Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

 ChatGPT , the AI tool for creating conversations, texts and no doubt much more, is all the rage at this start of December 2022. So I thought I would dip my toe in, since it clearly has possibilities for language teachers - the main one, as far as I can see it, being speed. So I asked ChatGPT "Parlez-moi de Francis Cabrel" (then the same for two other singers), and ChatGPT produced three short, factually and linguistically accurate texts in French. I chose to edit them very lightly. A bonus I discovered is that, because ChatGPT draws on its bank of formulaic language, you end up with a narrow reading activity, with similar turns of phrase being used in each of the texts. I would judge the level of the language to be around A2/B1 (CEFR) in standard - in this case suitable for a good GCSE or typical Y12 class in England. I chose to add my own exercises to ensure careful reading, plus some vocab building and writing. An optional extra task would be for students to research thei...

 As we approach the end of the calendar year, I thought I'd share the five most viewed posts I have written this year. Actually, I blog less frequently than I used to, but still managed to upload 49 posts, with this the fiftieth.  Generally, speaking teachers click on posts which feature practical lesson ideas, more than reflections on or summaries of research. A curriculum change also gets teachers clicking and it was a post about the proposed curriculum change for GCSE which topped my chart for 2022. As it turned out, what the exam boards came up with later in the year was, predictably, more of an evolution than revolution. Yes, the oral will have reading aloud and less conversation, and the listening test includes a dictation task worth a few more marks than I would have liked. We'll see how basing listening and reading texts on a more tightly defined high-frequency vocabulary list changes things. I suspect not much, since existing texts already strongly featured high-freq...

Do you ever feel that you would like to do a lesson totally unconnected with the syllabus? Do you like the idea of your advanced level students just communicating with each other on thought-provoking subjects? You know how language acquisition works: comprehensible input and interaction = acquisition! Below is a set of questions/prompts which should get your quite proficient class talking. You don't have to join in, but you could be available when they get stuck for a turn of phrase or item of vocabulary. I'll give you my French prompts (from a worksheet on frenchteacher.net), then translate them in case you teach a different language. French version 1. Si vous pouviez changer une chose dans votre vie, cela serait quoi et pourquoi ? Est-ce que votre vie serait différente aujourd’hui ? 2. Quel est votre plus grand exploit dans la vie ? Pourquoi était-ce important ? 3. Si vous aviez un superpouvoir cela serait quoi ? Vous feriez quoi avec ? 4. Si les scientifiques découvraient qu...

 " Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others" ( Groucho Marx). I posted earlier this year two blogs, each one featuring 10 lesson starters which I think would work for many students at various levels. In this post, I'm going to offer ten more, partly using examples I've posted on frenchteacher.net. So, if you weren't keen on some of the first twenty, you might find a few here to add to your low-prep repertoire. Before I kick off, the other two posts are here and here . 1. True or false cultural facts For near-beginners, just display a series of statements on slides. Students must decide if the sentence is true or false. They can show their answers on mini-whiteboards. After each slide, follow up with any other relevant cultural facts. Examples I used in my slides for French were (translated into English): The capital of France is London. Montreal is in Belgium. In Switzerland they speak English. Marseille(s) is a city in France...

The government has just announced it will invest nearly £15 million in a new ‘centre of excellence’ for languages, with a larger number of hub schools than the current NCELP arrangement. The details are here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-invested-in-language-lessons With just two years left of this dysfunctional government and a likely new Labour government, one wonders how far this initiative will get. But a key point to note that the new body, whether it be run by a “trust, university or business” will have to be aligned with the principles of the flawed TSC Review (Bauckham, 2016). This means sticking with the three ‘pillars’ of phonics, vocabulary and grammar, and a very explicit approach to language teaching. The new contract may be awarded again to the team at York University under Emma Marsden and Rachel Hawkes. They have already put in a mass of work on research and lessons. More broadly, it’s hard to see how a centre of excellence with a small number of hub sch...

This short blog is an adapted extract from Memory: What Every Language Teacher Should Know (Smith and Conti, 2021). Priming is an important concept to be aware of as a language teacher. In terms of general learning, priming is about the kind of unconscious 'triggers' which get you to remember or act in a particular way. For instance, you might happen to see a Facebook ad for a product, then the following day end up buying the same product without even remembering that you had seen the advert. You were primed to carry out an action. Or else you might find yourself using an expression a friend has used, without being aware that you had paid attention to it. In more detail, there are said to be two main types of priming which have powerful learning effects: Perceptual priming . When you see or hear something a second time you process it faster. Conceptual priming . The same as perceptual priming, except that the two things need to be related by meaning....

