All change in September ... reflections on a year

Wow - what a year we have had since September 2012!

This year has seen our department work so very hard to improve on last year's GCSE results.  We have all subscribed to using Twitter to help us 'spot' new ieas and try them out, it has seen our children work so hard that we really could be no prouder - I really do hope that the summer brings them the results that they have worked so hard for.

Today was a sad day, as we said farewell to two beloved members of our department - one moving south to live with his fiancée and start a job ina new school; the other leaving the profession (she will definitely miss the children - true evidence of someone 'called' to the profession - evidence that teaching is vocational) to become a comedienne.  My two departing colleagues have given their all to our school and have been people whom the children have admired and respected.  Their fresh approach to teaching MFL often gave me food for thought and made me sit back and reflect - in fact, indirectly, I would argue that they have turned me into a more reflective clasroom practitioner.  Yes, in September we will work with new staff in the department, but it will definitely not be the same. 

What have I done differently this year?

• I've used the 'Wheel of Marginal Gains' to develop children's written work
• We've really honed our strategies when it came to preparing the speaking assessments, including much more self assessment following recorded snippets
• I've realised the potential of mini whiteboards in aiming for grammatial accuracy and drafting - the list of possibilities is endless
• I have tracked the progress of students more diligently across the whole department and have worked with the other teachers to develop methods of showing the children how we can help them to work out howw well they are doing by looking regularly at UMS points and what they mean - through this we have really improved their ability to set their own targets - they have been able to set targets with meaning and with purpose
• We've started our very own department twitter feed with two purposes (to help the children and to give them another avenue to ask questions; and to reach parents whilst we are on our trips abroad)
• We used to only use Tarsia puzzles to practise basic vocabulary - now though we see its potential and are using it for structures, to develop students' confidence with longer phrases, to work with questions and answers and to create a stockpile of information, on which there are then comprehension questions
• I have realised that the children can be inspired to learn a language, not just by discussions about future jobs etc but, more so by discussions about culture and heritage in TL countries
• In the quest to constantly 'do things better' or 'to do
• Embraced new technology - not completely and not always well!  But ... we have tried so hard and we have made in roads into exploring how to use tablets the technology that exists in the children's pockets

Most of all though, I've worked with great kids and a brilliant staff team - we haven't worked against each other, but WITH each other and we have helped each other and never held back with sharing ideas and conversations.  The team in which I have worked this year has made me proud to say that I was part of it.  The reception that the teachers were given at today's leavers' assembly made it so obvious that the children love the staff and vice verse.

What have you done today to make you feel proud?  I've worked all year in a team which has worked with the best kids - that's what has made me feel proud!

School trip to Paris (#paris2013)

I know many teachers who do the annual trip abroad 'because you should', but I really do absolutely love it - I think I get as much from it as the children do ... I'm not sure whether that's something great or not!  I look forward to it with the children and really do enjoy everything about it!

We go somewhere different every year, because so many of the children come back again and again.  This year, we took them to Paris (it was like turning the clock back 10 years - I spent my year abroad as an assistante in Créteil and worked at Disneyland Paris for the summers throughout my degree and at the weekends when I was assistante-ing).  Subscription from our small school of just over 400 children has been great - we had 50 on the trip this week.  It ran without a hitch and was so so very enjoyable, every step of the way.

Although I am quite annoyed with our travel company for several reasons (not least because they clearly have no concept of time etc - something which I pointed out and they disagreed with) - it was a good job that they had screwed up and forgot to book the Eiffel Tower tickets early enough, as the tower staff were on strike that day!  That was so lucky - it could so easily have ruined it for the children, but they were already prepared not to go up.  Likewise, don't let anyone try to convince you that Usines-Center is better than Val d'Europe!

Despite knowing Paris quite well, I decided we would do a couple of different things this time, things I had never taken the time to do myself.  We

• saw the flame lighting ceremony beneath the Arc de Triomphe - fantastic - not amplified quite enough, but moving nonetheless,
• climbed the steps on the inside of the Arc de Triomphe and went to the top - fab views and very different to elsewhere in the city,
• went up the Tour Montparnasse - the inside is a little disappointing, but the view from the Terasse makes up for it!  Breathtaking and so easy to see all the children at the same time (unlike the Eiffel Tower),
• visited the sewers - fab visit (although as we had to translate, I was grateful that I had read the Harry Potter books in French about 10 years ago - otherwise, I'm not sure I would have had all of the necessary vocabulary!).

