Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

The new-look frenchteacher.net site is now up and running. Thanks to Harry Green for the redesign. I have left some of the resources free (Spanish, powerpoints, teacher guides and whiteboard notes and links). The main resources sections are accessible by subscription at £20 per year. Just go to the site if you wish to sign up. I have chosen a low cost annual subscription, hoping that lots of people will choose to continue using the resources. I shall be adding lots of new stuff. I hope you like the simple, easy to navigate design. http://www.frenchteacher.net

I read that the head of Ofqual Glenys Stacey is looking at wide-ranging reforms to A-levels and is now seriously concerned about grade inflation. She has also suggested that modules may need reforming and that they may be appropriate for some subjects but not others. The possibility is also raised that not all subjects require an AS-level. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/29/exams-a-level-reforms-grade-inflation?CMP=twt_fd I always thought it was a shame that when the Curriculum 2000 discussions took place we did not take advantage of the opportunity to seriously broaden A-levels. The "gold standard" people won the argument and we ended up with the "dog's breakfast" situation in England and Wales whereby students usually do four subjects at AS-level, then three at A-level. I would have preferred us to have broadened to five subjects studies over two years. It is hard to see how one could do away with AS-levels for some subjects and not others. ...

I thought I would compile a list of types of pupil speak in the classroom. Many games can be subsumed within the activity types below. I know you can think of more. 1. Whole group repetition or phonics activity (including whispering, shouting, singing) 2. Part group repetition (small groups, rows, pairs) 3. Reading aloud individually or as a group from text on the board (good for sound - spelling link) 4. Reading aloud from a worksheet, homework task or text book 5. Answering a question with hand up (e.g. from picture, picture sequence, structured question) 6. Answering a question without hand up 7. In pairs, taking turns to say a word, phrase or sentence until someone runs out of ideas 8. Playing a guessing game in pairs (e.g. guessing what your partner did last weekend, playing "battleships") 9. Doing an information gap task in pairs (e.g. completing a schedule or diary) 10. Making up true/false statements (in pairs or for whole class) 11. Making up false...

I've decided to change the design template for the blog. Partly this is just for a change, but the new colour scheme and unfussy Blogger design fits better with the re-designed frenchteacher.net website, which should be up and running from May 1st. An A-level ICT student, Harry Green, has been working on this for a few months and we are close to "going live". As you probably know, I am making most of my site's resources available on a small subscription basis - £20 a year. You'll be able from 1st May to go to the site and sign up using PayPal or your debit/credit card. If that is awkward for any schools I can also process cheque payments. This is to be my paid hobby in retirement, competing with spending more time with my wife Elspeth Jones reading, blogging, singing, drumming, travelling and exercising. I have no idea how many people will choose to subscribe, although I have had quite a few inquiries already. I hope you like the new, simple look.

I read the following on the Ofqual website: We know from the research we've already commissioned that, although controlled assessment has some benefits over coursework, it presents problems for schools in managing the practical arrangements across subjects and there are concerns about its impact on teaching and learning. Our research included the views of over 800 teachers. One of the findings was that the advice and guidance for teachers was inconsistent and confusing. We asked the GCSE awarding organisations to review their guidance and a revised version of the joint JCQ instructions for conducting controlled assessment will be issued for September. We will now review the case for controlled assessment on a subject by subject basis. There are currently 35 different sets of controlled assessment regulations. We’ll be looking at whether there is a good case for all of those subjects to have controlled assessment when GCSEs are next revised for teaching in Sept...

Photo : Veolia Transdev Pendant près de 20 ans j'ai visité le Mont St Michel presque tous les ans en compagnie de mes élèves de cinquième et mes collègues. On y trouve des magasins de souvenirs (d'une qualité variable), de petits musées, des cafés, des restaurants sans parler de l'abbaye tranquille qui se trouve à son sommet. Depuis plusieurs années on parle d'interdire l'accès au site par des véhicules. (La digue dont ils se servent a un effet nuisible sur la baie, créant un ensablement excessif.) Alors à partir de samedi ce sera chose faite. Mais les touristes devront attendre le pont-passerelle qui est en construction et qui sera terminé en 2015. Pour l'instant on pourra prendre des bus électriques qui emprunteront la digue d'accès existante. Mais ça ne sera pas forcément facile...... http://www.metrofrance.com/info/le-mont-saint-michel-la-fin-des-voitures-mais-pas-des-polemiques/mldz!B4BXUsXLN3vps/

Below is part of an essay on lesson planning from the frenchteacher.net website. One thing I would add to it is that these days Ofsted inspectors like to see evidence of progress within a lesson. This is problematic in languages where we are gradually accumulating skills over a long period. If you neglect good models of target language I think it is inevitable that pupils' listening skills and general comprehension will be poorer in the long run. Therefore you should judge progress over months and years, not 60 minutes. Here is what I have written. I hope it represents common sense for young teachers setting out on a language teaching career. "Language teachers talk a lot about this and it is fair to say that opinions vary! I’ll put this as simply as I can: children need to hear lots of the target language (what is sometimes called in the jargon ”comprehensible input”) to allow their brains to exploit their natural language learning capability. But children also need ...