Tweaking the Curriculum for the new GCSE

As you know, I am starting a new job in September as Head of MFL in a comprehensive school near Oxford, Princes Risborough School. Talking to my new team, it was obvious that they are super talented and really committed, as well as the SLT, to raise the profile of MFL across the school. MFL is an option at GCSE and we would like more students to choose it as option at the end of Y9!!  

"Languages, a LIFE skill to achieve"

I had a preliminary meeting with my new team in May to establish the priorities of the department using the SWOT analysis diagram:  Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.  This led the path for our vision: For MFL to become a popular, established choice for students at GCSE with great results and make sure that pupils saw the benefits of learning a new language.  We came out with a Mission Statement that summarised this vision: Languages, a LIFE skill to achieve. This vision/mission statement would drive our curriculum: students should choose MFL for GCSE because it is a LIFE skill and must be learned and nurtured. 

To make the connection between LIFE skill and what happens in the classroom, we agreed that being able to communicate ORALLY at the end of the language journey had to be a must for the students, so our curriculum should be focussed on developing FLUENCY. 

To achieve this, we would use our knowledge of Cognitive Science, the benefits of a Lexicogrammar approach to language learning and applying Rosenshine's Principles to our teaching pedagogy, without forgetting the power of gamifying the curriculum, for real communicative tasks, even when these are just a drilling exercise, part of the learning process and, of course, Project Based Learning, as the reason why a unit will be taught, which will connect what we teach to a purposeful, meaningful, real to life scenario.  At this point we agreed that we would involve our partner school links as much as possible, so that at the end of each taught unit, students would have the opportunity to speak/present what they had learned to a real native audience. 

Tweaking the curriculum: LESS IS MORE and PROJECT BASED LEARNING

Last week we met to actually design a new curriculum for KS3, which would take into consideration all these elements, as well as the elements of our new GCSE for languages. 

Below you can find the presentation I use with my team to give a rationale to our new Curriculum. It was lovely to see that actually, the topics for KS3 would be the same as studied so far! We just had to take into consideration the new vocab lists for AQA/Edexcel and tweak some of the content to make sure that as much of that vocabulary list was learned during KS3.

We also decided that LESS is MORE, so we would teach just a unit/topic per term, to allow time for students to really practise the topic, embed structures, teach grammatical points and be creative with the language to, finally, become fluent in that topic.

5 Magic Powers to help Fluency and Embed Exam Skills

Finally, we agreed to use 5 Magic Powers, our non-negotiables, which would be the common thread across the whole curriculum. I have talked about the 5 Magic Powers before in this blog. I love them, because, not only they are success criteria for productive skills at GCSE level, even with the new GCSE, but they help my students to be able to speak and be fluent, as these powers are so embedded in all our lessons. 

If I ask my students: what do you do in your free time? They will always have something to say: an activity, an opinion, a reason, reported speech sentence, more than one tense and some extremely colloquial and common expressions, high impact expressions as students learn a few formulaic expressions for each power element, throughout the curriculum to be used in any context. By doing this, students not only speak but they embed the elements that will score them points later in their GCSE exam. We teach them to speak and give information and, by default, they will score highly in their exam.  

Finally, let's not forget, that at the end of each unit, students will have the opportunity to put the language (vocabulary, register and grammar) into practise via a real-life situation task: Taking part in little drama sketch performed in assembly, talking to our partner schools on a given topic/presentation, pitching for the best holiday experience to be featured in a digital travel blog, taking part in a film review competition, taking part in a school treasure hunt with the studied topic as the theme for this etc...

The 5 Magic Powers:

• Using more than one tense
• Give opinions
• Give reasons
• Using Reported Speech
• Using some idiomatic/high impact expressions, so you sound like a Spaniard/French speaker.

For the Magic Powers to have effect, they will need to be taught and practised constantly, throughout the learning journey at KS3, in all the units: that's why less is more!! Fewer units, more time to learn lexis and grammar and more time to embed skills.

The next step is to create the content for the units: via Sentence Builders, using  the material in textbooks, the new GCSE vocabulary lists and our knowledge of the language as specialists and create a mark scheme to mirror the curriculum. To create our sentence builders we are using the site Sentence Builders, super fast to create + lots of interactive activities to go with them! I will share mine once I create them. 

This is the language journey to share with students.

