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The MFL motto and ethos at my school is Let's take languages outside the classroom. This is our brand and it is visible in a big banner when you enter the MFL department corridor. You cannot escape it! We teach a life skill to take it outside the classroom, not just to pass an exam, and we must provide opportunities for such skill to get tested in real life situations outside the classroom. I believe that the learning that takes place in the classroom is the practice, the weekly training for the real football match: real situations to put the language into practice!
It also deeply worries me that in the current climate where trips and gatherings are not possible for the near future, this aim can easily be neglected. That would be a big mistake! We need to rethink the shape of these real life linguistic situations so they still take place, although with a different format.
How to take languages outside the classroom?
Exchanges
These are core to our MFL philosophy and we are lucky than when these have been scrapped from some schools because of safety issues, at the end of the day students stay with unknown families away from the teacher's constant vigilance, our school has protected these trips.
How have we overcome the safety questions surrounding exchanges?
In normal circumstances, how to guarantee the safety of students when they stay with a host family during a school trip can be a big issue for schools, which has resulted in an alarming decrease of language exchanges across the country.
In my school, we have resolved this issue with the introduction of a Host Family Trust Form. Families from both sides fill in this form, stating information about their household: address, family members, all telephone numbers, siblings, age of siblings, whether their guests will be sharing a room, if that is the case with whom etc.. This information is confidential and is passed to the relevant families privately. It is regarded as an informal contract between families in different countries who commit themselves to look after each other's children during the exchange.
Click here for a copy of this form. On top of that the Heads from both schools vow for their families and their good intentions.
Elements of a successful and stress-free exchange
From a student's point of view it is always nerve-racking to stay with someone they hardly know, or even worse, someone they will know, for the first time, on their arrival day in Spain, Germany or France! My experience is that this can result in unpleasant/ homesick situations from part of the guests and it can ruin an exchange. Somehow, homesickness is infectious! Elements to consider to avoid this situation:
1. The key of a successful exchange is to create situations where partners have had the opportunity to get to know each other prior travelling. We do this by creating learning, collaborative opportunities in the classroom. eTwinning projects linked to the MFL curriculum, as explained in my previous blog, are a fantastic opportunity for this! An Erasmus project will take your exchange to the next dimension!
2. Use the technology at your disposal for real, periodical class communication before travelling. This could be part of homework tasks.
3. Use public holidays to communicate with partners via the creation of video messages. Xmas is a perfect opportunity for this!
4. Create a purpose for the visit: an outcome, something tangible that students will have to produce by the end of the exchange. This should be strongly linked to the collaborative tasks/ project initiated by both schools before travelling. In our last Spanish exchange, British students had to complete a workbook which included interviews to the host family and the creation of an online diary in conjunction with their Spanish partners via Padlet. Paired students had to do this together, creating opportunities for them to interact in the evenings. Some times partners are shy, especially the guest so these tasks create an opportunity for the students to get to know each other better face to face. This particularly works well if students have been in frequent contact from day 1 and have been working on a project together prior to the visit.
Example of Spanish exchange activity booklet
5. Have the right balance of school based and outdoor activities when the exchange takes place. Having excursions every day can be exhausting when students have to practise their linguistic skills all day long. Similarly, just following hosts throughout their school for the whole exchange and relying on host families to do the entertaining, can be extremely awkward and frustrating for a teenager! I try to plan a good selection of in-school and out-of-school activities.
Example of an exchange itinerary of activities
6. Use social media while you are in your host country. Opening a Twitter account or using Sway on Microsoft it is a great way to keep parents informed at all times and it helps not only to raise the profile of your exchange but also to keep anxiety levels down from the parents' point of view which help towards a smooth exchange trip!
Twitter account for our 2019 Spanish and French exchanges: @united_an
7. Make a big fuss of your visitors at school: organise a school disco, a dinner party, a cream tea party, a Spanish tapas party or a Valentine's French party or why not? taking part in a carnival!
Routes into Languages: The Language Leaders Award
This association runs many great competitions and awards involving languages: Spelling Bee, Film and Eurovision competitions are some of their hot activities, to mention a few! My favourite one is the Language Leaders Award. We run this programme for the whole MFL department for Y10 students. Students need to apply to take part in the programme and the best applications, not necessarily the best linguists, will get selected.
As language leaders Y10 students are responsible for running some language activities around the school, such as our MFL lunches, explained below. In order to qualify for the award, students need to prepare and deliver two MFL lessons to our Junior School students.
The experience is great and it really helps to raise the profile of languages in the community. The students in the programme commit themselves to attending a weekly Language Leader meeting/workshop during lunch time where they are instructed in the art of teaching a language, in preparation for their lessons to younger learners.
This activity, in itself, is very powerful, as it allows students to reflect on their own language learning experience and how they are learning their second language in the first place! Younger students also love being taught by Senior School pupils. This activity would be great to carry out in feeder schools with Y6s!
Documentation to run your own Language Leaders Award
Such an activity will not be affected in the current COVID situation and it would be a great extracurricular activity.
MFL lunches
Debating competitions
A local school organises an annual MFL competition for any school in the area for Y10, 11, 12 and 13! Students are given a motion to prepare, well in advance, and will compete against other students in the area. This is a great G&T activity for our most able students. Sadly, I suspect such competition may not take place this year, but it can be organised within our school!
Why don't you run your own debating competition in school or cluster of schools?
MFL magazine
This is something we plan to start this year for the first time and completely safe to do! Again, it will be our Language Leaders in Y10 with the help of A Level students who will be responsible for the creation of a MFL magazine with school news in French, German and Spanish and of course interviews! We will publish just a magazine to start with aiming to create three numbers per year.
Onatti productions.
Onatti tours around the UK with Spanish, French and German plays. They are worth every penny and students love them. You get a booklet with the vocabulary which will be used in the play, which allows teachers to cover this during lesson time, putting languages into context and taking them outside the classroom! During lock-down, Onatti has produced some lovely lock-down films in French, German and Spanish which are also, fantastic resources for real linguistic exposure. Have a look in the website above.
Language International week
This is a classic in my school now! At King's Ely, we are lucky to have an International school site with students from all around the world: China, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Italy, France, Spain or South Corea just to mention a few! The MFL department in conjunction with King's Ely International organises an annual International week with a wide range of activities aiming to raise the profile of languages and celebrate diversity, global dimension and tolerance in all our students. The activities take place during break, lunch and after school and include things like:
Cooking sessions: make dumplings, French pancakes, a Spanish paella or Austrian Tafelspitz
Traditional dancing sessions, where our International students showcase traditional dances and/ or songs, this year we want to create an evening International Cabaret, raising money for a chosen charity.
A especial international assembly run by the students
Screening of international films
MFL school debating competition
International photo booth, run by students, where photos with different flags and prompts are taken celebrating diversity.
Language Day for Y9 students, run by our International students. It consists of language workshops where our international students teach a little bit of their language and elements of its culture to all Y9 students, who are off timetable for the event. After these workshops, Y9 students are treated to a mini international concert, again, performed and run by our international students. In the past we have had workshops on Italian, Hindi, Japanese, Russian and even Afrikan! Teachers, outside the MFL department, are also invited to run a workshop: in the past we have had PE lessons in Afrikan conducted by a South-African teacher!
Ideally, we try to get Onatti into school during our International Week, which is the icing on the cake! Although, this is not always possible. I appreciate very few schools have an International School side, most schools have students from different international backgrounds and this is an opportunity for those students to feel proud of their heritage and raise the profile of languages! Another COVID free activity is social distance measures are put into place accordingly.
The Stephen Splender Prize
This is a great, poetry, translation competition open to the whole of the UK at all levels. Translation is a great skill and students tend to love it, believe it or not! Running a workshop/ club for students on translation is a great asset which can lead to the Stephen Splender Prize entry. There are lots of information in their website about the competition and how to incorporate translation in the MFL classroom.
The British Film Institute workshops
The BFI runs lovely film workshops for all key stages and main languages! Another great way to take languages outside the classroom! I firmly believe in the power of film when learning a language! Having Netflix, Amazon Prime or just Youtube open a huge opportunity to exploit cinema in the classroom and the BFI has helped me tremendously to develop teaching techniques and materials which incorporate the use of films.
They run workshops for French, German, Spanish and Mandarin and to KS3/KS4/KS5 level. It is a lovely day out for students and another opportunity to take the languages outside the classroom. I do not take full sets but a selection of students who have worked particularly well throughout a term. I have also run these as a gifted and talented activity.
Given the current climate, the BFI will be launching a blended learning programme instead of its usual face to face study days. Have a look at their website for more information.
MFL Drama Competitions
Both, The North London Collegiate School and The King Alfred School organise Spanish and French Drama competitions, respectively, for Y11-Y13 students. Students perform up to 10 minutes sketches or short plays in the target language. This is a great opportunity for students who are good a drama to shine in a language!
Feedback from parents and students alike is fantastic each year. It does require a lot of time to prepare students for these plays so it represents a lovely, periodical, language extra-curricular activity: MFL Drama club. It is a fantastic project for a language assistant to coordinate too. Please, contact both schools for information on the these annual competitions, which this year maybe on the format of short videos. Again technology to the rescue!
Where possible, if there is a professional play in French, German, Spanish in London we make it a ALevel MFL outing. These are great! We are lucky enough to be one hour by train from King's Cross in London, so we can do this! Although big cities like Manchester also offer excellent opportunities for international theatre.
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