Facing the currently unknown

Adding deeper meaning- making language learning relevant and engaging, Plymouth schools, October 2013

Last Friday I was privileged to work with MFL teachers from across Plymouth on a subject that is very close to my heart. Those of you who have ever had the misfortune of chatting to me or attending any of my sessions will know that I think that we generally undersell ourselves in the MFL community.

 

How engaged would you be in discussing something which you already know about? My most pertinent anecdote deals with my first week of university (after another birthday this week that feels like a long, long time ago!). In my first small group Spanish session we were asked to introduce ourselves to the person sat next to us. We duly chatted and discovered that my new friend Nats and I came from only a few miles down the road from each other- in fact, our shared attitude to life has now lead us to still be good friends many years later. But when we walked down the corridor to our first small group French class we naturally sat next to each other. When we were told to introduce ourselves to each other again we pretty much sat in silence. Not because of any linguistic issues but simply because it felt like now we had nothing to talk about- any words we uttered felt pointless. I fear that's often the case in many MFL classrooms. So much of our teaching time is spent focusing on words and constructions to describe subjects that our students already know about- the "old school" subjects like house and home, healthy living, local area. Subjects that get dealt with at KS2 in many cases, then again at KS3 and are finally flogged to death at KS3. I know that I've always struggled to vary the content and approaches hugely between the revisitings when I've been expected to deal with them in their traditional forms. If we are to encourage engagement we need, need, need to engage our students with the content that we are dealing with- demonstrating the intercultural elements that undoubtedly grabbed all of us language teachers when we were first learning the language. When we've done that we need to actually give them the tools to get their hands dirty with the content. Language of discussion, of debate, of disagreement, of approval. 

The session also looks at a few ways to build the profile of MFL departments, following 2 strands. The first is my old drum of providing audience through blogs, podcasts, Twitter feeds and even guerrilla QR codes around the school / community. The second is something that in my current freelance role is occupying far more of my time, and which I'm incredibly passionate about- developing projects to motivate students and demonstrate how language really can be used creatively for a real world purpose. If any of the bullet points make sense and you'd like to know any more then please, please get in touch. Equally, if you've got your own ideas washing around in there, I'd love to hear them and see if we can make them become reality!

 

Teachmeet MFL Plymouth- oh what a night!

Last night really enthused me. It got me passionate, it got me smiling, it got me optimisitic. All very good things indeed.

Last night the inspirational Caroline Grant and I hosted an MFL Teachmeet at Eggbuckland Community College in Plymouth and the response blew us away. Unfortunately a fair few people who had wanted to attend weren't able to in the end (where did all that June free time go to?!) but we still had 35 language teachers in one room, drinking wine, beer and large amounts of coffee, munching on cake and chatting language ideas, discussing pedagogy and thinking of new ways of doing things better. 

But also (whisper it quietly) realising that they ARE doing interesting things in their own classroom. But equally reflecting on how they can do it better. And how they can help each other to do it better.

Part of me wants to write a separate post about my reactions to the evening, but I can't think of a suitable way to disentangle my thoughts, so I'll just describe and react at the same time. So there.

I speak to so many people down here in Devon and Cornwall who complain that to get training they have to pay to head up to Bristol or London, and that most of the courses are actually not all that good, yet are hugely expensive. That said, Network for Languages do great work at getting out into the region and offering courses, but obviously still have to operate on a very commercial front. 

Which is why I passionately believe that the Association for Language Learning has such a big role to play. Last night we gave local teachers the chance to influence local training. What sessions do people want to happen? When? And the response, for me, was really powerful. The recurring theme was how rarely people are allowed out of schools to go to training events, yet the desire to improve and help their students more was overwhelming. If you're in Devon and would be interested to know more then please get in touch. And if you're in Cornwall or Somerset and the concept sounds interesting then, again, get in touch- I'm already in talks with a few people in those areas about spreading the message to those areas as well!

We adopted the format of 7 minute and 2 minute presentations, chosen using the fruit machine random selector from www.classtools.net . 14 presentations- wow!

The presentations covered...