The children (possibly not all of the staff though) loved the day that we spent travelling by underground - it was such an experience and they behaved absolutely impeccably, following all of the rules set out to them.  They made me really proud of them.  Fully intending to use only the quieter stations, I was a little stumped when Barbès-Rochechouart was closed, as it took us a long way off-route, and took us to an unavoidable change at Châtelet ... eek ... fortunately all went well still.

The travel company clearly has NO IDEA about how long it would take to feed 57 mouths at the Hard Rock Café - surely if there hadn't have been an earlier table, then we should have eaten elsewhere, as the meal booking was for 7pm, with the river cruise at 8.30pm - compounding the evidence that they were not wholly competent in the organisation of a trip to Paris (I am definitely using a different provider next year - I am already organising Berlin alone, but thought that perhaps it would be better to use a travel company for Normandy still).  That having been said, when we got to the river cruise, we had to wait for the 9.30pm crossing (the one I had actually asked for) - it was enchanting - out in daylight/dusk; but back in the dark, so we still got to see the Eiffel Tower's little light show (reduced, I believe because of the strike).  It was fantastical.

The inevitable trip to Disney was super and I was so pleased that our coach driver had agreed to allow us to leave later and stay to the end (again, something which I had asked of the travel company - but they had still insisted and 'itinerised' a 9am-7pm visit ... would have been naff! - 12pm-12am was so much better).  The children loved it - and I think the Year 10/11 students enjoyed it most of all!

A truly brilliant week - we weren't even held up on the M25 on they way home!

Blogging (chtsmfl.blogspot.co.uk) and using twitter (@CHTSMFL) throughout the week has definitely cut down on the need to check on as many phone calls and has helped the children to reduce their text spending - lots better for all.  The only downside was the parent who sent a text to the school phone (addressing the text directly to the child), saying that they had been looking at the blog today, but it hadn't been updated for hours ... never mind that we were busy trying to get 50 children across the city by metro and RER!  The blog had over 1500 hits during our week away (some will have been looking to see if it had been updated or not, but many were finding out how things went!).

New tour company providers, however ... ?

On first reading of the proposed content and AO for MFL, I think ...

Having spent a little time this afternoon looking at the GCSE subject content and assessment objectives for MFL (the "final" version for 'consultation'), I thought I would put fingers to keyboard and type out a few of my thoughts and initial reactions.

I can't think of many language teachers who would not agree with the statement that children should develop a desire to study and communicate in the foreign language through study at GCSE level; however, I can't help but think that the content of the proposed curriculum seems not to consider that aim in the suggested information.

One of the biggest things that jumps out at me is that it is stated that the learning at GCSE should build on the knowledge and skills acquired in KS2 and KS3 (I don't believe that the current subject content states this - but I could be wrong).  This is quite a big demand if there is no suggested number of contact hours per week for children in MFL - our current year 9 children have had just one hour per week all the way through KS3; as they go into KS4, there is no way that their knowledge is comparable to that of the students who moved up last year into the final stages of our school.  This bit worries me for these students.

I welcome the shift from "me, me, me" to a broader set of themes, but I worry that "factual and literary texts, appropriate to this level" may not be particularly stimulating for the students themselves.  The fact that literary texts can include "poems, [...], extract and excerpts from abridged and adapted essays, novels or plays from contemporary and historical sources" seems to be a huge jump in comparison to what is currently expected - is this proposed content for students of all abilities?  How will all students be able to access this proposed content?  I don't deny that the more able children need to be pushed and that their experiences ought to include access to target language texts from a variety of sources; however, I worry about the children in the class, whose target grades are F-D grades - these children still feel achieved if they earn an E, but I don't know how I would motivate them with this proposed content.  This would take some serious reconsideration (which I know is the idea), but this is so far from what we are used to!  Eeek.  For me the love of French came when I first read Bridget Jones' Diary in its French translation and understood it, and when I watched a Disney film in French and could still follow the story and "get it".  I did a degree without reading any literature, but I instead studied history about the nation and learned so much about the history of Germany from 1945 onwards and the importance of French musicians in the post WW1 years - thing I wouldn't have discovered through the reading of literature, but which meant that I learned an awful lot about the people and the social history of the two nations - I inspire our children regularly when I talk to them (in TL or in English) about some of the special topics I studied at university.  I don't feel as though my education is worth less, just because I didn't opt to study any literature, and I don't see why this make my language any less valid.

