Gathering reflections, ideas & inspiration for the MFL classroom. Believer in research-backed pedagogy. Languages geek. Europhile.
I saw a post the other day in one of the MFL Facebook groups about how to liven up ‘choral repetition’ or other activities to help students process language orally, so I’ve compiled some of the ones that have worked best for me so far. We know from Second Language Acquisition research that doing reading/writing …
Continue reading “The best oral processing activities to try”
This post aims to give an introduction to what is meant by ‘retrieval practice’, the theory behind its development and popularity in teaching, and suggestions for further reading. In a nutshell ‘When we think about learning, we typically focus on getting information into students’ heads. What if, instead, we focus on getting information out of students’ heads?’ (Agarwal 2017) This …
Continue reading “A quick beginner’s guide to retrieval practice”
This post is designed for MFL teachers who, like me, are always on the lookout for tips to make lesson planning more efficient, maximise effectiveness of resources and be able to confidently plan lessons that are sharply focused, engaging and varied. I recently read some fantastic posts on Steve Smith’s blog which inspired me to …
Continue reading “Make your own lesson builder & streamline your planning”
I wanted to make a list for myself that grouped together all the different activities and resources that many of us already use in our lesson planning that can be utilised for ‘remote learning’ – I thought this might be useful for others, not just for remote learning but for reminding ourselves of the different …
As a teacher of French and Spanish, I can recommend the following sites that I have found useful – they offer a mixture of intermediate and advanced level listening practice. Some provide comprehension activities or transcripts. Some are also subscription sites but they offer a certain number of free activities. They can be used: 1. …
MFL Classroom Magic