Howdy y'all,
well, with more time on my hands at the moment in my role as a consultant rather than a full-time teacher I've been thinking. Some of you who know me might scoff at that concept, but yes, I've been thinking. And reappraising.
Meanings that matter. Thinking differently. However we brand it I remain convinced that we need to add cognitive challenge to the MFL curriculum. It's such a hard subject and yet do we actually make our pupils THINK? Yes, the PLTS movement is, thankfully, gathering pace (for further inspiration please please have a look at the great Isabelle Jones' presentation on the theme here). But to truly capture the brains of our pupils we also need to ensure that our content is right as well. We cannot expect, longterm, our pupils to walk down a corridor from discussing the dangers of deforestation to chanting ten animals in our room and expect them to be stimulated. Stimulation, enjoyment and confidence are, in my eyes, the route to long lasting motivation and passion. Passion got me through my education and I love it when I see that fire in a pupil's eyes. And that passion's what makes me want to teach.
As a result of that mini-rant, combined with the increased time that I have on my hands, I've been able to spend a couple of days thinking about twists that we can put on those traditional MFL topics in order to increase that level of relevancy. I'm not looking at cross-curricularism here, that's something that has to be worked out in schools according to the practitioners' expertise and interests. What I am talking about is finding a way that a department who's either worried about taking the full plunge, who hasn't got the opportunity to sit down with other departments or even whose other departments have said no (crazy fools!) can make changes. Our (no longer quite so new) KS3 curriculum gives us the chance- please please let's keep seizing it, even though the initial burst might now be behind us.
At this point can I just thank @bibitybob, @dominic_mcg, @valleseco and @joedale and @zaragozalass for some MFL ideas. Can I also say a big thank you to @moodlefairy @olliebray and @geoblogs for contributing some really idea-provoking Geography advice. You're all stars and made the hunt far more enjoyable, thank you.
Anyway, what I now need is advice, on a couple of levels
1) this is NOT a complete list, in fact it's not even that detailed a list- please please help me to grown this list and as such help us all to get it out to departments who aren't sure of where to go. So many people can't get out to training sessions now so the more we can do...
2) how should these ideas be presented? I don't feel like this word document does the job, but am really not sure what's best? A GoogleDoc? Etherpad? Please help!
Righty-ho, I'll stop blathering on- but please do get in touch to answer me. Pretty pretty please. I hope someone actually manages to make it this far down the post to find this, at last...
Download Topics and approaches for reappraisal
Cheers guys, I'm looking forward to hearing your responses soon. Hopefully.