here. You might want to instruct the students to choose one from each colour to avoid some students going just for the easy option – the outcome might be different – one word answer vs. a full sentence answer. However, all students have the same level of the challenge. Differentiation by assessment, feedback or remediation: Elena Díaz’s 20 keys writing frame – supports assessments and feedback. You could also create your own rubrics. More on feedback here. ‘Live’ modelling: drawing ideas from students, providing a clear structure. Students are being taught and completing GCSE style writing questions from year 7. This, however doesn’t mean teaching to an exam, but students knowing that we trust them to be able to tackle this type of challenging task… Visualisers: These are absolutely fantastic for differentiated feedback – I often choose 4-5 pieces and ‘live’ mark them in class with students marking and correcting their own writing  simultaneously, drawing attention to common mistakes/misconceptions but also to excellent examples of vocabulary, variety of language and structures asking my students to explain why it is good and how it can be made even better. I consider this type of feedback extremely powerful. Taking differentiation outside of the classroom: In my post on Effective and meaningful homework, I wrote about using Quizlet for learning homework. I find that this type of homework has made a huge impact this year in students’ engagement and motivation. It provides my students with a routine, the activities available provide choice of difficulty/challenge (matching activities, multiple choice to more difficult, like write and spell), so students can build their knowledge and confidence. I often also set some vocabulary before I have taught it (flipped learning) thus priming my students and giving some of my learners a head start. In conclusion, gradual removal of scaffolding to nurture independent and confident learners is essential. Sometimes, the mistake is made that we leave the scaffolding for too long. For me, differentiation is not giving my students different coloured work sheets, but about knowing my students (in secondary education it might take a bit more time with teaching more classes) and being flexible to adapt my teaching through support, constant formative assessment and feedback to ensure all of my learners reach their potential. This might be harder for our ECTs as this level of teacher – confidence comes with the experience. An important factor for us to consider is to include our students in the differentiation process and provide them with autonomy which in my experience reflects positively on their motivation. I have definitely not cracked ‘differentiation’, it is in my view still one of the most difficult concepts to implement and I also have to acknowledge that despite all of my best efforts to support my learners, some still might not get there, but it’s the effort and ‘no-opt-out that counts… I look forward to hearing your thoughts. References: Mary Myatt: The Curriculum – Gallimaufry to coherence The research Ed Guide to Education Myths Doug Lemov: Teach like a champion 2.0 Shaun Allison, Andy Tharpy: Making every lesson count https://teacherhead.com/2019/01/24/rescuing-differentiation-from-the-checklist-of-bad-practice/ https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/ Activities: Gianfranco Conti – E.P.I If you find my ideas and resources useful, you can show your appreciation by buying me a☕. Link here. #scaffolding #livemodelling #feedback #differentiation #questioning

What is effective questioning in the classroom? Effective questions are defined as questions focusing on eliciting the process in student’s response – the ‘how’ and ‘why’ rather then just answering the ‘what’. They open conversations, challenge and inspire deeper thinking. So, how does this apply to our context, in our subject and in our classrooms? Well, of course it is not an equal ‘playing field’ comparing our subject to subjects such as maths, English, history etc… where students are proficient in their L1, however, even in these subjects, for learners to answer the ‘how’ and ‘why’, they still need to know a lot about the topic that is discussed to think deeply about it! This is one of the most undervalued truths about learning, the deeper and broader the knowledge, the more rigorous the application (Teach like a Champion, Lemov). In modern languages, I would say, this statement is true – ‘The bigger and better vocabulary and understanding of how the language works students have, the better communication skill they will have’! In the early stages of language acquisition our focus is very much on teaching our learners the key vocabulary, structures and grammatical links that support communication on a more basic level, so the ‘what’ (language content) in our context, in our subject is also essential. If students don’t have good vocabulary (this includes high frequency vocabulary as well as content vocabulary) and can not communicate sufficiently in the language, how can they have deeper, more meaningful conversations later on in their learning journey at KS4 and KS5. The ‘why’ (language structures) is essential for the application of the language learners are studying. I am afraid to say that for me, the ‘Bloom’s taxonomy’(1956, revised 2001) never really worked in language teaching. Recognition, memory, comprehension, application which are the categories at the bottom of the pyramid and therefore classed as the lower order skills according to its hierarchy, are vital to build up fluency and communication in our subject! The analysis and evaluation stage comes later on with more competence. Of course, at the end of the sequence of lessons after a lot of practice our students can produce a longer piece of writing (a blog, an article, a paragraph) or hold a conversation, but the complexity of it and how advanced what they produce is, depends on the level of their L2 competency. Effective questioning techniques in Modern Languages What are the most impactful questioning techniques we can apply to ensure we cater and include all of our learners? During my webinar for ALL West Midlands Branch on Retrieval Practice, I have been asked to explain one of the techniques (cold calling) that I have been using consistently and successfully with my students since actively engaging with the research and the EDU books such as Teach like a champion (Lemov) and Teaching Walkthrus (Sherrington, Caviglioli). I believe they are also easily applicable to modern languages teaching and many of us have been most likely using some of them consistently throughout our teaching career without really knowing the name for them. ‘One consistent finding of academic research is that high expectations among teachers are the most reliable driver of high achievements among students.’ (Lemov) One of these expectations that is important in my classroom is that getting it wrong or not knowing the answer yet is ok, but it is not OK not to try. This is linked to Lemov’s No Opt Out technique which can ensure that all students take responsibility for their learning. It also helps students who genuinely don’t know the answer or get it wrong as it rehearses success. Get it wrong and then get it right – the experience of simple success is very powerful (Lemov) and important for students’ self-efficacy as many students come to school thinking they are not good at languages, expecting to fail and therefore have normalized failure. If you are a novice teacher or just not so familiar with them, here is a list of some of the techniques that I have been using consistently, successfully and consciously (actually thinking about them and planning them into my lessons): Cold Call – a technique that allows you to involve all students in thinking. If you allow only volunteers (‘hands up’ or calling out the answers) to respond you won’t be able to judge students’ knowledge as accurately. In every classroom, there are always learners that can take over the class ‘pushing out’ our quieter and less confident students. We are also often guilty of naturally being drawn to the students we can always rely on knowing the answer, especially when observed! However, if we want the ‘buy in‘ from all our students, it is essential to explain the purpose of this technique – this is important for creating of a safe learning environment where students’ confidence is built not crushed. When using cold calling it is also important to ask the question first and provide the students with time (I usually give them a few seconds) to recall and be prepared to give answers, only then select a student to answer. This could be also pre-planned by the teacher. I also give my students the option to say ‘I don’t know yet’ or ‘I can’t recall’, so another student is then selected to answer thus supporting my more anxious or reluctant students. It is also very important to circle back to the original student at some point during the lesson and to ask the question he/she didn’t know again – so they understand they are not ‘off the hook’. This ensures the participation of all students. I use this technique a lot during modelling and retrieval. Wait time – providing time for thinking in silence is very important as mentioned above, especially for the learners who struggle with processing, but also for ensuring a better quality of response rather than letting students to blurt out the first idea that comes to their mind. The time I give depends on the difficulty/complexity of the task. I often use ‘wait time’ in my classroom when we do ‘delayed copying’ or ‘delayed dictation’ à la Conti, so it is not necessarily just to answer a question but to process task/information in their memory and then try to recall it accurately. During the ‘wait time’ I monitor the room, letting my students know I am checking they are focusing on the task. Show me the boards – I absolutely love this technique and use it all the time! It is easy and excellent for instant feedback for all stakeholders. The key thing to remember is to set the rules of how the students execute their response – I ask the question first, give students the time to respond, once the students write their responses, ask them to put the board face down, instruct students to show me their boards simultaneously at the same time (have a signal) otherwise some learners will treat it as a competition! Say it better again – I often use this technique when addressing issues with pronunciation – drawing student’s attention to the mistake and giving the same or another student an opportunity to correct/say it better or when students answer questions (verbally or in writing). I accept the initial response, but then ask the student(s) to improve/extend the sentences using adjectives, quantifiers, comparatives, TMP or justify it using opinions etc. For this, I use ‘Cold call’, ‘Think, Pair, Share’ or ‘Checking for understanding’ (why is the response better). It goes really hand in hand with Lemov’s ‘Stretch it’ technique where you reward ‘right’ answer with harder questions thus differentiating instruction for students of different skill levels by tailoring your questions without putting students into different groups. Check for understanding – more effective teachers will systematically check for students’ understanding (Barack Rosenshine) ensuring all students have understood new input so that learning can move forward or the teacher can tackle any misconceptions or re-teach the material, if necessary. This applies especially to complex Grammar concepts such as tenses, adjectival agreements or word order where it secures deeper understanding. Think, Pair, Share – I use this technique a lot during Retrieval Practice (Cops and Robbers), but also when practising oral tasks – RP, PT, conversation questions etc. For this technique to be executed successfully, it is important to pre-determine partners – at GCSE level this could be based on Foundation or Higher. I set a question and the time to practice and circulate the room listening to students talking. I use then ‘cold call’ to sample some responses. Probing questions – these questions make students probe their schemas, they can support students in making links and supporting long-term memory, i.e. when I am teaching perfect tense asking what auxiliary verb to use (‘haben’ or ‘sein’) and why – transfer knowledge from one topic to another or when teaching verb paradigms, the German case system explaining the changes in the article, verb endings – the ‘how’ and  ‘why’. I find them closely connected to Process questions which also support metacognition – the narrating and modelling of the thought processes. These questions are extremely useful when preparing and modelling written tasks, which can be done ‘live’ on the board, under the visualiser or recorded as many colleagues have done during the Pandemic. The advantage of ‘live’ modelling for me is that I can draw ideas from my students as we go through the process. In conclusion, our main goal is to get our students to do as much of the cognitive work as possible, we want to have a clear idea about their knowledge, therefore effective questioning is one of the key skills that we need to ponder about and develop as educators in order to be able to judge students’ learning and reflect on it with accuracy. References: Doug Lemov and Norman Atkins: Teach like a Champion 2.0: 62 techniques that put students on the path to college, 2014 Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli: Teaching Walkthrus, 2020 #coldcall #waittime #stretchit #probingquestions #showmetheboards #questioning #nooptout #checkforunderstanding

