After a relaxing summer, away from social media, I am back just for the release of the GCSE exam results. I am generally very pleased with our results as they exceeded by around 10% our last predictions based on our Mock Exams, with 62.8% 4+ in Spanish and 60% in French. Although this result may seem poor for some, I feel it is actually a great achievement considering many of our students were PP or students with SEN and entered the Foundation paper, with only 18 students going for the Higher Tier in Spanish and 8 in French! For some students achieving a grade 3 in languages is a big achievement and something to be proud of!!
All our GCSE classes are mixed ability so, within the same class, our results range from the 9 to the grade 1!! When I started teaching at Princes Risborough School, a school I am incredibly proud of, our big target was to improve the GCSE uptake in MFL.
We fulfilled this target three years ago, with more than 400% increase in numbers at Y10. This increase meant that languages became inclusive and chosen by many students who, traditionally would not have picked up a language as one of their choices at GCSE. Suddenly, we had many PP students, students with SEN and pupils who just found languages challenging but enjoyed them, understood the importance of learning them and gave them a go! This meant that we had many different attainment levels in the same classroom and also meant the acceptance that our GCSE results would not be nearly 100% 4+ as when we only had 15 students doing French and Spanish!! A price that I am more than happy to pay!!
How to cope with the GCSE mixed ability classroom?
Via ADAPTIVE TEACHING and HAVING HIGH EXPECTTIONS FOR ALL. We decided we would pitch for the Higher Tier, covering the grammar and vocabulary for higher but we would provide lots of SCAFFOLDING and SHORTCUTS or what we call NUGGETS to help students achieve their best personal grades, without having to create different worksheets tasks for different attainers.
These are the 7 strategies we adopted to tackle the GCSE syllabus for all:
1. Having a Sentence Builder Booklet for all the topics/ themes at GCSE with predetermined vocabulary, covering what we call the 5 MAGIC POWERS: the 5 elements that if covered in the exam for the writing and speaking components, we will guarantee a good grade. The 5 MAGIC POWERS are:
- Using 3 time phrases
- Giving opinions
- Giving reasons
- Talking about someone else, or in its simplest form, using Reported Speech "My friend says that..."
- Using High Impact expressions
Our Sentence Builders booklet covers these 5 MAGIC POWERS and revisits key vocabulary throughout all topics, creating lots of opportunities for retrieval practice helping students to transfer vocabulary/structures to their long-term memories.
See our Sentence Builder Booklet for all GCSE topics, here.
2. Teaching the curriculum based on our Sentence Builder booklet, using a lexicogrammar approach, rooted into Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. This means modelling the language (as it appears on the Sentence Builder Booklet) via lots of repetition in the shape of listening/reading tasks, via games and use of MWBs which allows us to adapt the teaching and learning experience according to students' live responses and scaffold activities to cater for the different abilities.
When modelling the language, via listening/reading tasks, we will produce output worthy of a 8/9 grade and will allow some students to use their Sentence Builders booklet as support, while taking it away from higher attainers, but expecting all students to work from memory at a given point, decided by the teacher/ SoW and curriculum.
After modelling, following Rosenshine, we will carry out structured production of language, mainly translation of sentences, scaffolding them from less to most challenging, using the 5 Magic Powers.
Finally, this will lead to fluent practice, mainly via games and orally, when students start producing language from memory and fluently, following the rule of 3: producing language in at least 3 sentences, using the 5 MAGIC POWERS as support tools: talking about holidays by stating a fact and then using an opinion and reasons, saying something in a different tense, or using reported speech. All these activities will be gamified via little games to give purpose to the language learning experience and increasing motivation. In a very simple form, students will keep a tally of correct answers in their MWBs which will translate to Achievement Points, using our school reward system.
3. Using NUGGETS. NUGGETS (processed language) is what we call infinitive structures which will allow students to use different tenses, without, initially, being over reliant on grammatical verb endings. This is important as may students, including higher attainers, will lose motivation because of cognitive overload, if they need to rely heavily on conjugating verb endings when producing language. Does this mean we do not teach verb grammatical tenses? No, it doesn't. We definitely do for ALL but later, once they are fluent with the vocabulary/structures learned in a topic, feel they are making progress and feel they are fluent. The nuggets are supported tools leading to fluency. Examples of nuggets are:
- Suelo +infinitive
- Empecé a + infinitive
- Decidí/decidimos + infinitive
- Solía + infinitive
- Me gustaría + infinitive
- Me gustaba + infinitive
- Voy a + infinitive
4. Teaching, initially, to master the oral/writing exams: productive skills, using the techniques above and not over loading students with the official vocabulary lists. The Sentence Builders Booklet covers most of this vocab to start with!! So recycling this in different contexts/ topics and make students automatise it is the priority, via scaffolding.
5. Having high expectations for all. Pitching for the high tier at all times, explaining grammar, covering verb endings for different tenses accordingly, but always applying our golden rule: SCAFFOLDING THE PROCESS. Using the Sentence Builder booklet will be key for this, as the booklet itself is a fantastic scaffolded tool but also being conscious in all lessons of all our students' needs and CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING constantly, to make sure we can move on to the next scaffold level.
MWBs as mentioned above are great for this. What happens with the students who flies through the process? Because we are checking for understanding constantly, we can spot, at a glance via MWBs, the students who find the tasks easy and we can stretch them by asking them to extend a particular sentence conjugating a verb, using a different tense, using a particular Magic Power, removing any help and working from memory, in other words, allowing students to skip the scaffold and use a lift!!!
6. Independent Listening/ Reading exam sessions. These are key. One lesson every two weeks students carry out listening and reading tasks taken from past papers, for this we use Exampro, as we follow AQA. These exam questions will be scaffolded from Foundation to Higher tier and will include transcripts and mark schemes so that student can work at their own pace, using headphones, look at transcripts, mark their work while making note of new vocab in their own Quizlet courses.
This is essential because, higher attainers will have contact with new vocabulary, from the official vocab list, in context, which they will use in their own productive tasks, together with the vocab learned via the sentence builder booklet, with our guide. On the other hand, lower attainers will have the chance to develop reading/listening skills and become familiar with the famous list, so that they can recognise this vocab in future tasks, although they may not be able to produce it themselves.
7. Targeted oral, scaffolded practice at least 4 weeks before their oral exam. Our strongest skill performance are the Oral and the Writing components. We aim to finish the whole syllabus by March so that we have between 4-5 weeks of oral (and written) practice before the actual speaking exams.
During these weeks, we just carry out oral tasks, ranging from the role-play, reading aloud + surprise potential questions and the Photocard. However, the way we do it is via MWB use, so that we can check for understanding instantly and can encourage students to use their "lifts" or we can support others by offering extra scaffolds by providing model answers in English, which they can translate into Spanish/French and elaborate. We still do oral practice in groups/ pairs/ one to one but only in a limited way.
If you want to have a look at the resources we have created based on these strategies/ pedagogical pathway, click here.
Teaching mixed ability classes is challenging!! The main take away is to have HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR ALL via ADAPTIVE TEACHING and CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING, rather than using different tasks all the time for specific tiers/abilities.