You often read in the literature about second language learning there is no best method. It came up again in Elspeth Broady’s opening chapter of the recently published Practical Guide to Teaching Foreign Languages in the Secondary School (Pachler and Redondo, 2023). I reviewed that book here . The general claim is surely true. Indeed, you might think if there were a best method, we would have discovered it by now. Despite centuries of reflection and over half a century of modern research, we still rehearse the age-old debates around the relative merits of natural approaches and those based on building automatised skill through explanation and practice. Yet, while no best method has been established, many teachers are quite passionate and even tribal in their defence of the method or approach they use. They may have some good reasons for this. More of that below. I think it’s quite legitimate to justify and defend one’s favoured pedagogy. There are some widely accepted general principl
The pressure on students and teachers to get the best grade is high. Teachers have a duty to prepare students as thoroughly as possible, just as students need to their utmost to succeed. Most students do. In this fourth and final post on teaching A-Level MFL we shall look at steps we can take to ensure best performance on the day. I’ll take each paper in turn. Paper 1 Listening, reading and writing Analyse past papers so you and the students are familiar with question types. Share with students remarks made by examiners in their reports. These are available on the exam board websites in a secure area which you should have access to via your exams officer. If you have taught in a principled way during the course, and students have worked hard, good performance will follow. Apart from ensuring students have done a mock and several past papers (some in timed conditions), there are certain elements that require specific preparation and practice. The main one is the summary tasks. For adv