Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

This is the fourth blog I've posted in recent weeks about curriculum planning, and this one, like the previous two, draws on the book Language Curriculum Design (Nation and Macalister, 2010). The subject this time is assessment and how this can be built into a successful curriculum. Gianfranco Conti and I have covered some similar ground in The Language Teacher Toolkit (2016) and Breaking the Sound Barrier (2019), but these important issues are worth spelling out again as many languages departments evaluate their curricula. So I shall summarise some points referred to in Chapter 7 of Nation and Macalister (2010), adding a few observations of my own. What is good assessment? Assessment needs to be reliable , valid and practical . Let's look at these three aspects: Reliability A reliable test gives results which are not greatly affected by conditions which the test was not intended to measure. If the same person sat the test twice you would expect them to get more ...

This is a short filler activity for a reasonably fluent intermediate (Higher GCSE) or advanced level group. Students work in small groups or pairs. One person boasts about something which has happened recently. The next person, or partner, then engages in one-upmanship, and so it goes on around the group or between partners. It might go something like this: Je suis allé en Australie en vacances l'année dernière. Ah bon? Moi, je vais en Australie tous les ans. Moi, je ne vais plus en Australie. J'en ai marre. Nous allons faire un voyage en Antarctique l'année prochaine. Moi, je suis déjà allé au pôle sud; je vais faire un voyage dans l'espace. Nous allons à la Lune l'été prochain. La lune? Nous, on va aller à Mars. Mars? C'était beau quand on y est allés, mais on aime mieux Jupiter. Toit ça, c'est bien, mais nous, on préfère voyager dans le temps dans notre Tardis. etc It would probably best to give an exa...

Many language departments continue to work with text books, often accompanied by ancillary digital resources. From what I understand, few teachers follow books religiously. Instead, they opt to adapt them to the needs of classes and their own preferences. But is there a proper rationale for how to adapt text books to best effect? In this blog, I'm dipping again into the Nation and Macalister book called Language Curriculum Design (2010). Chapter 11 looks specifically at this issue of adapting course books. I'll concisely summarise a number of the key points they make, adding my own comments from my own experience. When teachers depend heavily on the text book There may be good reasons for sticking quite closely to the course book. Nation and Macalister mention the following points: The school of Ministry of Education requires the book to be followed closely. Reasons may be to standardise the quantity and quality of education or a lack of trust in teacher skill. Teac...

The title of this blog sounds like an episode name from The Big Bang Theory, but no, all I've done here is put together in one place a series of blogs I've written over the last two years. These posts analysed specific lessons in detail, as I did in my book Becoming an Outstanding Languages Teacher (2017). I'll give a linked title to each blog before briefly describing it. I hope these might be useful to teachers wishing to develop their planning and pedagogy skills. So here we go: Exploiting narrow reading texts This is a resource using the "narrow reading" approach for recycling language. You could use it with an intermediate class (GCSE). it's on the topic "How well do you sleep?" which offers opportunities for some useful communicative exchanges. A speaking and listening task This is adapted an example of a lesson from Chapter 3 of Jack C. Richards' book Key Issues in Language Teaching (2015). The original lesson was planned b...

Lots of schools seem to be involved in curriculum planning initiatives, most likely in response to Ofsted's latest inspection emphasis. On the one hand it's regrettable that schools are responding in this knee-jerk fashion to Ofsted, on the other it must surely be desirable that subject departments evaluate what they are teaching and why. With that in mind, I have been reading a book entitled Language Curriculum Design by Paul Nation and John Macalister (2010). I am going to summarise the main points of Chapter 1, which is an overview of how to engage with curriculum design. This may give you food for thought if you want to evaluate your curriculum or set up a new course. Bear in mind that these are general curriculum planning issues I am referring to here, not the detailed planning of, say, a unit of work, but these broad principles are important to keep in mind. Their overall model of curriculum design is summarised in the figure below. The outer circles ( enviro...

Here's a resource I posted on frenchteacher.net a long time ago. I recall this task working really well with A-level classes. It works as a one-off lesson, or you could shoehorn it into your family topic. Imaginez les conversations. Une personne joue le rôle du parent, l’autre de l’adolescent(e). Le parent vient de recevoir un coup de téléphone du directeur de l’école. Celui-ci a dit que l’adolescent a raté quelques cours et qu’il ne fait pas ses devoirs. Il risque de rater le bac. En rangeant la chambre de sa fille, le parent a trouvé des pilules contraceptives dans le tiroir d’une table de chevet. L’adolescent explique au parent qu’il est victime de cyber-intimidation. Un autre élève envoie des SMS offensifs et le prend en photo sans permission. L’adolescent annonce à son parent qu’il ne veut plus aller à l’université. L’adolescent veut faire un petit job tous les weekends. Le parent n’est pas d’accord. ...