• Justin Sycamore, our kind sponsor, talked about using Vocab Express to aid learning new vocabulary, with pre-loaded text book vocab lists
• Pablo Britos from Eggbuckland discussed (unfortunately due to technical issues without being able to demonstrate) Mouse Mischief from Microsoft, a great free tool that he uses for AfL with his classes. I have to say I was gutted that we didn't get to see it in action because I've heard lots of good things about it over the years but never taken the plunge into using it. Next time... 
• Jonathan Smith discussed using padlet.com (the successor to Wallwisher) as a great way to get students to leave online post-it notes, but also then developing the in-class activities to extend writing tasks beyond the classroom using each other's posts
• Alex Collingridge from Torquay Academy spoke about using memrise.com, another online vocab learning tool that I hadn't heard of previously but which he had been really impressed with.
• Caro Buttivant spoke about how she teachers primary languages whilst based in her secondary school in Somerset using Skype. The way she used the show screen functions, and also interacted with the primary teachers to enable them to build their confidence and lead the sessions in person, was really impressive- I really, really enjoyed it, thanks Caro!
• Jane Croft from Ridgeway was persuaded / forced to get up and share her amazing blog adventures. 4 years ago Jane came to one of my training days in Barnstaple and was convinced to create a blog. Since then she has garnered nearly 100,000 views on her stunning MFL blog where she shares songs, jokes, links and, for me most importantly, student work. Jane's message to the people in the room was that if you can attach something to an e-mail then you can blog, something I wholeheartedly agree with. If I can be of any help in getting started then just yell! Hearing Jane talk made me feel incredibly proud, she really does do amazing work (even though she denies it) and you could see eyes opening wide across the room when she was talking.
• Caroline Grant spoke about her amazing News Quiz network. For years Caroline has been producing amazing hyperlinked tasks for her year 12 groups based on that day's news. She has developed a network of schools that she works with to create a really impressive, sustainable rotation system whereby different teachers follow the same model to lighten the load on each other. I love it, I really do- and although I don't like using this argument, when Caroline stuck to her guns recently, Ofsted were really impressed at watching her class work on the tasks. 

Download Newsquiz example

• Ben Rowe from saltash.net spoke about how he uses Twitter with his classes, using online tools and the SAP PowerPoint slides- again, I'll try to post his materials on here as soon as I can get them. I've used some of the slides myself before but never in a way as powerfully as Ben was talking about, really engaging his students in a real world manner. A big thank you also has to go to Ben for effectively being our Twitter webmaster for the evening. Thanks to him we really managed to get some buzz going around the hashtag #MFLDevon- thank you to all those people in the room and across the country and in Switzerland who contributed! It was great to see a few people realise that Twitter's not just about celeb-spotting!
• Chris Wakely presented about his "Hola Perú" KS2 / KS3 materials- a pared down equivalent to the fantastic Take Mali pack. Anything to encourage Intercultural understanding and stepping away from the traditional topics can only be a good thing in my eyes!
• Denise Broadbent from Devonport High School for Girls spoke about the Languages and careers day that we ran together in January. The students were incredibly motivated, running around the corridors to meet their deadlines, using a host of resources to craft their presentations and generally having a brilliant learning experience. [What really buoyed me as well is that when I popped in to the school yesterday morning a few of the girls recognised me as they passed in the corridor from "that cool language day"- that meant a lot to me!] To read more about the event feel free to read my post here.
• Jonathan Smith stepped up again to talk about the SKE+- government funded Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses to help improve your weaker language skills. Courses are of varying lengths to get you to various levels. An interesting one to explore.
• Gulp. I spoke about how to step away from the whiteboard, questioning the value of presenting 9 new nouns whilst stood at the board for 15 minutes. In the lessons I watch this is invariably where teachers face behavioural issues and where learning is minimal. Students may well learn some nouns, but what can they do with them? And how personalised can those 9 be? Also, I'd much rather my students were developing their linguistic awareness and skillsets, working out new language and then applying it, rather than just being told the language. I acknowledge that at primary and year 7 level a lot of groups really enjoy the choral elements, but after a while its impact dissipates, whilst watching an uncharismatic teacher trying to do repetition can be a tough experience. I discussed the Google Doc for people to share their ideas on at bit.ly/MFLintros and then spoke about a few of my favourites, including using dual language texts, running dictations, vocab mats, debates, highlight and deduce, self-constructed vocab lists and reading images.

