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Guide to severe grading in ML exams for teachers and senior leaders Dec 2023

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Guide to severe grading in ML exams for teachers and senior leaders Dec 2023

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Published 31st December 2023 by David Blow, ALL Fellow.
What is severe grading?
It should be that pupils of the same prior attainment gain, on average, a similar GCSE grade in their EBacc subjects (English, maths, sciences, history / geography and a language). But there has been a discrepancy going right back to the days of O-level whereby languages (blue lines in graph to right) have had a lower average grading - by over half a grade for many students. (The same principle should hold at A-level, with prior attainment measured by GCSE score).

Evidence
FFT Datalab have analysed the grades over a number of years, giving clear quantitative evidence, most recently in June 2023:
https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/06/revisiting-subject-difficulty-at-key-stage-4/
a) Comparison with English and Maths - they compared
(i) the grade achieved by each pupil in subjects to
(ii) their average score in English and maths.
The graph is striking, showing that on average their grades in German, French and Spanish were 0.7, 0.7 and 0.6 grades lower than their average grade in English and Maths, whereas all the other EBacc subjects were within 0.2 grades of their average grade in English and Maths.

Students, teachers and parents will often compare their grades in different subjects, and assume,
incorrectly that they are not performing as well in ML as in their other EBacc subjects - this will affect up to half of students taking ML GCSE.

Spanish grading in 2018 compared to geography and history
Recognising that virtually all students will study English, Maths and Science, how do grades in ML compare with those in the "Humanities" bucket, often studied as an option subject alongside ML. The pattern is familiar. Spanish entries are more likely to be graded 5-2 and less likely to be graded 9-6.
https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2019/11/do-proposed-adjustments-to-grading-in-gcse-languages-go-far-enough/
What are the key issues?

This is NOT to do with standards, pedagogy, time allocation or any other factors. It is a historical anomaly dating back to O-level which has been "baked-in" by the remit to QCA and then Ofqual to maintain comparable grading over time, formalised over the last 10 years by "comparable outcomes" whereby the grade distribution is kept similar from one year to the next, varied only for changes in the prior ability profile of those taking a particular subject.

Not only is this unfair, it can often to lead to false conclusions being drawn:
o Pupils think that they are not as good at ML, and parents could take a similar view, especially as the issue would have been there when they took their own GCSEs or O-levels
o ML teachers may be unfairly thought to be under-performing - in particular any comparison using Progress 8 EBacc buckets will be comparing ML against Hi/Ge and Sciences - definitely NOT a level playing field!

What needs to happen?
It is important that the issue be widely known and understood to avoid incorrect conclusions being drawn, and pupils and parents need to know that a lower grade in ML does not mean that they are not doing as well in that subject.
Standards and grading for the new GCSEs in French, German and Spanish, first being examined in June 2026, need to be set by Ofqual in a way that brings GCSE ML into line with the other EBacc subjects.
Full details are available at https://all-london.org.uk/severe-grading/ including a recent overview for ALL's Languages Today: https://all-london.org.uk/languages-today-article-on-severe-grading-winter-2023/

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Guide to severe grading in ML exams for teachers and senior leaders Dec 2023

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Published 31st December 2023 by David Blow, ALL Fellow. What is severe grading? It should be that pupils of the same prior attainment gain, on average, a similar GCSE grade in their EBacc subjects (English, maths, sciences, history / geography and a language).

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A Summary of Ofsted's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders by Marc Hayes

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A Summary of Ofsted's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders by Marc Hayes

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The language report shares findings about effective curriculum design, factors which affect language learning, and the pedagogy which supports effective teaching and learning. It centres on the three pillars of progression: phonics, vocabulary and grammar. The report provides insights into the status of languages in schools and which curriculum decisions leaders need to consider, as well as providing suggestions for effective teaching and assessment. The role of working memory constraints has significant implications for language learning, which leaders and teachers need to take into account. Explicit instruction is suggested as a very effective teaching approach, so long as it is based on a curriculum which has been carefully considered and sequenced.

You can download the original report from Ofsted's . The summary below is my own interpretation of Ofsted's summary and whilst I hope I have done it justice, I am happy to be corrected if I have misinterpreted any of the findings.

Languages are an integral part of the curriculum as they open the mind to other cultures, build cultural capital and liberate from insularity.

The building blocks of a language system are sounds, words and rules - phonics, vocabulary and grammar.

Progress means to know more and remember more.

Curriculums need to plan for progress by carefully considering what the building blocks and and how to sequence them in the subject.

Working memory limitations means that overloading learners with content will negatively affect the quality of learning: less can be more.

Distributed practice (practising rehearsal of knowledge in short chunks regularly and often) is more effective than massed practice (doing lots of rehearsal in one go).

Retrieval practice supports long-term memory development.

Explicit teaching works best with novice learners.

A curriculum should have a clear, logic plan for progression in phonics - including teaching around differences between the target language and English.

There needs to be planned practice and review of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (sound-letter connections)

The curriculum should be planned to show how small differences in sounds can affect meaning

Beginner learners are slower at recognising and producing small components of language such as sounds and words.

Over time, knowledge becomes more accessible and more automatic.

Once learners have become automatic in some basic knowledge, they are able to carry out higher order tasks such as drawing inferences, noticing nuance, and increasing the amount of language they can understand and produce.

Within the context of the UK and the languages curriculum specifications, it is likely that only a few linguists at GCSE and slightly more at A-level would be working at an 'expert' level: the vast majority of UK learners will be learning the building blocks of the language.

Novice learners need to decode what they hear or read. Decoding can be slow, effortful and error-prone in the initial stages. Pupils can sometimes draw on their first language, but this is not always helpful, reliable or efficient and can lead to guesswork.

Over time and with practice, knowledge of phonics, grammar and vocabulary becomes automatic and pupils can access this knowledge more accurately and effortlessly. This enables pupils to understand longer texts and spoken discourse, allowing them to access a wider range of meanings.

The more automatic language becomes, the more able pupils are to build knowledge and make inferences, as they are able to consider how the content links with their background knowledge.

There are clearly different demands between listening and reading.

Listening requires decoding sounds at speed, keeping information in working memory (unless the content can be repeated) and can sometimes include following different speakers with different voices and (potentially) points of view.

The differences between listening and reading should be taken into account when planning the curriculum and deciding on tasks and activities. The difficulties and challenge of tasks should be taken into account and sufficient time for practice should be allocated.

Novice learners' language production - whether this is the sounds or letters - is slower, shorter and more likely to contain errors.

Again, learners become faster and more accurate with sufficient time and practice.

The automaticity that time and practice leads to builds pupils' capacity to pay attention to other aspects of speaking and writing, allowing them to develop an idea and engage in discussion.

As pupils' language production becomes more accurate and automatic, they are more able to use language across a range of contexts and in expressing increasingly sophisticated ideas.

Speaking and writing create different demands on a learner. Speaking requires pupils to be aware of the ongoing discourse between speakers and integrate new information into the conversation. This is reliant on listening competency. Speaking has a time pressure associated with it, making it different to writing with which learners can typically have more time to think about content and how to express it.

This section has been informed by research relevant to language pedagogy and cognitive science.

Second languages can be learned both explicitly and implicitly: learning can be 'intentional' or 'incidental'.

Pupils' ability to learn implicitly is affected by how analytical and engaged they are, and how strong their working memory is, giving them an advantage over how much they can attend to.

Intention learning is likely to be more efficient for most learners - "explicit teaching works best with novice learners".

This is a much-debated issue.

There is a fine balance between adequate exposure to a language without overwhelming and demotivating learners.

Using the target language should not act as a hindrance to learning e.g. explaining a grammatical concept in the target language can make it more difficult to understand.

Use of the target language is, however, essential for practice and reinforcement. This needs careful planning.

Teachers should use the target language where it supports and complements the scheme of work and builds systematically on pupils' prior knowledge. Its effectiveness is really all in the planning.

Teachers' use of the target language can be altered in line with learners' progress: the more familiar the learners are with the language, the more able it is to be used beneficially and effectively.

The focus of target language use should be on that of the learners. There is strong evidence that pupils' use of the target language correlates with their learning.

Pupils need both the competence and the motivation to create meaning in the target language. Classroom climates should support this and it should be remembered that spontaneous use is often less fluent, fast and accurate than rehearsed responses.

It is important to test exactly what is being looked for. It is also important to avoid situations where pupils can used previously learned learning to answer a question rather than having to engage with the grammar itself. For example, 'yesterday' next to a verb can be the indicator that a sentence is in the past tense, rather than the verb form.

It is important to check pupils' grammatical understanding in all four modes of communication: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Crucially, grammatical assessments must be aligned to clearly structured and sequenced learning progressions.

As learners become more proficient, assessments should be based across sentences, paragraphs and entire texts, and include language production that is more complex and longer, with less scaffolding.

How school leaders prioritise languages is a defining factor to the success of a curriculum in how it is planned and delivered.

Schools need to consider the following factors which can affect the success of the curriculum:

the level of staff expertise

leaders' understanding of progression - more than just the different topics the children will learn

assessment and quality of transition to secondary school.

There can be subtle unconscious bias towards languages, such as taking last place in CPD programmes.

A major challenge for most primary schools is sufficient curriculum time.

There is a significant issue for primary-secondary transition. Many schools do not have conversations about prior learning and attainment. The Language Trends report found that it is very common that language learning in KS3 starts from scratch.

Poor transition is likely to be the most significant factor in pupils not seeing the benefit of learning a language at primary school.

There is significant disapplication from languages: only 68% of schools which responded to the Language Trends survey said that all Y7s access a language.

Teachers' expertise, teacher supply and CPD are integral to facing the challenges that schools face for teaching languages.

It is crucial to improve teachers' proficiency and their expertise and confidence.

Most primary teachers have not accessed language-specific CPD in the last year.

If you'd like to support the work I do on this blog, please click the link below.

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A Summary of Ofsted's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders

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A summary of the Ofsted Languages Research Report to support teachers and leaders with MFL and Ancient Languages curriculum design.

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Classrooms:

'It's only a wasp! Ignore it!' [uproar]

'Got it, everyone? All clear?' [tumbleweed] "Great!"

'You should know this! We only did it last week!!' [blank looks]

Staffrooms:

'Why is their attention span so short?!'

'Why do they keep glazing over!?'

'Why do they forget what they knew how to do?!'

***

As teachers, knowing who's learning well in a class of 30 is tricky. Especially when we only see the class once a week (or fortnight!) and teach hundreds of students.

To teach well and to learn well, it's useful to know the great brain battles that the mind struggles with.
To teach without knowing the mind's greatest battles is to teach blind. To learn without knowing the mind's greatest battles is to learn blind. To lead schools without knowing the mind's greatest battles is to fly blind.
To teach and lead schools without knowing human psychology is a bit like

prescribing as a doctor without knowing human biology.

operating as a surgeon without knowing human anatomy.

flying a plane without knowing aerodynamics.

building a bridge without knowing the laws of physics.

Here are three struggles the brain has when learning. Three that we as teachers, school leaders, teaching assistants and staff need to know to teach well. Knowing them well helps us succeed in teaching, in our own learning and in helping our colleagues' and loved ones' learning. Knowing them well is vital for our students - especially the most vulnerable.

Threats to learning we encounter again and again in teaching are distraction, overload and forgetting.

How much do we forget in our own learning? I used to be able to speak French fluently, living there aged 18. I've forgotten a *lot*! I used to be able to solve mathematical and scientific problems when I was 18. A casual glance at an exam paper today tells me that if I took an exam tomorrow, I wouldn't even pass!

We forget a lot!

In a world full of distractions, we find ourselves distractible. It seems harder to read and harder to write than before, harder to concentrate.

We get distracted a lot!

In a world flooded with information, we find ourselves overburdened. Our headspace is easily overtaxed and overwhelmed.

We get overloaded a lot!

Our brains have natural constraints. We need to know lots about them to teach really well.
*** Brain battle #1: Distraction We get distracted easily and quickly.
Example: try listening to two people talk at once without getting distracted from either one of their thoughts.

Why is it so hard for us to listen to more than one person at a time?

Our attention is limited and fast distracted.

To grapple with this challenge, we can draw on research into attention and its natural limits.

Research suggests that our brains have limited capacity for directing and sustaining attention.

Research suggests that distractions have detrimental effects on learning.

Studies suggest students may spend some 50% of teaching time off-task.

Studies suggest that time off-task is linked with lower learning.

Studies suggest that inattention is linked with lower educational achievement.

If students are beset with distractions, they can't focus their attention on learning.

If their attention is distracted and disrupted, so is their learning.

***
Brain battle #2: Overload We get overloaded easily and quickly.
Example: try these sums -

(1) 23 x 26

(2) 5 x 5

Why is the second question so much easier?

Two reasons:

1. our mind is fast overloaded. Even multiplying just two-digit numbers can overload us.

2. our knowledge reduces overload. Remembering what we already know well is far less overloading than working something complex out in multiple steps.

To grapple with the challenge of overload, we can draw on research into our minds' working memory limits: the constraints on our thinking.

Research suggests that our brains have severe limits for keeping things in mind.

Studies suggest these limits are especially severe when we have little knowledge of a topic.

Researchers suggest that novice learners' capacity to keep new knowledge in mind is fast overburdened.

If students' novice minds are overloaded and overwhelmed, their learning is inhibited.

If their working memory is overtaxed, their learning is limited.

***
Brain battle #3: Forgetting
We quickly forget new knowledge we're learning.

Example: try meeting 10 new people and seeing how many of their names you remember the next day.

Why do we forget?

The brain is deluged with so much information each day that it's impossible (and debilitating) to remember it all. The brain mainly remembers what recurs lots and what it thinks deeply about. That's what it sees as most useful and most needed.

To grapple with this challenge, we can draw on research into memory.

Research suggests that the human mind forgets lots and fast what it doesn't revisit.

Studies suggest that we tend to forget most new knowledge we've learned within a few days.

Scientists suggest that we tend to forget some 70% of new knowledge within a day or so.

If students forget most of what they've been taught, their learning is limited.

***

As teachers, we must keep distraction, overload and forgetting in mind.
If left unaddressed, they'll result in confusion, difficulties and demotivation.

If we forget about the great brain struggles, we'll teach worse, and learn less.

What unites all learning is that the human brain is at the heart of it. The limitations of the mind are the laws of nature in learning.
We get distracted lots, and fast. We get overloaded lots, and fast. We forget lots, and fast.
Some of my most bungling blunders and most recurrent mistakes in teaching have been because I forgot about my students' forgetting, got distracted from their distractions, and was overloaded by the overload experienced by the 30 brains in class and 200 minds a week I taught.

For years, (and still), I rushed on busily without revisiting and reviewing enough, leaving shallow rather than deep knowledge, so they forgot a lot they needed to know well.

For years, (and still), I didn't make sure that all kids in class were listening and had a distraction-free environment; in fact, *I* distracted them by talking over their individual practice at the same time, by creating games that got them thinking about the wrong things, by letting them chat and not ensuring full focus on the subject rather than their more social whims.

For years, (and still), I've garbled and gabbled my explanations and overcomplicated them, confusing and overwhelming my students' working memory limits. I still do all the time, especially in assemblies!

I wish when I started in teaching in 2004 that I had known the research on attention, working memory and long-term memory.

I wish that now I could keep forgetting, distractions and overload in mind - but I tend to forget about them and get distracted from keeping them in mind!

Know the battles.

Don't let distractions disrupt.

Don't forget about forgetting.

Don't be overcome by overload.

Win the struggle for lasting learning.

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Knowing our brains' struggles can help us learn, and help others learn. Classrooms: 'It's only a wasp! Ignore it!' [uproar] 'Got it, everyone? All clear?' [tumbleweed] "Great!" 'You should know this! We only did it last week!!' [blank looks] Staffrooms: 'Why is their attention span so short?!' 'Why do they keep glazing over!?'

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Revisiting subject difficulty at Key Stage 4 - FFT Education Datalab

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Revisiting subject difficulty at Key Stage 4 - FFT Education Datalab

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We revisit a previous blog looking at points awarded in different subjects relative to English and maths. We find little change compared to pre-pandemic times.

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Dissertation - The lexicogrammar approach 

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Dissertation - The lexicogrammar approach 

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Dissertation The Lexicogrammar Approach Selina Marshall public (1)

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MFL Teaching based on E.P.I. approach,  Videos and blogs, Sample activities from Modelling to Spontaneity.

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Oral practice - recording device

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Pratique de l'oral au primaire
et au secondaire, préparation aux épreuves orales de collège et
de lycée & création de commentaires audio pour les élèves

Pas de compte à créer pour les élèves, pas de logiciel à installer.

Multiplateforme : Windows, MacOS, Linux, téléphones ou tablettes (iOS ou Android)... Un navigateur web suffit.

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Pratique de l'oral au primaire et au secondaire - Préparation aux épreuves orales de collège et de lycée (brevet, français, langues, grand oral...).

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August 2023 Update - AI Writing Check is no longer available

👋 Educators, we have taken down AI Writing Check because the new versions of Generative AI tools are too sophisticated for detection by AI. When we launched this tool in January 2023, the only Generative AI tool available was ChatGPT. There are now a series of different tools available, and each of these tools is being upgraded weekly. As these tools make their AI more complex, the AI text output becomes more varied, and it becomes more difficult for algorithms to detect whether a piece of writing was generated by AI.

As a result, OpenAI has taken down their algorthim. We were hosting the algorthim created by OpenAI, and we are now taking this algorthim down as well.

However, there is an alternative approach for educators to understand their students' writing: check the version history. We recommend this piece, by Dave Sayers, that describes this approach:
"[The] answer lies in a somewhat obscure feature of Google Drive: the "version history". Pick any file you've worked on in Google Drive, then click on File > Version History > See Version History, and you'll be presented with a detailed log of all changes made to that file. If it's been edited by different people, you'll also see which user made each change. Microsoft Office seems to have a similar feature, too. Click into the details in that log and you'll see every little sentence you added, every typo you corrected, every awkward passage you rephrased or deleted. It's really remarkably useful as a writing aid, not to mention a way to recover stuff you actually wish you hadn't deleted. But it also leaves a very particular - and very human - trail of writing.If a student actually does the writing themselves, they will similarly write things, move things around, add bits, delete bits; all the usual meandering manoeuvres of human writing. And all of that will appear in the version history, indelibly timestamped and tagged per user. If, on the other hand, it was written for them - either by a machine or indeed by an old-fashioned human ghostwriter - then they would receive a completed text, which they could then only copy and paste all at once into the document. Even if they went to the trouble of manually typing out a provided text, the version history would simply show them typing it out word by word from start to finish. No human writes that way." Read Dave Sayers piece: A simple hack to ChatGPT-proof assignments using Google Drive

Educators, we created a toolkit to help you talk about AI plagiarism with your students

With the introduction of this new technology, students are curious about how to use it. We believe that if students use AI tools as research tools, and properly cite it as a source, it can help students learn about new ideas. However, when students pass off AI generated writing as their own, they are not engaging in the critical process of building their own writing skills. To help you set the right expectations with your students and navigate these conversations, we created a toolkit.

Toolkit for Addressing AI Plagiarism

If you found this helpful, please help us share with other educators

This free, nonprofit service is powered by donations. If you found this helpful, you can help us by sharing this service with other educators. By helping us to get the word out, we can raise additional donations to continue to provide this service.

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We created AI Writing Check to support strong writing education for students

Quill.org & CommonLit are nonprofit educational technology organizations dedicated to helping 3rd - 12th grade students become stronger writers. Quill.org provides writing activities that use AI to provide students with immediate feedback and coaching, enabling them to continually revise their work and build their skills. CommonLit provides interactive reading and writing activities, and a full English Language Arts curriculum to support literacy development in grades 6-12.

Quill.org and CommonLit deeply believe that every student needs to be a strong writer to succeed in school and careers, and technology can help build these writing skills. To achieve this mission, both of our nonprofits provided our activities for free to all educators and students.

Visit Quill.org Visit CommonLit.org

Funders, technologists, and journalists: support our mission to build writing skills for millions of underserved students

As nonprofit, open-source organizations, we are funded by donors who support our missions to build reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Technologists, support Quill.org and CommonLit's open source initiatives. Journalists, reach out to learn more about our impact on students.

Nonprofit foundations, reach out to learn more about our organizations impact underserved students

Technologists, reach out to us if you are interested in contributing to our open-source projects.

Journalists, reach out to us to learn more about how Quill & CommonLit help millions of students across the United States.

Educators, reach out to share your feedback and learn more about our educational tools.

Reach Out - Contact Us

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AI Writing Check is a free service developed by Quill.org and CommonLit.org to enable educators to check if a piece of writing submitted by a student was written by the AI tool ChatGPT.

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I've been workshopping how to make logic puzzles so that I can engage students in various vocabulary topics and language structures. This is yet another way to provide students with opportunities to see and use language in context. These logic puzzles also require a bit of critical thinking skills as they follow the logic and figure out the answers.

I spent some time coming up with the "equations" and templates so that I can just add in the topic vocabulary and write the clue sentences. I decided to create 4 versions that increase in challenge level.

You can download your own templates and get to work creating your own logic puzzles for your students. The link below will make a copy of the Google Slide™ temples in your Google Drive™. Just follow the equations for the clues and you will soon have logic puzzles using the specific content that pertains to your students.
How does it work?

There are 4 versions of the logic puzzles for increased challenge. The directions are in English, but can be easily changed to any language.

Begin by filling in the boxes in the top row and the column on the left. This can be names of people, pictures, anything.

Use the data "equations" to write sentences that lead students to follow the logic and figure out the answers. "=" means a positive statement and "≠" means a negative statement.

Using the example above:

1. C ≠ 2 : Mateo does not have a tablet.

2. B ≠ 4 : Lucía doesn't have a computer.

3. A = 2 : Laura has a tablet.

4. D ≠ 3 : Julia doesn't have a pencil.

5. C = 1 : Mateo has a notebook.

The checkmarks are there to make sure you are following the equations. When finished, be sure to delete the checkmarks and the letters/numbers above and to the left of the grid.

The last thing to do is to add question below where the students will find the answers in the grid.

Have fun with these and let us all know what you come up with.

This entry was posted in Activities and Games, Grammar and Structures, Reading and tagged ACTFL, ACTFL Core Practices, french, french teacher, language, language acquisition, language learning, language teacher, logic puzzle, Second Language Acquisition, spanish, spanish teacher, teacher. Bookmark the permalink.

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I've been workshopping how to make logic puzzles so that I can engage students in various vocabulary topics and language structures. This is yet another way to provide students with opportunities to see and use language in context. These logic puzzles also require a bit of critical thinking skills as they follow the logic and...

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A Teacher's Prompt Guide to ChatGPT aligned with 'What Works Best'.pdf

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A teacher’s prompt guide to ChatGTP @herfteducator

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A teacher’s prompt guide to ChatGTP @herfteducator

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A Teacher's Prompt Guide to ChatGPT aligned with 'What Works Best'.pdf

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Interlangues, Numérique

Divers

Le lecteur immersif dans e-lyco pour travailler en langues vivantes

Le lecteur immersif est un assistant de lecture interactif destiné à rendre les textes accessibles ; il peut cependant être utilisé pour l'apprentissage des langues vivantes .

Ce lecteur est intégré à e-lyco dans plusieurs outils :

Grâce à ce lecteur immersif, il est possible d'ouvrir le texte dans une nouvelle fenêtre puis de déterminer les paramètres de lecture : couleur de fond, police, espacement du texte.

Il est également possible de choisir des options de lecture à haute voix à différentes vitesses, en différentes langues.

Découvrez ces fonctionnalités pour les langues vivantes dans cette vidéo :

haut de page

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Interlangues, Numérique Divers Le lecteur immersif est un assistant de lecture interactif destiné à rendre les textes accessibles ; il peut cependant être utilisé pour l'apprentissage des langues vivantes . Ce lecteur est intégré à e-lyco dans plusieurs outils : Grâce à ce lecteur immersif, il est possible d'ouvrir le texte dans une nouvelle fenêtre puis de déterminer les paramètres de lecture : couleur de fond, police, espacement du texte.

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration, and be more productive.

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Leximage. Réaliser un dictionnaire en images

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Leximage. Réaliser un dictionnaire en images

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Article mis à jour le 15 mai 2020 par Fidel Navamuel

Comment enrichir son vocabulaire en Français ou dans une autre langue de manière ludique ? Leximage vous invite à créer un dictionnaire personnel avec vos propres images. Un carnet de mots multimédia fait par l'apprenant lui-même à partir de son smartphone.

Leximage est une idée sympa mise en forme par le CAVILAM Alliance Française sous la forme d'une application gratuite pour iOs ou Android. Une application qui va vous permettre de créer un dictionnaire en images et l'enrichir régulièrement.

Un dictionnaire en images pour apprendre des mots en Français ou dans une autre langue

Leximage permet aux élèves de devenir acteurs de leur apprentissage en leur proposant un outil simple et ludique pour se créer un dictionnaire en images personnel. L'utilisation est effectivement très simple. Il faut bien sûr un smartphone qui puisse prendre des photos.

Le fonctionnement de l'application en elle-même se passe de mode d'emploi. La création d'une nouvelle entrée dans votre dictionnaire personnel se fait en trois étapes simples.

Il faut tout d'abord choisir un objet de son environnement autour de soi;

Il faut ensuite photographier l'objet choisi avec l'application ou en télécharger une depuis le net ;

la dernière étape est la plus importante. L'élève doit ensuite nommer l'objet en l'écrivant et en enregistrant sa prononciation.

Cette dernière étape peut être réalisée seul. Mais l'élève pourra aussi chercher de l'aide auprès de ses proches ou mieux encore du professeur qui pourra valider et la prononciation et l'orthographe.

Des exercices automatiques pour mémoriser les mots du vocabulaire

Le dictionnaire en images personnel va peu à peu s'enrichir de nouveaux mots. Mieux encore, Leximage va ensuite générer automatiquement 3 types d'exercices pour aider à mémoriser le vocabulaire contenu dans le dictionnaire personnel. L'élève devra soit :

associer un son à une image ;

associer une image à un son ;

écrire le mot correspondant à l'image et au son.

S'agissant de ses propres mots, de sa propre voix et des images réalisées par l'utilisateur lui-même, le processus de mémorisation n'en est que pus efficace.

Leximage peut être utilisée hors ligne. Les données créées dans le dictionnaire sont uniquement enregistrées sur le mobile ou la tablette utilisée.

Une chouette application mobile qui, comme "J'apprends" que j'avais présentée ici il y a quelques semaines, permet d' apprendre du vocabulaire en français de manière ludique en presque autonomie sur son smartphone ou tablette.
Leximage est gratuite et sans publicité.

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Leximage. Réaliser un dictionnaire en images

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Article mis à jour le 15 mai 2020 par Fidel Navamuel Comment enrichir son vocabulaire en Français ou dans une autre langue de manière ludique ? Leximage vous invite à créer un dictionnaire personnel avec vos propres images. Un carnet de mots multimédia fait par l'apprenant lui-même à partir de son smartphone.

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Save Time and Effort in Your Language Teaching with ChatGPT: The AI Tool That Does the Work for You!

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Save Time and Effort in Your Language Teaching with ChatGPT: The AI Tool That Does the Work for You!

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This is an online demo of the GPT-2 output detector model, based on the🤗/Transformers implementation of RoBERTa. Enter some text in the text box; the predicted probabilities will be displayed below. The results start to get reliable after around 50 tokens.

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This is an online demo of the GPT-2 output detector model, based on the🤗/Transformers implementation of RoBERTa. Enter some text in the text box; the predicted probabilities will be displayed below. The results start to get reliable after around 50 tokens.

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Text Generator is an open-source AI Assistant Tool

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Text Generator is an open-source AI Assistant Tool

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Text Generator Plugin! Free Alternative to Copy.ai, Jasper and Rytr

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Text Generator is an open-source AI Assistant Tool that brings the power of Generative Artificial Intelligence to the power of knowledge creation and organization in Obsidian. For example, use Text Generator to generate ideas, attractive titles, summaries, outlines, and whole paragraphs based on your knowledge database. The possibilities are endless!

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A COMPLETE GUIDE TO ROSENSHINE'S PRINCIPLES OF INSTRUCTION

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A COMPLETE GUIDE TO ROSENSHINE'S PRINCIPLES OF INSTRUCTION

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A complete guide to Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction

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Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction have become increasingly popular in education due to their useful but familiar teaching strategies that can help enhance student learning. These 10 principles provide a much-needed bridge between scientific research and classroom practices.

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Les troubles Dys, comment les identifier et agir de manière adaptée 

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Les troubles Dys, comment les identifier et agir de manière adaptée 

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Les troubles DYS Manifestations et Aménagements Les troubles Mnésiques et Attentionnels ❙ Trouble Déficitaire de l’Attention avec ou sans Hyperactivité Les troubles du Langage ❙ Dyslexie ❙ Dysphasie ❙ Dysorthographie Trouble de la…

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Self-determination for all language learners: New applications for formal language education

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Self-determination for all language learners: New applications for formal language education

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Four simple ways to apply behavioural insights - EAST

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Four simple ways to apply behavioural insights - EAST

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Cognitive Load Theory: a life of its own by Sam Pullam

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Cognitive Load Theory: a life of its own by Sam Pullam

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach by Esmeralda Salgado on Genially

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach (genially presentation) by Esmeralda Salgado 

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach (genially presentation) by Esmeralda Salgado 

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Lexicogrammar click here for video

Sentence Builders

SoW

Activities

MARS EARS

Key implications for MFL

Long Term Memory

Factors affecting Cognitive Load

Cognitive Load Theory

Memory

a rich research basedcurriculum

Memory: What every language teacher should know by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith

The Worked-Example effect(SENTENCE BUILDERS and MODELLING)great for beginners!The Expertise-Reversal effectTransient Information effect(listening input fades quickly: good to make learners listen to the same audio several times doing different tasks. TASK REPETITION AND INTERLEAVING IS KEY)The segmentation effect(breaking down teaching sequences into bite-sized segments)The Pre-Training effect(Building phonological memory) Receptive processing of TL (Listening & Reading must be carried out first)!TASK REPETITION= RETRIEVAL PRACTICEIt strengthens learning: transferring information into the LONG term memory by the creation of SCHEMASIt reduces cognitive overloadEvery time a task is repeated it becomes more fluidTASKS MUST HAVE A PURPOSE: A KEY LESSON PLANNING SKILL IS TO FIND DIFFERENT WAYS OF REHEARSING THE SAME LANGUAGE, SO WORK SEEMS FRESH TO STUDENTS.

Summary of Activities DocumentModelling ActivitiesListening Activities Reading ActivitiesDictation ActivitiesSequence Example based on Studio 2 French by Nadim ChamNeed inspiration? Simona Gravina's PadletFrom Structured Production to Fluency/Spontaneity

WORKING MEMORY VERSUS LONG TERM MEMORYStorage in the Working Memory is temporary and FragileWorking with chunks makes more effective use of the working memoryOur goal is to help students create SCHEMAS (Ready Made chunks of TL held in Long-Term Memory that can be quickly brought into use when comprehending and speaking in TL)

What it is?The amount of information that we have to process in the working memory at any one time: how hard we have to think!Types of cognitive loadIntrinsic, extraneous and GERMANE: the right amount and type of load needed to build knowledge. DESIRABLE DIFFICULTY. Goldilocks effect!!Schema acquisition reduces working memory load. Our focus is to help students build schemas in the long term memory.

Repetition: little and often!InterleavingVocab learning: it sticks better when it is processed in more elaborate ways. Knowing what a word means, what it sounds like, its written shape, its allocation=lexicogrammar

The learning Continuum MARS EARSby Gianfranco ContiModellingvia Sentence BuildersAwareness-Raising Pop up Grammar, planting the seed!Receptive Processing(Listening and Reading flooding activities)Structured Production(Writing and Oral practised activities)Expansion(Explicit Grammar) This is done once chunks have been extensively learned!Autonomy(Scaffolding gets removed (SBs) and students produce language without supportRoutinization(Recycling vocabulary constantly! specially key/high impact expressions/functions)Spontaneity(WITHIN A TOPIC/UNIT) THE GOAL

Types of long term memory:DECLARATIVE-EXPLICIT (WHAT?)PROCEDURAL-IMPLICIT (HOW?)- PRIMING subconscious process when a word primes the next. This allows fluency.

SOWs: A LIVE Pedagogical documentHow to ensure interleaving?How to ensure enough repetition?How are we going to tackle project based units? When? How?Which are going to be our Universals or High Impact words?How are we going to incorporate most Frequent Words?Curriculum Mapping and SoW by Silvia BastowCurriculum Design KS3 by Esmeralda SalgadoCurriculum Design KS4 By Esmeralda Salgado

Sentence BUILDERS ExampleWhich language/structures to include?Considering NCELP Frequency words!How many idioms?How much grammatical structures?Which will be our High Impact expressions/Universals that will appear throughout the students' learning journey?Which topics?

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach by Esmeralda Salgado on Genially

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Lexicogrammar click here for video Sentence Builders SoW Activities MARS EARS Key implications for MFL Long Term Memory Factors affecting Cognitive Load Cognitive Load Theory Memory a rich research basedcurriculum Memory: What every language teacher should know by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith The Worked-Example effect(SENTENCE BUILDERS and MODELLING)great for beginners!The Expertise-Reversal effectTransient Information effect(listening input fades quickly: good to make learners listen to the same audio several times doing different tasks.

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@HughesHaili

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A  summary of OFSTED's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders

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summary of OFSTED's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders by Marc Hates

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summary of OFSTED's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders by Marc Hates

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The language report shares findings about effective curriculum design, factors which affect language learning, and the pedagogy which supports effective teaching and learning. It centres on the three pillars of progression: phonics, vocabulary and grammar. The report provides insights into the status of languages in schools and which curriculum decisions leaders need to consider, as well as providing suggestions for effective teaching and assessment. The role of working memory constraints has significant implications for language learning, which leaders and teachers need to take into account. Explicit instruction is suggested as a very effective teaching approach, so long as it is based on a curriculum which has been carefully considered and sequenced.

You can download the original report from Ofsted's . The summary below is my own interpretation of Ofsted's summary and whilst I hope I have done it justice, I am happy to be corrected if I have misinterpreted any of the findings.

Languages are an integral part of the curriculum as they open the mind to other cultures, build cultural capital and liberate from insularity.

The building blocks of a language system are sounds, words and rules - phonics, vocabulary and grammar.

Progress means to know more and remember more.

Curriculums need to plan for progress by carefully considering what the building blocks and and how to sequence them in the subject.

Working memory limitations means that overloading learners with content will negatively affect the quality of learning: less can be more.

Distributed practice (practising rehearsal of knowledge in short chunks regularly and often) is more effective than massed practice (doing lots of rehearsal in one go).

Retrieval practice supports long-term memory development.

Explicit teaching works best with novice learners.

A curriculum should have a clear, logic plan for progression in phonics - including teaching around differences between the target language and English.

There needs to be planned practice and review of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (sound-letter connections)

The curriculum should be planned to show how small differences in sounds can affect meaning

Beginner learners are slower at recognising and producing small components of language such as sounds and words.

Over time, knowledge becomes more accessible and more automatic.

Once learners have become automatic in some basic knowledge, they are able to carry out higher order tasks such as drawing inferences, noticing nuance, and increasing the amount of language they can understand and produce.

Within the context of the UK and the languages curriculum specifications, it is likely that only a few linguists at GCSE and slightly more at A-level would be working at an 'expert' level: the vast majority of UK learners will be learning the building blocks of the language.

Novice learners need to decode what they hear or read. Decoding can be slow, effortful and error-prone in the initial stages. Pupils can sometimes draw on their first language, but this is not always helpful, reliable or efficient and can lead to guesswork.

Over time and with practice, knowledge of phonics, grammar and vocabulary becomes automatic and pupils can access this knowledge more accurately and effortlessly. This enables pupils to understand longer texts and spoken discourse, allowing them to access a wider range of meanings.

The more automatic language becomes, the more able pupils are to build knowledge and make inferences, as they are able to consider how the content links with their background knowledge.

There are clearly different demands between listening and reading.

Listening requires decoding sounds at speed, keeping information in working memory (unless the content can be repeated) and can sometimes include following different speakers with different voices and (potentially) points of view.

