Making a flag

The last unit of my Year 3 scheme of work is one of my favourites - Mi bandera.  The children learn how to describe the colours and shapes on flags, opening the door to other countries that speak Spanish and their cultures.  It usually coincides with a major sporting event and so the children are always interested in it.

After we have finished practising all the speaking with actions (multimodal - it really works!) the children make their own flag and describe it to the rest of the class.

I always use the method of making a wave-able flag that I first saw on Barbara Cheded's blog.  Unfortunately the link for the instructions no longer works, and I can't find them anywhere else, so I've done my own instructions for making the flag here:

1.  Fold a piece of A4 paper into quarters.

2.  Cut off one of the quarters (it doesn't matter which one).

3.  It's important to get the piece of paper the right way round at this stage - children sometimes put the paper in the portrait orientation and end up with the wrong-shaped flag.  At this stage children draw and colour their flag design on the "flag" section.

4.  When the flag design is finished, roll up the flag pole section of the paper and stick it with some sticky tape (we've never had any luck with glue!)  The flag is now ready to be waved.

Primary Languages Conference: Pillars of Progression

Primary teachers and specialist teachers of primary languages are always looking for good quality CPD.  The online conference Pillars of Progression is a joint project from the teams behind the successful Northern Primary Languages Show (NPLS) and Southern Primary Languages Show (SPLS), and I am delighted to have been invited to speak about the pillar of vocabulary.

Here is more information about the conference and its sessions:

The conference will take place on Zoom.  If you're a member of the Association for Language Learning (ALL) it will cost you £5, if you aren't a member it's only £25.  

To book your place, go quickly to the online booking form, as places are limited.

See you there!

Doozy

I've mentioned before that I subscribe to Richard Byrne's blog Free Tech for Teachers.  I recommend you follow it as well, particularly if you use Google Classroom, as there are lots of posts and useful information about that.  This morning Richard has written a post about an online quiz generator called Doozy.

You can use Doozy to build quizzes that require students to type in their answer, or multiple choice quizzes.  

I've had a go at making a quiz where you have to type the answers in.  It's all about regular -AR verbs in Spanish, and you can try it out by clicking here.

You don't have to create an account to use Doozy, so if you create content you'll have to think of a way of keeping a record of the links for the quizzes you've made.

You can play by yourself, or send the link to friends and play along with them, or you can be the quizmaster - this generates a quiz in a similar way to Kahoot that can be played by a group of people at the same time.  The quizzes can also be played over Zoom, Google Hangouts, Messenger and Houseparty - Doozy is a new application which has been developed since the beginning of lockdown.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to play as a team or against others, but if you challenge yourself, you answer the questions and then at the end you have to mark your own answers.  In the language learning context this provides useful feedback to the student.

Doozy provides a useful and different alternative to other online activity generators, such as educandy, which have been widely used during this period of home learning.

Have a go and see what you think.

Do they know they're making progress?

I've mentioned before that I've been following the free Futurelearn course Teaching Languages in Primary Schools: Putting Research into Practice.  Yesterday I worked through week 2 (there are 3 weeks altogether) and it gave me more food for thought.

Following week 1, I've been thinking about progression, particularly in upper Key Stage 2 (age 9-11).  I learned that the younger children (lower Key Stage 2, age 7-9) benefit from lots of varied input with which they can actively engage.  They are emotionally engaged with the learning, and "fun activities from an engaging teacher" are particularly important for them at this stage in their learning journey.  The older ones, on the other hand, appreciate more challenge, focus, logic and structure, and more opportunities to reflect on the language and on their learning.  As the children get older, they gain a deeper understanding of their own learning and they become more frustrated if they don't achieve their learning goals.  Younger children are motivated by enjoying the fun activities, while for the older ones, progress and achievement are crucial to motivation.

So awareness of progression and a sense of achievement are key factors for motivation in the older children.  This has led me to think about progression:  I know what progression looks like in my scheme of work, and I know when the children have progressed and achieved their objectives.  But do the children know?  Do they know they're making progress?

I'm thinking of a possible way of showing the children explicitly how their learning is progressing and how they can do things at the end of a lesson that they couldn't do before.  Giving them a green stamp for achieving an objective and showing them my spreadsheet every so often probably isn't sufficient.

Week 2 of the Futurelearn course, during an interview with Sarah Dugdale, mentioned WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) texts for showing children what they are aiming for.  In this case, children can help the teacher to compile a list of things that they will need to know in order to create their own version of that text, and will see their progress as they "tick off" the different points on the list.  Sarah advocates using as the WAGOLL text a piece of work that  has been done by a previous pupil.  Children will find this more motivating: if that child can do it, they can do it.  You could also provide a teacher-produced WAGOLL, but children might perceive this as less motivating, as they already know the teacher can do it!  Incidentally, Sarah also commented that she can see a use for "WABOLL" (What A Bad One Looks Like) texts, where children are shown a bad (or less good!) example and can suggest ways to improve it (maybe in a content sense rather than accuracy).

