As there is a lot of anxiety around the Ofsted Deep Dives in the teaching community, in this post, I would like to share my experience with my recent Ofsted MFL Deep Dive in a hope that it might be useful to some of you at some level even though experiences will vary from school to school; also depending on whether your inspector was a subject specialist or not. During the late afternoon of the day when the call came in, we were notified by our SLT about which departments will be ‘deep dived’. Reading this post, you can rightly guess – ours was one of them. The inspector that was assessing our department, was MFL specialist with a degree in French and an ex Headteacher. In my opinion, for the Subject Leader, this information could be a positive one in terms of being reassured that the inspector will have the understanding of how your subject, in my case – languages, is taught and learnt in U.K. secondary schools or negative one in terms of they can scrutinise, question and unpick your curriculum and provision in much more depth than a non-specialist inspector. However, in both scenarios the scrutiny will be a thorough and intensive one! Here is what it looked like on the day… The format of the day: I have taught my first lesson as normal. From the second lesson, to start with, I had a cca. 30 minutes long interview with the inspector answering a set of questions such as: How closely is your curriculum aligned with the National Curriculum for MFL? How do you ensure your curriculum is ambitious? Why have you sequenced it like this? How do you ensure there is a clear progression in your curriculum? Walk me through what students can do in year 7 as opposed in year 8, at KS3 as opposed in GCSE? What do you expect your students to know by the time they leave your school? How do you ensure students retain the essential knowledge? How do you close the gaps in their knowledge? How do you address misconceptions? How do you know students understand? What is your marking and feedback policy like? Why? What is the rationale behind it? What forms of assessment do you use to assess your students? How often? How do you support students with SEND? How do you stretch your higher attaining students? How does your staff keep their language knowledge up to date? What does the CPD look like in your school/department? In my case, the inspector didn’t want to see any of my documents, all I was asked to do is to ‘walk the inspector through’ it. I suppose it was to gauge whether I knew it really well; why we have planned it the way we have and how we knew the curriculum was working for our students. Obviously, this could have been different if it was a non-specialist, and they could have asked to see our curriculum map and sequencing documents… After the interview, we have moved onto joined lesson observations. We observed 3 lessons, each for 20 minutes to see if what I was saying can be seen in the classroom practice – a part of Ofsted’s triangulation. First observation was year 10 GCSE class – the teacher was modelling under the visualiser co-construction of an 80-90-word task in the run up to students’ CAEs. The inspector asked me to select 2 ex. books, one to be from a student with SEND/EAL and carefully looked through students’ books and folders which contained various workbooks providing scaffolding, such as i.e., writing and speaking workbooks… with a comment: ‘I can see what you have been talking about…’ When looking through the SEND/EAL student’s book, I mentioned that the student has joined the school in year 9 and chose to take up GCSE German. ( I knew this student as I taught him the previous year.) This was followed (after the inspector looked at the Retrieval Practice tasks in the book) by a comment: ‘I can see, he is getting it…’ Second observation was year 8 class completing their summative assessment. Still, we stayed for cca. 15 minutes during which the inspector circulated the classroom, looking at students completing the assessment and picking up some ex. books to look through (again selecting 2 – one being a SEND student). I was also asked to take a note of their names as these students would become a part of the pupil voice and interview. The class teacher was circulating during the assessment. Third observation was my own class of year 8 students covered by our ECT who only found out she will be covering my lesson in the morning when she arrived in school as the day’s timetable was emailed later on in the evening and I haven’t picked it up till the morning – I suppose we got some sleep, at least! During this part of the lesson, students were completing independently translation activity whilst the teacher was circulating and then giving feedback using CFU/ probing questions/process questions etc. The inspector sat at the back of the classroom next to a student and at one point, quietly asked the student to read out a small section of her writing. As previously, 2 ex. books were selected. The students whose books were selected were also interviewed by the inspector as part of the triangulation and evidence collecting process. There was one more round of observations during the last lesson, this time with a member of the SLT and I also got to be observed with my year 7 class. This was the second lesson in the sequence of lessons talking about pets. I was using MWBs for dictation, translation, CFU as well as cold calling – grammatical concepts of genders which I haven’t taught explicitly in this sequence, but students could transfer the knowledge of it from their previous learning and could produce written output independently. After this set of observations at the end of the lesson, the inspector came back to my classroom and asked me a few additional questions that are mentioned in the list above. I also had to respond to a comment about independent speaking, specifically pair/group work which wasn’t witnessed. The inspector felt there was a lot of speaking but it was teacher led. At this point, I had to ‘defend my cause’ and explain that the KS3 classes observed were at the start of the learning sequence and nowhere near the independent spoken production phase which is only possible after extensive practice and rehearsal towards the end of the learning sequence. In response to the GCSE class, I had to explain that we did not change our lesson planning because we had the Ofsted in, and at that point, we were preparing students for their writing CAEs hence that was why writing strategies inc. metacognition were modelled and taught. In a response to this comment, we have offered to the inspector to come and see another lesson to demonstrate that our students can speak independently, even though it wouldn’t be in our current lesson sequence. The last stage was the interview with the team. The feedback from them was that they were asked about safeguarding, workload, briefly about the curriculum and our ECT was asked whether she feels she is getting adequate mentoring and support during her first teaching year. On the morning of the next day, we were told unofficially, the department had done well, the inspectors were happy with the evidence and won’t be seeing more language lessons! Well done, team! From the experience I had, the inspector was not interested in what pedagogical approach to language teaching we use/follow but was interested in students making progress: knowing more, remembering more and thus being able to do more!! The experience was very intense and exhausting, and I was in bed by 8pm! No curriculum is perfect. The only advice from my own experience, would be: Know your curriculum and the rationale behind it really well, make sure it is logically sequenced, the staff in your department also knows it and can verbalize it, ensure that what you say is evident in the classroom practice, can be confirmed by your students during their interview and don’t hide anything or don’t put up an ‘one off show’! Do what you normally do and if something is not there yet (it’s work in progress), say it and say what you are doing about it. The curriculum is not finite; it is a working document which is constantly reviewed and adapted as necessary… We use E.P.I approach, examples of our curriculum map and sequencing documents are available on my Curriculum page. #DeepDive #inspection #Ofsted

With the languages uptake in British schools and universities on the decline, what can we do to reverse the trend? The British Council in its annual Language Trends England 2021 report found that more than half of primary school pupils and 40% of secondary school students didn’t do any language learning during the first national lockdown and 20% didn’t have any language education during the second lockdown! With the government’s ambitious target of 75% of students taking a language GCSE by 2022 and 90% by 2025 as a part of the English Baccalaureate and the falling trend, this seems to be highly unlikely to happen. The lack of language education during the Pandemic will inevitably impact the already decreasing uptake of languages at GCSE and A-Level even further! The entries for modern languages continue to fall. “Analysis of official figures by the Guardian shows that in schools in England, entries for language GCSEs have dropped by 41% since 2003, the last year that taking a modern foreign language in year 10 was compulsory. The position of German is particularly precarious, with only 36% of English secondary schools teaching it. Provisional German GCSE entries were down 66% on 2003 levels. Overall, just 5.8% of GCSE entries in England in summer 2020 were for MFL, according to the Joint Council for Qualifications. A-Level numbers also continue to dwindle: Ofqual figures show that provisional entries last year for MFL were down 17% from 2020 figures.” We, as many other secondary schools, are also fighting the battle of trying everything possible in order to increase the uptake of language GCSE. We believe that having the ability to communicate in another language, even at basic level, improves students understanding of other cultures, broadens their horizons and provides wider employment opportunities, ‘particularly as the UK renegotiates its place on the world stage.’