Knowledge organisers.

There's been a lot of talk about knowledge organisers on those social media recently.

Steve Smith has written a post about them on his blog (with some nice examples).
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What are they? 

Mostly, they take the form of one A4 sheet with a list of key information needed for one topic.

What are they used for? 

To help teachers with their planning and to give students a summary of key facts they need to learn.

Do they allow for deep learning as opposed to just facts? 

I'm not sure about this.

It might work in history, geography, or science but I'm not sure it works in MFL.
We don't compartmentalise our knowledge. We revisit grammar and vocabulary constantly. (See my previous post)

Teaching phrases to low ability students might be a good idea under certain circumstances, but if we just taught phrases, it might be enough to pass an exam, but are they really learning the language?

I don't think so.

What's the difference between a knowledge organiser and a vocabulary sheet?

Not a lot, as far as I can make out. Most of them are just a vocabulary menu or a big Cluedo game or trapdoor activity: Pick one phrase from each box and you'll get a grade 5.

There's nothing wrong with this if all you want your students to do is gain a pass at GCSE. However, if you have potential linguists in your groups, (those who may want to study A level or go onto read language at University) then you are doing them a huge disservice.

From what I've seen there are some quite poor ones and some excellent MFL examples being used in schools.

My students create their own personal knowledge organiser sheets before assessments. They use their vocabulary lists and the feedback in their  exercise books to create the own revision tool.

I recently saw some excellent student made knowledge organisers from students at St Robert of Newminster School, Washington  They were made for a homework task and I've been given permission to share them with you.

Soap plots and schemes of work.

I know what you're thinking.

He really has lost the plot this time.

Stay with me on this.

It's brilliant.

As some of you may be aware, as well as teaching, I sometimes write funny things for the radio and internet spoof news sites.

This is one of mine:

and this one, too:

I never said they were funny...

Anyway, I follow lots of comedy industry people on social media and read a lot of blogs.

A while ago I came across a blog written by John Fleming* entitled, How to write, structure and maintain a TV soap opera like Coronation Street.

It's a fascinating read, especially if you know very little about how television works and, even if you do, it's quite an eye-opener.

You're probably not aware that there is a formula used when writing soaps.

According to John's blog it's:

I was looking at this and I thought that it was actually very similar to the way we probably should be writing schemes of work or whatever they're called at your school. (You may even do this already. If you do, you're in the minority....)

Ours are called MTPs.

Medium Term Plans.

Ridiculous, isn't it?

Anyway, back to the meat...

Yes, I'm suggesting that we should use a similar formula to write our schemes of learning.

Why?

Because text books don't do it and students tend to unconsciously compartmentalise their knowledge.

For instance if you teach imperfect tense with hobbies, will they automatically realise they can use it to talk about holidays, too?

So how will I/we do it?


Main storylines will be topics and subsidiary storylines could be grammar points.

With me so far?

So how does it work?

OK. I'll give an example.

Year 7 French.

We start with a transition topic: self and others.

The main story line is: Me and my family.

We include the basic vocabulary and the subsidiary stories; numbers, être, avoir, possessive adjectives and ER (s'appeler) verbs.

We also occasionally start to throw in some other phrases which will become main learning later. e.g. ne...pas, ne...jamais

The second topic is: Where I live.
Family is now winding down but still the
re in the background (Ma tante habite à...)

ER verbs are peaking with aimer, détester, préferer, and habiter.

The next subsidiary stories are appearing now: dans, à, en, and other preposisitions.

My town is giving way to my house, inside my house, my dream house.

Adjectives will be the next subsidiary....

Then conditional verbs...

etc...

In true soap style all of these stories will reappear at some point although some may return as rather more than a subsidiary.

Of course you, as the writer, will get to decide the main stories, the roles played and the recurring characters.

You can change them to suit your audience and decide how much depth you go into with each one.

So, ignore what the text book says, don't compartmentalise, and make sure their is some fun built into it.

Creativity and practical tasks are your Comic Stories.

You could be animating, creating gifs, mini booking, making comics,  acting, or whatever you choose...

If I/we do this, then topics, grammar points, etc, will be constantly revisited and the phrase "but you did this in Year 8" will become extinct...

I hope so anyway...





* Read John's blog about his visit to North Korea here. It's really good!