Languag
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Week
-mindmaps are good because some kids are less literate
classroo
-Association for Language Learning (ALL) offer resources, inspiration, courses and
conferences.
-methods of working ‘think-pair-share’
mI
Skills set developed through teaching
1. Ability to be proactive and solution focused
2. Ability to get the best out of you and others
3. Leadership
4. Innovation
5. Teamwork
6. Art of negotiation
7. Ability to structure and sequence efficiently
8. Ability to adapt
9. Ability to make the challenging the accessible
10. Good time management
11. Thinking ahead and predicting
12. Reappraising your self-knowledge
Routes into teaching:
1. PGCE* (with QTS**) University-centred; practice in two schools
2. School-centred training routes lead to QTS; some also award a PGCE
a. School Direct (training) Based in school, various models
b. School Direct (salaried) For people who have at least 3 years of relevant
experience
c. Postgrad Teaching Apprenticeships. E.g. for unqualified teachers or classroom
assistants employed by the school.
3. Teach First; Run by the ‘Teach First’ charity; leadership potential
*Post Graduate Certificate of Education
**Qualified Teacher Status
SCITT: School centred Intense Teacher Training
Funding your training and earning potential:
-could be a student and receive a bursary of scholarship
-tax-free bursary of £26,000 or scholarship of £28,000
-tuition fee and maintenance loan and extra support.
-could be employed by a school and receive a salary
Week 2
Types of Schools:
- Local authority
- Academies
- Free
- Faith
- Grammar
- Independent
The Curriculum:
National Curriculum for modern languages [Key Stage 2: Foreign Language, Key Stage 3:
Modern Foreign Language] Follow the national curriculum when lesson planning
Methods of Teaching:
- Repetition
- Modelling
- Translation
- Cognates
Crucial Information:
- Pace
- Segmenting
- Encouragement / Smiling / Body language
- Pronunciation
- Hearing Problems
- Memory Skills
Strategy:
- Variety of resources and activities
- Opportunity for pupil production of language
- Engaging / Motivating
- Target Language Usage
- Clear Learning Objectives
- Non-threatening atmosphere
Stephen Krashen [1941]
Affective Filter Obstacle which manifests itself during language acquisition, a screen
influenced by emotional variables preventing learning. Can be a metaphor which depicts a
learner’s attitudes that affect the relative success of second language acquisition. Negative
feelings such as lack of motivation, lack of self-confidence and learning anxiety hinders
language learning.
Language Acquisition:
Does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules or tedious drills. Acquisition
requires meaningful interaction in target language [natural communication] Speakers are
no longer concerns with their utterances.
Surrounding Environment should be foreign language based
Choral Repetition - Alteration of voices
Use of Songs / Mime
Laddered Questioning:
- Repeat word
- Yes or No
- Choice between two words
- No clue
Flashcards
Matching up words
Realia - Real life objects
Interactive Resources
Pupils are most susceptible to information reception when:
- Learners are active and not passive
- Everything is modelled and consolidated several times
- Ideas are creative - visual, tactile, use of interactive software, games, kinaesthetic [use of
movement]
- Concentration span of age range is respected
Week 3
Structuring a lesson (a good lesson might contain):
- A starter (something quick to focus the mind)
- Something old (recall of prior learning)
- Something fun (enjoyable practice activities)
- Something to do (some productive activities to demonstrate their learning)
- A plenary (an activity which rounds off the learning)
Listening and understanding
- Audio/audio/visual
- The teacher reading aloud
- Song
- Ways for the pupil to respond (written)
o Laddered questions in target language
o Questions in mother tongue
o Show me boards
o Gapfill sheets
o Matching pictures to what you have heard
It’s good to start off with a listening exercise (receptive skill) and turn it into a speaking
exercise (productive skill)
Gapfill exercise: start off with ex. Elle a de_ _ chiens.
Then maybe ex. Elle __ deux chiens.
And for the high achievers uni students (not the dyslexics like Amy) just put a blank line and
a photo of a girl with two dogs/all the words in a jumble, and they will assemble a coherent
sentence.
Speaking (productive skill)
- Asking and answering questions in the target language
- Group talk with cue cards
- Role play
- Response to a picture
- Presentation
- Songs/rap
- Poems
Reading and understanding (receptive skill)
- Text with questions in TL or MT
- Matching exercise
- Sorting exercise
- Underlining
- Wordsearch
Writing (productive skill)
- Labelling pictures
- De-coding task
- Gapfill with word bank
- Describing pictures
- Crossword
- Text message
- Tweet
- Email
- Letter
Planning a lesson
Ofsted guidelines (all lessons should contain the following three parts:
- Starter – here you introduce the lesson to the students through a ‘warming up’
activity (6-7 minutes 10%)
- Main development activity – this is the ‘main event’ where most learning occurs
(main bulk of time 80%)
- Plenary – this is where we check ‘What has been learnt?’ (6-7 minutes 10%)
- Getting students in
- Dismissing students
What does that look like?
- Learning objective
- Timing
- Starter
- 10 minutes
- Main activities
- L-S-R-W
- 30 minutes
- Plenary
- 10 minutes
A starter – what is the purpose?
- To revise previous knowledge
- To inform the teacher of existing knowledge
- To help learners tune in
- To settle
- To engage
What might it consist of?
- Matching exercise
- Quickfire questions
- Wordsearch
- Anagrams
- Hangman
- Flashcard game
Teachers often have a do-now exercise ready on the desks for class as they enter the room.
What might be suitable for this purpose?
- Sharing the learning objectives with the pupils
SMART objectives
Goalsetting:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
The main body of the lesson
- Presentation of new learning
- Practice of new learning
- Increasing the level of difficulty progressively with activities
- Production of new language
To consider- how do I gradually build up the level of difficulty?
The plenary
- Demonstrate learning
- Refers back to the learning objectives
- Reflect on learning – how well have I grasped the new learning?
- What are my next steps?
Plenaries
- Do:
o Refer back to your LO
o Make it fun
o Use it to inform your planning for next lesson
o Make it simple
- Don’t:
o Run out of time – plan for it as the end of the lesson approaches
o Make it more time consuming and difficult to organise than your main
activity.
Week 5
Some Golden Rules of lesson planning
- Be prepared
- Know the abilities of the class
- Don’t lose your temper
- Know your lesson objectives
- Make sure they reflect on previous information
- Plenary – consolidates what has been learned
- Write how long activities will take in the lesson plan
Reflective focus for this week
Positive teamwork practices for teachers eg.
- showing that you’ve listened eg. ‘Following on from what X has just said’
- involvement in the aims of the meeting
- strategies for presenting alternative perspectives clearly, concisely, diplomatically
- negotiating a consensus
What are Schemes of Work?
- SoW gives a concise long-term overview of work to be covered.
- It’s a ready-reference toll which enables teachers to find out at a glance:
o What the year group should be doing
o How this relate to previous and future work
o Guidance on resources available (some are better than others, some get
dated)
- Typically, a department has one SoW per year group
Assignment 1
Lesson planning in the context of a Scheme of Work
Hot tips!!!
1. Establish the teaching context (primary or secondary)
a. Which year group?
b. How long is the lesson?
c. How many lessons per week?
2. Establish the context
a. Choose an extract from the SoW
3. Determine the key grammatical and lexical items
a. Which items will be new? Which items will consolidate previous learning?
4. How will you sequence your material and activities in order to foster progress?
5. How does your lesson address the requirements of the Scheme of Work? (what
came before and what comes after) (interface between lesson plan and Scheme of
Work)