As the start of the new academic year approaches, there seem to be more and more talk on Twitter about what the first lesson should look like. My feed is busy with posts from many newly qualified teachers asking for advice and tips on introduction lessons, the best start and practice with new classes. In response to these tweets more experienced teachers keen to help are providing advice and ideas in abundance. I think it is important to remember that starting with new classes is not just something which concerns teachers new to the profession. A clear start and effective routines from the onset which ensure a calm and studious environment where learning can happen, are the key for all of us. However, being able to see how this is done by experienced teachers could be powerful for ECTs. Many of us, over the years in the profession go through a transformation. Thinking about my NQT year and my very first lessons, I have to admit – they definitely were not brilliant! I was too relaxed, keen to make sure that my students liked me, so often let them make decisions thinking that by me being ‘nice’ they will be ‘nice’ too and follow my instructions and they will be all engaged and learning. In hindsight, I was really rather naïve and getting the control back was an uphill struggle! On one of these days in my early teaching years, after a dreadful year 9 class, I was sitting in the staffroom and was feeling really deflated and out of ideas as what to do! The days I had this class, were the days when my stomach would cramp and it felt like the lesson lasted forever. Even after I had one of our AHT that I got on really well on my request sitting at the back of my classroom for 2 weeks so I could break the cycle and teach (as you can guess, whilst he was there the lessons were fine, I was praised how engaging they were and told there wasn’t anything wrong  with my teaching) there was only a small improvement when I was left with the class on my own again! I was also very lucky to have a teacher in our department who was humble and extremely respected by all students even the most ‘tough’ and challenging ones (I was teaching in a state comprehensive school in a deprived area with many disadvantaged students). When it came to classroom management, she was the one everybody always recommended to go and see teach. She was an older teacher, very calm, you never heard her shout, but if she was walking in the busy corridor, students would make a way for her – she had the ‘it’ factor, so I approached her and asked if I could come and see her teach my challenging year 9 class French… In retrospect, what I observed whilst watching her teach, is what we now call evidence-informed practice of high expectations and routines, something that during my teacher training we were not taught explicitly and I never really thought about in depth. Over my first year we had many discussions about teaching  and from her I have learnt how important it is to get it ‘right’ from the very first lesson. This was not instant and took a few years of refining and tweaking. I am hoping that this post will help and provide some ideas to you, if you are nervous and anxious about starting with new classes. I will split this post into 2 parts. In the first part, I will talk about how I structure ‘my’ first lesson. It is my personal belief, that even as an experienced teacher having a strong start from the very first encounter with a new class is absolutely crucial. In the second part, I will talk about strong routines and expectations. In my experience as an ITE mentor who regularly has Associate teachers and at the moment also has an ECT, strong and well established routines can make or break lessons. These are my reflections and tips that have been working well for me and in my school context. We teach in variety of schools, so school specific context and policies are necessary to bear in mind and apply as appropriate. What does my first lesson look like … First of all, I use my class lists to create my seating plans (my desks are in the rows with clear pathways so I can move around the classroom efficiently), for this I check the SEND register/IEPs to see whether there are any students that will need to be seated in specific place i.e at front of the class due to their specific needs. If I am aware of any students with challenging behaviour, I speak to their key workers, read their support plans and allocate their seats strategically. I prefer to have them seated close to me at the front of the classroom, so I can track them easily with the most challenging character close to the door for an easy exit in case the student needs to be removed from the lesson. This minimises any ‘drama’ that could disrupt the teaching and learning process. I also like to have a boy and a girl sitting together, but this is just my preference. My students know that the seating plan is not fixed and students can be moved when necessary based on the teacher’s decision. I print off my seating plans and keep them on my desk (this is important if you need to set a cover lesson, so the colleague covering for you knows where students sit). Before I meet my students, I place new exercise books and any hand-outs such as classroom expectations (key 5), KO, phonics sheet and work booklets with Sentence Builders (SB) on each desk. Normally, for every lesson there would also be MWBs and marker pens on the desk. I explicitly model what I want students to write at the front of their exercise book by drawing and writing it on the board as well as where I want them to glue in the hand-outs. Due to Covid all students were expected to have all their equipment. Last year my students were well organised bringing it to school, so this will be my expectations for this year too. Just as the bell is about to ring, I meet the class outside the classroom and have them line up in silence. I explain how I expect them to line up, that lateness won’t be tolerated, their uniform needs to be spot on (shirts tucked in, ties pushed up, no hoodies etc.) then I greet all of my students and they greet me back in target language (TL) and enter my classroom in silence. If they are talking, I send them out to line up again (I have never had to attempt it 3 times). I don’t accept a ‘weak’ greeting or no eye contact (caveat: be aware of any students with SEND/autism who might not be able to make an eye contact and adapt appropriately/know your students). This provides a great opportunity to demonstrate to your class that you are in charge and you expect your instructions to be followed explicitly. On the first day, I ask students to line up at the back of the classroom, so I can allocate them their seat. I then read out students’ names and point them to their seat. At this point I ask my students to remain standing behind the chairs and once all seats are allocated, I model how we will greet each other every lesson in TL. Once I have asked them to sit down (in TL), they can sit down and follow the instructions on the board (time limit is given) – in consecutive lessons, students would then write the date, title and start their retrieval task without me needing to instruct them, so I can take the register. When taking the