Facing the currently unknown

It only takes a minute to win it- so let's not waste any minutes!

My brief for a training session today was to come up with something Olympic focused... Well, I sort of bent the line a tiny bit to focus on one of the things that I'm currently worried about- how us teachers start lessons.  Our learners drift in from PE, or come in having stared at Maths questions blankly for an hour, or bounce in wanting to talk about the explosions in Science. But how do we get them focused on OUR lesson, on our goals? Hopefully here are some ideas of mine and some shared by the fantastic #MFLtwitterati on twitter. But please please add more comments below about ideas that you use and then we can all learn more!

So here it is- when training every minute really does count- and the same's true in our lessons.

 

It only takes a minute slideshare

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Video shorts- so simple, so effective. I must use more!

Neil Jones' superb posts and resources invariably make me think and get other ideas flow through my head. His recent post about the superb 7.35 de la mañana, coupled with just having read the ever-excellent Isabelle Jones' post about using short clips got me thinking yet again about the power of interpretation. The clip below is a really, really powerful one for me, providing huge and varied opportunities for exploitation. Prediction tasks (actually, with this particular clip there are quite a few opportunities to stop the clip and do further prediction tasks as the story unfolds as it's hard to guess what twist's coming next), writing the script, stating how the person is feeling, using the perfect tense to reflect on what has or hasn't happened to lead them to these positions, using the simple future to write about what they are going to do, comparing and contrasting direct and indirect speech and even, very simply, focusing on adjectives to say how they're feeling. And all with no right and no wrong answers. Love it. All ideas as to how else to exploit it would be warmly received!

I need to think a bit more

I also need to think how to get pupils to think more. This year has been a real eye opener for me with regards to PLTS, incorporating thinking and reflection at the heart of everything that I build in a classroom. I’ve always enjoyed using mysteries, but I never really approached the integration of constructing and defending an argument with any concerted effort. I just love the concept of not having a right or wrong answer that things like mysteries, living graphs and odd one out exercises offer, with any answer being valid as long as you can justify it. As most people who know me would agree I enjoy a good debate (sometimes accompanied by a pint to aid things along!). But how often do we facilitate debate in our MFL classrooms until pupils reach post-16 level? It so often seems to me that the goals of generating spontaneity and creative use of language at KS3 are the same ones as we have at KS5, so why not see if we can engender a similar approach, encouraging the development of opinion and justification. Just such a shame that the whole KS4 / GCSE issue gets in the way of maintaining the momentum that so many schools are now building up in years 7, 8 and 9. Anyway, I digress. My trip at the start of the year up to Cramlington Learning Village really woke me up as to the potential for integrating thought (and sound pedagogy!) across the curriculum. So thanks to Isabelle Jones, Chris Harte, Clare Seccombe, Darren Mead and Alex Blagona for showing me just how much I have to learn!