Curriculum design at KS4: Closing the gap!

A few weeks ago I wrote about curriculum design at KS3 using a lexicogrammar approach underpinning the concept that less is more! Click here to read that post. However, can the same approach be adopted at KS4 taking into account the constrictions of the GCSE exam?

Two years ago, I started teaching the GCSE Spanish course using the MARS EARS approach adopted at KS3 and it worked! Sadly we did not have public exams this year, to show data in relation to its success, but students' progress, their feedback and attitude towards MFL are important testimonials.

I started teaching the approach with a low ability Y10 class in September 2019. After finishing the GCSE course a few weeks ago, 2 students from this set have chosen to study Spanish for A Level and about 50% of the class are working at a 6-8 level. Nobody is falling below the important 4 grade mark. For me that is success! Currently, I am teaching a new Y10 class, this time a top set, using the same lexicogrammar approach. The feedback and progress are equally positive.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the approach works because the approach breaks out the language into affordable chunks which are easier to encode into the long-term memory and gives specific structure to low ability students. Similarly, high flyers can become fluent quickly, which increases motivation, and start manipulating the language freely.

Key elements of the KS4 MARS EARS Curriculum

• In order to continue progress from Y9, we use Sentence Builders for all the AQA GCSE topics.

• We adopt the same MARS EARS approach to teaching as in KS3, although, giving time constraints, the time spent at each stage (modelling, awareness raising, receptive processing etc..) has to be reduced. This is not a problem, as students have a very solid foundation on key structures and grammatical knowledge from Y9. Consequently, although I would welcome more curriculum time, I can deliver the syllabus allowing the recycling of lots of structures. 

• Each Sentence Builder is linked to a Quizlet course, which helps memorisation. Students have weekly "sentence" spelling tests combining the content of such SB.

• The same "high impact expressions" which were extensively taught and recycled at KS3, are used and recycled at KS4, closing the learning circle for students. These high impact expressions, inevitably have to increase in number but at least 50% of them are familiar to students as they have been used since Y7!: se me da bien/ me ayuda a relajarme/siempre he querido hacerlo/ me gustaría que... fuera/tuviera are examples of these structures.

• Students are encouraged to manipulate language more and more and moving away from the Sentence Builders (the EARS part of the approach). Progressive timed writings are key to achieve this. We plan a timed writing every two weeks in exam conditions, after extensively modelling and structured practice, since the beginning of Y11. These timed writings are also essential for interleaving topics and subtopics.

• We recognise that there are two types of vocabulary: productive (that appearing in our Sentence Builders) which students know in all its forms (semantic, morphological, phonological and grammatical meaning) and receptive (the official AQA vocabulary), which appears in Listening and Reading exam questions, and which students also learn in Quizlets. However, students only require to recognise the receptive vocabulary. High ability students transfer, naturally, receptive vocabulary into productive one, which is pleasing to see.

• The strategic planning of Reading and Listening exam style questions via Exampro tasks, which we extensively analyse in lessons.

• Encouragement to use TL where possible. A tight reward system is applied to achieve this. Scratch cards are a winner here!

• The strategic planning of Structured Production leading to Fluency via a wide range of engaging and communicative tasks. Those activities used at KS3 can easily be adapted to KS4, which means we do not need a textbook!

• Lots of grammar practice and encouraging metalanguage to identify patterns in Sentence Builders, so when explicitly explained, grammar encodes successfully into the long-term memory. It is magical to see how low ability students can spot the differences between present, past and future and guess whole verb paradigms based on their present tense conjugation experience: "we" in Spanish will always have a "m", while "they" will have a "n".

• Incorporating cultural aspects to the curriculum via songs, poems and short films (Cuerda o La leyenda del espantapájaros work brilliantly here).

• Teaching students, via a Sentence Builder which can be recycled in many topics, to narrate a funny story/little disaster. I got this idea from Vincent Everett and it really adds elements of complexity: reported speech for example, which translates into grades. In this scenario, students learn: entonces mi amigo dijo/ iba a ... pero decidí/ iba a cuando de repente. Students also enjoy creating these stories.