I welcome a return to no longer assessing the students for their speaking exams (and still sending off their written work) - it is something which I panic over every year - I always try my best to mark them correctly and accurately, but I can't help but think that there is more parity if they are all externally assessed.

Equal weighting of the skills?  I'm not sure what I think about the return to this; some of me thinks that it is a real step backwards, but other bits of me think that maybe it is sensible - I don't know that there can be a right or a wrong where this is concerned.

I welcomed the change to the questions being written in English in reading and listening exams, as I strongly believe that the children ought not to be penalised for misunderstanding a question, even when they had understood the spoken or the written text itself - seems like a big penalty to me.  I'm not sure that, as a life skill goes, in making languages 'real' that it is one of the most important elements ... yes, I would expect my incredibly able top grade students to be able to do so, but I don't think that I would expect my lower ability students to be able to access the paper in the same way.

And as for the ability to translate into French from English ... I spend so much of my time telling the children NOT to write things in English and translate into French because that's not the way to do things that it makes be slightly sad!  I seem to recall at uni that, 10 years ago when we had a careers talk from a translation agency, it would be unlikely for us to bee employed as native speakers of English to translate INTO French, but that we would be doing the reverse, as one is usually more competent when translating into one's native language.  It goes so much against the grain - I'm a real ambassador for teaching the children grammatical concepts as foundations for being able to then build good German/French in a more natural manner.

I know how I feel about the proposed content of the curriculum; I just hope that whatever ingredients we are ultimately presented with in our 'surprise bag', à la 'Ready, Steady, Cook', I am able to cook up something inspirational to serve to our children.

New year - reflections on the past year ...moving forwards

So, it's been a while since I posted to my blog.  It's been such a busy few weeks - starting the 'new academic year' and working with all of my new classes has been a great challenge and it really has been lovely meeting all of my new groups.

I have undertaken to do a few things much better this academic year:

• to encourage much more target language use in GCSE lessons as well as in KS3 classes
• to really push the Year 9 children to make progress, despite them having only one lesson per week
• to ensure that I build more time in for the children to respond to marking and feedback
• to constantly apply more and more of the ideas I pick up from reading other people's blogs and tweets - there are so many great ideas out there!

I'm working on language mats, inspired by @headguruteacher's blog posts about AfL in their MFL department and would like to get the children to try them before the summer break as well, so I can get some feedback from them and make some tweaks as necessary.

Over the past two weeks, whilst trying to get to know my new classes (especially my GCSE groups), I have been trying lots of new ideas - I was really excited when we got approval to share the department wifi access with our students this week.  I want to be able to work with the children to develop the frequency with which they access authentic material - I have been trialling this with them with tablets recently, so that we can use 1jour1actu and also a variety of apps in target language.

I have often thought that it was difficult to reflect on the previous academic year, when one starts the 'new academic year' before the publication of the GCSE results in the summer; however, this year I have found that I am able to reflect on my practice and to talk with my department about our actual teaching, without the context of the exam results - they will come in the summer.  We have been able to really focus our thinking on what we can do best for the children in our care.

One of the things that really excites me about this academic year is that we have ability sets at GCSE for the first time - it is already making a difference to the students' outcomes, and we have only been going for a fortnight so far.  I know that I am pitching things at the right level for the children in my new GCSE German groups, whereas for the past two years, we have been splitting into different groups within the same room for the year (a bit like at primary school) and effectively teaching three different lessons - it has been lovely this fortnight to give the children chance to all work together to pool ideas, because they all feel able to work with one another - the difference is immense.

This past year has seen us build our department blog up and develop a twitter feed for the students to access about the department.  We have had over 2700 hits since January and I hope to really build on this in the coming year.  We started at very humble beginnings with our twitter feed, but are slowly building up - we now have just under 50 followers, so we hope that this will continue.

