5 Magic Powers for GCSE productivity and high grades

As a new GCSE is coming home soon, I am still thinking about the current one and what to do to make sure that students can and will manipulate the language, while scoring the highest grades in the productive skills of Writing and Speaking in the GCSE exam. 

In other words, how can we make sure that students use the vocabulary and structures they know to express opinions on any topic, spontaneously and fluently?  Uhmmm that's what the new GCSE is trying to sort out! I believe the current GCSE, already does that, but anyway... 

These are the techniques we use as from Y7, the beginning of the learning journey, to make sure students become spontaneous with the language and get the highest grades at GCSE in the process, a default nice outcome!

To do so, we introduce  5 magic powers as early as possible, from Y7, little by little!

The 5 magic powers, based on the GCSE AQA Mark Scheme, are:

1. Using more than one tense
2. Giving opinions
3. Giving reasons 
4. Reported Speech
5. High impact expressions and Idioms

These powers are practised inside out, via retrieval practice, throughout KS3 so, when students start the official GCSE course in Y10, they are a second nature to them! 

Then as from Y10, the GCSE specific topic vocabulary is taught, but always subordinated to these 5 magic powers, whose use is needed to score the highest grade in Writing/Speaking at GCSE. Topical vocabulary is constantly revisited via Retrieval Practice and our Sentence Builders. We also work hard to make sure that as much vocabulary as possible from the different topics is recycled in new ones. This is a necessity to tackle the Writing Task 2 in the Higher Paper or the Translation exercise.

As a department, we decide the language we are going to include for each magic power, which will be used, over and over again, throughout the learning journey, by the teachers and students alike: via modelling listening and reading activities and structured practice, creative and, finally, fluency tasks, following a lexicogrammar approach to teaching and learning languages.

We also use the following strategies:

Planning Writing Frames

We use these when students attempt any writing task as from Y10. 

Remember that most of the expressions in the Magic Powers, have already been introduced and fully practised as from Y7! so now we have two more years to make sure these powers are even more embedded with the new GCSE topical vocabulary, which we simplify for the Writing and Speaking exams in our GCSE AQA Sentence Builder Booklet. 

Self-Evaluation and Marking Frames

To develop independence and metacognition in our students, we also try to develop evaluating skills in our learners. For that, once they have produced a written task, they will also use the following Green Sheet/Card to proof-read their work. 

It is very similar to the Planning Writing Frame, but the green card is meant to be a checking point  for the students to notice and avoid careless mistakes, all taken from the AQA mark scheme. Students are welcome to tick the boxes they think they have covered well. Students will get this card and their planning time frame, with every piece of writing they have to produce.

Teachers also use the green card to mark students' work. This saves lot of time for us and it makes it clear to the students what the expectations from the exam and the teachers are. We highlight in green what was great in a given piece of writing, and in pink what could be improved, according to the check list in the card, with a general comment, if applicable, written in the card. The good news is that most of the time this is not needed! 

We also tick the boxes, with a green pen, to make it visually clear, what students did include and could have included!  When a piece of writing is given back to students, they have some reflection time to look at their green card and make improvements, where applicable, while they have the opportunity to ask a friend or teacher if unsure about something. 

These 5 magical powers are reinstated in oral activities too! 

To develop automaticity, spontaneity and fluency, we use Flippity, with potential questions and expressions from this 5 magic powers. We don't want students to learn by heart answers, but, instead, to try to answer these questions with bits they can retrieve spontaneously, using the magic powers column. The answers will be different every time they practise the questions, although, some nice phrases will be learned for specific questions and this is fine! 

Of course, these 5 magic powers are practised via many other activities all the time! and of course, there has been a lot of thinking, as a department, about what expressions/ structures to teach as from Y7 to maximise the students' grades, for example, teaching SUELO + infinitive or Me gustaría que mi madre tuviera. Then in Y8 students will say Me gustaría que mi casa tuviera.

The approach, supported by our Sentence Builders and our repertoire of activities works!

Practising Exam skills at A Level with Wheel of Names

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about A Level teaching. There are so many activities and ideas to help us teach languages from KS3 to GCSE, but hardly anything for A Level teaching. In the case of Spanish, I have always loved Neil Jones' Blog, Ollie's Boletín and the weekly news from Fiona's A Level news, which have always inspired me with ideas and resources fo which I am extremely grateful!

In this short post I want to exemplify how gamification can successfully and easily take place at A Level too, to practise those elements of the A Level exam which are vital to score the highest grades. For AQA, these are the six skills that students need to have command of:

• Listening for key information / summarising texts from audio input
• Reading for key information / summarising texts from written input
• Accurate translation skills = Command of application of grammar
• Essay writing skills: analytical and critical skills + vocabulary + accurate application of grammar
• Knowledge of culture and society to be applied to the essay and oral exam
• Oral skills: Fluency + development of ideas + knowledge of culture and society + vocabulary + accurate application of grammar + analytical and critical skills

Most of these skills can be practised with simple, interactive, fun games.

I use Wheel of Names (Yes! my favourite app!) to develop oral follow-up ideas, containing analytical thinking in my students, orally, or in writing, to start with, using MWBs in a competition format between two teams. The questions in the wheel have been taken from several Stimulus Cards from AQA past exams. When a question pops up, a student in the correspondent team needs to answer such question, backing up their ideas with specific examples (data, facts, events) showing their knowledge of Spanish society. Students need to answer on the spot, developing fluency. 

The same technique can be used with a proper Stimulus card. In this case, students need to respond to the information in the stimulus card, giving a critical opinion and making sure they make reference to all the information printed in the card. This is an essential skill to have if students want to score marks from the top band in the exam. Again, giving an element of competition between a team A/B works well after doing work with the whole class with MWBs: How do you react to this information?

The same principle can be used to practise reading summarising skills in a fun way as an activity embedded in our lessons:

Finally, the same technique can be used to practise essay skills for the writing paper. In this case, a question comes up and students, in MWBs or in paper, write a paragraph answering the question in relation to a text or book. They must do so, giving evidence to prove a point and explaining how this evidence proves such point, another essential element to score high marks in the A Level essay. After writing their paragraphs they exchange it with a partner and mark each other's. Where does the paragraph fall within the mark schemes bands, why? Alternatively, students can work in pairs and write a paragraph collaboratively.

Finally, Wheel of Names is perfect to carry out simple games with translation or grammar!

These little games are not only great way to embed exam skills practice in lessons, but they are also a great way for students to use on their own to revise for their exams as part of a revision schedule. They work great to be used with a language assistant if you are lucky to have one. After working with them as a whole class competition, I share the URL with my students and they work in pairs, orally.

I know I use Wheel of Names a lot, but, isn't it a versatile, easy to use and above all GREAT tool to be used even at A Level?