Facing the currently unknown

Exeter PGCE- "Voting with their feet- why vote MFL"

Over the last few years I've always enjoyed providing the finale for the Exeter PGCE course. However, the feedback was that groups would have liked the session earlier in the year and that they just want ideas, ideas, ideas.

So this year I ran a session earlier in the year (this afternoon) and crammed it with ideas. So, apologies to anyone who's brain hurt by the end of it, or whose yawns were starting to get painful! However, I hope it helped.

If, as many of you indicated, you were keen to get on to twitter, start off by signing up and writing a bio piece EXPLAINING THAT YOU ARE AN MFL TEACHER. Important, that bit, because none of us want to interact with the banana eaters on twitter. Then get following the people on the list at http://tweepml.org/joedale/MFL-Twitterers . It's also worth downloading a free programme, TweetDeck, which makes it all make a lot more sense.

Anyway, the presentation...

 

Exeter pgce voting with their feet, why vote mfl slideshare

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Why do MFL teachers do so much work?

Howdy all, apologies yet again for such a long break between blogging- I've been busy (haven't we all!).

 

One of the things that forever bugs me in MFL teachging is that the teacher invariably puts themself right at the heart of everything that happens. We impart all knowledge. In most other subjects learners are challenged to work out problems, to plan how to overcome issues and how to address the task in front of them. And yet in MFL we tend to tell our learners all new material and we then spend the rest of the lesson and any homework practising that new material. The traditional learning sequence of starter, intro, games, listening, speaking, reading then writing leads to a gradual transition during the course of the lesson towards learner "autonomy". I'm not sure that's enough.

I want my learners to be able to work things out, to use their skills as they would have to in the Target Language country when I'm not there. I also want to be able to circulate, to assess how groups and individuals are getting on, to be able to correct misconceptions and to individualise my approach for each learner. I do not want to be at the front asking for repetition- after all, if we've taught phonics then there's no real need for that anyway. Although year 7s might respond well to it, by the time their weekly diet of passive repetition has got them through to year 9 the same enthusiasm and willingness to buy-in to the approach is no longer there.

Which is why a while ago I begged my followers on twitter to help. I felt stale. I was out of ideas. And I wanted to learn from the great teaching out there. And this is now an appeal that I put out to you. Please contribute to, and learn from, a collaborative Google Doc of ideas of how to introduce new language and structures WITHOUT standing at the front. So please please click here and getting adding your ideas! And have a read- we all know how uplifting it is to find new ideas which work and are effective, especially in these dark November days!

Don't panic- ideas to get them speaking and writing at CA Stage 1- Ryde High School

Following an indepth exam board presentation by Hilary Quigg of AQA I was asked by Languages South East to give a few ideas to help teachers on the Isle of Wight to prepare their students for the Controlled Assessments. My main message was "Don't Panic"- good teaching remains good teaching no matter what the end exam, as long as we base it on sound pedagogy. Although in my eyes there are huge issues with the current exam set-up, there are potential gains if we can get our learners to a point where they have a base armoury of language that we can build on in every stage 1 before we build up to a controlled assessment. With plenty of games, opportunities to argue and practise language in a meaningful way we can jump through those hoops that are in front of us. If any of the games don't make sense just from the slides, feel free to leave a comment below and I'll explain them further.

Example podcasts mentioned:

Imperfect grammar podcast

Lost Property

(although this was made for the old GCSE, if you know the kind of language you want for each topic, why not put your own series together, set to different musical beds?!)

Inspiring speaking and writing ideas

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Unicef's School Land campaign

At the moment I'm spending a lot of time investigating ways to add extra... depth to the traditional topics. At Key Stage 4 I'm often told by learners that they feel like they're simply rehashing what they did a few years earlier- hardly what I'd call progression.  From my point of view we're not going to persuade our students that learning a language, and continuing to learn a language into post-16 and beyond, is really going to take them anywhere in life if they're constantly learning about more complex ideas in other subjects. 

So when I saw a tweet from @unicef_es just now my interest was very much piqued. They've created a Facebook app to support fundraising for a school construction project in Zambia (form more details and to access the app see here). The idea is that users can play around with the interactive school buildings and think about what they see as being important in a school. Is it the teacher's desk that's important? The training that the teacher's had? The kit in the kitchen, the sporting equipment? What is it that makes a school... a school? Users can then "donate" those items which will be put in place when the school is built for real.

I think this could be a really interesting way to get learners reflecting on items in a school, what their ideal schools would be like, comparing different items, even reflecting on what makes a good teacher. I'm hoping that Unicef will keep updating their information on the project as if they do it could be a really rich source of information for teachers. After all, when studying about school we don't just have to look at our own.

Brookfield conference- creativity at KS4

On Friday I was delighted to be involved with the Brookfield language conference near Southampton. First off, a huge thanks to Sarah Thomson for a superb organisaitonal effort.

Anyway, the conference was multi-stranded but I was encharged with focusing on KS4, trying to reinvigorate those drained by controlled assessments and give new ideas to those in search of some.

Oh, and for those who were asking about the ICT conference in Southampton on 12-13th February, here are some details...

To book: click http://www.linksintolanguages.ac.uk/events/1373

Conference programme: Download ICT Links into Languages feb 2011 detailed programme  

To GCSE- and beyond? Keynote, Brookfield

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Spontaneous talk workshop, Brookfield

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