The differences between listening and reading should be taken into account when planning the curriculum and deciding on tasks and activities. The difficulties and challenge of tasks should be taken into account and sufficient time for practice should be allocated.

Novice learners' language production - whether this is the sounds or letters - is slower, shorter and more likely to contain errors.

Again, learners become faster and more accurate with sufficient time and practice.

The automaticity that time and practice leads to builds pupils' capacity to pay attention to other aspects of speaking and writing, allowing them to develop an idea and engage in discussion.

As pupils' language production becomes more accurate and automatic, they are more able to use language across a range of contexts and in expressing increasingly sophisticated ideas.

Speaking and writing create different demands on a learner. Speaking requires pupils to be aware of the ongoing discourse between speakers and integrate new information into the conversation. This is reliant on listening competency. Speaking has a time pressure associated with it, making it different to writing with which learners can typically have more time to think about content and how to express it.

This section has been informed by research relevant to language pedagogy and cognitive science.

Second languages can be learned both explicitly and implicitly: learning can be 'intentional' or 'incidental'.

Pupils' ability to learn implicitly is affected by how analytical and engaged they are, and how strong their working memory is, giving them an advantage over how much they can attend to.

Intention learning is likely to be more efficient for most learners - "explicit teaching works best with novice learners".

This is a much-debated issue.

There is a fine balance between adequate exposure to a language without overwhelming and demotivating learners.

Using the target language should not act as a hindrance to learning e.g. explaining a grammatical concept in the target language can make it more difficult to understand.

Use of the target language is, however, essential for practice and reinforcement. This needs careful planning.

Teachers should use the target language where it supports and complements the scheme of work and builds systematically on pupils' prior knowledge. Its effectiveness is really all in the planning.

Teachers' use of the target language can be altered in line with learners' progress: the more familiar the learners are with the language, the more able it is to be used beneficially and effectively.

The focus of target language use should be on that of the learners. There is strong evidence that pupils' use of the target language correlates with their learning.

Pupils need both the competence and the motivation to create meaning in the target language. Classroom climates should support this and it should be remembered that spontaneous use is often less fluent, fast and accurate than rehearsed responses.

It is important to test exactly what is being looked for. It is also important to avoid situations where pupils can used previously learned learning to answer a question rather than having to engage with the grammar itself. For example, 'yesterday' next to a verb can be the indicator that a sentence is in the past tense, rather than the verb form.

It is important to check pupils' grammatical understanding in all four modes of communication: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Crucially, grammatical assessments must be aligned to clearly structured and sequenced learning progressions.

As learners become more proficient, assessments should be based across sentences, paragraphs and entire texts, and include language production that is more complex and longer, with less scaffolding.

How school leaders prioritise languages is a defining factor to the success of a curriculum in how it is planned and delivered.

Schools need to consider the following factors which can affect the success of the curriculum:

the level of staff expertise

leaders' understanding of progression - more than just the different topics the children will learn

assessment and quality of transition to secondary school.

There can be subtle unconscious bias towards languages, such as taking last place in CPD programmes.

A major challenge for most primary schools is sufficient curriculum time.

There is a significant issue for primary-secondary transition. Many schools do not have conversations about prior learning and attainment. The Language Trends report found that it is very common that language learning in KS3 starts from scratch.

Poor transition is likely to be the most significant factor in pupils not seeing the benefit of learning a language at primary school.

There is significant disapplication from languages: only 68% of schools which responded to the Language Trends survey said that all Y7s access a language.

Teachers' expertise, teacher supply and CPD are integral to facing the challenges that schools face for teaching languages.

It is crucial to improve teachers' proficiency and their expertise and confidence.

Most primary teachers have not accessed language-specific CPD in the last year.

If you'd like to support the work I do on this blog, please click the link below.

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A Summary of Ofsted's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders

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A summary of the Ofsted Languages Research Report to support teachers and leaders with MFL and Ancient Languages curriculum design.

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Sciences cognitives et modalités de l'apprentissage

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Sciences cognitives et modalités de l'apprentissage

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Sciences cognitives et modalités d'apprentissage - Coggle Diagram

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Sciences cognitives et modalités d'apprentissage - Coggle Diagram: Sciences cognitives et modalités d'apprentissage

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Un générateur de BD sans installation et sans inscription

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Un générateur de BD sans installation et sans inscription

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Un générateur de BD sans installation et sans inscription

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Un outil simple, gratuit et efficace pour créer des planches de bandes dessinées. Créez votre

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year 11 revision session final draft.pdf

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Self-efficacy and language learning - what it is and what it isn't

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Self-efficacy and language learning – what it is and what it isn't

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Self-efficacy and language learning – what it is and what it isn't

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ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT
This article considers the presentation of self-efficacy in the OFSTED 2021 Curriculum Research Review for languages (OCRR). It begins by elucidating how self-efficacy is defined in the work of Albert Bandura and within social cognitive theory more broadly; its position in relation to theories of motivation and models of self-regulation; and what, according to social cognitive theory, are the factors that influence self-efficacy. It then examines critically how self-efficacy features within the OCRR, focusing on the mismatch between the conclusions the OCRR draws from cited publications and what the latter actually say. The article next presents its own summary of findings of intervention studies targeting language learning self-efficacy development within school contexts. It ends by highlighting the misalignment that exists between that research-based view of self-efficacy development and the type of curriculum proposed by the OCRR.

Introduction

At the time of writing, England's Department for Education (DfE) had just announced its decision to go ahead with a revised curriculum for modern foreign languages (MFL) examinations taken at age 16 (the GCSE), characterised by a focus on vocabulary, phonics and grammar and a more clearly defined and limited range of vocabulary to be assessed. The DfE press release to publicise that decision made much of the claim that this will 'help students build confidence' (DfE 2022), continuing a line of argument that asserts that confidence, or self-efficacy, is boosted by limiting what is expected of learners and focusing first and foremost on the 'building blocks' of language learning (OFSTED 2021; henceforth, OCRR). That focus coincides with a move away from foregrounding communicative and intercultural competence present within the existing GCSE, including understanding and appreciating a range of often authentic materials, in order to make languages more 'accessible' and hence supposedly more appealing to learners. The OCRR then seeks to support those views with reference to the construct of self-efficacy, essentially arguing that a narrower and more clearly defined body of knowledge to acquire will make learners feel more 'successful' and hence more confident and by extension more motivated. The extent to which the research evidence around self-efficacy does in fact accord with that view is the subject of the current article.

Self-efficacy originates in the work of Albert Bandura, a psychologist who is claimed to be the fourth most frequently cited ever, after B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget (Haggbloom et al. 2002). In spite of, or perhaps because of, this reputation, however, his work and its meaning are not always accurately portrayed or applied. Because of the tendency in texts such as the OCRR to present concise but not necessarily representative summaries of how Bandura conceives of self-efficacy, this article will present his views through verbatim quotations where appropriate.

Self-efficacy within the work of Bandura

Persistence in the face of aversive experiences

It is important to understand at the outset that Bandura developed his thinking on self-efficacy firstly within the context of phobia treatment, in which sufferers, instead of being shielded from the experiences they feared, were given 'guided mastery treatment, in which [they] confront the things they dread and learn how to exercise control over them' (Bandura 1999: 30). In other words, self-efficacy concerns the extent to which people develop behaviours that allow them to persist within potentially stressful situations. The notion of perseverant effort in the face of challenging and anxiety-producing tasks is central to Bandura's thinking and appears throughout his work, as in the following:

... expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. (Bandura 1977: 191)

The term 'aversive experiences' is an important one, indicating that self-efficacy is associated with the belief that one can be successful on a challenging task (Bandura 1999) and indeed is nurtured by such experiences. Self-efficacy is task specific and self-efficacy beliefs relate to specific levels of performance (Bandura 1994). This stands in contrast to rather more general evaluation of one's capabilities (e.g. 'I believe I am good at French'), which might be better described as 'self-concept'. Self-efficacy beliefs are also measured in rigorous research in relation to future tasks of a specific level of difficulty (Mills 2014).

Personal agency and social cognitive theory

A careful reading of Bandura himself (rather than relying on reviews of his work by others) also makes clear that self-efficacy is more than the belief that one can be successful on a task. Instead, it is the belief 'in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments' (Bandura 1997: 3) (emphasis added). In other words, self-efficacy has personal agency at its centre, whereby success is understood to be caused by the actions the individual themselves has undertaken. Thus, it is more than just expecting to be successful.

Personal agency is, furthermore, at the heart of Bandura's ( 1986) social cognitive theory (SCT) in its entirety. SCT posits that human functioning is influenced by personal, behavioural and environmental factors, which all interact with each other. Within the context of schooling, personal factors include beliefs and attributional tendencies; behaviour includes learning strategy use and self-regulation; and environmental factors concern aspects such as the way the classroom and its activities are structured (Schunk and DiBenedetto 2016). Within that triadic relationship, self-efficacy both influences and is influenced by behaviour and environmental factors (Bandura 1986). We will return to this issue when considering how higher levels of self-efficacy can be fostered.

Self-efficacy in relation to other theories related to motivation

As well as aligning self-efficacy theory with attributional theory, Bandura ( 1999: 28) also situates it clearly within an expectancy-value framework, whereby 'motivation is the product of the expectation that a given course of action will produce certain outcomes and the value placed on those outcomes'. In other words, within expectancy-value theory, motivation is driven by expectations of being successful in a given activity (expectancy), and also by sense of value. Value concerns how far success in any given activity is important to the individual. The latter includes intrinsic value, namely how enjoyable the task is for the individual and relatedly, how interesting it is. It also includes utility value, the activity's perceived relevance to the individual's goals (Eccles and Wigfield 2002). Value can be related, furthermore, to Self-Determination Theory (SDT, Deci and Ryan 2000), in which intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are key constructs (see also Lanvers and Graham, this issue). Intrinsic motivation can be characterised as undertaking an activity for the sheer enjoyment or interest it stimulates. In turn, the maintenance of intrinsic motivation requires three fundamental psychological needs be met: autonomy, the sense of undertaking activities with an entirely free choice; relatedness, 'the desire to feel connected to others' (Deci and Ryan 2000: 231); and competence, feeling able to undertake the activity effectively. There are thus clear links between the intrinsic motivation, autonomy and competence aspects of SDT and expectancy-value theory, and hence self-efficacy theory; all emphasise that sense of competence has to function in relation to a valued task, and the centrality of personal agency. Thus, Deci and Ryan ( 2000) argue that for competence to support intrinsic motivation, it has to be perceived as internally controlled, echoing Bandura's ( 1997) emphasis on personal agency as a fundamental aspect of self-efficacy.

The essence of the non-compensatory, multiplicative relation between expectancy and value is that both have to be high. [...]; teachers - supported by appropriate policy-practice - must be sufficiently skilled to simultaneously enhance both constructs. If teachers focus on one to the exclusion of the other, then the influence of each is undermined. (Nagengast et al. 2011: 1064-1065, emphasis added)

Hence, however important it is for motivation and persistence, self-efficacy clearly does not function in a vacuum. The dual role of value and self-efficacy is demonstrated in a recent study of school-aged language learners. Bai and Wang ( 2020) investigated the factors that predicted effort regulation and self-regulated learning strategy use for 490 4th grade students of English in Hong Kong. Perceptions of the intrinsic value of learning English in fact acted as a slightly stronger predictor of effort regulation than did self-efficacy beliefs, and having a growth mindset was the strongest predictor still. Finally, in a study cited by the OCRR but not really elaborated on, Taylor and Marsden ( 2014) reported that the decisions of 604 14 year-old learners in England regarding GCSE languages uptake were driven by the two halves of the expectancy-value equation, not only by whether learners felt languages were easy to learn (which one might conceivably, albeit loosely, view as self-efficacy), but also by how far they felt languages were personally relevant to them (which one could interpret as the perceived value of languages). The close relationship between expectancy and value is seen still more clearly in the Final Report version of the Taylor and Marsden study, where the authors underlined the importance of what they called the 'enjoyment-competence-relevance triangle' (Taylor and Marsden 2012: 20) which turns into a 'vicious circle' when one element of these is missing.

Self-efficacy and self-regulation

The above underlines the importance of self-efficacy for learning, and indeed in due course Bandura did apply his work to the field of academic achievement, notably with one of the most prominent theorists and researchers in self-regulated learning, Barry Zimmerman. Zimmerman presents self-regulated learning research as a body of work that 'provides detailed knowledge on how instructional practices influence children's development of a sense of personal efficacy as well as their self-regulatory capabilities' (Zimmerman 1995: 225). In the context of England, the recent Educational Endowment Foundation toolkit 'Metacognition and self-regulation' report (EEF 2018) outlines the value of teaching approaches that enhance metacognition and self-regulation, in that they 'support pupils to think about their own learning explicitly, often by teaching them specific strategies for planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning'. These EEF comments echo what is presented in Zimmerman's ( 2000, 2013) model of self-regulated learning, grounded in the Social Cognitive Theory of Bandura ( 1986) outlined earlier.

Figure 1 presents the model's three cyclical stages, involving the interaction of cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational processes during learning. Self-efficacy is named explicitly in the forethought phase. That involves the analysis of the learning task, the setting of goals, the creation of plans to meet them, including plans for strategy use, and the activation of motivational beliefs such as self-efficacy concerning the likely outcome of undertaking the task at hand. In the performance phase, the learner carries out the task and monitors their progress, applies strategies to complete the task effectively, and regulates their engagement and motivation. Finally, in the self-reflection phase, the learner assesses their performance and offers explanations for the task outcome. Understanding that how one carried out the task and the level of success achieved are related is likely to influence levels of self-efficacy for completing similar tasks in the future, helping the learner grasp that they are 'the originator of their own achievements' (Graham et al. 2020: 695). Learners who thus make links between outcomes and their own actions, such as use of learning strategies (Zimmerman 2000: 22), are likely to feel more in control of their learning, which has been found to influence academic buoyancy and hence achievement (Collie et al. 2015). This sense of control arises because learning strategies applied to a task can be viewed as 'correctable causes', and hence 'attributions to their use protect against negative self-reactions and foster a strategically adaptive course of subsequent action' (Zimmerman 2000: 23).

The previous paragraph should make clear that self-efficacy and learning strategies are closely connected in models of self-regulated learning, working in partnership and in conjunction with metacognition and causal attributions. Learning strategies also figure prominently in a number of recent meta-analyses of the impact of self-regulation in learning, for example, Donker et al. ( 2014). An understanding of how self-efficacy itself can be influenced depends on an understanding of that relationship. That is also true of how and why self-efficacy influences learning outcomes, the topic of the next section.

Self-efficacy and academic outcomes

In his writing on self-efficacy in academic contexts, Bandura makes clear that its impact on outcomes stems largely from its influence on persistence. Learners with higher levels of self-efficacy choose more challenging tasks, persist on them for longer, attribute outcomes to their own controllable efforts or strategies, and hence achieve more highly (Bandura 1994). This suggests that the impact of self-efficacy is an indirect rather than a direct one. In summary, self-efficacy theory suggests that self-efficacy influences academic achievement because it influences learners' persistence, effort, and self-regulation, which in turn lead to more positive learning outcomes. This has then been supported by empirical research.

Factors that influence self-efficacy

Earlier it was argued that self-efficacy forms a core part of self-regulation and that self-regulated learning is closely bound up with strategy use, causal attributions, and metacognition. Figure 1 showed that in self-regulated learning, the self-efficacy beliefs that come into play in the Forethought Phase are influenced by the Self-reflection Phase, during which learners evaluate their learning and attribute reasons for how well they have done, drawing on evidence they will have gathered during metacognitive monitoring in the Performance Phase. Self-efficacy levels will be influenced by the extent to which learners connect their achievements with their own actions.

The details of this self-regulatory cycle have been reiterated because they are fundamental to how Bandura ( 1997) conceptualised the four main factors that he believed would have an influence on levels of self-efficacy. He argued that the most important factor was what he called [enactive] 'mastery experiences' (Bandura 1997: 80). These involve experiencing success - but not just any kind of success. Rather the individual needs to perceive that such success has been achieved on a challenging task through their own efforts and actions, whereby they have dealt successfully with any problems that arose. This is clearly apparent in Bandura's ( 2012: 13) definition of mastery experiences and how they influence self-efficacy:

If people experience only easy successes they come to expect quick results and are easily discouraged by setbacks and failures. Resilient self-efficacy requires experience in overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort. Resilience is also built by learning how to manage failure so that it is informative rather than demoralizing.

This view of the power of enactive mastery experiences relates strongly to the notion of personal agency outlined earlier, whereby learners who thus attribute outcomes to their own actions, such as to learning strategies (Zimmerman 2000: 22), are likely to experience a greater sense of control over their learning and hence higher levels of self-efficacy. It is not to say that an individual should be left unsupported in facing challenging tasks. On the contrary, the teacher or instructor has a clear role to play by providing careful scaffolding, so that 'feared activities are first modelled to show people how to cope with threats and to disconfirm their worst fears. Coping tasks are broken down into subtasks of easily mastered steps' (Bandura 1994: 6).

Bandura's second hypothesised source of self-efficacy is termed 'vicarious experiences', whereby an individual observes similar others achieving success. The impact of such experiences is believed to stronger when an individual observes ' coping models, those who struggle through problems until they reach a successful end', rather than observing ' mastery models, those who respond to mistakes as though they never make them' (Usher and Pajares 2008: 753, emphasis in the original). Thus, as before, it is not enough for an individual to observe someone like them being successful for their own self-efficacy to increase - they need to witness the observed persevering on difficult and challenging tasks through the effective application of 'effective skills and strategies' (Bandura 1994: 3).

The third influencing factor identified by Bandura is 'social persuasion', which in the classroom context is most likely to come from the teacher in the form of comments emphasising to a learner that they possess the skills needed to overcome perceived difficulties in a challenging task. Interestingly, Bandura ( 1994: 3) commented that it is harder to boost self-efficacy through social or verbal persuasion than it is to undermine it through messages, implicit or explicit, that suggest individuals 'lack capabilities' for challenging tasks, such as might be given by reducing the level of challenge of tasks given to learners.

Finally, the fourth influence is termed 'emotional states' by Bandura ( 1994). These include feelings of fatigue, stress and tension. Once again, it is less the experiencing of such feelings that undermines self-efficacy than how an individual interprets them.

Studies have been undertaken to evaluate all these hypothesised influences on self-efficacy, as reviewed by Usher and Pajares ( 2008), by analysing more than 25 studies conducted between 1977 and 2008. They found that, overall, mastery experiences were the strongest predictor of self-efficacy, while vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and emotional/physiological states inconsistently predicted it.

To conclude this section, it is important to emphasise that none of the four factors outlined by Bandura can automatically influence self-efficacy; to do so, they need to be 'cognitively appraised' (Bandura 1986: 401). This means that self-efficacy development depends on how far an individual considers that their achievements on a task can be attributed to their own efforts and actions, on how difficult the task is perceived to be, and how much help they needed on it. In other words, if an individual experiences success on an undemanding task requiring little effort, their self-efficacy may not be boosted at all. We will return to this point in the Discussion.

Summary

Self-efficacy should be viewed as an individual's belief that they are able to 'organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments' (Bandura 1997: 3). It thus has personal agency at its centre. Its impact on learning comes primarily from its effect on persistence with challenging tasks. Self-efficacy does not function on its own - the individual has to value the challenging tasks which they seek to master, as is made clear in the expectancy-value theory of motivation to which self-efficacy is related. It features most prominently within models of self-regulation, in which it acts in partnership with the application of learning strategies, metacognition and causal attributions.

Self-efficacy is thus difficult to reduce to a simple formulation. Understanding how it functions and how it can be developed requires insights into broader theoretical perspectives such as those of social cognitive theory, expectancy-value theory and self-regulation. While the OCRR, written as it seems to be, to give a brief accessible view on L2 research, might arguably not be expected to go into that amount of detail, it is undeniably important that it presents self-efficacy accurately and fully. Otherwise, there is, at best, the danger of over-simplification in the thinking of teachers and policymakers regarding this construct. At worst, there is the risk of giving rise to teaching and curriculum choices which undermine rather than support self-efficacy.

In the remainder of this article, the following research questions will therefore be addressed:

1. To what extent does the account given in the OCRR of self-efficacy, its effects and its sources, accord with how it is presented by Bandura and the wider self-efficacy research literature?

2. What does research indicate are effective ways of improving L2 self-efficacy among school-aged students?

Methodology

In order to address Research Question 1, the OCRR was firstly examined carefully for the background it gives to L2 motivation research more broadly by way of introduction to self-efficacy. Next, each reference to self-efficacy made in the OCRR was located and listed. As most (but critically, not all) of these points were attached to a footnote giving details of supporting references, each of these references was read carefully. Again, the arguments, findings and study design (in the case of interventions) of these sources were reviewed and compared with how the OCRR depicted them.

For Research Question 2, a search was conducted in the following journals: Language Learning, The Modern Language Journal, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, The Language Learning Journal and System. These were selected because of their relevance for MFL teaching and second language teaching more broadly, as well as for their position in the field as leading publications. 'Self-efficacy' was used as an initial search term. This resulted in an initial total of 682 articles. Next, articles were selected for further review that met the following criteria:

1. The study was undertaken with participants who were 18 or under, i.e. school-age students

2. The article reported an intervention, in which at least one of the outcome variables was self-efficacy, and where there was a control group.

3. The study was published between 2000 and 2022.

The first criterion was used because, as noted by Ardasheva et al. ( 2017), self-regulatory variables such as self-efficacy follow a developmental trajectory; in order to understand how self-efficacy is influenced in school-aged learners of MFL (an aim of the OCRR), it is wisest to look at studies undertaken with school-aged participants. The second criterion was important as it is very difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain causality as opposed to association, if an experimental research design is not used and there is no control group (Price et al. 2017).

After applying these criteria, a very much smaller sample of articles remained, reflecting the tendency of second language research to focus on adult and university-level learners. In order to widen the pool, a re-examination was conducted of studies thrown up in the initial search which did not name self-efficacy as an outcome variable per se, but which did examine similar constructs, such as 'self-confidence'. In addition, widely-cited metanalyses of L2 learner strategies research (Ardasheva et al. 2017; Plonsky 2019) were scrutinised, as these were known to include studies that assessed the impact of interventions on L2 self-efficacy. The OASIS database was also reviewed (oasis-database.org). A final sample of 13 studies was reached after all these steps (Appendix). All selected publications were reviewed for details of their participants, methods, including intervention focus, and the reported findings with respect to impact on self-efficacy.

Findings

RQ1: To what extent does the account given in the OCRR of self-efficacy, its effects and its sources, accord with how it is presented by Bandura and the wider self-efficacy research literature?

Self-efficacy is the belief we have in our own ability, specifically to meet challenges and complete a task successfully (OCRR: 4-5).

Believing one can meet challenges and complete a task successfully might be seen as reasonable shorthand for Bandura's own definition of the construct, although arguably it does not really address the important idea that successful task completion has to have personal actions at its origin.

Studies show that pupils' self-efficacy consistently results in academic achievement more than other motivational factors. It also improves their language proficiency. (OCRR: 5).

The first claim here is linked to Footnote 34, which cites a chapter by Sandra Graham and Bernard Weiner ( 1996), and articles by Raoofi, Tan and Chan ( 2012) and Multon, Brown and Lent ( 1991). Both claims are problematic and puzzling from a number of perspectives. First, given that the OCRR has just stated that there is currently a 'growing body of research' related to self-efficacy, it seems strange that of the three supporting references given, only one is from the twenty-first century, and that one is ten years old. Second, a reading of each of these sources shows that none of them says what the OCRR claims they do.

What cannot be disputed is Bandura's argument that self-efficacy has been a much more consistent predictor of behavior and behavior change than has locus of control or any of the closely related expectancy variables. Efficacy beliefs have been related to the acquisition of new skills and to the performance of previously learned skills at a level of specificity not found in any of the other motivation conceptions that include an expectancy construct. (Graham and Weiner 1996: 75, emphasis added)

These lines sound superficially similar to the OCRR claim that 'studies show that pupils' self-efficacy consistently results in academic achievement more than other motivational factors'. They are, of course, quite different in meaning.

Turning to Raoofi et al. ( 2012), the authors did indeed comment that ' ... self-efficacy is a strong predictor of performance in different language skills and tasks' and 'self-efficacy appears to play a vital role in predicting learners' performance in educational contexts' (Raoofi et al. 2012: 60). They further located and reviewed 12 studies that reported a positive relationship between self-efficacy and L2 achievement. Indeed, there is plentiful research showing that self-efficacy is positively associated with a range of L2 outcomes, including overall proficiency (for example, Hsieh and Kang 2010), listening and reading (Mills, Pajares and Herron 2007) and writing (Woodrow 2011). But once again, Raoofi et al. ( 2012) made no attempt to compare self-efficacy with 'other motivational factors'.

More importantly, to say that self-efficacy is a 'predictor' of academic achievement is not the same as self-efficacy 'resulting' in academic achievement or that it 'improves' language proficiency. The latter implies that there is a causal relationship between self-efficacy and achievement or proficiency, whereas a 'predictor' is a variable that is related to the outcome of interest (e.g. achievement) within a statistical model that includes different factors ('predictors') 'to accurately predict an outcome in individuals' (Ramspek et al. 2021: 889). This is an extremely important distinction to make. It is difficult to conclude from the three sources cited by the OCRR that self-efficacy 'results in' academic achievement, as they consider mainly correlational studies rather than interventions designed to assess a causal pathway from self-efficacy to academic outcomes. Where intervention studies are included, as in those by Schunk and colleagues in Multon et al. ( 1991), self-regulatory interventions are shown to have a positive outcome on both self-efficacy and performance.

In addition, as outlined in the literature review above, Bandura ( 1977, 1994) argued that self-efficacy has an impact on achievement because it influences the extent to which individuals persist on challenging tasks; greater persistence, especially when used in conjunction with greater self-regulation, is likely to lead to better skill development and hence improved outcomes. The latter then loops back to boost self-efficacy still further, when learners link their success to their own efforts and actions. Such views are supported empirically by studies such as that of Yun, Hiver and Al-Hoorie ( 2018) of university level learners of English in South Korea, in which self-efficacy worked in concert with self-regulatory strategies as significant predictors of buoyancy - 'the capacity of students to navigate challenges that are typical of the ordinary course of school life and to successfully deal with academic setbacks' (Yun et al. 2018: 2) - and thence to improved L2 outcomes.

Finally, a reading of Multon et al. ( 1991) shows that the authors neither investigated nor concluded that self-efficacy is a stronger influence on performance than other motivational variables. Instead, they found, from a meta-analysis of 36 studies outside the field of language learning, that self-efficacy was moderately related to both performance outcomes and persistence, although there was a lot of variation across studies. On average, self-efficacy accounted for 14% of the variance in performance outcomes and 12% of persistence outcomes. Additionally, given the focus of the OCRR, it is surprising that the OCRR authors did not look at more recent and relevant research on the question of the relationship between self-efficacy and achievement in language learning. They might easily have included Wang and Sun ( 2020), a meta-analysis drawing on 74 studies. These authors reported a positive relationship between self-efficacy and language proficiency with a small to medium effect size on average, which was mediated by publication type and context.

The development of self-efficacy in language learning

The OCRR turns next to how self-efficacy can be nurtured (p.5), stating briefly but assertively (note the causality implied by 'impact'):

The following are likely to have a positive impact on pupils' self-efficacy:

(a) 'language-learning experiences that pupils perceive as successful' [Leeming ( 2017)].

(b) 'knowing how to sound out words in a foreign language'. [Erler and Macaro ( 2011)]

(c) 'ensuring that the building blocks of language are in place so that pupils can exercise greater autonomy'. [ No citation is given to support this statement.]

(d) 'seeing non-native peers communicating effectively' [Mills ( 2009)].
Citations in square brackets are given as footnotes in the OCCR

At first glance, statements (a) and (d) seem to relate, respectively, to the notions of 'mastery experiences' and 'vicarious experiences' that Bandura ( 1994, 1997, 2012) believed to be two of the four sources of self-efficacy. They do so, however, on only a rather superficial level, even if, as before, one makes allowances for the fact that the OCRR is addressed to a general teaching audience rather than to academic researchers. Setting aside the fact that 'language-learning experiences that pupils perceive as successful' is a rather strange way of putting things (presumably it means 'language-learning activities in which pupils perceive themselves to have been successful)', the phrase suggests that success alone leads to increased self-efficacy. This is very far from the enactive mastery experiences outlined by Bandura, which occur within the completion of challenging rather than easy tasks, and through the individual's own efforts and actions 'in overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort' (Bandura 2012: 13). The same caveat should be applied to the phrase 'seeing non-native peers communicating effectively'. As outlined in the literature review above, it is not enough for an individual to observe someone like them being successful - it is witnessing others like them succeed on difficult and challenging tasks through the effective application of 'effective skills and strategies' (Bandura 1994: 3) that boosts self-efficacy. Finally, for both mastery experiences and vicarious experiences to have a positive impact on self-efficacy, they need to occur in relation to a task that is valued.

And how far do the publications cited by the OCRR support the conclusions drawn by the OCRR authors in respect of how self-efficacy can be nurtured? Two of them are classroom-based, implementing an intervention (Leeming 2017, and Mills 2009), and assess changes in self-efficacy over time. Neither however has a control group, which the study authors acknowledge as an important limitation. The third, Erler and Macaro ( 2011), is a non-intervention cross-sectional study, which shows the relationship between decoding self-efficacy and decision to study French, but does not demonstrate a causal link between developing decoding skills and self-efficacy (nor did the authors set out to do so). Furthermore, going into each study in more detail, the findings reported lead to quite different conclusions from those presented in the OCRR.

What is most striking about both Leeming ( 2017) and Mills ( 2009) is that both report on learning experiences and curricula that are very different from what is recommended in the OCRR. In both studies, reported increased self-efficacy arose from engagement in activities that students valued: those that developed their oral communicative competence rather than grammatical accuracy (Leeming) or involved creative interaction with cultural artefacts and collaborative group work (Mills). Beginning with Leeming ( 2017), participants ( N = 77, 23 female and 54 male) were enrolled in a compulsory first-year oral English course in the science department of a private university in Japan. Early in the publication, the benchmark for a 'successful' language learning experience is outlined: 'With an emphasis on communication rather than grammatical accuracy, students were told that if communicative objectives were achieved then the task was a success' (Leeming 2017: 5). We are also told that such an approach was a novel one for students, given that they were used to the grammar-translation focus common in Japan.

Interviews with eight students were used to explore students' perceived reasons for their increased speaking self-efficacy over the course. The first reason is categorised as acclimatization, whereby the students gained understanding of what was required on the course. Interestingly, this acclimatization included getting used to, and valuing, the lack of emphasis on grammatical accuracy, in the words of one student: 'At first it (SE) was low. I thought I would need grammar ... that I would have to talk properly. But you said we don't need grammar' (p. 12). The importance for self-efficacy development of this focus on oral communicative fluency rather than the assessment of grammar is emphasised by Leeming ( 2017: 12), in a passage worth citing at length:

Students in this context have studied English grammar for six years in order to pass the often technical and demanding university entrance exams, and therefore have a good understanding of grammar, but little or no opportunity to use English in communicative conversational settings. This means that students often focus on producing grammatically accurate sentences at the expense of fluency. The focus in the class was on developing oral fluency and therefore the teacher regularly reminded students that grammar was not being assessed. This reminder clearly had an impact and meant that students felt more relaxed, leading to greater feelings of confidence and speaking SE.

Finally, it is clear from the article's conclusion that the kind of activities these students perceived as successful were those that had both value and challenge: 'For mastery to have a positive influence on SE, students must perceive the task to be challenging and then they can feel a sense of accomplishment upon successful completion' (p. 15). Furthermore, sense of accomplishment resided for students in developing oral communicative competence rather than grammatical accuracy.

Crucially, students in the study engaged in independent, non-textbook based research using authentic materials to create a travel diary, in which they responded to weekly scenarios requiring online research in order to produce 'creative journal entries that integrated the weekly linguistic and cultural objectives' which were then shared and discussed as a class. The emphasis was on 'meaningful contexts, and the opportunity to provide creative and divergent responses' (Mills 2009: 613). Paired-samples t-tests established increases with large effect sizes in reported self-efficacy (as assessed through a questionnaire) in all assessed curriculum areas. Higher mean differences in pre- to post-intervention self-efficacy were found for more challenging areas of expertise. Mills ( 2009) did indeed attribute these changes to students observing peers 'communicating effectively'. As important, however, was the effect of collaborative learning, the increased interest that the authentic and meaningful contexts prompted and the role of mastery experiences, whereby students gained confidence in areas that clearly mattered to them. It is the element of 'choice, creativity, and self-directed learning' (p. 631) and personal, cultural enrichment that Mills emphasises repeatedly as impacting on students' self-efficacy. Space does not permit extensive verbatim quotations to support that claim, but the following is typical of each of the curriculum areas on which the study reports:

Role-plays, online scavenger hunts, oral exams, and quizzes also required that students be divergent and creative with language. This learner-centered curriculum allowed students to become active decision makers who could present the cultural content that personally engaged them from the wide network of available resources and tools. These features of the curriculum may have played a role in increasing students' self-efficacy in the Communities goal area. (Mills 2009: 631)

Hence the study demonstrates more than anything that for self-efficacy to flourish, learners need to experience sense of achievement by carrying out valued and meaningful activities.

Examining the study findings, it is not possible to locate where the impact of decoding ability on self-efficacy is reported (the focus of the OCRR claim). Instead, we read of a significant, but weak to moderate, relationship (applying Plonsky and Oswald's [ 2014] benchmarks) between learners' intention to continue with French on the one hand ( not self-efficacy) and their decoding scores on the other. Similarly, a regression analysis was conducted where the outcome variable was 'positive feelings' towards French (looking forward to French next year, finding French easy and feeling good at it, and enjoying French). Decoding test scores only weakly predicted positive feelings ( β = .091), compared with β = .568 for decoding self-efficacy. These results led Erler and Macaro to conclude that decoding self-efficacy was 'a stronger predictor of positive feelings toward French than the actual ability to decode' (p. 508); finally, they reported that 'self-efficacy, test results, and positive feelings together predicted 23.1% of the variance in the intention to continue with French at Key Stage 4' (Erler and Macaro 2011: 508).

Hence, it is therefore very difficult to see how Erler and Macaro ( 2011) provides evidence that 'knowing how to sound out words' causes enhanced language learning self-efficacy, nor did the authors set out to demonstrate that view. Rather, the study established a relationship between decoding self-efficacy and positivity towards French, and that decoding self-efficacy, ability to decode, and positive feelings about French are together positive predictors of stated intention to continue with French post-14. Erler and Macaro ( 2011: 512) also highlighted in the Discussion (i.e. not in the Results) that learners with 'higher levels of decoding ability demonstrated higher self-efficacy in specific decoding-related tests'. As should be readily apparent, that is not the same as saying that decoding ability is the cause of decoding self-efficacy.

Thus, across all three cited publications, the OCRR interpretation of their findings in relation to self-efficacy development is at best selective. The same might be said of how the OCRR section on motivation and self-efficacy ends (OCRR: 5), as follows:

The above points suggest that, in order to have a positive impact on their motivation, curriculum design should ensure that pupils:

*

feel successful in their learning

*

These suggestions hark back to a study cited at the very start of the section on self-efficacy, Graham ( 2004), used in the OCRR to support its claim that MFL learners' low motivation stems from 'a lack of belief in their ability and a lack of clarity about how they can improve' (p. 4). That study's findings can indeed be summarised in that way. Yet its conclusions and the solutions to those issues it proposes are also very different from what is advocated in the OCRR. Investigating as it does the causal attributions learners made for success or lack of it in MFL, and how those differed between Year 11 learners who intended to study French post-GCSE and those who did not, Graham ( 2004) is fundamentally about self-regulated learning. The article concludes by arguing that persistence and enhanced self-efficacy can be achieved by guiding learners to make more adaptive attributions for success and failure as part of learning strategy instruction, by which 'learners should be invited to explore fully the link between strategy use and learning outcomes, perhaps by planning strategies to try in the light of problems identified, noting which strategies helped and which did not, and why' (p. 187). Thus, the study links very closely with Bandura's ( 1999) comments on the role of causal attributions in the development of self-efficacy and with Zimmerman's ( 2000) model of self-regulated learning, offering a very different perspective than that of the OCRR.

