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Defining and Assessing the Language Content: Effects on Curriculum Design� ��

9 March 2022

Session presenter: Prof. Emma Marsden,

Dept of Education, University of York.

Director, National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP)

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Rachel Hawkes

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Session overview

Part 1/ What are ‘Language Competence’ and the ‘Subject Content’?

Part 2/ The content in 2015 and 2022

Similarities
Four Key Differences

Part 3/ Some implications for curriculum design

How much?
What?
When?

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Rachel Hawkes

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Bachman (1990)

Canale & Swain (1980)

Organisational Competence

Grammatical Competence

Morphology

Syntax

Vocab

Phonology/

Graphology

Textual Competence

Cohesion

Rhetoric

Pragmatic Competence

Illocutionary Competence

Functions of language

Sociolinguistic Competence

Register/

Genre / Dialect

What does it mean to ‘know a language’?

What can be taught and learnt in the early stages?

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Rachel Hawkes

Here is a well known model of all the different components of language knowledge.

Underpinning both this model, and other similar ones, and the Pedagogy Review, the new GCSE, the Ofsted review of research, and NCELPs activities is the basic idea – that is surely uncontroversial - that learners need, especially in the early stages, a robust body of language – in grammar, vocabulary, and sound-symbol relations – to be able to do all the things on the right.

Then other aspects of language competence are given an initial boost – they can develop, in tandem with further core knowledge development – the ability to create cohesion, or use language for various functions such as giving an opinion, or describing school life, or for developing inter-cultural competence (all of these need, or at least benefit from, being able to understand and use the language itself)

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How does MFL education in England define and operationalise “content”, at each layer of specification?

The Subject Content and Annexes: knowledge and how it can be used

DfE

Ofqual

Awarding body

Publisher

Teacher

Checks exams test the content (not other things)

Checks sampling of content, year on year

teaching materials

The specification = syllabus

The exams

450 hours of classroom experience & materials (KS3 & 4)

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Rachel Hawkes

And how do teachers and learners get to experience ‘language content’ in our setting? How is this laid out and delivered?

Starting from the very foundations of this pyramid, the students experience the content through the teacher and the materials they are exposed to – a few lucky ones through primary school work that is build upon at secondary, a few have extra curricular experiences – but essentially, for the vast majority the secondary classroom is where it is at. And there are about 450 hours of it

Publishers’ materials provide language content which is in turn driven by what the awarding bodies lay out in their content, in their lists and in their exams. Ofqual checks that the exams reflect the government’s definition of what the content is. Ofqual also have to test that the content is sampled year on year, and covered, eventually.

So, today’s talk is going to be mainly focussed on that subject content document –

In fact, this takes me back to my very first task on my masters at Southampton – we had to dig out the curriculum for a language course and discuss the relations between that curriculum and the tests. As a teacher, with a PGCE and three years classroom experience, including as a Head of a small Spanish dept, I admit - I had not looked at the subject content. But, of course, it’s impact is enormous.

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Session overview

Part 1/ What are ‘Language Competence’ and the ‘Subject Content’?

Part 2/ Comparing 2015 and 2022: similarities and differences

Part 3/ The implications for teaching and assessment(s)

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Similarities between Subject Content in 2015 & 2022

Aims

develop ability and ambition to communicate in speech and writing
expand horizons, ways of seeing the world, cultural boundaries
provide a strong foundation for further study�

Listening & reading comprehension
Spoken & written production
Language about contexts where language is spoken (e.g., culture, geography)
Grammar and vocabulary are significant areas of knowledge
Speaking includes:

role play,
talk about visual stimulus/stimuli,
unprepared conversation elements

BUT note the requirement for “clear and comprehensible” speech

(rather than spontaneity+ fluency+ polish!)

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Changes to address what potential problems?

Awarding bodies can provide a word list as a guide, but
required to test words ‘off list’
no specification about what kind of words (high vs low frequency)

-> mismatch between the language content on specifications and the language used in exams

-> very heavy weighting on lexical inferencing

consistent reports of students rote-learning large chunks of text for a heavily-prepared ‘conversation’

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Rachel Hawkes

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Some consequences of having a lexical content that is not defined and not informed by frequency

49% of the words on awarding organisations’ current lists have never been used in an exam (averaged across AQA, Edexcel, 3 langs, F & H, 4yrs)
20% of the words on current lists have only ever been used once
Putting all exams together over 4 years, approximately 44% of the word families used are low frequency words; many of these are not on the word lists
Lower frequency words twice as likely to change, year on year, as high frequency words

-> Heavy reliance on inferencing, in early, vulnerable stages of learning

Inferencing = guessing meaning, using the context and own knowledge

Dudley & Marsden (in progress). Using word lists for high-stakes exams: Topic-driven versus frequency-informed.

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inferencing skills are of course important BUT difficult …

Whether a student can successfully infer meaning is ‘hit and miss’:

If there were 10 unknown words in a text, a learner can infer meaning of between 2 and 6 of them

Successful inference can depend on …

Context e.g., the proportion of unknown words in the text
Learner e.g., analytic ability
Proficiency: Teaching strategies to work out unknown words is more effective the more proficient learners are (Plonsky, 2011)

-> robust existing knowledge is helpful

(e.g., Albrechtsen et al., 2008; Bengeleil & Paribakht, 2004; Fraser, 1999; H. C. M. Hu & Nassaji, 2012; Huckin & Bloch, 1993; Nassaji, 2003; Pulido, 2007; Qian, 2005; Sternberg, 1987; Wesche & Paribakht, 2009).

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Key differences in 2022 Subject Content. [1/4]

The lexicon is specified:

1,200 word families [Foundation],1700 [Higher],
85% from most common 2000 word families,
30 multiword units (of up to five words)
20 cultural / geographical terms

All tasks fully accomplishable using only language from the defined vocabulary and grammar lists

NB Full credit given for appropriate production of language beyond the list!

Is it very unusual to have a word list?

