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Session 1: Curriculum Design: intent, implementation and impact in languages

Presenter: Rachel Hawkes

Date updated: 29.05.21

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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The three ‘I’s

= curriculum implementation

= curriculum intent

“Leaders and teachers design, structure and sequence a curriculum, which is then implemented through classroom teaching. The end result of a good, well-taught curriculum is that pupils know more and are able to do more.” p.3, Ofsted, 2019a

= curriculum impact

The new Ofsted framework emphasises the centrality of curriculum to its quality of education judgements. Three inter-related dimensions – intent, implementation and impact - are implicated, as follows: the design of the curriculum (vision and planning of it) is the INTENT, the teaching is the IMPLEMENTATION, and the learning outcomes are the IMPACT.

So, it’s clear the what we put into the curriculum and how we organise that content, i.e. sequence and plan its revisiting is really important.�And fairly obvious, and nothing new. We’ve not been wandering around our classrooms teaching without a plan for the past 25 years.�So why might it be important to re-consider our curriculum design in languages and consider making some changes?��Answering that question is our purpose for this session.��

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Aims for the session

to understand the rationale for a new approach to curriculum design

identifying issues
setting out potential solutions

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Identifying issues [1/3]

1^st language - 17,000 hours of exposure by age of four

2^nd language in classroom - 450 hours approx. over five years

in time-poor classroom context, every moment� of practice counts

(Roffwarg et al., 1966, cited in Collins & Muñoz, 2016)

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Identifying issues [2/3]

As busy teachers, we make 1000s of decisions in one day, 100s in one lesson.�The role is demanding.�In each lesson our focus needs to be on the students moment-by-moment, to respond to what and how they are learning what we teach. �Every lesson is different in that respect, and it requires all of our attention and skill.�We rely on the planning of our SOW, our published lesson materials, and/or our individual lesson resources to be all there ready in advance.��We buy published courses because we know that those producing them have had the time to plan the course in detail, that they have taken every care to ensure that it covers the national curriculum programmes of study, or at KS4, the requirements of the GCSE.�Of course, we reserve the right to adapt and supplement (or sometimes ignore) material from a text book or other course, to meet the needs of our classes.�We completely get the fact that a text book is just a tool, that there is not enough space on the pages to have all the practice steps that we need for our learners.�Many of us like to innovate and create, too.�We tend to put in additional vocabulary practice stages, more revisiting activities at the start and ends of lessons, or create scaffolded versions to tasks to support lower proficiency learners or additional tasks to increase the challenge for our higher proficiency learners. We also like to innovate and add in songs, more culture, or games etc..

But one thing we rarely have the opportunity to do is step back and look at things with different eyes.�If we do that we can sometimes see things we hadn’t previously noticed.�This is sometimes revealing so we’re going to start with that, here.�

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¿Tienes mascotas? Tengo…

un gato

un perro

un caballo

un ratón

un pez

una serpiente

una cobaya

no tengo mascotas

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

So let’s take a unit from Y7 Spanish on pets, for example, as exists in many Y7 SOW and published resources.�We might create a slide like this to give stronger visual support to what is in the text book.�

What might we do with this slide?�1. Present the vocabulary (use animations to build up to independent oral recall of the vocabulary items for a few minutes) -�2. Typically we might then do a listening - e.g. listen and put the pets in order.

E.g

¿Tienes mascotas?

Sí. Tengo un gato.

¿Tienes mascotas?

Sí. Tengo una serpiente.

¿Tienes mascotas?

Sí. Tengo una cobaya.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider what content we are teaching here.�What is the aim of the teaching?

Insert polling questions (multiple choice):�Are we teaching knowledge of:�a. individual vocabulary ítems?�b. two parts of the verb tener?�c. knowledge of gender through the singular indefinite article?

After our teaching what is the thing students don’t remember? How do we get at that, in the limited amount of time we have?��correct application of gender – they randomly assign un/una/el/la to all manners of nouns�verb forms – We ask them Que tienes … and they answer Tienes….�Why is that?��Because in this teaching here it wasn’t salient – it wasn’t task critical – they didn’t have to focus on it, process it, to do the task.�what they needed was the noun so that got all their attention, and if they remember anything at all from this sort of task, it will be the noun itself, not gender or verb that went with it.

��3. Which grammar is meant to be in the spotlight here? the indef articles and tener…�So - if we keep the articles with the noun, the chances are that students will retain the noun word, but might forget the gender. Gender is non-salient for English speakers - we are not sensitive to it because we don’t have grammatical gender in English.�4. The use of tener (orally and in the listening) doesn’t vary - Tienes…? Tengo… Tengo…�It’s not necessary for it to be in the listening at all, for students to do the task. Students will focus on what they need in order to do the task, i.e., the meaning of the noun. ��So, from this teaching so far, we are likely to be in the process of learning some vocabulary, but we are unlikely to retain the meaning of tienes / tengo this way. �Most learners are not well-placed to learn the genders of these nouns this way.��Other things make this selection of vocabulary tricky:

1. pez, serpiente and ratón do not fit the regular pattern so don’t help students establish the knowledge that nouns ending in -o/-a are generally masculine/feminine�2. caballo and cobaya sound very similar and tend to cause confusion in the early stages as students’ phonics knowledge is emergent and they can’t easily differentiate these two words in the oral modality.

3. word frequency - only gato [1728] and perro [888], caballo [907] are within 2000. �

ratón [3415]; pez [3579]; serpiente [3662]; cobaya [>5000] mascota [>5000]�Source: Davies, M. & Davies, K. (2018). A Frequency Dictionary of Spanish: Core vocabulary for learners (2^nd ed.) London: Routledge

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The indefinite article�In Spanish, the words for ‘a’ change according to whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

masculine	un perro	a dog
feminine	una tortuga	a tortoise

1 Tengo _______ gato. (m)	4 ¿Tienes _____ pez? (m)
2 ¿Tienes _____ cobaya? (f)	5 Tengo ____ hermanastro. (m)
3 Tengo _______ hermana. (f)	6 Tiene _____ serpiente. (f)

Copy the sentences and put in the correct word for ‘a’.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

We might think that this is ok. We’re just focusing on the nouns themselves and then later we can focus on the grammar.�How is this done in a text book? �Or, how do we as teachers then ensure that students practise the grammar?�

Often grammar is practised in written grammar exercises, and usually students have a model to follow and refer to. Sometimes the practice is oral, led by the class teacher, with moment-by-moment feedback.��Do these sorts of practice tasks meet our criteria / expectations for meaningful practice?

meaning- and form-focused?

involving an element of struggle?

multi-modal?

1. Do we need to know the meaning of any of the words to do the task?�2. Do we need to remember that ‘a’ for masculine words = ‘un’ and for feminine words = ‘una’?�3. Do we have to listen and understand, read and understand, speak and understand or write and understand the meaning in these 6 sentences.�

What are the chances that that this is the best way, in a time-poor classroom context, to:

practise the knowledge of indefinite articles
develop noun gender sensitivity/awareness
remember that every noun has gender in Spanish
know that the vast majority of nouns ending in ‘o’ are masculine and in ‘a’ are feminine (if the selection of nouns had only focused on those ending is -o/-a, then the gender information in brackets could have been omitted)

So, it’s quite likely that we might say, ‘yes, I don’t tend to do those sorts of mechanical practice tasks anyway’. �We might say, ‘Instead, I…. do a lot of oral work to embed the grammar’, but that probably looks a lot like the previous oral practice slide, the design of which practises the vocabulary but not the grammar very effectively…��

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After about 15 hours of teaching…

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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The indefinite article�In Spanish, the words for ‘a’ change according to whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

masculine	un perro	a dog
feminine	una tortuga	a tortoise

1 Tengo _______ gato. (m)	4 ¿Tienes _____ pez? (m)
2 ¿Tienes _____ cobaya? (f)	5 Tengo ____ hermanastro. (m)
3 Tengo _______ hermana. (f)	6 Tiene _____ serpiente. (f)

Copy the sentences and put in the correct word for ‘a’.

