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Differentiation in the NCELP SoW �

Stretch and challenge

Rachel Hawkes / Victoria Hobson

Date updated: 31/05/21

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Rachel Hawkes

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This session

Determining the difficulty of grammar – a springboard to offering increased challenge
Exploring levels of word knowledge to create challenge
Explore stretch and challenge within a selection of NCELP lesson resources

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Factors that influence the difficulty of grammar

Mitchell, Myles & Marsden, 2019

Language Factors

Salience of the grammar
Communicative value, reliability and overshadowing
Frequency of the grammar
Similarity to/ distance from the L1

Learner Factors

Vocabulary knowledge
Analytic ability
Working memory
Learner capacities/types of memory relied on

Content and Task Factors

Modality: oral or written?
Mode: comprehension or production?
Task complexity: varying the cognitive load 🡪 ‘desirable difficulty’

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Rachel Hawkes

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Factors that influence the difficulty of grammar

Mitchell, Myles & Marsden, 2019

Language Factors

Salience of the grammar
Communicative value, reliability and overshadowing
Frequency of the grammar
Similarity to/ distance from the L1

Learner Factors

Vocabulary knowledge
Analytic ability
Working memory
Learner capacities/types of memory relied on

Content and Task Factors

Modality: oral or written?
Mode: comprehension or production?
Task complexity: varying the cognitive load 🡪 ‘desirable difficulty’

Complexity

Accuracy

Fluency

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Rachel Hawkes

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Factors that influence the difficulty of grammar

Content and Task Factors

Modality: oral or written?

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Factors that influence the difficulty of grammar

Content and Task Factors

Mode: comprehension or production?

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Factors that influence the difficulty of grammar

Content and Task Factors

Task complexity: varying the cognitive load 🡪 ‘desirable difficulty’

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Rachel Hawkes

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Opportunities for students to encounter ‘desirable difficulty’

Complexity

Accuracy

Fluency

If learners have to produce just one grammatical feature repeatedly in one task (e.g., a gap fill practising just the past tense, or a description of just last weekend), their language is more likely to be accurate than if they had to choose between different grammar systems (e.g., compare past and present events). When using just one grammar system, the complexity of language is very low, as learners can follow a mechanical pattern without choosing between different grammatical systems.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Opportunities for students to encounter ‘desirable difficulty’

Complexity

Accuracy

Fluency

If learners have to provide rich descriptions

that force them to distinguish one entity (or event) from another, their grammar is more likely to be more complex than when talking about one entity, as the task will require the use of comparisons or relative clauses. However, language may not be as

accurate.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Opportunities for students to encounter ‘desirable difficulty’

Complexity

Accuracy

Fluency

If learners have to talk spontaneously about an event that is ‘there and then’ (e.g., future, in another place), rather than ‘here and now’, their grammar is likely to be more complex but less fluent. Also, if events are not linear in time or do not happen in just one place, the task will require learners to use complex language such as different tenses to switch between time frames, or use prepositional phrases to express different movement or change of location.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Opportunities for students to encounter ‘desirable difficulty’

Complexity

Accuracy

Fluency

If learners plan what they are going to say or write, this can improve the accuracy of their grammar and the fluency (increase speed and reduce certain types of pauses), compared to not planning. But planning does not necessarily increase complexity. Also, the fluency gained by planning is a very distinctive type of fluency that can reveal that the language was planned – with few pauses between sentences or clauses, where in fact it is normal to pause while we think about what to say.

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Rachel Hawkes

NCELP speaking tasks are generally interaction tasks that are unscripted but which focus students’ attention on a particular pair of grammar features. One way to increase cognitive challenge for higher proficiency learners in these tasks is to prompt for further information. For example, in a task focusing on two persons of past tense activities, students can be encouraged to add an additional clause, a detail about time, place, further activity, or opinion. Sometimes these extension suggestions are in the teacher notes, but teachers can make use of the strategy with any such tasks with particular students, as and when appropriate.��Written production is also usually envisaged as ‘from memory’, and for this reason the tasks are often quite controlled, e.g. prompts in English with written translation. These can be interpreted as a form of planning support.�To challenge higher proficiency learners, it is straightforward to prompt them to substitute (or write in addition) two or three sentences of their own.��It’s useful also to remember what we said about the differences in challenge between different modes and modalities.�Where the majority of students might be required to write a written translation of a text, higher proficiency learners might be challenged to complete the translation orally, initially.��Let’s look at an example from one Spanish resource:�

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Las vacaciones de verano�

La playa de La Concha

escribir

Lee el texto en inglés y completa el texto en español.