On a personal note, I have learned loads this year - lots about different classroom ideas, loads about becoming more reflective in my own practice, plenty about how better to offer feedback to the children in my care,  plethora of new activities and ways to explore new technologies in the classroom.  Where have I learned all of this?  Most of it has come from my own exploratory CPD on twitter and on the web as a whole.  Openmindedness is so important in this job and I know that this past year has helped me to open my mind more and more - I hope that I continue to learn and that I will share more and more as the year goes on.  Thank you to everyone who has inspired me this year - there are far too many to name (I only hope I can get to ##ililc or to #thejuneevent this coming year so that I can meet some of you in person).

Happy new year!

AfL in MFL - our "masterclass" one Wednesday morning

Last week, I lead one of our 'Wednesday morning masterclass' sessions - briefing sessions to staff on key areas highlighted as school priorities.  They are 10 minute sessions which take place at 8.20am and range from really interactive sessions to 'talk sessions'.

We were asked to present on AfL strategies used in MFL and Music lessons.  We set about hunting out ideas (and then it transpired that my colleague would not be in to help me out and I panicked as I was all alone!).

I have "pdf-ed" the presentation below and included everything except the photo of our children in Year 7 on the opening slide.

One of the things I was at pains to point out, was that a great many of our ideas have come from things we have learned from other tweachers.  One of our current favourites is the Wheel of Marginal gains (thanks to @huntingenglish), which we have used to help students in the medium control phase of their written CA work.

I shared our department's changed approaches to marking, largely thanks to the posts from @headguruteacher and included some photos of our students' work.  The children have responded really positively to our changed focus - less of us writing lengthy bits of feedback (which were often unread, and certainly not always as 'helpful' as we had thought), and more of them working out what went well and why we've suggested that certain things need tweaking.

I can't remember who first introduced me to padlet (or wallwisher as it was then), but staff seemed genuinely surprised about it - such a fab resource and can be used for a real variety of reasons.

We have created our own differentiated work cards for GCSE German (and French) - the German ones can be downloaded here - students start by working with the cards that they think are most appropriate (blue - easiest / green - average / red - hardest) and then, by assessing their own ability, they either choose to try the comparable challenge at an easier or harder level wherever appropriate.  The children have enjoyed working with these cards, as they are 'trusted' to work at the level most appropriate for them - I think trust is mega important when it comes to AfL - we need to trust that the children can assess and judge their progress well.

We give our GCSE students a '50 word challenge' as they start a unit - the clue is in its title - there are 50 words, and they are a challenge.  The idea is to find out the meaning of all 50 as quickly as possible.  They record their times as well.  We then work through the unit and, as the unit progresses, each week 20 words are prescribed for a test.  We regularly then revisit a blank copy of the 50 word challenge (initially in the same order, later in the unit becoming mixed up as well), with the challenge of completing the challenge in a shorter time frame than last time.  I was so relieved when I read this article which approves of lots of testing - we always knew it was true - how else does learning become embedded.

We know we could have talked about loads more ideas, but it was so difficult to decide which to include in the session - maybe we will be allowed to do another one day and share yet more ideas.  Thanks to all who have helped us to discover new ideas over the past twelve months while we started out on twitter, getting to grips with sharing ideas across the nation and the globe.

AfL - ppt as pdf by enlimcharas

Encouraging students to revise?!

Students at my school need an awful lot of chivvying along to revise - they will come into school on a Saturday morning for revision sessions, but getting them to revise in their own time and on their own is really very hard.  This is why this year we have decided to try and reach them on their own terms - we have relaunched our department blog (previously only used to send information about our blog from France to the students' parents at home) and fill it with - hopefully helpful - bits of advice for the students.  So far, we've tried sharing a walk-through of the writing CA mark scheme, suggesting apps for their phones and other gadgets; we've just started a hints and tips feature which we intend to run every other day for the next three weeks as the exams get closer.  On our twitter feed (@CHTSMFL), we are trying to offer hints and tips regularly for how to approach certain bits of the exams, and some revision ideas for the students.  I just want to encourage the children to revise for their exams - those with really supportive parents who understand the importance of the exams will revise, and a few of their friends will as well, but I really want to start to tap into the others ...

Analysis of German Unit 2 (Reading) - AQA

Having been through all of the Foundation Unit 2 (reading) papers from the GCSEs since the current incarnation of the AQA requirements, I have put together a table which I intend to share with the students so that they can request the relevant questions to help them with their revision.  I have saved each question from each past paper in a separate pdf file so that the students can work out what they need to do and can then work out how well they are doing, by looking at the most appropriate questions for their needs.  I haven't looked at the higher tier papers, because all of this year's students are sitting the foundation tier.  I hope that the students can see the value of this - perhaps we can use it earlier in the year in future as well!

