Book review: A Practical Guide to Teaching Foreign Languages in the Secondary School (Pachler and Redondo, 2023)

This is the third edition of a handbook written mainly for trainee and recently qualifiedd modern language teachers. Edited by Norbert Pachlere and Ana Redondo, it is A4 in size and runs to 204 pages. The fourteen chapters are divided into three broad sections: (1) overarching considerations (2) develeoping pedagogical skills, knowledge and understanding an (3) exploring broader prespectives. My own contributuion to this book was Chapter 4: Research-based practice: Findings from cognitive science and second language acquisition research.

This review will be a reasonably detailed look at each of the chapters. At the end, I'll review to what extent the book is useful for its target readership.

Each chapter clearly sets out its purpose and within the text there are tasks which invite discussion or personal reflection. You can imagine these being used ona PGCE course, for example. Every chapter has its own bibliography, usually not too long.

Chapter 1 by Elspeth Broady starts with the familiar idea that there is no one 'best way' to teach a language. I raised an eyebrow on reading that students bring they own 'learning styles' to the process of language learning (!), but her general point about no one-size-fits-all is well made. The chapter goes on to consider the age-old debate about to what extent language learning is a natural process based on exposure to input. Her conclusion, a reasonable one, is that we cannot recreate the conditions of natural acquisition is three 45 minute lessons a week. Teachers need clear goals and some realism about what can be achieved, given the varied motivation they will encounter.

Broady explores, in everyday language, how teachers can approach target language use, the notions of declarative and procedural knowledge, automatisation of explicit knowledge and the idea of processing insstruction (explained in general terms). She explains what is meant by Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Language Teaching, with examples. She refers to the importance of understanding input as a pre-requisite to acquisition, citing VanPatten.

All in all, new teachers should find this a readable, non-technical introduction to to key consideratons for the classroom. The six tasks invite useful reflection.

Chapter 2 by Laura Molway is about motivation, that "internal force which drives learners' behaviour" (p.17). She begins with general challenges faced by teachers working in an English-speaking contry and how teachers might broach these with students. She explains the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, with the former being the more important. She emphasises the importance of getting to know students and their differences (Task 1 and 2 are useful here).

The remainder of the chapter is largely devoted to explaining some influential theories of motivation: expectancy value, Bandura's self-efficacy, Dweck's mindsets, self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan), the motivational self system (Dörnyei). These sections are interpersed with practical task on vocabulary learning strategies, feedback and praise and 'group talk'. Since motivation is so important in our field, this sort of background knowledge is worth having - we took the same approach in our second edition of The Language Teacher Toolkit (Smith and Conti, 2023).

Chapter 3 by Claudia Mewald is focused on assessment, especially assessment for learing (formative assessment). The chapter looks in particular at the effect of positive backwash (how the assessment can have a positive effect on teaching which precedes it). The language of this chapter is notably more 'academic', so may be more challenging for some intended readers - for example the section on communicative competence models of assessment on p.29-30. The bibliography is particularly long. I have a feeling the editors could have had even greater input in refining the structure to make the chapter clearer and shorter. Perhaps Mewald's own research interests skewed this chapter in certain directions?

The chapter begins with definitions of formative and summative assessment (could these have been clearer?).  The explanation of the CEFR level descriptors is useful, even though, as Mewald notes, it is not widely used by teachers in England. the following sections on assessment for learning, although interesting, seem overly theoretical for the target readership. 

The section on backwash (p.33) is important, especially for teachers in England who are highly aaccountable via high-stakes exams. The nature of the assessment strongly affects the teaching. Pages 38-39 are useful with regard to the important idea of backward design when planning teaching sequences. There is no argument about the final senetnce of the chapetr: "... thinking about expected performances and criteria for their assessment befire the actual planning of teaching and learning will create better chances for more successful learning outcomes" (p.43).

Chapter 4 is my own contribition. It takes on board the relatively recent interest from languge teachers in cognitive science, as well as some more mainstream finding from second language learning theory. My aim here was to give new teachers the basics on soem key issues: a model of memory, working memory, phonological memory, repetition, spacing and the testing effect (retrieval practice effect), dual coding, transfer-appropriate processing and cognitive load. The theoretical decsriptions are interspersed with practica classroom aplications, for example a way to do vocabulary learning with a sentence builder to make the most efficient use of working memory.

Advice on managing cognitive lod is provided, e.g. through the use of skilled quetioning, chunking and everyday classroom tips. Task 4.5 invites teachers to design a set of questions (of various types, e.g. yes/no; either/or; open-ended) based on a simple text.

The sections on second language acquisition reearch look at priming and learnability, in particular. With regrad to the latetr, readers are invited in Task 4.6 to think about structures they found harder to acquire and why.

Chapter 5 is by Thomas Strasser and is about using digital tools. He begins with descriptions of terminology, such as blended learning and fully digital language learning, listing some of the many tools teachers can use for various purposes, notably mind-mapping tools such as Padlet and Mindmeister. Strasser makes the important point that the focus should be on the quality of digital tools and how "methodologically sustainable" they are (p.67). Table 5.2 is useful on the potential problems you may encounter with digital tools and possible solutions.

The practical exmples described are of interest, but I wonder if new teachers in the UK would have benefited more from refernces to widely, easily used applications such as textivate.com, teachvid.com, Quizlet,  sentencebuilders.com, language-gym, Languagenut, Linguascpe and the like.

Gary N. Chambers' Chapter 6 is about listening. He makes the case for focusing on it as a skill and its inherent difficulty. He describes issues around top-down and bottom-up listening. He wisely refers to lsietning as testing versus listening as learning. His main concrete classroom example is a teaching sequence based on a German poem, using the familar structure of pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening. I think his examples on p.91 of sites to practise while-listening are very limited and not the most up to date. His examples on p.93 are more suited to intermediate learners and above than beginners. All in all, a solid chapter which should be of general use to trainees, but which could have delved more into ways to develop bottom-up decoding skills (as in Conti and Smith, 2019, for example).

Chapter 7 is about speaking and is written by Suzanne Graham. After pointing ou the challenges of speaking and getting teachers to reflect on what they have observed in lessons, Graham emphasises the importance of giving students a need and desire to speak, e.g. through information gap tasks. To make speaking more personalised and creative, including risk taking, she argues that more controlled activities need to be done first, with careful modelling of the language to be used. She further stresses the importance of reducing anxiety through the use of pair and group work

Notable in this useful chapter is the fact that Suzanne works a lot with teachers and sees things through their lens. This comes through strongly.

Chapter 8 by Ian Collen is about reading and writing. Good to see the early emphasis on flooding pupils with comptrehensible input. After describing the work of the TSC Pedagogy Review (2016), NCELP (now defunct) and the Ofsted Research Rview (2021), Collen warns of over-reliance on the idea of 'building blocks' based on phonics, vocabulary and grammar. Hear hear. 

the section on choosing texts and comprehensibiliuty is welcome. he includes a section on translation, with examples of scaffolded activities such as 'tangled translation' and gapped translation. Good to ee descriptions of 'running translation' and 'one pen, one die'.

The section onwriting, as with Suzanne Grahma's chapter, talks about the importance of building up writing skill through creful modelling. New teachers need to be clear that giving open-ended tasks to students with little knowledge is likely to be unproductive. The final section on GCSE notes important points regrading getting the level of challenge right, asking good questions and giving feedback

Chapter 9 by Judith Rifeser and Crista Hazell is about teaching grammar. (The absence of a similar chapter on vocabulary is revealing - traditionally educators seem to worry more about grammar than vocabulary, even though the latter is ultimately more important.The main focus of the chpter is how we can make grammar seem "authentic, relevant, purposeful and stimulating" (p. 118). Task 9.1 invites the reader to list 'must-teach' grammatical items with possible authentic sources to support their teaching.

The thrust of the chapter as a whole is to argue against the old grammar-translation idea of teaching grammar rules, then practising them in the PPP style. Better to start with interesting texts and use them for 'focus on form' activities, drawing attention to grammar patterns. The term 'guided unpacking ' is used on p. 128 to get across the idea that it's best to start with the text, then look at the grammatical form. Meaning takes precedence over form. The chapter also tries to communicate how important it is to generate the right feelings and motivation in students when introducing grammar. Some readers might find the chapter neglects to explore activities (e.g. drill-style) which automatise grammatical knowledge.

Chapter 10 by Prue Holmes and Lamia Nemouchi considers the intercultural dimension. Following the influential framing of ideas by Mike Byram, teachers are asked to examine assumptions thye may have about cultures and to help students become 'culturally competent' citizens who better understand themselves and others. This broader dimension is one that language teaachers may neglect as they worry about how their classes will learn vocabulary and pass the next test to get a good grade. The rest of the chapter explores way to help develop intercultural competence,including through the use of CLIL.

Chapter 11 by Claudia Mewald is aabout multilingualism. It's about using learenrs' full linguistic potential, greater intercomprehension among students via that means. Terminology is explained, including what is meant by intercomprehension and translanguaging (using more than one language during conversation for the purpose of communication). This will all seem more relevant to teachers working in multilingual classes. Other areas discussed include authentic materials, scaffolding and autonomy and strategies. Overall trainee teachers might welcome more precise guidance on how to set up specific lessons, but there's no doubt that this is an area worth thinking about.

Chapter 12, by Peeter Mehisto and Sarah O'Neill, is about critical pedagogy: fostering learner engagement ans critical thinking. Critical pedagogy is "focused on reducing inequalities and injustices" (p. 165). A key here is using materials which get students thinking about social issues such as inequality and justice, as they relate to students' own lives and the wider world. Examples are taken from Spanish classes in the USA and CLIL in three UK schools. Issues surrounding the use of challenging texts are discussed - the old dilemma raises its head: how do you reconcile the limited linguistic knowledge students possess with the sophisticated level of texts and arguments around social issues? I don't think this is resolved and is the main reason CLIL has not taken off in UK secondary classrooms. The further examples in the chapter may seem quite removed from the experience and necessities of secondary school MFL lessons, apart from tnose at A-level, where linguistic skills are much more developed.

Chapter 13 is about professional identity and was written by René Kogelbauer. The chapter aims to help teachers understand thei role in the extended community of teachers and the opportunities they have to develop their teaching journey. Task 13.1 gets teachers and trainees thinking about their identity. Teacher standaards are explained, what it means to be an 'extended professional' and what a community of practice consists of. Task 13.3 on p. 184 has is useful in familiarising teachers with common activities of communities of practice, such as how to get information, seek experience and reuse assets.

Information is given on the bodies which instigate curriculum reform, e.g. the DfE and Ofqual. Ways are alos described to engage with the local community. A useful chapter in helping teachers understand where they fit in the system and how they can develop.

Chapter 14 is by Mike Calvert and is about teacher enquiry for professional development. This is about what it means to be a reflective practitioner and conducting classroom ressearch to help improve and question exisiting practice. It's about creating an 'evidence-informed classroom' (p.199).

In sum...

There is a lot of good stuff in this book and it is certainly a worthwhile read for trainee teachers. A strong point is the range of self-reflection/discussion tasks in each chapter. There is a wealth of practical ideas along with references to second language acquisition research, cognitive science, motivation, assessment and research on intercultural competence and critical pedagogy. 

I can identify areas which I think are missing: teaching neirodiverse and SEND students, A-level teaching, teaching vocabulary and lexicogrammar, and EPI (surely worth referencing given its widespread use in UK schools). I think trainee teachers would also benefit from more specific guidance on planning lessons and lesson sequences, including how to successfully use target language through questioning, drilling and information gap tasks. TPRS, although marginal in the UK context, could have been referenced. Knowledge Organisers are not mentioned, as far as I recall. Some teachers may have welcomed a greater focus on preparing students for GCSE.

In addition, and this is a common issue with edited volumes, the style is inconsistent, with a couple of chapters feeling too 'academic' for the target readership. I am partly keeping in mind the number of readers who will not have English as their first language. The writers with a strong classroom background or experience working with teachers in the UK get the best tone and level of difficulty, I think. 

The book is on trend in other respects, notably when it comes to intercultural competence and critical pedagogy, but I would question slightly how much space should be devoted to these, given the immediate concerns of trainee teachers learning to survive and thrive in challenging classrooms.

One final point: the use of the term 'foreign languages' in the titles feels a bit dated to me, and some would object to its use at all. The choice to keep it may be down to consistency with earler editions.