Teach Now! Modern Foreign Languages

Becoming a Great Teacher of Modern Foreign Languages

Sally Allan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317704775
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Being taught by a great teacher is one of the great privileges of life. Teach Now! is an exciting new series that opens up the secrets of great teachers and, step-by-step, helps trainees to build the skills and confidence they need to become first-rate classroom practitioners.

Written by a highly-skilled practitioner, this practical, classroom-focused guide contains all the support you need to become a great modern foreign languages teacher. Combining a grounded, modern rationale for learning and teaching with highly practical training approaches, the book guides you through all the different aspects of MFL teaching offering clear, straightforward advice on classroom practice, lesson planning and working in schools.

Teaching and learning, planning, assessment and behaviour management are all covered in detail, with a host of carefully chosen examples used to demonstrate good practice. There are also chapters on the essentials of the MFL curriculum, pedagogical techniques, strategies to engage students in language learning, and how to succeed in observations and interviews. Throughout the book, there is a great selection of ready-to-use activities, approaches and techniques which will help put you on the fast track to success in the classroom.

Covering everything you need to know, this book is your essential guide as you start your exciting and rewarding career as an outstanding MFL teacher.

1 Curriculum essentials

What are the key components and challenges in teaching this subject?

DOI: 10.4324/9781315781198-2

Target language

Many trainee MFL teachers stress about the question of teaching in the target language (TL). They wonder: What is best practice when it comes to using the TL (the language you are teaching, e.g. French/German/Spanish) in the classroom? How much should you use it? What terms are seen as key language? How much TL should be used?

Many languages teachers have quite strong views on the topic of TL, but I would advise that you have to find your own way and use the amount you feel most comfortable with. I use it as much as it feels natural to do, in particular interacting with students, but I can say that I very rarely use it when introducing a new grammar concept.

There are times during the lesson when it would seem natural to speak to the students in TL. For example:

• greetings at the door as students are entering the classroom;
• farewells at the end of the lesson and leaving the classroom;
• taking a register and expecting a response in the TL;
• giving classroom instructions and establishing routines;
• setting up language tasks or activities, such as reading tasks or a listening activity.

There is an argument that you can teach a whole lesson in the TL, creating an immersion environment and persevering against all the odds in order not to fall back into English.

This can provide its own challenges.

It is obvious that, as a languages teacher, you have to speak the language in the classroom, and you have to encourage students to do the same. You have to experiment with the students you have, depending on their experience to date, and consider what will work best for you in the situation in which you find yourself.

How can you support your students to use the TL?

During one observation, as a student teacher, I remember my tutor drawing up a tally chart against the students in the class and how many of them spoke the TL during the lesson.

I often think back to this and, when I am teaching, I try to keep a mental note of who has spoken French to me during the course of the lesson. It is so easy for some students to sit back and allow the more enthusiastic, more confident students to speak up in the TL.

Often, for targets at parents’ evenings, I may set as a target for a quiet, shy student to try and interact at least once with me or another student in the classroom in the TL. Some suggestions to support your students to understand you speaking the target language are as follows:

• using gestures/mimes can help, for example, nodding/shaking your head;
• using visual clues – flashcards or an old overhead projector are a change to a powerpoint/visualizer (ask your head of department if there are any in the department);
• choosing vocabulary that uses cognates or that just sounds similar to English or can link into the topic;
• ensuring that the students understand by asking for a helper/interpreter to check for understanding.

If you are unsure, particularly with your second/third language, there are lists available online and in teacher resources material that will give you an idea of the kind of TL you should try and use in the classroom as a starting point. For example:

• Ouvrez vos cahiers.
• Tournez à la page …
• Un peu de silence s’il vous plaît.
• Quelqu’un veut lire?
• Avez-vous fini?
• Tout le monde est prêt?

And you should encourage students to use the TL for real purposes within the classroom. Use classroom displays to support this too. For example,

• J’ai oublié mon cahier.
• Je suis désolé d’être en retard.
• Puis-je ouvrir la fenêtre?
• Puis-je aller aux toilette?

Chapter 6 explores in depth the subject of using different types of language when explaining something or using questioning in the classroom. This includes the language that you should use when giving feedback. There is certainly a place for using the TL when marking books too.

The easiest thing for a student in a languages lesson is to say, ‘I can’t do it’, ‘I don’t speak French’, ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘I don’t get it’. Students can so easily become disengaged and switch off if they are sitting in a classroom trying to listen to a teacher speaking, from their point of view, gobbledegook.

How many times have you tried to do a listening activity, set it up perfectly, explained the task, felt good about it and that all students knew what they had to do, and you began the audio, and students responded, ‘eh?’, ‘What did they say?’, ‘Can you repeat that bit, Miss?’? It still happens to me, and it is infuriating!

The importance of communication

For years now language teaching has been based on a communicative approach. You are less likely to see more traditional methods such as translation of long paragraphs and class dictation. David Nunan (1991) lists five features of communicative language teaching; these are:

1. an emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language;
2. the introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation;
3. the provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on the language, but also on the learning process itself;
4. an enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning;
5. an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom.