RQ2: What does research indicate are effective ways of improving L2 self-efficacy among school-aged students?

This section begins with a brief return to Raoofi et al. ( 2012). That publication was cited by the OCRR to support the claim of a link between self-efficacy and learning outcomes. As well as examining that issue, however, the authors also posed the following question: 'What factors affect learners' self-efficacy beliefs in learning English as a foreign language?' (p. 61) It is therefore surprising that the OCRR makes no mention of the answer provided by Raoofi et al. They addressed the issue through a review of 32 studies, from which they determined three broad influencing factors, which they termed 'styles', 'strategies', or 'contextual variables'. While most of the 32 studies reviewed involved adult rather than school-aged learners, the overall findings of the review are noteworthy.

Of the three groups identified, the largest (comprising 13 studies) explored learning strategy use and self-efficacy, either in terms of their relationship (six studies) or within intervention studies (seven), in which participants experienced instruction in learning strategy use. The correlational survey studies revealed significant relationships between strategy use and self-efficacy. Among the intervention studies, two did not in fact consider learning strategy interventions. The remaining five studies reported a positive effective from instruction in concept mapping (Chularut and DeBacker 2004; Khajavi and Ketabi 2012), general reading strategy instruction (Shang 2010), listening strategy instruction (Graham 2007), and strategy-oriented feedback for vocabulary learning (Chan and Lam 2008). In other words, the largest body of studies reviewed by Raoofi et al. ( 2012) provides evidence of the importance of self-regulatory learning strategy use for improved self-efficacy, an area completely overlooked by the OCRR. This is also true of Mills ( 2014), who likewise emphasises the positive role of self-regulatory strategies in the development of self-efficacy, especially when attributions are targeted as well and when precise methods for measuring self-efficacy are used (citing Graham 2007; Graham and Macaro 2008; and Mills, Pajares, and Herron 2007).

The same conclusion can be drawn from the studies we selected according to the criteria outlined in the Methodology (see Appendix for details of all studies). Of the 13 studies identified, 10 reported some positive impact on language learning self-efficacy or related constructs from interventions targeting self-regulation, with most involving a form of learning strategy instruction, across the skills of reading, listening, writing and speaking, as well as self-efficacy for language learning more broadly. As noted elsewhere (Lanvers and Graham, this issue) the studies varied in terms of the strength of the change in self-efficacy that occurred. Nevertheless, a message to emerge from the studies as a whole is the importance of providing guided mastery and modelling of strategic behaviour within a framework encouraging students to reflect on their learning, the strategies they employed on tasks, and the relationship those strategies have with the outcomes achieved: in other words, to help them develop a sense of personal agency, which, as earlier sections of this article have emphasised, is what self-efficacy chiefly concerns.

Of further interest is the number of studies identified in the Appendix that are set in school classrooms in England. At least four of these were conducted with medium to large samples of learners, and with funding from prominent UK research bodies (Forbes et al. 2021; Graham et al. 2020; Graham and Macaro 2008; Macaro and Erler 2008). It is therefore very surprising that none was considered for inclusion in the OCRR in its examination of what would enhance the language learning self-efficacy of school students in that context. We suggest possible reasons for that exclusion in the Discussion.

Discussion and conclusions

This article set out to clarify how self-efficacy is defined in the work of Bandura and within social cognitive theory more broadly, its position in relation to theories of motivation and models of self-regulation, and what, according to social cognitive theory, are the factors that influence self-efficacy. It concluded that self-efficacy is essentially a theory of personal agency. It drives levels of persistence on challenging tasks and hence perfomance, but does not function on its own - the individual has to value the challenging tasks which they seek to master. It is at the core of models of self-regulation and self-regulated learning, in which it acts in partnership with the application of learning strategies, metacognition and causal attributions. It is primarily fostered through enactive mastery experiences, whereby individuals experience success on a valued and challenging task and perceive that such success has been achieved through their own efforts and actions.

The article then examined critically how self-efficacy is presented within the OCRR, showing how studies are cited selectively, with interpretations of their findings that could be called at best incomplete. Indeed, what is arguably the most interesting is what the OCRR does not mention about the studies that it cites. Thus, while it is technically correct to say that self-efficacy developed when students felt they were being successful (Leeming 2017) and saw peers being successful (Mills 2009), the OCRR is silent on the kind of activities and curricula in which such success occurred in those studies. The most obvious reason for such silence is that both studies present a view of language learning at odds with what the OCRR advocates: namely one that foregrounds (oral) communication, culture, and creativity as features valued by learners, rather than vocabulary, phonics and grammar.

As a counter to the incomplete view of self-efficacy proposed by the OCRR, the present article then examined studies from school-based interventions seeking to improve language learning self-efficacy. The majority of those studies did so by applying the principles of self-regulated learning, particularly in the form of learning strategy instruction. As such they confirm what has been established for adult second language learners (Ardasheva et al. 2017). None of the intervention studies identified found their way into the OCRR, however, even though they explored self-efficacy development in the very context that the review is meant to serve, namely school-based language learning.

Earlier it was argued, with reference to Bandura ( 1986), that if an individual experiences success on an undemanding task requiring little effort, their self-efficacy may not be boosted at all. Similarly, the findings of at least two of the reviewed intervention studies (Graham et al. 2020; Macaro and Erler 2008) would support the view that self-efficacy develops when learners, rather than experiencing materials selected to primarily 'to support the school's systematic sequencing of vocabulary and grammar' (OCRR: 18), are taught within a curriculum which exposes learners to challenging activities along with the tools with which to overcome any difficulties they experience with them. Once again it is the divergence between these two views of language learning that might well explain the absence of such studies from the OCRR.

Finally, it should be remembered that no references were provided in the OCRR to support the claim that language learning self-efficacy can be enhanced by 'ensuring that the building blocks of language are in place so that pupils can exercise greater autonomy' (OCRR: 5). One reason for that omission might be the lack of empirical studies that do unequivocally support that view. Indeed, learners in Leeming ( 2017) had very low levels of self-efficacy after six years of a curriculum focused on grammar-translation. Likewise, Graham et al. ( 2020) found that at the end of Year 7, knowledge of phonics and vocabulary did not significantly predict levels of French reading self-efficacy, but use of self-regulatory strategies did. That is not to say, however, that such knowledge is unnecessary for the development of self-efficacy. The successful outcomes of Macaro and Erler's ( 2008) reading intervention, for both positivity towards French reading and reading comprehension, may have arisen because learners were taught to use 'sounding out', not as an end in itself, but as a strategy to aid comprehension. In other words, to develop self-efficacy, acquired knowledge needs to be integrated as part of a self-regulatory cycle, in which a combination of knowledge, skills and strategies is applied to the execution of a challenging and valued task. All of those components are necessary. Unfortunately, that view of self-efficacy development is very difficult to align with the type of curriculum advocated in the OCRR, with all the implications that has for motivation development more broadly.

Study

Contexts and participants

Nature of intervention

Details of intervention

Measurement of self-efficacy

Basic findings

Forbes et al. ( 2021)

268 Year 9 (age 13-14) MFL students in 4 schools in England, divided into a 'full' intervention group ( n = 87), a 'partial' intervention ( n = 99) and a control group ( n  = 82).

Development of students' multilingual identity

Intervention groups had 6 × 1-hour intervention lessons over 1 academic year (2 per term). Activities provided information about cognitive and social benefits of multilingualism (full and partial intervention groups); full intervention classes also had awareness-raising and reflective activities where learners reflected on how these issues related to their identity.

Pre- and post-intervention questionnaires to collect data on key dimensions of multilingual identity, including 'Language self-beliefs' which largely consisted of items related to self-efficacy

Small but significant improvement in language beliefs scores for both full and partial intervention groups but not control.

Graham and Macaro ( 2008)

107 learners of French in England (age 16-17, 5 years learning French i.e. intermediate proficiency level). Intact classes, matched across conditions, assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 2 intervention groups (High Scaffolding Group, n = 29; Low Scaffolding Group, n = 39) and a comparison group, n  = 39.

Self-regulatory listening strategy instruction

Over 6 months, both HSG and LSG learners were taught to use range of listening strategies. Included tick-sheets to remind them of strategies to use, and to record which strategies they had used and how helpful they were. HSG also had awareness-raising session at start of instruction, as well as attribution-directed feedback from researchers on their strategy use and its effectiveness.

Pre and post intervention learners completed a self-efficacy for listening questionnaire, in which they indicated on a scale of 0-100 how confident they were about 4 areas of listening.

At post-test, higher mean scores for total listening self-efficacy for HSG, followed by LSG, with lowest for CG. Significant differences between HSG and CG, and between LSG and CG, but not between HSG and LSG .

Lanvers ( 2020)

MFL learners in England, age 13-14: 220 in intervention groups (across 3 schools), 52 in control groups (across 2 schools)

Awareness-raising and tackling negative mindsets.

Over 6 sessions, through whole class and small group teaching, learners' awareness was raised of issues such as cognitive benefits of language learning, how setbacks and challenges are a normal part of language learning, and how differences in curriculum focus and time could explain their perceived low language proficiency, as a way of challenging low self-efficacy.

Questionnaire, pre-post test changes explored

1 item from those aimed at assessing self-efficacy showed significant change, but with small effect size, in the intervention group only: The language I'm trying to speak is v. difficult/difficult/ medium/easy/v. eas y.

Macaro and Erler ( 2008)

Learners of French aged 11-12 in England. 6 participating school with 1 class each. Learners in 3 schools were taught reading strategies ( n = 62); those in the other 3 groups received normal French instruction without reading strategies ( n  = 54)

Self-regulatory reading strategy instruction

Over 14 months, spanning 2 school years, intervention group received reading strategy instruction Steps also taken to enhance metacognition about decisions on which clusters of strategies to use. Researchers gave attribution-directed written feedback on learners' records of strategy use. Strategy instruction conducted using what the authors describe as 'challenging' texts. Some decoding taught to support strategy of 'sounding out' a word to work out its meaning.

Before and after intervention, learners used a point scale to say how happy they were with reading (and other language skills). They also completed a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire on strategy use, as well as reading comprehension tests. All 3 measures represented an aspect of self-efficacy, i.e. reading confidence; reading agency via 'text engagement' strategies, vs. 'teacher reliance' strategies; persistence in reading the text used in the post-test.

At Time 2, intervention group showed significantly higher levels of positivity towards French reading; significantly greater use of text engagement strategies and lower levels of teacher reliance strategies. 97% of intervention cohort attempted the Idea Units text at Time 2 vs. only 77% of the comparison cohort.

Molway and Mutton ( 2019)

5 Year 9 German classes in England ( N  =  127), divided into intervention group ( n = 43) and control group ( n  = 73). Data from 119 students analysed.

Reading strategy instruction and changing mindsets

Over 2 months approx., 2 classes received both a 'Theories of Intelligence' (TI) and Reading Strategy (RS) intervention. 2 other classes had just the RS intervention. TI involved giving learners explicit, research-informed information about nature of intelligence and its malleability. RS involved 2 × 1-hour sessions. Learners shown how to use reading strategies and given opportunities to practise them.

Assessed indirectly via questionnaire items administered at 4 points before, during and after intervention, targeting causal attributions for success and failure, and beliefs about the nature of intelligence. Descriptive statistics only, plus a correlation analysis between reading scores on test administered and answers to questions about Theories of Intelligence.

Some shift in mindsets to a more incremental view of intelligence in intervention group but not in control. Graphs provided claim to support an increase in reported 'adaptive' classroom behaviours in TI & RS classes (e.g. When I get things wrong in German I try to understand what my mistakes were so that I can avoid them next time) and a decrease in agreeing with the statement When I get things wrong in German I feel depressed. Learners receiving RS intervention more likely to attribute success to successful use of strategies. Strong correlations were established between an incremental mindset at Time 4 and willingness to attempt questions in a reading test that posed a moderate and high challenge.

Van Batenburg et al. ( 2019)

147 Dutch learners of EFL, aged 14-15, in pre-vocational classes, divided randomly into 3 groups: form-focused ( n = 48), language-directed ( n = 46) and strategies-directed ( n  = 53)

Different kinds of instruction for oral interaction: form-focused (FF) vs. language-directed (LD) vs. strategies-directed (SD).

All groups worked with same sample dialogues modelling use of targeted language in 9 × 40-45-minute lessons, taught over 12 weeks. FF focused on learning language forms needed for different functions, with noticing target forms in dialogues, explicit rule presentation, and controlled practice. LD same as FF except learners completed information gap activities. SD focus was on explicit teaching and practice of interaction strategies, with same information gap tasks as LD.

Pre- and post-intervention questionnaire, including items targeting oral self-confidence and perceived competence to speak (accurate) English, e.g. I feel confident when I have to speak English; When I have to speak English with a classmate, I am afraid to make mistakes

Self-confidence for EFL oral interaction developed significantly after SD instruction, but not after LD or FF instruction.

Ziegler ( 2014)

Learners of English in Germany. Intervention = 318 students in grades 4-9 in 4 schools. Control = 257students in grades 5-9 in 2 schools.

Self-regulated learning

Intervention group used ELP (European Language Portfolio): learners set language learning targets, monitored progress, and recorded and reflected on language learning & intercultural experiences. Tasks encouraged self-reflection and reflection on learning strategies, learning goals and progress.

Questionnaire incl. items adapted from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich et al. 1991) and the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (Midgley et al. 2000).

After intervention, compared w. control, intervention group had higher academic self-efficacy (small effect size), higher self-regulatory efficacy (medium effect size), more aspects of self-regulated learning, including mastery goals, higher academic self-efficacy, and reported using more effective learning strategies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Appendix. Intervention studies involving self-efficacy development.

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Self-efficacy and language learning - what it is and what it isn't

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ABSTRACT ABSTRACT This article considers the presentation of self-efficacy in the OFSTED 2021 Curriculum Research Review for languages (OCRR). It begins by elucidating how self-efficacy is defined in the work of Albert Bandura and within social cognitive theory more broadly; its position in relation to theories of motivation and models of self-regulation; and what, according to social cognitive theory, are the factors that influence self-efficacy.

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Keeping sight of the big picture: a critical response to Ofsted's 2021 Curriculum Research Review for languages

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Keeping sight of the big picture: a critical response to Ofsted’s 2021 Curriculum Research Review for languagesRobert Woore,

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Keeping sight of the big picture: a critical response to Ofsted’s 2021 Curriculum Research Review for languagesRobert Woore,

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ABSTRACT
This article offers a critical perspective on Ofsted's (2021) Curriculum Research Review for Languages (OCRR). Whilst the OCRR contains much that we would agree with (including its underpinning principle of drawing on research evidence to inform policy and pedagogy), we are nevertheless concerned that it could result in unintended negative effects on both teachers and learners of modern languages. We believe that any problematic elements of the OCRR will be amplified by the powerful status of the organisation whose name it bears. Overall, we think there is a danger that the OCRR could lead teachers to focus too heavily on individual building blocks in the early stages of language learning, and thus lose sight of the 'bigger picture'. We also disagree with some of the OCRR's specific recommendations, which, we argue, do not seem to be based on sufficiently rigorous or extensive evidence. We suggest that other 'pillars' may also be important in supporting the edifice of language proficiency, including strategic competence and intercultural understanding. Further, we argue that the OCRR fails to reflect recent technological advances which have transformed the language learning environment. Finally, we argue for the crucial importance of teachers' professional judgment in determining the most appropriate instructional approaches for a given classroom on a given occasion. Addressing these concerns, our article discusses the following topics: (1) the importance of communication in modern language learning; (2) the development of communication strategies; (3) the potential impact on target language teaching; (4) the position of culture in language learning; (5) the role of challenging texts, spoken and written; (6) the role of technology; (7) the nature of teacher professionalism; and (8) the evidence base on which the OCRR explicitly draws in making its recommendations.

Introduction

How can we make modern languages lessons in English secondary school classrooms as effective as possible? This is a question with which we have grappled as teachers, teacher educators and researchers for many years, against a backdrop of persistently low motivation, uptake and achievement by students (British Academy ). It seems very likely that there are no easy answers or simple solutions. If there were, everybody would have known about them by now.

Given the challenges faced by modern languages, we welcome the renewed focus on improving language teaching at the policy level over recent years, of which Ofsted's Curriculum Research Review for languages (Ofsted ; henceforth, OCRR) forms a part. We also welcome the OCRR's underpinning principle of drawing on research evidence to inform policy and pedagogy. The review contains much that we agree with. For example, we agree that developing knowledge of vocabulary - and particularly high-frequency words, which can be applied across topics - is crucially important. We agree with the importance of ensuring that language forms are developed over time and as appropriate to individuals and to groups. We are also pleased to see phonics getting the attention which we think it deserves, after (we would argue) many years of neglect in many classrooms. We also agree with the need for senior leaders to promote and support language learning in schools, if the subject is to thrive.

However, we are also worried that the OCRR may have some unintended consequences, resulting in negative effects on both teachers and learners of modern languages. Overall, we think there is a danger that it could lead teachers to focus too heavily on individual building blocks in the early stages, and thus lose sight of the 'bigger picture'. Rather like a pointilliste painting, if learners devote all their attention to the individual dots of paint, they may forget to step back and appreciate the picture as a whole. We also disagree with some of the OCRR's specific recommendations, which do not always seem (to us) to be based on sufficiently rigorous or extensive evidence; and we would suggest that other 'pillars' may also be important in supporting the edifice of language proficiency beyond those identified in the review. Finally, we would argue that language learning is qualitatively different today than it was twenty years ago due to the vastly increased, and continually increasing, affordances of technology, an area which seems neglected by the review.

We believe that any problematic elements of the OCRR will inevitably be amplified by the powerful status of the organisation whose name it bears. There have been numerous other attempts to synthesise research evidence and formulate 'best practice' guidance for languages teachers (for example, Driscoll et al. ; R. Ellis ; Fitzpatrick et al. ; Harris and Ó Duibhir ; Lightbown ; Macaro et al. ; Murphy et al. ; Nation and Macalister ; Smith and Conti ). However, these documents have a different status to the one published by Ofsted, which conducts high-stakes inspections of schools. Indeed, we have already heard anecdotal evidence of the OCRR influencing the inspection process.

Given the OCRR's status, we think that it is particularly important for teachers to know the extent to which they can have confidence in its recommendations. Our aim in this article, therefore, is to offer a critical perspective on the OCRR, exploring, in particular, some areas which we think merit further reflection: (1) the importance of communication in modern language learning; (2) the development of communication strategies; (3) the potential impact on target language teaching; (4) the position of culture in language learning; (5) the role of challenging texts, spoken and written; (6) the role of technology; and (7) the nature of teacher professionalism. Finally, (8) we will comment on the evidence base on which the OCRR explicitly draws in making its recommendations.

Communicativeness

The essential function of language is to communicate. We are concerned that, if teachers are directed - by a document as powerful as this one - to focus first and foremost on individual building blocks of linguistic knowledge, then there is a risk that they may lose sight of the bigger picture of language as a communicative tool. The OCRR is framed in terms of skill acquisition theory (DeKeyser ), but there is also plentiful research evidence emphasising that trying out language through interaction, using whatever resources the learner has to hand, can promote second language (L2) development (e.g. Loewen and Sato ). Attempts at communication allow learners to test out hypotheses about how the language works, identify gaps in their current language knowledge and receive corrective feedback from more expert speakers (e.g. Ellis, Loewen, and Erlam ; Swain ). We would be concerned if such communicative interaction were reduced - or even lost altogether - in modern languages classrooms in pursuit of compliance with the OCRR recommendations.

We would also observe that the internet has opened up unprecedented opportunities for genuine communicative interaction with other speakers of the target language all over the world. Indeed, two years of pandemic-enforced video calls have normalised this mode of interaction for many of us. In our view, it would be a shame if such opportunities were not exploited fully because of a concern that students must put the 'building blocks' of language in place first. Further, we would argue that, in the current post-Brexit climate, getting students communicating with their peers in Europe is an urgent priority; we think that modern languages teachers could play a key role in rebuilding, from the bottom up, an enthusiasm for connecting with our European friends. Getting students in different countries to interact positively and smile at one other on a video call can be done from the very start of language learning, without needing to wait for any building blocks to be in place!

We acknowledge that, in a world of increasingly fast and accurate machine translation - in both spoken and written modalities - a simplistic justification for language learning based on basic, transactional communication is no longer sufficient. For example, I do not need to know the words for all the dishes that I might find on a Spanish menu if I can scan it with my phone and instantly see it in my own language. However, there are clearly limitations to computer-mediated communication, certainly in terms of human connection. We would like students to experience the thrill - or at least, the satisfaction - of exchanging thoughts, ideas and feelings with someone in another language.

Communication strategies

Attempting to communicate with limited resources also has other potential benefits. Above and beyond the development of linguistic knowledge, it provides learners with opportunities to develop coping strategies and to build resilience and confidence as communicators. We see a fundamental value in helping learners to develop such skills. Indeed, in our view, this could be seen as an additional pillar of language learning: part of being an effective communicator is having strategies to repair breakdowns in communication and to compensate for gaps in language knowledge, in both the productive and receptive modes. These strategies are also transferrable to any additional L2s which students may wish or need to learn in the future. We worry that it would be possible to interpret the OCRR's 'building blocks' model in such a way as to actively shut down opportunities for learners to develop such communicative skills.

We see an additional risk that the quest to develop explicit (and measurable) 'knowledge' and 'understanding' of the building blocks of language may encourage too much teaching through the medium of the first language. Indeed, the OCRR explicitly warns that '[t]he use of the target language by the teacher should not hinder pupils from being able to develop an understanding of the structure of the language' (p.15). Whilst this may derive from a valid concern - namely, that trying to explain a grammar rule in the target language may be inefficient and even counter-productive - we must also bear in mind that the ultimate aim of language teaching (in our view) is not to develop 'an understanding of the structure of the language', but rather, to develop the ability to use it in communication. We are concerned that there could be a risk of lessons becoming dominated by teaching 'about' the language, through the medium of English, with limited opportunities to use it communicatively.

Our view is that teachers' use of the target language can provide valuable exposure to the language and the opportunity to interact with it in a genuinely communicative way. Any target language use by the teacher can be conceptualised not simply as 'instructions' for a future task or as a tool for explaining a particular point, but rather, as a communicative listening comprehension task in its own right. (Where we agree with the OCRR, however, is in its emphasis on the need to plan target language use carefully, to avoid overwhelming students.)

Culture

The OCRR is framed by references to the cultural value of language learning. The opening paragraph quotes the Languages Programme of Study from the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum document (DfE ), that learning a language 'is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures'. The final paragraph reiterates this point, arguing that '[t]he study of languages opens pupils' minds', 'develops a deep cultural awareness' and helps pupils to 'broaden their horizons' and 'explore cultures' (OCRR: 27). We wholeheartedly endorse this view of the transformative power of understanding other cultures through language learning. We referred above to recent advances in machine translation and their impact on the rationale for learning languages. What machines still cannot do, however, is provide a deep understanding of other cultures and the ability to see the world through the lens of a different language.

It appears that many modern languages teachers also share this view of the importance of developing intercultural understanding. In a recent survey completed by over 600 languages teachers across England (Woore et al. ), we asked respondents what, in an ideal world, they would most like their students to gain from language learning by the end of Key Stage 4 (at age 16). A dominant theme in all sections of the questionnaire was 'the importance attached by our respondents to developing students' knowledge of other cultures and a positive, tolerant attitude towards these' (p.4). The inclusion of 'intercultural competence' as a key aim within the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages (CoE ) and of 'global competence' within the latest PISA studies (OECD ) are further indications of the wider value and importance attached to this aspect of learning.

Where we seem to differ from the OCRR, however, is in our view of the role that culture can play at different stages of the language learning process. The OCRR appears to conceptualise progression in language learning as a journey, leading to culture as its destination: '[t]his journey leads to pupils becoming confident language learners with the ability to immerse themselves in the culture and traditions of the countries in scope' (p.6). Our view is that learners can and should encounter the cultural riches of another language from the very beginning of the learning process, and that this may serve as a powerful motivator within an expectancy-value model of motivation (Eccles ). As noted above, our worry is that by focussing too much on the mechanics of language (putting the building blocks in place), students may not spend long enough looking up and seeing the wider picture: that rich vista that language learning opens up, and which can give the subject so much of its meaning and purpose. Getting too hung up on whether the building blocks are in the right place may lead students to give up in frustration before they ever reach the 'destination' of cultural encounters.

It may be helpful not to see this question in terms of a polarised debate (building blocks or culture), but rather, to seek some middle ground in which both building blocks and culture play important roles in language learning. For example, the National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP) has shown that it is possible to integrate cultural elements into a scheme of work which is carefully sequenced in terms of grammatical structures and high-frequency vocabulary (as documented in their 'Cultural collection' spreadsheet). Thus, for example, the NCELP scheme of work for Year 7 French (at age 11) introduces an authentic poem ( Sept Couleurs Magiques by Mymi Doinet) just after October half term, in the eighth week of language learning at secondary school. For our part, we would like to see a rich, deep integration of culture from the very beginning of language learning and throughout all stages of the journey. How this might be achieved in practice is the subject of our next section.

Challenging texts

Reading and listening to texts (including with video) can be a key resource for exploring the target language culture. However, the kinds of texts which might be effective for this kind of exploration may well lie beyond students' linguistic 'comfort zone'. The OCRR seems to rule out many such texts, because 'teachers need to ensure that pupils are not exposed to large amounts of unfamiliar language too early'; this could 'demotivate them and may not maximise opportunities for learning' (20).

We think that this recommendation would be better worded more cautiously. As we have argued previously (e.g. Woore ), if we restrict learners to (almost) entirely familiar language, then it may take a very long time before they know enough vocabulary and structures to read, watch or listen to things that are genuinely engaging and at an appropriate level of cognitive challenge. In other words, there is again a risk that the journey takes so long that students lose interest in the destination. Further, as argued above, tackling linguistically challenging texts provides learners with opportunities - under their teacher's expert guidance - to develop skills, strategies and resilience that they can subsequently re-use elsewhere.

Our experience, as teachers and researchers, is that challenging texts can be used even with beginner learners. For example, in our 'FLEUR' study (Foreign Language Education: Unlocking Reading: Woore et al. ), we gave Year 7 students challenging texts to read on cultural topics which we hoped would be genuinely interesting to them, such as music stars, footballers and tourist destinations. These texts, designed to support the programmes of phonics and reading strategy instruction that the study evaluated, were popular with both students and teachers. In the words of one teacher, 'it has shown me to not shy away from challenging texts with unknown language and to use this early on in Year 7. They can do it and can learn something' (Woore et al. : 37). Similarly, our recent 'OLLA' project (Online Language Learning for All) showed that beginner learners of French in Key Stage 3 can enjoy engaging with authentic cultural resources, such as Youtube videos, which are beyond their current linguistic level.

Indeed, through the internet, language learners now have access to an unprecedented wealth of cultural resources. The OCRR is silent on this issue. In our view, we should not discourage learners from accessing L2 materials that interest them, just because they are linguistically challenging; to do so could be to shut out valuable learning opportunities and sources of motivation. We might also draw a comparison to CLIL instruction in Europe (Bower ), where learners engage with cognitively challenging materials in the L2 and acquire language along the way.

In justifying their warning against using more challenging texts, the OCRR appeals to the widely cited threshold of 95% lexical coverage (the proportion of words in a text known by the learner) in order for 'adequate' comprehension to be achieved. However, it is unclear what is actually meant by 'adequate' comprehension; this is operationalised differently in different studies (see Laufer and Ravenhorst-Kalovski ). Further, the 95% threshold assumes independent, individual reading or listening, yet both these activities - and reading in particular - need not be seen in this way. Reading and listening (or watching a video) can also be shared, social activities, in which groups of students work together to construct meaning from a text; and the languages teacher is the expert guide in this process, providing support and scaffolding towards comprehension. The same point could be made about the teaching of literacy in L1: should we withhold the study of Shakesepeare's plays until learners know all the words and structures they contain? Or should we support students to enjoy these plays in all their glorious richness, even though there will be many individual words, structures and even whole passages which are difficult or indeed impossible for them to understand independently?

To sum up this section, we can borrow the words of the UK Literacy Association (Dombey et al. : 13): 'If we want England's children to get better at reading and to do more of it, we have to give them a diet that is attractive, nutritious and satisfying' - even if the literary dishes on the menu go beyond the linguistic boundaries within which learners feel comfortable. As we have argued previously, a similar case could be made in respect of L2 reading (e.g. Woore et al. ), and by extension, L2 learning as a whole.

Technology

Language learning is not what it was twenty years ago - or at least, need not be so. We have already noted several areas in which the OCRR does not seem to reflect recent technological advances which have - potentially at least - transformed the language learning environment. Indeed, the words 'technology' and 'internet' do not appear at all in the main body of their document.

A high-profile review such as the OCRR might have been an opportunity for a more radical rethink of L2 teaching in schools. Can technology help us to move beyond the confines of the very limited classroom time available? (Students in England often have just two hours per week of modern languages lessons at Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14), or even less than this: Tinsley ). On the one hand, as NCELP has helpfully pointed out, language learning apps can play an important role in enhancing classroom-based learning (Shanks and Hobson ), at least for those with access to them. For example, following a 'flipped learning' model (Bishop and Verleger ), students could be asked to pre-learn lists of vocabulary at home using an app, and then come to the lesson ready to use those words in 'higher value', communicative tasks. On the other hand, the internet has opened up practically limitless opportunities for online informal L2 learning (see Sockett ) through activities such as interactive gaming and watching Youtube videos. Whilst such opportunities appear, to date, to have been chiefly exploited by students in other countries learning English, we see no reason why they should not also be taken up by modern languages students in the UK.

Might it, then, be possible for teachers to aim for a more holistic view of language teaching, in which the walls between intra- and extra-mural learning are broken down? This would entail a reconceptualisation of the teacher's role to become a facilitator or coordinator of learning, directing students to possible resources and helping them to develop strategies to learn effectively from them.

Teacher professionalism

It is our long-standing view - and central to the 'practical theorising' model which underpins our own department's Teacher Education courses (see Burn, Mutton, and Thompson ) - that teachers should be accorded the freedom to use their professional judgment to make appropriate decisions about language teaching in their own contexts. The OCRR does acknowledge the importance of 'curriculum leaders' in making decisions about what is taught and how. It also states that 'it is important to recognise that there is no single way of achieving high quality languages education' (p.1).

In practice, however, we fear that the review's recommendations are likely to erect many barriers which constrain teachers' professional judgment and make them less able to respond effectively to their own particular contexts. We see a risk of the OCRR feeding into what has been called an 'executive technician' view of teaching (see Winch, Oancea and Orchard ), a top-down model whereby researchers generate findings, curriculum designers interpret these findings and teachers then apply the resulting protocols to their own classrooms. We see constraints on teachers' professional autonomy as problematic for several reasons.

First, all classes, and all learners within them, are different. It is the individual teacher who best understands the myriad contextual factors that determine the most appropriate instructional approach at any given time. It is, in our view, essential that such decisions take into account relevant evidence from research and theory; however, this must not override contextual considerations. The different factors affecting a teacher's decision-making must be held in a delicate balance. The teacher can, in turn, appraise what they have done through assessment of the students' outcomes.

Second, we believe that a sense of professional autonomy, as encompassed in the practical theorising model, is important for many teachers' motivation (Woore, Mutton, and Molway ; Worth and Van den Brande ). We are concerned that, if teachers are asked to implement protocols and teach in particular, pre-specified ways, they may feel that their professional autonomy is being pared away, and this may lead to dissatisfaction with their work and ultimately contribute to teacher attrition. The retention of teachers in the profession was already a significant challenge in the UK, even before the potential exacerbation of the situation for modern languages in particular due to Brexit - because European citizens 'may find that their future in teaching in England is insecure' (OCCR:27).

Finally, where recommendations are made to guide teachers in shaping the contents of a languages curriculum and how the subject should be taught, it is clearly essential that these are based on a rigorous, critical synthesis of the best available evidence. It is also essential that any recommendations are phrased in a suitably tentative way, acknowledging the complexities and limitations of the evidence that underpins them. This brings us to the final section of our article.

Evidence

Lastly, we wish to reflect on the evidence base which underpins the OCRR. It is claimed that the review 'explores the literature relating to the field of foreign languages education' in order to 'identify factors that contribute to high-quality school languages curriculums, assessment, pedagogy and systems' (OCRR: 2). However, it is not always clear to us on what basis the evidence that is included in the report has been selected, or in some cases, how strong that evidence base is. This may be partly due to a lack of transparency in referencing, rather than a problem with the evidence per se.

The first problem is that some of the claims made lack any references to support them, whilst others are supported by just one or two references, often individual empirical studies. As an example, take the claim that 'explicit grammar instruction can have a positive impact on how efficiently pupils learn grammatical concepts' (OCRR: 14 and footnotes 83 and 84). This is supported by five primary studies (of which the second and fifth are by the same three authors, whilst the second is 'a partial replication and a response to' the fourth). There is a vast array of second language acquisition (SLA) scholarship tackling the question of explicit instruction; it is not made clear how or why the five individual studies that are cited here have been selected. We believe that greater transparency would have been helpful in strengthening the credibility of the OCRR.

Second, there are references which appear to have been misread or mis-cited: for example, Macaro and Masterman () is one of the five studies cited in support of the claim (quoted above) about explicit grammar instruction. In fact, however, the central point of Macaro and Masterman's (2006) article is almost the opposite: namely, whilst an intensive course in French grammar helped pre-university students do better on some aspects of grammar tests, the participants showed no improvement in the accuracy with which they used the language in either translation or free composition tasks. We would suggest that when writing a document as powerful as this, it might have been valuable for Ofsted to send a draft to authors who are cited (or at least to those who are cited multiple times), in order to check that their work has been correctly represented.

Third, systematic reviews are conspicuous by their absence in the OCRR. A systematic review is 'a review of existing research using explicit, accountable rigorous research methods' (Gough, Oliver, and Thomas : 2), aiming to answer specific review questions in a manner that is exhaustive and transparent. Systematic reviews have increasingly strengthened the evidence bases in the fields of SLA research and education more generally. Remaining with our example of explicit grammar instruction, there are existing systematic reviews that address this issue (e.g. Kang, Sok, and Han ; Norris and Ortega ; Spada and Tomita ). We were therefore surprised to find no references to these, or other, systematic reviews anywhere in the OCRR. The only 'review' of evidence explicitly labelled as such which we could find in the references list is Bauckham (), but this is itself not a systematic review in the sense being used here.

We recently conducted a form of systematic review ourselves (a Rapid Evidence Assessment) for the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF; Murphy et al. ). This addressed two overarching questions, the first of which essentially covers the same territory as the OCRR: 'What approaches to teaching a foreign language have been used, and what is the evidence on their effectiveness?'. However, despite the tight time constraints implied by a 'rapid' evidence assessment, our approach was very different from Ofsted's. We began by searching for existing systematic reviews addressing the review questions. After initial screening, this resulted in 78 publications being long-listed for full-text review. We systematically assessed the existing reviews for relevance and quality, before selecting two or three of the most relevant and highest-quality publications as 'seed reviews', which we then updated through our own systematic search, screening and quality assessment of relevant empirical studies. We took precautions to ensure reliability at all stages of screening and quality assessment. Finally, we synthesised the evidence we found in order to formulate recommendations for pedagogy. We documented our methods at every stage, so that the route from evidence to recommendations was transparent and replicable.

Given the power of the OCRR, we would have preferred to see a similarly rigorous and transparent approach being taken to their selection, assessment and synthesis of evidence. By way of comparison to the OCRR recommendation on explicit grammar teaching cited above, the section of our review focussing on explicit instruction concluded as follows:

While explicit instruction in grammatical features is effective, it is rarely more effective than other types of instruction in developing grammatical competence and should be tailored according to age and level of proficiency. (Murphy et al. : 55)

Finally, we would note that within the extensive field of SLA research, learners like those in modern language classrooms in England are under-represented - that is, adolescent students with low L2 proficiency, learning languages other than English (LOTE) within very limited curriculum time. Given this distinctive constellation of characteristics, we believe that caution must be exercised when transferring research findings from other contexts to English modern languages classrooms. In relation to explicit grammar instruction, for example, we are not aware of a large body of research which has addressed this question in the specific context of Key Stage 3 modern languages learners. We would strongly advocate the conduct of more such research. Further, following the caveats expressed by Norris and Ortega (), we think it is important that the outcome measures should include not only discrete-point grammar tests, but also free language production (to see how well students actually apply their grammar knowledge in communication). Ideally, we also think it would be important for such studies to measure students' outcomes holistically, rather than focussing only on their knowledge of particular grammar features: for example, students' motivation and their progress in other aspects of language learning should also be considered. It is no good students being able to apply the correct endings to a verb if this is accompanied by boredom or even hostility towards the target language and its culture - a problem we have encountered amongst Key Stage 3 students in the past.

