From 9 to 1: Teaching the mixed ability class at GCSE

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. 

Low ability classes: how to reach them!

Three years ago, I had two vey disillusioned classes, one in Y8 and one in Y10. Both were mixed ability groups with many special educational needs, together with disorganised demotivated students. The Y10 class (1st year of GCSE) had lessons always in the afternoon, being one of them on a Friday Period 8 (3:40-4:30). It was not easy, and although the lessons were good, the students were clearly not enjoying Spanish and certainly, I was not winning them all.

I started to do some research on what would work for them and I came across Gianfranco Conti's blog The Language Gym and the Lexicogrammar approach to teaching. I was doing many of the things portrayed in the blog but not in a systematic way. At the time we had ditched the textbook and had a rich reduced curriculum. We also used Knowledge Organisers (with nouns, verbs etc..) but students still struggled to create accurate sentences and to make rapid progresss.

I introduced Sentence Builders to both classes, and consciously spent more time in the modelling stage of learning, with many listening/reading activities before moving to structured production.

The change was instant. Students were increasingly more and more engaged and started to become better at Spanish. It was the beginning of my lexicogrammar journey. All my Y10 students passed their GCSE with at least a 4 grade.

Low ability students often struggle to learn languages because they tend to have poor memory and poor processing skills. When we add to the equation not much curriculum time and a big syllabus to cover, the result is a I can't do attitude which tends to translate into low expectations from the part of the teacher and demotivation from the part of the students. It is a dog chasing its tail situation. This is my strategy. 

15 steps to reach low ability students: a sequence of lessons

• Less is more and have high expectations. Expect all your students, regardless of ability, to do well in MFL. However, at the beginning you may have to go extra slowly with certain classes with a big proportion of low attainers. Do not rush, because, in the long term it will pay off and you will be able to increase the pace enormously. It’s important to set robust roots. 
• Using Sentence Builders is key as these give a structure to learning and will allow students to make progress quickly, hence increasing their motivation. They are also great for students with poor memory retention as it prevents them from turning to Google Translate! Their Sentence Builders becomes their Google Translate and in time, they will memorise them. Similarly in mixed ability classes, SBs will allow you to differentiate easily via scaffolding: while you reinforce structures, high flyers can move on to use more complicated language. 
• Spend lot of time modelling language (your Sentence Builders) via listening activities so that students get good phonetic models and eventually memorise the vocabulary. Think of lessons as a space to help your students to transfer your sentence builders into the long term memory, so students learn the chunks for later manipulation. Carry out Modelling activities with mini White Boards. These are amazing to add a fun element to the lesson and a competition feeling, while creating a non threating set as students just need to wipe out their answers if not sure. They are also great to stretch high ability kids if needed. Great, Lily, can you extend your answer with something we learned in the last topic? See below for some of my favourite Modelling activities at this stage. 
• Start focusing on small chunks and increase them in length and speed (when doing listening activities) little by little. 
• Some Sentence Builders will require the use of verbs. Start teaching the infinitive form of the verb first. (With normal modelling tasks) As this will allow you to start introducing a variety of structures! Suelo, me gustaría, nos gusta, me gusta etc.. See Example for the topic of Holidays. Then move to the first/third person forms, through another Sentence Builder, and finally the we/they forms via an explicit grammar explanation of a given tense. 
• Start every lesson with a Quick Fire session revising last lesson's chunks and interleaving structures from past weeks even months or years! I do this with MWBs and I just make up sentences! Sometimes for this Retrieval PracticeI may use Wheel of names.
• After at least 1 lesson, sometimes I need 2 or 3 at this stage! Start moving to Practised Production activities. See below for activities ideas at this stage. Remember to differentiate via scaffolding with sentence builders. You can push hard and if the activity is difficult, allow some students to use their SBs for support.
• Introduce questions to students on the topic you are covering and expect some improvised answers from students. To help students at this stage, ask the questions orally as a class and expect students to write down model answers in their MWBs. Then do it orally. If students cannot improvise anything, give them ideas on things they can say in English, for them to translate orally for you. Go to another student and come back to the same student, to make sure they can improvise something this time! 
• Repeat the above activity but now with a game! The genially games are excellent for this, but now with questions that students need to ask each other and respond to. 
• Ask students to carry out a Writing Task (90/150 words) on the studied topic, interleaving information from previous topics. My students tend to do this for homework. Have high expectations and model the writing task with your students first by creating a task collaboratively! Instructional videos like those created by Sonja Fredizzi are great for students to refer to when at home and developing independence. Before this writing task, my homework’s consist of explicitly learning the SBs with a Quizlet aligned to them, reading activities, translations etc..
• Mark the writing task and provide feedback to students, including oral collective feedback, and use a lesson to improve the task based on such feedback. I do not mark all mistakes but I highlight them and expect students to correct them during this lesson. Students then rewrite their task: without mistakes and improving it regarding content, if necessary. Do not accept poor quality writing! 
• Carry out more practice of structures with games and information gap activities via oral questions. 
• At this stage, students should be quite confident with their sentence builders so it is the perfect opportunity to explicitly teach grammar!
• Use Flipgrid and Padlet as tools for the students to start being creative and write/speak their own discourses. At this stage, I encourage students to add past topics vocabulary. This is the More Creative/Fluent stage of learning! 
• Finally, I ask students to provide a Writing Task 2 on the topic or oral presentation. Any task based activity will come after this stage. 

Excellent activities for the Modelling Stage of learning 

• Dictations with MWB (Miniwhite board) 
• Delayed Dictations: like normal dictations but students have to wait a few seconds before they are allowed to write their sentences/chunks in their MWB. In those crucial seconds, they should repeat the sentence to themselves to help them memorise structures. 
• Translations both ways. (Miniwhite board)
• Putting sentences, from a list on the board in English, into the correct order as you read them randomly. Increase your speed or reduce it according to your students' ability/needs. 
• Bad listening: provide students with a short text (in TL less challenging in English more difficult), based on your Sentence Builders, read it to students but with small changes. Ask students to highlight the differences first, then to write the structures they hear. 

• Gap filling activities based on a text read by you but without gaps! This is an excellent activity as students need to fully concentrate as they don't know where the gaps are. Similarly, it is an excellent activity for students to try to guess where the gaps will be likely to be, which is an excellent way to emphasise and work with collocations and priming. 
• Rock Climbing: You create a grid like the one in the picture and you call out combinations which students need to jot down (always read a choice from the bottom line, a choice from the second etc.. hence the name of Rock Climbing!) This is another great activity to recycle as an oral/writing task too!

• Listening Battleships: You create a grid with many sentences in it and then you call out the sentences and students write the coordinates of the sentences you read. I love this activity because it can be used later in the Practised Production stage, as a retrieval grid or even for homework, where students need to write down the sentences into Target Language. 

Excellent activities for Practised Production

• Use Wheel of Names and Flippity randomiser for students to start practising the language, first via MWB, lex by you, but then, sharing the links, as oral activities in pairs. I combine these activities with the game Stone, Paper, Scissors. It works extremely well!  I may ask students to write the sentences in their books, after doing them with MWBs as a whole class, for extra practice with some classes: every child uses the link, spins the wheel and write their translation in books. I explain how I do this with Wheel of names in this video. 
  
  
• Use the Sentence Builders website.  This website, created by Martin Lapworth, creator of Textivate and TaskMagic, allows you to create your own sentence builders and hundreds of activities, which students access via their own accounts, which teachers create for them. It is an absolutely excellent site to help students memorise and practise your Sentence Builders. Activites include, translation both ways (with initials, missing vowels, anagrams form) reading activities, listening activities in chunks or in sentences and many more! Excellent for homework tasks and easy to monitor progress.

• Any information gap activity works at this stage! Below is an example with Ping-Pong translation. 

• Battleships but now students play in pairs and need to guess their partners coordinates by saying the sentences. More confident students can be asked to extend the sentences appearing on the board. 
• Board games where students need to translate sentences: Jenga, Snakes and Ladders, Connect Four etc.. for this I use Genially Templates. You can watch this video where I explain how to use Genially. 
  
  
• Stealing Sentences three levels! 
• Rock climbing but now students do the active in pairs. Students write specific coordinates and their partner need to guess the actual coordinate. Great for translation activities too! 

Remember, not to reinvent the wheel! Revamp and use the same activities in many different ways! I show how to do this on this blogpost. 

This sequence, complimented with a game/competition element and lots of praise, did win my disaffected students a few years back and it still works today. The process may seem slow but it increases in pace as you do it more and more!

That’s why starting to adopt this strategy at KS3 is key to have more curriculum time at KS4. However, it works equally well at KS4 for the first time too. 

Have a look at this blogpost where I go through a sequence of lessons at GCSE level using Sentence Builders. 

It works as my lessons become sticky and allows students to process information into the long term memory and automatise the language.

The strategy is based on the Lexicogrammar approach, underpinned by Rosenshine’s principles of instruction, summarised in the three pillars of Retrieval Practice, Interleaving and Spacing and Feedback driven Metacogniton aiming to create self-efficacy and independence in learners.