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?

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.

Phrase du jour

I have been reading today about when and how primary children in France learn to write.  One link I followed led me to this document, which is about finding opportunities for children to write.  One of the suggestions is Phrase du jour.  It is suggested that children decide, as a group, what the phrase du jour will be, and that they then discuss together and prepare orally how that sentence will be written.  They then write the sentence individually.  It is also suggested that all the phrases du jour are kept, to show the children's progression in writing over the year.

Later on this afternoon, in Sainsbury's, I was thinking that this could be something that we could adapt for use in the languages classroom.  We always do our bit in Key Stage 2 Languages by reinforcing handwriting, punctuation and other aspects of grammar, and this could be another vehicle for that.  It could also be useful for "bell work", in other words something that children can be doing when they first come into the room, while the register is being done, books are being given out and so on.

The way I currently see it working is that the children copy from the board a sentence comprising words and structures in the target language that the class is working on currently, and possibly a translation of this sentence in English.  The collection of phrases du jour would then become a useful reference tool as well as an indication of the learning and progression that has taken place and the improvements in presentation and handwriting.  It would probably need a separate exercise book that they could keep for the four years of Key Stage 2.

I'd be interested to hear what you think!