* To tackle the issue of languages… being perceived as too difficult learning them is too boring can’t see the relevance/won’t need them … we have redesigned our Curriculum and delivery method to make them more engaging, to give students the opportunities to succeed in their learning and to develop their self-efficacy. Like many other schools, we organise competitions, give out praise cards and certificates, pen pal exchanges, create little events and tasting sessions to bring cultural awareness in, as well as speak to our students and parents about the advantages that languages can bring to their personal and professional life during the Options Evening. During ‘normal’ times we run language trips which have always had a huge impact on our uptake and students’ motivations to take languages further. The inability to run a trip abroad due to the current circumstances has had a huge affect on our uptake! As a result, this year, I am trialling something different, an idea that has been inspired by my colleague (and my NQT mentor – a very long time since I have been an NQT) a science teacher. We have been talking about the issues of lower uptake of languages GCSE and he was telling me about his Science Aspire group for year 11 – a group of students he has targeted with the potential to achieve a grade 8/9 in their science GCSE, the programme he has created for them and the impact it has had on their motivation as well as commitment. We started to ponder that I could try something similar with my year 9 top band students – students that we would expect to take a language GCSE, if they were compulsory (as our school doesn’t follow two different pathways – academic and more vocational one, unfortunately, not all of them do). In October, my Year 9 Aspire group was ‘born’! With the recommendation of my colleagues, we have selected our 30 target students, I wrote a letter and I sent it to the parents with the date of TEAMs meeting, stating that I would like to meet with them and explain the purpose of the group and its programme. I was amazed how supportive our parents were! Aspire Group letter Presentation for parents (TEAMS) Prior to my TEAMs meeting, I also met with the targeted students and briefly explained to them what was happening and also asked, if there are any of them there, who are certain it wasn’t for them as I had other students on my ‘waiting’ list. Three students stood up! Out of 30, I thought that was a pretty good so far. So what happened since then… The group meets with me every week on Monday from 08.10h – 08.45h, students spent time practising speaking in TL, ensuring they are secure in the knowledge of the core grammatical structures, working with variety of texts including literary texts and expanding their vocabulary. They are tackling tasks within the GCSE course specification. The atmosphere is nice and relaxed and I take students’ interest into account too. I have high expectations from my students and believe that, if students invest extra time and energy into their language learning outside their normal lessons, are keen to be a part of this Aspire group, they are likely to choose it in their Options, plus it seems that the ‘exclusivity’ is ‘infectious’ as other students have been asking me whether they can still take languages at GCSE, even though they are not attending the Monday morning sessions. Every session, I also take a register! Students know that if they don’t attend on more than three occasions without a solid reason, they will be replaced by another student. So far, attendance has been very good, despite Covid, every Monday, I have on average 26-27 students attending and it seems to be popular as well. This is our first year trialling this programme therefore, after students have chosen their Options, I am very interested in the impact it has had on our uptake. If the impact has proven to be positive we will consider the possibility to run 2 groups next year. Our Option’s pathways are not restrictive as they are opened to all of our students, regardless of their prior attainment or whether they attend the ‘Aspire’ programme, any student can chose to take a GCSE language for their Options.  I am aware that there are schools across the country that will consider only their top band students for GCSE because of the pressure of obtaining good results, I believe that any student who would like to take language GCSE, regardless of their target grade should be able to do so, as a result we teach mixed classes every year. Update to follow after our Option’s process… Please, share your ideas and strategies that you are using/have used which are/were successful to increase your GCSE uptake. #GCSE #language #Options #uptake

On this post I will be focussing on how I am preparing my students for their writing skill; on development of broad linguistic knowledge, content and communication as well as accuracy which are all the key elements of the GCSE writing assessment mark scheme. As we are all aware, the speaking examinations this year won’t take place and therefore the writing assessment which will be worth 33% of the overall GCSE grade will bare more weight on students’ overall GCSE result than before. Writing together with speaking is classed as one of the productive skills of language learning and is closely connected with communication, use of grammatical structures, language manipulation, translation skills as well as accuracy. Preparing and developing students’ writing skills is inevitably linked to their speaking skills and supports them perfectly, especially in a phonetic language such as German, because the topics tested are the same only the medium is different. I am a strong believer that students should be able to manipulate  the language and structures to build their own ideas and use them creatively and with confidence. I do not believe in students just memorising sentences and re-writing them from memory which was often the case in many schools when the written exam consisted of course work. As an examiner I have marked pieces of writing that  read like lists – disjointed, with idioms being thrown in just for the sake of it because students were told that this will score them higher marks. Lists can certainly be useful and I use them myself, but we should take the time to explain how to use them, so they don’t become just a tick sheet, they shouldn’t be just a sheet with a specific number of how many opinions, past, future tense, if phrases examples etc… students need to include in order to achieve grade 5, 6, 7, 8… The assessment mark scheme criteria do not require: ‘Student needs to include 3 examples of this and 4 examples of that!’ They state very clearly that students need to use variety of language and structures confidently and these need to be well linked. I understand that as educators we have the pressure to get good results and we are judged on these results (often out of our control), but the linguist in me is very vocal – being able to communicate and manipulate the language in meaningful way is the priority in my personal delivery. If we invest the time at KS3 and work on developing these skills early on we won’t have to play catch up at KS4 which is often the case for many of us. So, how do I go about it? In order to prepare my students to be independent communicators I make sure they have learnt the key vocabulary and grammatical structures which allow them to become more confident writers/speakers. For this I often use retrieval practice (please see my post on retrieval practice here) and homework (please see my post on homework here) during which I regularly check that my students have learnt vocabulary and grammatical structures, but I also ensure they can explain the HOW and WHY. I approach the extended writing task with my students only when they tackled the picture task and short writing task first. (On my resources page there adaptable examples of activities that I use.) How I address this differs greatly from how I teach writing skills at KS3. At KS3 this may include techniques such as dictation, delayed/running dictation, writing short sentences, translations – mosaic, first letter given, writing pyramids, one pen one dice, break the flow etc. (Inspired by Gianfranco Conti and his E.P.I methodology.) At KS4, in the initial stages I use structured writing – first, we look at some texts and analyse them from the linguistic angle (this idea, including the structure strips, were inspired by @MorganMfl/Wendy Adeniji). Example of text analysis sheet After we have looked at examples of texts and analysed them, we brainstorm some vocabulary (nouns, verbs, adjectives…), I ask my students to come up with some basic sentences (all without SB or KO), we then discuss how we could extend the sentences within (TMP, sequencers, qualifiers…), change them into different tenses, giving opinions with reasons – at this stage I also address any gaps in knowledge (i.e. misconceptions in tense building, word order, genders, verb and adjectival endings…). We also study some worked examples, like the one in the recording below. This video walks the students through the mark scheme, task criteria and a worked example for the crossover 90 word task. Direct link here. Finally, I use structure strips and a check list to support my students with the planning and writing process. Example of structure strip This approach seems to work well for our school – I teach in a mainstream comprehensive school in a challenging area with higher than average number of EAL and SEN students and as a result of this approach our results have been steadily improving in both of the productive skills – writing and speaking. Some feedback on the video from my students: Some examples of my students recent assessments: #writingskills #extendedwriting #structurestrips #GCSE #RetrievalPractice #homework #assessment #textanalysis #markscheme

Following the amazing response to my post on ‘Preparing students for GCSE extended writing task’ (the post had almost 900 views on the day it was published) – view here, I have now recorded a ‘walk through’ video for the 150 word extended writing task as well as requested by my students and fellow colleagues via direct messages on social media. When my GCSE students encounter the 150 word task for the first time in year 10 they often freeze and panic. They are convinced that writing so many words on such complex topics which require eloquent grammatical structures and language, especially when looking at the complexity of the last bullet point which demands highly sophisticated response, the task seems like ‘Mission Impossible ‘. However, the preparation process is the same as when we are tackling the 90 word extended task. I will not describe the process in this post again as I wrote about it in my previous post – for the link to the post see above. ‘Walk through’ video for the 150 word extended writing task Direct link to the video here Last week @MrBCurrier created an amazing resource in order to support his students with writing tasks and published his writing structures and support workbooks for Spanish on his blog. With his permission I have adapted them to German and am now sharing them with you. On his blog he explains in detail how he uses this resource with his students. German GCSE writing structures and support workbook – Foundation – download here. German GCSE writing structures and support workbook – Higher – download here. Examples of ‘Wow’ phrases: I usually ask my students to choose 10 phrases they would like to learn to use at the start of the year. Once they have learnt them they can trade them for new ones. If you find my resources useful, you can show your appreciation by buying me a☕. Link here. #extendedwriting #structures #support #video