Change the nouns so they all have the –o/-a pattern.

Remove this table and replace with brief explanation.

Remove the (m) and (f) gender cues.

Make sure they listen, read, then speak, write – all modalities involved.

Ensure they have to connect the un with –o and the una with –a.

Add something so that they have to know what the words mean.

Include the need to practise understanding the verbs, too.

Choice of nouns should reflect frequency of use.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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The indefinite article

�In Spanish, the words for ‘a’ change according to whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

masculine	un perro	a dog
feminine	una casa	a house

1 Tiene _______ libro.
2 Tiene _______ cámara.
3 Tengo _______ gato.
4 Tiene _______ planta.
5 Tengo _______ bolsa.
6 Tengo _______ moneda.

Write the correct words for ‘a’. Then write two lists in English, one for Mia, one for Elena.

Mia writes what she has and what her friend Elena has. Her drink spills, smudging her list.

Many Spanish masculine nouns end in -o, and many feminine nouns end in -a.

Mia (I have …)

Elena (she has …)

un

una

un

una

a cat

a bag

a coin

a book

a camera

a plant

This is grammatical, not biological gender! A house is not female, it is a feminine noun.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

So, how could we improve the task on the previous slide.�Obviously, it’s always a bit false working in a vacuum, creating a one-off task, but it’s also helpful to go a step further than critiquing an existing task. So…��Our context is that this is the introduction to gender of nouns and the indefinite article… We have to assume that students have already met at least two parts of the verb TENER, too.�

Improvements could include:

1] Remove the gender information (m) / (f) from the task – to make the students have to notice the form of the noun.�2] Ensure that the nouns we use consolidate the pattern of a lot of nouns in Spanish (ends in ‘o’ = (m), ends in ‘a’ = (f)�so, leave out ‘pez’ and ‘serpiente’ and instead use….�‘libro’ / ‘casa’�3) Consider the usefulness (i.e. frequency) of the words we include – ‘cobaya’ clearly fits the pattern for gender, but is it a useful word? Why not use grammar tasks to work with useful vocabulary, too?�[This is a prompt again to think outside ‘topic’ lines – the original version of the task is topic-based – pets/family – we could keep the broad theme, potentially, but still include higher-frequency words]�4] Three parts of TENER are used but are completely superfluous to the task. If we’re not going to focus on them, we might as well get rid of them. OR, we make them a focus. It’s trickier to make a focus of three persons at once, so suggest we contrast I and s/he, and add a comprehension step.�

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Identifying issues [2/3]

Classroom-based language learning is time-limited
Our assumptions about current course design may need revisiting because:

many tasks may practise vocabulary only
listening and reading tasks that focus on processing grammar are typically missing�(e.g. gender, verb endings)
grammar-focused tasks may be a written, mechanical add-on�(i.e. it is possible to complete them without processing the language for meaning)

We can adapt tasks to increase the chances of student learning

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Identifying issues [3/3]

If topics come first…

then learning the patterns will be secondary (and not as strong)�
then students will learn some rare vocab that is not as useful�
then learning is less secure and intrinsic motivation lower

