What makes an effective languages lesson
PLN HQ Reading through questions
What makes an effective language lesson?
We received a very good question at PLN HQ last week, ‘What makes an effective languages lesson?’
Amidst the swirl of new information, resources, ideas, and concepts, we thought a discussion over what is actually required of Primary Languages at a principle level is required.
What does effective mean?
Before discussing what compiles of an effective languages lesson in Primary schools, it is important to establish what effective means. Without diving too deep into this, essentially an effective lesson should be moving you towards your long-term ambitions with primary languages.
At PLN, we have a firm stance that we are trying to create a solid foundation of lifelong language learning, past GCSE and well beyond. We want to build children’s curiosity in foreign languages, develop language learning skills and overall enjoyment of the subject. Therefore our lessons and schemes reflect and promote this.
Nurturing these ideas are paramount for a successful languages lesson, and should all contribute to the idea of an effective languages lesson. Below are some useful suggestions.
Retention, retention, retention
Learning a language requires consistent, and layered practice. That means revisiting key topics frequently through learning. Assuming that all children will learn, and then retain the information provided in a lesson is wildly optimistic, therefore planning for forgetting is paramount, therefore some form of retention practice is paramount. At PLN we like to introduce this in the start of the lesson, and it could be found in in the design of a ‘Go fetch!’ retrieval question, or a phonic/ listening activity. The principle is to practice what you have practiced, and to practice frequently enough to remember it.
Teach at the right level and focus on the fun
Students, classes, and schools will move at different speeds through schemes of languages depending on; demographic; bilinguals/ second language at home; interest in languages; school drive for languages; coordinator understanding; teacher understanding, and many, many more reasons. You can’t control these variables, but you can control what and how you teach languages.
Your role as a coordinator and teacher is not to achieve the last module of languages of the scheme of work you have chosen to teach but to provide students with the right content at the right time, have fun and promote language learning.
Languages is not assessed like Maths or English and primary school, and therefore does not need to be taught like so. Focus on fun, engagement, and pitch content at the right level, without the pressure of feeling the need of pushing the level up. Focus on quality of learning, a rich curriculum and enjoyment levels in the class. Take regular student and teacher surveys, find out if your school is enjoying the challenge of learning a language or not.
In simple terms, make sure what you are teaching is at the right level for your class. Don’t be afraid to turn it down a notch
Don’t be afraid to sing
Greetings song from the video lesson scheme of work
I’d be the first to accept some level of anxiety when it comes to singing in front of a class, especially in another language. But, unfortunately for me (and some of you) songs are a highly effective way of getting languages into your children’s heads, and sticking. So, let go of your ego, embrace your indie (out of tune) style of singing, and get your class singing. PLN recommends using the greetings song as a start to most, if not all languages lessons.
If singing really isn’t your thing, then ‘stickability’ should be a key focus, find something else you can do, frequently that will help language stick. It could be games, actions, or many more techniques to make sure that the language doesn’t leave just after it has arrived.
Learn something new
We learn numbers 11-15 after learning 1-10 earlier in the year
Without stating the obvious, the aim of every lesson is to learn something new. It could be new vocab, understanding of grammar, phonetic or sound, cultural understanding or geographical concept. Students should be gaining more information about the language they are learning on a weekly basis, and this should be measurable. You should see a difference in what students know over the long term, if you aren’t, you probably need to get that sorted out. At PLN, we like to layer progress over a long period time, although we teach a lot of new vocab, it isn’t paramount and instead focus on developing a greater understanding of the language as a whole over the 4 years of learning, in all areas of potential learning.
Emilie, the Video2Teach star, swears by the motto
‘Achieve the learning objective, and move on’
Keep it simple and achieve learning every lesson. It doesn’t need to a be a lot, but enough.
Play games
A memory game found on the SoW
As previously established, retention should be a key focus, and playing games really is an awesome way of practicing without feeling like you are practicing, so, find yourself games that work with your students, that also promote learning languages. If you are a PLN member you have the benefit of using all the classroom based games introduced through the schemes of work, or on the interactive games page. Either way, games are your friend with languages, and every lesson should have a game in, figure out what your class like to do, and do it until they are bored of it, then switch to another game type.
Lean into a certain skill
Every lesson should be weighted more towards one skill of learning a language s(speaking/ listening/ reading/ writing). In an ideal world we would have 30 mins each lesson to spend on each skill, and make equal progress every lesson. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, so instead, teach lessons which focus on one of the skills and balance it out over a term, it doesn’t mean you can’t do bits of each, instead focus on a certain one. In fact it is actually quite difficult to some skills without the other, for example writing without reading or speaking without listening.
We are not saying don’t focus on all skills, but instead taking a long term process to building all 4 skills to learning a language. Schemes like ours already has this built in perfectly for you
Here is the opinions of some others at the company
Last but not least native speaker exposure
Phonics and native speaker exposure are real strengths of the Video2Teach scheme of work
At the very bare minimum children should be exposed to listening to a native speaker in the language being taught. The ideal situation is to have a native speaker teaching the lesson, but this isn’t always realistic. A middle ground of video interaction with native speaker is where we recommend. And through the video2teach scheme of work is our best alternative. It is essential to see how native speakers use their mouths to create sounds, and also to see what words they will use in certain situations. Watching native speakers talk is a wonderful way to imitate and adopt the language
Here is what Primary Languages consultant Kate Percival thinks about effective languages lessons….
Children having fun, being engaged in the learning, and feeling they can achieve are all key in making language lessons effective in my opinion. I find songs and rhymes make language memorable – even if you put the words or phrases you’re learning to a rhythm or tune yourself! You can play around with the dynamics: speed up, slow down, add actions. I always find pupils are more engaged if the activities are pacy and sometimes, the simpler the activity the better! Yet, a safe culture where ‘it’s OK to make mistakes’ also allows all children to feel they can participate and make progress. Another tip is to try and squeeze out every opportunity to use the target language. For example, scoring a game using target language numbers, allowing to accept ‘help’ from friends in an activity but only in the target language, greetings and asking: ‘how are you?’ or saying ‘I’ve finished’ gives communication a real-life purpose.
Be Proud of your Primary Languages
At PLN we want you to be proud of your primary languages. We have schemes of work which is tailored to all teaching ability, from the ground up! We also pride ourselves on our training and support and have everything in place to support yourself and your teachers
To gain more information about PLN and its Schemes of work, why not try us out! Click on the button below to have a free trial of resources and receive emails with info and access