24/01/2015

Grammar Gate

I often find that despite numerous hours spent teaching grammar that students still muddle up their tenses and produce very interesting word order in their sentences which seem to combine the rules to all 3 tenses.

I decided to create something that would allow them to have all the key information in one place but that wasn't a worksheet that they'd put into their folder and forget about.

The result was a "Grammar gate" It's a flap book style resource that allows students to see the basic rules for the past, present and future tense.

This is our first version and so far, it's working very well. I tried it with Year 11 who loved it and it's made teaching tenses to Year 10 much easier.


Marking in MFL

Trying to find a system that involves students reflecting on their learning with minimum impact from the teacher can be tricky to do. I teach 16 classes across 4 subjects and I often find myself trying to climb a constant marking mountain. 
I've read lots of blog posts on triple marking and DIRT time which I think are fantastic but I feel that they don't always lend themselves to MFL. In Citizenship, it seems easier to ask students questions which encourage reflection and answer development and I've had great feedback on my marking but in MFL it's a different story.

I developed a marking code for the department (based on a resource from a fellow #mfltwitterati teacher) which allows us to use symbols to show students what needs to be changed/improved. We use this alongside stickers that contain the next steps.




This was working well, or at least I thought, until a book scrutiny was done and it was felt that compared to other departments, MFL wasn't encouraging enough student reflection 
I decided to come up with a system that used the target language and would be quick and easier to do.

After completing a piece of work, I ask the students 2 questions "Was it easy/okay/difficult?" "Why?"
I do this in the target language and after asking it a couple of times, I shorten it to a code.

French- C'était facile/ bon/ difficile? Pourquoi? (Shortened to C'était f/b/d?)
German- War es einfach/okay/schwierig? Warum? (Shortened to War es e/o/s?)
Spanish- ¿Fue fácil/vale/difícil? ¿Por qué? (Shortened to ¿Fue f/v/d?)




Students are now able to reflect on their work at the end of the lesson by using this system.
The lower years respond in English but I am working with year 9 and KS4 to encourage a response in the TL.

I now have a clearer picture of who is finding the work hard and who needs more challenge. 

This is very much work in progress and is the 2nd year I have used it. I have had good feedback from lesson observations and book scrutiny since introducing it.