Swag Bag

Sometimes the old ideas are good ideas because they work.  I have a year 10 GCSE French set, where many have targets of grades 6-7, but I found it difficult to get them out of their comfort zone.  So, in October, we started a swag bag.  On the middle double-spread in their exercise books, we started assembling useful phrases that would help them to elevate their language.  A few weeks ago, we had managed to come up with this:

It's different to a learning mat, because they are responsible for choosing whether the word or phrase is worthy of inclusion, which means that we have a conversation about why these phrases are useful.  It also puts the onus on them to think about it and maintain it.  Now, when we do extended writing, they have to nominate at the top of their work a minimum of 3 swag bag phrases that they can use in their work.  It's a work in progress, and we will add to it in the future, but it's been useful for getting them out of their "j'aime...parce que c'est super" straitjacket.

Lollipop sticks for grammar!

Lollipop sticks - a fun way of making sure no-one gets left out from my questioning.  But there's so much more to be done with them. Why does it just have to be student names on them?  As I no longer have access to my smartboard random word chooser, I need another random phrase selector, and lollipop fit the bill in a pleasingly no-tech kinda way.

One of my challenges this year has been to find ways to help my year 10s build their awareness of verbs and the different tenses. So - I have created these lollipop sticks, all with "trigger phrases" on them - French on one side, English on the other.

 

The trigger phrases include phrases or verbs which then require the infinitive, and then triggers for the present, perfect, imperfect and future:

I have selected 8 key verbs from the topic we are currently doing, and put them into a table.

After introducing the idea of the trigger phrases, ensuring that they know which tense goes with which, we can then start playing.

Some ideas that have worked:

• Everyone gets a lollipop stick, then writes the chosen verb in the form they need on their mini-whiteboard.
• Focus on one verb - allow some memorisation time, then people come up to choose their stick, then get to form it. They double their points if they can translate it too.
• Challenge the other team. 
• Timed challenge.

You get the gist - I'm sure you can think of some of your own.

Teaching film for Year 12 MFL students

Teaching film in Year 12

One of the pleasures of teaching 6^th form MFL has always been the opportunity to study a film or literary work.  The cultural and linguistic richness which this brings to the study of a language has the ability to light up the experience of learning a language.  Usually, however, I have been used to teaching this in Year 13, where it has been much more about learning about a film, play or novel in the medium of the target language. With the majority of the students that I’m currently teaching, I’m not yet in a position to do this in the way I was used to doing – most of them are simply not linguistically advanced to be able to cope with the material I’ve developed.  Simply put, the needs of my Y12s are very different from the needs of any previous Y13s I have had. As my school is entering all Y12 for the AS, I also have the eye-wateringly tight time constraints imposed by external deadlines to contend with. All of this means that my current teaching materials for teaching a film are in dire need of an overhaul.  In this post, I’m going to reflect on the ways in which I’m going to have to adapt the way I teach a film or a text at Year 12 needs to change to reflect the different stage in learning which are students are at.

What do my students need?

Some of my students still need intensive practice of verb conjugation and work with the cases.  That means incorporating lots of follow-up grammar practice, much of which can be done in their independent study sessions or as part of homework.  It also means identifying the key verbs / vocabulary for each session and giving them more prominence.

Teaching new grammar – I am going to need to introduce more complex relative clauses, the use of weak masculine nouns, for a start.

Essay-writing practice.  Although it will be a while before they can write a full essay, they can write structured paragraphs from the start which could form an essay, and that teach essay-writing language.

Summarising skills – summarising is now part of the requirement at AS.  This needs practising in general, as well as in the specific way it is required for the exam.

Ideas for starters:

·         Summarise what happened in the scenes from last lesson

·         Screenshot – describe the picture – note techniques / who is doing what

·         verb games using the verbs from last lesson

·         prepositions and cases gapfill

Ideas for follow-up work:

Each week needs a mix of the following:

·         Grammar work with the identified focus – gapfill / word order / cloze text

·         Translation – either from the script or from the language work provided

·         Summary of the action – choose a tense to do it in – practise imperfect / perfect or even present tense

·         Structured paragraph “exam-stylee” focused on either how the themes are developed / how technique is used / the role a character plays / what we learn about society from these

Helping pupils with challenging reading texts for GCSE

I thought I would share the following resource which I have been using with my year 11s to help them improve their exam technique.  The tendency my students have is to snatch at one word, then build their answer around that one, single word, which inevitably leads to disaster.  Alternatively, they have no idea where to start.  Taking them step-by-step through the process, slowing them down so that they are forced to think about what they are reading - these have been useful.  Especially for AQA GCSE, where obscure answers are part and parcel of preparing for the A-A* type questions,

 I have a golden rule: Show me the evidence!!  You have to be guided by the words in the text.  We have just done a past paper question where the answer to the question, "How do you know the family are despairing of getting Louis to school on time?" was "They are thinking about having breakfast the night before"  Previous attempts at these types of obscure questions has led to blank expressions all round.  Although not all got it, some did because they had taken it step by step.