D: Hi Hugo! (1) Did you travel last summer?

H: I didn’t, but Nadia did. (2) She travelled to England (in order) to visit a cousin whereas (3) I spent the holidays here in San Sebastián on the Concha beach. (4) And you? Did you meet up with other friends?

D: Yes, but (5) without Lucía! (6) She walked in the mountains near the border with France to see (7) the beautiful views. (8) I participated in a music festival in Vitoria with Pablo and Alba.

D: ¡Hola Hugo! (1) ¿ Tú _________ el verano pasado?

H: Yo no, pero Nadia sí. (2) _________ a Inglaterra para visitar a un primo mientras que (3) ___________________________ en San Sebastián en la playa de La Concha. (4) ¿ ________________ con otros amigos?

D: ¡Sí, pero (5) ____ Lucía! (6) ____________ en las montañas cerca de la frontera con Francia para ver (7) ___________________. (8) _____________ en un festival de música en Vitoria con Pablo y Alba.

Viajaste

yo pasé las vacaciones aquí

Ella viajó

Y tú? ¿Quedaste

sin

Ella caminó

las vistas preciosas

Yo participé

Here the writing task has already been produced with two levels of challenge. This is the scaffolded version…

Original lesson notes:

Timing: 5 minutes (either do this slide or the activity on the next slide)

Aim: Scaffolded writing exercise using the same text as the previous two exercises.

OPTION 1 – scaffolded text completion

Procedure:

Students write 1-8 in their books.
They will need to look at the English text and use the prompts in bold to fill in the missing words in the Spanish text on the right hand side. These include the target grammar features worked on this week, including subject pronouns and -ar verbs in the preterite, as well as vocabulary.
Click to show the missing Spanish words one by one.

Note:

Image free to use from the following source:

https://unsplash.com/photos/8KCquMrFEPg

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Las vacaciones de verano

La playa de La Concha

escribir

Lee el texto en inglés y escribe el texto en español.

D: Hi Hugo! Did you travel last summer?

H: I didn’t, but Nadia did. She travelled to England (in order) to visit a cousin whereas I spent the holidays here

in San Sebastián on the Concha beach. Did you meet up with other friends?

D: Yes, but without Lucía!

¡Hola Hugo! ¿Tú viajaste el verano pasado?

Yo no, pero Nadia sí. Ella viajó a

Inglaterra para visitar a un primo

mientras que yo pasé las vacaciones aquí

en San Sebastián en la playa de La Concha.

¿Tú quedaste con otros amigos?

¡Sí, pero sin Lucía!

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Lee el texto con tu compañero/a de clase. �Traduce los verbos y los pronombres al español.

D: ¡Hola Hugo! ¿[Did you travel] el verano pasado?

H: Yo no, pero Nadia sí. [She travelled] a Inglaterra para visitar a un primo mientras que [I spent] las vacaciones aquí en San Sebastián en la playa de La Concha. ¿[Did you meet up] con otros amigos?

D: ¡Sí, pero sin Lucía! [She walked] en las montañas cerca de la frontera con Francia para ver las vistas preciosas. [I participated] en un festival de música en Vitoria con Pablo y Alba.

H: ¿De verdad? ¿[Did you sing] en el festival?

D: Ja, ja, ja. No, solo fui para escuchar a unos grupos, pero tuve suerte porque gané un premio en el festival. En cambio Lucía no pasó un buen día. ¡[She cried] porque olvidó la cámara!

hablar

Tú viajaste

Ella viajó

yo pasé

Yo participé

Tú quedaste

Ella caminó

Tú cantaste

Ella lloró

And then at this stage of the lesson, higher proficiency students could turn away from the board and have a 2^nd attempt at producing the whole text orally, using only the English version of the text.�

Original lesson notes:

Timing: 5 mins

Aim: to automatise knowledge of subject pronouns and –ar verbs in the preterite in oral production.�

Procedure:�1. Students read the text aloud with a partner, translating the English prompts into Spanish as they go. After reading through it once, they can swap roles (the person reading as Daniel becoming Hugo and visa-versa).

