Piano stairs.

Yesterday was MFL Show and Tell at Nottingham High School. It was a great day of fantastic presentations, amazing learning discussions and excellent coffee. You can watch the presentations here. I met some wonderful, inspiring linguists and learned lots of new things (most notably that comedian Miles Jupp was Archie the inventor in Balamory).

I talked about getting colleagues to make better use of ICT in order to attract more students to opt to study languages. Language learning at KS4 could be drastically reduced unless we make it more interesting to students, especially when languages have to compete with other subjects which offer 2 or 4 GCSE equivalent qualifications in the same amount of teaching time.

During my presentation I showed this clip to try to show that it could be done.

The MFL Twitterati World Cup Sweepstake

As usual, someone had a great idea and I stole it.

This time it was the MFL Twitterati World Cup Sweepstake.

Clare's idea, hijacked by me.

Welcome to my world. I did apologise.

Apparently no-one in the world understands the concept of a sweepstake except the Brits so here is a quick run down of the rules:

Each player is drawn at random via classtools.net random name picker, then a team is picked randomly by the same method and assigned to that player.

The player who's team wins the world cup gets a MFL related prize which I shall buy in France next week.

Everyone else is a loser.

Here goes:

@javiera1974 gets ITALY

@gorsey gets AUSTRALIA

@simonhowells gets NETHERLANDS

@valleseco gets NEW ZEALAND

@jjpadvis gets URUGUAY

@mme_henderson gets PARAGUAY

@PreKlanguages gets PORTUGAL

@victoria35 gets CHILE

@joedale gets GHANA

@jowinchester gets SPAIN

@dominic_mcg gets HONDURAS

@wizenedcrone gets NORTH KOREA

@sghani gets ALGERIA

@bootleian gets SLOVENIA

@josepicardo gets DENMARK

@atantot gets SWITZERLAND

@Langwitch gets IVORY COAST

@ChrisFullerisms gets SOUTH KOREA

@zaragozalass gets ARGENTINA

@suzibewell gets FRANCE

@lisibo gets SERBIA

@amandasalt gets GREECE

@MissAmoros gets NIGERIA

@simcloughlin gets ENGLAND

@smaguire777 gets USA

@moodlefairy gets SOUTH AFRICA

@mrshampson gets SLOVAKIA

@spanishsam gets GERMANY

@blagona gets CAMEROON

@hicksie58 gets MEXICO

@Kath52 gets JAPAN

@lynnehorn gets BRAZIL

Good luck everyone.

I shall update the post on a regular basis.

If your team is on the left of the screen you are still in the competition.

If your team is on the right of the screen, you have been eliminated from the contest.

All comments will be moderated.

Thank you.

MFL Show and Tell 2010

It's now almost 2 years since I dived into the world of twitter, blogging, flashmeets and becoming a wannabe-geek.

I still can't understand why my colleagues have a "why would I want to do that?" approach to the use of ICT for both personal and professional reasons, but the answer is, of course, that I'm turning into a geek and they are "normal".

Twitter is amazing for finding out about new stuff and sharing new ideas, advice, applications, and software you may come across but there is nothing like meeting people in the flesh and putting faces to the names you've been impressed by for the last 15 months or so.

That is why MFL Show and Tell is such a great idea. It is an opportunity for teachers of foreign languages (Primary and Secondary) to get together in the real world, chat and find out what is going on in the hectic, helter-skelter world of MFL education, to discover what other people are doing and to realise that, actually, you're doing OK yourself.

Following the success of last year's Show and Tell (thanks to James Padvis and Joe Dale) this year's event is being organised by José Picardo, and is kindly sponsored by Nottingham High School and Links into Languages East Midlands, so it will cost you nothing to attend and you might even learn something. If you can't attend you can follow all the shenanigans on twitter, here #mflsat

If you want to attend you must sign up to the wiki and turn up on the day.

How difficult could that be?

I hope to see many of you there and I promise I'll be on my best behaviour.

MFL Storybird wiki

As you all know I am a huge fan of storybird and I have blogged about what a fantastic resource it is on a few occasions now.

If you have read my previous posts on this subject, and there is really no reason why you should, you will know that stories written in languages other than English are not yet made public.

The good news is that Fiona Joyce has started a wiki to which half a dozen or so MFL teachers, myself included, have added their storybirds in French, Spanish and German.