I have put a copy of the table that I have put together here:

Past Paper Breakdown of Questions (AQA) - Analysis by enlimcharas

The final hike is on the way ...

... so I sit here with 43 days to go until the GCSE listening and reading exams take place this summer.  On 11 of those days, I see our students for 2 hours.  It is at this point in the year that I am now grateful for the timetabling - 4 hours a week over one year for a GCSE seems harsh, until we are left with 22 hours of teaching still at this stage of the year! 

What to do for the best?  Well, I have learned from last year; I need to make sure that I have planned around the other GCSE exams and that I have systems in place for the inevitable absences.  I have set up groups on Edmodo for my two classes for this half-term (I thought they would be good 'trial groups' - I may be wrong!).  There is the obvious medium-term plan/block plan in place - but I find myself asking lots of questions -

• What is most important?
• Should I teach some things before others?
• How much more exam technique practice can I pack in?
• When is the best time to do the past paper - do I do it sooner, so it doesn't demoralise any who have a bad day? or do I leave it until later, so that they have more opportunity to succeed, having learned more?
• What is the right balance between building knowledge and building understanding of the way the papers work?
• How can I ensure that they still 'see the point' in speaking activities, even though the speaking CAs are all complete (and they know it!)?
• What do I do for those students who are absent - the work missed is so vital?

They are questions we ask so regularly and every year; however, somehow it seems so important at this stage of the year for Year 11 students.  I am so proud of what they have learned - many of them only started learning German in September - in real terms, that is only 7 months ago ... I just want to make sure that they get a fair deal and that they have every opportunity to succeed.  I always find this the most challenging half-term of the year - so difficult to know if you're doing the right thing.

I think, no matter what, I will be asking the same questions next year (my big relief for next year though, is that 60% of the students studied German in KS3, and 30 of the 80 have chosen to spend one hour in Y10 'practising' German every week after school so that they didn't forget everything from Y7-9!), I just hope that we get it right for this year's students :)

Trying to move with the times

I was genuinely 'chuffed', when our headteacher agreed that we could launch a department twitter account - we had to have lots of e-safety policies etc (but we know that protects us as well as the children).  We launched a department blog last year, but only used it for the trips - we decided that we should probably use the launching of our twitter account as a reason to 'relaunch' the department blog, but to use it to really support learning.

It's going to be small steps - our twitter account is followed by 13 students so far ... we don't expect to have hundreds overnight - in fact 13 represents just over 10% of this year's GCSE cohort, so I suppose really after 7 days, that's not too bad!  I've updated the blog a couple of times too - it has been viewed on 4 occasions - hopefully the children will see the benefit and want to access all of the information that is available to them.  We haven't got it right yet, but I am learning from loads of others in the 'twitter world' and am trying to use ICT not just in the classroom, but to help the children to develop their learning, 'on their terms' - I'll keep trying - nothing is perfect!

Speaking controlled assessment preparation - 21st century style

Our children amaze me.  They work well together, most of the time, and they try ever so hard even in the face of adversity (difficult curriculum provision in our case).  Following 17 weeks of learning German, our students are now working towards their second speaking controlled assessments - I still can't believe it is only 8 weeks (real time) until they sit the final listening and reading exams.  I don't think I would have been able to produce written and spoken work of the quality that they are producing after less than a year of German lessons.  They do amaze me!  When I think, it is thanks to fab tools, like tarsia, TaskMagic, cueprompter.com, textivate, the complex 'intermediate' sections on Linguascope, the fact that they can access our 'core text' (rarely used in lessons, but often used for homeworks) via our VLE - complete with audio and video files, triptico, teachers' pet, the face that that we have mini whiteboards and reate 'human sentences' on them to practise complex word order etc.  We didn't have all of this at school, and I know people often say 'it was harder back in the day'; however, I am almost certain, that I would not have been able to produce work akin to that which our students are currently producing - one year, ab initio GCSE work - they take risks and are keen to try.  Don't get me wrong, there are a couple who need 'coaxing'; but with some TLC, they are all on board, and they produce work at or above their 'estimated' grades.  I still think that the advent of some of these fab tools are not just 'gimmicky', like some people think; I firmly believe that these Year 11 students, who are working towards GCSE French, German and Spanish awards in the face of adversity would not be doing so well if they did not have access to the language through these fab tools and 'tricks'!

Using Tarsia, TaskMagic and Triptico in music

We've been using Tarsia , TaskMagic and Triptico resources (the three Ts) for months - in some cases, for years - in our MFL lessons.  Today, we have run a full day of Theory Club with our students who are taking the ABRSM Theory exam next Tuesday.  We did the usual - had loads of theory sheets to hand, mini whiteboard pens laminated past-exam papers etc.  However, in addition, we had the trhee Ts to hand.  Thanks to @valleseco, we discovered putting pictures into Tarsia only this week (thanks!) and put images of tonic triads, of key signatures, key musical images onto the cards, to be matched to their "word version".  At the start of they day, they completed a Tarsia (against the clock) and then twice later in the day, tried to 'beat their time' - all recorded on the whiteboard.  A colleague prepared 'order it' and 'spinner' activities using Triptico which were brilliant to facilitte discussion with the children.  TaskMagic was brilliant for sorting other ways of matching definitions to 'header words'.  We teach music and MFL every day of the week, but in our Music room, we have no projector etc., as a result, we forget that the things we so readily use in MFL lessons are neglected in Music.  What a liberating day.  At the end of the day, we genuinely couldn't believe how quickly the four hours of theory flew by - engagement and involvement were both excellent.  Oh, and progress?  By the end of today, children who regularly attain 68-74 were attaining between 76 and 92!  Progress was definitely made.

Holidays

We all know that holidays aren't always 'away from school'. There are times when the children really want some extra help and the end of the day is not always conducive to great progress - usually due to their fatigue (and ours!) - many of our students have 6 hours of lessons in a day, with some Year 11s facing 7 hours on occasion. So, the holidays it is.

Today, I have worked with some truly admirable sixteen year olds who WANTED to spend a couple of hours developing writing skills and practising German grammar - out of CHOICE! That, for me, is the definition of job satisfaction. Children who are motivated and who want to learn more and more and more! I spent a fab three hours with a few of them today, and the motivation to study German post-16 is clear. I don't mind losing a few hours out of my holiday if that is the result. :-)

I've loved this week ...

... having read lots of people's snippets about ililc3 (I really MUST go next year - will have to hope for a concert-free weekend), it reignited my enthusiasm for a few things.  You forget so easily about ideas that you previously used really frequently.



This week, we've done tarsia puzzles, used the iPads to self-assess, explored other ideas within triptico, set lesson objectives using co-ordinates to get the kids practising their numeracy skills, done carousel lessons - it's been great.  One of my high points this week was when one of my Year 11 German group exclaimed that they must have learned 'stuff' this week, because the tarsia puzle took about 15 minutes on Tuesday, but when they did it again today, it took only 3 minutes - "it proves I've learned something, Miss!".  Loved it :-)

Learning about Learning Objectives

For years I've thought that there must be better ways to introduce objectives.  I'd never been that innovative with them.  A couple of weeks ago, I happened across a fantastic slideshare and have used several over the past few weeks.  I've told the children that I'm trying lots of different ways and that I want to know what they think.  They love the rebus idea, and really liked seeing Einstein tell them about their planned learning; however, they are not fond of deciphering pictures or of the 'order the learning' idea.  Today, however, I trialled the "arrow" with grade breakdowns - the feedback from the children was phenomenal.  My Year 11 'afternoon' group told me how they felt they had been able to track their progress and to see what they could do and where to go - they set their own 'personal objective' at the start of the lesson and built up to it slowly by the end.  I can't believe what a difference simply by introducing objectives in a different manner.

It's great to see others teach

I saw a colleague teach today - it was brilliant.  I really do consider observing colleagues as a real honour - it is a great learning experience and fantastic in the quest to promote the sharing of ideas.  I listen to lots of teachers, who talk about how examination technique lets some students down across a very wide range of subjects.  If they were all taught in lessons in which the activities and the processes involved required the students to think about things in an 'in an exam' situation - even without this being explicit - then, I am sure that this would not be such a regular feature.  Did this structure ruin the lesson?  No!  Did it turn the students off?  No!  A completely mixed ability class was wholheartedly engaged with the learning, with the materials, and most importantly, with the language - the children wanted to succeed.  This was clearly not a 'special' lesson, but was part of the group's ordinary routine.  They were engaged, motivated, encouraged and supported in an expert manner, which was, in turn, designed to help the children not only to use the langauge, but also to be able to answer examination-style question.

"Getting in the Examiner's Head"

My GCSE German class are working really hard, sometimes in the face of adversity.  We have one academic year in which to cover the specification, and some of the students haven't studied German before this year.  They are working really well towards their goals (each different, and some surpassing even their wildest dreams at the moment!).  I am really proud of them for their hard work and commitment to their learning; however, the nature of our course makes it a little tricky sometimes.  We try hard to do some special 'exam paper focus' in between units and modules, and we've just reached the end of a mini unit, so have spent some time this week looking at exam stategy.


In one lesson, I gave the children the questions for the reading exam paper and the German texts and asked them to match it all together - to recreate the exam paper.  Once they had decided which questions and texts belonged together, they had to consider the level of dificulty (and the cognitive challenge involved) of each question and try to reconstruct the exam paper in order from question 1 through to the end.  They worked together really well.

Once they had completed their reconstruction, they had to respond to the questions; however, their groups were complete mixed ability, with one B+ student, 2 C/D border students, and one level 1 student per group - to complete the paper in their groups, the B+ student was not allowed to 'answer' any questions, but could only offer advice, through the use of questions.  The others worked together to decipher the texts and annotated with how they had arrived at the answers.


We talked about what we had learned through the activity - one student stressed that he is always surprised that there are no "translate" questions(!), another commented that he had read more of the exam paper doing this activity than he does normally when doing exam questions, others talked about how they understood the examiner a little more because they had apparently 'done their job'.  My favourite was the child who told me that he had "got inside the examiner's head" and understood a little more about what made the examiner choose the questions that were written on the paper and was more conscious about the actual questions and what was being asked of him as the candidate.

I have never done this before, but will certainly be doing it again - it worked really well.  It is on days like this that I appreciate having 2 hour lessons.  I'm really pleased that I tried this activity :-)

Wallwisher - exam practice and motivation together

Yesterday, I posted on twitter and on Facebook asking if anyone who spoke French could add to the 'wallwisher' that I was creating for our Year 10 GCSE French (ab initio, and full course in a year) about school rules. 

When I introduced it this afternoon, with a GCSE-style set of questions (à la lots of little texts with a lot of 'who thinks ...' questions, just like they get in the foundation and higher papers), I explained that I had posted to twitter and to Facebook.  They were really interesting to watch when they heard about the origins of the reading material - I was a bit taken aback.  They came and sat on the floor all around the whiteboard (big downside to the activity was the font size etc, but they coped) and got straight on, telling me how this activity was 'très intelligent' because they were practising doing questions like those that they meet in the exam, but that it was 'chouette' because it was written by real people and not just by me!  I couldn't believe how much 'cooler' it was to read things that were put together like this.  Some people emailed or messaged me with comments because they couldn't work out how to add to the canvas.

If I can suss out how to make the text larger and more 'whole class friendly', then I'll definitely be using it again - was a great way to broaden vocabulary as well, as I was not in control of the language which they were accessing.  As it stands, I need to work on that, otherwise the value will be lost because the students won't be able to 'see' the texts that are posted - it was fortunate that I had a small group of 10 today, as there was no crush at the whiteboard.

iDoceo ...

I've never been a great user of my planner ... ask anyone who has worked with me.  I always kept the things I felt that I needed to - key groups data, half-termly grades, weekly vocab tests - none of it in a planner.  Invariably, I used a mixture of department spreadsheets and personal ones.  I have always known that my markbook was atrocious, but have always felt that I know the children that I teach.  I don't teach many classe, and there aren't huge numbers in my groups, but I do know that isn't good enough - we need evidence.  I think my problem has always been that I mark some things at school, some things in the car whilst waiting for things to finish, some things at the start of a rehearsal while waiting to start, some things at home ... all in lots of places, and somehow I never had the same thing with me or nearby in order to record things accurately.  I do, however, almost always have my iPad.  I set about looking for something to use.  Last year I tried a couple of things, but in October, I stumbled across iDoceo - it was introduced to me by a trainee in our department - she is always looking for things that will be appealing to kids or to kids.  I put it off for a while, but figured that I hadn't liked any of the free things or the 69p ones, so maybe it would be worth trying something that was £2.99.