register for the first time, I make a note on my seating plan of what each student would like to be called in my class and ensure that I have pronounced their name correctly. This might be a small thing, but it helps to build relationships, shows that we care about our students and that we respect them as individuals. Once the time is up and students sorted out their exercise books, I direct them to put ‘pens down and eyes on me’ (we will use this in TL) and explain that this phrase means stop what you are doing (hands are empty, no talking, looking at the teacher). I then introduce myself again, explain my expectations, share with students what we are going to learn today, ‘unfreeze’ my board so it shows the title of the lesson, date and a ‘retrieval’ task and off we go. For the first lesson, I use a quiz on last year’s work. I make sure everybody can have a go – asking questions that are less difficult but also some more challenging ones as well. If learners can’t complete some of them, I emphasise with  them that forgetting is normal during the learning process. The natural cause of action is then to reteach the concept students struggled with (this is a good teaching practice generally and is not just specific for the first lesson only), this would be the case for all my lessons. I believe it is important to talk to our students about how we learn, so I use this lesson to talk to them about metacognition and about how we learn. If I have new year 7 class who have not studied the language yet, my quiz would have questions about the countries where it is spoken, but also some linguistic questions such as examples of cognates to see whether students can work out the meanings. Whilst students are working, I am tracking them and circulating the classroom, checking they are on task, discretely correcting any off task behaviour and supporting anyone who needs it. I show my students from onset that I am the person in charge of the classroom ensuring they have calm, studious environment where teaching and learning can take place, that I care about them as individuals and about their education. I am afraid, I do not waste time with a game or on ‘ an ice-breaker’ activity and neither do I waste time on students blindly copying lists of rules in their best handwriting. I am not ‘Coco the Friendly Teacher’ as mentioned in Tom Bennett’s Not quite a teacher (if you are an ECT, I would definitely recommend this book). 👇 ‘If you meet a new class and you give them any indication whatsoever that you’re Coco the Friendly Teacher, then they will mug you like a drunk in Soho. I mean it. Even the nice kids like a bit of sport.’ I am warm and strict. Most importantly, I am the one who ‘runs the room’. (Tom Bennett, Running the room) More on routines and expectations in part 2. @inner_Drive #routines #firstlesson #ECT #NQT #expectations

Establishing clear routines and expectations is one of the most important steps all teachers, regardless whether they are new to the teaching profession or experienced, need to get right from the start of each academic year. They are everything in teaching. If you are a new teacher joining a school, it is essential that you also find out what the whole-school routines expected of students are and stick to them as closely as possible, so you can lean on the community routines and reinforce them.* ‘Routines establish efficient and effective processes that prevent time being wasted. They also create a culture that builds momentum and compliance. Routines should be as ubiquitous and consistent as possible. Classroom routines are worth drilling to perfection!’ (Adam Robbins, Middle Leadership Mastery) The routines and expectations listed below are based and adapted from Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion 2.0 and Adam Robbins’s Middle Leadership Mastery. Both of these books provide clear and useful guidance for creating a classroom culture of high expectations and the routines are only some of the 62 techniques described in Lemov’s book. For further expert advice on creating a positive and successful classroom culture, please read Tom Bennet’s book ‘Running the room’ (referenced below). Resource: Download here Further reading: *Tom Bennett: Running the room: The teacher’s guide to behaviour Tom Bennett: Running the room Companion: Issues in classroom management and strategies to deal with them https://teacherhead.com/2021/04/12/classroom-dialogue-and-behaviour-management-hand-in-hand/ https://teacherhead.com/2018/09/02/great-teaching-the-power-of-expectations/ #routines #behaviour #strategies #expectations #classroommanagement

“Everything works somewhere; nothing works everywhere!” Dylan William When I was completing my Certificate in Evidence-Informed Practice Programme through Chartered College of Teaching one of the topics that was available to research in more depth was ‘Does group work ever work?’. Even though it wasn’t the topic I have chosen to research it has made me think about it in the context of my own domain. So, here are my own reflections on it. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF, 2018) define collaborative learning as approach that “involves pupils working together on activities or learning tasks in a group small enough for everyone to participate on a collective task”. In the research it has been argued that working collaboratively can be either beneficial or of little worth (Slavin, 2010) and its benefits are not always consistent (Kirschner et al., 2018). For many teachers, whole class teaching and independent or pair work are still more preferred learning contexts in the classroom and group work is fairly infrequent (Baines et al., 2015). To the contrary, some research indicates that collaborative learning enables students to become more engaged in the learning process and William (2018) refers to research which shows that effective collaboration can double the speed of learning. So, what is the role of group work in L2 classroom. In most language classrooms today, the oral proficiency and communicative ability are the main goals of language learning. If we consider that most L2 learners do not have frequent opportunities to engage in L2 conversations outside of the classroom group or pair activities can be a useful tool for maximizing authentic and meaningful interactions amongst our students. With the emphasis on second language acquisition being communicative competence (students being able to use L2 effectively within specific contexts) various strategies in language learning need to be applied, as well as linguistic, social and interpersonal skills. Interpersonal communication is considered more effective in increasing one’s communicative ability than merely focussing on learning the rules of grammar (Krashen & Terrel, 1983). In my own classroom, the success and impact of group work on students’ learning has been varied, especially in classes with mixed range of abilities at KS3. I have observed