Please visit the wiki and read the excellent work which has been submitted. There is some excellent material there. Use the stories in your teaching, or read them for your own amusement, and share them with your colleagues, family and friends.

Then, why not make and add your own storybirds, and join us.

It's not a cult, honest!

Teach Meet North East 09-2 - the sequel

With the possible exception of Mad Max 2, sequels have never lived up to the original.

However, last Wednesday I attended what was probably the best CPD evening ever : The return of TMNE09 - Same venue, more fun.

It was a great opportunity to catch up with some old friends and make some new ones, and even with the noticeable absence of Steve Bunce and Mark Clarkson and their amazing enthusiasm, the evening still managed to provide a cornucopia of ideas, advice, and some excellent presentations.

There were amazing 7 minute presentations from:

Gwyn ap Harri. He gave us an amazing presentation on sharing ideas and self assessment and after bamboozling us (or just me?) with lots of equations, came to the conclusion that we need a new education system.

Chris Harte. Chris showed us how we could use international collaboration to bring the outside world into our classrooms and to prove it, he skyped about quizlet with Emma Risby who, coincidentally, was on the other side of the planet in Australia, where kangaroos come from.

Helena Butterfield. Helena is one of my MFL heroes (she's blushing as she reads this), her presentation "top tools to get pupils talking" was fantastic and I've already decided to use some of her ideas to get my own students to improve their speaking skills.

Darren Mead. Darren retold the story of the 3 little pigs but with the emphasis on SOLO Taxonomy. There's more info about SOLO, small pigs and waooo on his blog.

Fergus Hegarty. Fergus made us work! He put us into groups with a set of Q and A matching cards to prove to us that what looked like a simple exercise could be a trigger to get students using thinking skills. It worked. I hope his students have as much fun as we did.

The 2 minute presentations came from:

Alasdair Douglas. Alasdair demonstrated how educators can use etherpad as a collaborative tool.

Lisa Keenlyside. Lisa showed us some excellent animation made by students in science lessons which were really amazing.

Ben Barton. Ben presented to us how short (and free) video clips could be used to get students thinking. An inspirational and very modest man, his blog is an amazing resource.

Archie Cameron. Archie's "Why I fear the blackboard" was fantastic. He reminded us that amazing equipment and technology do not make an excellent teacher, but the ability to motivate those around us and move students on to achieve their best.

Me. My presentation was based on an earlier blog post "effective feedback for students." The most notable thing about it was how I managed to make a powerpoint presentation look like a "wordle".

There were also many learning conversations, lots of informal networking and a lot of wine consumed. The evening was a great success. My thanks go out to all who sponsored, helped organise, took part, and listened and learned patiently.

I can't wait for the next one. I just hope Tina Turner doesn't turn up and spoil it...

Effective feedback for students.

I am a member of my school's Raising Achievement Team. We are a group of teachers from different subjects with a common goal, namely raising achievement.

Over the last year we have been trialling different ways of feeding back to students, choosing the most effective ways for our departments and our students to improve and sharing our experiences. Successful feedback, naturally, depends on our objectives and our outcomes for the task set and not all ways are right for all activities or subject areas.

I planned to write this post about 4 months ago and forgot all about it until we did a work scrutiny and my line manager told me, "There isn't enough red ink in the kids' books. Sort it out."

Below I have listed 10 different ways of giving written feedback to students (with my own personal musings thrown in to keep you awake!).

1) Traditional marking
This is the red pen, lots of crossing out, strange codes in the margin, type of feedback so favoured by teachers when I was at school (and still favoured by most School Managers!)
It confuses students and can demotivate them, too. (The ones who bother to read it, that is) Personally, I would avoid this like the plague.

2) The PEN method
PRAISE - the student's strengths
ERROR - point out areas to be developped
NEXT STEPS - suggest a way to improve

3) Highlighting
I love this one (and so does Chris Harte. Read his rainbow assessment blog post.) It involves highlighting where a child has achieved the set objectives and allows them to see clearly which are the good bits in their work, so they can use them again and again.

4) Medal and Mission
This is all a bit "Jim Phelps" for me. It involves identifying were objectives were met by giving "medals" in the form of stamps, stickers, etc and suggesting a "mission" to be accepted by the student to improve. Works well with demotivated boys, apparently.

5) Smile and a Star
Identical to medals and missions only for the less FBI-minded students. Smiles for achievement and a star to reach for.

