Facing the currently unknown

ALL Devon- it's time for action in the South West

At the moment one of the main issues facing language teachers is the lack of support or training available. Local authority advisors? Mostly gone. Money available to allow you out of school to attend exciting events? Gone. 

Yet there are developments happening constantly. Across the country great work is being done, innovation enacted, creativity unleashed. News of which we need to share and get out to make teaching and learning better across the country and make teachers lives easier!

Which is where, for me, ALL comes in. Teachers taking control of their own destinies and helping each other out. 

I've been really pleased at the initial response to the announcement of the MFL Teachmeet Plymouth. But now I, and all those people who've yelled at me to get active, feel like we need to kick on down here in the South West. 

As such it's time for a bit more ALL action in the area. Before I start working far too hard on the wrong thing, I want to hear YOUR voices if you are based in the South West and want to have some fun! What do you want to happen? I've created a Google Form to help get a feeling for what people want and need. You can complete it here. Pretty please do, and be completely honest- this is for you, after all.

The title of this post is ALL Devon, but I'm not picky- I'd love to hear from teachers from all over the South West who are keen to have more training and support in the area. Teachers from Cornwall, from Dorset, from Somerset, please get involved. And then let's get some of the best teachers and trainers down here to Devon to make our worlds easier and better!

And if you'd like to get more involved and really make a difference, please get in touch with me- I'd love your help.

 

MFL Teachmeet Plymouth- 27th June

Time for some fun, MFL teachers of Plymouth. And Devon. And beyond!

An MFL Teachmeet is coming to Plymouth on Thursday 27th June- to Eggbuckland Community College, to be precise, with huge thanks to the wonderful Caroline Grant (those of you on MFL Resources will know her name very well indeed thanks to her generous contribution of resources!). A Teachmeet is a relaxed evening, giving you the opportunity to catch up with people and to meet some more fascinating MFL people. We all know how rare the opportunity to get out to training is these days, so let's make the most of this evening!

Teachmeets are not like traditional INSET events. You're in control. Oh, and you can be the presenter. There are no keynotes, just people sharing experiences, explaining what's worked in their classroom recently. You can talk about a strategy that you've used, an attempt at using CLIL in your department, how you've used Twitter, an idea to increase spontaneity, a grammar trick, a website you've tried, an app, a gadget, whatever you want- as long as it's all about the wonders of Modern Foreign Languages. Anything that will help to make a difference to someone's teaching and learning. 

People invariably tell me that they don't have anything to talk about. I can understand that. It's nerve-racking standing up in front of 20 likeminded, supportive teachers who understand your day to day struggles, far more so than standing up in front of groups of 30 students 5 times a day. You all do great things in your classroom, it's time to be proud of them, so share and help others improve what they're doing as well!

If you are interested in taking part in this exciting evening, PLEASE PLEASE SIGN UP on the wiki here to do one of the following 3 things...

1) a 7 minute presentation. You can do it however you want, using whatever tools you want.

2) a 2 minute micro-presentation. Again, about whatever you want on the theme of MFL!

3) Lurk. Catch up with people, drink and eat and be merry, enjoying the opportunity to hear about other people's experiences and to relax amongst likeminded folks. And maybe next time you might present. And yes, there will be a next time...!

Not sure? Need more details? Interested in helping out? There are lots more details on the wiki and I'd love to hear from you, so please get in touch- on e-mail using Chrisfullerinspain@hotmail.com or Twitter @chrisfullerisms

Are we underselling our subject?

I do sometimes wonder. I blogged about FLAME earlier on today, and have just had my first chance in a while to flick through my Feedly feed of other blogs that I enjoy reading. As always, Alan Parkinson (@geoblogs) leaves me marvelling at some of the fantastic, thought-provoking materials being developed and made available to Geography teachers. From map-overlays to Mission Explore fun to examining Facebook check-ins, Alan has an amazing ability to bring our wider world to life, as do many Geography teachers that I've been fortunate to come into contact with over the years. How often do we do that as language teachers? Flicking through a lot of our MFL blogs, written by great teachers, it struck me how often we carry on teaching the same things which have, well, always been taught. Maybe with slight tweaks in the delivery of the content, but nevertheless the same content. Healthy living. School. Local area. You know the rest. Are we really pushing our students enough? When they get to deal with fascinating topic material, substance that really affects how our world works, is it a wonder why in many cases they don't choose languages for post-16- the time when our exam boards finally expect us to be analysing the wider world? In MFL I know teachers create fascinating lesson content at this stage- bye ek, I've said many a time before how much I imagine I'd have learned in, for example, Neil Jones' classroom- the man creates fascinating resources, such as this one. So why can't we, and publishers, and exam boards, and everyone involved, think again about WHAT we are teaching lower down the scale, not just HOW we are teaching it?