• Sharing marking schemes with students, referring to these and actively asking students to reflect and act upon specific feedback: Closing the gaps and making students take ownership for their learning. This includes the use of post exam/ assessment reflection sheets. In the example below, students spend a lesson reflecting on their performance overall (in same cases we do not assess all the skills). They colour in the circles to reflect, visuall,y where they are in relation to their Baseline Grade (BG). Green above BG, yellow meeting their target, pink below target. Then, they decide, with my guidance, what strategies they will adopt to close the gaps. In the following assessments they review this sheet and they will fill in a new one. There are always some wins, which increases confidence.  Similarly, this is great to help students see which level they are working at and have a clear progress road map to sucess!

Example of my KS4 Post Exam Reflection sheet here

• Interleaving topics! Carousel Learning is great for this!

• Balance between exam skills and learning for pleasure, the JUST RIGHT GOLDILOCKS effect.

• Pitching at the right level and encouraging a growth mindset: making mistakes is fine as we learn from them. Get students involved in their own learning. 

Find my KS4 SoW here

Find all my GCSE AQA Spanish Sentence Builders here

Curriculum design at KS3: Less is More!

I've just had a wonderful CPD day today. In the morning I attended, albeit virtually, the ALLswmfl conference with great speakers and in the afternoon we had our first Clubhouse MFL discussion organised by Katie Lockett, where we were discussing MFL uptake to GCSE. At some point the question on what an excellent KS3 curriculum looks like popped out, which has inspired me to write this entry. I am not implying our KS3 curriculum is perfect or excellent but it is working very well. By working I mean is enthusing our students and our pupils are enjoying Spanish at KS3, resulting in many choosing this language for GCSE (a MFL is compulsory in my school at this level in most cases).

What are the elements of our Spanish curriculum?

• Adoption of the MARS EARS approach by Gianfranco Conti and the use of Sentence Builders
• Getting away from textbooks (we use Mira/Viva in the background, just to extract listening and reading material to some extent)
• The notion that Less is More: we only teach three big topics in Y7/8 and four in Y9.
• Interleaving of structures and topics. In fact, we dedicate nearly the Summer Term at KS3, to revise all the topics/ Sentence Builders/ Grammar studied since September.
• The identification of some High Impact expressions or Taste of Fluency Expressions/Universals using Gianfranco Conti's nomenclature, which are introduced at Y7 and are recycled thoroughly throughout the whole KS3 journey.
• The identification of High Frequency Words. We obtained these from the NCELP and we have tried to incorporate as many of these to our Sentence Builders. 
• Cultural projects clearly embedded and well structured into the curriculum with specific Sentence Builders attached to them, thus, avoiding the use of Google Translate.

Why adopting the MARS EARS approach?

This approach focusses on Lexicogrammar and develops skills in our learners by teaching less content but more functions aiming to achieve fluency in the students. For a whole explanation of this methodology visit The Language Gym Blog or read the book Break the Sound Barrier, which I thoroughly recommend, by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith.  

The approach has four differentiated stages: 

Modelling of chunks or Sentence Builders

Awareness Rising through planned repetition of structures, led by the teacher.

Receptive processing. This means controlled input of the selected chunks via planned listening and reading activities, such as narrow readings or listenings among many others!. 

Structured production: pushed output of the selected chunks. This stage will require grammar practice and drilling once the intended chunks have been assimilated and embedded in our students' longer term memory. 

Expansion. Automatisation. Routanisation. Spontaneity. This is the last stage of the language journey and difficult to get to, where students learn to use the learned language creatively and spontaneously. 

Why does it work?

This approach works because it breaks up the language in affordable chunks which are easier to assimilate by students as they reduce cognitive load in the working memory. It takes less time to retrieve a chunk of language than trying to retrieve words individually and then apply grammatical structures to them, such as verb endings and adjective agreement. Carrying out the second action can be frustrating, breaks fluency, results in inaccuracy and demotivates students to speak. Retrieving chunks, on the other hand, is more efficient from the point of view of working memory. It is the first step to fluency and reflects how we learn our mother tongue. I recommend reading Memory, what every Language Teacher should know by Steve Smith and Gianfranco Conti too, where they explain, beautifully well, the way our memory works and why a lexicogrammar approach is best. 

Because our curriculum is designed to deal with one/two pages of Sentence Builders for a whole term, students have a lot of time to embed these into their long term memory, start seeing patterns and, we, the teachers, can dedicate more time to planning spontaneity, via  structured production and many, many, many retrieval practice tasks and planned manipulation of the language. 

