This is a very simple game, and I have every confidence you have all been there, done that!
Another speaking game, this time the objective was to reinforce the structures covered in the topic of World of Work, to describe what they do in their part-time jobs, and to increase their confidence with questioning.
They stuck post-its on each other's foreheads, on which they had written a job, and the person with the post-it on their head had to ask the question "Muß ich.....?" to try to work out what job was written on the post-it.
Engagement - Tick Improved word order - Tick Improved pronunciation - Tick Laughing children - Tick
As a wrap-up task, the students then wrote 5 clues using the same structure in their books. When I mark their books, I have to guess what job they are describing.
That way, I told them, marking is more fun for me!
Last week's blog was on a resource that I had tried out for the first time, to great success, to encourage the students to speak confidently and to have fun.
I am bringing a post back from the good old Posterous days, because the task makes me laugh. A lot. And when students can't do the task because they are wheezing with laughter, as a result of the task, you know you are on to a good one!
In August 2012 I wrote:
"I have based one resource on a drinking game we played on tour. Oh my word it made me laugh. Tempting as it is to enforce the command of "DRINK" when students go wrong, I think it will have to be avoided! The way it works, in English, is very simple (drinking games have to be really!!!):
Sit students in a circle - up to 10 is probably best
Take turns, around the circle, to say the next word of the phrase "One fat frog jumped off the cliff aarrgghh" (one word each)
The person after "aarrgghh" starts again but changes the 'one' to 'two'.
Then each word has to be said twice, as follows, with each person saying only one word in the chain
It then becomes "three" "four" etc. If students muck up, they could do a forfeit, or star jumps, press ups etc. You choose!
It is an excellent listening and recall game, and I am hopeful it will encourage my Year 11s not to be afraid of speaking German! I have attached the slide I will be using - in German - after a while I will remove it from the board. The sentence can be changed/manipulated etc for variation from week to week."
So back to January 2014. Following the same idea to access longer texts, particularly from the Higher paper, I ask the students - in groups - to read out loud, one word at times. It is so funny to watch, the students all listen to each other, and focus on each word in the paragraph. By the 7th or 8th line in the paragraph, the students are saying the words of the line 2-3 times each.
Year 11s were doing it in groups of 4 on Wednesday, and the fun and laughter in the room was fantastic.
In other news, I went to see Wicked just before Christmas. Apart from now wanting a green witch for a friend (apply within), I love the songs. Just love. #unlimited
Before I start, know that it isn't me but my colleague and fab team member Luke who is to thank for this. He is an excellent practitioner, and often comes up with imaginative tasks just at the right time!
We are always doing all we can to increase the amount of speaking that our students do in each lesson. Group Talk is very important to us, but it always great to find new ideas.
The idea is very simple, but my goodness it is great fun. Students have actions and gestures to follow when they come across particular elements of a written text. They also have to work as a team to carry out the task together: Capital letter - Mexican wave Comma - Finger flick Full stop - Two claps Apostrophe - Finger click Exclamation mark - Panic expression Question mark - Shoulder shrug Accent - One clap
Below is an example of a PPT slide with the text and instructions for the students. This was for a Year 9 lesson for The Apprentice project. And while the students were worried about looking silly at the start, they were reading out the sentences and having fun (dare I suggest it). The group takes seeing to believing, as it is normally an hour of peace-keeping and social work every time I see them.
I then used the idea for Year 11s in accessing a text from the GCSE Higher paper. They were not in the slightest bit self-conscious about the task, and were so funny doing it. So animated, so much fun.
Why do it? It helps the students be aware of all the punctuation. It helps the students access the text without being overwhelmed. It allows the students to have fun. FUN, I tell you! And when you are still trying to improve the image and ethos of your subject, every second of laughter and enjoyment counts.
So try it. Whatever your subject.
And so to a song with gestures. There can be only one. But I didn't fancy YMCA....
As I sit here, on the first day of 2014, with the rain lashing down and the wind howling around my home, I flick through the 2013 calendar that I have just replaced with the new one. All I have written on there is the name of the person/people I am going out with on the dates, holidays and adventures. And for someone who feels that their life is completely dictated to be the overwhelming burden of work in term time, I actually seemed to have also maintained a good balance of friends and family in my life.
Yet I still don't feel it is enough. I feel that I am a slave to work every week night. Which is something I want to really stop. I want to put a stop to the get-home-put-laptop-on-make-a-cuppa-get-changed-carry-on-working habit. I will be doing my best, with the help of Jantastic, to change my routines.