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Having a word list is not very unusual

Word lists for proficiency tests:

Japanese Language Proficiency Test until 2010 (Japan Educational Exchanges and Services, 2009)

~A2: 1,500 words / ~B1: 3,750 words

German-Zertifikat Proficiency Test (Goethe-Institut, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c)

A2: 1,300 words / B1: 2,400 words

Word lists for curricula:

France, Ministry of National Education (éduscol, 2020) lists 1,500 most frequent words in French for French primary school children (6-11 years)
China, Ministry of Education (2017) lists 1,500 words for English for 16 years olds (after 9 yrs of English)
Hungarian National Core Curriculum for English (Krizsán, 2003): 1,200 active vocabulary for 13-14 year olds

Guidelines about number of words:

Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2017, 2018) English: Junior high school students: 1,200 words; High school students: 1,800 words

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How many words is reasonable if we want to teach…

productive knowledge, not just receptive (Nation, Laufer, Meara, Webb)
polysemy (multiple meanings)
‘extreme’ irregulars, as lexical items (Clashen; Gor; Marslen-Wilson; Verríssimo)
some multi-word units (Crossley; Myles, Mitchell & Hopper; Siyanova-Chanturia)
some mid-low frequency words e.g., culturally important
systematic revisiting
spaced repetition (e.g., Webb 2007)

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Rachel Hawkes

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What might inform decisions about how many words can be really learnt?

10 words per hour (e.g, Schmitt 2000)
10+ encounters needed to learn (e.g., Webb 2007)
Students pass GCSE with receptive knowledge of 852 words = 4 words a lesson (Milton, 2006) or perhaps 564 words (David, 2008)
A recommendation to learn a list of 1,500 (Milton, 2015)
The practical constraint! 450 hours available:

Average of 10 words per week -> 360 words per year * 5 years = 1,700 words, for highest achievers

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Rachel Hawkes

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Is the amount (1,250 and 1,750) about right?

2015 GCSE (minimum) word lists, AQA:

Spanish: 1,566 word families

French: 1,300 word families

German: 1,632 word families

Tier of GCSE	Word families used to create ONE exam	Word families used to create THREE exams
Foundation	609	1,173
Higher	753	1,542

Median of range across awarding organisations & languages

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Rachel Hawkes

During the consultation about the proposed new GCSEs there was a lot of concern that the amount of words was far too low, and that the awarding bodies would not be able to create an exam with only 1,200 or 1700 words.

So, the numbers of words for the new word lists are not too far off the current lists, though the current lists vary between languages and between Awarding Bodies.

The test developers would use up the proposed numbers of different word families after creating about three years of exams using the current L & R kind of questions.

We found that far fewer words are used in the exams than are on the word lists, potentially encouraging teachers to teach many words but less well, compared to teaching fewer words but ensuring lots of practice of them.

--------------------------

On the lists there are many multi-word units and words are repeated in different parts of the list.

To get the numbers shown on the slides, we removed duplicate words and proper nouns (e.g., country names, celebrations) to count the number of unique words.

Thus, the numbers for “unique words” reflects the removal of duplicates (the use of same word in different contexts) and the absence of proper nouns.

Spanish has 24% more entries than French (17% difference in unique words)

------------

The numbers in the bottom table are the median of the range, when the ends of the range are across awarding organisations and languages

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Why should “85%” be high frequency words?

The 2,000 most common words in a language generally cover…

80 to 87 % of an average written text (Meara, 1995; Nation, 2001; Nation & Waring, 1997).
90+ % of words in informal conversation (Nation, 2001)

How do we know what the most frequent words are in FLs?

Massive corpora: French 23 million; Spanish 2 billion; German 20 million

The very most frequent words change very little, over time or context

About 80-85% of the most frequent words are the same – no matter which large, general corpus you use

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Does this ‘constrained’ lexicon mean that students are less well prepared for an A level exam?

No.

On average, a new GCSE list has 13% fewer word families than a current list,

but provides 34% more coverage of the word families in typical A level exam

(averaging across AQA and Edexcel).

Dudley & Marsden (in progress). Using word lists for high-stakes exams: Topic-driven versus frequency-informed.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Is a frequency-informed list useful for the current GCSEs?

Predicted probability of a word family in corpus of exams being from each word list

Yes: a frequency-informed list predicts more of the content of exams to date compared to the current word lists

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Rachel Hawkes

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Is a frequency-informed list useful even for those words that have only ever been used once in current GCSEs?

Predicted probability of a word family only used once so far being from each word lists

It is equally as useful as all current AQA lists and all Higher Edexcel lists

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Key difference in 2022 Subject Content [2/4]

Vocabulary in Reading only:

Glossing allowed: up to 2% of words in a text can be glossed

Use of cognates more constrained: ‘same/very similar’ spelling and meaning

Derivational morphology now clearly defined, based on ‘bang for buck’

A ‘test of inferencing’, but an identifiable test, and short: students must infer plausible meaning of words not on the list, when words are embedded in sentences that have all other words on the list

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Rachel Hawkes

Glossing allowed: up to 2% of words in a text can be glossed

Use of cognates more constrained: same spelling and meaning (or 1 letter different, +/- accent, for words of six letters or more) up to 2% of a text

Derivational morphology now clearly defined, based on ‘bang for buck’, and is for reading only: derived or base forms of words (where the base or derived form is on the list), following patterns specified in the grammar annexes, can be included

Content is not defined by whether or not a text is ‘authentic’: no requirement to include literary, authentic texts but they can be

A ‘test of inferencing’ will be identifiable, defined, and short: students must infer plausible meaning of words not on the list, when words are embedded in sentences that have all other words on the list

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Hanoucca

Pour la communauté juive, la fête importante de décembre est Hanoucca. C’est une fête de lumières et on utilise des bougies pour célébrer. La fête est de huit jours, et on allume une bougie le premier jour, deux bougies la deuxième jour … Les bougies sont un symbole de la bonté de Dieu. Dans une vieille histoire juive, une petite bouteille d’huile a nourri une lampe pendant huit jours, beaucoup plus de temps que normalement. On mange des beignets comme un symbole de l’huile. Les enfants jouent avec des toupies qui contiennent une phrase religieuse. Hanoucca est plus familial et spirituel que religieux.

bonté : part of body / personality / room / song
huile : a type of wood / plant / liquid / shoe
beignet : a type of drink / chair / cup / food
toupie : a type of toy / book / hat / sweet

Use the words you know to choose the general meaning of the words in bold.

goodness

oil

doughnut

spinning top

Inferencing, in curriculum and assessment?