My students don’t actually realise that I teach them a ‘foreign’ language through a ‘foreign’ language. As I am not English, speak with an accent and teach another language, they always assume that the language I teach must be my mother tongue. So, once they find out that this is not the case, the questions start pouring in… ‘Miss, how many languages do you speak?’ ‘Which language do you think in?’ ‘Do you have to translate in your head what you are saying, or can you just speak normally?’ ‘How long did it take you to speak fluently?’ ‘Do you think I would be able to speak it after I completed my GCSE?’… It is not just the students who are often in awe when they meet someone who speaks another language. Speaking another language is an amazing skill that will open the doors to new worlds and possibilities; it is impossible to deny that we experience the life and culture of another country on a completely different level when we speak its language and I always try to show this to my students even through my own experiences. Before I moved to U.K and became a teacher, I actually worked as a translator and interpreter in fashion business. The art of translation is a careful act of balancing the character of original language and giving it a new life in the second language; trying to figure out what is meant in one language and then transferring this meaning into another language. This can be quite challenging at times, especially when it comes to little cultural nuances or idioms. No two translations will be always identical, especially when we are attempting to translate paragraphs. The way these are translated often depends on the ability, interpretation and creativity of the translator. However, in the school environment, how can we teach translation skills to our students? I am sure you have encountered the same problem that I have. Students often try to translate the words or the text literally and in a linear way, basically thinking they can replace word from one language with a word from another language in the same way and order. In my opinion we – teachers should not approach translation of more complex passages (similar to those assessed in the GCSE higher paper) with our students before students have thoroughly studied and understood the syntax of the target language – in other words, they have studied and understand the rules of how words and other elements of sentence structure are combined together to form grammatical sentences. When it comes to translation of simple sentences/paragraphs  – taught from KS3, there are various ways how we can support our young learners to build their confidence in translation. After thorough processing of the language taught, I often use  scaffolds such as rock climbing, bubble, ping-pong, mosaic, gap fill or first letter translations amongst so many available in order to vary the ‘diet’ and in order to keep students motivated and focussed. These all provide different levels of support and can be used to target different needs of different learners and also allow all students to succeed which is so important in order to keep students motivated and nurture the ‘I can do’ culture within our classroom. I often introduce an element of competition to translation tasks as it increases students’ motivation, especially when it comes to motivating boys. However, many of these translation activities can be used with with GCSE students as well, as most of the GCSE classes we teach are mixed classes and students will need different levels of support to build confidence in translation skills. I find scaffolded tasks crucial for building students’ confidence and self-efficacy. Many structures are repetitive (there is/are; I would like, I find …) and if students are exposed to them repeatedly they become more natural to use in other skills too. Translation activities: Example of rock climbing translation – scaffold – students translate/re-construct the L1 sentences by choosing the right L2 chunks from the grid. Methodically, working their way upwards through the grid. Example of ping-pong translation – my year 9 especially like this activity. We set it out as a competition with a time limit which proves to be a great motivator. Two sheets (A and B) with sentences and mirroring answers, students take turns in translating their sentences. The most accurate translation wins. Inspired by Gianfranco Conti. Example of mosaic translation – scaffold – 3 different levels – level 1 – translate/re-construct the text using the chunks from the grid; level 2 – fill in the missing gaps – no words provided (you could provide the first letter of the missing word for extra support); level 3 – translate the text – only 5 key words provided. Level 2 and 3 inspired by Kim Davies. Example of tangled translation – text contains parts in L1 and L2 ‘tangled’ – students highlight L1 text in one colour, L2 text in a different colour – then translate/re-construct the texts in both – L1 and L2. This lay-out was inspired by @MflMullen, which I find in line with CLT – split-attention effect reduced than the standard lay-out. If interested in research on Metacognition, see my post on CLT here. Example of bubble and sweet translation – seen and inspired by Esther Mercier – @atantot. Similar to mosaic translation – students use the bubbles to translate the text. The sweet translation (instructions on the sheet) is also a great motivator with all ages. Example of pyramid translation – inspired by Gianfranco Conti. The repetition of some key phrases is also useful for independent writing and speaking. Example of first letter translation – scaffold – this would be used during the production phase as the support is minimal. I also prefer this lay-out as it reduces the split-attention effect than the more traditional lay-out – ( H…, i… h… B… u… i … h……) – Gianfranco Conti. Example of text puzzles – inspired by @HFooteMFL. This task could be followed by a writing task. Example of honey comb translation – inspired by Esther Mercier/Lesley Welsh. This type of translation provides more challenge for my higher achievers. For GCSE specific translation, especially when looking at more complex passages with more eloquent language, a variety of steps should be considered before tackling the translation. I also believe that these should be taught explicitly to avoid common misconceptions. Pre-translation steps: read the sentence/paragraph highlight or underline what you can translate immediately check the tense / the person / the verb ending / the adjectival endings / the gender of nouns / plural / singular more complex sentences – break them down into chunks or two separate sentences translate each sentence individually checking the word order apply any rules you need to when connecting them together (conjugated verb at the end etc….) words you don’t know – find a suitable synonym that will not impair the message being conveyed gaps – think of words which would logically fill them in The GCSE mark scheme criteria for the translation task do not require the student to translate the text exactly and as examiners we have been encouraged to accept translations as correct as long as the meaning has been fully conveyed even if students have used synonyms. To score the top mark for translation is states clearly that the meaning of the passage is fully and not exactly communicated. If translation skills are taught and practised early on, from year 7 they should not pose such a difficult and impossible task later on at GCSE. It is worth spending time nurturing this skill which in long term will pay off when preparing students for their summative assessments. Examples for some GCSE translation tasks in the work books in my previous post. These activities whether for KS3 or our GCSE classes would be also suitable for remote learning we are facing in the coming weeks. For low prep tasks, adaptable templates and example tasks, please see my resource page. #targetlanguage #mosaic #scaffolding #bubble #text #jigsaw #syntax #motivation #language #originallanguage #tangled #sentencestructure #words #translation #rockclimbing

On this post, I would like to concentrate on the listening skill, which based on a survey I did with my students, they find the hardest to tackle, especially in a high stress scenario such as GCSE examinations. Many of my students fear this skill especially in GCSE type of tasks which are often very ambiguous and many of us would agree almost seem to be designed to catch students out often incorporating vocabulary that wasn’t included in the syllabus. I, personally do not agree with this type of examination system. I am not sure what it is suppose to achieve other than alienate our students from language learning. Listening is the key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood or missed. A receptive skill that develops in humans first – babies even though they can’t speak are learning sounds, words and about the language through listening. When we are learning a new language, learning to listen to L2 improves the language ability. The sound, rhythm, intonation and stress of L2 can only be adapted through listening. Listening as a skill is also essential in the languages classroom. Students receive language through the ears in the first instance, they identify the sounds of speech and process these sounds into words and sentences therefore teaching of phonics and pronunciation is so vital for encoding and storing of the language in the memory. Learning sounds incorrectly means listeners will not be able to decode/recognise them when they encounter them, they won’t be able to match the phoneme to the grapheme. Understanding of the links between the spoken and written word is crucial for decoding of word meanings. Listening in any language requires high levels of focus and attention. It is a skill many learners need to work at harder than at other such as for example written texts. However, many times listening is approached just as a text book exercise quizzing comprehension and not as a decoding and parsing skill that should be nurtured and developed. I also believe that within our curriculum we don’t give sufficient importance to decoding skills, this could be due to lack of time allocated on the timetable, the pressure to cover a vast content in short space of time or just simply hoping that the skill will develop over time naturally. In many lessons, key phonemes are often not systematically recycled through listening, reading and speaking activities which naturally support their acquisition. L.A.M. (Listening as Modelling) as per Gianfranco Conti approach that we have adopted in our school last September focusses explicitly on listening skills which as he says shouldn’t be seen as separate from speaking, reading, writing and Grammar instruction, but interleaved