Since then, I've been getting to grips with it and slowly building up to using it.  This term, I am "using it to its full".  It has a diary bit for planning / recording - bog standard data input basis, but all can be exported, per class to create a pdf (viewable in iBooks etc) to see a complete record of lessons ... all at the touch of the screen.  In each 'diary entry', you can add photos of students' work, or of 'action shots', you can also add audio files (currently no videos, but apparently they're working on that) - this is one of the real 'plusses' for me - whether it's music or language lessons, photo evidence is great (it's also a good memory jogger about what I've done!).

However, let's face it, the most important thing for me was the fact that I needed something simple, yet als useful, designed to carry marks (and ideally "do stuff" with those marks etc).  Well, this is good - import your basic bits and bobs from a spreadsheet (as a .csv file) so you don't have to type it all in.  You can input formulae, it will add little icons to prompt memory, you can highlight etc.  Really simple to do - even for me!  You can even create a pdf file for each student with all (or any you wish) of you marks and data etc.   The whole lot can be exported and opened in Excel (for cleverer maths, or for emailing to others if needed).

I am a convert.  I still know the children in all my classes, and really pride myself on this; however, I now know that I can always prove things in one easy touch, without having to get lots of different spreadsheets etc.  I have often 'resolved' to get better at recording marks, but have finally actually done so for the longest period ever!  I like iDoceo - and I'm sure it has other features, yet to be spotted.  I've already kept my resolution for 4 months - that in itself says it's quite good(!).

Looking closely

Looking closely today at the outcomes of today's mock exams has really made me think. Our kids can write and they can speak - we do give them the tools to build structures and write as freely as titles allow. Our focus on pronunciation has been great and they certainly 'don't mind' putting in the effort.

However, with our curriculum model, I have clearly been doing them a disservice by trying to inject some passion for the country and for the language itself because on four hours a week for a year (from scratch!) I need clearly not to be using inspirational sources for our listening, but I am going to have to go 'back to the book' a little more regularly (don't think I could do it all the time!) for listening-based resources, because while some can get full marks on the reading and writing, and almost full marks on the speaking elements, some of them are not even grading in the listening exam. I am going to have to rethink the strategy here. I've just always strived for motivation over 'exam, exam, exam' - I think in this instance maybe that isn't working :(

Next stop then ... How to turn exam questions and text book listening activities into inspirational and engaging activities ...

New Year's resolution ...

Well ... this is something that I have wanted to do for a little while now and have finally plucked up the courage to do.  I resolved to think and reflect more about the learning that actually takes place in the classroom and what works / doesn't work with our children. So, 2013 is here and today is the first day of the 'year', so here goes ...

I love Mondays, I get to work with my fab top set Year 8 French class - they're wicked fun and most of them have a real thirst for learning.  They're also the only KS3 language class that I teach, so I see it as my 'guilty pleasure' as well in the week.  The hardest thing in our school is that we only work with Year 7 and Year 8 children for one hour a week. 

Today we were looking a jobs as our theme, but we are thinking about using the conditional and the constant quest to think about how words are pronounced.  I was amazed by how much this group have retained - they had been doing a project with a non-French speaker leading them, working to create videos in French to promote the English education system and our school, so I was wondering how much they may have forgotten since some 'real French input' in the month of December, but impressively they were fab.  I gave them loads of vocab and just asked them to work together to rank the jobs in order firstly by number of syllables, and then, within the syllable groupings into alphabetical order - it was amazing - their tenacity and focus working together was brilliant.  In all honesty, nobody could suggest that I asked them to do anything 'inspirtional' but all of them were on task, all engaged and, I would even hasten to suggest that they were all working together to improve each other's work and that they were discussing language for the duration.  I get a real buzz when they are so on board and involved - it was lovely. 

The rest of the lesson was pretty bog-standard really - bit of listening, a few games, sentence extensions, races for masculine/feminine endings etc, but the best bit from today was definitely my starter, getting them to work with new vocabulary and to do something completely unexpected with it.

My other resolution this year is to embed the role of 'archivist' (recording and reporting about progress and learning using BookCreator and iDoceo on the iPad) into every lesson ... so far, I've taught one lesson ... and failed.  Oh well, tomorrow is another day ...