scenarios where during the group work, some of my students take a back seat whilst other more confident or able students took the lead at times resulting in treating the quiet, less confident learners unkindly – an occurrence which Campbell and Bokhove refer to as ‘tall poppies’ syndrome (2019) . Often, I have wondered whether the group work activity has made a beneficial impact on all of my learners or whether they would have learnt and gained more having completed the task individually. If we take into consideration the cognitive load theory, especially if the complexity of the activity increases, the hive mind of the group can work together to solve the task i.e more complex translation. However, the context of the class needs to be taken into account – students having belief in their ability that they can complete/solve the task, learners working as a group not just in a group and that making the group effort will pay off. The recent online learning enabled me to observe group work more easily. When using break out rooms (students were working on a translation task), I have noticed some learners do divide up the tasks between themselves quickly and complete the work quickly but essentially work independently, whereas some learners who I know are friends simply ignored each other and did not collaborate at all. Combatting the learners who dominate or sit back can be a challenge in any classroom, especially during group work. Learners need a reason to work together, not just simply being told to work together (Slavin, 2010). Structured team learning with the team’s success depending on individual learning and accountability combined with a system of rewards is what he suggests. The teacher needs to understand their groups and know which rewards will motivate them, this will differ based on the age and maturity of the learners. In my own context, the most success I have had using collaborative learning, has been during my GCSE oral lessons – during group talk. To get to the stage where every student in the class feels confident enough to contribute equally, firstly students have to be prepared for the task. It takes considerable amount of time to drill core structures and model how to manipulate these language structures. The use of guided practice, modelled examples and scaffolded tasks – such as picture task scaffolds (examples available on my resource page) is vital to ensure students have the knowledge to conduct the work successfully and spontaneously. They need to practise a lot! Creating a classroom environment where students feel safe and supported is essential. Students will make mistakes and that is OK during the practice. I also try to avoid over correction at this stage, but pay close attention to the common mistakes that become apparent whilst I am circulating the classroom, listening and supporting where I need to. These common mistakes are consequently addressed on whole class basis to avoid learners embedding the application of language incorrectly. Less confident students are allowed to have a support sheet with them which is gradually removed as students become more confident and fluent in their responses. The key focus is on everybody speaking and taking part, working as a group. All group members supporting each other and helping a member of the group when they get ‘stuck’. I have observed a great deal of maturity amongst my GCSE students and believe that collaborative work has enabled them to learn from each other and improved their linguistic competence and self-efficacy. Examples of scaffolds for group talk – GCSE: *Shared by another colleague, not my own resource http://www.teachitlanguages@co.uk inspired by Gianfranco Conti – adapted to German The recent webinar by Greg Horton for Linguascope on group talk at KS3 level – a successful project he run a few years ago,  has made me think about how I could make it work better for my younger learners. As he mentioned sometimes it doesn’t work but when it works, it is extremely motivating and rewarding for both the teacher and the students. Example of group talk resource by Greg Horton Whether our focus is on the design of the curriculum or the delivery of a lesson, it seems obvious that there is a place for group work within M(F)L curriculum, however, it is down to us – teachers to ensure that the tasks given to groups are extensively processed and that we take time to get to know the groups of our learners and their dynamic first. Considered choices about the groups of learners we select to work collaboratively and our understanding of their composition will aid completion of the task. Constructive critique and new ideas are always welcome. #collaborativelearning #grouptalk #groupwork

We, all are teachers of literacy … Developing reading is one of the key skills students need to tackle in order to access knowledge and information. So, how are you teaching it in your lesson? In M(F)L classroom when teaching an international language, learners often approach reading texts in another language with the phonics of their first language (anglicised phonics) in mind. Having said that, teaching phonics – grapheme and phoneme links (sound and spelling links)  is therefore vital to ensure they can access the language and the text. Using a variety of reading texts can be highly beneficial in developing students’ comprehension skills in L2 and combined with effective deconstruction of these texts via carefully structured activities, it should maximise their ability to manipulate the language in order to enhance their own speaking and writing in the TL. This doesn’t mean that we always have to use authentic materials as we might want to create our own texts or adapt authentic materials that we have sourced online or through our travels thus enabling our students to access them and establish they are suitable for their stage of learning (novice vs expert) – securing at least 95% comprehensible input (ideally 98%). If we are teaching, modelling and practising a specific language structure or syntax i.e opinions we may want to create a text or a number of texts – narrow reading texts à la Gianfranco Conti which would contain a selection of different examples of opinion phrases and structures taking into account certain grammatical rules such as the word order (German). To make reading in TL most effective, like with the receptive skill of listening, it is important to deliberately plan pre-reading activities such as teaching specific vocabulary chunks, grammatical structures and activating prior knowledge (schemas) via retrieval or brainstorming chunks around a particular topic. It is also crucial that students get used to reading texts aloud from the start of their language journey using activities such as ‘echo reading’, ‘paired dictation’ or reading along. Research has also shown that reading aloud increases learning as it is an example of the Production Effect, which is caused by producing something with the new