6) PIE method
PRAISE where objectives are met
IMPROVEMENT suggestions
ENCOURAGE students to try new ideas

7) The Praise Sandwich
This is mainly used in industry during staff appraisals. It involves placing a development point between 2 slices of praise. (You need to be careful with this one and make sure that the layers of the sandwich are in equal proportion. I found a great article about this called "why the sandwich feedback technique is ineffective" but some of my colleagues love it.)

8) 2 Stars and a Wish
For this method, indicate 2 areas where learning objectives have been met, and use the wish to suggest an area for improvement. (Again, I don't like this, maybe because I don't feel it relevant to modern languages, or maybe it just seems a bit "too girly".)

9) A Bubble and a Box
This technique involves identifying and drawing a box around evidence of where objectives have been met and putting a recommendation for developments or improvements in a bubble.

10) Comment only marking
This involves writing comments based on success criteria having been met, and questions to consider for future improvements.

For any of these methods to be effective in improving your students' achievement, we need to consider 3 things:

Firstly, the students have to understand the system you are using, otherwise you may as well not even bother looking at their work.

Secondly, students have to be given the opportunity and the time to respond to your feedback. If you don't allow time for this, you are wasting your, and your students', time.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the teacher must realise that none of the above methods is a skive. It will take a very long time to mark a class set of books using any of these methods. Comments and suggestions need to be tailored to each student's individual needs. Ask yourself this, "Who are we marking for?"

It is a long process but, if done properly, definitely worth it in the end.
Now where did I put that red pen....?

MFL Flashmeeting

Did you ever think that, because you know something, then everyone else must know it as well?

Yeah?

Well, it's not true.

We can only share knowledge by communicating effectively, and last night I was lucky enough to attend the 4th MFL Flashmeeting; a virtual meeting with fellow language teachers from all over the world in the comfort of my own kitchen, their living rooms, studies, dining rooms, and, in the case of Steve Collis, his school's staff room in Sydney, Australia.

As professional development goes, this is the best kind. It involves no travel, hardly any expense (OK, my webcam cost £4 on ebay), brings together like-minded professionals willing to share ideas and skills, and, best of all, nobody was there against their will. I learned so much.

I missed the first flashmeeting, hid in the background for the second (I'm very shy), took part in the 3rd by text, and bought a webcam especially for the 4th. You can watch them all by following the links here.

It was nice to meet so many selfless and helpful people, if not in the flesh, at least virtually and moving, (or singing and dancing in the case of Lisa Stevens and her amazing vaca lola) and it will be less awkward for me to meet them at MFL Show and Tell in Coventry on 14th November. Join the wiki and I'll see you there.

I'm also looking forward to the 5th MFL Flashmeeting on January 25th 2010 and hope to see many of you there. If you haven't seen a flashmeet you can catch up on last night's fun here and you can follow most of the participants on twitter, too.

Storybird

Six hours ago, I had never heard of storybird, now I'm hooked. I can see a wealth of uses for it in MFL for both teachers and pupils, especially as a teaching resource in primary classrooms.


It was through a tweet from Clare Seccombe (the genius behind MFL Sunderland website and the changing phase blog) this morning that I first heard of storybird.


Within 5 minutes I had signed up for an account and was on my way to creating my first story.


Another esteemed twitter colleague in my learning network, Lisa Stevens, has, today, also created a storybird here and blogged about it here.

Footnote: Since writing this blog post I have found out that storybird.com at the moment does not publish stories written in languages other than English. Whilst I was quite annoyed at first, I have realised that it makes no difference to using stories in my classroom as it does allow me to save them in my account. Also, now I have calmed down I realise that it is to protect the general public from any unsuitable content, and that can only be a good thing.

Tricher ou pas tricher...

***********************

Last term, one of my more challenging students got full marks for the first time in a vocabulary test. When I congratulated him, he said, "I cheated." I asked him, "How?" He replied, in all sincerity, "I memorised the words before the test." "I wish my GCSE students would do that," I said.

************************

You may have read this story recently, where 3 modern languages teachers were suspended over allegations of cheating in GCSE exams. This school is not alone; there are other schools under investigation at the time of writing this.


To be accused of cheating in a public exam is, obviously, a very serious allegation and I hope that, for their sake, when the investigation is over, the teachers involved will be found to have done nothing wrong.