I went on a PixL course at the start of December. The first session I went to had me despairing about how education is becoming a data-driven world, and the second session left me questioning my chosen (and beloved) profession. I left the course rather envying the hundreds of people around me who, quite probably, never have to do any work once they are at home.
Which wasn't the point of a CPD day. They should leave you bursting with enthusiasm and positivity.
Which is what I am looking forward to in February. #ililc4, to be precise. Not only is it the best CPD in town, it is also the chance to meet up with the beloved #MFLTwitterati. Every member is worth their weight in gold!
I was listening to an interview with Esther Rantzen last week about loneliness. She was talking about the stigma of being alone, and the burden that it may also bring with it. Talking about life after losing her husband, she said "I have plenty of people to do something with, just nobody to do nothing with." Very poignant and honest interview. Friends and family are so important to me, to help enrich my life. Given that my friends have now banned me from finding a potential mate, given my lousy track-record, it is to them I turn for the company and love!
A few (too many) people have asked me recently if I had ever or would ever want children. Now I am 40 (not for much longer!) I am beginning to feel that the chance is passing me by. That has been a slight shadow over the last 2 weeks, but no way enough to hamper the lovely family Christmas I have had. My oldest and dearest friend has offered me his swimmers, but he is having the snip in 2 weeks' time. So I may have missed that boat!!!
But ultimately, 2014 needs to be filled with the same ingredients as last year. Friends and family. Adventures and rewards to counter-balance the hard work and long hours of work. Music. Laughter. Happiness.
Which I wish upon you all. In bountiful amounts. Today's choon is for us all to raise a glass to. 2014 started in my brother's kitchen, dancing to choonages. Later on in the morning, I was singing this in the kitchen, and the boys were jumping up and down with me. Choon!
Last Thursday was a treat. Leaving school at 3.30pm. Even though I was missing a Joseph rehearsal (and another opportunity to be dropped on stage by my less-than-focused sons!), I was looking forward to escaping to the coast for the early evening.
Super @MissMcLachlan had organised a TeachMeet - #TMWave. Now I thought it was called #TMWave because we were by the sea. Or because we had to wave a lot throughout. Both were fine by me. (Absent #MFLTwitterati friends, I am now *waving" at you all!)
Turns out it was named after a building. But I think we could all make up metaphoric reasons for the name!
Anyway, it really was a cracking evening arranged and hosted by Wildern School,
especially Sadie. And imagine my delight when @thwartedmum appeared. Perfect! On top of that, the best crisps I have ever had at a CPD session!
I opted out of presenting a slot, mainly due to the current fraughtness of my MFL world at the moment. But the presenters of the night (ooh that sounds good!) were fab. Lots of great CPD ideas. Here are just a few.
·Green
Pen Marking – a really good slant on our current Think Pink Go Green
approach, which is that the children use green pens to assess their own work,
reflect on what they have written, and actively mark their work, before the
teacher marks their work. You can then mark their work, their improvements, and
their SA. Means that you aren’t marking everything. Potential for the students
to do a WWW / EBI before handing it in.
·Socrative
– feedback tool, including exit ticket. Can be used on computers, handheld
devices, ipads etc.
·Flip
Learning – introduced by Sadie @missmclachlan – flipping the approach
to teaching. Learning is done for homework (example given = YouTube clip with
relevant Google Docs for students to access at home – listening task means that
students can replay, rewind to their heart’s content, which they can’t do in
the classroom.). Results of the h/w collated and used to group the students
together the following lesson. Major differentiation.
·What’s
The Question In The Room? A student goes outside the room, and in the
room, a key word/phrase/theory etc is decided as the “Question in the room”.
The student is let back in, and start asking normal questions, and the students
have to respond in cryptic ways, using clues to the “question in the room”. The
example given was the topic of “Height”. Questions asked might be “What is your
favourite football team”, and the response could be “Stoke City, because Peter
Crouch is so enormous”, or “Arsenal because they are top”, and the student has
to try to spot the theme with the answers he or she gets.
·PEEL
Paper Chains – 4 different coloured pieces of paper ready for a paper
chain. Each colour represents a different part of an essay. (MFL can be used
for the different skills being learnt – negative/positive opinions, reasons,
tenses etc). Students work in groups of 4. Each student works on 1 colour, then
they are linked together for a good quality answer.
·Kahoot.it
– Excellent plenary tool – free – can be used on mobiles J
·Doughnut
Thinking Cards – Circle of paper cut into 5 pieces. Each card for
separate thoughts, then joined together to see similarities, connections etc
There are lots of things that I will choose to trial. One thing that I really grabbed hold of in one of the sessions was the idea of using colours. I am trying to train up my students to underline different types of words to help with reading/accessing longer texts. So I may get colours for them to use, and have set colours for set word/phrase types, from Year 7 all the way up to KS5.