This template is also good for homework support.  If they have done all of these steps, you know that they have really engaged with the text.

Guided Reading Template

Stage 1.  Look at the clues which could set the scene.

1.  Is there any photo / picture?  What does it show? 

2.  What’s the title of the article?  Translate it here:

3.  What’s this article about?  Which topics might be included in this reading text?

Stage 2.  Skim read – getting the gist of what has been written

List the 3 most important things you have learned from the text.

1.

2.

3.

Stage 3.  Focus on the first line of each paragraph – find the theme of the paragraph.

Translate each first sentence, and then tell me what the probable theme of the paragraph is.

Paragraph number..	Translation	Probable theme
1.

Stage 4.  Find out what the key words are each question – underline them!

Stage 5. Find the section that gives you the answer to the question.

a. Underline the sentence or phrase which gives you the answer.

b. Translate as much as you can from that sentence into your exercise book.

German:

English:

Stage 6.  Answer the question, using your translation to help you!

Here is the link to the resource on TES

Using film in MFL lessons - integrating it into the scheme of work

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.  The lesson sequence I'm going to describe came about when it became clear that I really needed a Plan B.  The danger of the spiral curriculum, where topics are revisited, but with increasing difficulty, was laid bare a few months ago by one of my Year 9 French classes.  The textbook we loosely follow is Tricolore, and the not-so-inspiring topic was family, and the grammar covered revision of adjectives for description and reflexive verbs including reciprocal verbs such as "nous nous disputons".  I made the fatal mistake when introducing the new topic of mentioning "family" and the shutters came down." Family? Did that in year 7." and although the phrase, "What's the point?" wasn't actually uttered, the body language said it all.    

Back to the drawing board.  This is when I came upon these fabulous resources by Rachel Hawkes and colleagues on the film "Neuilly sa mère!". I liked these resources, but I wanted to try a different approach.  The joy of this film is that it allows the pupils to comment on the family and characters shown in the film, and that from this, I could also teach them what I needed.  I think there is much to be gained from pupils seeing and experiencing a full film in the foreign language - their ear becomes more attuned, and the cultural references and sights are also often easily absorbed.  I have been less impressed with the overall effect that watching a film over, say, 2 lessons followed by language work. In recent years, I have tended to use short excerpts of films instead.  I decided, therefore to blend the 2 approaches, and show approx. 20 - 30 min clips over a period of lessons and use these as the stimulus for the rest of the lesson.  

This was the sequence that developed.

Aims of unit and the film:

·         revise and extend knowledge of family members

·         revise and extend personality adjectives

·         introduce a wider range of reflexive verbs to be able to talk about who you get on with

·         revise and extend adjectives for describing appearance

·         revise la futur proche to predict the end of the film

·         to develop phrases for introducing your opinion

·         to write about your own family based on the language learnt

·         to write a review of the film

      Lesson 1 start – 17:00

      We introduced the characters.  Using grouptalk and with a support sheet with personality words, they discussed which characters they liked and why, and compared them.  Who was more spoilt? Who was funnier / nicer?  They also worked out who was related to whom.  After they had completed exercises about the fictional family, I got no complaints about applying that language to a description of their own families for homework.

L  Lessons 2/3 17:00 – 39:00

      After watching the relationships between the characters develop, I used this section to teach "s'entendre bien avec" with other reflexive verbs e.g. se disputer.  We used a tarsia game to get to know the key verbs and structures, and they were then able to say who got on with whom.  They then applied it to their own families.

      Lesson 4 39:00 – 1:00

       This section allowed more use of reflexive verbs e.g. ils se moquent de lui.  And, as Sami doubted whether he would ever get his girl because he thought he wasn't her type, this seemed a good time to revise appearances, as it fitted with the plot. 

      Lesson 5  1:00 – 1:15

      Something a bit different this time.  We watched the party scene and then used the near future to predict what would happen for the end of the film.  I taught them a few phrases to introduce their opinion.

      Lesson 6 watch to the end

       We found out which of our predictions were right!  We then did some work to review the film.  Who was the favourite character?  Which was the favourite scene etc.

    

       The class really enjoyed this sequence of lessons, and they were willing to use more challenging French because they were motivated.  I prefer this way of watching a whole film.  We still got through all of the language for the scheme of work, and it felt much more organic.  
       
        

Preparing for the new GCSE - some of the nitty gritty

The last couple of posts have been about Big Ideas and Principles, but the nuts and bolts stuff also needs looking at, and certainly we need to be getting our pupils used to the question formats in KS3.  I wanted to share our initial to-do list. This is with AQA in mind.

What needs to be looked at:       

1.  Getting used to literary texts and more authentic materials

2.  Answering in more detail in reading questions  -finish the sentence

3.  Transcribing – spelling to be taken into account in the new listening  -also part of the NC

4.  Photo-cards – starters with “what can you see in the picture”?

5.  Role-plays – situational and talking with a friend – bolster these in Y8 & 9 especially, but also in Y7

6.  Forming questions – make sure this is given more priority

7.  Intensive practice of key verbs – “emergency kit” in 3 tenses

8.  What does a good model essay look like? Preparing pupils for this – key phrases needed

9.  How assessment will change – making sure the teaching prepares pupils well for this

10.  How to keep language fresh so they don’t forget (Homer Simpson syndrome)

11.  Translation both ways.

To do list:

1.  Identify good transcribing resources (for use with micro-listening tasks (The language gym))

2.  Join the ALL wiki for good sources of material

3.  Identify a minimum of one literary/authentic text (song / poem / letter) for each module

4.  Identify a time once a month where material from other units/topics is either incorporated or used in a cross-themed writing activity to keep language active

5.  Embed grouptalk / roleplay opportunities into the scheme of work à how to progress with it?

6.  Review reference material for pupils – to support question formation / grammar aspects for correcting own work (à support feedback ticksheet)

7.  Review assessment formats in all 4 skills (roleplay should be easy to implement, even for peer assessment)   The writing assessment to mirror the format of the writing exam, including not giving advance notice of the extended writing and giving a choice.

8.  Translation – we do a lot of it in drills, but maybe not a little paragraph as often into English.  Needs to be done monthly

Preparing for the new GCSE - literature in KS3

This is the second post about KS3 and literature. The previous one has various links including to the wonderful ALL wiki on literature. in this post, I want to continue looking at the literature aspect of preparing for the new GCSE. Ks3 should be about enjoying the language, and songs and poems so far figure more prominently than prose. As far as prose is concerned, the priorities need to be:

• Getting pupils used to texts which combine language from lots of diffrerent topics and to dealing with a manageable amount of new words
• Coping with unfamiliar words
• Capturing pupils' interest
• Opening the world out to them

Letters
Letters can be an excellent way to get them to experience prose.  I have a rather battered letter which describes Christmas and the pupils enjoy reading it - real person their age, and real experience.  It doesn't need to be just such "normal" letters. There are other ideas which could prove a rich vein of material. There has been lots of work this year on WW1. I found this collection of soldier's letters. Seeing the WW1 from the "other side" could be very powerful. For the French teachers reading this, Liz Black recommended "Lulu et la Grande Guerre" by Fabian Grégoire. Some vivid writing which is accessible with some adaptations.

Other prose - stories, newspapers

We do a project week after the January exams and read a simplified version of "Aschenputtel" using the Grimm's rather bloodthirsty original. It has lots for beginners to get their teeth into, phrases such as "schwarz von Herzen" ("black of heart") - what's not to like?  Vivid phrases but also well within the capability of pupils to work out with access to a glossary or dictionary. It also gives pupils lots to think about - why the difference between the now well-established Disney version and this?  The boys enjoy reading it out loud and working with the text.

My searches so far haven't found any contemporary short stories yet that would fit the bill, although I remain hopeful that I might get some inspiration from the DaF (the German equivalent of EAL) community in Germany. It seems to me that letters and brief, adapted newspaper stories would be suitable at this stage of  learning. Which brings me to...

Bild newspaper. This tabloid paper does a great line in punchy daft stories. Search for "dümmster Einbrecher" (most stupid burglar) or similar (bank robbers is another favourite) and you find what are, in effect, mini-stories. They will still need to be adapted. It is also good for human interest stories. I found an interview with a refugee who survived the hell of the Mediterranean. Great for helping pupils understand the world.

Now to share another great tip from the training by Liz Black: Der Spiegel does a monthly news magazine aimed at 8-14 yr olds called "Dein Spiegel".  It has stories aimed at our age range, even if you will have to adapt them. And for my French teaching colleagues, there is Le petit quotidien for young people. These are going in my reading corner next year.

Breaking out of the box

One of the reasons I think we may be hesitant to use literature sources is the fact that there are inevitably words beyond what we usually teach, and certainly beyond just the topic we are trying to focus on at the minute.  That has to be a good thing, but does need approaching carefully. It must be said, however, that if we don't want pupils to compartmentalise their language, then we need to model that in our lessons.  Language (and life) is not neat and closed off into little boxes, and we need to reflect this. Still, look at this poem for Nikolaustag:

Nikolaus, du guter Mann,
hast einen schönen Mantel an.
Die Knöpfe sind so blank geputzt,
dein weißer Bart ist gut gestutzt,
die Stiefel sind so spiegelblank,
die Zipfelmütze fein und lang,
die Augenbrauen sind so dicht,
so lieb und gut ist dein Gesicht.
Du kamst den weiten Weg von fern,
und deine Hände geben gern.
Du weißt, wie alle Kinder sind:
Ich glaub, ich war ein braves Kind.
Sonst wärst du ja nicht hier
und kämest nicht zu mir.
Du musst dich sicher plagen,
den schweren Sack zu tragen.
(unbekannt)

By December, we have just done descriptions, and  this fits in very well - lots lines with words on description and clothes, and that's where we concentrate our work.  Liz Black made the point that it depends on what you want the pupils to do with it and the support you give. We shouldn't be afraid of tackling these texts with them.