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Rachel Hawkes

Here is a text about Hanoucca

Followed by some practice at inferencing the meaning of words by using the words that we know they have already met several times and have been tested on

At this stage, lexical inferencing becomes possible because we are confident that they have a critical mass of vocabulary to start doing this.

Timing: 5 minutes��Aim: to practise lexical inferencing; the written comprehension of known words to arrive at a general understanding of one unknown word in a sentence context. In addition, to revise previously learnt vocabulary in new contexts.��Procedure:�1. Ensure that students understand the task (as this is the first time they are doing this type of activity). Students need to know that they are aiming to understand the general meaning, rather than specific meaning (though they may in some cases also arrive at this).

2. Students read each text and decide which of the four options is most likely, depending on their understanding of the surrounding words.

3. Click to reveal answers.

4. Proceed to the next slide for the comprehension part of the activity.

Word frequency of unknown words used (1 is the most frequent word in French):

lumière [1059], allumer [3169], bougie [>5000], deuxième [427], bonté [>5000], huile [2340], beignet [>5000], toupie [>5000]

Word frequency of cognates used (1 is the most frequent word in French):�Hanoucca [>5000], bouteille [2979], lampe [4699], normal [833], familial [1622], spirituel [3047]

Source: Lonsdale, D., & Le Bras, Y. (2009). A Frequency Dictionary of French: Core vocabulary for learners London: Routledge.

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Much greater transparency about what can be tested

(e.g., interrogative types laid out)

Some features moved from Foundation to Higher

(e.g. depuis +present; inflectional future)

Some features divided into sub-components: some can be tested at foundation, and some only at higher

reflexive use of verbs
present tense irregular verbs

Key difference in 2022 Subject Content [3/4]

Grammar content simplified, clarified, and sequenced:

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Some features removed completely (e.g., subjunctive)

Some features given tolerance in production at foundation (e.g., minor spelling changes in present tense stems), and are then credit bearing at Higher

Some moved from ‘grammar’ to ‘vocabulary’ (e.g., adverbs, pronouns)

Key difference in 2022 Subject Content [3/4]

Grammar content:

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Rachel Hawkes

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Key difference in 2022 Subject Content [4/4]

No longer just ‘isolated skills’ of L, R, S, W

Addition of sound-spelling correspondences (phonics)

Students demonstrate ability in:

transcription (dictation)

decoding (reading aloud + show comprehension in unprepared conversation)

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Session overview

Part 1/ Language competence and Subject Content

Part 2/ Comparing 2015 and 2022: similarities and differences

Part 3/ Some implications for curriculum design

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Rachel Hawkes

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Implications for curriculum. The new content increases attention on …

practice reading aloud WITH understanding

practice writing down language that is heard

the most used words

-> broad range of contexts and types of text
still room for individualisation in word choice for production
materials at appropriate level (see multilngprofiler.net)

independent manipulation of language

downplays heavy reliance on complex, unanalysed, fixed phrases/sentences/paragraphs

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How to sequence a curriculum, if not with phrases from topics on ‘my routine’, ‘school’, ‘jobs’?

Can maintain focus on communicative contexts & functions

But select (mainly) high frequency words, from small semantically-related sets

Mixed parts of speech (v, n, adj, …) -> create sentences from lesson 1

Challenges of the specific language drives curriculum choices

Reduce language content that can mislead learners who need to ‘crack the code’

(VanPatten, Marsden & Chen/Kasprowicz/McManus)

Themes and context of use emerge from the language

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And yet space 1750 words out, across varied, interesting contexts?

-> “expanding practice schedules” (see Nakata, 2015)

revisit the same language, less and less frequently over time
so you can introduce new language

When we are “gardening in a gale” of English (Hawkins, 1996), how do you ensure there is enough revisiting of language?

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An expanding practice schedule

Week 20: tested

Week 33: tested

Each of following years: practised and tested

Week 1: a set of words learnt for pre-lesson homework – e.g., Quizlet

wk

10

wk

2

wk

5

Week 10: relearnt before lesson and included in classroom activities

Week 5: relearnt before lesson and included in classroom activities

Nakata, T. et al. (2020). The long-term benefits of making the simple change from non-cumulative to cumulative weekly vocabulary quizzes . OASIS Summary of Nakata, T. et al. (2020) in TESOL Quarterly. https://oasis-database.org

Week 2: taught & practised in lesson

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Revisiting vocabulary in different semantic contexts

Talking about people’s lives

Asking about future intentions

Talking about the environment

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2. Design

grammatical growth: word families gradually get larger as new features are introduced

Planning systematic vocabulary and grammatical growth

lesson	word families grow	number of words grows

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Rachel Hawkes

In this extract from the Year 7 NCELP scheme of work, you can see that students learn a set of –ER verbs in Term 1.2 Week 5. However, they cannot yet use these verbs in the second or third person plural, because these forms are introduced in the weeks that follow. They also cannot use the verbs in any tenses other than the present.

--------

You will see this embedded in one function of the MultiLingProfiler a weekly NCELP syllabus list. These word lists are cumulative, growing along with students’ learning. These lists also differ from most lists in that they make no assumptions about students’ ability to produce all forms of a known headword, and so profile for grammatical as well as semantic knowledge. There is a different list for each week in the NCELP scheme of work, each building on progress in the last.

So, the profiling tool has to recognise students’ grammar progress as well as headword knowledge, and reflect this in results.