information. In the case of learning a new language producing the (new) sounds thus utilising a combination of 3 processes: visual (seeing the words), active (not being passive during the event) and self-referential ( ‘I said it.’) @innerdrive – case study #34 Reading for information: When reading an extended text, students need to have opportunities to process the text and practice strategies using some ‘warm up’ activities such as: Reading the text aloud – breaking down the words and sounds – decoding and contextualising of vocabulary (this also supports listening) Look for and underline/ highlight cognates Look for and underline/highlight vocabulary students know Look for specific word groups (nouns, verbs, adjectives…) or grammatical structures (tenses, negatives, opinions…) Skim and scan for further clues – tone, title, pictures, general ideas, gist, heading, the purpose of the paragraph etc. inferring meaning of unfamiliar words through context Further activities that can be employed to explore students’ comprehension of the text more extensively could be: multiple choice questions true/false/not in text questions ‘who’ questions cloze exercises find synonyms order the pictures translations One of the most effective concepts that I have come across during my teaching career is ‘narrow reading’ – an idea that I have encountered first time whilst reading Gianfranco Conti’s posts on reading instruction on his Language Gym website where he writes extensively about it + many other posts on developing reading skills. It requires students (novice and intermediate) to read 3-6 short paragraphs on the same topic – each paragraph  containing similar chunks and structures that have been previously taught thus enabling students to have a significant exposure to chunks and syntax without being too repetitive. His E.P.I. methodology has been a ‘game changer’ in my teaching! Example of narrow reading texts in German (C.Dymond) Spot the difference task (template FloRence) Spot the missing task (template FloRence) In my lessons, after the reading activity we consolidate the new structures that have been taught, students review what they have learnt and what they have struggled with in order to close the gaps in their knowledge – feedback driven metacognition. Through the E.P.I. – RAM and LAM students then progress to guided and independent oral and written production phase. Reading for pleasure: It is also very important to nurture students’ love of reading through reading for pleasure. There are nowadays numerous websites and platforms that provide authentic texts as well as adapted known stories such as fairy tales or other adapted materials. Some examples are below. The Fable Cottage – provides bilingual tales for language learners in 5 languages – text, audio and video. Some tales are free and some require subscription. Project inspired by Chloe Butler via Facebook Other activities could be  – pop corn reading or 3-2-1 activity – i.e. find 3 new words/phrases, 2 different tenses, 1 question – but the choices can be easily adapted to a specific focus. Storybooks Canada – free open educational resource that promotes literacy and language learning Goethe Institut eLibrary – provides eBooks, eAudio, eVideo, ePaper, eMagazine and eMusic – different levels ReadLang – various levels NDR – Märchen in leichter Sprache – text and audio Lingua.com – texts in 6 languages to support comprehension Mary Glasgow teachitlanguages using pen pals If you are interested in developing literacy in your department, Adam Lamb (@senorcordero ) wrote an interesting post ‘Literacy in MFL – Reading’ on the topic which is looking at deploying Alex Quigley’s 7 strategies to explore unfamiliar words focusing on morphology, word families, etymology, spelling, multiple meanings, synonyms and antonyms, and context with specific examples in Spanish. #comprehension #narrowreading #context #reading #metacognition #literacy #ProductionEffect #EPI

Language Show 2021 – Evidence-informed practice at the very heart pf effective teaching and learning – Applying Rosehshine’s principles of instruction in Languages classroom It was wonderful to present at one of the biggest international language events of the year. Almost 400 people signed up for this webinar, I have had a lot of messages, emails and positive feedback from the audience and really enjoyed the event. As there are so many colleagues asking for the presentation, I am posting it here. You can download it here:  https://bit.ly/languageshow Recording of the session #LanguageShow

One of the six pedagogical principles of expert teaching is modelling, a research-informed strategy demonstrating to our students how to apply the essential knowledge and skills that they have acquired through our explanation to a variety of contexts. This can be achieved through admiring/ showing off work of other students. In Doug Lemov’s book ‘Teach like a Champion’, this strategy is referred to as Show Call. Lemov describes it as a type of ‘Cold Call’ which calls for examples of written work to be displayed to the class. He states that champion teachers use this technique to maximise rigor and accountability as well as to draw attention to examples of excellence in student work. In my practice, I use many examples of modelling, such as live modelling, de-construction, construction or co-construction of a model answer. I also regularly use comparison models and models of excellence created by students themselves. From my observations, my students are most likely to relate to a model of excellence which has been created by their peer. If this model sets the bar high, they often feel more inclined to have the self-belief that they can reproduce it. Sharing models of excellence is an excellent way of presenting students with concrete examples of the success criteria or for analysing specific linguistic structures, when they are completing a set activity. To demonstrate this, an example of conversation that I would have with the students in the class could be as follows: “Ok everyone, please look at how Harry is making use of subordinating conjunction in his 130-150 word writing task: ‘ Der Kuchen hat mir geschmeckt, obwohl er ziemlich ungesund war.’ It is important to remember that subordinating conjunction will enhance our work and earn us more marks for range of language and accuracy. Could you give me other examples of subordinating conjunctions that we could use to enrich our writing? … Olivia?” (Cold Call) Show Call strategy is highly effective when I need to improve students’ ability to manipulate and produce a specific aspect of language, i.e use of tenses, conjugation or a specific structure by drawing their attention to it. For this, I often use my visualiser to model students’ work live and to highlight the specific aspect. It is important to remember, when we are teaching in our classroom, our students are operating first and foremost from their working memory, which is extremely limited and gets overloaded easily, therefore using ‘Show Call’ helps to harness students’ working memory. In his book ‘Memorable Teaching’, Peps Mccrea elucidate on this: ” If we want to control what our students learn, we’ve got to be intentional and specific about what they should be attending to.” The purpose of Show Call is to ‘create a strong incentive to complete writing with quality and thoughtfulness by publicly showcasing and revising students writing – regardless of who volunteers to share.’ (Lemov, Teach like a Champion 2.0) This is just one example of how I model and explain new knowledge and skills that my students need to acquire. For more on modelling, see my previous post – Live modelling. Examples of work used for Show Call – year 11 *Examples of work used for Show Call – year 9 *Examples of work used for Show Call – year 7 *templates by Elena Díaz-20 keys. #livemodelling #Modelling #ShowCall