The emphasis of this approach is for students to understand a meaning, rather than the form of the language (language structure), and to be able to communicate this meaning effectively so that there is a shared understanding. This means that students and teachers can communicate with one another, using the TL as the focus, and the learners all have something that they can say and also something that they can discover.

Creating a culture within the classroom where the students can, and are willing to, communicate with one another, as well as with you, the teacher, is key. As soon as the students can see the evidence of their own learning, it will build a level of confidence within the students, but also develop more of a ‘can-do’ approach within the classroom.

There are different ways to develop this kind of culture. One way is to use differentiation, once you have identified your strongest learners in the classroom. You can rely on them to deliver the correct response, and, at the same time, they are demonstrating the language to the weaker learners within the class; children learn as much from listening to one another speaking the language as they can from you.

A second strategy to develop a more communicative style is by using the ‘no hands up’ approach.

Imagine being in a classroom where students are not allowed to put their hands up, only to ask a question. As the teacher, you are leading the class in their interaction and their learning. If you invite students to put their hands up to answer a question, you invite others to sit back and do nothing by not putting their hands up.

This strategy works really well once you have learned all of their names (or with a seating plan in your hand). You can even ask the students for their responses when you are writing on the board, or sorting the next task. It is a very effective way to ensure that all students are being attentive, all students are listening and all students are prepared to give you an answer.

This means that students cannot hide behind those who are more confident linguists. Earlier in the chapter, I mentioned the concept of all students speaking some TL within the lesson. This approach means that you can ensure that all students participate one way or another within the classroom.

Students quickly get used to this and will therefore expect to be asked to answer in the TL. For those who are incredibly shy or find the language very difficult, I ask for ‘helpers’ to be able to prompt them if necessary. (There is more on this in the ‘speaking’ section of the four skill areas below.)

The four skill areas: reading, writing, listening and speaking

The National Curriculum in England dictates the topics that are taught to students in secondary school from the ages of 11 to 14. GCSE specifications continue to do this once students have opted to continue the subject at KS4 (14–16). National Curriculum levels that have been used in the past to report on students’ progress and attainment are being removed and are no longer a statutory requirement. There are no current plans to replace them.

In MFL, National Curriculum levels have been a way to demonstrate a stepped approach for the students at KS3, clearly showing where student are succeeding, as well as what they needed to do in terms of developing the four skill areas.

Assessment should continue to be done through the four skill areas, as this will enable students who have particular strengths in listening or speaking, for example, to be able to see where they are succeeding and where they still need to develop.

Over time, languages departments, alongside their school policies, will develop their own systems of assessing the four skill areas to show progression. Assessment continues at KS4 with four papers for the GCSE examination. Students have to demonstrate their ability in reading, writing, listening and speaking by completing four separate papers. Currently, the controlled assessments in speaking and writing make up 60 per cent of the final grade. GCSE reforms are planned from 2015, and so this may alter in time.

When thinking about planning lessons, I still look over the final plan and check that I have enough tasks and activities to cover all four of the skills. I ensure that I include reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in every lesson.

Reading

Getting students to read can be difficult enough in English, never mind in another language. Start small and start early is my advice. As soon as students start learning a foreign language, they should be encouraged to read vocabulary in context.

Reading will develop and broaden vocabulary, as well as contextualize it, using and demonstrating important grammar structures. Reading texts doesn’t have to mean reading books. It can start with short sentences. Students may well be daunted by a longer text, so encourage progression by starting early; they can move from single words and short phrases to longer sentences and paragraphs. In time, students should also be encouraged to read for gist and then to use their understanding to work out the meaning of any unfamiliar language. This will become easier for them as they develop their skills of looking for clues, paired with grammatical knowledge.

Here are twenty suggested reading tasks:

1. newspaper headlines: identifying grammar structures and recognition of vocabulary;
2. newspaper/magazine articles – regional newspapers in France are a lot easier and more accessible for younger students to understand than Le Monde or La Libération;
3. reading comprehension with questions in English (language content more challenging);
4. reading comprehension with questions in the target language (language content made easier – possibly with multiple choice questions);
5. letters and emails: reading comprehension;
6. using websites for research purposes;
7. reading poetry for vocabulary recognition or consolidation;
8. create a role-p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Series editor’s foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Curriculum essentials: what are the key components and challenges in teaching this subject?
• 2 Pedagogy essentials: what techniques and strategies work best in teaching this subject?
• 3 Planning essentials: what does good long-, mediumand short-term planning look like?
• 4 Assessment essentials: different ways of assessing students’ progress (formative and summative)
• 5 Differentiating: how to make the subject relevant, challenging and accessible to all ability levels
• 6 Using language to explain, question, give feedback
• 7 Ensuring good behaviour
• 8 Dealing with observations
• 9 Dealing with pressure
• 10 Applying for your first post
• 11 Interview advice and likely questions
• 12 Your first term in post
• Further reading
• Index