Students feel they are in control, feel motivated as they can start speaking and feel they are making progress! For this to work, we must be FREE which is why my department decided not to use textbooks in the strict sense. Most importantly, the whole department contributed, to certain extent, to this curriculum so we all had ownership of it and shared they same goal: to achieve fluency in our students while making them independent learners in their language language. 

This approach allowed us to apply the Just right effect, which I have mentioned in so many other blogposts: the curriculum is not too easy, neither too difficult (as there must be some pain in learning) and allowed us, not the publishers, to decide our own balance of structures and grammar to teach our students. 

The interleaving aspect of the approach and embedded retrieval practice are also key to its success! 

Our high Impact expressions, including Imperfect Subjunctive structures, are repeated throughout the whole KS3 course and are meant to plant the seed for assimilation of more difficult structures, that traditionally are not learned until GCSE/Alevel. However, why can't a Y7 student say " si pudiera me gustaría cantar como los ángeles" (If I could I would like to sing like the angels. Use of imperfect subjuntive in Spanish and an idiomatic expression)  under the topic of Free Time or " me gustaría que mi madre fuera menos estricta" ( I would like my mum to be less strict, which requires the use of impefect subjunctive in Spanish) under the topic of describing personality? 

The key here is to recycle such structures in as many different topics as possible! " me gustaría que mi rutina fuera más tranquila" in Y8 or "me gustaría que mi ciudad fuera más moderna" in Y9. 

Less ability students love this approach because it gives them a structure and, as Sentence Builders reduce cognitive load and we do not study too much content, they can remember more and have the time to assimilate these chunks well.

High ability pupils fly in this approach because they can start being fluent very quickly and start manipulating the language freely by adapting the key structures. I had a Y9 student who taught himself the imperfect subjunctive as the seed of curiosity was planted in him via the sentence builder and wanted to find out more! High ability pupils will also spot patterns quickly and start applying grammar freely, with our guidance. In other words, for these students, the Sentence Builders constitute a springboard to the wonderful world of grammar and word manipulation.

Project Based learning and Culture

I believe these are an essential intrinsic aspect of the language journey, as they present a great opportunity to develop Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness, in Liam Printer's words, thus motivation! So we must harness this opportunity, but in a planned manner. 

Our curriculum allows for some project based learning linked to specific Sentence Builders:

Y7 students complete a project on Miró, where they will study his pictures in English and will learn a Specific Sentence builder to describe these. Students then create their own Miró's inspired pictures and describe them orally or in writing in our own Art Gallery. This allows to learn to express feelings and more abstract language.

Y9 students study Coco for 6 weeks. This allows students to study el Día de los Muertos and talk about family relationships, clothes and festivities using the film as a background, which will spark discussion, albeit in English but we do not mind!. The final project requires students to create a film guide on Coco, explaining the plot, what happens in the film, giving opinions on it and thinking what will happen to the main character in a second part of the film, using the future tense.

Schemes of Work

We do not use weekly SoWs but termly. We decide what to cover in a term, linked to a Sentence Builder page or two pages, then, each teacher, plans how long to spend on each subtopic/ section of the Sentence Builder. 

Why? because every teacher is different and most importantly, each class is different! a top set may be quicker at embedding our Sentence Builder and will carry out more creative tasks while a bottom set will need more activities in the Structured Production stage. 

I cannot dictate what to cover each week! What happens if the teacher is absent? Panic! It is better to plan in the long term, having, interleaving at the core of such planning. We share resources, yes, but each teacher will need to plan and adapt those resources to the needs of their students. Having said that, all members of the department will follow the MARS EARS approach. The system would not work otherwise!

Our SoWs do not dictate what to do but  guide the teachers through the MARS EARS approach and give them a wide range of activities to choose from to carry it out . In other words, our SoW is like a teaching manual with many suggested ideas/tasks to carry out in the classroom, many of which I took out from Breaking the Sound Barrier and the mfltwitterati community.

I don't like giving teachers PPTs to follow but equip them, after reflecting together, with the tools needed to carry out the MARS EARS approach, which has its foundation in a pre agreed set of Sentence Builders.

For an example of our departmental KS3 SoWs in Spanish click here. 

A compilation of MARS EARS ideas at a glance: