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. 

Scaffolds and Lifts: adaptive teaching in the mixed ability MFL classroom

Today I want to talk about having high expectations, differentiation in a meaningful and stress free way, and adaptive teaching: the new differentiation in the classroom.

When I trained in 1999 differentiation was already a hot topic and I remember extremely well how I had to provide evidence of specific and different tasks for at least three levels of learning in the classroom. I basically planned the same task in three versions corresponding to levels: high, medium, low and would pre-determined who would fit each level, hence the adaptation of my worksheets. It was a nightmare to run and to photocopy!

We have moved away from this philosophy and over the years I have stuck to the concept of Anchoring in Challenge (from Making Every lesson Count) meaning, pitching high and expect ALL the students to reach the top of our expectations. To achieve this, we must provide scaffolds for those who need it and lifts for the more able students, making it clear that the expectation is that everyone reaches the top at their own pace. 

How to manage a mixed ability classroom in practice?

They key is to check for understanding constantly, and adapt our teaching accordingly within the lessons, using our repertoire of scaffolds and lifts. This means preparing one activity (not multiple versions of the same task) but leading students to the top, skilfully, through our scaffolds via the use of questions and whole class involvement. It’s about spinning the plates, reacting to what you see and changing our lesson plan if needed, on our feet.

Having Sentence Builders in a booklet format (for the whole academic year) has been instrumental in providing me with the tool to easily scaffold and lift any task. 

Let me show you how I adapt my teaching using scaffolds and lifts with different activities.

Dictation activities

I always carry out these activities with MWBs, an easy way to check for understanding at all times. I start dictating small sentences, repeated very slowly and gradually move to longer utterances at increased speed. When checking for understanding with MWBs, I can see at a glance, how many students could carry out the dictation easily and who struggled. Based on this information, I continue dictating sentences, but will direct some students to have their Sentence Builders booklet in front of them while I will ask others to take it away. I go back to shorter sentences after two longer ones and back to a challenged utterance. After increasing my speed of dictation, I go back to short utterances again and back to longer sentences at different speeds. I do this as a response of what I see in the MWBs. I adapt to what students produce, constantly. 

I may start with a gapped dictation (only some words are missing, basically a fill in the gaps type of activity) to move to a fill in the gaps without gaps (words are missing but without gaps and students have to listen carefully for the word missing in specific spots) and back to fill in the gaps again to be back to dictation without gaps, all in the same text. 

I can also dictate deliberate grammatical, lexical or pronunciation mistakes and can use cold calling to ask students if they spot something dodgy. 

When carrying out dictation activities and some of my students finish quickly while others are still writing, I may ask the faster learners to translate the sentence into English or to extend it using vocabulary from a past topic. I will do this on the spot, adapting to each child’s needs at that moment. 

Scaffolded output practice

When carrying out language activities involving scaffolded production of the learned topic, I normally start with simple translations from English into TL, again using MWBs, wheel of names works wonders for this and students will get points (they keep a tally on their MWB) for each correct sentence they translate. I give them thinking time and writing time, then I will check answers: I may have to ask some students to revise their sentences:  can you spot a mistake? If all correct I can ask students to extend their sentence with something they can think of on the spot. I may use initials in the activity and after a while just initials without the English support to go back to short translations. I may ask some students to stop writing and tell me the sentence orally while others write it. 

Another strategy is to give prompts and students to write/say a sentence based on this. Some students may write something short, others something long. I can push all students to include different tenses and one or more magical powers, we have 5! See this post for the Magical 5 Powers.

In oral, pair work activities I move around the classroom, I redirect students where needed, to our Sentence Booklets, while I remove the booklet from others. I can ask challenging/reinforcing questions to different students while moving around: why did you choose that ending? How would you say....? Can you extend your answers so you speak for an en extra 10 seconds?  While moving around, I take notes of mistakes, answers and we analyse them, reflecting on the students' work at the end of the activity. While walking around, I may decide that students need extra practice with verbs in the past or the future or in pronouncing specific sounds and will plan a subsequent lesson accordingly.

Fluent Practice (Mastery of concepts: spontaneity)

At this stage, I can push students to speak faster and faster and more spontaneously: talk 2 minutes about a topic with your partner/or recording yourself. Then, say the same information now in 1:30 minutes finally in 1 minute. Speed dating, Relay Races and any oral activities with time limit are great! Again, I would be walking around, directing students to their SB booklets if needed. 

If doing written creative practice, I would model the thinking process first and we would write a model answer together, then on their own or in pairs using our 5 Magical Powers sheet as a scaffold, where needed, but wouldn’t allow the use of their SB booklet: think, think what you can say instead or what you actually can remember! 

This is differentiation by outcome, a sin when I trained, as that wasn’t considered real differentiation. I disagree! Working at your own level, receiving scaffolds or lifts and allowing you to reach the top with skilful guidance is the way forward and that is, differentiation by outcome, not by task as ALL students are working towards the same target with the same task at their own pace with the expert guidance of their teacher.

It is about having high expectations for all!!!