2. The teacher may wish to do the first one together with the class to ensure understanding that two words (pronoun and verb) are needed for each prompt.

Note: to challenge a higher-level group, more words in the text could be given as prompts. At present the activity just focuses on verbs and pronouns as this is the main focus for this week’s teaching.

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A framework for stretch and challenge

Complexity

Accuracy

Fluency

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Rachel Hawkes

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This session

Determining the difficulty of grammar – a springboard to offering increased challenge
Exploring word knowledge to create challenge
Explore stretch and challenge within a selection of NCELP lesson resources

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Word knowledge

Nation 2013, p. 538

Nation divides word knowledge into three main areas: form, meaning and use.

Year 8+

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Rachel Hawkes

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Year 9 Homework Tasks

Part 1: Practise on Quizlet for 15 minutes. Do the following tasks: Write (both translating into English and into German); Spell (hear & type); Test (all questions).

Part 2: Using the words around the edge of the text, make at least 10 replacements (or as many as you can) in 13 minutes.

Note: you may need to make changes to the form or position of other words.

Quizlet QR Code

Homework Worksheet

Year 9 German Term 1.1 Week 3

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Rachel Hawkes

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Year 9 Homework T1.1 W3

morgen	nächste Woche	Unternehmen		billig	backe	und
Keks [x2]	Ich habe mein eigenes Geburtstagskuchengeschäft. Meine Produkte sind teuer aber immer mehr Menschen kaufen bei mir ein, weil es schön ist, einen leckeren Kuchen als Geschenk mitzubringen. Heute bereite ich in meiner Küche für eine Frau einen Geburtstagskuchen vor. Ihr Sohn ist morgen dreißig Jahre alt und hat heute Abend zu Hause eine Party mit Live-Musik. Frau Meyer kommt heute früh am Nachmittag, um den Kuchen mitzunehmen, also muss ich schon um acht Uhr anfangen. Es ist schwierig, nicht zu viel zu essen, wenn man als Beruf kocht. Deshalb gehe ich jeden Abend um zwanzig Uhr laufen. Ich finde, das hilft auch beim* Schlafen. Wichtig, wenn ich morgen noch zwei Kuchen vorbereiten muss!					in einem Restaurant
Freund						später
schwimmen						nicht einfach
danach						neun
glaube						denn
beginnen	vierzig	Feier	Personen		Fitbleiben	backen

(*beim – with/when |der Kuchen – cake)

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Year 9 Homework Tasks

Now complete either Part 3a OR Part 3b (12 minutes).
Part 3a: Now translate your adapted text into English.
Part 3b: Rewrite the original text from the point of view of another person, either a boy [he/er] or a girl [she/sie]. Make all the necessary changes of pronoun (I, s/he, we, they), verb form and possessive adjective (my, his/her, our, their)

Homework sheet Answer sheet

Spanish homework sheet

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Rachel Hawkes

Now bringing in grammar again. Part three proposes a choice of two activities. Part 3b offers a progression to further challenge higher proficiency students.

As you know, the grammar spine within the SOW is not driven by traditional ‘paradigms’ (e.g., full sets of verb, article or adjectival agreements, all at once). However, in its totality the grammar spine will cover the full range of features for persons, subjects, tenses, and aspectual functions (‘complete’ versus ‘ongoing’), and a range of key syntax (word order and relations between words) over time. If following the NCELP SOW, teachers will be ideally placed to look at what grammar students have done so far and structure learning activities to offer stretch and challenge. Here is one such example. Teachers could alter the foci, depending on the level of challenge required.

The homework sheet in full and the answer sheet are linked on this slide for your reference. A Spanish version is also linked for your reference.

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Learner profiles

Read the student profiles. In each case, what could you likely deduce about their areas of relative strength? What considerations should be given to mode and modality when designing learning activities for these learners? What types of activity will create ‘desirable difficulty’?

Amie

Bilingual home (mum speaks French, Amie answers in English).

Frequent holidays to France, stays with grandparents who speak no English.

