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 ...