However, I should probably apologise for going on a bit- I kept waiting for my 1 minute warning and it never came, whilst my old friend Carlos didn't ever threaten to fly across the room indicating the end of my time, so I kept talking. For 16 minutes. Sorry!

 

• Chris Wakely spoke again, this time about hisTake 10 French Phonics, demonstrating that we are often underestimating the phonic terminology knowledge of our students when they enter from their primary schools- a facet that we need to make more of in order to heighten their foreign language phonic knowledge (a point that goes really well with my presentation- when our students understand the phonics why do we need to tell them how a word sounds?!)
• Judith Grayston from Bodmin College spoke about her truly amazing series of Comenius projects. I love taking a global dimension in my classroom but boy oh boy, Judith is a true goddess at coming up with inspiring projects!
• John Connor finished off the evening for us in a way that only John could do with a... rousing rendition of his now infamous version of the children's classic "Oso marrón". That pinny really is a scary thing... A great, uplifting few minutes to send us off singing to ourselves!

Anyway, watch this space- we're hoping to be able to announce in the next few weeks at least 2 events for the Autumn term to take place in Exeter and Plymouth. Want to influence what happens? Get in touch!

A huge, huge thank you to everyone for really getting involved last night. Any feedback that you can give would be hugely appreciated!

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! 

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... 

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!

My contribution to the great #ililc debate- but is there any debate?

Rather than saying my thanks at the end of this post, I think it’s fitting given that we’re in awards season to put them at the beginning. To Zena Hilton and also to Joe Dale and Jo Rhys-Jones can I please say a huge, huge thank you. Last weekend at the University of Southampton for the ICT Links into Languages conference was the best teaching event I’ve been to in many, many years. It continued the fantastic spirit of the Isle of Wight conferences in that every presentation was relevant, of the highest quality but also, and crucially for me, sparked off learning conversations. Teachers were discussing pedagogy, not just methodology- the why and not just the “how?!”. There was no separation of presenter and delegate and no whizzes and bangs for the sake of it- everything was about the learning. About the impact of the 2 days I don’t think there can possibly be any debate. I just wish I’d got the chance to listen to Isabelle Jones, to Alex Blagona or to Suzi Bewell but alas there really just wasn’t time to be inspired that many times in what felt like an incredibly short weekend. But I think Lisa Stevens sums up that element far better than I could ever express.

Another reason why I enjoyed #ililc , and to some degree the main reason why I feel like I personally benefited, was that I met knew people. I’ve commented many times before that some conferences tend to include the same faces presenting and in the audience, the same conversations take place over a cup of tea and the impact isn’t what it should be. I met some great practitioners who I felt like I knew so well from the community that is Twitter (Alex Bellars thank you for a lot of fun and interesting... exchanges), finally got to meet Sean Terry (honestly, check out his ideas and resources, well worth a few minutes of your time), met folks from the MFL Resources support network and also met many who’d never even heard of either support mechanism, people reaching out to learn. And I loved it. Looking around the room on Sunday morning as Chris Harte presented his inspirational thoughts on Languages: reboot and the SOLO Taxonomy (thanks to John Connor that section can be seen here) I saw a lot of people for whom those words were a total departure from what they’d always been told, but not from what they’d always believed. That was impact. The message had spread. And yet so many people again said to me that they’d be returning to a school on Monday morning where those messages would not be well received. They were prepared to fight, to evangelise and to convert, but could they and should they necessarily have to? So the question we need to ask again is how do we keep spreading the message of dynamic, engaging teaching and learning? And not just to those who are keen to listen right now.

At this point I feel I should step away for a moment. This is a conversation I’ve had many a time and yet I don’t feel like I’ve got any closer to the solution. On Twitter not too long ago I had an impassioned exchange of message with Bill Lord, Dughall McCormick and David Rogers about the very concept of spreading the message- in that case about cross-subject Teachmeets (if you don’t know what a Teachmeet is then don’t despair, just watch this video from BETT). It was suggested, I think by Bill, that we need to initiate a “bring a virgin to a Teachmeet” plan. Taken out of context I could see that being a problem, but the concept was very straightforward- that we need to spread the word about peer-to-peer training and support, and the best way to do this is to keep introducing “new” people into the mix. And yet nothing’s come of it, and it’s very rare that it does, because it always relies on one or two individuals to grab hold of the reins and really slog. Especially where the principle might need to include economic inducements at a time when it feels like we’re having some of the support removed- especially, and sadly, Links into Languages.  And at the end of it all there’s always the risk that we’ll end up with the same conversations when we do get people there because how do we get them involved, enthused and sharing as well? This time, however, I'm hopeful as that concept and the need to talk about how we brake down barriers is spreading. To read a far more eloquent description trust in Alex Blagona.

So as both Rachel, in her really quite moving keynote, and Chris said, language teaching in this country is far from dead, in fact to a certain degree it’s in reasonably good health because of the grass roots... activism of many high-quality professionals. Professionals from across the country who were prepared to give up their free time and come to the south coast to learn and to engage in at times heated (but always open and constructive) debate. I was asked the question a couple of times whether this happens in other subjects, and my answer was that I genuinely didn’t think so (except to a certain degree in Geography!).  Great active-research and experimentation  are taking place in the world of MFL- not just amongst those who were present over the weekend but across the country, including many great teachers who have no desire whatsoever to become "connected", all overcoming some of the many barriers that have been put in our place over the years, and continue to be today. But what I passionately believe we need to do is ensure that this verve and passion can reach the places it needs to more- and that’s where the debate really is and needs to be. I guess I'm just greedy- #ililc was superb... I just want more, especially in the long term.

Creative technologies for creative contexts

Something John Connor said to me on Monday struck a real note. As MFL teachers we don't really have any content. Yes we have language, but what to talk about? As a result we surely need to take great care when deciding upon what our content will be. What will stimulate, what will provoke thoughts, what will inspire?

On Friday I was delighted to take part in Neil Jones' Lead Practitioner Seminar up in London. Those of you who have ever listened to Neil before will understand that I was feeling more than a bit intimidated talking about using ICT to enhance creative contexts, precisely Neil's area of expertise. For those of you have never had the opportunity to attend one of his sessions, a) make sure you do and b) his main emphasis is on finding effective, culturally enriching contexts in order to truly give the language that we are trying to teach a value.

Neil was, as per always, fascinating, ranging from discussing similies to explore cultural similiarities and differences to the simple question of why we always teach pupils the phrase for hoovering (especially when dealing with hotter regions) when so few houses have carpet. Sounds silly when you write it down, but makes sense...

Anyway, compared to Neil's session of 455 slides, mine felt rather shabby, but I hope it manages to raise a few thoughts!

Creative technologies for creative contexts

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PS - the one slide I forgot to attribute was to Alex Blagona for the idea of contacting photographers through Flickr- cheers Blaggers!

ICT for PGCE students- what's out there?

I love working with PGCE students- their enthusiasm is so uplifting and their ideas have not yet been tamed by schools, as we've all so sadly seen at times. When I first began my own PGCE I couldn't even use PowerPoint and had no idea what was out there to aid with our teaching and, far more importantly, to help our students' learning.

A few key questions to consider when thinking about using ICT, for me, are:

1) Could we do this better without ICT? Remember, it's not about the whizzes and the bangs, it's all about the learning! Just think of those hyperactive PowerPoints we've all seen.

2) Can we provide further purpose for learning by using ICT?

Although you might not find all, or any, of the things mentioned below in school when you begin placements. But it is worth asking if you can try things out, as schools really benefit from your fresh input of ideas as well as you learning from the skills and experience of the teachers already in the department. And if I can help at any point, feel free to yell!

 

Thinking again about the I, the C and the T: for PGCE students

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Spontaneity, challenge and, above all, fun

On Friday I was delighted to be involved with the training day run for Plymouth schools under the PASH banner. I hope that it was a useful day for everyone involved and that some of my comments generated the odd bit of interest and thought. The day was focused on 2 main threads- the roles of spontaneity in our teaching and also that of the actual content that we are delivering. My main goal was to encourage people to think again about why they are delivering certain topics- is it because they always have and because that's what the text book tells them to do or is it because it's the most effective way to teach certain structures, to challenge our pupils and to really make them think. After all, in what other subject can pupils leave an hour's lesson having learnt nothing about the world around them but now being the proud understander of 10 new nouns?

Anyway, a large amount of the day was based on the concept indicated by this video- fun is good!

Spontaneous talk slideshare

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Step away from the textbook

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Download Topics and approaches for reappraisal