Conclusions

In sum, we are pleased to see Ofsted engaging with subject-specific pedagogy. As we said in our introduction, we believe that many of the OCRR's recommendations have much to commend them. However, as we have shown, we also have several reservations. Whatever the OCRR's good intentions, some of its recommendations may, in our view, hinder some aspects of successful language learning. Fundamentally, we worry that both teachers and learners may be drawn to focus too much on the individual building blocks of language, and lose sight of the bigger picture. Note that this is not to argue that the building blocks are unimportant; just that they are not all-important. Further, there are other building blocks or pillars that could be considered essential to language learning, such as intercultural understanding and strategic competence. Our concerns about the OCRR are inevitably amplified by the powerful status of Ofsted as the schools inspectorate. This review will not speak with a quiet voice.

We agree with Ofsted's fundamental approach of drawing on research evidence to inform curriculum design and pedagogy. However, given (a) the huge variety that exists between and within modern languages classrooms, (b) the vast complexity of the language learning process and (c) the existence of contrasting findings in many areas of SLA research, we believe that it would be prudent to ensure that any claims and recommendations are worded in suitably tentative language. We would prefer to see Ofsted's recommendations not as prescriptions but as hypotheses, in need of context-specific empirical research to determine their effectiveness.

Finally, we think it is also essential to acknowledge the central importance of teachers' contextualised professional judgment in determining what is most appropriate for their particular classroom on any particular occasion. Ultimately, it is the students that matter most. Each section of the OCRR concludes with the words, 'Based on the above, high-quality languages education may have the following features'. However, in our view, when judging the effectiveness of language teaching, the focus should be not on what teachers planned to do, but on what the students have learnt. We would further suggest that this judgment of students' outcomes should be framed in terms of what the learners can do with the language and how they feel about it. We would like them to be able to express themselves and to access genuinely engaging written and spoken texts with confidence, despite potential gaps in their linguistic knowledge. We thus hope to take them on a journey of discovery into the target language and its culture, which they can approach with enjoyment, positivity and success.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

References

2016. Modern foreign languages pedagogy review: a review of modern foreign languages teaching practice in Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Teaching Schools Council. https://tscouncil.org.uk/mfl-report-2016/.

, and M.A. Verleger. 2013. The flipped classroom: a survey of the research. Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, Paper # 6219, Atlanta, GA.

2007. Skill acquisition theory. In Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction, eds. B. VanPatten, and , 97-114. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

, and . 2010. Teaching Reading: What the Evidence Says. Leicester: United Kingdom Literacy Association.

, , , L. Graham-Matheson, , and . 2004. A Systematic Review of the Characteristics of Effective Foreign Language Teaching to Pupils Between the Ages of 7 and 11. London: EPPI-Centre, Institute of Education, University of London. http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Portals/0/PDF%20reviews%20and%20summaries/MFL_2004review.pdf?ver=2006-03-02-125233-317.

, , and . 2006. Implicit and explicit corrective feedback and the acquisition of L2 grammar. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28: 339-368.

Fitzpatrick, T. , , , , , , and . 2018. Rapid evidence assessment: effective second language teaching approaches and methods. Report commissioned by the Welsh Government. https://gov.wales/effective-second-language-teaching-approaches-and-methods-rapid-evidence-assessment (accessed 26 September 2019).

, and . 2011. Effective Language Teaching: A Synthesis of Research. Report 13. Dublin: National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. https://www.ncca.ie/en/resources/effective_language_teaching_a_synthesis_of_research (accessed 28 September 2019).

, and G. Ravenhorst-Kalovski. 2010. Lexical threshold revisited: lexical text coverage, learners' vocabulary size and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language 22, no. 1: 15.

, and . 2018. Interaction and instructed second language acquisition. Language Teaching 51, no. 3: 285-239. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444818000125.

, and . 2006. Does intensive explicit grammar instruction make all the difference?. Language Teaching Research 10, no. 3: 297-327. https://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2102/10.1191/1362168806lr197oa

, , J. Briggs Baffoe-Djan, , , , R. Vanderplank, and . 2020. Foreign language learning and its impact on wider academic outcomes: a rapid evidence assessment. Education Endowment Foundation. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/.

, and . 2000. Effectiveness of L2 instruction: a research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis. Language Learning 50, no. 3: 417-528.

, and . 2019. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) resources overview. file:///C:/Users/robertw/Downloads/CALL_Resources_Overview_2-page.pdf.

, and . 2016. The Language Teacher Toolkit. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

, and . 2010. Interactions between type of instruction and type of language feature: a meta-analysis. Language Learning 60, no. 2: 263-308.

1985. Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In Input in Second Language Acquisition, eds. , and , 235-253. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House Publishers.

2019. Language trends 2019: language teaching in primary and secondary schools in England. www.britishcouncil.org.

2014. Developing reading and decoding in the modern foreign languages classroom. In Debates in Modern Languages Education, eds. , , and A. Swarbrick, 101-115. London: Routledge.

, and . 2015. The contribution of educational research to teachers' professional learning: philosophical understandings. Oxford Review of Education 41 (2): 202-216. https://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2102/10.1080/03054985.2015.1017406

, , , , and . 2018. Foreign language education: unlocking reading (FLEUR). https://pdcinmfl.com/fleur-foreign-language-educationunlocking-reading/.

, , , , and . 2020. Consolidating the evidence base for MFL curriculum, pedagogy and assessment reform at GCSE: an investigation of teachers' views. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1f797d25-98b4-4b89-863a-779b2348ae20.

, , and . 2020. 'It's definitely part of who I am in the role': developing teachers' research engagement through a subject-specific Master's programme. Teacher Development 24, no. 1: 88-107.

, and J. Van den Brande. 2020. Teacher Autonomy: How Does It Relate to Job Satisfaction and Retention? Slough: NFER.

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Keeping sight of the big picture: a critical response to Ofsted's 2021 Curriculum Research Review for languages

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ABSTRACT This article offers a critical perspective on Ofsted's (2021) Curriculum Research Review for Languages (OCRR). Whilst the OCRR contains much that we would agree with (including its underpinning principle of drawing on research evidence to inform policy and pedagogy), we are nevertheless concerned that it could result in unintended negative effects on both teachers and learners of modern languages.

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Extrinsic Motivation: It Might Be Even Worse Than You Thought

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In a recent study, attendance awards backfired, giving students a "license to miss more school" and actually driving absentee rates up.

©Shutterstock/Daisy Daisy

When Carly Robinson, a researcher at Harvard's Student Social Support R&D Lab, designed a study with her colleagues to look at the impact of attendance awards, they expected to see positive results. After all, giving such awards is a common practice in schools across the U.S.

They surveyed hundreds of teachers and administrators and found that an overwhelming majority believed in, and used, attendance awards in their own schools. Only a small minority of those surveyed-2 percent-thought the awards were a bad idea.

Turns out, this latter group was onto something.

Robinson and her colleagues published their results in a recent issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. They found that attendance awards can do more harm than good: The awards, they concluded, are not only ineffective at boosting attendance, but can actually increase rates of absenteeism once the awards have been handed out.

In the study, over 15,000 middle and high school students were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first group acted as a control, and didn't participate in the award program. In the second group, students were told that they'd be eligible for an upcoming attendance award if they had zero absences the following month. In the third group, students with perfect attendance for a previous month were given an award. For this last group of students, the award was a surprise-they didn't know that awards were going to be handed out, so their attendance was not affected by the possibility of earning one.

Contrary to the best guesses of school leaders, telling students beforehand that they could earn an award for perfect attendance had no effect on the number of days kids missed school. That makes sense, in retrospect. After all, an attendance award won't make a dentist appointment disappear. And if a kid is playing hooky, they're probably not the kind of student motivated by an attendance award in the first place.

But what truly surprised the researchers was what happened after the awards were handed out: Absences actually increased in the following month-by a full 8 percent.

"Instead of motivating students to keep having excellent attendance, the awards were sending unintended signals that we didn't expect," explains Robinson. "This was especially true among students with poor school performance, who are those who stand to benefit the most from strong attendance."

The awards did have a small positive effect for the youngest students in the study-sixth graders-but as students got older, the benefits dissipated. This aligns with prior research showing that young children are more motivated by "symbolic incentives," like stickers and prizes, than their older peers, as the study's authors point out.

Why did the attendance awards backfire? One reason was that schools were using extrinsic motivation to boost performance, and research generally shows that this is a bad idea. According to the study's authors, attendance awards can "crowd out" a student's own internal motivation, signaling that their performance exceeds expectations and giving them "license" to take a break.

The researchers also suggested that there were social forces at work: Students might have believed that the awards singled them out as overachievers, isolating them from their more inconspicuous friends. For these students, missing a few days of school allowed them to reclaim their position within their peer group.

If handing out attendance awards is a mistake, is there a better approach? Attendance Works, a national nonprofit, emphasizes the importance of relationships to motivate students to come to school. Teachers should note when students miss school and make an effort to reach out to them-and their families-to show that their presence is missed and underscore their value to the community. In identifying effective strategies, the organization explains that "creating positive and trusting relationships with students and their families is key to promoting good attendance."

The takeaway: There's good reason to believe that awards for perfect attendance don't work-and can even increase absenteeism. It's a reminder that extrinsic rewards can be demotivating and actually decrease the behaviors we want to encourage.

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Extrinsic Motivation: It Might Be Even Worse Than You Thought

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In a recent study, attendance awards backfired, giving students a "license to miss more school" and actually driving absentee rates up. ©Shutterstock/Daisy Daisy When Carly Robinson, a researcher at Harvard's Student Social Support R&D Lab, designed a study with her colleagues to look at the impact of attendance awards, they expected to see positive results.

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Richard Ryan and Edward Deci write in 2000 about self-determination theory (Time: 30 minutes)

This 2019 paper by McEown & Oga-Baldwin from the journal System examines self-determination theory and its second language learning applications (Time: 10 minutes)

In this book chapter Zoltán Dörnyei writes about what makes a language learning task engaging (Time: 25 minutes)

This chapter by Dörnyei examines his 'motivational self' theory (Time: 40 minutes)

In this article the researchers examine to what extent learners' L2 motivational dispositions (ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self and language learning experiences), based on Dörnyei's model, predict their intended effort for language learning (Time: 30 minutes)

This short newspaper article in The Guardian by Professor Alison Mackey is a handy introduction to aspects of motivation for language learning (Time: 2 minutes)

This blog by Gianfranco Conti summarises eight theories of motivation and their implications for the languages classroom (Time: 10 minutes)

This 2012 paper from the journal English Language Teaching looks at Bandura's theory of self-efficacy as it applies to second language learning (Time: 15 minutes)

This blog by Gianfranco Conti is called: 'Self-efficacy - the most neglected motivational factor in foreign language instruction' (Time: 10 minutes)

This 2015 paper by Taie and Afshari takes a critical look at Gardner's influential 'socio-educational' model of motivation (Time: 10 minutes)

In this talk Dörnyei talks about the idea of 'vision', relating to his motivational self theory (Time: 46 minutes)

In another lecture, Dörnyei explores the idea of 'engagement' (Time: 38 minutes)

In this wide-ranging online presentation Bill Littlewood covers a wide range of areas, including integrative, instrumental, extrinsic, intrinsic, self-determination theory, creating and maintaining motivation in lessons (Time: 50 minutes of lecture)

This Powtoon video explains the basics of self-efficacy theory (Time: 7 minutes)

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Richard Ryan and Edward Deci write in 2000 about self-determination theory (Time: 30 minutes) This 2019 paper by McEown & Oga-Baldwin from the journal System examines self-determination theory and its second language learning applications (Time: 10 minutes) In this book chapter Zoltán Dörnyei writes about what makes a language learning

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Théorie de la charge cognitive by Josiane Dussault on Genially

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Théorie de la charge cognitive (via genially) 

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Théorie de la charge cognitive (via genially) 

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Bref historique, quelques définitions, les implications pédagogiques et les buts de la théorie de la charge cognitive.
Introduction
L'apprentissage

Architecture cognitive

Types de charge Cognitive

Bibliographie

Distinction entre connaissances biologiques primaires et secondaires.

Architecture cognitive et analogie entre l'architecture cognitive humaine et l'évolution par la sélection naturelle.

Trois types de charge cognitive : intrinsèque, extrinsèque et pertinente.

Résultats applicables (procédures d'enseignement) issus d'expériences basées sur les principes de la théorie de la charge cognitive.

ENseignante en mathématiques et Étudiante à la maîtrise en éducation

(avec mémoire - concentration en efficacité de l'enseignement et des écoles)
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Bref historique

La charge cognitive

Principaux buts de la théorie de la charge cognitive

La théorie de la charge cognitive

Vers la fin des années 80, Sweller s'intéresse à la stratégie de résolution de problèmes, appelée analyse moyens-fins , qui consiste à partir du but à atteindre et à revenir progressivement à l'état initial du problème en franchissant différentes étapes (les sous-buts).

Cette stratégie est très coûteuse cognitivement puisqu'elle implique qu'une grande charge cognitive est consacrée à la résolution du problème, la construction de schémas devient alors difficile et l'apprentissage est nécessairement compromis.

Bref historique

" La charge cognitive correspond à la quantité de ressources cognitives investies par un individu lors de la réalisation d'une tâche. Elle dépend :

Qu'est-ce que la charge cognitive ?

la complexité de la tâche (le nombre d'éléments à traiter et à mettre en relation)

des ressources de l'individu (ses connaissances à propos de cette tâche)

et de la manière dont la tâche est présentée. " (Qu'est ce que la charge cognitive ?, 2019)

la théorie de la charge cognitive

La théorie de la charge cognitive prend appui sur le modèle de Baddeley dans lequel l'architecture cognitive humaine est constituée d'une mémoire de travail, dont la capacité est limitée, et d'une mémoire à long terme à capacité illimitée.

Lors de l'apprentissage, l'information nouvelle est traitée par la mémoire de travail, qui la combine avec les connaissances antérieures de l'apprenant, puis la transfère dans la mémoire à long terme sous la forme d'un schéma qui pourra ultérieurement être récupéré par la mémoire de travail dans la réalisation d'une tâche.

Ce sont ces schémas qui permettent de demeurer dans la limite de capacité de la mémoire de travail puisque peu importe la complexité de ce dernier, il sera traité comme un seul élément par celle-ci.

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identifier ce qui crée une surcharge cognitive et gêne la construction de nouveaux schémas et, par conséquent, l'apprentissage ;

concevoir les différentes techniques pour diminuer les charges cognitives intrinsèque et extrinsèque, tout en augmentant la charge cognitive pertinente puisqu'elle est utile à l'apprentissage.

Apprentissage
Principaux buts de la théorie de la charge cognitive

Cela nous mène aux principaux buts de la théorie de la charge cognitive :

Distinction entre connaissances biologiques primaires et secondaires.

Pourquoi, malgré le fait que nous apprenions énormément de connaissances de façon "naturelle", ce n'est pas le cas en classe ?

Connaissances que l'on acquiert de façon naturelle : parler, marcher, reconnaître des expressions faciales, etc.

CONNAISSANCES PRIMAIRES
Apprentissage
Connaissances qui nécessitent un enseignement, des efforts et de la motivation de la part de l'apprenant : lire, écrire, compter, etc.

CONNAISSANCES SECONDAIRES

Distinction entre connaissances biologiques primaires et secondaires.

Pourquoi, malgré le fait que nous apprenions énormément de connaissances de façon "naturelle", ce n'est pas le cas en classe ?

Connaissances que l'on acquiert de façon naturelle : parler, marcher, reconnaître des expressions faciales, etc.

CONNAISSANCES PRIMAIRES

Connaissances qui nécessitent un enseignement, des efforts et de la motivation de la part de l'apprenant : lire, écrire, compter, etc.

CONNAISSANCES SECONDAIRES

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La théorie de la charge cognitive s'appuie sur la description classique de l'architecture cognitive partagée en trois systèmes de mémoire.

Sweller fait une analogie entre l'architecture cognitive humaine et l'évolution par la sélection naturelle.

Cinq principes fondamentaux en découlent et se retrouvent à la base de la théorie de la charge cognitive.
Architecture cognitive
https://jenseigneadistance.teluq.ca/mod/page/view.php?id=190

https://blogs.miamioh.edu/edt431-531/2019/02/evolution-vs-natural-selection-why-are-the-misconceptions-important-to-correct/
La mémoire à long terme
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La mémoire de travail
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La mémoire à long terme permet de retenir, de manière illimitée, sur de très longues périodes de temps. Elle repose sur trois processus de base : l'encodage, le stockage et la restitution des informations.

Lors de l'apprentissage, la mémoire de travail traite les informations nouvelles, les combine avec les connaissances antérieures de l'apprenant, puis les encode dans la mémoire à long terme.

Ultérieurement, elle peut récupérer les informations encodées en mémoire à long terme lors de la réalisation d'une tâche.

LA mémoire sensorielle

La mémoire sensorielle collecte des informations de l'environnement à travers deux canaux ( verbal/auditif et visuel) puis, selon l'attention qui leur est accordée, les envoie dans la mémoire de travail.

La capacité de la mémoire de travail est limitée ; elle ne peut traiter qu'un nombre d'éléments limités à la fois.

Les ressources mentales mobilisées sont limitées à la capacité de la mémoire de travail. Si celles-ci sont trop nombreuses, la mémoire de travail est alors surchargée cognitivement, ce qui mène alors à l'échec de la tâche ou de l'apprentissage.

L'ARCHITECTURE COGNITIVE HUMAINE

Lorsque la mémoire de travail encode les nouvelles informations, combinées avec les connaissances antérieures de l'apprenant, dans la mémoire à long terme, elle le fait sous la forme d'un schéma, une structure de connaissances organisées. Ce sont ces schémas qui permettent de demeurer dans la limite de capacité de la mémoire de travail puisque peu importe la complexité de ce dernier, il sera traité comme un seul élément par celle-ci.

La mémoire de travail

Une fois le schéma construit, il est important que l'apprenant pratique suffisamment afin d'automatiser le schéma dans le but de réduire la charge cognitive sur la mémoire de travail. En effet, l'automatisation permet d'exécuter presque qu'inconsciemment des tâches de façon précise et fluide.

À l'inverse, sans automatisation, la réalisation de la tâche sera plus lente et mobilisera plus de ressources en mémoire de travail, ce qui pourrait compromettre l'apprentissage de notions plus complexes.

la mémoire à long terme

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La notion de schéma est primordiale puisque " ces structures de connaissance organisées constituent un mécanisme majeur pour extraire le sens des informations, acquérir et stocker des connaissances dans la mémoire à long terme, contourner les limites de la mémoire de travail, augmenter la force de la mémoire, guider la recherche et le rappel d'informations et fournir des liens avec les connaissances antérieures ".

Plass, J. L., Moreno, R., & Brünken, R. (2010)

Cinq principes fondamentaux

Le principe du stockage de l'information

Le principe d'emprunt et de réorganisation

Le hasard comme principe de genèse

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Les limites étroites du principe de changement

La théorie de la charge cognitive s'intéresse principalement à la façon dont les connaissances secondaire sont acquises.

Celles-ci nécessite un enseignement structuré, clair, explicite et axé sur les processus cognitifs requis pour l'apprentissage

Ces connaissances sont donc traitées, stockées et utilisées selon une architecture cognitive spécifique.

Sweller fait une analogie entre l'architecture cognitive humaine et l'évolution par la sélection naturelle. Ce parallèle est très intéressant puisque l'évolution biologique et la cognition humaine utilisent les mêmes processus pour traiter les différentes informations.

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Le principe environnemental d'organisation et de liaison.

De la même façon que le génome contient l'ensemble du matériel génétique permettant la création, le développement d'un organisme et l'évolution dans un environnement complexe, la mémoire à long terme est également très vaste et contient un très grand nombre d'informations.

Afin de faire face à un environnement complexe et en constante évolution, les êtres humains ont besoin d'une grande quantité de ressources facilement disponibles pour fonctionner efficacement. La mémoire à long terme fournit cette réserve. Pour fonctionner, les systèmes de traitement naturel de l'information ont besoin d'un énorme stock d'informations. La mémoire à long terme fournit ce stockage pour les connaissances primaires et secondaires dans le cas de la cognition humaine.

Un expert est quelqu'un qui dispose d'une grande quantité de ressources conservées dans la mémoire à long terme.

Le principe du stockage de l'information

La plupart des contenus de la mémoire à long terme sont empruntés, car nous apprenons des autres ; en les regardant, en les écoutant... Nous nous approprions ensuite ces apprentissages, nous les réorganisons en utilisant les schémas stockés dans notre mémoire à long terme.

La reproduction humaine est un excellent exemple du principe d'emprunt et de réorganisation : l'information est empruntée aux parents et réorganisée afin de créer un individu unique.

Le principe d'emprunt et de réorganisation

Bien que les systèmes naturels de traitement de l'information acquièrent la grande majorité de leurs informations par le biais du principe d'emprunt et de réorganisation, ces informations doivent être créées en premier lieu. Le principe de l'aléatoire comme genèse fournit le mécanisme nécessaire.

Il arrive qu'un organisme doive muter afin de s'adapter à un nouvel environnement, une nouvelle réalité. Ces mutations sont donc aléatoires puisqu'aucune information relative à cette nouveauté n'est emmagasinée dans le génome. Elles font donc l'objet d'un test d'efficacité et, si elles sont efficaces, elles sont alors conservées dans le génome pour une utilisation future.

De la même façon, lorsqu'un apprenant doit résoudre un problème pour lequel il n'a pas l'information relative en mémoire à long terme et qu'il ne peut l'emprunter à un autre individu, alors il n'a pas d'autre choix d'utiliser une méthode d'essais et erreurs qui lui permettra d'acquérir de nouvelles connaissances et ainsi de construire de nouveaux schémas.

Le hasard comme principe de genèse

Des mutations aléatoires doivent parfois se produire pour qu'un organisme s'adapte à un nouvel environnement ou une nouvelle réalité. Cependant, le nombre de ces mutations doit demeurer dans des proportions réalistes afin d'éviter des altérations trop grandes du génome.

Du côté du système cognitif humain, c'est la mémoire de travail à capacité limitée qui s'assure de ne jamais traiter une trop grande quantité d'informations nouvelles, cela diminue ainsi les risques de modifications importantes de la mémoire à long terme. Les risques de dommages aux structures de connaissances que l'apprenant a développées pendant de longues périodes sont ainsi amoindris.

Les limites étroites du principe de changement

Ce principe permet d'expliquer comment les gènes contenus l'ADN peuvent être activés en fonction des facteurs environnementaux, mais aussi comment une grande quantité d'informations stockées dans l'ADN peut être utilisée pour déterminer l'activité génétique appropriée en fonction de l'environnement.

De la même façon, la mémoire de travail reçoit les informations de l'environnement pour déterminer les schémas les plus pertinents à récupérer en mémoire à long terme. Alors que la mémoire de travail a une capacité limitée, aucune limite ne s'applique lorsqu'elle est utilisée pour récupérer des informations de la mémoire à long terme. En effet, une fois les informations organisées et stockées dans la mémoire à long terme sous la forme de schémas, peu importe la complexité de ce dernier, il sera traité comme un seul élément par la mémoire de travail.

Le principe environnemental d'organisation et de liaison
CHarge extrinsèque
CHarge pertinente

La charge cognitive pertinente est directement liée aux ressources de la mémoire de travail que l'apprenant utilise pour acquérir les connaissances et construire des schémas. L'acquisition et l'automatisation de schémas nécessitent des ressources cognitives et imposent donc une charge cognitive. Dans ce cas, la charge cognitive est pertinente, dans le sens où elle est utile à l'apprentissage (Sweller, van Merriënboer & Paas, 1998). "

La charge cognitive extrinsèque est liée à tous les processus cognitifs inutiles, à tous les éléments que l'élève doit traiter, mais qui ne sont pas nécessaires à la construction de schémas. Cette charge est souvent causée par des tâches d'apprentissages mal organisées, mal présentées ou encore qui contiennent des informations confuses ou superflues.

Charge intrinsèque

La charge cognitive intrinsèque concerne la complexité de l'information qui doit être apprise par l'apprenant et elle est déterminée par le degré d'interactivité entre les éléments qui doivent être traités en même temps par la mémoire de travail, mais aussi par le niveau de connaissances de l'apprenant.

LES TYPES DE CHARGE COGNITIVE

effets qui permettent de réduire les charges cognitives intrinsèque et extrinsèque tout en augmentant la charge cognitive pertinente.

L'effet de la non-spécification du but

L'effet du problème résolu ou du problème à compléter

L'effet de l'attention partagée

L'effet de la modalité

L'effet de redondance

L'effet

L'effet des éléments interactifs présentés isolément

L'effet de la variété des exemples

L'effet de l'auto-explication

L'effet d'imagination

L'effet de renversement dû à l'expertise

L'effet de la mémoire de travail collective

L'effet de l'information transitoire

L'effet du mouvement humain

L'effet de l'autogestion

Lorsque le but n'est pas spécifié, une stratégie moyens-fins ne peut alors être utilisée puisqu'il n'est pas possible de partir du but pour revenir à l'état initial. Cela permet donc de diminuer la charge cognitive de la mémoire de travail et dirige automatiquement l'apprenant vers les états du problème et les opérations pertinentes à effectuer, ce qui facilite l'apprentissage. En effet, la construction de schémas, qui nécessite une compréhension des états du problème et des opérations pertinentes, est alors favorisée.

L'effet de la non-spécification du but

L'effet du problème résolu ou du problème à compléter

Au lieu de diriger l'attention vers la résolution du problème, celle-ci est tournée vers les états du problème et les opérations pertinentes à réaliser. L'étude d'exemples concrets est l'un des meilleurs moyens, voire le meilleur, d'apprendre à résoudre des problèmes dans un nouveau domaine. Les exemples travaillés peuvent effectivement nous fournir des schémas de résolution de problèmes qui doivent être stockés dans la mémoire à long terme.

L'effet du problème résolu ou du problème à compléter

L'effet de l'attention partagée

Lorsque des informations sont présentées à l'apprenant séparément, sous forme écrite et sous forme graphique par exemple, l'attention est alors partagée et augmente la charge cognitive de la mémoire de travail. En intégrant toutes les informations (sous forme graphique par exemple), cela diminue la charge cognitive et, par le fait même, facilite la résolution de problème.

L'effet de l'attention partagée

L'effet de la modalité

Lorsque de multiples sources d'information doivent nécessairement être intégrées, les présenter dans des modalités différentes (écrites et orales par exemple) peut être bénéfique et amener une diminution de la charge cognitive.

L'effet de redndance

" Si une forme d'énoncé ou de consigne est intelligible et adéquate, fournir la même information sous deux formes différentes va imposer une charge cognitive supplémentaire. Les ressources de la mémoire de travail seront en effet utilisées pour traiter ce matériel supplémentaire et pour vérifier si celui-ci est éventuellement en lien avec l'information initiale ". (Chanquoy, Tricot et Sweller, 2007)

L'effet d'interactivé

" La complexité ou l'interactivité des éléments dépend d'une combinaison entre la nature de l'information et les connaissances de la personne qui traite l'information. [...] La charge intrinsèque est déterminée à la fois par l'interactivité de l'information et par les connaissances de la personne qui traite cette information.

Le nombre d'éléments à maintenir actifs en mémoire de travail n'est pas complètement fixé pour une tâche. Il dépend de l'expertise de l'individu considéré. La charge intrinsèque n'est pas fixée pour une tâche donnée, mais est plutôt fixée pour une tâche donnée pour un individu donné.

Les sujets qui sont difficiles à traiter pour un novice peuvent être très simples pour un expert. " (Théorie de la charge cognitive : notions de charge intrinsèque, extrinsèque et utile, 2019)

L'effet des éléments interactifs présentés isolément

Apprendre les différents éléments isolément, sans considérer les interactions entre ceux-ci permet de réduire la charge cognitive de la mémoire de travail. " Une fois que des schémas suffisamment sophistiqués ont été construits, la compréhension sera possible parce que les éléments interactifs pourront alors être traités en mémoire de travail. D'après cette analyse, l'apprentissage doit précéder la compréhension." (Chanquoy, Tricot et Sweller, 2007)

L'effet des éléments interactifs présentés isolément

L'effet de la variété des exemples

La présentation aux élèves d'exemples ayant de caractéristiques semblables facilite l'apprentissage, mais rend difficile le transfert vers d'autres contextes puisque les élèves n'ont pas à comparer les exemples ce qui permettrait de parfaire leur compréhension. Une solution à ce problème est d'augmenter graduellement la variabilité des exemples, ce qui permettra de garder la charge cognitive dans la limite de la mémoire de travail.

L'effet de la variété des exemples

L'effet de l'auto-explication

Les chercheurs ont démontré que lorsque les élèves s'expliquent eux-mêmes les étapes requises pour résoudre un problème, les ressources de la mémoire de travail sont principalement mobilisées vers les interactions entre les différents éléments ; cela a pour effet de réduire la charge cognitive extrinsèque et ainsi, l'apprentissage et la construction de schémas sont alors favorisés.

Lorsque des informations sont présentées à l'apprenant séparément, sous forme écrite et sous forme graphique par exemple, l'attention est alors partagée et augmente la charge cognitive de la mémoire de travail. En intégrant toutes les informations (sous forme graphique par exemple), cela diminue la charge cognitive et, par le fait même, facilite la résolution de problème.

L'effet de l'auto-explication

L'effet d'imagination

Cet effet se produit lorsque l'on demande aux élèves d'imaginer une procédure au lieu de l'étudier. Tout comme pour l'effet d'auto-explication, la mémoire de travail est tournée vers les éléments qui interagissent dans la procédure ; encore une fois, cela facilite la création de schémas. Il est important de mentionner que ces deux effets précédents sont principalement à privilégier pour des apprenants un peu plus expérimentés. En effet, pour les novices, s'expliquer soi-même une procédure, ou encore en imaginer une, implique davantage une charge cognitive extrinsèque que pertinente, alors que pour des experts, l'inverse se produit.

L'effet de renversement dû à l'expertise

Les résultats obtenus par les expérimentations " suggèrent qu'au fur et à mesure du cheminement vers l'expertise, les schémas servent de plus en plus de guides et, ainsi, l'aide apportée par les consignes peut progressivement être diminuée. En effet, les instructions inutiles n'ont pas simplement des effets neutres, mais aussi des effets négatifs " (Chanquoy, Tricot et Sweller, 2007) puisqu'elles augmentent la charge cognitive extrinsèque.

L'effet de renversement dû à l'expertise

L'effet de la mémoire de travail collective

Cet effet survient lorsque des tâches impliquant plusieurs éléments ayant une interactivité élevée (c'est une condition sine qua non) sont proposées à des apprenants travaillant en équipe ; puisque chaque membre n'a pas toutes les informations nécessaires stockées en mémoire à long terme, il est nécessaire pour eux de se partager leurs connaissances afin de réaliser la tâche demandée.

L'effet de la mémoire de travail collective

L'effet de l'information transitoire

Cet effet se produit lorsque de l'information est présentée à l'apprenant, mais qu'elle ne demeure pas disponible et qu'il doit alors la retenir en mémoire de travail, ce qui a pour effet d'augmenter la charge cognitive. Par exemple, lorsqu'un enseignant présente des informations sur un support numérique tel qu'une présentation PowerPoint et qu'en changeant de diapositive, une information n'est plus disponible visuellement pour l'apprenant, alors ce dernier doit la retenir.

L'effet de l'information transitoire

L'effet du mouvement humain

Cet effet survient lorsque l'on présente une procédure de façon dynamique aux apprenants. Par exemple, lorsque l'on explique aux élèves comment résoudre une équation du deuxième degré en faisant du modelage devant les élèves, en leur montrant comment faire. Cela découle du fait que les humains apprennent la plupart de leurs connaissances primaires en observant les autres et qu'ils ont développé une habileté pour l'observation.

L'effet du mouvement humain

L'effet de l'autogestion

Cet effet s'observe lorsque les élèves sont sensibilisés à la théorie de la charge cognitive et ses principes. Ceux-ci sont alors plus en mesure de gérer leur charge cognitive lors d'un apprentissage.

BIBLIOGRAPHie

Théorie de la charge cognitive : notions de charge intrinsèque, extrinsèque et utile. (2019). Par temps clair. Repéré à : https://par-temps-clair.blogspot.com/2019/08/theorie-de-la-charge-cognitive-notions.html

Plass, J. L., Moreno, R., & Brünken, R. (2010). Cognitive load theory. Cambridge University Press.

Chanquoy, L., Tricot, A., & Sweller, J. (2007). La charge cognitive : Théorie et applications (Armand Colin).

Qu'est ce que la charge cognitive ? (2019). Repéré à : https://www.educavox.fr/accueil/interviews/interview-qu-est-ce-que-la-charge-cognitive

Tricot A. & Chanquoy L. (1996). " La charge mentale : "vertu dormitive" ou concept opérationnel ? ", Psychologie française, 41.

Tricot, A (1998). Charge cognitive et apprentissage. Une présentation des travaux de John Sweller. Revue de Psychologie de l'Éducation,1, 37-64.

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Bref historique, quelques définitions, les implications pédagogiques et les buts de la théorie de la charge cognitive. Introduction L'apprentissage Architecture cognitive Types de charge Cognitive Bibliographie Distinction entre connaissances biologiques primaires et secondaires. Architecture cognitive et analogie entre l'architecture cognitive humaine et l'évolution par la sélection naturelle.

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ASH21 logiciels adaptés, le site de référenciation des applications gratuites au service de l'enseignement inclusif

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ASH21 logiciels, applications et extensions au service de l'inclusion scolaire

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ASH21 logiciels, applications et extensions au service de l'inclusion scolaire

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L'objectif de ce site est de référencer, de façon quasi exhaustive, les logiciels, applications et extensions permettant de faciliter l'inclusion des élèves en difficulté scolaire et/ou en situation de handicap, par le biais du numérique.

Les solutions exposées sont multiplateformes (PC, smartphones, tablettes, tous les systèmes d'exploitation), et le parti pris est de ne proposer que des freewares (gratuites) ou parfois sharewares (complètes mais simplement limitées dans dans leur nombre d'utilisations), afin de toujours pouvoir trouver une solution avec le matériel dont on dispose.

Les applications peuvent se rapporter à 1 voire plusieurs des 12 domaines suivants :

NOUVEAUTE ! Les parcours de formation...

Si avoir une liste d'applications, et pour chacune d'entre elles une description et des démonstrations vidéo d'utilisation c'est bien, apprendre à s'en servir, c'est mieux ! C'est dans ce but qu'ont été créés ces 12 parcours de formations sur le nouveau site de l'Inspection ASH de Côte d'Or :

Les parcours sont accessibles sur cette page, ainsi que sur chacune des pages de description des applications, si elles sont intégrées à un ou plusieurs parcours.

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ASH21 logiciels adaptés, le site de référenciation des applications gratuites au service de l'enseignement inclusif

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L'objectif de ce site est de référencer, de façon quasi exhaustive, les logiciels, applications et extensions permettant de faciliter l'inclusion des élèves en difficulté scolaire et/ou en situation de handicap, par le biais du numérique.

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Five Ways to: Build Confidence @teacherhead

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Five Ways to: Build Confidence @teacherhead

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There's a lot to learn! Sometimes it feels overwhelming - especially to students with the least confidence; the weakest knowledge; the most tentative grasp of the ideas. Something I observe fairly often - and is worth reflecting on in your own lessons - is that the students with the most confidence dominate lessons. They get asked more questions; they get through more activities and tasks; they get more time to rehearse and develop answers. Overall, somewhat paradoxically, they are getting more practice than the students with the lowest confidence.

To a student with low confidence, lessons can sometimes feel like this:

there's too much to learn at once, which I find overwhelming and demoralising.

there's an assumption about my prior knowledge that is overly optimistic, so I feel like I'm behind the whole time,

there's not enough time to practice, so I don't get a chance to do anything well.

the tasks are too long with too many elements and I'm not sure about any of it.

the quizzing seems random - asking me stuff I barely know so mainly I'm guessing.

With this in mind, it's worth thinking about lessons from the perspective of a student with low confidence to see what you can do to help them. Here are five ways....

Consolidate. Consolidate. Consolidate.

Take every possible opportunity to go over things again and again, giving students the chance to over-learn and consolidate.:

Summarise the key points (or phrases or definitions or examples) multiple times, and ask students to run through them individually and in pairs - so that every student can mentally and/or verbally restate them.

Ask the same question to more than one student. Go over it again; check that one good answer is understood by other students, explicitly repeating the key elements that represent that good answer.

Give lots of examples during explanations - never just one. Show how the same ideas, methods, terminology, concepts come up again and again.

Make sure question and problem sets are often largely consolidatory: repeating ideas and methods that have already been learned, to they feel unthreatening - just practice of the known and familiar; students know what to do, it's just a case of actually doing it to consolidate.

Explicit Rehearsal

This links to the ideas explored in this post:

Make sure all students have time to rehearse the knowledge you introduce.

Did everyone say the new phrase?

Can everyone explain the method?

Can everyone explain the steps in the argument?

Can everyone explain the key metaphor that the poet is using?

Can everyone run through the sequence in the erosion process?

This isn't about having it written in their books. It's about being able to generate responses, rehearsing the words and arguments - even if prompted and heavily scaffolded. If you've explained something, can students explain it back to you? It's a form of explicit rehearsal. The least confident students will be the least likely to volunteer - and yet they are the ones who need the rehearsal most. This is where inclusive questioning comes in to support them, including a key role for pair talk.

Repeated Short Feedback Loops

Often students are set a task that takes a long time to do and has many components so the process of getting feedback is complex and at a distance from the moment of doing each part. And then there's no time to re-do all of it because there's too much. As an alternative it can be very powerful to construct short tasks with the explicit aim of creating short feedback and improvement loops:
Do the task; evaluate and generate feedback; do it again better; evaluate and generate feedback; do it again better... and so on.
This process builds confidence as students see how they can improve and produce something of quality rather than a series of things that are mediocre. It's more common to see this in practical pursuits like playing an instrument and PE - where the process of building physical strength and muscle memory is well understood. Other cognitive examples might include:

Small-scale life drawings - small enough to try many times.

The opening two sentences in an story, essay or speech

An explanation of a process in science or geography.

A three-sentence exchange in French

It's just so common for things to be done just once - but can you find a way to build in these repetition loops that allow a short-run improvement process to happen?

Scaffold the details.

As with many ideas in teaching, everyone knows what scaffolding is in theory. But the practice can be patchy. Quite often, you can find students in the corners, floundering. My favourite examples of scaffolding, where I see confidence-building in action, are where specific structures are being taught and students are practising using them. This includes ideas for talk as explored here:

Often students who struggle to give detailed answers verbally or in writing are struggling because they are unsure about how to organise and express their ideas - even though they have a reasonable understanding of the concepts. Scaffolds can include frequently used subject-specific structures, introduced on at time, not just on a long list.

I saw some Year 5s using this recently to great effect: On one hand, an advantage of tourist visiting Snowdon is that..... On the other hand, a disadvantage is..... This was helping them prepare their balanced argument pieces.

I met some Year 8's learning chemistry with good scaffolding around concrete examples of metal reactions. A few common metals and non-metals were highlighted and students had to generate lots and lots of compounds, rehearsing the naming protocols e.g. oxygen -> oxide. When asked for examples they had to say 'Zinc reacts with Oxygen to produce Zinc Oxide' - a good form of specific scaffolded rehearsal.

Sounds obvious doesn't it. But it's not always like that; students are just asked to get things down in the books without the confidence-building rehearsal.

Retrieval with Agency.

Design quizzing and other retrieval practice routines so that students can perform well to build their confidence, rather than merely reinforcing their sense of not knowing things.

Topic in advance: Tell students exactly what they need to know, supported by a study resource (booklet, knowledge organiser etc) and tell them that they'll be quizzed on a specific date on just that knowledge. This gives them a chance to properly study and get ready and do well. If quizzing tends to be across many topics at random, students develop a learned helplessness. How do study for all of that? Give them the chance to succeed.. make it tight, specific and predictable. At least at first.

Questions in advance: If a student can't do well on a quiz they've seen in advance, they won't do well on one that is a total surprise. For students who struggle to form study habits and engage in mental rehearsal, showing them the exact questions they'll be asked can help. It really lays it out for them: you will need to know the answers to these questions. Discuss all the answers. Then the quiz that comes later is very much a recall of known material. This isn't trivial. e.g 'What is mitosis?' For some students, it's a big deal just to give that answer even when they know that it's coming. Try it.

Paired-Quizzing: Here students learn to use the knowledge resources to ask each other questions. When you are asking someone questions you are also consolidating your own knowledge; you are practising using the language and thinking of possible questions to pose. It's empowering to ask and then give answers. I always find students enjoy it immensely. They take turns and both people in a pair benefit. Because it is low stakes, the pressure is off and they can do multiple cycles of swapping to build confidence.

Flash Cards: This is a superb form of self-quizzing that, done well, builds confidence. The trick is to make sure students are using them with some discipline: pose the question... think of the answer.... then turn over to check. Students can isolate the cards they find hardest to get right and can repeat the checking process over and over and over. It's in their hands; they have agency. They see that they can learn things if they commit to it with enough intensity. Model it in class so that they can do it well independently.

Here's a 10 minute Kitchen Pedagogy video explainer:

Here's David Goodwin's one-pager..

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There's a lot to learn! Sometimes it feels overwhelming - especially to students with the least confidence; the weakest knowledge; the most tentative grasp of the ideas. Something I observe fairly often - and is worth reflecting on in your own lessons - is that the students with the most confidence dominate lessons.

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Share what you are reading with your class

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French Teacher Resource: My experience with Gianfranco Conti tools

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Is your teaching mantra also, 'I want my students to be able to speak French?'. Then, Gianfranco Conti's teaching and tools will certainly resonate with.

I first travelled to France at 16, and on return to the Australian classroom, I asked myself why there wasn't a greater emphasis on listening and speaking. The "traditional" method at the time, and even now, seems to heavily focus on reading, writing and explicit grammar instruction. Don't get me wrong, I do love learning and teaching these areas of a new language (as they are, of course, important!), but in the classroom, did they enable me to speak the language? No. The ultimate goal is confidence in fluency in the target language (Fluency in the use of a particular set of vocabulary and grammatical structures regardless of level).

Conti's work focuses on just this - enabling students to automise structures to be able to use them spontaneously. This is how we reach fluency. Let me highlight a few "Conti" concepts that I incorporate in to all my teaching:

1. Comprehensible input

No doubt, that at uni, you learned Krashen's Input Hypothesis. Essentially, a learner improves in a 'natural' progression if they are exposed to language that is comprehensible - just one step above their current stage of linguistic competency (i + 1). As teachers, in an artificial classroom environment, we are in charge of the language input and can therefore ensure that our students understand the input language and slowly increase in difficulty to allow maximum learning potential. This, in turn, lowers the effective filter, aiding students to feel more motivated and uninhibited. Also, if you take comprehensible input in to account, your students can increase in sophistication much quicker as they will feel more capable to "push the envelope" and try new sentences (not just focusing on memorising massive word lists that are hard to use communicatively!).

2. Chunking

Fluency is 'chunked' speech. This means that we don't use isolated words in speech but we use them as small parts. For example, you don't just use ' allé' by itself, but you would use it as a chunk, ' je suis allé'. When we speak, we then use 'chaining' to connect these chunks (producing full sentences) which are linked by connectives. Cool, huh?

Of course, some words are learned independently (such as nouns or adverbs...), but they need to be practised with chunks. Conti uses 'sentence builders' to provide context to new and old language (see resource below). The takeaway message? Teach language in chunks!

3. Reusing and recycling language

Automated language lives in our long-term memory. So how do you get it there? You need to reuse and recycle language! Language text books are certainly improving, but the traditional approach was the teach a content item and then say to students, "You should be able to use it as it was taught to you back in March!" Language should always be repetitively used. Use it so you don't lose it! As teachers, we can plan our curriculum to ensure that past content is weaved in and out of our lessons. Working in an immersive language teaching setting, we would use Leanne Hinton's 20/20 rule. To commit a chunk to memory, you will need to use said chunk 20 times in 20 different settings. This sounds like a lot, but it isn't once you apply the reuse and recycle language rule!

Applying Conti tools to your curriculum

So, I'm sure you have all come to this blog for some resources! Let me oblige. In order to achieve fluency in a unit, Conti outlines the progressive phases through the acronym, MARS EARS. From modelling a new construction (M) to spontaneously using the construction in communication (S). For each phase, I have included my own resources and ideas designed for a Year 8 term 3 unit on 'hobbies' is based on Conti's famous activities for each progressive phase. You can download the resources and use then as they are or use them as a template for your own work.
Note that these activities were used in conjunction with the AIM play, 'Veux-tu danser?', which provided the context for the unit on hobbies. Also, these are resources designed for my students. They are not perfect. Resources are always designed to be improved. You may feel they have too much language, too little language. Not cover enough content, cover too much content. Modify at your will.
First step:

Design the curriculum to reuse and recycle language. You will notice that the new content is spaced out over the term and old content is interweaved. Ensuring adequate priming and routinisation is an absolute must before students can demonstrate fluency.
Year 8 Term 3 curriculum planning document
Second step:

Create your sentence builders to set the teachable language chunks for your students to use.

Hobbies sentence builder (students had already automatised approx. 1/2 of this language)

Comparison and superlative sentence builder

Past perfect sentence builder (main focus on 'avoir' as auxiliary and no explicit grammar instruction at this stage as automation with chunks is easier for learners to use!!!)

Third step:

Design resources, worksheets and activities for the classroom based on the MARS EARS progression. Each resource does not necessarily fit under each specific category, it depends on how you use them and why. Think of the resources as aiding to progress through 3 phases: priming > routinisation, to finally reach spontaneity.

M odelling:

Mind reader game - one student chooses a sentence secretly and the other students in the class or group have to guess which sentence they picked by reading aloud a sentence.

Disappearing text - get students to set a goal - how many sentences will they try to memorise? You can do this as an oral or writing game (great with mini whiteboards).

A wareness-raising:
Gap-fill exercise
Spot the missing word - listening task

R eceptive processing:

Tangled translation with traditional translation (lower to higher cognitive demand)

S tructured production:

Oral ping-pong - partner task
Staircase translation
Narrow reading (each passage is very similar)

Find someone who - give each student in the group at least one card. They read their card to the group and the group or the individual fills in the worksheet.

E xplanation:

When you explain learned concepts, ensure that your students have internalised the structures well prior.

Autonomy, Routinisation and S pontaneity:

You can use many activities that you already employ in your classroom, such as speed dating, spot the difference (between pictures), student jigsaw tasks, listen and recall (reciting memorised sentence orders), running dictation, 4, 3, 2 technique (repeat the same information but reduce the time)...

Conti has so many activity ideas that, firstly, it is hard to implement them all (although all so fun!). Secondly, most of the activities you will likely already be using. You just need to be aware of the purpose and implement them at the correct stage to aid your students to fluency. Note that it is wise to reuse the same activities across the year as you want your students to learn the language, not always a new game.

For more information and ideas, you can read Conti's blog. He also had ready-made resources through his sentence builder website and the interactive website for students, The Language Gym. He also has purchasable books: Breaking the Sound Barrier, The Language Teacher Toolkit and French Sentence Builders. Also, join the group 'Global Innovative Language Teachers' on Facebook.

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French Teacher Resource: My experience with Gianfranco Conti tools

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Is your teaching mantra also, 'I want my students to be able to speak French?'. Then, Gianfranco Conti's teaching and tools will certainly resonate with. I first travelled to France at 16, and on return to the Australian classroom, I asked myself why there wasn't a greater emphasis on listening and speaking.

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Homework refers to tasks given to pupils by their teachers to be completed outside of usual lessons.

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Seven principles of effective secondary homework

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Seven principles of effective secondary homework

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What is the secret to effective homework? Drawing upon the research, author of a new book on the topic Andrew Jones offers seven key principles for setting good homework at secondary level

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Bridging (Neuro)Science & Education: learning in the brain by Efrat Furst (PhD)

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Bridging (Neuro)Science & Education: learning in the brain by Efrat Furst (PhD)

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Introducing long-term memory and working memory: o Key features and limitations o How do they interact during learning to build (and then use) the knowledge base. o Guidelines to aligning teaching and learning strategies with the learning stages.

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Teachmeet MFL icons: ÉPI méthodologie by @MargaritaMorti3

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Teachmeet MFL icons: ÉPI méthodologie by @MargaritaMorti3

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A simple, online editor for Tarsia puzzles.

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A reflection on modern languages pedagogy and how teachers might engage with research

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A reflection on modern languages pedagogy and how teachers might engage with research

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A reflection on modern languages pedagogy and how teachers might engage with research

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The context of modern languages teaching

It is easy to argue that modern language teaching in English-speaking countries is in crisis. In England, the supply of advanced-level linguists has dwindled rapidly since the 1990s, university language departments have closed and less than half of all secondary students take a language at GCSE (Tinsley and Doležal, 2018). It is in this context that in 2016, the Teaching Schools Council (TSC) published the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Pedagogy Review, which put forward a range of recommendations for improving languages provision and teaching. The review raises not only a number of important methodological issues for language teachers, but also general questions about why all teachers should engage critically with research.

What is the TSC

The TSC is a national body made up of 20 members whose aim is to lead and help shape the work of over 800 Teaching Schools (those that have been nationally recognised for their capacity to support and help other schools to improve outcomes).

In the case of the MFL Review, head teacher and linguist Ian Baulkham led an advisory group, which included the Vice Chair of the TSC along with five specialists from the MFL field, including two university academics, one a specialist in applied linguistics.

The advisory group took evidence and opinion from a range of sources: written evidence from stakeholder organisations, school visits, interviews with teachers from 33 schools and a literature review.

What did the TSC recommend?

Whilst the review does not prescribe a 'best way' to teach languages in all circumstances, it does put forward a number of recommendations, which include the following:

Students need to acquire systematic knowledge and do planned practice of the vocabulary, grammar and phonics of the language being studied

Content should be stimulating and widen students' knowledge of the culture, history and literature of the new language, without compromising the sequencing of vocabulary and grammar

Textbooks should be chosen on the basis of how they support a planned approach

Students should do translation and read short texts and literature

The four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing should be taught together.

Many of these recommendations are to be welcomed. I would pick out, for example, the priority given to careful planning of vocabulary instruction - in particular, verbs; the advice on giving explicit but succinct accounts of grammar; the support for judicious use of technology; the importance of presenting grammatical structures in listening and reading input; the value of practising new structures in both tightly controlled exercises and free writing; specific advice on how much grammar to cover in a year; and the value of early teaching of sound-spelling correspondences to develop accurate pronunciation and 'phonological memory' of words. In addition, the encouragement to make use of appropriate, adapted, authentic resources to supplement a textbook is important.

What does this mean for the classroom?

With regard to listening and reading resources, the review states that they '... should contain a critical proportion of language which has been taught and can be used and understood by pupils' (TSC, 2016). This recommendation is supported by research that suggests that as much as 98% of the vocabulary of a reading or listening text should already be known to students for it to be comprehended (Nation, 2013).

Pair and group work are encouraged as long as the focus is on genuine (structured) communication, such as in 'information-gap' tasks and where there is some need to manipulate language rather than just recall rehearsed chunks of language. This is supported by research indicating that authentic interaction is a necessary prerequisite for acquisition (Long and Doughty, 2009).

Limitations of the TSC Review

Having summarised these positive points, let me point out some limitations of the TSC Review.

The TSC Review's evidence relies relatively more on teachers' and consultants' views than a full range of research evidence. As such, it should be read with a degree of caution. The TSC limited their literature review to studies specifically involving the teaching of students learning languages in England, which yielded just 26 studies of relevance. A broader review of language teaching, carried out by Ellis (Ellis, 2005) for the New Zealand Ministry of Education, a parallel context to the UK, examined a number of pedagogic approaches and general theories that can be applied to second language teaching, but was not based on observations of lessons or discussions with teachers.

Although there is a great deal of overlap between the reports, the Ellis review has a slightly different emphasis, focusing rather more on interaction and communicating meanings. Among his 10 principles for instruction are:

Instruction needs to take into account the learner's 'built-in syllabus'

The opportunity to interact in the new language is central to developing proficiency

Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning

Instruction needs to take into account individual differences in learners.

By referring to a 'built-in syllabus', Ellis means that when students learn a second language, they tend to master certain aspects of grammar in a 'natural order', which is at least partly at odds with the sequence in which structures are presented and practised by the teacher (Krashen, 1982) (Zobl, 1995). Although we can get students to explain rules and perform exercises accurately, they frequently fail to use these rules in unrehearsed speech or writing. For the lay person and many a teacher, it seems counterintuitive that students do not acquire what we teach, but this research relating to the order in which aspects of grammar are acquired should not be overlooked. It seems that learners become 'ready' to use points of grammar in their own time after receiving a certain amount of linguistic input.

Debates on second language acquisition

In the research literature over the years, there has been tension between two views of how languages are learned. Firstly, there are those who prioritise implicit learning, i.e. picking up the language through exposure to meaningful messages (VanPatten, 2014). Proponents of this approach argue that languages are learned by focusing almost totally on meaning, and not the grammar of the language.

The second perspective tends to see language learning as analogous to the learning of any complex skill (Anderson, 1982); (Leow, 2015). It uses constructs such as automaticity and working/long-term memory, arguing that, as the TSC Review puts it, '... through regular, meaningful practice, learning becomes stored in long-term memory (sometimes known as procedural memory) and can be accessed without conscious thought' (TSC, 2016, p. 8). In its emphasis on sequenced grammar teaching reinforced by translation, the TSC Review is more clearly in this second camp. In this respect, some scholars would argue that it is out of line with what many studies tell us about second language acquisition. Even Leow (Leow, 2015), a supporter of explicit learning, states, 'Whether the role of consciousness/awareness is crucial for further processing to take place, and ultimately for learning, has been and will remain a contentious issue.' (p. 58)

What should teachers take from this?

Firstly, research into second language learning provides relatively nebulous overall guidance about how to teach a language, even if it can offer very useful pointers on specific aspects. As the TSC Review says, there is no 'best way' that can be recommended for the classroom. But without some knowledge of the full range of research, teachers cannot critically evaluate the recommendations they are presented with. Second language acquisition is a highly complex process and research is only several decades old. As Lightbown and Spada (Lightbown and Spada, 2011) have written (p.180):

Classroom-based research on second language learning and teaching has given us partial answers to many questions. Through continuing research and experience, researchers and teachers will fill in more details, always recognising that no single answer will be adequate for all learning environments.

References

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A reflection on modern languages pedagogy and how teachers might engage with research

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The context of modern languages teaching It is easy to argue that modern language teaching in English-speaking countries is in crisis. In England, the supply of advanced-level linguists has dwindled rapidly since the 1990s, university language departments have closed and less than half of all secondary students take a language at GCSE (Tinsley and Doležal, [...]

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The DfE proposal for changing GCSE in French, German and Spanish: further information 2022: Official summary of all the responses The British Academy's response ALL response Comment in...

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A Summary of OFSTED's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders

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Summary of OFSTED's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders by Marc Hayes

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Summary of OFSTED's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders by Marc Hayes

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The language report shares findings about effective curriculum design, factors which affect language learning, and the pedagogy which supports effective teaching and learning. It centres on the three pillars of progression: phonics, vocabulary and grammar. The report provides insights into the status of languages in schools and which curriculum decisions leaders need to consider, as well as providing suggestions for effective teaching and assessment. The role of working memory constraints has significant implications for language learning, which leaders and teachers need to take into account. Explicit instruction is suggested as a very effective teaching approach, so long as it is based on a curriculum which has been carefully considered and sequenced.

You can download the original report from Ofsted's . The summary below is my own interpretation of Ofsted's summary and whilst I hope I have done it justice, I am happy to be corrected if I have misinterpreted any of the findings.

Languages are an integral part of the curriculum as they open the mind to other cultures, build cultural capital and liberate from insularity.

The building blocks of a language system are sounds, words and rules - phonics, vocabulary and grammar.

Progress means to know more and remember more.

Curriculums need to plan for progress by carefully considering what the building blocks and and how to sequence them in the subject.

Working memory limitations means that overloading learners with content will negatively affect the quality of learning: less can be more.

Distributed practice (practising rehearsal of knowledge in short chunks regularly and often) is more effective than massed practice (doing lots of rehearsal in one go).

Retrieval practice supports long-term memory development.

Explicit teaching works best with novice learners.

A curriculum should have a clear, logic plan for progression in phonics - including teaching around differences between the target language and English.

There needs to be planned practice and review of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (sound-letter connections)

The curriculum should be planned to show how small differences in sounds can affect meaning

Beginner learners are slower at recognising and producing small components of language such as sounds and words.

Over time, knowledge becomes more accessible and more automatic.

Once learners have become automatic in some basic knowledge, they are able to carry out higher order tasks such as drawing inferences, noticing nuance, and increasing the amount of language they can understand and produce.

Within the context of the UK and the languages curriculum specifications, it is likely that only a few linguists at GCSE and slightly more at A-level would be working at an 'expert' level: the vast majority of UK learners will be learning the building blocks of the language.

Novice learners need to decode what they hear or read. Decoding can be slow, effortful and error-prone in the initial stages. Pupils can sometimes draw on their first language, but this is not always helpful, reliable or efficient and can lead to guesswork.

Over time and with practice, knowledge of phonics, grammar and vocabulary becomes automatic and pupils can access this knowledge more accurately and effortlessly. This enables pupils to understand longer texts and spoken discourse, allowing them to access a wider range of meanings.

The more automatic language becomes, the more able pupils are to build knowledge and make inferences, as they are able to consider how the content links with their background knowledge.

There are clearly different demands between listening and reading.

Listening requires decoding sounds at speed, keeping information in working memory (unless the content can be repeated) and can sometimes include following different speakers with different voices and (potentially) points of view.

The differences between listening and reading should be taken into account when planning the curriculum and deciding on tasks and activities. The difficulties and challenge of tasks should be taken into account and sufficient time for practice should be allocated.

Novice learners' language production - whether this is the sounds or letters - is slower, shorter and more likely to contain errors.

Again, learners become faster and more accurate with sufficient time and practice.

The automaticity that time and practice leads to builds pupils' capacity to pay attention to other aspects of speaking and writing, allowing them to develop an idea and engage in discussion.

As pupils' language production becomes more accurate and automatic, they are more able to use language across a range of contexts and in expressing increasingly sophisticated ideas.

Speaking and writing create different demands on a learner. Speaking requires pupils to be aware of the ongoing discourse between speakers and integrate new information into the conversation. This is reliant on listening competency. Speaking has a time pressure associated with it, making it different to writing with which learners can typically have more time to think about content and how to express it.

This section has been informed by research relevant to language pedagogy and cognitive science.

Second languages can be learned both explicitly and implicitly: learning can be 'intentional' or 'incidental'.

Pupils' ability to learn implicitly is affected by how analytical and engaged they are, and how strong their working memory is, giving them an advantage over how much they can attend to.

Intention learning is likely to be more efficient for most learners - "explicit teaching works best with novice learners".

This is a much-debated issue.

There is a fine balance between adequate exposure to a language without overwhelming and demotivating learners.

Using the target language should not act as a hindrance to learning e.g. explaining a grammatical concept in the target language can make it more difficult to understand.

Use of the target language is, however, essential for practice and reinforcement. This needs careful planning.

Teachers should use the target language where it supports and complements the scheme of work and builds systematically on pupils' prior knowledge. Its effectiveness is really all in the planning.

Teachers' use of the target language can be altered in line with learners' progress: the more familiar the learners are with the language, the more able it is to be used beneficially and effectively.

The focus of target language use should be on that of the learners. There is strong evidence that pupils' use of the target language correlates with their learning.

Pupils need both the competence and the motivation to create meaning in the target language. Classroom climates should support this and it should be remembered that spontaneous use is often less fluent, fast and accurate than rehearsed responses.

It is important to test exactly what is being looked for. It is also important to avoid situations where pupils can used previously learned learning to answer a question rather than having to engage with the grammar itself. For example, 'yesterday' next to a verb can be the indicator that a sentence is in the past tense, rather than the verb form.

It is important to check pupils' grammatical understanding in all four modes of communication: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Crucially, grammatical assessments must be aligned to clearly structured and sequenced learning progressions.

As learners become more proficient, assessments should be based across sentences, paragraphs and entire texts, and include language production that is more complex and longer, with less scaffolding.

How school leaders prioritise languages is a defining factor to the success of a curriculum in how it is planned and delivered.

Schools need to consider the following factors which can affect the success of the curriculum:

the level of staff expertise

leaders' understanding of progression - more than just the different topics the children will learn

assessment and quality of transition to secondary school.

There can be subtle unconscious bias towards languages, such as taking last place in CPD programmes.

A major challenge for most primary schools is sufficient curriculum time.

There is a significant issue for primary-secondary transition. Many schools do not have conversations about prior learning and attainment. The Language Trends report found that it is very common that language learning in KS3 starts from scratch.

Poor transition is likely to be the most significant factor in pupils not seeing the benefit of learning a language at primary school.

There is significant disapplication from languages: only 68% of schools which responded to the Language Trends survey said that all Y7s access a language.

Teachers' expertise, teacher supply and CPD are integral to facing the challenges that schools face for teaching languages.

It is crucial to improve teachers' proficiency and their expertise and confidence.

Most primary teachers have not accessed language-specific CPD in the last year.

If you'd like to support the work I do on this blog, please click the link below.

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A Summary of Ofsted's Languages Research Report for Teachers and Leaders

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A summary of the Ofsted Languages Research Report to support teachers and leaders with MFL and Ancient Languages curriculum design.

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Do proposed adjustments to grading in GCSE languages go far enough? - FFT Education Datalab

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Do proposed adjustments to grading in GCSE languages go far enough?

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Do proposed adjustments to grading in GCSE languages go far enough?

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Do proposed adjustments to grading in GCSE languages go far enough? - FFT Education Datalab

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Our take on Ofqual’s plan to adjust grading standards in French and German

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The 6 benefits of retrieval practice - a visual guide - kirschner-ED

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The 6 benefits of retrieval practice – a visual guide @kirschner

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The 6 benefits of retrieval practice – a visual guide @kirschner

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The 6 benefits of retrieval practice - a visual guide - kirschner-ED

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This is a reblog of a piece from Inner Drive on retrieval practice.

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Motivation in the classroom by evidence based.education 

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Motivation in the classroom by evidence based.education 

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For much of the ten years I spent as a classroom teacher, I thought that motivation came in only two flavours: extrinsic and intrinsic. I saw a binary distinction between them. Extrinsic motivation (the 'bad' flavour, in my mind) was all about compliance, sanctions, and rewards handed out by others; meanwhile intrinsic motivation (the supposed 'good' one) seemed like some kind of utopia. It seemed to be a rosy world in which my students and I would be ready for whatever challenge came our way, driven by pure interest, enjoyment, and sense of deep satisfaction in everything that we did.

Or so I thought...

Years later my wonderful colleague, Rob Coe, introduced me to self-determination theory (as part of our work on the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review). As a result, everything about my understanding of motivation changed (a somewhat regular occurrence that comes with working with Rob!).

Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2008) distinguishes between two kinds of motivation. The first is autonomous motivation, wherein an individual has a sense of volition or control-which may stem from intrinsic or extrinsic factors. The second is controlled motivation, in which an individual feels pressure (either through explicit rewards or punishment, or through internal feelings like guilt or shame) to think or behave in particular ways.

Now, as a teacher who wanted their students to enjoy my subject, I'd always thought of extrinsic motivation as somehow negative. I had interpreted Ryan and Deci's description of it as "behaviours done for reasons other than their inherent enjoyment" (for example, for a reward, or to meet a pressing deadline; Ryan & Deci, 2020) in a rather reductive way.

Indeed, when seen through the lens of self-determination theory, the monolith that I thought of as extrinsic motivation might instead be further divided into more specific, tractable concepts.

External regulation: behaviours are the result of rewards and punishments that are externally imposed. (I'm motivated to drive under the speed limit because I know there are harsh punishments for exceeding it.)

Introjected regulation: the partial internalisation of extrinsic motivation. (I'm motivated to go to the gym first thing in the morning-not because I want to, but because I don't want my gym buddies to judge me for skipping.)

Identified regulation: seeing real value in a particular activity. (I'm motivated to attend a committee meeting for a voluntary organisation because I think it leads to a good outcome.)

Integrated regulation: identifying with the value of an activity or task, and feeling that it aligns with interests or values. (I'm motivated to help with a mountain rescue on a rainy morning because I love the outdoors and enjoy helping others.)

As I thought more about extrinsic motivation in these four ways as part of my work for EBE's Behaviour and Culture Programme (more information can be found here), the practical implications of these forms of regulation played out in my mind. In schools and colleges, a key aim of most teachers and leaders is to help students develop autonomous motivation and become self-actualised learners who plan, monitor, and regulate their own learning.

So, what does the evidence say on the matter of using extrinsic motivation to encourage and develop this ideal of autonomous motivation?

Three ways to promote autonomous motivation

Autonomous motivation (characterised by a feeling of volition) is promoted when individuals feel that three basic needs are met: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Autonomy refers to an individual feeling that they choose their behaviour and that it is aligned with their values and interests. For example, an interesting experiment published in 2010 compared the effects of two different approaches to homework. During one unit of work, some high school students were given two options for the homework tasks they were to undertake; the other students were given no choice. In these experimental conditions, providing students with a choice had a positive effect on their feelings of intrinsic motivation to do homework and on a sense of competence about the homework, as well as on subsequent test performance (Patall et al., 2010). Anyone who has looked after children may recognise this strategy of asking which vegetable a child would like may be more successful than asking whether the child would like vegetables or not...

Competence means feeling capable of producing desired outcomes and avoiding undesirable ones. Much has been written about using 'desirably difficult' (Bjork & Bjork, 2020) tasks that help students feel a sense of accomplishment. A desirably difficult task is one that is sufficiently challenging for a student at their current state of knowledge, understanding, or skill. It may be different for every individual-for instance, a desirably difficult challenge for a poorly organised student might be to get to class on time with the correct equipment. As such, if a teacher wants to support students' feelings of competence using this approach, ensuring that tasks are 'pitched' at the appropriate 'challenge point' is paramount.

Relatedness means feeling connected with, and mutually supported by, other people. Such relatedness can emerge when students feel that their teachers genuinely like them, respect them and value them as individuals (Bao & Lam, 2008; Niemiec & Ryan, 2009); simply taking steps to get to know students as individuals, or to help them know and connect with others (peers or teammates, for example), can be powerful.

Clearly, there is neither a single nor simple recipe for supporting students to develop such feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. But any teacher who wishes to help improve their students' extrinsic motivation can do well simply by using these as a starting point for consideration. The evidence shows these three factors are linked to increasing students' motivation-which can itself be a powerful (and positive!) thing. As we might expect, students who are motivated to study, learn, engage, and succeed are more likely to do so (Coe et al., 2020); we shouldn't shy away from the idea of extrinsic motivation (as I did all those years ago!), but see the value in it and feel empowered to use it to support students.

References

Bao, X., & Lam, S. (2008). Who makes the choice? Rethinking the role of autonomy and relatedness in Chinese children's motivation. Child Development, 79(2), 269-283.

Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2020). Desirable difficulties in theory and practice. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(4), 475-479.

Coe, R., Rauch, C.J., Kime, S., & Singleton, D. (2020). The Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review. https://evidencebased.education/great-teaching-toolkit/

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology, 49(3), 182-185. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012801

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, 101860. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CEDPSYCH.2020.101860

Niemiec, C. P., & Ryan, R. M. (2009). Autonomy, competence, and relatedness in the classroom: Applying self-determination theory to educational practice. Theory and Research in Education, 7(2), 133-144.

Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Wynn, S. R. (2010). The effectiveness and relative importance of choice in the classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(4), 896.

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In this blog, we provide considerations and tools for teachers seeking to improve their students' motivation.

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Subject Content French German Spanish 2022 compared with 2021 proposal

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Mfl gcse new subject content by Helen Myers

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Mfl gcse new subject content by Helen Myers

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Link to post+download of my comparison of proposed + final GCSE subject content for French German + Spanish published by the DfE 14/01/22. To follow: (1) SSC + grammar comparison (2) 2015 + 2022 comparison. Hope this helps.

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French German and Spanish GCSE subject content January 2022

Necessary, as no changes to other MFL e.g. Italian. I will not comment on this change in the rest of the document

The original reference to course preparation (systematic, well-sequenced, practice) has been omitted. This is correct because the proposal had gone beyond DfE remit which should only be describing content to be examined. Fresh text in final content signalling at early stage the 2 main features of the Jan 2022 which distinguish it from the 2015: 1. 2. Content is defined and ALL content is to be used productively (i.e. no receptive-only content).key focus of subject content on high frequency vocabulary (but note, 'not exclusively')

Added 'independently' reinstating word used in SC 2015 [Point 3, BP 4]build confidence: reinstating word used in SC 2015 [3 BP1) - NC PoS aim relationships between FL + En HEM: I am uncertain of provenance, but seems a helpful addition!

Now there is option ['may'] to group content into themes (examples given - but not prescribed).
HEM: Note that examples do not include reference to a context of personal + social relevance (which could include for example needing to ask where the toilet is). So apparently not wishing to make the concession that students would be motivated by learning language of immediate relevance to them and their lives. [BUT I have to note that teachers complaining about 'boring topics' have not helped when trying to make this argument. Beware of what you wish for ...!]Acknowledgment of need for language which is 'not exclusively' determined by frequency [HEM: But still worded to imply it is the HF which will unlock, whereas we know that it is the basic core vocab which unlocks meaning [ref: Jim Milton beer/omelette example.. can you mime an omelette? ]

a Learn and use the range of vocabulary required for the level at which they are studying. The parameters for specifying the vocabulary to be learnt are set out in paragraphs 13-21 of this document.

c. Learn and apply the principles by which spelling represents sounds in standard or widely used forms of the language, and use clear and comprehensible pronunciation when speaking the language.

'Different' not 'new'HEM: ... presumably because the focus is on breadth of situation rather than novelty of situation.

a. understand written texts in the language. Texts will comprise defined vocabulary and grammar for each tier and will be of limited complexity at foundation tier.

a. understand written texts in the language. Texts will predominantly focus on the defined vocabulary and grammar for each tier and will be of limited complexity at foundation tier.

b. understand spoken extracts comprising the defined vocabulary and grammar for each tier which are delivered at a pace which is no faster than a moderate pace, where each word is clearly discernible, and which do not contain extraneous distractions or interruptions;

[listening]Acknowledges nature of the French language where words liaise. Original proposal impossible. Note: inferring / deducing meaning NOT reintroduced from SC 2015, unlike reading - see below.

undertake dictation exercises from short spoken extracts, with credit for accurate spelling.

[phonetics]HEM: Attempt to make exercise a more valid test of phonics, but will not be reliable as some pupils may know words already. Perversely, the only way to test reliably would be to dictate made-up words.....!!

Re-introducing requirement to infer - but only in reading: SC 2015 Reading BP 4 [deduce meaning] Leads to a more realistic authentic task, and allows for exam bodies to introduce words beyond the list - as SC 2015.

g. speak using clear and comprehensible language to:

[speaking] - added text: clearer signalling of the skill of speaking, giving context for the tasks HEM: NB it is not in the remit of DfE to specify how things are tested - this is presumably a way around this ...

