Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

This is long overdue. Ofqual is finally addressing, as part of its general review of grading, the issue of to what extent native speakers affect the allocation of grades. We know that grading at A-level is relatively tough. We also know that relatively few students get A* grades. When you then factor in that a proportion of those starred grades go to fluent native speakers, it makes it pretty tough for clever non-native linguists to get those prized A*s. This may discourage some students from taking languages at all. Here is what Ofqual are saying. I have copied part of their blog post. I would urge you to help Ofqual by contacting Rachel Taylor at the email address below. "Ofqual is set to conduct research on the impact of native speakers on exam results in A level modern foreign languages (MFLs). To ensure our research is as accurate as possible we’re asking for help from schools so that we can gain a greater understanding of the types of students sitting A level MFL this summer...

Susan O'Connor, who is Learning Support Coordinator and teacher with thirty years' experience has given me a copy of her book called Mighty Memory Tricks - Easy Ways to Remember Your Classwork . It is an A4 spiral-bound book of 78 pages aimed at children aged between 7 and 13 and published by TTS Group in Abingdon. Although not specifically aimed at language learners, it does contain memory tricks which would be mainly useful to learners of below average attainment. Now, this is not really my area of expertise, but having looked through each side of A4 it looks to be a book a considerable practical use to its target audience. Susan's "Mighty Memory Tricks" are a selection of tricks and games which aim to help children think independently, persevere and take the initiative for their learning. She starts from the sound principle that memory is reinforced when various elements are involved in the process: taste, touch, hearing, reading, feelings and so on. ...

I've been busy working on resources for the new A-levels and GCSEs in recent weeks. From September specifications will change somewhat and I am keen for the site to provide plenty of support for these new qualifications. Much of the material on the site can be carried over, but there will be gaps to fill and I have already reorganised the A-level pages to reflect the new 'sub-themes' the exam boards are putting forward. Here is what has been added in the last two weeks: GCSE (intermediate)  100 Foundation Tier translation sentences. You could use these with younger pupils too, but they would work well for practice in the run-up to exams. Answers provided.  20 Higher Tier translation paragraphs. As for the Foundation Tier translations I took the exam boards specimens as my model. Answers provided. Advanced (AS and A-level)  Article and exercises on the rise of the far right in France. This topic features in at least on of the new A-level specifications. Ar...

When the government decided it wanted to reform A-levels, they set up a committee called ALCAB, largely made up of Russell Group university academics. ALCAB looked at the existing specifications and recorded a number of perceived weaknesses. Firstly, they noted that there was too much inconsistency between schools in terms of the challenge offered by the cultural topics being studied. For example, was it right that some schools taught a relatively shallow film whilst others were teaching lengthy, serious novels? This meant the assessment was not as robust as it should be. Secondly, they were concerned that not enough language study was being conducted in the context of the target language culture. The panel was concerned that too many of their undergraduates were arriving at university with inadequate knowledge of the culture of their language of study. Thirdly, they claimed that the current A-levels did not present enough if a cognitive challenge, leaving them devalued when compared ...

My friend Gianfranco Conti has posted today on Facebook that his excellent interactive site The Language Gym has had a bit of a makeover, with new material added for German too. Here is his post: "The new still FREE version of www.language-gym.com will be launched later today - in three to four hours with totally new design and custom-made images. Of course there will be glitches and hiccups and please notify us of any error you may spot. Please note: 1. There is a new landing page - running boy will me smiling soon to send a more positive message to your students; 2. Verb trainer has been completely updated and GERMAN has been finaly added; 3. The Boxing game has been rewritten in html5 and there are a now a few games available for each of the four languages - not just the one game as in the past - French has holidays, school, environments, connectives, etc. 4. The WORK-OUTS have NOT been updated s yet, they will be next week or so. Hence, when clicking on work-outs yo...

One of the new aspects of A-level assessment from 2017 and 2018 is the inclusion, at both AS and A-level, of summary tasks. On each Listening, Reading, Writing paper (Paper 1) there will be two summary tasks, one of a listening source, one of a written text. At AS-level the source texts are of around 150-200 words, at A-level a little longer. With AQA the length of the summary, written in target language, is around 75 words at AS-level and 90 words at A-level. You need to check specifications for any variations. The inclusion of summary comes from the DfE/Ofqual and is common to all exam boards. I welcome this change. Summary is one of those multi-skill assessment tasks which marry well with what I would consider good classroom practice. Once you have worked on a listening or reading text with a class, exploiting in various ways (e.g. pre-reading/listening tasks, reading aloud, oral interactions including question-answer, correcting false sentences, aural gap-fill, information gaps a...

Hodder have been kind enough to send me a copy of their new text book for A-level French which is published in May. This is an 'all-in-one', comprehensive AS and A-level book which, before discount, costs £29.99, making it relatively good value these days for a two year course. It has an unusually long list of authors: Casimir d’Angelo Jean-Claude Gilles Rod Hares Lauren Léchelle, with: Séverine Chevrier-Clarke Lisa Littlewood and Kirsty Thathapudi. You may know of Rod Hares - he wrote Tout Droit with David Mort and Compo. The course rigorously covers all the sub-themes in the specification, includes work on all the prescribed texts and films and builds in a review of sub-themes covered in Year 1 into the year 2 programme. This is useful when you bear in mind the structure of the new A-level and the standalone AS-level. In its early pages the book features maps of France and the francophone world and an explanation for students about how the A-level specification is str...