Both pronunciation and phonics instruction relate to sounds. Phonics are used to teach reading to learners and pronunciation is about improving spoken communication. Phonics refer to a teaching method which focuses on decoding skills, such as grapheme-phoneme correspondences / spelling-sound rules or phonological awareness. Whilst there is evidence supporting the fact that teaching phonics in L1 may help with recognition and pronunciation of individual words and improve reading accuracy, it does very little for reading comprehension (Smith & Conti, Breaking the sound barrier, 2019). However, L1 phonology differs from L2 phonology and many of us have observed in our own classrooms over the years of our teaching experience that our learners often carry their knowledge of L1 phonology into their MFL lessons. This often leads to poor and inaccurate pronunciation which also affects other skills, especially listening as students struggle to recognise and decode TL vocabulary in speech thus affecting their comprehension. In terms of SLA, the research suggests that students need to pronounce/say a word/chunk or a phrase correctly several times to transfer it accurately into their long-term memory (Woo & Price, 2015). Sounding words out and saying them aloud also supports more durable retention and storage in long-term memory (via Language teacher toolkit: Steve Smith’s blog). In 2016, The Teaching Schools Council conducted the review of language teaching pedagogy in England (Bauckham). Based on observations of lessons and interviews with a vast number of teachers, the review concluded that there should be a planned approach to teaching phonics, hence the three pillars of progression – phonics, vocabulary, and grammar. With the launch of the new GCSE imminent, NCELP’s, MFL Review’s as well as Ofsted Subject Review’s heavy focus on teaching of phonics, many teachers worry about the ‘correct’ way of teaching phonics in their classrooms. Whilst grapheme-phoneme correspondences will become naturally established though routine practice of all four skills within our classroom, there are some instances when teaching phonics explicitly is the most appropriate approach, this applies for example to teaching French where the differences are more complex (liaisons, silent letters etc.) or specific characters in German or Spanish (ß, ä, ñ). As a teacher of German, I use the embedded approach to teaching phonics. This seems to work for my students. So, instead of planning a structured lesson purely on phonics, I teach phonics and pronunciation within our communicative practice. When introducing new vocabulary, chunks, SB, we annotate the SB for pronunciation first. I train my students from the first lesson in year 7 to use the same annotation for each letter/sound (not introducing all at the same time – maybe 4 at a time). We extensively practise sounding out new vocabulary with me modelling accurate pronunciation and using activities such as: I say/you say say it loud say it in a silly voice whisper it tell it to your friend I say a word/students finish it I start a sentence/student finishes it reading aloud We have a lot of fun with this, and students love it! After modelling and extensive work with the SB, we carry on practising using dictations/translations and other listening activities. This practice is completed on MWBs (there is nothing written in ex.books at this stage, most of the work is oral or on MWBs). This is important for me – the teacher as I can immediately see, how my students are doing and whether I need to adapt my teaching – responsive teaching – formative assessment. Examples of activities: normal dictation delayed dictation gapped dictation simple translation minimal pairs faulty echo listening pyramids All of the listening work here is done with my own resources ‘live’, later on I also introduce recorded listening using vocaroo or attaching recording made on my phone via dictaphone. I try to use other colleagues’ voices as well or other native speakers, sometimes our own students that are native speakers. Much later on we move to listening tasks from the course book, so students are sufficiently prepared for formal examinations and know what to expect. I use a lot of online platforms, such as lyricstraining, teachvid, easy German, Deutsche Welle – Nico’s Weg, songs to encourage independent learning as part of the homework as well. In summary, I don’t teach phonics in isolation, they are and always were an integral part of my lessons. There are of course occasions when I teach certain phoneme-grapheme links explicitly, especially with my lower-attaining students but in most of lessons phonics teaching is embedded and practised via the four language skills. For more on listening, please read this post where some of the activities are explained in more detail. #phonics #phonology #pronunciation

“Motivation is complex and invisible which makes it hard to understand.” Peps Mccrea: Motivated Teaching Human beings have always been concerned with motivation – a notion of how to get themselves or others to act or behave in a certain way. We – teachers are no different. Throughout our professional career and day-to-day life, we struggle with how to motivate ourselves but also our learners in our subjects. Our students often find it challenging to generate the effort and persist at the tasks they are given to them – to motivate themselves. In many instances, they are motivated by external (extrinsic) determinants such as reward systems or grades, however, frequently some of our learners are motivated by their interests, long-lasting values, or curiosity from within – by so called intrinsic motivations which are not necessarily recognized by external rewards. The interplay between the extrinsic forces acting on persons and the intrinsic motives and needs inherent in human nature is the territory of Self-Determination Theory.’ (selfdeterminationtheory.com, 2022) The evidence behind the SDT informs us that to facilitate intrinsic motivation in our learners we need to fulfil their three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. For the development of intrinsic motivation, it is essential that our learners feel that they have a choice in what they are doing, they feel they can do it – self-efficacy and that they feel connected. Having taught in secondary education in England for the past 18 years, over the years I have often heard colleagues complaining about their students’ lack of motivation in language learning. Talking from my personal experience and pupil voice I have conducted on this issue, the most common responses from my learners have been the following ones: Most people around the world speak English anyway so they feel there is no need to learn another language which requires a lot of effort and takes up a lot of time to learn to a ‘decent’ level, so why ‘waste’ the energy… They don’t see how languages could be relevant to their careers, they don’t want to work or live abroad. They don’t have the cultural awareness or ‘closeness’ to other communities or cultures. They don’t believe they can learn another language as languages are perceived as difficult and only people who are academic can learn them successfully. They lack the self-belief – self – efficacy in their ability to learn them. So, the questions that pose themselves are: How can we – teachers (who are so passionate about languages and who can list an x number of reasons why to learn a language) convince our students not to give up on such a useful skill – superpower? How can we support and motivate them? Getting it right at KS3 Each student that arrives in our classroom brings with them varying degrees of knowledge, cultural experiences, aspirations, backgrounds, and preconceptions. At many schools, students are assigned a language based on, a tutor group or half/half split which can often result in students being assigned a language they might not been so keen on or the school might teach only one language… Therefore, the aim of many language teachers is to turn that ‘frown upside down’ from the very first lesson and to continue inspiring and motivating them. This might be easier said than done! 1. The Teacher To address the issue of languages being perceived as difficult, it can be highly effective to share our own language learning journey including our own struggles, showing our photographs, sharing our stories and experiences living in another country as for many of us, our teachers are the ones who inspired us to learn a language. Many of us will remember fondly a teacher who inspired us. As M(F)L teachers there is a strong chance, the teacher taught languages. They inspired us because of their passion for language, expert knowledge of the subject, enthusiasm & encouragement. How they guided us on our journey from complete novice to advanced linguist, the cultural anecdotes they shared with us, how they made the language meaningful & relevant within the walls of the classroom. This is what we want to relate to our students to foster their intrinsic motivation. The teacher really can make a difference! 2. The Curriculum During the pandemic and the first lockdown, I had the time to review our curriculum and engage with the most recent educational research, including SLA more deeply and decided to re-design our curriculum completely in a way that would enable our students to develop their self-efficacy and consequently improve their motivation and attitudes towards language learning. So, what did we do? First and foremost, we ditched the textbook and the purely didactic approach! I, the Subject Leader, studied the most recently discussed approaches on language teaching: Teaching languages via academic – grammar-based approach (NCELP) Teaching languages via parallel texts à la Michaela style Teaching languages via E.P.I (Conti) Teaching languages via TPRS As I reviewed these four approaches, I felt that the E.P.I approach would be possibly the best fit for our context at KS3. We have researched, read upon, attended CPD and talked to colleagues/community about the E.P.I approach. Based upon what we found out, we decided to modify our KS3 SOW/curriculum to follow its principles. We agreed on a format we wanted, used the textbook as a guide in terms of identifying the essential knowledge (vocabulary, structures) we needed to teach our students as this would lead to our GCSE course (5-year learning journey). We wanted these to be aligned to ensure coherent sequencing. As a team we have divided and shared the workload to create new resources and worked on lesson sequences. This is the path we follow in year 7-8, in year 9, 10 and 11 we use more blended approach and combine more varied pedagogical approaches based on the needs of each individual class. To read in more detail about the E.P.I approach including the different tasks that we use or development of each modality, search the blog archive, please. 3. The cultural aspect ‘Teachers in many schools report that languages remain confined to the languages classroom, and this leads to pupils not seeing the real world benefit.’ (Language Trends 2020, British Council). Learning about the culture of another country is equally important. Children are naturally curious and when young they are more open to something ‘unusual’, to particularities of different cultures and ways of life. This ‘story telling’ that I have mentioned above, will bring the culture to ‘life’. Cultural events, trips, exploring traditions and festivals, playing with maps and creating activities which are relevant, will bring the purposefulness. There have been many webinars organised by Linguascope on incorporating culture into the languages curricula presented by various mfltwitterati for secondary teachers, such as Suzi Bewell, Isabelle Jones, Claire Wilson and many others available in the Linguascope staffroom as well as by Association for Languages Learning – ALL, presented by Judith Rifeser, Crista Hazel, Esmeralda Salgado etc. #relatedness #selfefficacy #intrisic #competence #motivation #extrinsic #autonomy

Yesterday, I had the honour to speak at the researchEd National Conference about the topic of Scaffolding or Differentiation in Languages classroom, sharing some useful strategies and ideas that have worked for me in my school context and meet so many dedicated teachers/educators in person (some of them shaping real changes/policy in current pedagogy and practice, nationally). On Saturday, over 1500 teachers from all over the world came and gave up their time to learn and develop themselves further as professionals. The atmosphere was unbelievable. Tom Bennett, the founder of researchEd, Hélène Galdin-O’Shea and the team have organised a truly unique event for colleagues to meet, collaborate and connect to discuss the current research and developments in education in the U.K. I have had multiple requests to share the slides of my presentation, so here they are free to download. researchEd 2022 presentation #researchEd