and recycled in various contexts continuously. Through this approach we have noticed a vast improvement in students’ confidence, progress and willingness to ‘take risks’. In order to develop good listening skills from ‘the get go’, listening opportunities should be integral part of  every lesson and as any skill need to be practised over and over again through variety of activities in order to become more and more automatic. Listening activities should also be used to model new language/sounds not just as mere testing tool. Listening could be presented through simple activities (these will be different for novice-learner and expert-learners) such as greetings at the start of the lesson, register routines, giving simple instructions, to well planned and thought through tasks which focus on various micro – skills: decoding, parsing and lexical recognition skills. I found the book ‘Breaking down the sound barrier’ by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith invaluable when looking closely how to improve my students ‘ listening skills. Many of the tasks mentioned below are ideas from their book. I also try to use variety of tasks to keep students engaged and interested. Here are some examples of tasks I have been using: Recognising the correct sounds – minimal pairs – students write the correct number on their MWB. This could be conducted by the teacher reading out single words or for more challenge using the words within a sentence, so students have ‘distractors’. Other activities practising phonics – word endings / spot the error / spot the intruder Dictation – inspired by Gianfranco Conti partial  – teacher starts the word or part of the phrase and students finish it – could be done in writing on MWB or orally practising correct pronunciation. delayed – teacher dictates a short sentence, students hold this sentence in their memory for cca.10 seconds then write the sentence down on their MWB. running – parts of the text are stuck on the wall – students are divided into groups of three – one student stays seated whilst the other members take turns to run to the text and dictate it to the sitting member who writes it down. Here the students are practising listening, writing reading and memory skills as well. Might not be possible at the moment. Break down the speech flow – teacher reads the sentences and students put spaces as appropriate – extension task – students re-write the sentences correctly applying capital letters where needed (this applies specifically to German). Listening pyramids – first seen and inspired by @madamemassè. Students listen to recordings and write what they hear. The structure getting longer and more complex. Narrow listening – teacher reads texts which are very similar from the slide and students write the number of the text on their MWB. When I started this task initially, I noticed that as the texts were so similar, students stopped listening once they heard a specific key word resulting in some writing the wrong answers. I had to explain to them it wasn’t a sporting competition – who answers the fastest, but to listen to details in order to spot the differences and identify the correct text. Tick or cross activity – this idea has been recently shared by Gianfranco Conti Listening for key words in the sequence – inspired by @MissWozniak. Words could be in L1 or L2 depending on the level of challenge. Text could be read out or recorded. Listening for cognates/adjectives/time phrases/ nouns/verbs … – students work in groups for this task. Reconstruction of text – text is cut up into strips and students have to put the text together as they listen. This could be also used as a reading/syntactical/grammatical task. Listening gap fill tasks – could be used without support, with missing words provided in form of a list or multiple choice option for more support. Listening for Grammar points – tenses/opinions/negatives/clauses – this could be scaffolded even more by having students in groups and each member concentrates on one specific Grammar point thus building confidence in listening. ‘Tally’ idea by @MissWozniak. Listening – multiple choice questions Listening – comprehension questions Useful websites: Here are four main websites that I have been using so far to support my students with developing their listening skills. teachvid – with variety of activities to practise listening skills. lyricstraining – very popular with my older students who like to listen and explore music, good for the cultural capital. Allows you to print out the lyrics as well. Audio Lingua – recordings by native speakers – can be downloaded or embedded – the teacher can create various activities. learngerman.dw.com – different levels, good mainly for comprehension and also for ‘cultural capital’. Listening in real time – communicating with a person face to face where we can see the facial expressions, lip read or simply ask the speaker to repeat or re-phrase, is very different to listening to an audio or video recording which learners find the most stressful. I, personally still struggle (I have lived in the U.K. for almost 20 years now) when I am on the phone and the person on the other side spells their name to me. I have to ask them to either slow down or repeat it and I consider myself to be an accomplished and experienced linguist – polyglot. So where does it leave our young learners? I would say practise, practise and practise… Maybe one day the people who make decisions in education will re-consider how they structure the assessments and most importantly what they want to achieve with them. One day we might see the importance of language learning being more valued and language learning flourishing in the U.K. once again! Free resource based on Edexcel 2019 Foundation/Higher listening including work book for students – link here. If you find my resources useful, you can show your appreciation by buying me a☕. Link here. #sentences #phonics #sounds #communication #TeachVid #audiolingua #minimalpairs #attention #gapfill #pronunciation #lyricstraining #language #multiplechoice #words #listening #receptiveskill

Speaking is the second language skill, after listening, that we acquire in our native language. It is also known as a productive skill as it requires us to use our vocal tract and brain to correctly produce language through sounds. Most of us will be in agreement that the ultimate goal for learners when learning a new language is the ability to speak it. Let’s face it, we are rather unlikely to write in foreign language when we travel abroad, especially when travelling for pleasure! Naturally, when travelling for business or as part of our profession that is then a different scenario. However, for many language lovers and enthusiasts it is not just about the language acquisition but also about the culture and opportunities to explore different ways of life. Speaking another language allows us to communicate with a variety of people, express our ideas freely and become an active member of a new community. I love the Czech proverb below (it is even on our curriculum map), it really resonates with me. I am sure that many linguists out there will concur with me saying: ‘We become almost a different person when we speak in another language’ – the choice of expressions, our voice, our jokes, our thinking, our whole manner changes… all influenced by the little cultural nuances that we have consciously or unconsciously learnt during the language learning process and experiences of the countries we have visited, spent time in or lived in. It definitely applies to me! So how can we nurture oracy in the classroom? Firstly, to get my students’ point of view when it comes to language learning, I have decided to conduct a short exit ticket survey with my KS3 and KS4 classes to find out what they consider to be essential when learning a new language. I have asked all of them the same question: How do you decide whether you are good at this subject, what is the most important skill when learning a language? The responses from students have been pretty consistent in terms of what they class as the top priority when learning a new language. 92% of my students at KS4 and 86% at KS3 measured their success in learning a new language by their ability to speak it. When we discussed the results  in more detail next lesson, they also voiced their biggest concerns about speaking – such as perceiving it to be very difficult, their lack of confidence, worries about making mistakes and being laughed at… Speaking is a skill which often can get neglected in classroom. It is also a skill in which students lack confidence mostly. Developing good oral skills takes a lot of practice and a lot of time which can be a real challenge for us – educators as the content of the National Curriculum is so vast and the time given for languages on the timetable so limited and not taking into account that lessons need to be spaced out more evenly (i.e. not having a 5 day gap between the lessons)! Unfortunately, this is highly unlikely to change, unless there is some major development on part of the DfE where the status of modern languages becomes more prominent and valued in the U.K. education. How can we move forward and support our learners? The practice that I will outline below is my approach on how I support my students in developing oracy and building their confidence when speaking. During my teaching career, I have observed over and over again that many students struggle to speak or are very hesitant to speak, so over the past 3-4 years, I have spent time reading about and researching different approaches on how to support their speaking skills and as a consequence this is the route that I have taken… Starting from day one, it is crucial that my students learn to produce new sounds as accurately as possible, so developing speaking goes hand in hand with listening – students hearing the sounds and imitating them back by saying them aloud. I am afraid, there is no room for hiding in my classroom. If you are wondering how I get the reluctant or anxious learners to speak – well, I talk to them about learning and about how memory works, I talk to them about forgetting which is natural and inevitable and why making mistakes is so important, I totally take advantage of the fact that I am ‘foreign’ – explaining to them that even after 20 year of living in the U.K., I still make mistakes and mispronounce words and even have some embarrassing moments. I work hard on building an environment where my students feel safe to take risks and build up their confidence. It has been a slow journey, but it is working, with more and more of my quiet students feeling happy to volunteer or even be ‘cold-called’. They know, if they don’t know the answer it is ok to say (in TL): ‘I don’t know that yet.’ – something I have learnt from Patrice Bain and her ‘Powerful Teaching’ (co-authored with Pooja Agarwal). Since September, we have been using E.P.I – a methodology developed by Gianfranco Conti, which has been proving highly effective so far, especially at KS3. The first step when re-designing our SoW we have reduced the content and pretty much stopped using the textbook (we still loosely use some of the topics for guidance making sure the National Curriculum requirements are covered and some of the listening activities). I introduce new vocabulary within a chunk using a Sentence Builder (however, what ever model you use – parallel texts, text book course etc. – the principles should be the same). We model and practice the new language extensively ensuring students know it really well before we move onto more spontaneous speaking without scaffolding. The MARS EARS sequence provides a natural progression. I use Retrieval Practice in all of my lessons, not just at the start of the lesson (I think there is a bit of a misconception about it, some educators thinking it is a new fancy word for the old starter activity). Retrieval can happen at any point in the lesson and the various activities we have at our disposal offer a plethora of opportunities for it naturally. To re-enforce  learning and recall, I regularly set learning (retrieval) HWK for my students – see my post on Making Homework meaningful and purposeful. This is, in my opinion, the key for ensuring my students have the necessary vocabulary and structures for practising first scaffolded and then un-scaffolded speaking tasks. I don’t set any writing for HWK as many students often resort to ‘cheating’ via google translate so learning is very limited. At KS3 these are some of the activities I use rather regularly: Narrow reading – flooded input – used as a listening but also as reading aloud activity – supporting pronunciation. Could be also used as translation activity – the teacher saying the text in L1 and the students matching it to L2. Oral ping – pong – this could be done as a written translation task, but I often use it as oral activity – students translating the sentences verbally taking turns and checking the accuracy and me – the teacher their pronunciation. Trapdoor – is a great game which offers students opportunities to rehearse and practise the same structures over and over again. * adapted from a resource shared online Battleships – students creating combinations of sentences – verbally – ensuring correct verb conjugation. Can be used to practice various grammatical structures such as tenses, adjectival agreements etc. Walk thru ‘Say it better’ could be used to make it more challenging. ‘Catch the dog game’ – I have been using this game for years – it could be used as RP/speaking practice at any stage in the lesson. I have a bank of interleaved questions (various topics) that I use with each year group. Soft toy dog is thrown to a student with a question he/she has to answer on the spot, firstly led by me – the teacher, later on the student picks another student asking him/her a question. This is a great way for students to practise not only answering questions but also asking questions which is a very important skill too. I often use it for practising tenses. Board games – snakes and ladders, connect four, dice games – the first template I would use with my KS3, the other two are from www.teachitlanguages.co.uk which are more suitable for KS4. Digital tools – with all of the recent changes in teaching, I, like many of us have become much better at using technology to our advantage and to enrich our delivery, they certainly can be great for enhancing learning and motivation – my favourite ones are – Wheel of names – I usually use key words and students need to make a sentence using the key word or a question which students have to answer and Flippity. I like to use 2 or 3 tools trying not to overload my students.                  The key for me is that they serve the purpose of learning and are not just a new gimmick. Some tools can be engaging and ‘fun’ but have a very low value in terms of learning and acquisition, so we should be wary of it. * template was shared on social media The work we do at KS3 in terms of oracy is a vital stepping stone for developing fluency and automacy at KS4. It is an essential skill and as mentioned above rated by my students as the one on which they measure their success in the subject as well as one of the most important criterion for motivation and whether the students chose the subject for their GCSE. The whole purpose of language is to serve as a communication tool which is in its most primary form executed orally. In my next post I will concentrate on how I develop my students’ oracy at KS4. I have put a lot of work into how we approach and coach students in independent speaking which has been positively commented on during learning walks conducted by the SLT and the CEO from within our Academy Trust. I would be very interested to hear what strategies colleagues use to develop speaking skills and oracy, so please get in touch as I am always keen to explore new ideas and to learn from fellow professionals. Credits: * If the original template/resource was shared by you, could you please let me know so I can credit you. Thank you. ** other templates created by Flo Rence and  board game resources from http://www.teachitlanguages.co.uk/ #communication #developing #oracy #KS3 #scaffolding #forgetting #environment #speakingskills #memory

Following on from my previous post – Developing speaking skills and oracy at KS3, this post will be focussing on my approach to the preparation for GCSE speaking examination, the practice and the support of oral skills at KS4 level. Building students confidence in speaking is crucial for successful communication! I am a firm believer that if we practise and expose our learners to oral skills consistently from the ‘get go’ when they start with their language learning journey in year 7, we will nurture and ‘mould’ more confident speakers for the GCSE course and beyond. It is inevitable that at KS4 I, like any other language teacher, have to  prepare my students for their GCSE examinations. It is my responsibility to ensure they have the skills and techniques needed to succeed, reach and maximise their potential in their examinations. Unfortunately, the way the GCSE exam system is designed, is not always the best way to support the natural communications skills and linguistic competence. Students often have to demonstrate they can use key grammatical structures, such as variety of tenses, justified opinions, subjunctive, comparatives, superlatives etc…, thus often resulting in structures and language that can be artificial, decontextualized and unnatural with little relevance or value for acquiring productive, linguistic competence (i.e. in German using future tense where native speaker would use naturally present tense, amongst others). In the past 3-4 years we were fortunate enough at my school to start our GCSE course in year 9, which meant that we have had enough time to focus on the productive skills of speaking and writing at the exam level in more detail. The meaningful and collaborative design of our SOW and lesson planning as well as having sufficient time gave us the opportunity to teach 3 units per year ensuring that deeper knowledge is embedded in LM. First half term of each term, we dedicate to teaching and drilling of the key vocabulary, grammatical structures, practising and developing receptive skills and recalling and/or restudying previous knowledge from KS3 that might have been forgotten. This forgetting is the main reason, that we have been focussing so much on embedding effective Retrieval Practice into our teaching from KS3! Naturally, speaking and writing skills are also an integral part of these lessons. Some of the activities mentioned in my previous post are also used at KS4 especially, various board games. However, having this time in our KS4 curriculum enabled us to dedicate the second half term of each term specifically to speaking and writing practise with the focus on the preparation for the GCSE exam. In year 11 we provide our students with a revision folder containing revision timetable, roleplay cards, photo cards, a list with possible conversation questions, translation booklet, KOs as well as a link to a Padlet with additional resources such as Quizlet links, websites and apps. We also explicitly teach our students revision skills. For more detail, please see my previous post on Metacognition, self-regulated learning and revision. On the first glance, many of my students find the Roleplays and Picture-based tasks confusing and disconcerting, so here is how we unpick them together, with clear modelling and step by step approach led by the teacher. Roleplay (RP) Firstly, on the white board I display the student version of the RP and we analyse it together – we look at what each symbol means, we translate the prompts (any new vocabulary will be noted and learnt – students will notice as we go over more RP cards that the vocabulary can be rather repetitive), predict what questions they could be asked for each prompt – we do this in L1 and practise the possible answers in L2. After the initial modelling, I show the students the teacher version of the card and we look at how close we were with our predictions. I think it is essential to do this with our students as the prompts on the cards can be ambiguous and our learners should be taught some strategies on how to tackle the task. Only after this modelling stage students are given their own set of RP cards with a copy of the student version on one side and teacher version on the other side. They use the student version to prepare (I suggest they spend only cca. 3 minutes of their preparation time on RP and dedicate the remaining time to the PT preparation as it is worth more marks). In pairs they then practice taking turns in being a student or a teacher. I strongly discourage students to write their answers down (I have noticed that when they wrote the answers down, they were then more likely to read them back to me rather then answer them spontaneously from the memory). In the next stage, I practise with them myself, I cold call students and only ask one question each student. I don’t conduct the entire RP just with one of them. This way all students are involved (no opting out) as they don’t know who will be asked/called to answer a question and it also adds an element of unpredictability. You might ask: ‘What about the less confident or weaker students?’ My classes are all mixed ability, so like many, I will have in my class a student with a target of 3 and a student with target of 9. However, I believe, we know our students and in order to build their confidence we always have the option to ask the appropriate question based on the ability of the student, thus ensuring differentiation happens in our classes. We can nurture their confidence, allow them to give a shorter answer and show them how to make it better without causing cognitive overload. The modelling stage also gives opportunities to address any gaps in knowledge, i.e. if students are unsure how to build questions, we can go over the process together. Nurturing a learning environment where students feel safe, understand the metacognition (how it can support them in improving their learning) and are reassured that making mistakes and not knowing ‘yet’ is acceptable  – as long as they use this knowledge to further their learning, is the key to success and will have a positive impact on their motivation too! Picture-based task (PT) We approach the PT the same way we tackle the RP. When analysing the PT, I encourage my students to make a note of the grammatical structure that is required for each bullet point as well as to jot some key ideas they would like to talk about. I explicitly teach them how to develop and extend their answers, especially if they say I don’t like something, teaching them (once they answered the question) how to steer the conversation to ‘ but I like …, I do this … or my friend/sister …’ to expand on their thoughts, as well as ensuring they link their thoughts and ideas using linking words. Please note that if a student gets stuck, they always have the option to say ” I don’t know the answer yet.”, at that point I would ask another student to provide the answer, but make sure that at some stage in the lesson I will go back to the original student and ask the same question again. All students are aware of this – so they are not “off the hook” and the “going back” ensures students are listening, paying attention and learning from one another! Modelling of the task: First bullet point – describing the picture – we use PALMW or if some students struggle to remember the acronym, they use dual coding instead. Second bullet point – expressing an opinion – we brainstorm some opinion phrases – simple ones to begin with and look at how we can improve and develop them (using justifications, specific connectives such as ‘weil, dass, wenn, als, obwohl, da…) Third bullet point – using past tense – we use retrieval practice to check whether there are any gaps in forming the past tense – perfect and imperfect tense, as well as some key past participles. Fourth bullet point – using future tense – similar approach as with the past tense – I often use the ‘Catch the dog’ game mentioned in my previous post when retrieving and practising tenses. Fifth bullet point – expressing an opinion. The complexity of the language depends on the tier (foundation or higher). In my view practice is detrimental to performance! Before Covid we would have roundtable oral practice every time, especially in year 11 once all content was covered. Pre-Covid my students would be seated in groups of four, for our roundtable we would join tables together so on each side of the classroom I would have a foundation roundtable (on the left) and higher roundtable (on the right). As students have extensively practised since year 9, at this stage of their journey, they were confident to answer most questions, complete any RP and PT on the spot, which visitors often found amazing (especially as students didn’t read their answers or even relied on notes)! I suppose, we were practising retrieval practice, spacing and interleaving without consciously being aware of it. Here, the saying: ‘Practice makes permanent!’ really applies! Being part of the roundtable gave also confidence to the quieter or more anxious students as the rules of the table were that the members supported anyone who got stuck, coaching them and providing some simple ideas. As students listened to each other’s responses they were also learning from each other! I would be circulating between the tables and listen to students practising, picking up a card and asking students question each, listening to their responses and giving immediate feedback, addressing any mistakes/pronunciation issues, but often also asking students in the group to give peer feedback as well: What was good about the answer? How could it be improved/extended? General Conversation For General Conversation, I provide students with a list of some possible questions – these would be tiered (foundation and higher), in preparation students complete these in writing as they prove useful not just for their oral exam but also writing exam and can be often interconnected. I model some examples on the board or under a visualiser – asking the students to give me examples of some very simple sentences first. We look at how we can extend them within using TMP (time, manner, place), justifying them using variety of connectives, change them into different tenses or a sentence using a modal verb. This provides scaffolding for my weaker students and demonstrates how to tackle the task, step by step. Students also practise more complex structures, “wow phrases” and idioms. Idioms are important for the top grades, but it is essential that students use them in the right context. As an examiner I have seen many pieces of writing where an idiom has been put in just to tick a box without it making sense! Unfortunately, we do not have a foreign speaking teaching assistant and we haven’t had one for many years now due to the costs, so all of the practise is really on the class teacher. However, I have been lucky that some of our students who went on to study languages further at the university, have come back to do some work experience with us as well as having associate teachers who can support some of our students for one to one practise when needed. There are also opportunities to use Blended Learning and sites such as Flipgrid, Qwiqr or TEAMs to set oral presentations as homework, but I personally am wary of using them too much as I can never be sure if students are reading or responding spontaneously from the memory, especially as we have to give them the option of hiding their faces with stickers. They are great for students to practise if done correctly, but they do not replace real face to face conversation – dialogue. In conclusion, I was really disappointed last year that after all of the hard work, students didn’t get a chance to demonstrate their speaking skills in their GCSE exam and feel the same way this year. I understand that many felt relieved they don’t have to conduct them, but I believe that the main purpose of learning a language is the ability to speak it! For me at the heart of language learning is communication which is in most instances conducted verbally! I would be very interested to hear what other strategies colleagues use to prepare their students for their GCSE  examination, so please get in touch. @j_st_88 has created and shared amazing speaking booklets in Spanish, with his permission I have adapted them to German. There are available for download here or on my resource page. Speaking Booklet Foundation here. Speaking Booklet Higher here. #Picturebasedtasks #communication #immediatefeedback #oracy #metacognition #KS4 #forgetting #Generalconversation #Modelling #Roleplays #GCSE #RetrievalPractice #speakingskills

Live modelling is considered to be one of the most powerful strategies in the teacher’s toolkit and I absolutely agree! Through live modelling I can take my students through a step-by-step process of completing the task at hand. These steps are process driven and they support students’ metacognitive thinking. This is the first stage of scaffolding where I ‘think aloud‘ and show/explain to them how to ‘think’ their way through the task. Modelling and scaffolding allows me – the expert teacher to guide and stretch my novice learners. This instructional strategy allows my students to learn by observing my thought process. The aim of this instruction is to engage my students in imitation of a particular behaviour that encourages learning. *Modelling of metacognitive regulation is essential to encourage our learners to be more independent. Planning stage (before the task) – Have I seen this type of a question before? What strategies can I employ to tackle it? What should I do first? Monitoring stage (during the task) – Am I on track? How do I know? Do I need to change my approach? Evaluation stage (after the task) – What worked well? What have I learned that I can use in future tasks? Over the time and with plenty of practice fewer of my learners will need this type of demonstration to tackle the task. With the support of guided practice they will be able to complete the task independently and apply what they have learned to similar tasks they encounter in the future. They will be able to transfer these skills, strategies and metacognitive knowledge. Below you can watch me ‘live’ modelling a writing and a reading task under my visualiser. I have recorded my screen whilst going through the process, so any student absent from my lesson or any student who would like to re-watch the metacognitive approach again, can do so on demand. It is a resource that I can use at any time in the future and in the past, I have also set it as HWK to watch before an assessment. My students have found it extremely useful and feedback has been very positive, so much so that colleagues from other departments were interested to see it and use it for their subject. Live modelling – 80-90 word writing task Live modelling – GCSE reading task – TL Some examples of students’ feedback: *Reference: Jennifer Webb: The Metacognition Handbook Exam papers: German GCSE Edexel Sample papers 2021 #guidedpractice #livemodelling #metacognition #scaffolding