Removal of qualitative element (nature of pronunciation -[presumably allowing positive marking for less than 100%)Change to task related to the reading aloud

· Previously would have required Q/A in English (to be consistent with requirement for comprehension questions to be in English)

· Introduces unprepared dialogue in form of conversation (previously missing )

Allows for more than one role play

Re-introduces explicit requirement to ask questions [SC 2015 speaking / BP2 "take part in a short conversation, asking and answering questions,"]
Allows for questions to be unscripted BUT ensures no penalty for not understanding question by requirement to give unambiguous instructions about what to say (HEM: fairer test - not penalised for listening skill)

iii. talk about one or more visual stimulus/stimuli, such as (connected) photographs or pictures, and extend this conversation into a short unprepared interaction.

Allows for more than one picture

Re-introduces requirement for unprepared interaction (SC 2015 speaking BP4 ' responding to unexpected questions,'

Pupils should have suitable specified preparation time for each of the above components without access to reference materials. For spoken and written production, the expected language will be from the defined content (vocabulary, grammar, and sounds) for each tier, with equal credit given for language used that is beyond the defined content but that fulfils the task requirements.

Pupils not students - probably a mistake. Added "suitable specified"HEM: perhaps to ensure requirement for exam conditions? Explicit requirement covering speaking + writing that content required will not require language beyond the spec. Allows credit for language beyond the word list. HEM: This allows validation of language learnt beyond the strict confines of the word list - perhaps even giving scope for students to talk about what matters to them in a productive task?

High frequency no longer described as 'well suited to communication about themes', but changed to 'will enable access to themes'. HEM: This is a fundamental acknowledgement and logically should lead to allowing for access to a broader range of words - but very little concession made in practice, sadly. Allows for words which are not high frequency. Repeats aims(para 6) in describing themes. HEM: Note, although personal + social not listed as an example theme, I would very much hope that they are included by the exam boards.

Vocabulary

Composition of vocabulary content

Changed. Describes what follows - not the vocabulary itself, but how it is to be selected.

13.Students will be expected to know 1200 lexical items for foundation tier, and a further 500 lexical items for higher tier. Because no vocabulary is specified for KS2 or KS3, the vocabulary list proposed for GCSE must be comprehensive and should make no specific assumptions about vocabulary previously taught

regularly inflected - presumably for listening and reading since only the derived seems to be for reading only?

derived - necessary change to accommodate content para 9f: f. infer, by using knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar specified for each tier, plausible meanings of single words from outside the Vocabulary List when they are embedded in the context of written sentences.

14. Vocabulary lists must include, as part of the 1,200 or 1,700 items, the words listed at Annex E. These are the words which are referenced in the grammar annex for each language and so need to be included. They include irregular forms of high frequency verbs and other parts of speech.

Requirements for listing and counting words now included in a helpful detailed appendix for each language. French Foundation: 278 French Higher:329 French Foundation optional: 310 French Higher optional: 282 German Foundation: 268 German Higher:304 German Foundation optional: 139 German Higher optional: 288 Spanish Foundation: 264 Spanish Higher: 334 Spanish Foundation optional: 85 Spanish Higher optional: 85 HEM: Note the difference in numbers between different languages. What are the practical consequences of this?

[18.The vast majority of lexical items listed as vocabulary will be single word vocabulary items (with their grammatical gender where appropriate), with the following exceptions: ]

15.In addition to the 1,200 and 1,700 items, the Vocabulary Lists can contain:

b. Up to 20 short phrases that are multi-word units in both the target language and English, usually consisting of no more than five identifiable words in the target language, may be included in the total count of the vocabulary items across both tiers (e.g., il y a' for there is/are').

Increase of multi-word units permitted. Removal of requirement for both TL and English to be multiword, hence example where French is multiword (if you please) and English is one word (please)

Increase of multi-word units permitted - 20, constrained to cultural aspects.

HEM: This is necessary to accommodate focus on culture where core words will not be high frequency and are likely to be in phrases (e.g. L'Arc de Triomphe, La Tour Eiffel - La Côte d'Ivoire? )

19.At higher tier students are expected to read texts that may include a small number of words outside the vocabulary list defined by the awarding organisation. English meanings of such words must be supplied adjacent to the text for reference. No more than 2% of words in any given higher tier text may be glossed in this way.

Foundation paper can also include words not on the list (which must be glossed).NB

· if fewer than 25 words in a text, no words can be glossed (because 1 word out of 25, rounded, is more than 2%)

· this requirement still makes it unlikely to be able to include authentic texts.
[HEM: Does this contradict the requirement to test inference in reading?]

Definition of cognate given. Only one letter can differ. HEM: I wonder where this definition comes from? It will vary from one language to another.)

14.The vocabulary which students will be expected to know, for both comprehension and production, will be compiled with close and explicit reference for each item on the list to frequency of occurrence in the language. This information about frequency will be taken from a recommended source based on data from one or more large, modern corpus/corpora.

18.The vocabulary which students will be expected to know, for both comprehension and production, will be compiled with close and explicit reference for each item on the list to frequency of occurrence in the language. This information about frequency will be taken from a source based on data from one or more large, modern corpus/corpora. [3]

These corpora must contain 20 million words or more; be internationally recognised; and should be based on both spoken and written language taken from a wide range of different contexts [2].

When compiling word lists, the information provided in paragraph 18 should be taken into account.

15.At least 90% of words selected must be from the 2,000 most frequent words occurring in the most widely used standard forms of the language. In some cases, more than one spelling is in common use, including where recent spelling reforms have taken place. In such cases, tolerance should be shown for both versions of the spelling.3

HEM: Minor concession to the outcry over the narrow restriction of word selection (Some asking for a 50%, exam boards in the consultation asking for 80%)Would it really have cost them so much to accede to a request for 80% ?

20.The vast majority of lexical items listed as vocabulary will be single word vocabulary items

a. Where a compound word or phrase translates a single English word, it should be counted as a lexical item in the vocabulary list (e.g., for French 's'il vous plaît' for 'please' will be listed as a single item, 'le petit déjeuner' for 'breakfast' will be listed separately from 'petit' and 'le déjeuner'). Note, however, that where a compound word or phrase translates a compound English word and can easily be understood from its components, and where the components are already included in

the list, there is no need to include such a compound as well (e.g., German Sommerferien' for 'summer holidays').

Different examples given.

Sound-symbol correspondences (core literacy)

Students will be required to demonstrate both receptive and productive knowledge of the grammar from the list

1 Inflectional morphemes carry grammatical meaning without changing the word's part of speech. For example, the plural -s in cats, the comparative -er in taller, the past -ed in changed, the 3rd person singular -s in walks.

Derivational morphemes change the meaning and function (and often the part of speech). For example, happy à happiness.

5 Inflectional morphemes carry grammatical meaning without changing the word's part of speech. For example, the plural -s in 'cats', the comparative -er in 'taller', the past -ed in 'changed', the 3rd person singular -s in 'walks'.

Derivational morphemes change the meaning and function (and often the part of speech). For example, 'happy' → 'happiness'.

For some grammatical features in the lists below, items are given that fall on the borderline between being categorised as 'grammar' or 'lexicon' - in all such cases, these items must also be listed in the Vocabulary List. The Vocabulary List must also specify frequent highly irregular forms, within a grammatical subsystem (i.e., subparts of paradigms where only some forms are irregular). This is because such forms are likely to be learnt and retrieved as individual items rather than as part of a broader grammatical system. Listing them in the Vocabulary List, therefore, reflects the pedagogical attention required for these highly irregular forms.

Note that the English equivalents of some of the grammar are given. This is relevant when testing students' ability to work from English to the target language (e.g., in translation tasks).

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Subject Content French German Spanish 2022 compared with 2021 proposal

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French German and Spanish GCSE subject content January 2022 Necessary, as no changes to other MFL e.g. Italian. I will not comment on this change in the rest of the document The original reference to course preparation (systematic, well-sequenced, practice) has been omitted.

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Modern foreign languages - British Dyslexia Association

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Dyslexia specialists generally agree that dyslexic children should be given the opportunity to learn a foreign language

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Dyslexia specialists generally agree that dyslexic children should be given the opportunity to learn a foreign language

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Dyslexia specialists generally agree that dyslexic children should be given the opportunity to learn a foreign language. Many dyslexic children will enjoy the multi-sensory methods of language teaching which involve role play, games, singing and other group activities. Learning a foreign language broadens pupils' horizons as their awareness of other cultures develops.

It may take longer for dyslexic learners to learn a foreign language and they may experience similar difficulties as they did when learning to read and write in English. They may also experience difficulties in areas such as speed of information processing, word retrieval and short term memory.

Choosing a language

Some languages may be more problematic for dyslexic learners. Languages such as French and English are less transparent than other languages. This means that the sounds of the language don't match clearly to letter combinations and there are more irregularities in pronunciation and spelling.

Spanish, Italian and German, on the other hand, are much more transparent languages with clear letter-sound correspondence. This makes reading and spelling easier. German has the additional advantage of having a sound system that is very close to English and the two languages share a large number of words. However, dyslexic learners may struggle with other aspects of German such as cases, gender of nouns, multiple consonant combinations, long multisyllabic words and unfamiliar word order.

Does a dyslexic child have to learn a foreign language?

Even though learning a foreign language is part of the National Curriculum, it is possible to 'disapply' where a pupil has significant dyslexic difficulties and is struggling with their own language. This means that the student does not have to take classes or exams in that subject.

Strategies to help learning a foreign language

The following strategies may help with learning a foreign language:

Get to know the sounds of the language - download some recordings from Forvo.com (a free audio database of language). Listen to the sounds and practise saying them. Practice listening to and saying pairs of words where only one sound is different.

Use flash cards to help memorise vocabulary. Add pictures, colour and draw shapes around words to associate a word with a visual image or colour.

Use colour to code grammar, e.g. different colours to distinguish between masculine and feminine nouns or to represent different parts of speech.

To help with remembering word order, put the words onto card, cut up the card into separate phrases, mix them up and practise putting them back together again.

Use multi-sensory learning in order to remember vocabulary: reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Use Quizlet to memorise words and phrases.

To improve pronunciation record sentences. You can edit it and re-record as many times as you like.

Make videos or create animations in the foreign language.

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Modern foreign languages - British Dyslexia Association

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Dyslexia specialists generally agree that dyslexic children should be given the opportunity to learn a foreign language. Many dyslexic children will enjoy the multi-sensory methods of language teaching which involve role play, games, singing and other group activities. Learning a foreign language broadens pupils' horizons as their awareness of other cultures develops.

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GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCEMENT – MFL GCSES by NCELP

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GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCEMENT – MFL GCSES by NCELP

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Today the government Department for Education (DfE) has announced changes to the MFL GCSEs of French, German and Spanish to align the subject content more closely with the recommendations of the Teaching Schools Council's 2016 MFL Pedagogy Review. These are probably the most substantial changes to the GCSE in French, German and Spanish since the GCSE was introduced in 1998. Children who are currently in year 7 will take the new exams. The first cohort of year 10 students will start to study for these GCSEs in 2024 and take the exam in 2026.

Prof. Emma Marsden (University of York, Director of NCELP) and Dr Rachel Hawkes (Co-director of NCELP, CamTrust schools) contributed substantially to the MFL Pedagogy Review and the GCSE review panel. The work of the NCELP team has provided research expertise and meticulous evidence to inform some of the changes to the GCSE. Emma and Rachel have worked with colleagues at NCELP, the GCSE review panel, the DfE, Ofqual, and the Awarding Organisations, to scope out the detail of the new content.

NCELP was established in 2018 to take forward the recommendations of the 2016 MFL Pedagogy Review and ensure they are achievable and effective in schools. The MFL pilot project aims to improve language curriculum design and pedagogy, leading to a higher take up and greater success at GCSE.

NCELP has provided training to the awarding organisations (AQA, Edexcel, WJEC) to help them to prepare for the changes, and will continue to offer support wherever possible to help support the rollout of the GCSE. Furthermore, NCELP offers CPD designed for those new to NCELP approaches, and those who want to develop their understanding further (for example teachers who have already adopted NCELP Schemes of Work). Researchers at NCELP have provided detailed analyses of the current GCSEs and A Levels, demonstrating that these proposed changes are much needed and feasible. The new word lists should provide better preparation for both GCSEs and A level exam papers.

The 2016 Review said students needed to "gain systematic knowledge of the vocabulary, grammar, and sound and spelling systems (phonics) of their new language, and how these are used by speakers of the language. They need to reinforce this knowledge with extensive planned practice and use in order to build the skills needed for communication." The review made 15 recommendations for schools and teachers, for initial teacher training and for Ofqual and the examination boards.*

An expert panel, commissioned by the DfE in 2019, which included Professor Emma Marsden and Dr Rachel Hawkes, reviewed the subject content of the MFL GCSEs with the aim of making "languages more accessible at GCSE and encouraging more students to study a foreign language at A level and undergraduate level". Approximately 1/4 million children take a GCSE in these subjects every year - and the aim is to increase this number.

The revised subject content was published together with a consultation on the changes in March 2021. Ofqual also consulted on new assessment arrangements for the three GCSEs to reflect the revised content.

The Government announcement today means that for the first time, a vocabulary list will be provided for the GCSE - meaning that teachers, pupils, and textbook writers will know what can be tested. Only a small amount of vocabulary on the exams will be 'off the list' - to test inferencing skills. This will make a better connection between what is taught and what can be tested. With these changes, the choice of vocabulary will be informed by its in the language - many of the words (85%) have to be the most generally useful words. This has been made possible by a tool created by NCELP at the University of York https://www.multilingprofiler.net/ - the first tool of its kind to allow people to know which words in a text are the most frequent, in French, German, and Spanish.

This tool draws on data from vast corpora of millions of spoken and written words - about what the most frequent words are in the language, to inform our teaching and assessments. This evidence about frequency must be combined with teachers' knowledge about what kinds of words are likely to be of interest to young teenagers (the changes stipulate that 15% of the words on the GCSE list can be less frequent words, but words that are likely to be specifically useful or of interest to young teenagers)

The changes have defined the grammar content much more carefully, taking on board evidence about what is most likely to be learnable at this stage of learning. Much of the previous vague and overly complex grammar has been stripped out. In actual fact, it was rarely if ever actually tested in the exams (NCELP analyses have shown), and so again there was a mismatch between what teachers thought could be tested and what was actually assessed.

To encourage teachers to make sure that learners can read unfamiliar words and spell words that they hear, the new GCSE now contains a list of phonics (sound-spelling relations) that can be tested, and dictation and reading aloud (with comprehension) will be assessed, as well ascomprehension, speaking and writing, as before.

The rationales for studying a language remain the same - to communicate meaning and interact, to become familiar with the countries, communities, and cultures which use the language, to gain an interest in learning languages to prepare for future study. What has changed in this revised content is that the language content is more clearly defined to help teachers and students know what the goal posts are. This will include a list of vocabulary (that is informed by research into the usefulness - frequency - of the words in the language) and a reduced but much more precise content relating to grammar and sounds of the language. The vast majority of 16 year olds usually only have about 450 hours of lessons before they take their GCSE. Over the last couple of years we have worked with the subject content review panel, the DfE, Ofqual, and the Awarding Organisations, to inform discussions about the amount of content that is realistic to expect for these learners, Professor Marsden

In June 2021 Ofsted published a review of research into FL curriculum, which also aligns with many aspects of the revised Subject Content (2021) and the MFL Pedagogy Review (2016).
How NCELP can support the revised GCSE subject content

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Today the government Department for Education (DfE) has announced changes to the MFL GCSEs of French, German and Spanish to align the subject content more closely with the recommendations of the Teaching Schools Council's 2016 MFL Pedagogy Review. These are probably the most substantial changes to the GCSE in French, German and Spanish since the GCSE was introduced in 1998.

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It’s coming home!: the new MFL GCSE Proposal, let’s be positive!

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It's coming home!: the new MFL GCSE Proposal, let's be positive! @BotonesSalgado

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It's coming home!: the new MFL GCSE Proposal, let's be positive! @BotonesSalgado

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It’s coming home!: the new MFL GCSE Proposal, let’s be positive!

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Yesterday, the DfE published the outcome to the consultation for the revised GCSE Qualification for MFL. It can be found here. I wrote my ...

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GCSE French German Spanish subject content

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The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

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The 2026 GCSE subject content is published! Steve Smith’s blog

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The 2026 GCSE subject content is published! Steve Smith’s blog

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The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

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Two DfE documents were published today. The first was the response to the consultation about the proposed new GCSE (originally due in October 2021) and the second is the subject content document which, ultimately, is of most interest to MFL teachers in England. Here is the link to the document.

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The DfE/Ofqual consultation on revised GCSE qualifications in Modern Foreign Languages – a view from linguistics

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The DfE/Ofqual consultation on revised GCSE qualifications in Modern Foreign Languages – a view from linguistics

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Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS). A flagship project to revitalize Modern Languages and shape UK language policy by showing how multilingualism can empower individuals and transform societies.

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  How retrieval practice works part 1 By Sarah Cottingham

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  How retrieval practice works part 1 By Sarah Cottingham

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Down the assessment rabbit hole by Nick Hart @MrNickHart

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Down the assessment rabbit hole by Nick Hart @MrNickHart

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There a great scene in the Matrix where Morpheus offers Neo the chance to see for himself what the matrix is.

The continued references to Alice in Wonderland throughout the films are interesting and I like the way that Morpheus describes the rabbit hole analogy - it certainly fits with our relationship with assessment over recent years.

Morpheus offers Neo the choice to see the truth by taking the red pill and that's the spirit of this blog post - a series of assessment provocations designed to do the same thing. To open our eyes to truth.

Teacher assessment

Teacher assessments (termly data entry of working towards / expected / greater depth) are not valid judgements of what children have learned. They are too broad and cannot capture meaningful information.

'Greater depth' teacher assessments can only mean that children have learned more of what was intended than those at 'expected'. Simply having greater depth as an available grade lowers expectations of what all children are expected to learn.

The future of primary assessment is probably based around binary outcomes (no exceeding grade at EYFS / phonics screening / no KS1 SATs / multiplication tables check). A teacher assessment system of 3 or 4 grades is not necessary.

Judging writing attainment against criteria is too unreliable. Use comparative judgement for summative assessment.

Standardised testing

The main reason to use standardised tests are to report something even remotely meaningful to those in charge of governance.

Standardised test scores don't tell teachers or leaders about the extent that children have learned the curriculum.

Using a standardised test suite that takes up teacher time in marking, photocopying, data entry or question level analysis is an inexcusable waste of time.

Standardised test scores going slightly up or down is more likely statistical noise than progress or whatever the opposite of progress is.

Question level analysis is pointless. If you're going to do it, use class work and not a random set of test questions that don't match what's been taught.

Other testing

Don't pretend that teachers can write tests that are rigorous enough to make valid judgements of learning.

Writing tests that are rigorous enough would take too much time and would be the wrong focus of attention.

Progress

Progress cannot be measured so do not spend time trying to do it, certainly not based on teacher assessments.

Pupil progress meetings based on standardised test scores skew our attention to the wrong things - they don't assess our curriculum.

Pupil progress meetings based on teacher assessments are too noisy and invalid to be of any use.

Data collection

Schools collect too much data that is not used to improve teaching.

Often, teachers input data into tracking systems and then are told that same information back. Teachers already know - don't waste their time.

Judging the quality of teaching

Nobody can reliably judge the quality of a lesson.

Evaluative lesson observations are only useful to spot practice that is clearly a concern.

We're probably looking for the things we like rather than what's effective because we cannot know in that moment what is effective.

Workbook scrutiny

Workbook scrutiny does not tell us what children have learned. It can only tell us the standard of work, effort and presentation that teachers accept.

Looking at children's books without teachers or children is not worth the time.

Building knowledge

You might agree or disagree with these provocations but there is a general theme of invalid judgement whether we're seeking to assess children's learning, the quality of teaching or indeed how good our school is. Instead of judging or evaluating, we might just be better off seeking to build knowledge. But the complexity of school life is such that seeking to build knowledge of the teaching of reading, or writing, or maths, for example, is just too big. We need to build knowledge around specific problems, for example:

Children's learning

How well do children in year 3 know their 7 times table?

Can every child in year 2 read at 90 words per minute?

Can every child in year 5 write a paragraph without run-on sentences and without incomplete fragments?

Quality of teaching

How clearly do teachers model the concept of a sentence in year 1?

Do teachers in year 4 provide enough purposeful practice for children to learn the 12 times table to automaticity?

How do teachers in year 5 give feedback to children that write run on sentences?

Holding to account

The assessment provocations, whether you disagree with them or not, should call into question that way that leaders hold others to account and the way that we are held to account.

This is where a shift is needed. If the assessments that we carry out are unreliable and the judgements invalid, perhaps holding teachers and leaders to account needs to be moved upstream a bit. Yes, we need to be held to account on the impact of our work but if we're paying attention to the wrong things, that impact is less likely anyway. Maybe we need to be held to account on what we decide to pay attention to first.

We need to justify our priorities and should be able to answer the questions:

What is the specific problem?

How do you know it is a problem?

We need to justify our strategies and should be able to answer the questions:

What strategies have you chosen to solve the problem?

How do you know that those strategies are sensible choices?

What potential strategies have you discarded and why?

We need to justify our plans for implementation and should be bale to answer the questions:

How are you giving the strategies the best chance of success?

How have you ensuring clarity of purpose for staff?

What are you stopping staff from doing to make this happen?

Assessment, quality assurance and school improvement. Take the blue pill and you'll wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

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There a great scene in the Matrix where Morpheus offers Neo the chance to see for himself what the matrix is. https://videopress.com/v/67nT8Rbi?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata The continued references to Alice in Wonderland throughout the films are interesting and I like the way that Morpheus describes the rabbit hole analogy - it certainly fits with our relationship with assessment...

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How I use an Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) approach with Entry 3 ESOL students (Part 1) @catrinashton

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How I use an Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) approach with Entry 3 ESOL students (Part 1) @catrinashton

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kit d'enseignement des neurosciences N°2 : 17 sessions regroupées en 6 chapitres 👍@CogniJunior @sciencescognitives

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kit d'enseignement des neurosciences N°2 : 17 sessions regroupées en 6 chapitres 👍@CogniJunior @sciencescognitives

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Cognitive Science v Neuroscience: retrieval at the start of a lesson or not?

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Cognitive Science v Neuroscience: retrieval at the start of a lesson or not?  @englishspecial

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Cognitive Science v Neuroscience: retrieval at the start of a lesson or not?  @englishspecial

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Dr James Shea, Principal Lecturer in Teacher Education

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

It's a simple premise: if you think memory is important to learning, then memory formation is, by this very argument, important as well. And memory formation comes before memory conditioning (e.g., retrieval practice). With the publication of a n euroscience paper on memory formation we now have convergence between cognitive science's research in how memory works [in education] with neuroscience's research in how memory works. Remembering knowledge over time and how to do something, after a gap of time, are very much vogue in education right now and rightly so. However, this article is about the publication of neuroscience research and what this neuroscience paper suggests about the way some in education will approach their lesson design as a consequence (a longer write up of these ideas can be found here).

Let's get some caveats out the way. The research in this paper is about cells in the brain and formation of memory through the expression of genes. It's not about the more social concept of mind, nor indeed does the paper suggest what teachers might do with this new knowledge of the brain. I'm not claiming that this paper proves anything about how we should teach, but I'm aware that it does bring criticality to the way that some think that memories are formed and need to be conditioned (especially within education) and so it is worth investigation. It's such a simple premise: do you think memory is important to learning? If the answer is yes, then memory formation is just as important as memory conditioning, but more importantly comes first in the time line. And, you might ask yourself, how long is that time line?
Enjoying this blog? Please consider tweeting it out to help share the knowledge in our community.
So what does this neuroscience paper say? Well it said that the formation and recall of memory works a bit like a body reacting to a vaccine. The first jab makes the body receptive to it and gets it ready for the booster. When the booster arrives a surge of gene expression takes place, the strength of which controls the number of cells ready to be recalled in case they are required (e.g. if an infection shows up then the body is ready to react). So there are three parts of the process. The initial activation is the first step - this is where memory is formed for the first time. The next part of the priming process is at a genetic level - a reformulation of the cell architecture which is effectively 'readying architecture for gene expression'. Finally, a warm reactivation event in which expression of the arc gene happens across the reformulated architecture ready for future remembering. The reactivation event is the crucial event. We can speculate then, that when you teach you are laying down the first activation- a first pass of the schema* itself, but the gene expression at this point will be small. Indeed, over time, the effectiveness will wane as the potential memory cells have not had a second reactivation event (weak remembering (forgetting) is why teachers are using the conditioning approach of retrieval practice so much). When you do enter the reactivation window that is when you supercharge the memory cell formation. Further, should you need the schema to be ready for recall and to be produced on demand (e.g. an examination), you undertake a warm reactivation event yet again to prepare for the recall (retrieval) event itself. Instead of going straight into a full retrieval of memory cold, there should be a warm up process where you are getting the memory ready to access the schema in case it is required. Then you should ask for a full retrieval. It is very important to note the distinction between retrieval (accessing memory cells) and retrieval practice (conditioning a rote response to stimuli through the 'testing effect'). Our work here is focused on the strong formation of memory and subsequent strong remembering, not on conditioning a response.

*Note discussions around the concept of schema
3 Stage Process of Priming
Stage 1 - teaching and re-teaching of new/schema through an activation phase (followed by a delay of some days to allow the biological reformulation of architecture). Update: Phase 1 trials suggest that a 3-7 days gap following activation is the optimum time span.

Stage 2 - warm reactivation of the schema leading to revisiting the schema from Stage 1 (this triggers the expression of the arc gene needed for memory formation)

Stage 3 - remembering of schema associated to Stage 2 alongside teaching of new schema

How does this affect teaching then? Well, currently, there is a lot of focus on retrieval practice, a psychological conditioning process - retrieving knowledge repeatedly with the view to making the recall stronger through something called the testing effect. Yet this paper is suggesting that there is a big elephant in the room. Memory formation needs to happen first. And memory formation takes much longer than you think. If you go straight for a retrieval quiz then that's the equivalent of asking the schema to be recalled without having reformulated cells ready to express the arc genes. You are still in the activation phase. It's not necessarily strengthening the memory formation. Cold questions and retrieval quizzes at the start of the lesson and very soon after the first learning don't reflect what this neuroscience research says. What you should be doing is something else - controlling the priming event.

Controlling the priming event means knowing architecture has formed and is only available for a short window of time and that you can take advantage of this knowledge through a variety of pedagogies. Think about discussions and recaps of the topic - quite wide ranging discussions rather than small minutiae. Then, in the main part of the lesson, the small minutiae will more accurately be recalled and more importantly, the process of priming and the subsequent remembering (producing memory to face the challenge) will work more effectively. It is important to see the nuances here of some of the things we do in teaching. Retrieval at the start of a lesson of content that is not going to be used is reactivating the wrong (cells containing the) schema. In addition, that's a different process altogether - that's conditioning - (retrieval and retrieval practice are two different things). According to the science in this paper, you want to be ensuring that you actually work with the schema for which the cellular architecture was created as that will lead to expression of arc genes which are responsible for creating more memories. In some ways the paper informs us on the gaps between cognitive science and neuroscience.

The main gap is this - much of the work on what we do as teachers is once memory has been formed: reducing extraneous load, conditioning memory through revisiting and so forth. However, all of this practice is reliant on the idea that memory is formed in a one off event and that we begin the conditioning process immediately. What the science in this paper says is that is not how memory is formed. And this has implications for the way we as teachers approach learning. There is a period of time where memory is formed. It's not instantaneous and nor is it the time for conditioning. Instead, it's the time for supercharging memory formation. If memory is important to learning, then creating strong memories could, we speculate, lead to more efficient use of time by a teacher later on once memory has been formed. Less time spent conditioning memory would free up time for more learning of further knowldge to take place - but that's something for our research study to consider.

The future could be, one could speculate - not starting the lesson with the conditioning process of retrieval practice, but starting the lesson with warm reactivation of the schema and with a teacher awareness of who is not meeting this learning for the second time (e.g. absences, barriers to learning) and how long it has been since the activation phase. In particular, you should not start the lesson with retrieval of schema which won't be used in the lesson as this does not lead to expression of the arc gene necessary for memory formation. The lesson itself should contain both remembering and new learning together as the brain constructs the new knowledge (or skill) into gene expression and starts to get further architecture ready for the next warm reactivation event. When that happens, it will be ready to swing into action with both the original knowledge and the new knowledge constructed into a single schema. This stronger formation of memory will lead to better remembering and require less future retrieval practice (because we currently use conditioning to supplement weak memory formation). Retrieval should still form part of the lesson, but if incorporated into the main lesson following a warm reactivation event at the start of the lesson then it will be more effective. And lastly, remember, the schema used should be relevant to the lesson.

It is a potential change in the sequence of learning that we have come to see become quite mainstream. First, an activation event, then a gap of time to allow for reformulation of the cell architecture (Phase 1 trials suggest the optimum time for this gap to be 3-7 days), then either a warm reactivation event alone or warm reactivation and new knowledge together to start the architectural reformulation necessary for expression of the arc gene in the next warm reactivation event. In addition, less retrieval practice is necessary. This is because we currently use retrieval practice (interleaved or not) to condition a pupil into producing knowledge in response to a question - known as the testing effect. By making the original formation of memory stronger through the priming process (expression of the arc gene) remembering will be stronger. You are supercharging the formation of memory through creating more gene expression at cell level. We have worked up further thinking here on what the implications would be for interleaved retrieval pratice, Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction, OFSTED inspections, NPQs and even SEND. All of these areas could be affected by this concept of supercharging memory formation.

There is lot of theorising there and I'm sure those with good knowledge of both science and education will be able to add more thoughts. This paper does not at any point inform us how to teach and it's important to emphasise that point. There is a major caveat also which is that taking science and turning it into educational practice has lots of limitations in terms of ecological validity. However, it is an interesting paper and it does suggest a different, and scientific rather than theoretical, model of how memory is formed and how a priming event could be better than retrieval for the start of a lesson.

We have launched a two phase project to investigate the concept of priming and enhancing the formation of memory using these ideas. The active part of this project will run from September 2021 to July 2022 and we have completed Phase 1. Our thanks to everyone who participated. We are now working on the tool kit for Phase 2. We recruited 40 schools who are currently participating in Phase 2 of this research. If you are interested in being part of this research (we still have space for further schools in Phase 2) or any other research projects then drop me an email at james.shea@beds.ac.uk or you can find me on Twitter at @englishspecial.

Dr James Shea, Principal Lecturer in Teacher Education
Copyright © 2021. James Shea. All rights reserved

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Cognitive Science v Neuroscience: retrieval at the start of a lesson or not?

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com It's a simple premise: if you think memory is important to learning, then memory formation is, by this very argument, important as well. And memory formation comes before memory conditioning (e.g., retrieval practice). With the publication of a neuroscience paper on memory formation we now have convergence between cognitive...

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MOOC Psychologie enseignants by stephane.salama.lprabelais on Genially

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différentes rubriques du #MOOC de @FranckRamus  : mémoire, compréhension, motivation, régulation des comporte

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différentes rubriques du #MOOC de @FranckRamus  : mémoire, compréhension, motivation, régulation des comporte

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SYNTHÈSE ET PRISE DE NOTES

mÉmoire

comprÉhension

comportement

rÉcompenses et punitions

3

4

5

6

La psychologie pour les enseignants

Infographie réalisée par Stéphane SALAMA

pouvoir-vouloir apprendre

stratÉgies et feedback

2

1

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

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SYNTHÈSE ET PRISE DE NOTES mÉmoire comprÉhension comportement rÉcompenses et punitions 3 4 5 6 La psychologie pour les enseignants Infographie réalisée par Stéphane SALAMA pouvoir-vouloir apprendre stratÉgies et feedback 2 1 Lorem ipsum dolor 1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

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Best of 2021 - Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be Overlooking

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Free Technology for Teachers: Best of 2021 - Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be Overlooking

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Free Technology for Teachers: Best of 2021 - Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be Overlooking

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As I do every year, I'm taking this week as a break from publishing new blog posts and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Here's one from November.
PowerPoint isn't the flashiest ed tech tool on the block and it certainly isn't the newest. In fact, you might have read "PowerPoint" and thought "old." But as old as it is (34 years) there are new things added to it and hidden gems within it that keep it going strong. If it has been a while since you looked at PowerPoint, here are some features you might not be aware of that can be helpful to you and your students.

Record a Video in PowerPoint
The Windows 10 desktop version of PowerPoint has some neat features including the option to record a video and instantly insert it into your presentation. Watch this tutorial to learn how that's done.

Remove Image Backgrounds
PowerPoint has a handy built-in tool for removing the background from your images. Here's a demonstration of how to use that feature.

Get Instant Feedback on Your Presentation
Presenter Coach is a great tool for getting instant feedback on your presentation pacing and more. It's available in the online version of PowerPoint. This tutorial shows you how it works.

Automatic Captioning of Your Presentation
PowerPoint includes features for automatic captioning of your presentations. Captions appear while you speak. The captioning tool will also translate your presentation while you speak. Watch this video to see how it works.

Accessibility Checker
If you're not sure whether or not your slides will be accessible to all students, you can run an accessibility check on your PowerPoint slides. This video shows you how to run an accessibility check on your PowerPoint presentation and how to add alt text to pictures and videos in your PowerPoint presentation.

Add more features...
Through the use of PowerPoint add-ins you can add even more functionality to your PowerPoint slides. For example, you can quickly add a countdown timer to your slides. Here's a demo of how to add a countdown timer to your slides. This video shows you how to find and install add-ins.

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Best of 2021 - Five Helpful PowerPoint Features You Might Be Overlooking

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As I do every year, I'm taking this week as a break from publishing new blog posts and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Here's one from November. PowerPoint isn't the flashiest ed tech tool on the block and it certainly isn't the newest.

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach by Esmeralda Salgado on Genially

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach by Esmeralda Salgado

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach by Esmeralda Salgado

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Lexicogrammar click here for video

Sentence Builders

SoW

Activities

MARS EARS

Key implications for MFL

Long Term Memory

Factors affecting Cognitive Load

Cognitive Load Theory

Memory

a rich research basedcurriculum

Memory: What every language teacher should know by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith

The Worked-Example effect(SENTENCE BUILDERS and MODELLING)great for beginners!The Expertise-Reversal effectTransient Information effect(listening input fades quickly: good to make learners listen to the same audio several times doing different tasks. TASK REPETITION AND INTERLEAVING IS KEY)The segmentation effect(breaking down teaching sequences into bite-sized segments)The Pre-Training effect(Building phonological memory) Receptive processing of TL (Listening & Reading must be carried out first)!TASK REPETITION= RETRIEVAL PRACTICEIt strengthens learning: transferring information into the LONG term memory by the creation of SCHEMASIt reduces cognitive overloadEvery time a task is repeated it becomes more fluidTASKS MUST HAVE A PURPOSE: A KEY LESSON PLANNING SKILL IS TO FIND DIFFERENT WAYS OF REHEARSING THE SAME LANGUAGE, SO WORK SEEMS FRESH TO STUDENTS.

Summary of Activities DocumentModelling ActivitiesListening Activities Reading ActivitiesDictation ActivitiesSequence Example based on Studio 2 French by Nadim ChamNeed inspiration? Simona Gravina's PadletFrom Structured Production to Fluency/Spontaneity

WORKING MEMORY VERSUS LONG TERM MEMORYStorage in the Working Memory is temporary and FragileWorking with chunks makes more effective use of the working memoryOur goal is to help students create SCHEMAS (Ready Made chunks of TL held in Long-Term Memory that can be quickly brought into use when comprehending and speaking in TL)

What it is?The amount of information that we have to process in the working memory at any one time: how hard we have to think!Types of cognitive loadIntrinsic, extraneous and GERMANE: the right amount and type of load needed to build knowledge. DESIRABLE DIFFICULTY. Goldilocks effect!!Schema acquisition reduces working memory load. Our focus is to help students build schemas in the long term memory.

Repetition: little and often!InterleavingVocab learning: it sticks better when it is processed in more elaborate ways. Knowing what a word means, what it sounds like, its written shape, its allocation=lexicogrammar

The learning Continuum MARS EARSby Gianfranco ContiModellingvia Sentence BuildersAwareness-Raising Pop up Grammar, planting the seed!Receptive Processing(Listening and Reading flooding activities)Structured Production(Writing and Oral practised activities)Expansion(Explicit Grammar) This is done once chunks have been extensively learned!Autonomy(Scaffolding gets removed (SBs) and students produce language without supportRoutinization(Recycling vocabulary constantly! specially key/high impact expressions/functions)Spontaneity(WITHIN A TOPIC/UNIT) THE GOAL

Types of long term memory:DECLARATIVE-EXPLICIT (WHAT?)PROCEDURAL-IMPLICIT (HOW?)- PRIMING subconscious process when a word primes the next. This allows fluency.