Just a thought...

The FLAME initiative

I love a good bit of CLIL. I'm not a fan of teaching about content which I don't have any interest in, which my students have no interest in and which doesn't help anybody to learn anything about the wider world beyond their own immediate vision. Over the last few years I've taght about climate zones, poverty factors and factors which influence immigration, the impact of drugs in South America and about the good work of the Shelterbox charity around the world. I find those interesting. I think they help expand perspectives far more than learning about the contents of a pencilcase. So anything that can further that is most definitely a good thing with me.

I'm late to the party in blogging about FLAME, but hopefully every little bit counts. Someone should use that line, it's a good'un.

The Association for Language Learning have developed the initiative in order to facilitate the sharing of experiences and resources from those teachers and schools around the country who have been getting their hands dirty with teaching language through the medium of other subject content. Anyway, as always I'm not the right person to explain it, but only to encourage people to find out more and to get involved! So to do so, click here and get onboard. If you've never experienced CLIL before then don't be scared, have fun- your students will love you for it!

Time to get active

As I put in my last post, I've spent a fair amount of time writing. I've been writing the 2 grammar workbooks, along with other course materials, indulging my passion for creating materials to stimulate minds!

However, now that spring is gradually arriving, so I too am beginning to feel reinvigorated. I had been worried that I was losing my passion for things- a facet of my personality that those of you who know me would appreciate is one of my driving features! But a few things have happened recently, and a few people have intervened (notably the wonderfully kind Suzi Bewell) to leave me itching to get back out more and working more with schools and more training groups again- it's time to be more active. More is the word. More campaigning for CLIL and developing opportunities for spontaneity, more boosting the case of letting our students do the work, more championing the appropriate use of creative technologies and more learning from other people. More creativity, more fun.

 So watch this space over the next few weeks, hopefully for news of a few projects I've got up my sleeve and a few training ideas I've got swishing around in my noggin. And if you fancy being active and positive too then get in touch. With all the cuts and disappearances that have taken place recently if we want something to happen we really need to do it ourselves!

AQA AS and A2 Spanish grammar workbooks

Before Christmas I spent a few months hidden away with my laptop writing about Spanish grammar. Oh, come on, I heard some of you sigh there. But I'm feeling a tad proud (yeah, I know, I'm a saddo) that you can now buy the 2 workbooks I've written on Amazon- an AS grammar book (already out) and an A2 book, which is due to be published on 29th April. The books mirror the content of the AQA text books, but hopefully with my own additional twists!

One of my traditional frustrations when teaching post-16 has always been that my students used to return from a long summer of Devonian fun with heads devoid of any of the grammar knowledge that they'd developed during the GCSE course. Yet straight away I wanted them to start comunicating spontaneously, even on a basic level. For which they'd need a certain level of grammatical knowledge. 

At the start of each book is a transition section, designed to include the kind of grammatical structures and advice to get people back up to speed for communicative purposes. It doesn't include the full details of each structure but simply the essentials to develop confidence. And hopefully the books as a whole are delivered in a happy, smiley tone to help people learn and also REMEMBER without it being dull! Grammar should not make you sigh! Anyway, I like them, and hopefully your students will too.

Jen Turner- making an app focusing on content, not coding

When I started presenting my main theme was on that of extending learning beyond the classroom walls. Of attempting to extend our reach to create learning opportunities throughout the school facilities, into other curriculum areas and even to beyond the school walls. At the time I spoke about blogs, podcasts and wikis, all of which are still, in my eyes, useful tools to have in our armouries, as and when they seem to be the best tool to do the job. 

Now the app has stepped up to the plate.