I imagine most of you use choral repetition, especially with beginners or near beginners. There are good reasons for doing so. Students listen carefully, briefly process what they hear, repeat and get used to using their motor skills to produce different sounds, syllables and words in an unthreatening way without having to perform in front of their peers or a partner. It helps, of course, if the class knows what the material being repeated actually means! It is a handy controlling device for teachers who may feel insecure about class control too; when a class is all repeating in unison there isn't much opportunity to do anything else off task. Teachers also get instant feedback on whether the class is having difficulty pronouncing tricky sounds. Choral repetition can be based on flashcards, flashcards with text, text on the board, an audio text, video text or just things that you say. I also felt that, when doing teacher-led oral work, choral repetition could be carefully timed if ...

  The term Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), first coined in the USA in the 1990s, refers to teaching which is sensitive to different cultures both within and outside the classroom. “It is an approach that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes" ( Ladson-Billings, 1994 ).  Issues to do with diversity and racism have come to the fore again in recent years and attracted growing interest in language teaching and education circles in general. It was not a subject on my agenda, I have to confess, no doubt owing in part to the setting I taught in (rural, generally mono-ethnic at that time and mono-cultural). But I think language teachers would do well to be aware of some of the issues at stake, if they are not already knowledgeable about these issues. First, what is culture? One definition has it as the norms, beliefs, and behaviours passed down from one generation to the ...

This post is for teachers in England. Do you remember when, not too long ago, Ofsted were at pains to tell schools that they had no preferred teaching style? In our subject area we’ve had the TSC review of MFL pedagogy (2016), the establishment of NCELP and a revised GCSE for first examination in 2026. All of these have involved the hand of government in various forms (notably the choice of authors and panel members). Meanwhile Ofsted decided it wished to place an emphasis on curriculum, arguing that this is the cornerstone for a school’s success. Its series of research reviews (selective and flawed) have reinforced the notion that learning is about turning declarative knowledge into automatised skill. This is tied up with a view of language learning based on the idea of building blocks (phonics, vocab and grammar - the ‘three pillars’).  This is a one-sided view of language learning and curriculum design, frequently criticised in the second language acquisition research literature...

My previous blog was about working memory, and how to identify and support students who may be struggling because of working memory deficits. In contrast, this post is about high-achieving students. It may be that this is a school or departmental issue or priority for you. The text here is taken from the new edition of my book Becoming an Outstanding Languages Teacher (Smith, 2023). (Yes, 2023. Although the book is already out, its official publication year is apparently 2023.) I taught for well over 30 years in schools with, on the whole, quite high-aptitude pupils, so the text here is based partly on my own experience. I wonder if it squares with your own feelings. Here is the section from the book. Apologies for the errors in formatting, which happen in Blogger when you copy in a text in Word. Stretch and challenge So-called gifted and talented students have a special need of their own, you can argue. I spent my career teaching students of above average aptitude in three schools in ...

In the second language acquisition research literature, some scholars believe that a key factor in language learning aptitude is working memory. Working memory, you may recall, is our so-called mental workspace where we hold things in our conscious attention. Working memory span, or capacity, varies somewhat between individuals and may, or may not, be subject to alteration through specific exercises. In typical memory models (e.g. the famous Baddeley model), by rehearsing things in working memory, e.g. practising silently or saying things out loud, we can help information pass into long-term memory, where we need it to be. Think, for example, how you say out loud a telephone number to help it stick in your memory. As a reminder, here is the general model of memory often shared with teachers these days. For language teachers, phonological working memory is of particular interest, since we depend so much on students listening to language. Phonological working memory, in the Baddeley mode...

My previous post 10 nifty starters for language lessons was popular, with a few thousand views. Since I have been focusing on starters on my site, I thought I’d share another 10 starters I would happily use with classes at various levels. You might find something new here. Or you might not! 1. Guess what I did last weekend We often ask students what they did last weekend, and I blogged about variations on this theme some time ago here . For this starter, just turn things round and get students to guess what you did. For some languages this is an opportunity for students to use the formal ‘you’ form, which can be tricky to work into lesson plans. So students make guesses about what you did and you reply yes or no, or give a whole sentence answer - positive or negative -  to provide more listening input. As soon as they guess, say, five correct things, the starter is over.  2. Number sequence One for near beginners who can count to about 50. Read out a sequence of numbers and s...

One of the staples of my frenchteacher site is 'video listening'. These resources are worksheets linked to online video clips from various sources. I look for short clips of up to about 3-4 minutes, clear language and relevant content. The exercise I design for each video depends somewhat on the content, but in the example below I went for the simple 'questions in French' approach. An advantage of this is that it not only requires comprehension, but the ability to transcribe and adapt the language students here. (In contrast, questions in English require comprehension and translation/summary only.) For the hardest texts I might avoid QA in French since more effort is needed in the processing, so adding the burden of writing in French may overload students. It depends on the student, of course. Below is an example, unusually long in this case, but manageable, given the speed and level of language. I like this source since it relates to a francophone country outside mainl...