And so to a wave-related choon. Somewhere Beyond The Sea. Then it was difficult to choose the version. No more tricky decisions please!
Preposterous = contrary to nature, reason, or sense; absurd; ridiculous (Collins Online Dictionary)
I think I used all these words at least once when I saw our target levels for KS3. Maybe it was just as well they were a long time coming. The dark, heavy storm cloud of TwoSubLevelsOfProgress has well and truly rained down! I have mentioned this before (Humanity 1...) so apologies for an overlap!
The day after the target levels were put on to Sims, I had a meeting with my line manager, and was going to the meeting, again, with a "These targets are impossible, unfair and a nonsense. I feel disheartened at every progress meeting I go to, where MFL look utterly rubbish compared to most other subjects. Yet I know that students in MFL last year made progress of at least 3 sublevels on average. The Year 9 average was 4 sublevels.
So the meeting started with a "I can't support these target levels each time they appear on the students' reports 3 times a term". But it finished with an awful lot of reflection from me.
I have changed my train of thought and approach completely. The good news for us as MFL deliverers is that the curriculum is now ours to shape. So if Year 8s have level 6s and 7s to achieve, than my goodness that is what we are going to drive them towards.
Questions I asked myself were:
What is preventing the students from hitting those very high targets?
Why shouldn't they aim for those targets?
Why can't they reach those targets with the current SoWs?
What do I need to change to make the targets achievable, both as a HoD and as a practitioner?
How can I further differentiate to make progress even more steep?
Given that tenses are the doorway to the higher levels, they have to feature from an early stage. And what is stopping that? The curriculum and SoWs!
Not anymore!
So I am reshaping how I teach, how we teach, what we teach, and when. I started the new year with refreshed determination and optimism, and this has only served to increase it. I have said this week of my line manager that "she asks all the right questions, even if I don't feel that they are right at the time", and I am grateful that she is my line manager. She really gets me thinking about what is right. Right for the students.
So to the levels 6 and 7, I will do my best to enable the students to reach the highest heights and join you.
Exhausted and stressed. That is how I felt last week. Not because of teaching.
Since the beginning of last Sunday I have worked at least 85 hours. I felt more and more, as the week went on, that my head was going to explode. And that my stomach was going to tie into the tightest of knots.
I know we have to reflect on the last year and plan for the new, and, having started on the RAP (formally known as the DDP), I felt motivated and excited about the year to come. But when the data isn't available, and then when it is, it doesn't tally with your own. Furthermore, you realise you wrote 2 reporting documents in July that covered everything that is being asked of you in the new document, in a different format.
To add to the demoralising task of data analysis, you have to report on how much the students have progressed against the KS2 data. Well, if I showed how well MFL had progressed against the KS2 data, we would be closed down as a condemned and hopeless department. (It was at this point that I nearly sobbed.)
It is an issue I raise on a continual basis, and one I feel strongly about. As a result, I am spending some of my time trying to work out at what point MFL students will fall in line with the expected levels of progress that the government set. I would say, at the moment, that the students, on average, meet their average KS2 level during Year 8, when all subjects are expected to be 4 sublevels beyond this.
I felt so deflated, so began highlighting the actual facts of our department, to remind me why I am so proud of the department.
The average sub-levels of progress by Year 7s from the baseline exam (sat in Oct) to the end of year exam was 3. For Year 8 it was 3.5 sublevels, and for Year 9, 4 sublevels. Which is better than the expected (and demanded) 2 sublevels per year.
So frustrated and demoralised was about it by Friday.
But then along come the students.
I said on Twitter last week that I was determined to try something new each week. This week's new thing (for me) is for the student to create Facebook Walls to reinforce discursive language - before or after speaking tasks, depending on the class. They respond so well to seeing French/German FB pages and templates. We have also used WhatsApp templates, which have been well received. I am going to carry on that idea and use cardboard speech bubbles for them to hold up as they say their lines.
I am also finding that offering students 3 choices of pre-planned homework tasks is resulting in an increase in homework being done AND an increase in the quality. I know it is early days, but the improvement is even better.
Students have the ability to turn a day on its head, and it is so good when it happens for the better. Which is what happened on Friday. And it reminded me exactly why I love teaching. Because the kids pick up on what you are delivering to them and they adapt it, use it, and have fun with it. Speaking tasks were spot on, and nearly made me cry.
Needless to say I went to the pub with a few colleagues to try to unwind, knowing that the workload was no less for the coming weekend. Laughter prevailed.
This week cannot and will not be as bad as last week.
