Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

I've been blogging since 2009 and usually post about 130 - 150 times a year. I sometimes wonder if I'll run out of topics to write about but, as you can see,  I haven't done so far. It seems that in semi-retirement I can't stop thinking about language teaching. I've got two handbooks under my belt, with another one in preparation with Gianfranco Conti (about teaching listening), umpteen blogs, Facebook and Twitter posts and a steady flow of new resources on frenchteacher.net. No doubt I shall slow down at some point, but not quite yet. En passant   Facebook is definitely the place to be for support and ideas from fellow professionals. You could try GILT (Global Innovative Language Teachers), Secondary MFL Matters or MFL Teachers Lounge. The first of these is a bit more focused on theoretical, pedagogical issues in general while the others are more parochial and a bit more centered on day to day issues of interest to British teachers. My favourite language teac...

Periodically on Twitter a thread begins about seating pupils in rows or around grouped tables. Such threads often associate seating arrangements with a general view of education. In essence, rows indicate a traditionalist view (teacher as “sage on stage”) while groups reflect a progressive perspective (“guide from the side”). I wonder what seating arrangements you use and why. I tried out various seating systems during my career: rows, horse shoes and grouped tables, occasionally a combination of central horse shoe and rows to the side and behind. For at least 10 years my tiny classroom meant rows were the only solution. For many “itinerant” teachers you have no choice - you turn up and work with whatever is already in place. By the end of my career I used forward facing rows then moved tables into a horseshoe for small groups of about 15 or fewer. The arguments for different seating patterns have been well rehearsed: better teacher and board visibility with rows, greater encouragement...

I sometimes come across language teachers who object to buying teacher-produced resources on platforms such as TES. They believe that teachers should be freely sharing their work, not profiting from it. TES for a number of years was a place where you could share resources for nothing, but a while ago they decided to make some money for themselves and for teachers by giving the option to sell worksheets, PowerPoints and so on. TES continues to share free resources. Is selling resources something teachers should welcome or disparage? To my mind making and selling resources, whether you are a practising teacher or a retired one like me, is just one form of publishing. If you write a textbook, you get a percentage from the publisher. No one finds this odd (apart perhaps from the low percentage you get - about 10% - you don’t get rich on writing language teaching books or textbooks). If you write a resource for TES or Teachers Pay Teachers (popular in the USA) you also get your percentage, ...

Phonics, to be clear, is not just teaching sounds and pronunciation; it is about explicitly pointing out and practising sound-spelling relationships. The theory goes that by teaching phonics, either incidentally or in a planned way, we will produce better decoders, pronouncers and readers. At a recent presentation I gave about teaching listening I asked the roughly 50 teachers present how many taught phonics in a very systematic (planned in detail) way. A couple said they did. Most said they taught phonics in a somewhat incidental way. I confess that I rarely did at all, preferring to spend more time on just reading aloud and pronunciation divorced from spelling, i.e. repeating individual phonemes, words or chunks without the spellings in view. The 2017 TSC (Teaching Schools Council) report on MFL pedagogy in England recommended, among other things, phonics teaching. I believe that many primary teachers, used to teaching phonics to L1 leaners, enjoy doing the same with their second lan...

This is mainly to point out the existence of a very good blog site for language teachers. It's called World Language Classroom and it's maintained by Josué (Joshua) who sometimes posts Periscope videos on Twitter, in which he discusses issues to do with language teaching. Josué is from the Boston, Massachusetts area, has an MA in applied linguistics, teaches, runs workshops and raises money through his resources for two schools, one in Haiti, one in Nicaragua. He also spends time volunteering in those same schools. Busy fellow! His blog has had over 1.2 million views too. His blog posts feature subjects such as grammar teaching, planning, task-based language teaching (where he outlines a definition of the difference between "exercises" and "tasks"), modes of communication (based on the ACTFL's model - Interpersonal, Presentational and Interpretive), target language use and Project based Learning (PBL). One interesting post about grammar features...

There is a craze for this game on MFL teacher social media at the moment. It is variously called: One die, one pen; One dice, one pen; One die, one pencil. Just combine your preferred noun with your writing implement. I have just learned it comes from the book Games for Teaching Primary French by Danièle Bourdais and Sue Finnie. This is how the game is played. Each partner has a writing task to complete (gapped translations seem popular). On starts with the pen(cil),the other with the dice. While the pen-holder starts their written task, the dice holder rolls the dice until they get a 6. When they do they get to use the pen while their partner gets the dice and starts rolling until they get their turn again. The winner is the pupil who finishes their written task first. Some teachers are playing variations on this pattern with groups of three or four. Teachers report how motivating the game is and how keen students are to work quickly. You could give each student a different writt...

I was prompted to write this blog after reading two research-based blogs about correcting students' written errors. The first, typically provocative in its title,  is one by Gianfranco Conti here . the second, in response to Gianfranco's post is here by Russell Mayne on the blog Evidence based EFL. I recommend both blogs. The introduction of Gianfranco's blog post (one of a number he has written on error correction) puts the issue of error correction into context: "Most secondary school MFL teachers correct their student writers’ mistakes. But does error correction ACTUALLY enhance L2-writing proficiency development? A large number of scholars who espouse Cognitive theories of L2-acquisition (e.g. McLaughlin, 1987; Johnson, 1988, 1996), the vast majority of teachers (Applebee, 1984; Zamel, 1985) and most L2-learners (Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998) think so. However, many language educators working in the Nativist paradigm oppose this view. Believing that L2-acq...