Can all the issues can be solved by re-designing the tasks to include a better grammar focus?�One of the issues we saw (and then changed in the re-designed slide) was the choice of vocabulary.�We swapped out some of the animals (those which didn’t have a helpful, regular pattern for students to grasp hold of and embed) for other items. �These items – plant, book, coin were more suited to learning the dominant gender pattern - ends in –o = masculine, ends in –a = feminine.�However, what has consequently been de-emphasised is the topic of pets.�This has taken a backseat, been backgrounded, if you like, in order for the regular pattern in the language to be foregrounded.��Why? Because it makes the patterns more salient, easier to learn. For most learners in most situations this gives most likelihood of students learning the pattern, and therefore (to re-use Ofsted’s criteria) be more likely to end up ‘knowing more’ and being ‘able to do more’.�

This one example of the pets is indicative of the wider issue.�There is a tension between organising teaching (at the initial stages, at least) principally around topics (meaning the topics are king – they come first and other elements come after), and presenting students with the clearest, most learnable patterns that will give them maximum confidence in creating their own sentences.��The fundamental issue : when topics are the main organising principle of curriculum design this leads to compromises in terms of progression and language development

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Does this mean that we get rid of themes and topics???!!!

Nooooo!

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

Length of text: 175 words�Frequency data: 95.59% words in the most frequent 2000 (removing proper nouns México, Nadia, and true cognates festival and altar). Only word not in most frequent 2000 is divertido, which occurs twice (and has, in any case, been taught).

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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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

7

Length of text: 175 words�Frequency data: 95.59% words in the most frequent 2000 (removing proper nouns México, Nadia, and true cognates festival and altar). Only word not in most frequent 2000 is divertido, which occurs twice (and has, in any case, been taught).

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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Mehmets und Heidis Ferien

Ja! Und das is nicht alles: Heidi hat in Spanien Urlaub gemacht. Sie hat bei Freunden gewohnt und hat viel Spanisch gesprochen. Sie hat die Großstadt von Madrid besucht. Wir haben Freunde getroffen und einen Film im Kino gesehen! Das ist nicht fair! Wann reisen wir?

lesen

besucht

gesprochen

gemacht

gesehen

getroffen

gewohnt

7

8

9

10

11

12

Welches Verb passt?

1

2

3

4

5

6

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

Vokabeln�Timing

10 minutes

Aim

to strengthen knowledge of weak and strong past participles.

Suggested procedure

1. Write 1-12. Model sentence one and answer one with students.�2. Students read each sentence and think about a past participle that fits the meaning. They write it down in German.�3. Check the answers, eliciting full sentence answers from students.

4. The audio (optional) is available upon clicking each speech bubble.�

Note: For students who may need more support, the past participles are listed on the screen. To reveal them click on the question: Welches Verb passt?

Transcript (optional)

(Wolfgang)

Mehmet hat Urlaub in der Schweiz gemacht. Er hat in einem Ferienhaus gewohnt und hat jeden Tag den See besucht! Er hat auch viel Fußball gespielt und den Wasserpark besucht! Hier haben wir nicht viel gemacht! Nächstes Jahr will ich nach Frankreich reisen.

(Mia)

Ja! Und das is nicht alles: Heidi hat in Spanien Urlaub gemacht. Sie hat bei Freunden gewohnt und hat viel Spanisch gesprochen. Sie hat die Großstadt von Madrid besucht. Wir haben Freunde getroffen und einen Film im Kino gesehen! Das ist nicht fair! Wann reisen wir?

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Léa parle des écoles en France

Léa donne une présentation en classe sur le système scolaire en France.

Écoute et prends des notes.

Léa parle des écoles en France

écouter / écrire / parler

Les différentes écoles en France.

Présentation de Léa.

Y7 T2

Timing: 10 minutes

Aim: Dictagloss – Reconstruct a text from notes

Procedure:

Students write 1-10 in their notebooks with plenty of space for each point.
Students listen to the presentation and take notes about each point.
Play the presentation again if necessary. How many times depends on the class and ability level and is up to the teacher’s judgment.
Based on the notes students reconstruct the monologue (could be done in pairs/groups of four).
Students summarise the text in English and discuss any differences between school in France and England.

Transcript:�L’école primaire est pour les élèves de six à onze ans.

On ne va pas à l’école le mercredi après-midi.

Le collège est pour les élèves de onze à quinze ans.

On ne porte pas d’uniforme.

Le déjeuner est très important. Chaque jour, on mange les repas à table dans la cantine.

Les professeurs donnent des notes sur vingt aux élèves.

Pour réussir un examen, un élève doit avoir une note de dix sur vingt (au minimum).

Si on a une mauvaise note à la fin de l’année*, on doit redoubler.

Le lycée est pour les élèves de quinze à dix-huit ans.

Au lycée, on prépare le baccalauréat. Si on réussit, on peut aller à l’université.

Word frequency of cognates used (1 is the most frequent word in French): �note [1161], système [289], présentation [1723]

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

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Léa parle des écoles en France

1

L’école primaire est pour les élèves de six à onze ans.

2

On ne va pas à l’école le mercredi après-midi.

3

Le collège est pour les élèves de onze à quinze ans.

4

On ne porte pas d’uniforme.

5

écouter

Léa parle des écoles en France

Le déjeuner est très important. Chaque jour, on mange les repas à table à la cantine.

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Léa parle des écoles en France

6

Les professeurs donnent des notes sur vingt aux élèves.

7

Pour réussir un examen, un élève doit avoir une note de dix sur vingt (au minimum).

8

Si on a une mauvaise note à la fin de l’année*, on doit redoubler.

9

Le lycée est pour les élèves de quinze à dix-huit ans.

10

Au lycée, on prépare le baccalauréat. Si on réussit, on peut aller à l’université.

Léa parle des écoles en France

écouter

‘Redoubler’ means to repeat a year. This happens if you are not ready to move up to the next academic year.

The ‘baccalauréat’ is the high school leaving qualification you need to get if you want to study at university. You take it at around age 18.

* at the end of the year.

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Aims for the session

to understand the rationale for a new approach to curriculum design

identifying issues
setting out potential solutions

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TSC review: Essential language knowledge �(for beginner language learners)

Pupils need to gain systematic knowledge of the vocabulary, grammar, and sound and spelling systems (phonics) of their new language, and how these are used by speakers of the language. They need to reinforce this knowledge with extensive planned practice and use it in order to build the skills needed for communication. (MFL Pedagogy Review, p.3)

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

The Pedagogy Review draws attention to three core strands of essential knowledge: vocabulary, a chosen set of words in the language; grammar – a set of features that are the essential building blocks needed to put language together to make meaningful sentences and phonics, which is the set of sound-symbol correspondences that represent the relationship between how the language sounds and how it is written. �

The metaphor of the braid here indicates that the knowledge is stronger because of the interconnections between the strands. �The fact that they are closely intertwined suggests that each strand is important and affects the other. �The loose ends recognise that the language learning process is always unfinished, and the knowledge is vulnerable to decay, just as the braid is prone to unravelling. �These themes will recur later in the session.

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Exploring alternatives

If we don’t foreground topics, what kind of SOW is possible?

A scheme of work driven by the language itself

More logical sequencing

Cohesion of different aspects of language (phonics, vocabulary, grammar)

Broader contexts for teaching

So what’s the alternative? What could a SOW be like if topics didn’t come first? What would take their place as the ‘driver’ of the curriculum?

Without topics in the foreground, there is no need to make the language ‘fit’ a pre-selected topic. The language itself becomes the starting point for curriculum design. We can think about the structures and patterns that are likely to be most useful and learnable for our students.

This also allows us to sequence the teaching more logically. We can group grammar features that are naturally used together and bring them together for practice. For example, when we introduce forms of the verb ‘tener’, it seems logical to incorporate practice with indefinite articles (un/una), as people often use these features together to talk about possessions.

Without topics coming first, we can also think more about the cohesion between the different aspects of language that we plan to teach. For example, if our grammar focus is indefinite articles, which need to agree in gender with nouns, our selection of vocabulary might include nouns with regular gender marking patterns (-o for masculine, -a for feminine), and we can get students to make connections between vocabulary and grammar here.

The topics and contexts are still there, but with language taking precedence they can be made broader. For example, rather than a lesson on hobbies, we could have a lesson on ‘things that people do’ at different times and in different places.

Additional notes:

Re logical sequencing – in a topic-driven course reflexive pronouns are likely to be taught very early (je m’appelle, me llamo…). However, this is actually a complex grammar feature (word order is different from English, pronoun requires agreement with verb ending, and English often just omits it!). So if we think about the language itself, some traditional early topics probably aren’t optimal for a complete beginner in terms of language complexity.

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Grammar

practice with ‘pairs’ of features (not whole paradigms)

compels thinking about form and meaning

brief explanation followed by input practice, then scaffolded production

revisiting leads to freer production activities

promotes true manipulation of language, where possible

On the last slide I mentioned three language components: phonics, vocabulary and grammar.

There will be sessions on each of these as part of NCELP’s series of talks at Bath Spa, but I’d like to outline a few of principles for each of these :

The first is to plan a SOW where pairs of grammar features are practised. For example, two verb endings with contrasing meanings (or functions) can be juxtaposed. Practising a whole new set of features together, e.g., a full range of verb endings, is unlikely to be effective, as it is beyond what most learners can pay attention to at any one time.

The practice itself should require attention to form and meaning. We might need to strip out other language in order to make attention to the grammar essential for task completion.

After a brief explanation, students are given plenty of practice, initially in reading and listening, with the new features before scaffolded production.

When features are revisited, they can be used more freely.

There is an emphasis on true manipulation of language (as opposed to chunks) as this gives students the best chance of being able to communicate meaning themselves.

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Vocabulary

using frequency to inform vocabulary selection

mixed word classes – allowing for sentence creation

word selection to support grammar practice

teaching one new meaning at a time (e.g., rico – rich, tasty)

systematic revisiting

Up until now we’ve had to rely on intuition about which words might be useful to learn. However, there is now data available from corpora (large electronic collections of oral and written language) on the frequency with which words occur in the language. As high-frequency words can be used across contexts (rather than for a single topic), they are particularly useful in a time-limited teaching context.

The current GCSE proposals suggest teaching 90% of words that are among the 2000 most frequent in the language – on the next slide I will show a graph illustrating the potential implications of this for text comprehension.

Other principles for vocabulary teaching include:

combining different word classes in a each vocabulary set. This offers greater potential for sentence building than, say, a list of nouns used to fill a slot after a verb.

choosing words that are closely related to the grammar being practised – again, this is the cohesion between different language components that I mentioned on the last slide.

teaching each meaning of a word separately to avoid unnecessary difficulty. High-frequency words often have more than one meaning – e.g. rico for rich and tasty.

systematically revisiting previously taught words. This is the crucial factor leading to long-term retention.

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Phonics

explicit teaching of the key sound-spelling correspondences (SSCs)

improves ability to accurately sound out unknown words

positively associated with motivation and confidence in spoken and written production

supports errorless learning (accurate representation of the language from first exposure)

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Summing up

Five questions for SOW evaluation:

What is ‘driving’ the choice of the language and order of teaching?

When is each grammar feature taught and why then – what is the rationale for the sequencing?

Is the vocabulary highly frequent? How is the frequency known?

Is there explicit phonics teaching? Which SSC are taught and why?

How often is each language feature re-visited? Is it practised in both comprehension and production?

Full SOW evaluation doc here!

https://resources.ncelp.org/concern/resources/p2676v62m?locale=en

In this part of the presentation I’ve spoken about potential solutions. We can’t claim to present all of them here, not least because there is no single one-size-fits-all scheme of work. Different SOWs may be successful with different learners in different contexts. But to be confident in the planning, here are some key questions that we can ask:

Firstly, what is driving the choice of language and the order in which it is taught? Is it the usefulness of the language itself, or are we compromising (students’ ability to make progress in language learning) by making the language ‘fit’ a certain topic?

Secondly, when is each grammar feature taught? Why then? Here we might think about things like cross-linguistic complexity (does the feature exist in English? If so, does it work in the same way?).

Thirdly, how frequent is the vocabulary and what is our source? One published source of frequency data is the Routledge series of frequency dictionaries.

Fourthly, is there explicit phonics teaching – which SSC are taught and why?

Finally, how often do we revisit each language feature? And when we revisit them, do we give opportunities for that revisiting to happen in comprehension and production?

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Explore one SOW in detail

Think of a SOW you are currently using
How is it laid out? in columns?
What headings does each column have?
What detail is included – about the language content?

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Tabs in the NCELP SOW

The grammar tracking tab is a week-by-week overview of the grammar spine, listing the new and revisited grammar features.

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Grammar tracking tab

New grammar features are in bold type.

2^nd and subsequent revisits are in italics.

This columns denote the focus tense for that week.

This column gives the learning context.

Features for 1^st time revisiting are in normal type.

Extended text exploitation weeks are in blue type.

A consolidation week revises vocabulary from Y7 and grammar features from either Y7 or Y8.

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Tabs in the NCELP SOW

The Y8 SOW tab is the detailed planning document for each week, with grammar, vocabulary, sounds of the language, and lesson overviews.

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Y8 SOW

Systematic revisiting of vocabulary every 3 weeks and 9 weeks.

new	revisit	revisit

The grammar column reproduces the

information from the grammar tracking tab.

Sounds of the language practice in every lesson.

Additional notes detailing the content of each lesson.

This is what the layout of the Y8 French SoW looks like – this is from week two of the first term.

Starts with grammar introduced – here est-ce que – in addition it references the grammar to be revisited, regular adjective gender agreement and the feminisation of nouns. Revisited for the second or subsequent time are yes/no and intonation questions (in italics).

Then we see new vocabulary introduced as well as vocabulary to be revisited – we revisit two sets of vocabulary every lesson from three and nine weeks ago - you can see that the sets differ a little in the number of words in each – the vocabulary is integrated as much as possible, but there are also stand-alone vocabulary tasks, where needed.

Then the sounds of the language - in this week we are doing stress syllabification and a 2^nd revisiting of s-liaison.�

There is still a context – no traditional topic but a context for language use, here it is ‘Distinguishing between being and having’.��This particular week is a typical SOW week. In addition, at regular intervals there are weeks set aside for some revision and consolidation, assessment (in term 2 and 3) and also for work on “rich” texts or authentic text exploitation, as we saw on the grammar tracking tab.

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Tabs in the NCELP SOW

The RESOURCES tab is a page of individual links to each SOW resource.

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Resources

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Tabs in the NCELP SOW

The NCELP Y8 vocabulary list contains all French words taught in Y8, with English meanings, parts of speech and frequency information.

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Y8 NCELP vocabulary list

Frequency ranking of all words is provided, here.

Source of frequency information:

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

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How can I change things now without changing everything?!

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Curriculum design take-aways

Phonics �- working with unknown words�
Vocabulary �- shortcut to systematic revisiting�
Grammar� - input practice before production

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

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Aims for the session

to understand the rationale for a new approach to curriculum design

identifying issues
setting out potential solutions

Questions?

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References

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

Ofsted, (2019a). Inspecting the curriculum, May 2019, 190024, www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted.

Ofsted, (2019b). School Inspection Handbook, September 2019, 190024, www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted. ��Roffwarg, H. P., Muzio, J. N., & Dement, W. C. (1966). Ontogenetic development of the human sleep dream cycle. Science, 152, 604–618.��Teaching School Council, (2016). Modern Foreign Languages Pedagogy Review.

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes