Facing the currently unknown

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...

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. 

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 

 

Twitter and blogging

Right, these really are secondary elements of what I've been doing for the last 7 months, but especially in the fnial stages of my time, when the SoW were mostly in palce, they became quite important as I laid the foundations for future development. 

As I said in my previous post, Twitter was big in the school. Loads of the students used it, but very much in an inane, celebrity following kind of way. 

The ways I wanted to use the new @SpanishBCS account:

• communicating important reminders eg "don't forget your homework!"
• sharing key links eg to encourage students to do some work in the summer!
• retweeting news stories from around the Hispanic world!
• sharing departmental news and updates on events

The blog

I won't share any details about this now because it really is in its formative stages. I tried to get it off the ground in February but it wasn't right at the time- the content needs to drive the technology and most definitely not the other way round. However, it will become an important way of sharing the final projects at KS3 and drive peer assessment forward yet again, as well as providing an important motivational and public image tool. Should be fun- I'm really excited to see what my fantastic successor will do with it! 

Developing the technology

I'll talk about Twitter and blogs in a later post, but for now I just want to reflect on a few bits of technology that I started to use / work into Schemes of Work over the last few months. Really this is just me being a bit selfish because I think I need to get a few things clear in my own head!

Mobiles

As in most schools the students were obsessed with their phones. At every possible moment they had them out. In fact they invariably tried using them even when they shouldn't be out. I've long believed that just banning phones in an educational environment isn't necessarily the way forward as our social environment changes, but that education needs to happen on all levels. The school's business studies department had begun to take a lead in their use- and fortuitously they were in the same building as me.

So, a few ways that I used them...

• recording me explaining grammar points
• Recording themselves and then sharing the recordings for peer assessment
• using as stop watches to play "Just a Minute" (a game which they absolutely loved, ideal to get them talking and extending sentences, especially when integrated from an early stage)
• creating QR codes to enhance display materials they'd created
• using QR codes to enhance wall reading activities. This was something I dabbled with when building year 9s up to a CA task on festivals. I wanted them to choose a festival to then research and write about. (Download Festivals discovery lesson   Download Festivals wall readings    Download Las fiestas de España vocab hunt     Download Las fiestas de España vocab hunt diff )
• creating QR code displays to link to sites such as www.marca.com, www.20minutos.es, www.radiolingua.com (for Coffee Break Spanish), www.los40.com (for the top 40 songs from Spain). I wanted them to be able to access things immediately, for example whilst dawdling at berak time. (I'd share these cards but I lost them when my external hard drive died and I lost about 3 weeks of unbacked-up work. Yes, I sulked.)
• video / audio recording to create material for end of unit projects (I'll come on to those)

Voicethread

I love Voicethread, I just think it's so effective, so I built sharing materials on it into a few of the Schemes to encourage creative writing and peer assessment

Wallwisher

Simply put, this was for short, sharp end of lesson reflection tasks and homeworks

End of unit projects

I wanted there to be opportunities for creativity and self-expression at the end of each unit rather than just assessments (yes, there were some of those as well). So at the end of each unit I incorporated a technology based project for 2 or 3 lessons to focus on either writing or speaking.

For those projects I used:

www.toondoo.com

www.domo.goanimate.com

www.storybird.com

However, I felt that I was missing something. What other sites would lend themselves to a 2 or 3 lesson project but be simple and easy to use  for non-technologically confident teachers?

Issues I found: 

working on netbooks:

1) great to a certain point but major issues with saving projects.

2) limited opportunities for working collaboratively on a small screen / controls

3) difficulties in trying to create podcasts in a short period of time without access to shared drives to store project files- especially pertient when one partner was absent.

student attitudes:

1) many of the students felt originally that using the netbooks meant games- because that's what they used them for primarily across the school. As such at first there were real behavioural issues when fairly thought-provoking tasks were set.

2) if it's not on a piece of paper it's not a real assessment. Strangely this was especially true at the lower end of the scale.

3) lack of confidence in using the sites. However, with time this improved as students became familiar with the tools on offer.

 

Shelterbox for year 8

What do you really need to live contentedly?

What would you do after a disaster? How would you cope and how would you feel?

To be honest those were my basic premises for putting together a unit about the Chilean earthquake of 2010- a disaster that struck a beautiful part of the country that I'd visited only a few months before. I'd put together a unit on Haiti a few years ago for French so wanted to see if I could do something similar in Spanish and really challenge my year 8s to think about how fortunate they really are, even just to have a solid roof over their heads, decent food and, although they often don't accept the point, a good education provision. 

Again I wanted to focus on discussion and debate in this unit as well as creativity and empathy- hence why the unit was building up to a reading image task to be shared on Voicethread - a site which I often feel is very underrated simply because it doesn't offer all the whizzbangs but which is great for sharing discussions and encouraging peer assessment.  

So here it is. Nothing special but hopefully a tad thought-provoking...

Download 2- Shelterbox

Health- getting controversial?

I hate teaching about healthy lifestyles. There, I've said it. I find it boring and too often it actually becomes mildly patronising. Yes, it's ok for me to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine (which are both bad for the health, depending on which study you read, of course) because "I'm a grown-up". Yes, even though I really don't like cucumber you should always eat things that are healthy. Yes, you should drink lots of water. We all know it. But what's worse is that our students are so blinkin bored of hearing it every year that they no longer pay any attention whatsoever.

So I wanted to do something a bit different. Because I'm stubborn like that. And because I could. And because I'm stupid and wanted to create loads of extra work for myself.