Another solution that I have been thinking about is, at each stage of the learning, getting the children to write a few words or a short sentence to summarise what they have learned during that lesson, that they didn't know before.  I've made a mock-up of how that might look for the beginning of my first Year 6 unit:

Alternatively we could break down the learning objective to create a tick list as mentioned before.

What do you think?  Do you think that the children in your Year 5 and Year 6 classes know that they are making progress?  Can you think of any easy-preparation and quick ways of showing the children explicitly the progress that they are making so as to motivate them in their learning?

Languages in the news (3)

There has been another rash of press articles about languages following the publication yesterday of Towards a National Languages Strategy: Education and Skills.  The document has been compiled by the British Academy, The British Council, ASCL, Universities UK and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.   It is a set of proposals for a new national languages strategy and is well worth a read.

There are many proposals for all stages of education.  They include the establishment of an online portal for sharing messages, information and resources called Languages UK, which they want to establish as a brand.  They would like a major communications campaign to promote languages, and want to ensure the continuation of programmes like Erasmus+.

There are also a number of proposals for primary languages:

• The strengthening of existing funded partnerships or centres, to spread best practice and help all children to access high-quality provision (SCILT in Scotland, NICILT in Northern Ireland, Global Futures in Wales, and NCELP in England.
• A new task force or separate wing of NCELP devoted to primary education, led by primary practitioners and experts, for England
• Work with UK governments to establish and implement the best approach for the primary curriculum
• Work with UK governments to establish and implement the best approach for the transition to secondary
• DfE in England should develop clear non-statutory guidance on the amount of time that should be allocated to language learning in KS2  
• In Wales, the Welsh government should recognise and specify the time allocation for primary languages in the new Curriculum for Wales 2022
• In Northern Ireland, the DE should develop and implement a fully funded primary languages curriculum.
• Require teacher education providers in England, Wales and Scotland to extend the amount of time allocated to the primary languages subject specialism
• Universities and colleges should facilitate language learning for primary education trainees, so that they have the opportunity to achieve at least CEFR A1/A2 in a language
• DE(NI) should explore teacher education qualifications for primary languages

School cash incentive to promote language A-levels, BBC, 9.7.20 

Language learning is key to UK’s post-crisis recovery, ministers told, Big Issue, 8.7.20

* * * * * * *

Last week the DfE released the guidance for schools preparing to welcome back all students in September.  I noticed that languages were included in the list of subjects that Key Stage 3 students should be doing in September as part of their broad and balanced curriculum, but there was no mention in the Key Stage 2 list:

Given the often precarious position of languages in some primary schools, I found this concerning, and so tweeted DfE to ask if the failure to include languages was just an oversight or if it was deliberate.  Suzanne O'Farrell of ASCL replied and said she would investigate.

On Wednesday (July 8th), Baroness Coussins, chair of the All Party Parlimentary Group on MFL, stressed in the House of Lords the importance of language learning in primary school and asked for clarification.  (Time 18.49 on this video clip)  Baroness Coussins also shared the news via Twitter:

Please make sure that this news is shared with all your primary colleagues!

·         

Making a good resource

You may know that I have been making resources for some time.  25 years in the profession and 16 years sharing online have given me plenty of time to find a style that works and that other people are happy to use.  I made this video to show how I make a resource and to give my tips and tricks about fonts, images and so on.  I hope it helps you with your own resources.

To KO or not to KO? Knowledge organisers in primary languages

During these months of lockdown and working at home there has been a lot of discussion and reflection on Twitter and in the Facebook groups - primary and secondary - about Knowledge Organisers.  They are becoming more prevalent in both primary and secondary education across the curriculum.

In the primary languages context, there have been two main questions.  Firstly, what are knowledge organisers, and secondly, should we be using them?  I'll try to answer those questions:

What is a Knowledge Organiser (KO)?

• A single A4 sheet containing a summary of the essential knowledge from a unit of work
• It needs to be specific to your children in your class, and should follow your scheme of work.  An "off the peg" KO might not suit your children and your school.
• It should contain what you are going to teach and nothing extra.
• It shows the Intent of your curriculum, and may also determine the Implementation to a certain extent.
• A series of KOs should show progression.
• KOs show the big picture of a unit of learning. 
• A KO is low-tech and therefore easy to share with parents and carers if necessary.  Being paper-based means that there are no barriers to learning if a certain child can't access technology.
• KOs are characteristic of the current Ofsted and DfE focus on a knowledge-rich curriculum, and acquiring and retaining subject knowledge.
• There is no set format for a KO.  A KO for languages should probably include key vocabulary plus any essential facts or structures presented in manageable chunks.  They often contain model texts and can have images as appropriate.  It's important that the KO also contains English meanings to reduce the cognitive load and to help children to use them effectively.  "Dodgy English" is often used to emphasise structure in the target language, for example "Tengo hambre = I have hunger".  Above all, the KO should be engaging and clear, so that the children can use them easily and regularly.
• KOs are not a magic solution to teaching languages - they should be seen as another tool in your kit.  They are one of the solutions to problems of retention and memory.

Why should I think about using them?

• Having a KO to hand means that children won't have to hold so much information in their working memory.  They reduce cognitive overload.
• Having a KO to hand enables children to constantly review their learning.  They should have the opportunity to look at and become familiar with the KOs and practise retrieving the information.
• They save time for the teacher in the classroom - if the children all have a KO you won't have to answer as many questions!
• Children who have more prior knowledge of a unit are likely to learn more from the teaching of it.  The new knowledge hooks onto the "pre-knowledge" and becomes sticky.  Knowing the big picture of the learning we are more likely to make links and help the knowledge to stick.
• If a child is absent or goes out for intervention, having the KO means that they will have what they need to catch up.

My opinion:

I can see the benefits, from having read about them and attended an online event, of using KOs in the primary languages classroom to facilitate the learning and to help children to become more independent learners.  I can appreciate how it would help children to have the information to hand from the beginning of a unit, particularly in the new and changed circumstances in which we will all find ourselves come September.

As far as format is concerned, the format that is favoured in secondary classrooms is the parallel text.  I tried an example of the parallel text approach a year ago:

This is from my Yo soy músico unit, which is the one I keep in my back pocket to teach if I run out of scheme of work with any year group.  It introduces opinions of genres of music, musical instruments and regular -AR verbs.  This parallel text illustrates the infinitive and the 6 forms of the -AR verb tocar.  

I tried it out first with two very good Year 6 classes, who bought into it wholesale and got a lot from it.  I tried it the following week with a Year 4 class.  Many of them found it OK, but the weaker readers found the approach very hard to deal with, and opted out.  

I think it's most suited to upper Key Stage 2, and I would have to think carefully before using this approach in lower Key Stage 2.  We need to think carefully about the English literacy level of the children in the classroom.  Children in Years 3 and 4 often enjoy languages because of the focus on speaking and listening and the fact that there is considerably less reading and writing than elsewhere in the curriculum, so it would be a shame to opt for a reading-heavy approach which would lead to less enjoyment for them.  I'm also not convinced that younger children would be able to delve through a text of this nature to find the part they need when it comes to adapting and substituting text.

Yesterday I worked through the first week of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) Teaching Languages in Primary Schools: Putting Research into Practice on FutureLearn.  It focused on three pedagogical principles for middle childhood, which more or less corresponds to Key Stage 2.  This was one of my main takeaways: "Fun activities from an engaging teacher are particularly important at this stage" (i.e. Year 3 and maybe Year 4), as children of this age are more emotionally engaged in this kind of learning at this stage.  This ties in with what I said above, that children need a more teacher-led and less reading-heavy approach in lower Key Stage 2.  However later on, as the children get older, they appreciate more opportunities to reflect on the language and to see that they are progressing.  This would favour the parallel text approach more.

At the top of this page you can see the format of KO that I have chosen to accompany my new scheme of work for Key Stage 2 Spanish.  It comprises the vocabulary that the children will need for that unit, as well as examples of the phrases and sentences that we will be working on.  I have also displayed the key verbs that that particular unit includes and the key sounds, which are also underlined throughout the KO.  That's not to say that these KOs won't undergo a few tweaks here and there when I eventually get to use them!

It's worth pointing out here that a sentence builder (such as the one below, tabular as well as flowchart) can also be a KO - it contains all the key vocabulary and the structure.

I'm still very much on my journey of discovery as far as KOs are concerned, and of course I haven't had the opportunity to use them in the classroom yet.  I would be very interested, as always, to hear any of your constructive comments!

Useful reading:

• Knowledge Organisers: What they are and how to use them in KS1 and KS2
• What are Knowledge Organisers and how can we use them in the primary classroom?
• A Knowledge Organiser about Knowledge Organisers
• Knowledge Organisers - from Steve Smith's blog
• Everything in the MFL Knowledge Organisers group on Facebook

Progression in primary Spanish

Spanish minibooks by Clare Seccombe

Last week I made a minibook for each of the units of my new primary Spanish scheme of work.  They are intended for reading material, which isn't always easy to find, and also as WAGOLLs.  If you have been in a primary school recently, you'll probably have seen a "WAGOLL Wall".  WAGOLL is What A Good One Looks Like.  In other words, a good example of what children are aiming for with a certain piece of work or unit of work.  When put together, the minibooks also show the progression through the scheme in terms of complexity and also in length of response.  You can see the minibooks in sequence in the presentation above.