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But won’t this lead to a dull diet? ��What about the country/ people / culture?�

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There seems to be a common misapprehension – an easy dichotomous way of thinking - that defining language content in clear ways – by listing vocabulary, the details of grammar, and the sounds-symbol correspondences - this would mean that language learning was no longer about engendering an interest in the countries and people associated with the language. That defining linguistic content somehow also meant that the only rationale suddenly became an academic one only – neglecting other rationales such as raising awareness about language (in a way that could be applied to other languages later in the pupils’ lives) or imbuing a sense of curiosity in other cultures and places.

This is far too simplistic way of thinking.

Here are some texts I will whizz through to illustrate, I hope, that these views resulted from a false dichotomy, a conflation of completely different issues.

I hope to illustrate, in a whistle stop tour of some of the over 1,000 classroom resources that NCELP have created, that interesting texts and ideas can be communicated with high frequency words and basic grammar structures, in a curriculum where the vocab and grammar adheres to a schedule to ensure that particular vocab and grammar are revisited at specific times.

Please understand that building up to the texts you are about to see, are a series of meticulously planned activities that lead up to students being able to understand and interact with the texts. The activities that lead up to this span hours (over weeks) of classroom time. These activities should not be considered in isolation, but as part of a whole.

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Be wary of ‘false dichotomies’

“Focusing on grammar means culture has been forgotten!”

“Focus on words means there is not enough interesting material!”

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El pasado de Medellín

Medellín es una ciudad en Colombia que hace veinte años era muy peligrosa. Un grupo de criminales, el Cartel de Medellín, organizaba redes de narcotráfico* y prácticamente controlaba la ciudad. El narcotráfico era un muy _______ _________ (el Cartel ganaba hasta sesenta millones de dólares al día), así que era posible ganar mucho dinero en muy ________ _________. Sin embargo, era una ___________ _________ y el grupo usaba la violencia* muy a menudo. Mataba a policías en la calle y secuestraba* a ___________ _____________. A pesar de estas acciones, el jefe del cartel, Pablo Escobar, era una persona popular en los _________ _________. Él ayudaba a la población en lugares donde el gobierno no estaba. Por eso mucha gente de estas comunidades lo consideraba una _______ _________.

escuchar / escribir / leer

buen

negocio

actividad

ilegal

poco

tiempo

personas

importantes

barrios

pobres

gran

persona

*el narcotráfico = drug trafficking

*secuestrar = to kidnap, kidnapping

*la violencia = violence

Escucha y completa el texto.

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Rachel Hawkes

Timing: 10 minutes

Aims:

to learn about the past of a Spanish-speaking city
to accurately transcribe the missing words
to consolidate understanding of pre-nominal adjectives
to demonstrate understanding of key information in the text

Procedure:

Students write 1-6 down the left hand side of their books.
Explain to students that they will hear six pairs of missing words.
They listen to the text and write the missing pairs of words.
Check answers and give feedback. Elicit oral translations in English of the words in the gaps.
Ask students which pairs of words have an adjective before the noun (ANSWER: buen negocio, poco tiempo, gran persona).
Ask which pairs of words have an adjective after the noun (ANSWER: actividad illegal, personas importantes, barrios pobres).
To check comprehension of the text on this slide, the questions below could be asked. These could be written on the board by the teacher or distributed on a handout (word doc available with this resource). The answers can be checked orally in English afterwards, with reference to the Spanish text displayed on the board.

Comprehension questions:

Who was effectively in charge of Medellín twenty years ago? (The Cartel de Medellín)
How much could the Cartel de Medellín earn in a day? (Up to 60 million dollars)
What is said about violence? What examples are given? (The group used violence frequently. It killed police officers and kidnapped important people)
Why was Pablo Escobar considered to be a great person? (Because he helped the population in poor neighbourhoods where the government wasn’t present)

Notes: it is assumed that students will be able to understand ‘prácticamente’ given that the word ‘práctico’ has been taught, as well as the meaning of the affix –mente.

Based on the text length (142 words), 2% of the text is 2.6 words. In the new GCSE, a maximum of 2% of words in a text may be glossed. This is rounded up to the nearest single figure (3) here.

One additional cognate (dólar) is included as it has been used in previous phonics activities.

An additional way in which the text could be exploited would be to ask students to identify instances of ‘era’ and their meanings (e.g. ‘[it] was’ for the city, ‘[he] was’ for Escobar).

Image credits: Image retrieved from https://pixabay.com/es/illustrations/pablo-escobar-gr%c3%a1ficos-dise%c3%b1o-4439780/ (image free to use)

Sources and additional information:

Source of information regarding income: Pablo Escobar: The Life and Crimes of the Most Notorious Colombian Drug Lord By J.D. Rockefeller

Frequency of glossed words:

narcotráfico [3549]; secuestrar [>5000]; violencia [1100]

Frequency of cognates:

criminal [2884; controlar [994]; dólar [677]; ilegal [2912]

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El Medellín de hoy

Escobar murió en el año 1993. Hoy en día Medellín es mucho más __________. En general la gente puede vivir tranquilamente. La zona urbana es bastante agradable, con museos, plazas y parques. Medellín es la ________ ciudad de Colombia que tiene su _________ metro y una red de “metrocables” (un tipo de transporte que conecta las partes altas de la ciudad con las partes bajas). En 2012, incluso ganó un premio a nivel ____________ por estos proyectos de transporte público.

Al _________ tiempo, la ciudad no olvida su pasado ________. En 2006 el gobierno abrió un museo, la “Casa de la Memoria”, para acordarse de la violencia y promover el diálogo. La idea: aprender del pasado para crear un futuro _______.

leer

propio	única	mundial	oscuro	seguro	mismo

Opciones:

seguro

única

propio

El metrocable

mundial

mismo

oscuro

mejor

*la violencia = violence

La Casa de la Memoria

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Timing: 8 minutes

Aims:

to learn about present day life in a Spanish-speaking city
to correctly identify the missing words in the gaps
to understand key information in the text

Procedure:

Ask students to read the text and identify which word should go in which gap.
Teachers may wish to challenge higher achieving students by not showing them the answer options initially.
Reveal each answer and give feedback. Check understanding of the text via oral translation of each sentence into English.

Notes: students may be interested to know that Escobar died in 1993 during a military attack by the Colombian armed forces. To give an indication of Escobar’s popularity, around 25,000 people attended his funeral (https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-pablo-escobar-became-symbol-of-resistance-popular-culture/).

Students were taught the spelling change o > u in the word ‘murió’ in Y9 T2 but it may be worth recapping this.

Frequency of unknown words:

tranquilamente [4526] (not glossed as students have learnt ‘tranquilo’ and the affix –mente); violencia [1100]; conectar [1973]

Images free to use from wikicommons and from the Museo Casa de la Memoria website.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metrocable_and_Comuna_1_in_Medell%C3%ADn_01.jpg

https://www.museocasadelamemoria.gov.co/en/elmuseo/acerca-de-nosotros/

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La Manche

lire / écrire

La Manche* sépare la France et l’Angleterre. On peut traverser la Manche en bateau ou en train sous l’eau. Quand nous visitons l’Angleterre, nous aimons prendre le train – c’est plus rapide. Ils préfèrent prendre le bateau pour regarder la vue. Comment traversez-vous la Manche ?

Le tunnel sous la Manche constitue le plus long tunnel sous-marin* du monde – on trouve 38 de ses 50 kilomètres sont sous la mer*. On utilise le tunnel pour voyager entre l'Angleterre et la France. C'est idéal pour les vacances et les affaires.

Écris des réponses aux questions en anglais.

What are two ways you can cross the Channel?

boat / train

How long is the tunnel?

50km

How much of the tunnel is under the sea?

38km

What is the tunnel ideal for?

holidays / business

*la Manche = the English Channel

*sous-marin = underwater

*la mer = sea

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Una tradición mexicana: el Día de Muertos

Lee y escucha el texto sobre el Día de Muertos:

leer / escuchar

México tiene muchas tradiciones, pero su tradición del Día de Muertos es especialmente conocida. Es una costumbre única y muy importante para su comunidad porque es una forma de pensar en los muertos. Para los mexicanos, los muertos vienen a la tierra este día.

Nadia es mexicana y celebra el Día de Muertos con su familia. Por la mañana se levanta temprano para ayudar a su abuela: preparan pan* de muerto y un poco de fruta para el altar. Su altar tiene varios* niveles. Los niveles del altar son las diferentes partes del mundo: el primer nivel es la tierra y el segundo nivel es el cielo*. Nadia pone allí fotos de su abuelo y se sienta al lado de su abuela. Se queda unas horas en casa con su familia y se acuerda de su abuelo muerto.

Por la tarde se pone ropa divertida, se pinta de blanco y negro y va a la calle con su hermano. En su barrio hay un festival con música fuerte y luces de colores. ¡Es muy divertido!

1

2

3

4

5

6

*el pan = bread; *el cielo = sky, heaven; *varios = various

‘Pan de muerto’ es un tipo de pan tradicional en este día.

7

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

This was a bimodal reading and listening task – where learners are asked to follow the text whilst they listen; every so often the audio stops and they have to say the next word or the previous one, or replace the next word with something else

This was informed by evidence that bimodal input helps learners to segment the input into words and helps their comprehension.

-------------

Timing: 8 minutes

Aims:

to reinforce understanding of the difference between ‘se’ and ‘su’.

to help students to connect the spoken and written forms of the language more securely.

to consolidate vocabulary and grammar knowledge by eliciting suggested changes to the text.

Procedure:

Students read the text and write ‘se’ or ‘su’ for each space.
Click on the audio button to play the text. Read and listen.

Note: There is a full version of the audio top right with a player. Alternatively, the audio is in 6 sections with a pause just after the words 1-5 below, to facilitate easy stop/start.

To support segmentation, stop the audio and ask students to say:�a) the next word�b) the previous word
In addition, to develop understanding, vocabulary and grammar knowledge, pause at key points and ask students to suggest an alternative word that could replace the next word. This is a chance to draw on previously taught grammar and vocabulary knowledge.
Es una costumbre única y muy importante para su... (students volunteer other possible nouns – e.g., gente, historia, país).
y celebra el Día de Muertos con su…..(students volunteer other possible nouns – e.g., padre, madre, primo etc.).
de su abuelo y se... (students volunteer verbs in third person singular that fit after ‘se’ – e.g., se acuerda de..., se queda, se prepara (para), etc)
en casa con su familia y se ... (students volunteer other possible verbs that fit after ‘se’ – e.g., se saca (fotos), se mira en el espejo, se presenta a otra gente).
Por la tarde se…… (students are prompted other possible verbs that fit after ‘se’)
va a la calle con su…. (students volunteer other possible nouns)

Notes:

1. The word for ‘bread’ (‘pan’) will be introduced in the next week’s vocabulary set.

Transcript

México tiene muchas tradiciones, pero su tradición del Día de Muertos es especialmente conocida. Es una costumbre única y muy importante para su comunidad porque es una forma de pensar en los muertos. Para los mexicanos, los muertos vienen a la tierra este día.

Nadia es mexicana y celebra el Día de Muertos con su familia. Por la mañana se levanta temprano para ayudar a su abuela: preparan pan* de muerto y un poco de fruta para el altar. Sualtar tiene varios niveles. Los niveles del altar son las diferentes partes del mundo: el primer nivel es la tierra y el segundo nivel es el cielo. Nadia pone allí fotos de su abuelo y se sienta al lado de su abuela. Se queda unas horas en casa con su familia y se acuerda de su abuelo muerto.

Por la tarde se pone ropa divertida, sepinta de blanco y negro y va a la calle con su hermano. En su barrio hay un festival con música fuerte y luces de colores. ¡Es muy divertido!

Frequency of unknown words and cognates:

pan [1342]; cielo [620]; varios [386]

Photos:

Photo of the child by Christian Newman, from Unsplash.

Photo of ‘Pan de muertos’ by Alejandro Ávila Cortez, from Pixabay.�

�

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Be wary of ‘straw men’

Texts with ‘all familiar words’ are unchallenging!