So, what is cheating? My student was convinced he had acted in a devious, underhand way, but he had done nothing wrong at all.


We have all heard (and probably told!) anecdotal stories of teachers "bending the rules" or "misinterpreting the rules" and giving their students a little too much help with coursework and there may be a case for many more schools, acting in a similar way, to be accused of cheating.


Is "bending the rules" cheating? Well, nowadays, I suppose it all depends who you are and whether you get caught.


If it was a sporting situation, perhaps they would be guilty of "gamesmanship": "Pushing the rules to the limit without getting caught, using whatever dubious methods possible to achieve the desired end." (Lumpkin, Stoll and Beller, 1994)


Gamesmanship is rife in sport. We have all seen it. There is a certain tennis player, who has such a terrible cough (just before an opponent's serve), I feel should be at home in bed rather than on the court. But is it cheating? I think so.


Back to learning languages. Obviously, giving the students the questions in advance of a test is cheating. Is preparing students thoroughly for an exam cheating? Is going through past exam papers cheating? Is doing a mock exam cheating?

AQA, an exam board I have used for more than 10 years, publishes past exam papers and sample questions along with mark shemes and examiners' reports on their website. They even publish model questions for the speaking test. The same types of questions come up year after year. I use these with my students as a means of revision and practising exam technique, as I'm sure most teachers do. This is not cheating and having all these resources means that you shouldn't need to cheat.


What makes a professional cross the line and feel that he or she has to cheat? Pressure from a departmental head? Pressure from schools to achieve targets and move up the league tables? Performance management targets? Performance related pay? Attracting more students to study a language and thereby saving jobs? The ability to say to your colleagues in other subjects, "Our results are better than yours"?


What I find sad about these teachers who are caught cheating is that they have probably been doing it, and getting away with it, for years.

What kind of example does it set to our students?


A wise man once said, "There are no bad students, only bad teachers."
Okay, it was Mr Miyagi in "The Karate Kid", but he does have a point.

No, I can't believe it either!

The 18th March 2009 was an historic day for me. It was the day of my first blog post.

I'd been toying with the idea of blogging since December, but never actually got round to it until March.

I had a lot of encouragement, (mainly from my long suffering, patient and gorgeous wife) and, in the last 4 months, I have learned so much about teaching MFL, ICT, Twitter, Webtools and, more importantly, me.

Since starting the blog I have met (virtually and physically) some excellent, friendly and helpful people, for whom nothing is too much trouble, from all over the world, except South America. I won't embarrass them, they know who they are, and, I hope, how grateful I am!

So, why this blog post?

Well, today I clocked up my 1000th visitor and I am very pleased. Obviously, some people (mainly my mother!) have visited more than once, but I never imagined I would make double figures. When I started this, I didn't imagine for one minute that anyone would read it, or be interested in anything I had to say.

Thanks for reading and, you never know, if you keep coming back, one day there might even be something here worth reading.

Thanks for your time. Enjoy the summer and may you be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows you're dead!

New MFL KS3 NC level descriptors. Part 2

I've just had another thought about this and now I'm both annoyed and confused. (It's called multi-tasking!)

Initially, some of my colleagues thought that this was a great idea because the 3rd attainment target will improve the students' final KS3 assessments and they will want to choose MFL as an option in KS4. Great! I'm all for increasing uptake at KS4 and beyond. But for the right reasons.

That's all very well, but because of this many of these students will have an overinflated KS4 target grade.

I have studied (and blogged) the new specs for GCSE here and nowhere can I find a section on "intercultural understanding" in there. We, obviously, teach some cultural understanding as part of GCSE but it is not a separate section of the course.

Does this mean that in 2014 the GCSE will change again? I think it probably does.

CPD for everyone for free

Each of us needs to keep up with developments and good practice, even if we are not looking to further our careers.

So what do you do if your school is reluctant, or can’t afford, to allow you out to complete CPD courses?

The answer is: Take responsibility for your own professional development.

There are many MFL CPD opportunities online which few teachers are aware of, most of which are free. These can be done in departments or by individual teachers.