Learning and building students’ vocabulary to develop fluency and eventually mastery of the studied language requires a lot of effort, time and practice. It involves a lot of hard work and patience and it is not always fun! It can be boring! Every learner has a passive (receptive) vocabulary and active (productive) vocabulary. The passive vocabulary comprises of words which we decode and understand when we hear them in speech or read them in a text. The active vocabulary is made up of the words that we can produce and use when speaking or writing. Our passive vocabulary repertoire is much bigger than our active one and this is completely normal and expected whether it is in our native language L1 or in our second language L2. However, moving words from passive vocabulary into active vocabulary also takes a lot of effort, time and practice! My students often find the receptive skill of listening a real challenge, especially when they have to listen to recordings. The speed of the utterances, the variety of accents/voices/ages/genders and the inability to see the speaker to help them with the small nuances that support the decoding of the message(s) can be extremely testing and at times demotivating. Language is a versatile tool which transforms with its perceived purpose. For example, when watching clips, my students can understand the gist and develop their passive vocabulary through comprehensible input and other clues provided via visuals much easier. For the receptive function, it is all about Comprehensible Input (CI). However, comprehension is not enough when students want to express themselves through speaking or writing. For this to happen the words need to travel from their passive lexicon into their active lexicon so they can retrieve them when needed and produce comprehensible utterances quickly. For this transfer to happen students need abundant opportunities to speak and write in TL. They need to be able to think of a word quickly (semantic retrieval), they need to be able to use it accurately in a sentence – have a syntactic awareness associated with it’s function in a sentence as well as to know whether the word is appropriate for the purpose of the communication at hand – Nation’s (2013) – form – meaning – use (we all had our students choosing the wrong word for the wrong context – I had once student talking about ‘Der Grundstück’ – the plot of land when talking about the plot of a film). So… how can we make the process of learning and expanding students’ vocabulary more effective? It is not a surprise that students that have larger vocabulary can perform better whether it is in assessments or in spontaneous situations, they demonstrate more confidence and are less worried about taking risks and having a go. This doesn’t mean that what they produce is 100% accurate. We can communicate a lot with a rich vocabulary whilst still making grammatical errors, however, we can not communicate a lot with perfect Grammar and small vocabulary repertoire. In second language acquisition it is important to consider the relation between implicit and explicit acquisition. Many researchers believe that most learning happens implicitly (Krashen, 1982 – CI), other practitioners suggest language skill is better developed through explicit instruction, modelling, practice and feedback. *Steve Smith (researchEd article, 2019) advises teachers to ‘hedge their bets’ by ensuring they do two things in their lessons: Exploit natural acquisition mechanisms by using as much TL as possible in meaningful & interesting ways in all 4 skills. Exploit the gradual acquisition of skills using certain amount of explanation & structured practice of high-frequency areas of vocabulary and grammar * Gianfranco Conti provides the best examples of marrying these two principles. For each year group, he uses a set of core items (universals) – chunks, patterns that are taught via implicit lesson routines such as texts and production tasks accompanied by SB scaffolds which facilitate the process of embedding them into LTM (see reference to full article below). Introduction and embedding of vocabulary: To introduce new vocabulary, at my school, we use sentence builders (a là Conti). We spend around 6 weeks (4 or 5 lessons a fortnight) on a unit of work. This involves extensive modelling of the pronunciation of the new words/sounds and structures followed by abundant opportunities for practice in order to manipulate it in the form of modified output. To see more information on our modelling phase, see for a detailed post here and for receptive processing phase here. Vocabulary is also regularly retrieved in class via MWB. Sentence Builder – yr.9 Each of our sentence builders is linked to a Quizlet set and Carousel Learning set enabling students to practise the new structures (in chunks, so vocabulary is learnt in context) outside of the classroom as well. Thus it is retrieved and reinforced to ensure that it is embedded in students’ LTM. Grammar is being taught explicitly at later stage, however, students often spot differences and patterns and ask curious questions, which we address immediately, when they inquire about them (Lexicogrammar). Carousel Learning has been developed from the idea of the Retrieval Roulette (Adam Boxer) and the algorithm allows for interleaving of the topics/questions – this can be a random choice or the teacher can decide what question should be quizzed. It gives you – the teacher a thorough analysis of which questions/topics students knew and struggled with. If you already have your Retrieval Roulettes/spreadsheets they can be easily imported in. Quizlet set Carousel Learning We check students’ learning every lesson via Retrieval Practice mostly using Retrieval Roulettes/grids (10 questions – mixture of words/sentences/chunks/Grammar points – L1→L2/L2→L1). If I have a group that is performing really well, sometimes I ask them to pre-learn some chunks/sets (flipped learning). A new platform/website created by Martin Lapworth (creator of Textivate) called SentenceBuilders has been recommended by many colleagues as an effective tool which supports students in their learning of the SBs. The SBs are based on Gianfranco Conti’s Sentence Builders books and the website is a collaboration of the two creators. The German section is being populated so I am hoping to test it soon myself. Recently, I have watched a webinar organised by Linguascope, where @richwestsoley was presenting about AnkiApp. An app, I have been familiar with, but haven’t used that much myself. After watching the webinar, I am convinced that it is an amazing tool for my higher achievers and more independent/autonomous learners. The app is very efficient in terms of spaced practice. As a bit of a caveat, personally, I think it is more suitable for more mature learners (AS/A-Level) as students need to be able to judge their learning honestly – they need to judge how confident they were with their answer. Based on this answer the algorithm decides when the card comes up again (spacing effect). AnkiApp Why is the app so good? (shared by Richard West Soley via Linguascope) Desktop (FREE) – web version works in phone browser too http://apps.ankiweb.net Uses algorithm to space your learning – great for spaced practice Can mix individual words and full phrases in context Can be used with students: export your decks and share them with your class Public decks are also available Add-on to extend Anki: http://ankiweb.net/shared/addons/2.1 Forvo.com Plug-In (native speakers): http://ankiweb.net/shared/info/858591644 Awesome TTS (computerised voices): http://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1436550454 Image Occlusion (add images): http://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1374772155 For effective communication we need vocabulary – passive-active/receptive-productive/high frequency-content… From experience, for vocabulary to ‘stick’, it is important that words are learnt in context and not in isolation! There have been many discussions about high frequency vocabulary (NCELP/Ofsted MFL review), especially about the most frequent 2000 words. However, what should be the high frequency words for students at schools? Are they based on the spoken or written language? Who is to decide? We can say a lot or a little using just high frequency vocabulary. We also need the content vocabulary. How do we choose the content vocabulary? To make language learning appealing to our learners the content needs to be relevant and of interest to them – the learners… *References: Stephen Krashen: Principles and Practice in second language acquisition, 1982 Steve Smith: What do we need to know about second-language learning?, researchEd, June 2019 Gianfranco Conti: Tempus Fugit – Four strategies to maximise MFL curriculum time, The Language Gym [blog], 2017 James A. Maxwell: Making every MFL lesson count, 2020 #comprehensibleinput #SentenceBuilders #vocabulary #productive #retrievalroulette #RetrievalPractice #receptive #passive #listening #active

The underpinning principle of effective teaching is challenge! Students rise or fall according to the level of expectation that we set for them, from the curriculum design, the culture and ethos we established in our classroom and the strategies we employed to ensure they meet these aspirational targets. We should not shy away from embracing struggle but provide scaffolding if necessary. Each student brings with them varying degrees of knowledge, cultural experiences, and preconceptions. We need to ensure all students are challenged in their language learning. We, ourselves will be challenged to adopt the most effective teaching approaches and strategies as well. Provision of challenge is a complex affair, it is long term, and it should be overreaching everything, it should run through everything, culture, strategies, routines, academic register, the language we use to communicate expectation to our students… Challenge is defined as the provision of work which causes students to think deeply and engage in healthy struggle in a manner that allows them, overtime, to learn effectively and affords our students opportunities to develop the procedural knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, discuss rules of the language and develop automaticity as well as manipulate the language quickly and fluently. In order to anchor high challenge, setting single and aspirational objectives whilst providing scaffolding so all students have opportunity to reach them is pivotal. Example of single and aspirational objective The objective as set above allows students to be exposed to the language in context, offers more sophisticated structures, the focus on justification draws attention to a particular function of language and aligns with the GCSE specification. Language learning is functional and cumulative and it is highly likely that students have already encountered justified opinions in a different context, so they are building on their prior knowledge, thus modifying and extending their schemas in LTM, i.e. in German – using extended sentences (weil + WO) – all students are expected to listen/speak/read and write in TL effectively without limitations! Strong and ambitious curriculum provides anchoring for challenge; dipping into GCSE work in year 7, 8 or 9, taking the expected knowledge base, concepts, skills … and teaching just beyond that as well as exposing students at an early stage to the most challenging concept of assessment guidelines will challenge students in their learning. It can be also very motivating for students, knowing that they are undertaking work which is above their expected level. However a caveat is needed. We must be careful to build in the rationale behind it: ‘I believe in you! I believe in your potential to aspire and achieve high! If we use our prior knowledge and skills that we have already acquired, if we demonstrate resilience and perseverance, there is a strong chance we succeed, your success and self-efficacy are important to me!’ The need for our students to experience success is crucial. In order to ensure optimal learning outcomes, students need to obtain high success rate.(B. Rosenshine, Principles of instruction) So, what does high challenge teaching look like in my classroom? An example of  a high-level, high-challenge reading activity may look like this: yr.8 This activity points students’ attention to core vocabulary of places in town, but it also emphasises linguistic function (opinions and justification, comparisons) and encourages them to use their linguistic knowledge and skills. Retrieval Practice – Why? – boosts students’ learning and strengthens their memory, makes forgetting less likely to occur. Click here to see examples. Spacing it out – Why?- the benefits of effective spacing in SLA – SLA is reliant on the cumulative build up of knowledge and dependent on our students making connections between new content and prior learning. This is significant. Importance of environment – Why? – to allow our students to marvel at the excellence around them – What is it they aspire to? What does excellence look like?                          Showing the best work from the most successful students to demonstrate the high expectations we have of them. To show them what they are aiming for. To challenge them to draft/re-draft/edit/annotate/improve their own work. Click here to see examples. Questioning – Why? – to elicit the process – the why and how not just the what? Why do we ask questions? To retrieve information from memory to strengthen it. To test the understanding of a concept – grammatical structure, language function… To develop and deepen the understanding of a concept. To provide opportunities for output. To highlight links to prior learning. To foster similarities and differences between L1 and L2. To give opportunities to respond to unprepared situations in L2. To give opportunities to practise – pronunciation, structures, skills and function. More on questioning here. While there are specific teaching strategies and techniques that we can employ to ensure that challenge is appropriate for all students at a given time, the concept itself is much more to do with our teaching approaches. We know our students, we know their strengths and weaknesses, we know where we need to push and where we need to adapt our teaching to support them all! Too often, I see posts from colleagues asking for specific activities that provide/demonstrate challenge! However, I don’t think it is that simple, each class, school and context is different and like scaffolding, challenge comes from knowing our students and from a curriculum design that demonstrates progression which in return provides challenge. Ofsted refers to a curriculum that provides ‘ambition’ for all. I, personally, don’t know how I would define this ‘ambition’ or what this ‘ambition’ should look like… It is too abstract a concept; each one of us, each context might see ambition differently… What I do know however, is whether my students are working and thinking hard and whether they are or are not making progress. This doesn’t mean they are all perfect students and they are all on an upward trajectory. It is still a battle, but I still enjoy fighting it and welcome every little or bigger victory that comes with it. References: James A Maxwell: Making every MFL lesson count (2019) Shaun Allison & Andy Tharby: Making every lesson count (2017) #Challenge #questioning #RetrievalPractice

The discussion about what is the best approach when teaching grammar in MFL is always a ‘hot seat’ topic and at times many of us will have to agree to disagree as we all have our own views and experiences which on a practical level, sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with the research into SLA – each learner and school context is unique therefore different approaches will be more suitable for the diversity of these contexts. In this post, I would like to discuss the differing points of view … I believe that the purpose of learning a language is to be able to communicate in it. Many times, students tell me: ‘ I would love to study German in the college, but I just want to learn to speak it well so I can use it with my other STEM subjects, I don’t want to analyse literature and learn Grammar.’ However, in the practice, for many teachers and leaders in the schools, this is not as straightforward as it might seem, especially with the pressures of delivering results and achieving good grades. Effective grammar teaching is essential for successful language learning, and it is important to build in time to our SoW to teach grammar well from the start. This can be rather difficult within the time constraints of the timetable and the lesson. Ergo, teaching of Grammar can take a variety of forms such as: Lexicogrammar: a level of linguistic structure where lexis (vocabulary and grammar or syntax) combine into one, they are not seen as independent but rather mutually dependent, with one level interfacing with the other (Sardhina, 2019). This is the approach observed in Conti’s E.P.I. methodology. Another approach which is more traditional, similar to the NCELP approach, is explicit grammar teaching – a teaching method that takes form as the centre, it puts the emphasis on purposefully learning grammatical rules so they can be used accurately and effectively as a language ingredient. Rather than allowing students to develop grammatical awareness through application of structures or letting them to simply work out correct answers to fill in the gaps in a grammar exercise through the context, students should be taught and should learn to correctly recognise and reproduce grammar structures through their understanding of how the principles of these structures work. However, teaching it explicitly will not suit all our learners. To embed grammar fully into students LTM, it has to be practised extensively via all four skills. From personal experience, this often happens via the reading and writing, but not as much through the listening and speaking skill. This is especially important, in a skill such as listening, where students need to be able to recognise grammatical patterns in a sentence within a speech and arrange them within the context to aid not only comprehension but also acquisition of the new structure or chunk. It is also rather common to observe lesser grammatical accuracy in spoken language than in written language. With my Academy context in mind, this is how we approach grammar in our classrooms: When I started to teach, some 17 years ago, my approach to grammar teaching was explicit. This is how I was taught grammar myself, as a student. On a personal level, I have to admit, it suited me as I was an academic student and I needed to understand how the language works and links, plus I had the discipline to memorise the patterns and study beyond the walls of the classroom. This was the way I was taught to teach it during my PGCE course, and it was also confirmed through the observations of my mentors and colleagues. On reflection, it is fair to say that this approach has worked for small proportion of my most academic students. Some researchers (Ullman, 2006 in Smith&Conti, Memory, 2021) believe that vocabulary and grammar are processed differently. Vocabulary being stored in declarative memory, whereas grammar such as i.e., verb endings, in procedural memory. From the research, it is known that procedural memory takes longer to establish and even though our students may be able to recite verb paradigms and may appear to know/explain the rules from their declarative memory, I have observed too many times that they actually could not use it effectively or consistently from their procedural memory. Too often, I have seen students completing grammar exercises competently during lesson practice (completing their grammar worksheets correctly), thinking they have ‘got it’, only to find out when completing an independent piece of work, they have failed to apply their verb endings, tenses, or word order correctly! They could not transfer their declarative knowledge into their procedural knowledge. As a teacher, I never see myself as a ‘finished product’! In the languages community, there is so much knowledge and good practice shared so generously which often accounts for one of the best CPDs available out there! I learn and develop myself continuously, so when I came across the lexicogrammar approach, I was ready to learn and try it to see what impact it would have on my students’ outcomes. As many colleagues who follow this methodology, we introduce the new language via sentence builders which are essentially chunks of language (Roshenshine’s Principles of Instruction: Principle 2). example of a sentence builder These chunks of language are extensively practised during the Modelling/Awareness raising/ Receptive processing and Structured production phase (I wrote separate posts on these phases in my blog, so have a look for more detail, I have linked them) of the M.A.R.S.E.A.R.S. sequence. During the structured production phase, we start looking at patterns more closely, this is referred to by G. Conti as Pop-up Grammar. For example, our students learn the phrase ‘ich möchte’ (I would like) in year 7 when are we talking about ordering food in a café or a restaurant, however, the conditional is not taught explicitly until year 9. I often find, that at this stage (sometimes even earlier, depending on class’s attainment) students start making observations and asking questions themselves, such as the differences in word order, verb endings or genders. Only after this phase, during the Expansion stage, are the structures learnt in greater depth and practised with the new and old vocabulary; we work on grammar explicitly and focus on generative processing and students expand to language patterns. We use less scaffolding (SB) and encourage our students to think deeply. Having said that, I would not claim that there is a specific time when we should move onto explicit teaching of grammar. As mentioned at the start of this post, each context and class is different. I have had classes, where I have been teaching grammar explicitly very early on and this was to accommodate my students’ desire for wanting to know the ‘why’ and ‘how’. I firmly believe in adaptive teaching and there definitely is not a ‘one fits all’ approach. It is fantastic to get inspiration from other colleagues and to try different things, however, we have to bear in mind our own unique context and therefore a curriculum that is well-designed, thought through and sequenced is crucial. For our learners to embed grammatical structures in their LTM, they need to be interleaved throughout and students need to encounter them numerous times in different contexts. For more on the curriculum and lesson sequencing see the CURRICULUM page on my blog or if your school subscribes to National College, you can watch my session on Secondary Modern Languages: Lesson-to-Lesson Sequencing and Adaptive Short-term Planning in Line with Teachers’ Standards. #declarativeknowledge #lessonsequencing #proceduralknowledge #Curriculum #deliberatepractice #memory #Grammar