Arguing against an idea that no one proposed in the first place! – Misrepresenting an idea in a way that is so flimsy that no one would realistically propose – and so, it’s easy to shoot it down!

Who would really propose to always use texts in which all the words are completely known to all learners?

And what do ‘familiar’ or ‘known words’ mean?

Known without fail?

Or … Introduced last week?

Revisited last year?

On average, year 11s know between 550-850 words, then out of a word list of 1750, some words are still going to be ‘unfamiliar’ in their GCSEs ->

Inferencing will still be needed by most students for some words

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

38 of 57

Le festival de Dieppe

Comment dit-on les mots orange en anglais ?

lire

Le festival de Dieppe est le plus grand* festival de cerfs-volants* au monde.

On trouve le festival sur la plage.

Les visiteurs viennent de beaucoup de pays pour regarder des cerfs-volants traditionnels, de l'art et des acrobates. Un aspect important du festival est qu’on peut visiter sans acheter de billet. Il est gratuit !

Il y a beaucoup d'activités pour les enfants et le festival encourage l'imagination. Cet événement culturel célèbre les relations internationales. Pendant le dernier week-end du festival, on regarde les cerfs-volants illuminés pendant un show son* et lumière. Je pense à visiter le �festival. Tu veut voyager au festival avec ma famille ?

visitors

traditional

acrobats

free

event

illuminated

light

What noun does this word look like?

What adjective does this word look like?

What noun does this word look like?

What does this sentence tell you about the festival?

The start of this word looks like the English

What adjective does this look like?

This word has the same stem as the previous one you worked out. What might it mean?

What words that you already know could you use instead of the words in orange?

Answer the question at the end.

*le plus grand =

the biggest

*le cerf-volant = kite

*le son = sound

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

Here is a text about a kite-festival in Dieppe with lots of language awareness activities to help learners understand cognates

Then drawing on their current lexicons – which we know what they are precisely as they have been tracked so carefully - to replace the words

Then giving their reaction to the content of the text by answering a question about whether they would like to go to the festival

----------

Timing: 5 minutes

Aim: Developing inferencing skills by using surrounding context to work out meaning of unknown words; word substitution with known words.

Procedure:

1. Students try to work out the meaning of the highlighted words based on context (text and images) and similarity to English words.

2. If students need some help, click to bring up a clue

3. Click gain to reveal the translations.

4. Click to bring up the extension. Students think of known words that could replace the orange words to make a sensible sentence.

Some suggested answers:

visiteurs -> gens, enfants, personnes … any relevant noun to describe people

traditionnels -> grands, nouveaux… any relevant adjective to describe kites

acrobates -> artistes, chanteurs … any relevant noun to describe performers

événement -> lieu, festival … (note that any relevant masculine noun works here but ‘cet’ would need to change to agree)

illuminés -> verts, bons … any relevant adjective to describe kites

lumière -> musique, film … any relevant noun to describe a show

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Do we know this to be true?

If we keep both equally ‘interesting’, are “authentic” texts somehow superior for beginner/intermediate learners?

One carefully controlled study, with learners of German, found:

the kind of text (literary vs non-literary) made no difference to the extent to which learners began to pick up new words
In fact, when new words were embedded within literary devices (within alliteration, metaphor etc), they were 'less well learned’

BORDAG, D & ROGAHN, M. (2019) The role of literariness in second language incidental vocabulary acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics 40, 399–425 doi:10.1017/S0142716418000620

“”Students learn better if a text is authentic literature compared to if it is created for the classroom”

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

i.e., the kind of text (literary vs non-literary) made no difference to the extent to which learners began to pick up new words.

In fact, the evidence suggested that when new words are embedded within literary devices (within alliteration, metaphor etc), they are 'less well learned'

The study was with advanced learners of German as a FL.

Extracts of key findings:

"we can thus conclude that the literary status of the texts, [be it more along the text-driven or the reader-driven view], neither hindered nor facilitated incidental vocabulary acquisition" (p. 415)

"This finding disputes the assumption that literary devices might trigger noticing and thus improve incidental vocabulary acquistion" (p. 416)

"no difference [in terms of vocab learning] was observed between the literary and nonliterary texts in either Experiment A or B" (p. 416)

"The crucial finding of this study with respect to incidental vocabulary acquisition is that while the presence of literary devices in the context [= within the same text] of novel words does not negatively affect their acquisition, the participation of these words directly in the literary devices hinders incdental vocabulary acquisition." (p. 416) [italics added]

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““Too much focus on language – not enough on communication”

“They won’t be able to say anything useful with just high frequency words!”

““What about basic interactional skills?”

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Rachel Hawkes

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What about everyday communication and interactions for learners about this age, if they were abroad?

9.1.1.4 - interview about work experience (modal verbs: what you can, must, and want to do)

9.1.2.3 - listening comprehension: asking about a hotel

- writing and listening/reading gap-fills: booking table in restaurant

- asking about things in a restaurant

9.1.2.4 - speaking to find out about a school - role play

9.1.2.6 - asking what time things are happening

9.2.1.6 - reporting a crime

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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¡Lucía y Nadia van de compras! Están en una tienda de ropa. �Lee la conversación. Escribe 1-9 y ‘este’ o ‘esta’.

leer

Lucía: (1) Este / Esta tienda es muy buena. Creo que es mejor que la tienda en el centro.

Nadia: Sí, es verdad. ¿Te gusta (2) este / esta vestido azul?

Lucía: ¿Cuánto es?

Nadia: 30 euros. Es más bonito que el vestido rojo y menos caro que el vestido al lado de la puerta.

Lucía: Me gusta mucho. Y (3) este / esta marca es muy conocida también.

Nadia: Claro. Además, según una amiga,

el color azul es más popular que el amarillo o el rojo (4) este / esta año.

Lucía: ¡Mira! (5) Este / Esta falda es preciosa también, y ¡está a mitad de precio!

Nadia: ¡Qué bien!* El precio de la falda en (6) este / esta tienda es más bajo que en otros lugares.

¡Qué bien! That’s great!

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Rachel Hawkes

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leer / escuchar

La pregunta	Objetos
1. ¿Por qué no compras estas ______?	zapatos bicicletas
2. ¿Cuánto son estos ______?	bolsas espejos
3. ¿Quién necesita estas ______?	relojes cosas
4. ¿Cómo son estos ______?	pantalones cajas
5. ¿Dónde guardas estas _______?	vestidos camisas
6. ¿Cuáles son estas ________?	marcas libros

Hugo y Daniel van de compras. Lee las preguntas. Completa la pregunta con la palabra correcta. Luego escucha las respuestas. Identifica la pregunta correcta (e.g. pregunta 3).

Respuestas

A

B

C

D

E

F

Pregunta 6

Pregunta 2

Pregunta 5

Pregunta 1

Pregunta 3

Pregunta 4

Notice how the –a (‘s/he’) ending is used after ‘quién’.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

Reading and listening activity

Timing: 8 min

Aim: to recognise whether to use ‘estos’ or ‘estas’ by looking at the gender of the noun (reading); to practise pairing up question words with their answers (listening and reading).

Procedure:

Students read each sentence and decide if the demonstrative goes with a masculine plural or feminine plural word. The answers are shown by clicking in order.
Then, students listen to the responses (A, B, C...) and decide which question it must refer to. Teachers play the recording by clicking the letter button. The answers are then revealed by clicking.

Transcript:

Adidas y Nike. Son muy conocidas.
Veinticinco euros cada uno.
Muy prácticos, pero no son ligeros.
Porque son demasiado caras.
Diego, para ir al trabajo.
En casa, debajo de la cama.

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Persona A: read the question in Spanish but don’t say the crossed out word!

Persona A (pregunta):

Persona B (escucha y mira las tarjetas):

When do you need these (skirts)? (f)

hablar / escuchar / escribir

Preguntas en las tiendas

A

B

This Monday.

This week.

(m)

(f)

Un ejemplo

Persona B: look at the cards. Is it ‘A’ or ‘B’? Say the words below the picture in Spanish.

Say:

(faldas)

¿Cuándo necesitas estas…?

Esta semana.

_______________

Esta semana.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

Timing: 12-14 minutes

Aim: speaking, listening and writing activity to practise ‘estos’ and ‘estas’, question words and vocabulary.

Procedure:

This is the example slide to explain the activity. Teachers click to go through the example stage by stage. It may be useful to give the pairs out their cards to help understand the task. The prompt cards for both Person A and Person B are on slide 48, and the picture cards are on slides 49 and 50 respectively. These slides should not be shown during the activity.
Teachers need to stress that students do not say the word that has been crossed out. It is there to indicate which gender of ‘these’ is needed.
Person B listens to Person A’s question and works out which image the ‘estos’ or ‘estas’ is referring to, and then orally translates the answer below the correct picture into Spanish. Person A writes this down in their book.
Students swap roles after doing all 6.
The answers to the activity are shown on slide 51.

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Persona A

How much are these (books)? (m)
Why do you buy these (shirts)? (f)
What are these (m) (shoes) like? (m)
Where do you keep these (boxes)? (f)
When do you need these (games)? (m)
Who uses these (watches)? (f)

Persona B

Where do you buy these (trousers)? (m)
When do you need these (bicycles)? (f)
Who pays for these (cards)? (f)
Why do you keep these (newspapers)? (m)
How much are these (shirts)? (f)
What are these (dresses) like? (m)

hablar

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

46 of 57

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

in the market

in the shop

They are 30 euros.

They are 27 euros.

Because I want to drink something.

Because I want to read the news.

this week

They are pretty.

They are short.

my Mum

my Dad

this Saturday

(m)

(f)

(m)

(f)

(m)

(f)

(m)

(f)

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

47 of 57

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

They are 29 euros.

They are 24 euros.

They are not expensive.

I like the colour.

They are very practical/ useful.

They are tasty.

in the kitchen

in the shop

at the weekend

this Sunday

my grandfather

my aunt

(f)

(m)

(f)

(m)

(f)

(m)

(f)

(m)

(f)

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

48 of 57

Y Daniel, ¿cómo ayuda?�

B bread (m)

A milk (f)

1

2

3

buys it at the market

B vegetable (f)

A wine (m)

leaves it next to the window

B egg (m)

A food (f)

places it on the table

escuchar

B cheese (m)

A fruit (f)

4

5

6

cuts it in

the kitchen

B juice (m)

A honey (f)

B apple (f)

A banana (m)

Acción y lugar

mixes it in

a glass

takes it out of the bag

Daniel también ayuda.

Escucha. ¿Es ‘A’ o ‘B’?

Escribe la acción y el lugar en inglés.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

Everyday food items – buying and doing things with them!

Timing: 8 minutes

Aim: to practise recognising the gender of the direct object pronouns ‘lo’ and ‘la’.

Procedure:

Students listen to each sentence and decide if it refers to A or B, depending on the direct object pronoun that they hear. Note that in this activity, all pronouns refer to ‘it’ (rather than ‘him’ or ‘her’).
Students write the action and place in English.
Show the answers and give feedback. Students may be interested to know how to say some of the unknown words in Spanish (and they may learn their meanings incidentally). These are:
cheese: el queso [3187]
honey: la miel [3201]
juice: el jugo [3756]; zumo [>5000] is also used in Spain
banana: el plátano [>5000]
apple: la manzana [3214]

Transcript:

Lo compra en el mercado.
Lo deja al lado de la ventana.
La coloca encima de la mesa.
Lo corta en la cocina.
La mezcla en un vaso.
La saca de la bolsa.

Note:

Some food items have not been previously taught, although this does not impede the completion of the activity as the aim is to identify ‘lo’ being masculine and ‘la’ being feminine.
An alternative use of this activity could be full or partial sentence transcription. Some students may engage in this anyway, taking notes before writing their answer in English.

Frequency of unknown words or cognates:

queso [3187]; miel [3201]; jugo [3756]; zumo [>5000] is also used in Spain; el plátano [>5000]; manzana [3214]; acción [404]

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Lucía compra en el mercado y habla con un dependiente. Lee y escucha el diálogo. Después, lee las frases en inglés. ¿Son verdaderas o falsas?

	V	F
1. Lucía only wants big loaves of bread.
2. She prefers hot bread.
3. She wants bread for the evening.
4. She puts the loaves of bread in the bag with the bottles of milk.
5. The vegetables are fresh.

Hola, buenos días. ¿Cuánto cuestan los panes?
Los tengo grandes y pequeños. Los grandes cuestan un euro y los pequeños un euro con cincuenta céntimos.
Vale. Entonces dos pequeños y dos grandes.
¿Y los prefieres calientes o fríos?
Mmm... calientes, para desayunar. ¿Y cuánto cuestan estas botellas de leche?
1 euro la botella, pero también tenemos botellas grandes.
Pues... dos pequeñas. ¡Las necesito para hacer torrijas!
Perfecto. Los panes ya están calientes. ¿Los colocas en la bolsa con la leche?
No, los pongo en otra bolsa. Entonces, ¿cuánto cuesta todo?
A ver*... Todo cuesta nueve euros.
Bien, gracias. ¡Ah! También necesito verduras. ¿Las tienes frescas?
Sí, ¡claro*! ¿Qué tipo de verdura?

leer / escuchar

*a ver = let’s see

*claro = of course

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

Timing: 7 minutes

Aim:

to see the examples of ‘los’ and ‘las’ on the previous slide in the context of a dialogue

to understand the vocabulary in the text

to correctly identify which of the five sentences are true and false, and why

Procedure:

Go through instructions with students. The word ‘dependiente’ (shop assistant) was glossed in an earlier resource, but hasn’t been taught as vocabulary, so ensure that its meaning is clear.
Students read and listen to the dialogue, trying to get the gist of the text.
Students then read the statements in English and decide whether they are true or false.
Draw students’ attention to several features of the text where there is not a word for word translation into English:

Notes:

Here are some additional uses of the text:

oral read aloud, in pairs (see next slide for extracts of the text that can be used for practice of penultimate syllable stress)
oral read aloud, with pairs of pronouns and verbs (e.g. los colocas) given as a prompt in English (‘you place them’) to prompt productive recall under some time pressure.
splitting the text into jumbled parts and asking students to reorder them
rewriting the text in a new way (e.g. with different items of food) and checking that the pronouns maintain the correct agreement. It may be necessary to provide some of the food items used in lesson 1 to support practice here.

Frequency of unknown words or cognates:

dependiente [>5000]

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Ahora intenta completar este diálogo en español:

escribir

Hi, how much do the eggs cost?

Do you prefer them big or small?

Mmmm, big. I also want to buy fruit and vegetables.

Look – I have some fresh apples. You can try one if you like.

Perfect, thank you! I need them for a traditional dish.

1

2

3

Hola, ¿cuánto _________ los huevos?

1

¿___ _________ grandes o pequeños?

2

Mmm, grandes. También quiero comprar _________ __________.

3

Mira – tengo unas manzanas frescas. ______________ una si quieres.

4

5

4

¡Perfecto, gracias! _____________ para un plato tradicional.

5

cuestan

Los

fruta y

Las necesito

prefieres

Puedes probar

verduras

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

51 of 57

Mira las respuestas. ¿Tu traducción es correcta?

escribir

Hi, how much do the eggs cost?

Do you prefer them big or small?

Mmmm, big. I also want to buy fruit and vegetables.

Look - I have some fresh apples*!

Perfect, thank you! I need them for a traditional dish.

1

2

3

Hola, ¿cuánto cuestan los huevos?

1

¿Los prefieres grandes o pequeños?

2

Mmmm, grandes. También quiero comprar fruta y verduras.

3

Mira - tengo unas manzanas frescas.

4

5

4

¡Perfecto, gracias! Las necesito para un plato tradicional.

5

*apple = la manzana

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

52 of 57

Further resources from NCELP

‘The culture collection’ (year 7 & 8 only currently; many year 9 resources)

Sound-symbol correspondences are systematically taught and revisited from Y7-Y9, with frequent read aloud and transcription opportunities 🡪 phonics collection
Vocabulary selection for the fully resourced SOW is frequency-informed, comprises at least 85% words from a list of the most frequent 2,000, and is systematically revisited 🡪 SOW
Grammar is thoroughly practised in listening, reading, speaking and writing activities, and regularly revisited
Texts and listening extracts – including interactions, culture, geography, personal communicative functions - are designed for high ‘readability’, with unknown words glossed, explained, or set as inferencing tasks
Sample GCSE word lists available

Link to all resource collections

https://resources.ncelp.org/

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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CPD offer

CPD course free to teachers in state schools

Content: research-informed languages teaching at KS3 and KS4
5 remote learning sessions of 2.5 hours
Additional online peer and instructor support
Link to register: www.ncelp.org/cpd

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Briefings from NCELP UNDERSTANDING THE NEW SUBJECT CONTENT FOR GCSE FRENCH, GERMAN AND SPANISH�

Format: online

Timings: 3.30-4.30pm / 4.00-5.00pm / 7.00-8.00pm

Dates: various dates throughout March – see schedule below for more information.

Audience: MFL Heads of Department, Subject Leaders or MFL teachers.

Cost: free

https://ncelp.org/march-briefings-gcse/

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Please respond to 2 quick questions!

Sign up to receive OASIS accessible

summaries of research studies

https://mailchi.mp/481ba176f2d1/oasis-alerts

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Want to hear more from NCELP?

Join the mailing list, email: enquiries@ncelp.org for regular bulletins about resources arriving on the portal

To get monthly alerts to summaries of new research, sign up in 10 seconds at

https://oasis-database.org/

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Thanks for listening

What is language competence and GCSE Subject Content
Comparing 2015 and 2022: similarities and differences
Some implications for curriculum design

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes