Time to think Languages

A lovely journal that I made with my year 9 class in preparation for the start of their GCSE course.  The pupils had to complete a treasure hunt to find the grammar posters and then we worked through each element of grammar, adding our own annotations to remind ourselves of the most important points.  The girls loved this as they got to decorate them themselves and we made them with six pieces of card stuck together with grey duct tape. Of course the icing on the cake was tying it all together with a pretty ribbon - but there are plenty of more "manly" alternatives for the boys! The girls now have these at home to use for their homework and controlled assessment preparation.  And they actually like them!

This is such an exciting idea for the beginning of next term.  Four films are available to rent from the Goethe Institute along with a CD of teaching resources.  You can request them by email and keep them for two weeks and you only need to pay the postage. The films you can borrow are: Sophie Scholl Das fliegende Klassenzimmer Anton und Punktchen Das Wunder von Bern Just email with your preferred date (and two alternative dates) to: teacher_services@london.goethe.org

We had a fantastic Year 9 options day at school and I had my new Year 10 GCSE German class ALL DAY!  Luckily, Mrs H and I got our heads together and managed to come up with some lovely activities.  The one I'm going to share here is the treasure hunt idea.

Here's a menu I'm going to use to direct my DIRT time in class.  Thanks so much for the idea, Clare Gadsby!

A lovely speaking support mat to encourage pupils to be more independent when speaking: You can find the French and Spanish versions at:  modernlanguagemusings.blogspot.co.uk

With so many new ideas to think about , the idea of designing a unit of work for MFL seems scarier and more complicated now than ever.  With new specifications on the horizon, though, it's something we all need to be thinking about to get the most out of the new courses.  We need to be ready to hit the ground running as soon as these new courses go live. With that in mind, I've decided to have a look at some of the issues surrounding the design of a new unit of work.

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MAKING MARKING EASIER Ooh - very excited.  Highlighters for marking.  What a revelation and one of those lightbulb moments.  Not that it's a new concept, but very little in teaching is truly new.  It goes back to the ideas of pupils correcting their own work - I know, what a shocker!  This time, though, I'm using highlighters.  "Beat the blue" means that the pupils have to work out what the problem is.  Obviously you need to know what they should be able to work out and what they will need support with.  Then I ask them why I've changed something and they reply, in another colour of course - probably purple... And bingo!  A feedback dialogue is created. Beautiful. Add pictures of highlighters with cats on and I am very happy - and add a few stickers with target language (mach blau besser!/ bats le bleu!/accion azul!) and SLT are even happier.  And what about green for fab work? (Gruen ist gut!/vert pour le victoire!/verde vue...