Our aim as MFL teachers

Our aim?

To teach pupils in such a way that they become confident communicators in the foreign language based on an instinctive yet reflective understanding of how a language works.

I love this quote.  Sadly, I can't claim any credit for it:  it had been used at a conference and @garrymillsmfl had tweeted a photo of it.  It has since become my motto.

What does this mean for me and my pupils?

Reflective learners
Promoting "use what you know"
As an experienced linguist, I know how to simplify my language if I'm getting myself tied up in knots. Our pupils' reaction is to reach for google translate. Teaching and promoting this idea is very important, and can make a big difference. Teaching pupils how to make the most of "That is.." "Do you have..?" "It has..." is maybe a good starting point. I'm not sure I do this well enough at the minute - maybe I will return to this in a later post.

The great marking and feedback debate
Like every other school, we have been having a big drive on marking. The biggest change for me has been insisting on responses to the marking I have done in a much more methodical way - boys ticking my margin annotation when they find and correct a mistake, pupils re-drafting specific, highlighted sections. The art of re-drafting is difficult, and Their homework log in the front of their books has a column to record the "ebi", so that they can see if a pattern emerges.  They can also then use their most recent "ebi" as their target for the next piece of work.
Developing communcation

I did a questionnaire with my pupils at the end of last half-term, and as well as an understandable preoccupation with the mysteries of German word order, their other concerns were to do with questions and reacting to someone.  Now, unless they are going onto A-level, the skill of being able to hear a question and react is surely one of the key things we need to teach them.  Every non-linguist I meet seems to have a tale of horror of an attempted conversation where things have gone awry the minute the other person responded in the foreign language.

This is the plan for me:

Big push on how to form questions

It became apparent that the pupils need much more support with this. I know this is partly my fault - with so much focus on the ability to extend and develop answers, it has sometimes been easier to simply give the pupils the questions, but that doesn't help them.  They also need opportunities to practise forming and answering questions.That means I'm tweaking how I go about setting up pairwork, so that the question isn't handed to them on a plate. They also need some help with thinking about the correct response for a question.  Rachel Hawkes has many good suggestions, but this is a current favourite - put the answer up on the screen - what could the question be?

Practice, practice, practice...

...with highly-structured exercises and with looser, more free form exercises.  This is where the pupils can apply the structures, and have the opportunity for it to become more instinctive. I think I underestimate how much practice my pupils need to know the language instinctively, rather than simply theoretically.  Some of my GCSE pupils are about to embark on a speaking CA.  I have spent much time with the struggling pupils in this topic practising "weil" clauses with a rhythm until it begins to sound "normal".

Making use of visitors

I'm lucky to have an enthusiastic former pupil studying German who is willing to come in once a week, and for the next 7 weeks, I have a visiting German who is also coming in once a week.  This is an opportunity to tap into their curiousity and give them authentic situations.

This should also help with use of TL in the classroom.

Insisting on TL and supporting it

I have blogged previously about using speaking mats to support communication.  I introduced them this September, and they really work, but you still have to teach the language on there - the pupils won't use it properly without that, but once taught, they will make use of it, especially if you keep promoting it.

Using pictures

Asking the pupils (with prompts) to describe a picture is a good activity, not least because it often forces the pupils to think across several topic areas.  I think this has real potential, but I know I haven't made the most of it.  This is something I want to try.