An MFL professional development consortium

I am posting a an email message I received via the Linguanet forum. It may be of interest to MFL teachers in the south east of England in particular. It looks interesting.

"A new project between the universities of Reading and Oxford has seen the 
establishment of a Professional Development Consortium in MFL. The consortium 
involves leading MFL classroom teachers and researchers who are working to 
establish a closer relationship between research-based principles of effective 
language teaching and learning, and current practice within the MFL curriculum. 
We want to invite all language teachers to join the consortium by attending one 
of our six workshops which will take place this summer. The workshops will 
exemplify how eight research-based language learning principles can be 
implemented in MFL classrooms with the aim of raising attainment among students. 
The subsequent dialogue between researchers and teachers of modern languages 
will continue, as the consortium seeks to apply the outcomes of the workshops to 
other areas of the MFL curriculum.

The workshops will be an all-day event with lunch provided. Attendance is free 
of charge. The scheduled dates are:
Reading – 13 June / London – 19 June / Oxford – 26 June / Walsall – 29 June / 
London – 3 July / Bristol – 12 July
For further details and to register please contact Heike Bruton at 
h.bruton@reading.ac.uk"

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What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought. ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

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La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,

Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

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