The National Strategies site is an excellent place to start.
There is a wealth of invaluable information specifically related to the teaching of MFL.
There are video resources, case studies and practical online exercises to undertake.
The learning units include:
Using the MFL Framework
Planning Lessons
Practice
Using the Target Language
Creativity
Developing how you question students
Effective starters and plenaries
Using Assessment for Learning

Each unit contains “nuggets” which are intended to help MFL teachers improve. Most of us will have some extra time this term to do this now that year 11 and 13 students are about to leave us. So, use your time profitably this summer. This website will soon be closing, but I have it on good authority that the resources will be moved to the new site: www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies

Here is an example of one of the nugget clips:

Mobile phones in the classroom? You've got to be joking!

You’re probably not aware of this but as long ago as 2001 the government issued a circular to all schools (not parents!) in England discouraging “non-essential” use of mobile phones among students under the age of 15. It was feared that children could get all kinds of cancers, brain diseases and other horrible, health problems.


If you live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can use your mobile as much as you like. You're immune, apparently!



This came from the Stewart Inquiry which the government hoped would set guidelines on a minimum age for mobile phone users, but didn't.



It seems that schools have been banning mobiles for years and now primary schools are starting to ban them, too. According to a recent survey, the average age at which a child gets a mobile phone is 8. I didn't even possess a pair of long trousers when I was 8.



In the course of my research on this I found lots of differing views.

Fiona Philips, she of GMTV fame and PETA’s "sexiest female vegetarian 2007" (could you name another? No, nor could I!), ranted in her Daily Mirror column last summer “mobile phones in the classroom, you’ve got to be joking” whereas Doug Belshaw, a very well respected teacher (what would he know?), blogged 20 ideas to get students to use their mobiles as learning tools in 2006.

Who would you side with? Yeah, me too!

The irony is, his school had also banned the use of mobiles!


It's amazing to think that in the pocket of almost every secondary school pupil is a piece of technology which has so much educational potential, but which many schools have outlawed.

I can understand why. A phone is an expensive piece of kit and schools do not want to be responsible for any loss or damage to them. Twenty years ago, TV companies would have killed to get video equipment as good as the average 12 year old now carries around in his bag.

Also, there can be lots of mayhem caused with a camera phone and some naughty children. But couldn't those same children cause just as much mayhem with a pencil, a schoolbag, or a plastic spoon.

Last term, I wanted to get some students to film each other with their phones, and use the footage to discuss with their peers ways to improve their pronunciation in French.

Sorry, not allowed.

So, how do you get around this? You can borrow a couple of digital cameras (booking them a week in advance), sign them out, charge the batteries (and learn how to insert them correctly), be trained how to use them, and then train the students how to use them, and sign them back in again. Something which should take 10 minutes to film becomes a 2 hour nightmare, so you just forget about the whole project.

Last year, I broke the rules. I sent some GCSE speaking and listening revision files to some of my Year 11 students' phones by bluetooth. They used them to revise and they achieved excellent results.

Was it really such a bad thing?

Well, yes, it was. I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself.

Jigsaws or Lego?

As my regular reader already knows, over the last few months I have been immersing myself in the world of technology. I have gone from technological Neanderthal to, not quite homo sapien (more like Australopithecus) in this time.

Example: I used to think Facebook was good but now I know better and am a dedicated twitterite.

With the help of lots of other teachers, most of them very helpful internet strangers, I have created my own PLN and I am really getting into all this technology stuff in a big way. I’m not yet at the “look what I am doing with my students and all this technology” stage, but I am not far off.

Last week I read “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” by Will Richardson. I’ve been following him on twitter and reading his blog for a while and, basically, living in awe of the man, thinking he was a genius. And so he is. The book is amazing and explains in layman’s terms how to do everything mentioned on the cover.

Then, via Joe Dale's excellent blog, I read José Picardo’s Box of Tricks pages, in particular the “podcasting in 5 easy steps”. His 5 minute tutorial was brilliant. I even skipped some of it because I already know how to use Audacity (I taught myself years ago– it is that easy!). It was the desktop to podcast advice which I found extremely constructive. Muchas gracias!
I am now fiddling about with this and hope to have something out in the ether quite soon. Watch this space.

Then, today, I was re-reading the new National Curriculum for KS3 (I’m not hyperlinking it, you wouldn’t enjoy it!). Words like MOTIVATION and CREATIVITY stand out from the pages like a City scarf in the Stretford End.


It seems that, over time, most teachers, including myself, are going to have to make some subtle changes to a lot of what we do. I'm not saying that my colleagues and I are dinosaurs, far from it. We haven’t done anything wrong, we are just not using the correct tools.

We are giving our students jigsaws when they need Lego!