But the question has always been, and, for me, must always be, whether the chosen tool achieves the best possible learning. An app, as I've said before, will not guarantee learning. The content is key, not the technology. Yes it would be great to focus on improving coding skills, whether they are coming into the computing course or not they are going to be essential life skills for the generation of students that we are teaching.

So it was with great delight that I went to the lovely, fascinating and highly creative Jen Turner (@msmfl)'s session on developing apps in the MFL classroom. She has worked with her classes on develping apps for a learning purpose as part of a unit of work. She has tried learning how to code and investigated using various services to do the work for her. And then she discovered www.blippit.co.uk. A site that has done the work for us, with drag and drop usability requiring only the content to be input.  Encouraging students to focus on the words that they are writing can only be a good thing- whether it is to describe in TL or to explain in L1, for example grammar points. 

When I was at Brookfield I set up a system of assessment using end of unit projects, focusing on the self-expression and creativity used. I can see huge potential for using Blippit in a similar way. However, the fact that the app is easily updated means that materials can be added, in a way creating a type of digital portfolio if developed in the correct way.

I'd love to hear if anyone apart from Jen has already used Blippit with groups- any comments and feedback, please please get in touch.

Ernesto Macaro- implicit or explicit grammar teaching?

Ernesto Macaro is a name that I had heard many times and whose work I knew of from afar. I love grammar, I find it fascinating and I think that without it we really are in schtuck. But how to deliver it? I could not even contemplate planning a scheme of work without first thinking about the key grammatical structures that I wanted to develop and reweave in, both implicitly and explicitly. And it was this very subject that Ernesto was talking about- the contrast in impact between teaching grammar implicitly and explicitly. 

 

Although it was Ernesto who was presenting on this occasion it must, however, be stressed that this was a collaboration between Ernesto and Suzanne Graham from Reading University (Principal Investigator for the PDC), along with contributions from other members of the PDC team, all as part of a joint project between Reading and Oxford Universities, and that the 8 Principles that I will mention below were again written jointly. And all in all a jolly good job was done by them all, in my opinion, as someone who passionately believes in the need for grammar to provide the tools to enable self-expression.

 

The proposals for the new Programme of Study for languages contain strong grammatical themes. It is very obvious that Mr Gove sees grammar very much as the building block of a language. For once I agree with Mr Gove on that, although grammar itself does not give a man the ability to communicate. Grammar needs... putting in its rightful place.

 

Ernesto detailed a number of studies on the matter of implicit versus explicit and as a result came to a series of conclusions, principally of the nature that although explicit grammar work allows for more rapid immediate progress in visible grammar knowledge, it needs time and implicit opportunities for this learnign to become truly embedded in the brain in the way that we know it needs to be for true grammatical dexterity to be possible. Repeated examination of grammatical rules will not achieve truly deep understanding in itself.

 

As a result of his work Ernesto has come up with 8 fascinating "rules".

1) teaching in the Target Language is essential, yet students also need the opportunities to clarify and query what is said, possibly in English.

2) errors are essential to the learning process- a rule which filled me with relief. Our students  often do not make the progress we hope for because they are not given the opportunities to use language free from simply trying to work out what is the "correct" answer. I learn more from making mistakes than from getting things right- even if sometimes it's not a pleasant process (which is where, for me, feedback being appropriately delievered is of the upmost importance). I still make mistakes in English. I will forever, and I will in foreign languages too- sometimes our brains simply cannot keep up with our tongues.

3) when communicating turns need to be substantial- not just one word responses or pre-planned utterances but extended interactions, requiring verb usage. So the importance of providing waiting time (which is not viewed as providing pressure, but which is acknowledged as an opportunity to think) rather than immediately expecting answers is paramount. Further to that, Ernesto suggests that we need to nominate students to respond, rather than allow volunteers. All of this I agree with- from the cognitive challenge required to the need for independent, personalised responses, along with liberating students at time from having to volunteer. I've seen many an able, keen student limited by the fear of raising a hand.

4) when students are asked to provide an answer they need to be given the basic skills TO answer. Do you answer immediately with fully formed sentences? I don't. I pause, I stumble, I buy time. We need to teach students these skills- they really will feel more confident as a result of such simple things as being able to say "so", "well", "um", "you see". We all need time to think, especially in a foreign language. Furthermore, the art of circumlocution- don't say what you want to say, say what you can say, and say it with confidence!

5) We need to increase the level of complexity of reading and listening comprehensions in order to facilitate the weaving in of the grammar we want our students to be coming across. And as a crucial part of this we need to teach phonics. Unconnected as this might seem, without the phonic understanding many of our students will continue to rely solely on cognates for decoding texts, without being able to sound out words and break them down into constituent components.

6) Our students need to feel like they can achieve success, seeing a link between the application of their strategies and sucess. We all struggle to achieve our best when we lack self-confidence. When second-guessing yourself it's hard to create your best.

7) We need to work hard at spontaneous writing just as much as spontaneous speaking- without notes, text books or dictionaries. This is a hard skill which needs building up, and which is most definitely required for university level and also to provide students with the ability to think on their feet at all levels of study.

8) The development of language skills is key. Vocab and grammar are crucial supporting blocks, but without the skill to implement them they are, by themselves, useless.  A very, very wise point, in my eyes.

 

I have to say that I found the content of Ernesto's material very stimulating indeed and agreed with a large amount of what was elaborated upon. If you'd like to find out in far more detail (and better explained) have a look at www.pdcinmfl.com . Alas the funding for Ernesto and the team he has been working with  runs out in the very near future. I just hope that his messages still find a suitable home. 

Language World 2013- time to be reinvigorated

I am a victim of peer pressure. I was bullied, cajoled and prodded into heading up north over the weekend to Language World, the Association for Language Learning's annual conference, held this year in freezing cold, snowy Nottingham. And those of you who know me will know that it took the wonderful Suzi Bewell, PGCSE leader at the UNiversity of York and a very lovely woman, very little effort indeed to convince me to make the journey and to go and listen to some of the most inspiring people trying to teach languages across the country. But more than that, it's a chance to catch up with old friends, swap stories, ease concerns and hear whispers of exciting new concepts. Even more than that, it's a time to get your own brain back on track, to reinvigorate your thoughts and energies and give you renewed impetus. And so I'm very glad indeed that I went. These next few posts will hopefully allow me (selfishly) to clarify what I heard, both to anyone reading this (oh you brave souls!) and to myself to help on my ongoing learning journey.

 

To Suzi and the equally wonderful Sarah Vaughn of Sussex ALL and Languages South East can I hereby say a very big thank you for all of your kindness in helping me to get up to Nottingham- you're both stars!

 

More than words- languages in the world of work

I was recently invited to present at an event in Plymouth at Devonport High School for Girls. For once this wasn't me talking about pedagogy or methodology but about the actual end point that languages can take you to in the real world- how do languages contribute to getting a job? What can you really do with them?

I've told so many of the students that I've taught that languages are useful. That they help you get a job. But do they? When I'd agreed to do the presentation it suddenly struck me that I needed some actual information, not just me waffling. So I tweeted and I used Facebook and wondered what would turn up...

The Prezi below was what I used on the day before we launched into an exciting day of "language journalism". The year 8s I was presenting to were working in groups to translate Target Language articles in a variety of languages and collate them into a newspaper, using their own devices and a Language Lab. The groups then also had to prepare a "live" news report, including a foreign language interview from the scene. Alas, as so often happens, technology scuppered some of our plans (the USB ports on the computer we were using decided to malfunction), the students created some great pieces- and did some great ad-libbing as well!

My main focus was that languages are a vital transferrable skill in a world where few people stay in the same career throughout their working lives. What do you have to offer to a potential employer? Which could a business do more rapidly, train you to speak a language or to operate in their business environment? A real no brainer there. But what surprised me from the responses I received to my social media messages was how varied the careers are of my friends, in many cases people I've studied with at school or university. Many of them would not consider themselves fluent, yet have got ahead in their chosen fields as a result of being able to offer language skills.  A powerful motivator, as clearly demonstrated by the impressive statements in the evaluation document below. Journalists, lawyers, accountants, marketing agents, engineers, Human Resources, translators and diplomats. People whose job titles I don't understand but whose jobs look amazing (and terrifying in equal measures!). Generally people who have used their languages- and not just to be a language teacher!

Download Students comments on evaluations