And because I wanted to actually get my students thinking. Oh, and I wanted them to learn something about the world, not just some words in a strange language. Ah, Intercultural Understanding.

Colombia. Land of drugs and violence AND THAT'S IT. Well, in the eyes of your average year 8, anyway. Having taught some absolutely lovely Colombians a few years ago I know that's most definitely not the case. It's a beautiful country that's been deeply, deeply effected by the issues connected to the drug trade that stretches well beyond just "people take drugs". In rural areas there are real issues to do with lack of infrastructure and health provision where the authorirites simply can't reach out safely. So that was my first thought. 

But then I got sidetracked. That happens quite frequently when i'm trying to devise modules.

Did you know that Uruguay, the relatively small and underappreciated nation sandwiched between the powerhouses of Argentina and Brazil, is proposing to becoming the first nation in the world to legally approve the selling of marijuana? They're convinced that current policies across South America and the world simply don't work. Beyond that they're also scared that the drug violence and culture sweeping the continent will reach them soon. 

So what do ou r students think about that idea? Let's discuss it. Yes, let's learn a wee bit about how to be healthy, but only as a springboard on to something far more meaningful. I love using Eva Lamb's idea for wordmats to allow students to have all the language they'll need at their fingertips before you start teaching, saving time on pointlessly introducing it when thanks to their phonics work they should already be able to say it!

Yes, it might be a bit strong in places- I think the Spanish government's campaign materials on the subject are superb (they're in one of the folders in the unit below) and would make great display materials supporting a strong PSME anti-drugs message. When I discussed the concept with some year 8s before writing the module they were blown away that any country would be "crazy enough" to legalise any drug. But then they really started to give me some very thought-provoking opinions- exactly what I want classes to do, just in Spanish.

So this is one that I didn't get to teach in my short time in the school, but really would love to and will do so as soon as I get the chance (if I head back into the classroom!). All feedback HUGELY appreciated. (apologies for typos + Word autocorrects by the way!)

Download 3- health

 

Year 7- getting them to WANT to tell you something

The year 7s all studied French throughout the year. However, they were then split into 2 sides of the year. Each side study Spanish for a term and a half and German for the other half of the year. At the end of the year they choose which language they would like to continue with alongside studying French. Although it seems that each language, allowing for year by year variations, seems to have been equally as popular in terms of uptake, the more concerning element for me was that there was a huge division in terms of uptake for KS4, with French being more popular by a ratio of at least 4 to 1. So how could that gap be shrunk- this was obviously not just an issue of students having had an extra term and a bit of French, or even many having had the joys of primary French before they came up to secondary school. The French Schemes of Work made students feel more confident and more able.

Things I felt were important:

1. giving the year 7s material that they wanted to talk about- the differences between their lives now and their lives at primary school. They were told that at the end of the unit they would have to make an HONEST presentation to explain their new lives to the year 6s at their old school. So what would they want to be able to say to tell year 6s about their new lives?
2. give them the tools to communicate in a way that they felt comfortable with

            -    phonics from the outset, making the most of Rachel Hawkes' superb materials and using her amazing Spanglovision idea. If you've never tried it, please, please do. It's amazing what the classes achieved after only a few lessons and with minimal teacher support. The sense of achievement they felt was immense. Especially as we shared the recordings on the VLE and allowed the school to vote for the "best" video (dance routines were obviously crucial). A small trophy also helped show SLT what we were up to as well as providing a tangible something for classes.

            -    learning from Greg Horton and building in a variant of Group Talk- giving them the tools to communicate semi-naturally from the outset.

            -    basic tenses from the start- using a blend of simple but multi-purpose imperfects alongside key present tense verbs.

            -    working at sentence level not word level. When I started out teaching I was working at the "here are 9 nouns" level, yet my students couldn't actually DO anything.

            -    encouraging everyone involved to be very upbeat and positive. The unit contains lots of games and mini-whiteboard activities to create a buzz of enjoyment and competition- as well as allowing for AfL wherever possible.

 

So there are lots of big creases to work out in this unit. When I was first settling in there was of course a need for more control in my lessons than there was by the end of my time there. As such, if I had been teaching the unit again in September I would have built in far more open-ended, group based speaking tasks such as "Just a Minute". But hey, I hope there are still a few bits here that people might find useful. There are rough slides which need tidying up and plenty of bits which need developing but hey ho- all feedback more than welcome! I feel very nervous uploading these materials, but I'd be a hypocrite to use other people's ideas and then not share my own for other people to use and improve.

Download Year 7

Putting words into action

I had always said that I didn't want to be out of the classroom for any longer than two years. I talked in presentations at conferences about things I'd done and was passionate about- not just things that I'd thought about or heard about, so I was keen to get back in and not only see if I could still "do" it but also put into practice the theories that I'd developed, learning the lessons from the inspirational people that I've worked with over the last few years.

As such, in January I took up a new post near Southampton for a 7 month blast at seeing how much change I could help to bring about, primarily in a Spanish department but also by bringing new ideas into a language department overall. I've no idea how much impact I had, but I'd like to hope that I helped my students to learn and helped other teachers to learn too. Cos I sure know that I learnt a lot from those students and teachers and that the feedback I got was very positive.

I feel like I'd lost my passion a touch at first, but seeing some of the things that I'd thought long and hard about becoming reality helped rekindle it. What's next? Who knows. But before I step out into the big scary world again I'm going to try to write a few reflective posts and share some of the lessons I've learned, some of the materials I created and some of the thoughts I've got about what worked and what didn't. So hey, here goes...