SOWs: A LIVE Pedagogical documentHow to ensure interleaving?How to ensure enough repetition?How are we going to tackle project based units? When? How?Which are going to be our Universals or High Impact words?How are we going to incorporate most Frequent Words?Curriculum Mapping and SoW by Silvia BastowCurriculum Design KS3 by Esmeralda SalgadoCurriculum Design KS4 By Esmeralda Salgado

Sentence BUILDERS ExampleWhich language/structures to include?Considering NCELP Frequency words!How many idioms?How much grammatical structures?Which will be our High Impact expressions/Universals that will appear throughout the students' learning journey?Which topics?

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Departmental training: A Rich Curriculum: Lexicogrammar approach by Esmeralda Salgado on Genially

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Lexicogrammar click here for video Sentence Builders SoW Activities MARS EARS Key implications for MFL Long Term Memory Factors affecting Cognitive Load Cognitive Load Theory Memory a rich research basedcurriculum Memory: What every language teacher should know by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith The Worked-Example effect(SENTENCE BUILDERS and MODELLING)great for beginners!The Expertise-Reversal effectTransient Information effect(listening input fades quickly: good to make learners listen to the same audio several times doing different tasks.

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Alfie Kohn at the OFJCC: Performance vs. Learning - The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement

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Alfie Kohn at the OFJCC: Performance vs. Learning - The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement

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Alfie Kohn at the OFJCC: Performance vs. Learning - The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement

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Alfie Kohn at the OFJCC: Performance vs. Learning - The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement

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Getting the most of your placement by Christopher Harrison

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Getting the most of your placement by Christopher Harrison

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@Aurelie_LTH

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Native French speaker creating KS3 and KS4 French resources.

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Implementing MARS-EARS by Lauren O’Donnell @msodonnellMFL

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Implementing MARS-EARS by Lauren O’Donnell @msodonnellMFL

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Lauren O'Donnell from Swavesey Village College discusses the implementation of the MARS/EARS pedagogical cycle, as part of her CTSN/UCL IoE 'How do we know it works? Leading Change' project.

Since the introduction of the new MFL GCSE in 2018, language teachers have been searching for the best way to teach the new content heavy curriculum in a meaningful, engaging way. Comparing the content of the new exams to when I did GCSE, I worry that the increased difficulty and the removal of 'safety measures' such as coursework make the GCSE inaccessible to already disadvantaged or disengaged students. We had already had success with the new GCSE, but as a department we wanted to build on that success in line with the school's ethos of quality teaching and achievement for all. Initially I had planned to focus on changing the assessment formats for KS3 to make them less content heavy and more SEND friendly, but the closure of schools due to COVID led to the suspension of assessments. However, the move to online learning did allow the department to roll out a new MFL curriculum and pedagogical approach; the MARS/EARS pedagogical cycle, designed and popularised by Dr. Gianfranco Conti.

The MARS/EARS method comes under the umbrella of communicative language teaching, which at its heart posits that language education should serve to fulfil real world communication tasks, rather than focus on teaching single words outside of any meaningful context (Conti, 2018). The acronym stands for the following stages, each designed to build up students' abilities to carry out key communicative functions, as listed by Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983):

M odelling (using lexico-grammatical chunks in relevant contexts)

A wareness-raising (introducing students to patterns or rules in the chunks)

R eceptive processing (intensive listening and reading practice using the chunks)

S tructured production (scaffolded writing and speaking practice)

E xpansion (recycling old chunks alongside new to provide a great depth of understanding and wider context)

A utonomy (intensive practice with the scaffolding slowly removed, intense retrieval practice)

R outinisation (recycling the chunks over the years through interleaving material)

S pontaneity (unplanned responses to unseen stimuli with little to no scaffolding) (Conti, 2018).

The process of this kind of curriculum change has been colloquially dubbed 'contifying' in the MFL teaching community. We have used some of the 'contified' activities in an ad hoc way over the last 3 years and had hosted a CPD event with Dr Conti in 2018, but when we decided to adopt MARS/EARS fully we committed to further CPD with him in January. We have engaged with both published literature on MARS/EARS and communicative language teaching methods as well as blogs, and worked with other MFL departments online (you can follow us on Twitter @mfl_swavesey). In the initial stage, we divided the year groups and every member of the department is in charge of creating the sentence builders and accompanying lessons. Sentence builders are a key element of the MARS/EARS method and the main source of scaffolding. They are made of specific chunks of language that help convey key communicative functions in each module, such as describing oneself, describing the school day, narrating a past event, etc. We have used the AQA textbooks as a basis for our SoL. Lessons are then focused on intensive processing and retrieval practice of these chunks until students reach mastery and are able to use them without scaffolding. It has been quite difficult at times to create the sentence builders - the language chunks need to be transferable and serve multiple functions, and also anticipate what students might need in future GCSE assessments. We have focused heavily on interleaving content and ensuring input during the MARS section is highly comprehensible, which is key to meaningful student engagement (Fedrizzi blog, 2021). Despite a common tendency of language teachers to want to cram as much of the target language into our lessons as possible, being able to access the material is one of the biggest student motivators (Elliot blog, 2021). We have also begun to systematically introduce and recycle more sophisticated language at an early stage, such as If I could, I would + infinitive, on the basis that students do not need to understand the finer grammatical details to be able to communicate their opinions and we can 'level up' lower ability students easily (Fedrizzi blog, 2021).

It is difficult to gather evidence of the impact due to school closures, but student feedback on the changes has been mostly positive. Only 3% of students who responded to my survey said that they did not use their sentence builders to support their writing, and a similar number said they made they tried to memorise the chunks in the sentence builder. Just 5% felt they were not making progress, indicating high confidence levels. Staff feedback has also been positive; colleagues in the department said that the repeated activities and language chunks makes it easier to plan lessons, and that students find the 'contified' activities very engaging. Recycling activities also means less lesson time is spent explaining activities, leaving more room for practice (Brownlee, blog 2021). German in particular seems to lend itself well to sentence builders and teaching 'chunks', and the German team report that it allows students to see complex patterns in word order quicker than when teaching individual vocab items. Other positive feedback includes students in live lessons recognising the patterns in the sentence builder without us having to draw attention to them and the frequent requests for certain 'contified' activities, such as the incredibly popular 'rock-climbing translations'.

Going forward, we will continue to deepen our understanding of MARS/EARS with more research and CPD and will gather student feedback more frequently. We have not yet been able to collect data on whether MARS/EARS is improving spontaneous production as we focused on stages 1 to 5 in lockdown, so in the future we will assess whether students are too reliant on the sentence builders. In the medium term my goal is to use low stakes retrieval practice with the sentence builders more systematically and interleave it with previous topics, in the style of Brownlee's exit tickets (blog, 2021), to assess student self-efficacy. In the long term, I would like to continue to move away from the textbooks and develop new reading/listening assessments that are directly tied to MARS/EARS as other schools have done; however, this will take a considerable amount of time. While progress on the curriculum project may have been slower than anticipated, the CTSN/UCL IoE course was still invaluable in introducing to me the ideas behind successful curriculum change and how to implement a vision. I was concerned at first about stripping back the curriculum in order to implement MARS/EARS, but school closures almost give us permission to introduce radical changes, and I feel more confident doing so having undertaken this course.

About the author

Lauren O'Donnell has been teaching Spanish and French at Swavesey Village College for the last three years. She is passionate about making languages accessible and relatable for her students. Lauren participated in the CTSN/UCL Institute of Education 'How do we know it works? Leading Change' project in 2019-2021.

You can follow Lauren on Twitter: @msodonnellMFL

You can follow the Swavesey Village College MFL department on Twitter: @MFL_Swavesey

Lauren O'Donnell from Swavesey Village College discusses the implementation of the MARS/EARS pedagogical cycle, as part of her CTSN/UCL IoE 'How do we know it works? Leading Change' project.

Since the introduction of the new MFL GCSE in 2018, language teachers have been searching for the best way to teach the new content heavy curriculum in a meaningful, engaging way. Comparing the content of the new exams to when I did GCSE, I worry that the increased difficulty and the removal of 'safety measures' such as coursework make the GCSE inaccessible to already disadvantaged or disengaged students. We had already had success with the new GCSE, but as a department we wanted to build on that success in line with the school's ethos of quality teaching and achievement for all. Initially I had planned to focus on changing the assessment formats for KS3 to make them less content heavy and more SEND friendly, but the closure of schools due to COVID led to the suspension of assessments. However, the move to online learning did allow the department to roll out a new MFL curriculum and pedagogical approach; the MARS/EARS pedagogical cycle, designed and popularised by Dr. Gianfranco Conti.

The MARS/EARS method comes under the umbrella of communicative language teaching, which at its heart posits that language education should serve to fulfil real world communication tasks, rather than focus on teaching single words outside of any meaningful context (Conti, 2018). The acronym stands for the following stages, each designed to build up students' abilities to carry out key communicative functions, as listed by Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983):

M odelling (using lexico-grammatical chunks in relevant contexts)

A wareness-raising (introducing students to patterns or rules in the chunks)

R eceptive processing (intensive listening and reading practice using the chunks)

S tructured production (scaffolded writing and speaking practice)

E xpansion (recycling old chunks alongside new to provide a great depth of understanding and wider context)

A utonomy (intensive practice with the scaffolding slowly removed, intense retrieval practice)

R outinisation (recycling the chunks over the years through interleaving material)

S pontaneity (unplanned responses to unseen stimuli with little to no scaffolding) (Conti, 2018).

The process of this kind of curriculum change has been colloquially dubbed 'contifying' in the MFL teaching community. We have used some of the 'contified' activities in an ad hoc way over the last 3 years and had hosted a CPD event with Dr Conti in 2018, but when we decided to adopt MARS/EARS fully we committed to further CPD with him in January. We have engaged with both published literature on MARS/EARS and communicative language teaching methods as well as blogs, and worked with other MFL departments online (you can follow us on Twitter @mfl_swavesey). In the initial stage, we divided the year groups and every member of the department is in charge of creating the sentence builders and accompanying lessons. Sentence builders are a key element of the MARS/EARS method and the main source of scaffolding. They are made of specific chunks of language that help convey key communicative functions in each module, such as describing oneself, describing the school day, narrating a past event, etc. We have used the AQA textbooks as a basis for our SoL. Lessons are then focused on intensive processing and retrieval practice of these chunks until students reach mastery and are able to use them without scaffolding. It has been quite difficult at times to create the sentence builders - the language chunks need to be transferable and serve multiple functions, and also anticipate what students might need in future GCSE assessments. We have focused heavily on interleaving content and ensuring input during the MARS section is highly comprehensible, which is key to meaningful student engagement (Fedrizzi blog, 2021). Despite a common tendency of language teachers to want to cram as much of the target language into our lessons as possible, being able to access the material is one of the biggest student motivators (Elliot blog, 2021). We have also begun to systematically introduce and recycle more sophisticated language at an early stage, such as If I could, I would + infinitive, on the basis that students do not need to understand the finer grammatical details to be able to communicate their opinions and we can 'level up' lower ability students easily (Fedrizzi blog, 2021).

It is difficult to gather evidence of the impact due to school closures, but student feedback on the changes has been mostly positive. Only 3% of students who responded to my survey said that they did not use their sentence builders to support their writing, and a similar number said they made they tried to memorise the chunks in the sentence builder. Just 5% felt they were not making progress, indicating high confidence levels. Staff feedback has also been positive; colleagues in the department said that the repeated activities and language chunks makes it easier to plan lessons, and that students find the 'contified' activities very engaging. Recycling activities also means less lesson time is spent explaining activities, leaving more room for practice (Brownlee, blog 2021). German in particular seems to lend itself well to sentence builders and teaching 'chunks', and the German team report that it allows students to see complex patterns in word order quicker than when teaching individual vocab items. Other positive feedback includes students in live lessons recognising the patterns in the sentence builder without us having to draw attention to them and the frequent requests for certain 'contified' activities, such as the incredibly popular 'rock-climbing translations'.

Going forward, we will continue to deepen our understanding of MARS/EARS with more research and CPD and will gather student feedback more frequently. We have not yet been able to collect data on whether MARS/EARS is improving spontaneous production as we focused on stages 1 to 5 in lockdown, so in the future we will assess whether students are too reliant on the sentence builders. In the medium term my goal is to use low stakes retrieval practice with the sentence builders more systematically and interleave it with previous topics, in the style of Brownlee's exit tickets (blog, 2021), to assess student self-efficacy. In the long term, I would like to continue to move away from the textbooks and develop new reading/listening assessments that are directly tied to MARS/EARS as other schools have done; however, this will take a considerable amount of time. While progress on the curriculum project may have been slower than anticipated, the CTSN/UCL IoE course was still invaluable in introducing to me the ideas behind successful curriculum change and how to implement a vision. I was concerned at first about stripping back the curriculum in order to implement MARS/EARS, but school closures almost give us permission to introduce radical changes, and I feel more confident doing so having undertaken this course.

About the author

Lauren O'Donnell has been teaching Spanish and French at Swavesey Village College for the last three years. She is passionate about making languages accessible and relatable for her students. Lauren participated in the CTSN/UCL Institute of Education 'How do we know it works? Leading Change' project in 2019-2021.

You can follow Lauren on Twitter: @msodonnellMFL

You can follow the Swavesey Village College MFL department on Twitter: @MFL_Swavesey

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Lauren O'Donnell from Swavesey Village College discusses the implementation of the MARS/EARS pedagogical cycle, as part of her CTSN/UCL IoE 'How do we know it works? Leading Change' project. Since the introduction of the new MFL GCSE in 2018, language teachers have been searching for the best way to teach the new content heavy curriculum in a meaningful, engaging way.

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Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory Of Motivation In Psychology

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Self-efficacy, a concept introduced by psychologist Albert Bandura, refers to an individual’s belief in their capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance outcomes. It’s the confidence in one’s ability to influence events and control over one’s environment.

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MFL Teaching based on E.P.I. approach,  Videos and blogs, Sample activities from Modelling to Spontaneity.

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Un enseignement explicite des stratégies cognitives et métacognitives aux élèves

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Le défi que doivent relever les enseignants pour aider leurs élèves à apprendre n'est pas mince. Nous attendons de nos élèves qu'ils deviennent progressivement autonomes au fil de leur scolarité et qu'ils étudient et se préparent à des évaluations sommatives de plus en plus par eux-mêmes. Cela représente un certain nombre de défis.

Pour planifier, étudier, mais également réaliser des productions à domicile, les élèves doivent posséder et acquérir des connaissances sur les contenus de matière. Ils doivent également avoir des connaissances sur la manière de les apprendre et sur eux-mêmes en tant qu'apprenants. Ces connaissances sont cognitives et métacognitives. Elles portent sur les différentes stratégies d'apprentissage et d'autorégulation qu'ils peuvent mobiliser et leurs efficacités respectives en fonction des contextes. Les élèves doivent acquérir des connaissances propres sur ces diverses stratégies et sur la façon de les utiliser, quand, pour quoi et pourquoi, afin de mieux penser, réfléchir, agir et apprendre de manière autonome.

Les compétences liées à l'apprentissage autonome ne sont pas acquises adaptativement

Les connaissances métacognitives ne sont pas acquises adaptativement. Même les tâches de base simples, telles que l'estimation de ses propres performances passées ou la détermination des parties d'un cours qui vont nécessiter un investissement supplémentaire ne sont pas automatiques. Elles ne sont pas naturellement présentes chez les élèves (Fiechter, Benjamin, & Unsworth, 2016).

De nombreux élèves savent qu'ils doivent planifier pour répartir leur travail, mais ils ne parviennent pas toujours à établir un calendrier réaliste et à le respecter (Dunlosky et Ariel, 2011)

Les élèves choisissent souvent des stratégies d'apprentissage qui leur semblent confortables, comme la relecture, le surlignage ou le résumé, car elles leur donnent l'impression d'apprendre (Dirkx, Camp, Kester et Kirschner, 2019). Pourtant, pour de nombreux élèves, aucune de ces stratégies d'apprentissage ne s'avère efficace, car ils sont à la merci d'une variété de conceptions erronées. Un exemple de conception erronée est le préjugé de stabilité. Ce que je sais maintenant, je le saurai encore après-demain. Ce comportement se retrouve encore chez des élèves du secondaire.

Le tableau de départ pour les élèves est peu propice. Nous ne pouvons jamais considérer d'emblée qu'ils vont faire un bon usage de leurs ressources malgré leur bonne volonté. Il leur manque différentes pièces du puzzle nécessaire à un apprentissage autonome efficace.

La notion de traitement actif dans le cadre de l'apprentissage autonome

Les stratégies cognitives et métacognitives efficaces liées à l'apprentissage autonome sont souvent moins connues des élèves, car elles sont plus difficiles à mettre en œuvre.

Un point commun de ces stratégies d'apprentissage efficaces est qu'elles donnent toujours aux élèves la possibilité de traiter activement la matière ou d'effectuer un retour sur soi réflexif.

Le traitement actif signifie ici un traitement cognitif actif (manipuler les informations en mémoire) et est parfois confondu avec l'activité physique (lire, écrire, souligner) :

Par conséquent, un élève qui est physiquement actif (par exemple, en soulignant diligemment dans un texte avec un marqueur fluorescent) ne pense pas délibérément au contenu d'apprentissage. Il détermine ce qui est important où ne l'est pas sans réellement traiter l'information en profondeur. Il apprend par conséquent très peu ou de manière très aléatoire.

Cela contraste avec un élève qui, par exemple, invente des questions (Qui ? Quoi ? Pourquoi ? Quand ? Où ? Comment ?) pour un texte lu (élaboration, synthèse, carte conceptuelle) ou qui se teste (pratique de récupération). Selon Stanislas Dehaene (2018), la majeure partie de l'activité cérébrale a lieu lorsque les élèves réfléchissent aux réponses et formulent des hypothèses sur ce qui pourrait être juste ou faux.

Les avantages du traitement actif de l'information sont maximisés lorsque les élèves s'exercent de manière itérative sur plusieurs sessions d'étude ou de pratique, idéalement interrompues par le sommeil. La pratique espacée est importante afin de stocker les informations dans notre mémoire à long terme. Ainsi, la combinaison de la pratique de récupération et de l'élaboration, " qu'est-ce que je fais ? ", avec l'étude espacée, " quand est-ce que je le fais ? ", en fait une stratégie d'apprentissage efficace. Toutefois, ces démarches ne font pas systématiquement partie du répertoire standard de l'élève.

Le traitement métacognitif actif nécessite des compétences en gestion du temps, en détermination d'objectifs adéquats, des choix stratégiques en matière de pilotage et d'approches sélectionnées. De même, il demande une capacité à évaluer la qualité de son travail et à adapter les prochaines étapes en fonction de la progression actuelle.

Former ses élèves à l'apprentissage autonome

Les enseignants peuvent apporter une contribution déterminante à l'acquisition et à l'amélioration des compétences cognitives et métacognitives de leurs élèves. En d'autres mots, ils peuvent leur enseigner et leur faire apprendre comment mieux travailler chez eux de manière autonome.

Toutefois, il est évident qu'il n'est pas facile d'enseigner ni d'acquérir des stratégies cognitives ou métacognitives efficaces. Dans le cas contraire, nous aurions déjà naturellement une multitude d'élèves autodidactes fonctionnant parfaitement dans nos classes.

Dès lors, nous pouvons postuler que les élèves ne peuvent pas apprendre à apprendre efficacement de manière autonome. Il est imprudent de les mettre en situation d'apprentissage, en projet, en les laissant travailler de manière totalement indépendante, dans l'espoir qu'ils découvrent ce qui marche ou ce qui ne marche pas.

Comme certaines techniques efficaces sont naturellement contre-intuitives, il est probable qu'ils ne les découvriront jamais seuls et ne profiteront pas de leur bénéfice s'ils n'y sont pas formés explicitement.

Un apprentissage efficace de stratégies d'apprentissage autonome par un enseignement explicite est essentiellement un processus dans lequel nous guidons les élèves étape par étape dans un premier temps. Par la suite, nous pouvons réduire l'étayage peu à peu, tandis qu'ils ont des occasions de pratique que nous leur fournissons.

Comme tout enseignement, celui de l'apprentissage autonome comporte deux dimensions :

Il comprend des savoirs et des concepts théoriques généraux à comprendre et assimiler.

Il comprend également un savoir-faire et des procédures à pratiquer et à automatiser dans des contextes spécifiques.

Par conséquent, il est possible et utile d'enseigner certains aspects de la métacognition, comme l'apprentissage de la planification ou le fonctionnement de la mémoire, de manière générale.

Essentiellement, nous leur enseignons des concepts, des principes ou des modèles généraux. À ce stade, cela ne signifie pas qu'ils ont la compétence pour exécuter les étapes ou la stratégie visée avec succès, mais ils ont une compréhension des mécanismes sous-jacents.

Toutefois, les stratégies d'apprentissage autonome, qu'elles soient cognitives et métacognitives, gagnent à être enseignées de manière générale au départ. Les élèves doivent pouvoir en maîtriser les principes de base avant de les mettre en œuvre dans des situations d'apprentissage plus complexes et contextualisées. Le but est à terme qu'ils puissent mobiliser les stratégies lors de l'apprentissage autonome.

Cependant, une fois enseignées de manière générale, ces différentes stratégies doivent ensuite être appliquées à la matière enseignée dans le cadre des différentes matières. Au départ, l'enseignant guide fortement ses élèves. Il assure un modelage des stratégies appliquées à son cours et propose une pratique guidée à ses élèves.

Au fur et à mesure qu'ils deviennent plus compétents dans la stratégie d'apprentissage, l'enseignant réduit son soutien. Les élèves peuvent en faire un usage autonome. L'enseignant assure alors une rétroaction sur la mobilisation que ses élèves en font, il les encourage, pose un contexte favorable à leur utilisation dans le cadre de son cours. Il les aide et les soutient dans la régulation de leurs apprentissages.

Processus d'enseignement explicite d'une stratégie cognitive ou métacognitive

Nous allons développer maintenant les étapes nécessaires à un enseignement explicite d'une stratégie cognitive ou métacognitive.

Activer les connaissances antérieures

Les élèves peuvent déjà avoir des connaissances préalables sur une stratégie d'apprentissage. Pour cela, nous demandons aux élèves comment ils pratiqueraient normalement de nouveaux contenus à maîtriser.

Cette manière de fonctionner peut aider à débusquer les conceptions erronées qu'il faudra contrer et les habitudes inefficaces qu'ils devront perdre.

Rendre la stratégie d'apprentissage explicite pendant l'enseignement

Nous devons rendre la stratégie d'apprentissage explicite pendant l'enseignement. Nous expliquons à nos élèves pourquoi une certaine stratégie d'apprentissage est importante, quels bénéfices ils peuvent obtenir et pourquoi elle fonctionne. Nous la leur modélisons. Ensuite, ils peuvent l'appliquer.

Assez naturellement, les élèves optent principalement pour des stratégies d'apprentissage passives, elles demandent peu d'investissement, mais sont rassurantes. Elles donnent l'impression fausse de fonctionner et d'apprendre avec un effort moindre.

Par exemple, il est indispensable de mettre l'accent sur les avantages de la pratique de la récupération. Nous devons leur répéter régulièrement que lorsqu'ils se testent, ils se souviendront mieux des informations que s'ils se contentent de les relire. Mais leur communiquer verbalement l'information ne suffit pas. Nous devons nous assurer que nos élèves comprennent bien ce à quoi ressemble la stratégie enseignée et comment la mettre en œuvre. De plus, nous devons créer dans nos cours les conditions qui vont leur permettre de la tester et de vérifier in situ ses avantages.

Si l'élève ne comprend pas et ne vérifie pas concrètement que cette stratégie d'apprentissage l'aide à étudier de manière plus efficace et efficiente, il est peu probable qu'il la mette en œuvre spontanément.

De la même manière, nous pouvons accompagner nos élèves dans la réalisation de flashcards ou d'un résumé avec l'approche Cornell. Nous pouvons les accompagner dans des démarches d'interrogation élaborée.

Modeler la stratégie d'apprentissage

Pour aider les élèves à comprendre et à s'approprier une stratégie, nous devons commencer par la modeler nous-mêmes en expliquant à haute voix comment et pourquoi nous faisons telle ou telle chose.

Vérifier la compréhension

Nous devons nous assurer que les élèves soient attentifs, engagés et qu'ils réfléchissent à ce que nous leur expliquons. C'est nécessaire pour qu'ils puissent appliquer et apprendre cette stratégie.

Pour nous en assurer, nous leur posons régulièrement des questions. De cette manière, nous pouvons vérifier que les élèves comprennent la stratégie d'apprentissage et peuvent l'appliquer.

Bien entendu, nous devons donner aux élèves la possibilité de poser leurs propres questions sur l'utilisation de la stratégie d'apprentissage, mais nous devons en poser également.

En fonction de leurs réponses, il convient de leur fournir une rétroaction afin qu'ils puissent faire des ajustements si nécessaire.

Fournir une pratique guidée de l'utilisation de la stratégie

Pour acquérir une stratégie, les élèves doivent la pratiquer ensemble un nombre suffisant de fois. Nous ne devons pas nous attendre à ce qu'un élève applique spontanément une stratégie si nous ne la lui avons montrée qu'une seule fois. Une fois que nous avons modelé la stratégie d'apprentissage, nous devons la leur faire pratiquer en retirant progressivement le soutien et l'étayage.

Mettre en place une pratique autonome

Nous devons encadrer des occasions où les élèves pratiquent la stratégie de manière autonome sans étayage.

La responsabilité de choisir et d'appliquer la stratégie la plus efficace est transférée progressivement de l'enseignant vers l'élève. Cela suppose des rappels, une rétroaction et du renforcement épisodique et périodique de la part des enseignants de manière à assurer la durabilité de la maîtrise de la stratégie.

Tout cela suppose également de faire réfléchir les élèves sur les moments opportuns où organiser et permettre l'usage proactif de la stratégie. Les élèves doivent également analyser la qualité de leur mise en œuvre et les bénéfices engrangés de manière à bien l'intégrer dans leur palette de stratégies. De cette manière, nous aidons les élèves à prendre conscience de la nécessité de poser des choix judicieux. Ils doivent pouvoir estimer quelle stratégie fonctionne le mieux dans quel contexte et pourquoi.

L'important est que les élèves puissent expérimenter le fonctionnement de la stratégie d'apprentissage et qu'ils remarquent qu'ils apprennent et se souviennent mieux des contenus de l'apprentissage en la mobilisant.

Développer une culture scolaire de l'apprentissage autonome

Dans un scénario idéal, les élèves, les enseignants et les parents sont sur la même longueur d'onde lorsqu'il s'agit d'étudier efficacement.

L'approche idéale semble de former les enseignants à l'échelle d'une école pour qu'ils forment leurs élèves et que leurs parents soient également informés des stratégies enseignées pour en poursuivre le soutien à domicile.

De plus en plus d'écoles s'efforcent consciemment de promouvoir la métacognition en favorisant des démarches permettant d'apprendre à apprendre. Le principal danger est qu'une approche isolée ne va pas suffire. Dans celle-ci, de tels enseignements sont considérés par les élèves comme distincts du contenu des cours et n'y sont pas directement intégrés ou mis en application. Il y a peu de chances qu'ils s'engagent dans une pratique délibérée.

L'apprentissage d'une stratégie cognitive ou métacognitive doit s'accompagner d'une pratique intégrée concrètement dans différentes matières.

La formation des élèves à un apprentissage autonome se conçoit à trois niveaux dans les écoles :

L'enseignement de stratégies générales

L'intégration dans les cours

L'information destinée aux parents.

L'enseignement des stratégies générales

La science de l'apprentissage a mis très clairement en évidence l'efficacité d'un certain nombre de stratégies d'apprentissage telles que la pratique de récupération, la pratique espacée ou l'élaboration.

L'enseignement de la stratégie générale est important, de même que celui des mécanismes sous-jacents, mais il ne faut pas l'exagérer. Dix interventions d'une demi-heure de cours par année scolaire peuvent suffire. En réalité, les élèves apprennent essentiellement en les pratiquant concrètement.

De plus, ces stratégies ont besoin d'un pilotage : quand les utiliser, comment, combien de temps et avec quelle fréquence.

Intégrer la stratégie dans les cours spécifiques à une matière

Les stratégies générales ne peuvent être appliquées de manière significative que si :

Les élèves ont effectivement reçu un enseignement explicite à leur sujet.

La stratégie est régulièrement mentionnée et mobilisée par les enseignants durant leurs cours, dans le cadre des contenus de sa matière.

L'information destinée aux parents

Les parents d'élèves se posent régulièrement certaines questions :

Mon enfant étudie-t-il vraiment de la bonne manière ?

Est-ce que je comprends bien les attentes de l'école ?

Il y a une forte probabilité qu'ils n'ont probablement pas appris eux-mêmes la meilleure façon d'étudier et la recherche en sciences cognitives progresse. Les parents sont susceptibles de communiquer des stratégies moins efficaces à leurs enfants.

Les écoles peuvent prendre plus d'initiatives à cet égard. Il est important que les parents, s'ils sont intéressés, reçoivent également des informations correctes, accessibles et scientifiquement fondées.

Il n'est nullement question que les parents prennent en charge le processus d'apprentissage. Cependant, il convient qu'ils soient impliqués dans l'apprentissage de leurs enfants, qu'ils le soutiennent et qu'ils fixent des attentes élevées, mais réalistes.

Mis à jour le 10/05/2023

Bibliographie

Tim Surma, Op weg naar zelfstandig leren, 2020, https://excel.thomasmore.be/2020/05/op-weg-naar-zelfstandig-leren/

Fiechter, J. L., Benjamin, A. S., & Unsworth, N. (2016). The metacognitive foundations of effective remembering. In J. Dunlosky & S. K. Tauber (Eds.), Oxford handbook of metamemory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Dunlosky, J., & Ariel, R. (2011). Self-regulated learning and the allocation of study time. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 103-140.

Dirkx, K. J. H., Camp, G., Kester, L., & Kirschner, P. A. (2019). Do secondary school students make use of effective study strategies when they study on their own?. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 1-6.

Stanislas Dehaene, Apprendre!, 2018, Odile Jacob

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Un enseignement explicite des stratégies cognitives et métacognitives aux élèves

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Le défi que doivent relever les enseignants pour aider leurs élèves à apprendre n'est pas mince. Nous attendons de nos élèves qu'ils deviennent progressivement autonomes au fil de leur scolarité et qu'ils étudient et se préparent à des évaluations sommatives de plus en plus par eux-mêmes. Cela représente un certain nombre de défis.

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L'importance de l'auto-efficacité pour l'enseignement et l'apprentissage

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Certains élèves présentent des niveaux de capacités et possèdent des connaissances préalables quasi égales. Ils peuvent cependant obtenir des résultats très divergents dans certaines matières (mathématiques, chimie, physique, langues...) et dans certaines situations d'évaluation (examens, épreuves orales...) sans explications logiques d'un simple point de vue cognitif. Comment expliquer ce phénomène ? Comment agir pour le prévenir en tant qu'enseignant et y remédier ?

De même, un enseignant débutant par exemple sera confiant lorsqu'il s'adresse à ses élèves sur un sujet qu'il connait bien. Par contre, il pourrait ressentir de l'anxiété, être hésitant ou faire plus d'erreurs lorsqu'un autre enseignant, des pairs ou un autre observateur extérieur assistent à son cours. La crainte d'être jugé plutôt que d'être soutenu va détourner une partie de ses capacités cognitives. Son statut professionnel est plus menacé lorsque son public est beaucoup plus compétent que ne le sont ses élèves et supposé plus expert ou expérimenté que lui. Toutes les situations ne sont pas égales.
Voir les différents articles sur le sujet de l'auto-efficacité
Une croyance qui semble échapper à la raison

L'auto-efficacité désigne la mesure avec laquelle un individu se croit capable de mener à bien une tâche donnée. Le niveau d'auto-efficacité peut influer sur les résultats.

Une attente de résultat est une croyance ou attribution personnelle selon laquelle un individu estime qu'un certain comportement conduira à certains résultats. Une attente d'efficacité est la conviction d'un individu quant à sa capacité à adopter le comportement nécessaire pour atteindre le résultat. Cette dimension compte une large part de subjectivité.

L'auto-efficacité est une capacité cognitive complexe. Elle se forme et se consolide souvent sur plusieurs années. Les enseignants doivent être conscients des effets négatifs sur l'auto-efficacité de l'anxiété potentiellement ressentie par nos élèves et liée aux examens ou aux performances attendues. L'auto-efficacité peut se révéler être un obstacle aux apprentissages lorsqu'elle est déficiente.

Régulièrement, l'appréhension et les déficits des élèves peuvent être interdépendants. L'évitement d'activités stressantes entrave le développement des capacités d'adaptation, et le manque de compétences qui en résulte fournit une base réaliste à l'extension de cette anxiété. Un élève qui a une auto-efficacité plus faible va moins progresser qu'un autre élève qui a une auto-efficacité élevée, à aptitudes et connaissances initiales identiques. Son anxiété et son désengagement peuvent parallèlement progresser avec la dégradation de son auto-efficacité dans le domaine concerné.

Les élèves ne travaillent pas de manière purement rationnelle :

Ils choisissent de s'investir dans une tâche ou non.

Ils s'engagent dans une tâche avec plus ou moins d'assiduité et peuvent abandonner ou persévérer en fonction des difficultés ressenties qui ne sont pas forcément égales aux difficultés réelles.

La prise de décision de s'engager et la manière de le faire fonctionnent conjointement. Elles produisent un changement, dans le résultat et dans l'apprentissage. Tous ces choix déterminent ce qu'une personne finit par apprendre.

L'un des éléments les plus influents à cet égard est la croyance en nos propres capacités. Nous pouvons analyser une situation donnée avec un élève qui ressent de l'appréhension et témoigne d'une faible auto-efficacité. D'un point de vue logique et raisonnable, nous pouvons pourtant mettre en évidence son innocuité probable et son caractère disproportionné. Le danger est que lorsqu'une évaluation ou une tâche à réaliser sont des sources d'anxiété ou d'appréhension pour des élèves, ils sont susceptibles d'être moins efficaces et d'avoir un rendement plus faible.

Les élèves choisissent souvent une tâche ou une approche dont ils pensent qu'elle leur donnera les meilleurs résultats. Les élèves s'attendent également à ce qu'il y ait un lien entre leur propre capacité, ou leur croyance en leur propre capacité et le résultat. Ils choisissent une tâche qu'ils pensent pouvoir accomplir ou une stratégie qu'ils pensent efficace.

Les personnes qui ont une faible auto-efficacité dans un domaine particulier sont peu susceptibles de déployer beaucoup d'efforts pour accomplir une tâche particulière. Les personnes qui ont une auto-efficacité élevée sont plus susceptibles d'entreprendre une tâche et de considérer l'échec comme un moyen de parvenir à la réussite.

En classe, un faible niveau d'auto-efficacité signifie généralement que l'élève a une vision déformée et dégradée de la tâche à laquelle il est confronté. Il va penser qu'elle est beaucoup plus difficile qu'elle ne l'est en réalité.

Une faible auto-efficacité peut également conduire à des comportements d'évitement, perturbateurs, ou à une mauvaise planification.

L'auto-efficacité comme forme de conditionnement

Les êtres humains évitent les situations considérées menaçantes qui, selon leur ressenti, dépassent leurs capacités d'adaptation. Par contre, ils s'impliquent plus spontanément et naturellement dans des situations qu'ils pensent pouvoir gérer.

L'auto-efficacité ne se construit pas nécessairement en fonction de l'attrait ou de l'aversion pour un domaine ou une tache. L'idée centrale pour comprendre l'auto-efficacité est que ce n'est pas tant la situation elle-même qui déclenche le comportement d'un élève à son égard, mais plutôt la manière dont il anticipe la situation.

L'auto-efficacité a trait à un changement de comportement et peut être comparée à une forme de conditionnement opérant :

Des stimuli qui au départ sont neutres se retrouvent associés à des expériences négatives d'échec.

Peu à peu, les individus apprennent à anticiper les conséquences aversives et les stimuli neutres deviennent aversifs.

Des enjeux liés à une performance attendue sur une tâche peuvent servir de déclencheur. Cela peut rendre la gestion et la réalisation de celle-ci plus délicate et ponctionnant ses ressources cognitives.

Les attentes en matière d'efficacité personnelle déterminent si un comportement d'adaptation sera initié, quel effort sera déployé et combien de temps il sera maintenu face aux obstacles et aux expériences aversives.

Une spécificité au contexte

L'auto-efficacité est spécifique à une matière plutôt que généralisée. Ces mesures spécifiques à une matière sont un facteur prédictif important de la réussite scolaire. Ceci a deux implications sérieuses pour les enseignants :

L'auto-efficacité est largement spécifique à un domaine. Dès lors, nous devons nous méfier des approches visant à stimuler l'auto-efficacité qui sont basées sur des citations inspirées ou des posters de motivation. Il ne semble pas exister d'auto-efficacité globale permettant aux individus d'améliorer leur auto-efficacité de manière générale.

L'auto-efficacité est un prédicteur fort de la réussite dans un domaine particulier. L'enseignement devrait donc être adapté pour permettre aux élèves de faire l'expérience de la réussite dans ce domaine afin d'améliorer leur auto-efficacité.

Agir sur l'auto-efficacité

L'auto-efficacité est un trait spécifique à un domaine :

Elle est renforcée par des expériences positives au sein de ce domaine

Elle est diminuée par des expériences négatives au sein de ce domaine

La persistance dans des activités qui sont subjectivement menaçantes, mais en réalité relativement sûres produit, par le biais de l'expérience de la maîtrise :

Un renforcement supplémentaire de l'efficacité personnelle

Une réduction correspondante du comportement défensif.

En ce sens, rendre plus probables et fréquentes des opportunités de réussite pour les élèves dans des domaines où leur sentiment d'efficacité est faible peut contribuer à la renforcer.

Les attentes en matière d'efficacité personnelle sont dérivées de quatre sources principales d'information :

L'apprentissage énactif par la réalisation des performances

L'expérience vicariante

La persuasion verbale

Les états physiologiques.

Ces sources permettent de mettre en œuvre des pistes pour créer et renforcer les attentes en matière d'efficacité personnelle des élèves.

L'apprentissage énactif

L'apprentissage énactif est l'apprentissage par l'action et l'expérience des conséquences de nos propres actions. Il implique une autorégulation du comportement, une autosurveillance et un comportement orienté vers un objectif.

Il correspond à nos réalisations en matière de performance. Le fait d'accomplir nous-mêmes des tâches, plutôt que de regarder les autres les accomplir, est plus efficace pour accroître notre sentiment d'efficacité personnelle.

Ce sont les expériences au cours desquelles les élèves entreprennent une tâche et la maîtrisent, qui leur donnent un sentiment d'accomplissement et une plus grande confiance lorsqu'ils sont confrontés à une tâche équivalente à l'avenir.

L'auto-efficacité par la maîtrise peut se généraliser à d'autres situations, par exemple en surmontant une phobie des animaux, ce qui permet de mieux faire face aux situations sociales et de réduire la peur des autres animaux. Toutefois, les effets se manifestent surtout dans les activités qui ressemblent le plus à l'activité de maîtrise initiale.

L'apprentissage vicariant

L'apprentissage vicariant consiste à apprendre en observant les autres, par le biais d'expériences indirectes. La maîtrise personnelle n'est pas la seule à pouvoir conduire à une augmentation de l'auto-efficacité. Lorsque nous voyons d'autres personnes vivre des situations difficiles et les surmonter, cela peut renforcer notre propre sentiment que nous pourrons améliorer et achever une tâche si nous persévérons et maintenons nos efforts.

S'ils peuvent y arriver, pourquoi n'y arriverions-nous pas ? La pratique coopérative en classe est idéale pour le mettre en œuvre, mais il apparait dès la pratique guidée.

La persuasion verbale

La persuasion verbale est une intervention simple à réaliser pour un enseignant. En effet, il est relativement aisé de parler à élève et de lui suggérer qu'il peut aboutir à un résultat s'il fournit l'effort nécessaire.

Toutefois, cette approche n'est pas aussi efficace pour accroître l'auto-efficacité que celles où l'individu fait lui-même l'expérience de la maîtrise.

Dans de nombreux cas, la persuasion verbale vise principalement à augmenter les attentes en matière de réussite en aidant à la définition d'objectifs personnels, plutôt qu'à renforcer l'auto-efficacité. Un point clé ici est qu'il ne suffit pas de persuader les élèves qu'ils peuvent faire quelque chose, nous devons leur fournir un étayage et un soutien temporaire pour permettre une action efficace. Il ne suffit pas de dire à un élève qu'il peut le faire, il faut aussi lui montrer comment le faire.

L'impact de la persuasion verbale sur l'efficacité personnelle peut varier considérablement selon la crédibilité perçue des personnes qui persuadent, leur prestige, leur fiabilité, leur proximité, leur expertise et leur assurance. Plus la source de l'information est crédible et authentique, plus les attentes en matière d'efficacité des élèves sont susceptibles de changer positivement.

Les états physiologiques et émotionnels.

Les états physiologiques, ou le ressenti émotionnel renvoient au fait que des niveaux élevés d'anxiété nuisent généralement à la capacité d'un élève à accomplir une tâche, quelle que soit sa capacité.

Le stress, la peur de l'échec, la pression lors d'une évaluation sommative d'importance peuvent amener un élève à commettre des erreurs qu'il ne manifestait pas en classe ou lors d'une épreuve formative antérieure. L'anxiété en est responsable, car elle va diminuer les ressources de la mémoire de travail par des pensées parasites.

La peur de l'expérience est pire que l'expérience elle-même. En évoquant des pensées qui provoquent la crainte de leur incompétence, les élèves peuvent atteindre des niveaux d'anxiété élevés qui dépassent de loin le niveau de risque réel de l'évaluation sommative concernée. L'anticipation de la tâche est bien pire que sa réalisation effective.

Implications éducatives

L'auto-efficacité affecte le choix d'action d'un individu, notamment en matière de persistance et d'effort. À travers nos pratiques enseignantes, nous pouvons contribuer à favoriser le développement de l'auto-efficacité de nos élèves.

Certaines tâches peuvent être mobilisées pour permettre aux élèves de rencontrer des opportunités de réussite qui vont renforcer leur sentiment d'efficacité personnelle. Ces tâches ne peuvent pas être trop simples, mais doivent être réalistes. Réussir des tâches faciles ne fournit aucune information nouvelle permettant de modifier le sentiment d'auto-efficacité des élèves. La maîtrise de tâches difficiles peut apporter aux élèves la preuve évidente d'une compétence accrue. De fait, elle devient susceptible de renforcer leur auto-efficacité, si elles sont maîtrisées.

Les principes liés à l'augmentation de l'auto-efficacité gagnent à être intégrés dans le cadre plus large de pratiques d'enseignement efficaces. L'enjeu est de créer des changements généralisés et durables dans l'auto-efficacité de nos élèves. Ces différentes caractéristiques se retrouvent dans un enseignement explicite et plus largement dans les démarches d'enseignement efficace. Par conséquent, nous pouvons estimer qu'une démarche d'enseignement explicite est susceptible de renforcer l'auto-efficacité des élèves d'une manière générale.

L'idée générale est que grâce à la maîtrise, l'apprenant perçoit le succès et peut donc se sentir plus motivé à continuer à faire des efforts.

1)Un modelage clair et précis

Un comportement modélisé dont les résultats sont clairs transmet davantage d'informations sur l'efficacité que si les effets des actions modélisées restent ambigus. Lorsqu'ils font face à des élèves qui éprouvent de l'anxiété à l'égard de la matière enseignée, les enseignants peuvent décomposer les éléments constitutifs et montrer comment procéder étape par étape.

Le fait d'observer une personne (l'enseignant) réaliser des activités qui lui réussissent et génèrent du sens produit effectivement des améliorations comportementales plus importantes que le fait d'assister à ces mêmes performances modélisées sans conséquences évidentes.

Le modelage devient un moyen d'atténuer les états émotionnels potentiellement négatifs et d'enseigner les capacités d'adaptation en montrant des moyens efficaces pour mieux faire face aux situations exigeantes et complexes.

En modélisant le succès, l'enseignant offre à ses élèves une expérience d'apprentissage vicariant.

Nous montrons aux élèves les étapes spécifiques requises pour résoudre une équation algébrique ou un problème stœchiométrique par exemple. Puis nous leur donnons le temps et l'espace pour nous exercer de manière guidée puis autonome et réussir à le faire. Cette démarche est plus susceptible d'entraîner une amélioration de leur sentiment d'efficacité personnelle.

2)Fournir puis retirer l'étayage

L'apport puis la suppression des aides externes (comme le soutien, le guidage et l'étayage) à travers une pratique guidée permettent de confirmer et renforcer l'efficacité personnelle.

L'auto-efficacité est contextuelle. Certaines situations ou tâches exigent plus de compétences que d'autres et comportent un risque plus élevé de conséquences négatives. Elles dépendent du domaine de manière, du niveau de difficulté et d'exigence et des connaissances et aptitudes des élèves.

Pour atténuer le risque de conséquences négatives, une approche peut donc consister à traiter ce problème par un enchaînement minutieux de l'enseignement et des tâches. De cette manière, nous amenons les élèves à la maîtrise d'une tâche particulière et au sentiment d'accomplissement, qui est vraiment le déterminant le plus puissant de l'auto-efficacité.

Le retrait progressif de l'étayage en fonction de l'apprentissage des élèves leur permet de continuer à ressentir une situation de défis qu'ils peuvent relever, ce qui contribue à leur auto-efficacité.

3)Soigner la rétroaction

Nous devons décourager la compétition interpersonnelle et mettre l'accent sur les progrès et les résultats personnels. Nous axons le retour d'information sur les progrès et non sur les erreurs.

Faire un laïus et offrir aux élèves des recommandations générales sur la nécessité de fournir un travail régulier et des efforts peut être vrai dans un sens général. Cependant, il est peu probable que cela entraîne des changements de comportement chez les élèves.

Lorsque nous fournissons une rétroaction aux élèves par écrit ou lors de discussions individuelles, il est important de ne pas utiliser un langage ou des instructions vagues et nébuleuses. Celles-ci sont susceptibles d'avoir des effets négatifs.

Au lieu de cela, il est plus efficace de fournir des informations très claires, des instructions sur ce qui est nécessaire pour réaliser une tâche particulière. Nous modélisons la manière de le faire et ensuite nous donnons à l'élève l'occasion de s'exercer de manière indépendante pour renforcer son auto-efficacité.

4)Une pratique indépendante et l'acquisition d'un bon niveau de maîtrise

Une pratique indépendante et l'acquisition d'un bon niveau de maîtrise permettent de renforcer et de généraliser les attentes en matière d'efficacité.

Lors de la pratique indépendante et des devoirs, il faut laisser les élèves travailler à leur propre niveau, avec des objectifs qui sont à leur portée.

L'enseignement doit être axé sur l'apprentissage actif des connaissances plutôt que sur leur seule présentation. Les élèves doivent constater qu'ils peuvent évoluer et que les connaissances et les compétences ne sont pas des traits innés.

5)Des démarches d'évaluation formative et d'apprentissage coopératif

Une autre piste dans la dimension de l'expérience vicariante est de permettre aux élèves de voir leurs pairs réussir une tâche spécifique. Par exemple, lorsque les élèves réalisent une production, au lieu de noter leur travail et de le rendre, l'enseignant peut montrer à la classe trois exemples d'élèves qui réussissent cette tâche à un niveau élevé. Autre situation, après avoir fait passer une évaluation à ses élèves, l'enseignant peut renoncer à la corriger individuellement et à leur donner une rétroaction personnalisée. Au lieu de cela, l'enseignant peut leur proposer lors du cours suivant de se mettre en petit groupe et de comparer leurs réponses en tâchant d'améliorer leurs copies réciproquement.

Bibliographie

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Towards a unifying theory and the organization. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.

Kirschner, P. A., & Hendrick, C. (2020). How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice. London: Routledge.

Mirjam Neelen & Paul A. Kirschner, Goodbye growth mindset, hello efficacy and attribution theory, 2020, https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/goodbye-growth-mindset-hello-efficacy-and-attribution-theory/

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L'importance de l'auto-efficacité pour l'enseignement et l'apprentissage

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Certains élèves présentent des niveaux de capacités et possèdent des connaissances préalables quasi égales. Ils peuvent cependant obtenir des résultats très divergents dans certaines matières (mathématiques, chimie, physique, langues...) et dans certaines situations d'évaluation (examens, épreuves orales...) sans explications logiques d'un simple point de vue cognitif. Comment expliquer ce phénomène ?

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Rosenshine's Principles in Action and Conti's Extensive Processing Instruction

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Rosenshine's Principles in Action and Conti's Extensive Processing Instruction

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https://fraubastowmfl.blogspot.com/?m=1

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On this post I will be looking at what they are and how they can be implemented in the languages classroom as well as how they fit with Conti's E.P.I methodology.

As a result of this CPD all of the subject leaders at my school including myself have been asked by our SLT to demonstrate how we implement these principles within our subject area.

Here is my take on the matter. I am by no means an expert and these are my own ideas and opinions.

So what are Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction?

Before we look at the principles we need to understand first how the memory works, specifically looking at the differences between 'Working memory' and 'Long term memory' and 'The forgetting curve'. For more detail please refer to Tom's book (please, click on the picture above).

Environment affecting learning Embedding into long term memory-

Recall of new learning reusing information.

if not revised or used learning gets forgotten

Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning: Daily review can strengthen previous learning and lead to fluent recall. -

Example of a retrieval practice task:

If we consider that students can remember only 5 pieces of information at a given time, then if we teach words in isolation that would mean they can only remember and recall 5 words, however if we teach them 5 sentences as per Conti approach then they can potentially remember and recall 15-25 words depending on the SB.

New language is always introduced gradually in small chunks and steps using extensive modelling with thorough practice of pronunciation and new structures until it is firmly embedded.

Example of a Sentence Builder:

I personally love using mini whiteboards as they provide me with an instant feedback and are also easily used with Conti's E.P.I. approach, but to be honest since I have been looking into the Rosenshine's Principles I have changed how and who I ask questions.

I started to use more and more of 'cold calling' - asking students not to put their hands up and choosing myself who to question to ensure every students' understanding and progress is checked.

As teachers we are often quite tempted to pick the same students who are keen and always have their hand up and often forget about some of our less confident and quiet students.

This technique does not only ensure the teacher checks understanding of all students but also addresses any gaps in students' knowledge or misconceptions.

The first phase of Conti's E.P.I methodology is extensive modelling and awareness raising of new language using number of activities such as I say - you say, I start a word/sentence you finish, I utter sentences and students highlight what they hear, lots of modelling/dictations and translations using mini whiteboards etc.

It is astounding how quickly students learn and how much progress and confidence they gain using this approach. I highly recommend it especially for reluctant language learners.

Guide students practice; spend more time guiding students' practice of new material.

The next phase in the Conti approach which again nicely marries up with the Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction is Receptive Processing which allows students a lot of guided practice using variety of activities such as: Spot the error, spot the missing details, spot the difference, one pen one dice translation etc. I will talk about this phase in more detail in my next post but guided practice is at the centre of the second phase of the learning process.

Example of some of the activities for Receptive Processing

For this, I find using the mini whiteboards is great as I can instantly see what are my students getting right and what not (KS3 students love them and so do the older students). What are the most common spelling mistakes...

When we have progressed to Structured Production, specifically writing using a visualiser is a great way to give students feedback as well as show WAGOLLs and address any misconceptions. I tend to make notes of most common mistakes and misconceptions and provide a whole class feedback using my visualiser.

As mentioned in my previous post I teach in a comprehensive secondary school with students from all social backgrounds, some of our students come from very poor and disadvantaged families and many come without the support and encouragement of their families; we also have a higher then average proportion of students with SEN and many of our students don't have the opportunity to travel beyond the place they live.

As a result of these barriers, languages and often even education are not of importance to them but the Conti style approach has been a game changer for us, it has made them more excited about learning a language, more open to it and gave them the confidence that they can do it.

This is the most important thing to me as an educator; the fact that my students are enjoying the process of learning and have the belief they can do it and that they are achieving!

One of my year 7 students told me last week: 'Frau Bastow, I thought I can't do German, but now I know I can and you make it really easy!'

My year 9 (who are notoriously known to be a difficult year group as they are in the year when they are choosing their GCSE options) when asked which delivery style they prefer - text book or Conti were all united in their response - they love the Conti style.

I absolutely loved hearing this and I am really happy because it makes sense and makes the process of learning a language accessible, enjoyable and students can see instant results.

Example of independent work after 4 weeks - year 9 mixed ability class

Introduction of tasks is often scaffolded in language learning. This scaffold is then gradually withdrawn depending on classes and when students become more confident with the new language and structures.

Below is an example of Gianfranco Conti's Oral Scaffold adapted to German.

Another example are structure strips that I have first seen in a CPD delivered by Wendi Adeniji two years ago.

This great resource has been designed by my colleague Claire Dymond and supports the picture task.

Require and monitor independent practice: Students need extensive, successful and independent practice for knowledge and skills to become automatic.

We would be hardly asked to write an essay when we visit another country, but we will be always required to speak it, and this is the skill I find our students struggle the most with; they are too scared to take risks, too worried they get things wrong, this is the skill in which they lack their confidence most.

Whilst delivering the Conti style lessons and because we are extensively practising pronunciation and key structures, I am finding out that my students are more willing to read and speak aloud, they are not too worried about making mistakes and they are definitely motivated.

They are confident with the language that we are learning and they are more spontaneous using it, but as a linguist to reach the point of automacy in another language and become a fluent speaker can take years of practice and commitment.

An example of independent speaking practice

Reviews of previous knowledge have always played a big part in language learning and acquisitions, being it your regular vocabulary tests or end of unit assessments.

However, the word test and assessment often causes a lot of anxiety amongst the students and forces teachers to teach for an exam rather for retention.

Following our training on Rosenshine's principles we have looked more closely at Retrieval Practice and low stake quizzes instead of using tests. We have incorporated low stake quizzes and variety of Retrieval Practice tasks into our weekly lessons as well as into the homework we set.

This way we still check that students are preparing for their lessons regularly as well as making sure homework has been consistently completed and screen shots of the results proudly uploaded to our SMHW and monitored.

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On this post I will be looking at what they are and how they can be implemented in the languages classroom as well as how they fit with Conti's E.P.I methodology. As a result of this CPD all of the subject leaders at my school including myself have been asked by our SLT to demonstrate how we implement these principles within our subject area.

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25+ ideas for retrieval starters @EClaireMFL

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The title of this post should perhaps have been '25 ideas for retrieval starters that can also be used as plenaries or simply basic lesson activities' but it was less catchy... The only reason I have specified 'starters' is because I personally love to start a lesson with retrieval of previous material.
The purpose of this post
This post is especially aimed at trainees who have heard this buzzword and are looking for any of the following:

Lesson starter ideas

Understanding how 'retrieval' fits into the MFL context

How to design effective retrieval tasks - methodological principles to bear in mind

A variety of example retrieval activities that can be used as starters, or simply as consolidation activities or plenaries

This post may also be useful for more experienced teachers looking to add to their repertoire of activities. At the bottom, I have also included links to several eye-catching templates for those of you with a penchant for PowerPoint...
MFL contextual considerations

1. It is easy to overstate the importance of retrieval practice within MFL teaching. The term has become very trendy on #edutwitter but its full value can only be found when students have processed the target language items enough times across different skills for them to actually be retrievable. Getting to that point in the first place is no trivial task! What you to do ensure the memory is formed in the first place is therefore equally as important. As highlighted by prominent MFL experts (eg. Conti and Smith), lots of extensive processing of input (that is comprehensible, structured, patterned, flooded etc.) is needed first of all!

2. Additionally, as pointed out by LearningLinguist in this useful blog post https://learninglinguist.co.uk/revisiting-retrieval-practice/, retrieval practice is much more than starters and grids, and is embedded in many different ways in our MFL lessons and curriculum. As mentioned by Conti in various tweets/Facebook posts, MFL teachers have been doing retrieval practice forever, and one of its best forms is good old translation! The activities below all involve translation in some shape or form.

3. Finally, I would suggest that you may want to avoid hastily adopting non-MFL-specific retrieval 'templates', since the common tasks and question types may lead you to focus excessively on 'declarative knowledge' rather than 'procedural knowledge' - to what extent to be want to be talking about the language when we could be using it? To learn more about this distinction and surrounding issues, see this very helpful post: https://frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2020/11/what-is-skill-acquisition-theory.html

Background
If you're new to this topic, click here to read a post I wrote recently introducing the theory behind retrieval practice and why it's important.
A checklist of principles
My knowledge of how research informs MFL pedagogy is essential to how I like to design retrieval activities. Thanks to the work of experts like Conti and Smith in their various blogs and books, it could be suggested that retrieval tasks should do any (or several) of the following:

✔ Present language in chunks, not individual words - we don't really learn words in isolation, and teaching in single words is less efficient. (Proper explanation available here: https://frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-curse-of-single-word-vocab-learning.html )

✔ Be completed under time pressure, as this is more likely to promote fluency.

✔ Provide opportunities for language to be practised across different topics, not always in the same sentences, since memory is context-dependent, so you cannot assume students will be able to automatically transfer their learned phrases to new topics.

✔ Require thorough processing of language - quick comprehension tasks that only require students to pick out a few words in a text are less effective for retrieval as they only involve skimming or scanning. Favour tasks that force students to process entire sentences or texts in detail.

✔ Involve deeper processing of meanings - tasks that get you to compare and contrast words and phrases and their connections (eg. Sorting into categories, synonyms, antonyms, positive vs. negative connotations, odd one out etc.) require deeper semantic analysis which is said to improve chances of retention.

✔ Be completed across different skills - practising a subtopic/unit receptively (through listening and/or reading) is not enough, it must also be practised productively and repeatedly in different contexts.

✔ Involve some aural input at some stage to reinforce all learning through listening - this could be because it is a listening task, but it doesn't have to be. It could simply involve students having to read language aloud during an L2 to L1 translation activity, or the teacher reading each answer aloud after it has been given by a student.

✔ Require the students to speak in TL - does not necessarily mean spontaneous speech, but translating orally is also beneficial. Reading aloud and repeating aloud have multiple benefits for acquisition (see https://gianfrancoconti.com/2018/03/16/my-favourite-read-aloud-task-and-how-i-use-them/)
Suggested activities Receptive starters
The following activities can be used for retrieval starters from the target language into L1, ie. When you want students to recall the English translation of target phrases or sentences in reading or listening. This is preferable in earlier stages of teaching a unit of work, when students have not yet processed the language enough through listening and reading to be able to produce it in the TL. You can read more about this principle of receptive processing before production in the book The Language Teacher Toolkit by Smith and Conti, or on their blogs gianfrancoconti.com or frenchteachernet.blogspot.com.

Retrieval grid containing key chunks / short sentences to translate
ADVANTAGES: Visually engaging, more accessible than long translation sentences. Grid layout also allows for easy organisation of language by topic, subtopics or by communicative function.

TIPS & CAVEATS: Add time pressure to the activity by using an onscreen timer, or turning it into a race or game using one of the variations below.

VARIATIONS: Involving a points system and colour key to cover different units can create a more 'gamified' feel to motivate certain learners. Some teachers take it further by turning it into a 'connect 4' activity - this could either consist of identifying 4 chunks that have a link and being able to explain the link (deep processing!) or by simply completing the translations of 4 boxes in a row. A 'roll and retrieve' grid is a good option when you've just got chunks rather than sentences - students in pairs roll a die to get the coordinates of a chunk to translate, then repeat.

Thanks to MissS7 on TES for sharing these templates:

Thanks to Dan Haste on TES for this one:

Quickfire L2 to L1 aural translations on MWBs
ADVANTAGES: Mini whiteboards offer an instant snapshot of what students can remember. Students often enjoy using MWBs and many teachers argue that students are less afraid of making mistakes as it doesn't feel as permanent or serious as committing ink to paper. Planned carefully and done regularly, this activity can boost students' confidence in listening, and it also promotes retention of correct grammatical structures, word order etc. as it is an example of a Listening-as-modelling (LAM) activity (you can read about this on Conti's blog or see a useful blog post on other LAM/RAM activities here https://fraubastowmfl.blogspot.com/2020/10/receptive-processing-phase-lamram-conti.html)

TIPS & CAVEATS: Maintaining pace can be tricky when doing this for the first time. Checking individual MWBs can take time which could create opportunities for chatter or boredom. For trainees, I would also recommend using MWBs only once you have developed a good relationship with the class and confident classroom management, and be sure to clarify expectations for MWB usage before starting the activity. Once students know the routine, it's straightforward.

VARIATIONS: A harder version would be 'delayed translation' (A Conti/Smith activity) - insert a 5 or 10-second timer in between uttering the sentence and students writing. They have to hold it in their heads during the pause on a 'phonological loop' - awesome for retention!

Quickfire quiz/translations on Whiteboard.fi or Mentimeter
ADVANTAGES: these sites allow you to assess students' answers in real time so you can offer feedback. It's basically the exact digital equivalent to mini whiteboards.

TIPS & CAVEATS: Same as previous activity - pace is key!

Song challenge
ADVANTAGES: It's a basic table to see how many vocab items students can remember. You quietly play a TL song in the background whilst they fill it in, and they have the duration of the song to do as much as they can, creating a sense of urgency whilst also exposing them to a bit of culture! It might generate a brief discussion on song suggestions for independent exploration. I also find that when I do this activity, students focus on the task immediately and don't distract each other - the music seems to have a calming effect!

TIPS & CAVEATS: As mentioned before, it is preferable to use chunks rather than individual words. Read why: https://frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-curse-of-single-word-vocab-learning.html It is often said that songs with lyrics are detrimental to concentration/study, but that is usually because the words and messages tend to distract you, whereas a TL song is unlikely to contain that much comprehensible input for KS3 or KS4 learners, meaning it will just sound like a pleasant stream of nice TL sounds as opposed to words and sentences that could distract them!

Thanks to morganmfl.com for sharing this idea that she got from a course in London. Here is an example from her site:

Jumble orally in pairs (without L1 translation)
ADVANTAGES: Requires recalling the L1 meaning of the L2 chunks, and subsequent task of reordering the sentence - reinforces word orders and collocations. Can be done with individual words or chunks in boxes. I would suggest whole chunks in boxes at earlier stages of the teaching sequence, and then individual words once students have a better grasp of any word order issues.

Short translation sentences into L1 using the site Carousel Learning
ADVANTAGES: Esmeralda Salgado of mflcraft.blospot.com recommends Carousel Learning 'because students do not get immediate feedback but they are presented with the right answers at the end of their quiz'. Students are then required to decide if it is correct or not, which is arguably powerful for taking ownership over mistakes and improvement. Esmeralda also shared this informative video from Jane Basnett on using this site https://www.loom.com/share/add230f54f1e4df89616f589a968f0ee

TIPS & CAVEATS: This could end up being quite a long starter if you put in too many sentences, so be selective with what chunks you want to practise so that the exercise has a clear focus and gives you an accurate picture of progress.

Basic gap-fill
ADVANTAGES: As well as requiring recall of meaning, this task can also be used to help draw attention to grammatical features, such as matching correct verb ending to subject, or using adjective agreement to help work out what could go where. This task can also be used to promote proofreading skills - encourage students to read their completed sentences and translate them back into L1 in their heads to check they make sense.

Odd one out / vocab-sorting grid
ADVANTAGES: Deeper processing = stronger retention. Also feels like a game!

VARIATIONS: alternatives could be a grid containing pairs of synonyms, antonyms, or 'connect 4' phrases belonging to the same subtopic/category. These all require higher order thinking skills.

Thanks to the blog theidealteacher.com for this example:

Productive starters
The following activities can be used for retrieval starters from the L1 into the target language, ie. When you want students to produce the target language in writing, speaking, or a translation task. I have tried to put the more closed/narrow/structured targeted activities at the start, and the more open ones (with less scaffolding) towards the end, to reflect order of difficulty.

Any of the grid ideas at the start of the above section, but only containing L1 content instead, for students to translate into L2.

First letter translation

Song challenge
See description in previous section - this can also be used from L1 to L1 and first letters could be provided as an extra clue.

Replace the chunk
ADVANTAGES: This involves providing a few short sentences with certain words or chunks highlighted or underlined, and getting students to 'replace' the chunk with an alternative that would fit. This task therefore involves recalling L1 meaning of sentence, then retrieval of other L2 phrases.

VARIATIONS: To add challenge, the task could be a competition or a race to give as many chunks as possible that would work as replacements.

Quickfire L1 to L2 aural translations on MWBs
Same as activity previously mentioned in this post, but this time sentences are from English into the Target Language.

Short translation sentences on the website Carousel Learning
Same as activity previously mentioned in this post, but this time sentences are from English into the Target Language.

Spend the chunks
ADVANTAGES: It involves first recalling the L1 meaning of the L2 chunks, then putting them into a sentence, like the example below, so also provides writing practice and chances to retrieve other vocab, verbs or constructions.

TIPS & CAVEATS: You could provide useful conjugated verbs on the side as extra support.

VARIATIONS: You could also use wheel of names to generate chunks one-by-one, with students doing this activity live, sentence by sentence on MWBs, offering a chance to compare individual sentences and offer live feedback. Here's a great video from Esmeralda Salgado on using Wheel of Names https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZGcc96kyTo

Gap-fill no options
ADVANTAGES: Simply providing gapped sentences for students to fill not only gets them to recall language, but it can also be used to draw attention to certain grammatical features by giving metalinguistic clues eg. 'What kind of word can only fit in this gap?'

VARIATIONS: Instead of a gapped sentence, you could provide several sentence starters that need to be turned into a sentence. You could even do this variation through listening - you read out a sentence starter, and students note on MWBs a possible ending.

Upgrade my sentence
ADVANTAGES: Providing a few 'boring sentences' in TL gets them to think about how they could improve the sentence in some way, either by replacing banal vocab or by adding more details. Good for building exam-skills and promoting metacognition.

VARIATIONS: You could give this activity a particular focus, such as connectives / opinions and justifications / time phrases / comparisons etc.

BYOV (Bring your own verbs) - my silly new title for an activity I previously called 'verbs only'
ADVANTAGES: This simply involves showing students a TL question similar to one they could get in a speaking exam or a bullet point from a writing question. Instead of writing a full sentence answer, students must simply note down as many phrases (that include a conjugated verb) as they can think of that could each form the basis of a response. I find this activity useful for preparing for writing, as it encourages them to start their sentence by thinking of verbs that they know. This can help avoid the problem where students think of ideas or vocab first without considering whether they can correctly use the necessary verbs to create those sentences.

TIPS & CAVEATS: You could provide a set of suggested verb phrases in English for extra support.

Cops & robbers retrieval of key chunks on a given topic

ADVANTAGES: You give students a key question or subtopic, and they have to retrieve as many chunks or vocab items as they can from memory.

TIPS & CAVEATS: This is technically only 50% retrieval practice, as half of it is stealing info from peers, but a useful revision task nonetheless!

I have adapted the template below from MissS7 from TES:

Conti retrieval routine grid

ADVANTAGES: This template gets students to focus on one chunk at a time, and then elicits further language on the same topic - excellent practice to prepare for producing extended sentences through writing or speaking. It also revises key questions!

VARIATIONS: It could be timed and turned into a competition in pairs (as suggested by Conti in the GILT Facebook group)

Expansion and fluency retrieval starters - one of my CPD goals for now!
The aim here would be to increase the speed of retrieval so that students can produce the language in real-life conditions. For the moment, this is an area that I have not yet fully explored, and am hoping to incorporate gradually into my teaching sequences.
Miscellaneous ideas:
You can read about some of the main activities used in the EPI methodology at this stage of the teaching sequence, such as 'the 4, 3, 2 technique' and 'marketplace' here https://gianfrancoconti.com/2017/03/04/en-route-to-spoken-fluency-via-task-repetition-the-4-3-2-technique-and-market-place/

Miscellaneous templates

Textivate and SentenceBuilders.com are two superb subscription sites that can turn your text into snappy activities, many of which would make excellent retrieval starters.

5-a-day mixed retrieval slide - I love the variety of this template containing 5 different question types. It allows you to mix up different activity types - translation, verb conjugation, perhaps even a pronunciation/phonics task, or vocab sorting tasks.

I found these colourful templates on TES from Emmamfl

Thank you for checking out this post. If you found it helpful, then do share it. If you have any thoughts, questions or suggestions, don't hesitate to leave a comment!

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The title of this post should perhaps have been '25 ideas for retrieval starters that can also be used as plenaries or simply basic lesson activities' but it was less catchy... The only reason I have specified 'starters' is because I personally love to start a lesson with retrieval of previous material.

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MultiLingProfiler is designed to help users assess the suitability of written texts and listening transcripts for language learners

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These are examples of NCELP vocabulary activities. Although the resources may be presented in a specific language, most are applicable and adaptable to other languages. For further information on NCELP approaches to the teaching of vocabulary, please refer to the 'Rationales, research and guidance collection'.

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These are examples of NCELP vocabulary activities. Although the resources may be presented in a specific language, most are applicable and adaptable to other languages. For further information on NCELP approaches to the teaching of vocabulary, please refer to the 'Rationales, research and guidance collection'.

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Voir dépliants sures garçons /filles

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Le blog des enfants et des parents curieux

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Bouncy Balls - Manage classroom noise with bouncing balls!

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Bouncy Balls – Manage classroom noise with bouncing balls!

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A free classroom noise level meter, monitor and management tool. Perfect if your school kids are too noisy! Bouncing balls react to sounds from the microphone.

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Wordwall - Create better lessons quicker

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1) The apple does not fall down far from the tree (German) a) You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear b) Too many cooks spoil the broth c) Like father like son d) To beat about/around the bush 2) Monkey remains monkey even if you hang a golden kettle around its neck (Slovak) a) The pot calling the kettle black b) You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear c) Like father like son d) To beat about/around the bush 3) Some planks are missing from his roof (Turkish) a) Too many cooks spoil the broth b) A sandwich short of a picnic c) To carry coals to Newcastle d) Once bitten, twice shy 4) A donkey calls the other a long-ear a) Once bitten, twice shy b) Don't count your chickens before they're hatched c) Don't cry over spilt milk d) The pot calling the kettle black 5) A dog that has been bitten by a snake fears sausages (Portuguese) a) You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear b) Once bitten, twice shy c) Bad workman blames his tools d) Like father like son 6) Selling ice to the eskimos (Italian) a) Like a drop in the ocean b) To carry coals to Newcastle c) The pot calling the kettle black d) A sandwich short of a picnic 7) To walk like a cat around hot porridge (Norwegian) a) To beat about/around the bush b) Like a drop in the ocean c) Once bitten, twice shy d) Bad workman blames his tools 8) Six cooks and nothing to eat (Polish) a) Bad workman blames his tools b) Like a drop in the ocean c) Once bitten, twice shy d) Too many cooks spoil the broth 9) Coat after rain (Hungarian) a) A sandwich short of a picnic b) Don't count your chickens before they're hatched c) To beat about/around the bush d) Don't cry over spilt milk 10) The poor writer blames the pen (Spanish) a) Once bitten, twice shy b) Too many cooks spoil the broth c) Don't cry over spilt milk d) Bad workman blames his tools 11) You shouldn't praise the day before the night (German) a) Once bitten, twice shy b) Bad workman blames his tools c) Don't count your chickens before they're hatched d) A sandwich short of a picnic 12) Like a little wren's wee in the sea (Welsh) a) Like a drop in the ocean b) Don't cry over spilt milk c) To carry coals to Newcastle d) Too many cooks spoil the broth

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1) The apple does not fall down far from the tree (German) a) You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear b) Too many cooks spoil the broth c) Like father like son d) To beat about/around the bush 2) Monkey remains monkey even if you hang