Roman

Strong literacy skills:

Avid reader, highly developed comprehension skills.

Very wide vocabulary in English.

Strong written ability, can express complex ideas clearly and present them coherently.

Alex

Highly analytical, can spot patterns quickly and produce highly accurate verb forms.

Strong memory.

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Amie

Bilingual home (mum speaks French, Amie answers in English).

Yearly holiday to France stay with grandparents who speak no English.

Areas of strength	Considerations for task design
Ability to understand target language in the classroom, certainly orally. Potential wide (receptive) vocabulary. Likely understands complex grammar structures. Intermittent practice with communicating for real purposes, fluency likely peaks after holiday periods.	Amie’s learning will benefit from: Productive vocabulary practice in both oral and written modalities. Transcription practice. Regular focus on spoken production practice to promote fluency, using complex language to ensure desirable difficulty. Dedicated written production tasks to target accuracy, maintaining desirable difficulty by making practice meaningful, not mechanical.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Alex

Areas of strength	Considerations for task design
Capable of achieving a high degree of grammatical accuracy. Potential ability to acquire a large vocabulary in the L2.	Alex’s learning will benefit from: Opportunities to apply learning of grammar structures across all modes and modalities and use this knowledge to create responses above the initial task design. E.g. increased/different verb lexicon; different/multiple persons of the verb; tense transposition. Opportunities to build a large vocabulary (e.g. maximise incidental vocab learning), promoting desirable difficulty with tasks at paragraph level which incorporate complex language.

Alex

Highly analytical, can spot patterns quickly and produce highly accurate verb forms.

Strong memory.

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Roman

Areas of strength	Considerations for task design
Strong comprehension skills likely transfer to L2 (ability to deduce, infer meaning etc.) Potential ability to acquire a large vocabulary in the L2. Potential to understand and produce complex language.	Roman’s learning will benefit from: Opportunities to develop understanding and accurate use of a wide variety of grammar structures in the L2. Opportunities to build a large vocabulary (e.g. incidental vocab learning perhaps from reading for pleasure in L2). Opportunities to develop fluency in production, promoting desirable difficulty by working in the oral modality with complex language.

Roman

Strong literacy skills:

Avid reader, highly developed comprehension skills.

Very wide vocabulary in English.

Strong written ability, can express complex ideas clearly and present them coherently.

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Rachel Hawkes

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This session

Determining the difficulty of grammar – a springboard to offering increased challenge
Exploring word knowledge to create challenge
Explore stretch and challenge within a selection of NCELP lesson resources

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

26 of 30

Stretch and challenge within lesson resources

Spanish Y8 T3.1 W1 – this is a Consolidation Week designed to reinforce singular persons of regular -ar/-er /-ir verbs and subject pronouns. Within this two lesson sequence, there are ample opportunities for differentiation for higher proficiency students. Such ideas are detailed in the Notes field.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Stretch and challenge within lesson resources

German Y8 T3.1 W5 – the context is a move to a new house and area which sets students up to describe attributes. Within this two lesson sequence, there are opportunities provided that offer scope for differentiation for higher proficiency students through differentiated tasks. The final two activities of Lesson 2 bring together listening, reading and writing in a Dictogloss activity and a speaking activity – Q & A practising WO2 to emphasise different ideas.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Stretch and challenge within lesson resources

French Y8 T1.2 W5 – this is the first of two text exploitation weeks in Year 8. Within this two lesson sequence, students are guided through a series of structured activities to assist their understanding of a longer text which acts as a springboard to a final creative production exercise.

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Rachel Hawkes

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Stretch and challenge within lesson resources

German Y9 T1.1 W1 – within lesson two there are three ideas to use one aural text, depending on the learning focus the teachers want to develop. See slides 30,31&32.
Spanish Y9 T1.1 W1 - as well as aiming to help students connect the spoken and written forms of the language more securely, the listening activity on slide 28 offers an opportunity to develop understanding, vocabulary and grammar knowledge, by pausing at key points and asking 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. Students will need to think about the kinds of words they can use in context, depending on where the audio stops.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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This session

Determining the difficulty of grammar – a springboard to offering increased challenge
Exploring word knowledge to create challenge
Explore stretch and challenge within a selection of NCELP lesson resources

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes