MFL supporters, Prince Philip's languages, MFL schemes of work, exploiting reading texts, Wordwall, Bilinguals vs. multilinguals and more.
Happy Friday!
Hope you've had a great week!
Here's what I've packed into the MFL weekly email today:
Become a supporter
Prince Philip's languages
MFL schemes of work
Exploiting reading texts
Using Wordwall
Bilinguals vs. multilinguals
Easter emails rewind
The importance of time out
MFL teachers vs. silent pupils
Coffee up and enjoy!
PS. If a friend forwarded this email to you, you can sign up to the weekly email yourself here.
🌍 NEWS
Become a supporter
It's been heartwarming reading all the lovely comments that you've been sharing about this email online. I couldn't do it without all of your warmth, kindness and support!
So now, if you'd like to show your thanks, you can become one of my very first MFL Supporters!
You'll personally be helping me on my mission to ensure that all MFL students - regardless of location or background - receive the best education and inspiration from the best practitioners in the country.
You can become one of the first MFL Supporters for less than the price of a coffee (or indeed your Friday glass of wine!)
It's just £2/month (or £20/year) and you and your department will receive a public shoutout in next week's email as a personal thank you from me. Support me here!
🎬 FEATURE
Prince Philip's languages
All week long, tributes have been made from around the world to HRH the Duke of Edinburgh.
Along with other world leaders, French president Emmanuel Macron celebrated the Prince's strong "sense of duty and commitment to the youth".
The internet then reminded us just how multilingual Prince Philip was...
Here are some cultural resources that you may wish to share with your students:
Prince Philip speaks (in French) about his passion for horses on French TV.
Prince Philip speaks (in German) about the environment on Austrian TV.
For KS4 students, here is a simplified article (in French) on the Journal des Enfants.
For KS5 students, here is the full tribute (in French) from French President Macron.
📂 DOWNLOADS MFL schemes of work
Full, free schemes of work are now available for UK year 7 and 8 French, German and Spanish on the NCELP website (as well as resources to accompany them).
You may want to share these with your PGCE and NQT colleagues in particular, as they'll likely not have much in their personal repertoires yet (and probably be lacking a lot of sleep!)
The schemes of work for year 9 are still being produced, but all of the lesson plans and resources for years 7 and 8 are complete and ready to download here:
💡 INSPIRATION Exploiting reading texts
A common problem among teachers in any MFL department can be overwhelm due to overplanning.
Thankfully, Kayleigh Meyrick has shared an excellent way to exploit reading texts in MFL, which she calls "The Big Read".
Her six-stage approach can turn one text into an entire lesson. It includes a starter task, listening task, written comprehension task, verbal comprehension task and written task.
PS. I've also spotted online that Señora W MFL uses a version of "The Big Text" in her lessons, too!
🖥 APPS & SITES Using Wordwall
Why re-invent the (MFL) wheel?
With Wordwall, you can search among 1,000s of ready-made interactive MFL games and activities and add an interactive element into your lesson plan, whatever you're teaching!
However, if you're feeling creative, you can make your own games and share them with everyone else. You can make drag-and-drop games, match-up games, true/false games and much more!
🎓 PEDAGOGY Bilinguals vs. multilinguals
It's official: multilingual people are more advantaged than bilingual people.
In this paper from researchers at the University of Tokyo, studies have shown that multilingual people have "trained their brains" to learn languages, which makes it easier for them to acquire additional languages after mastering a second or third.
According to the researchers, the findings provide some of the first evidence that language skills are "additive" – also known as the "cumulative enhancement model" of language acquisition.
So... I guess now is the time for you to pick up that third language! Or the fourth... or the fifth!
🔁 ICYMI Easter emails rewind
I was happy to keep sending the email over the Easter holidays, knowing that some people would (and that some people wouldn't) be reading them!
But now that most UK schools are back or will be on Monday, here's what you may have missed while you were making the most of the sun and the chocolate over the Easter holidays.
9th April – A petition to revoke the new MFL proposals, #UKEdConf2021, Spanish resources, teaching the perfect tense, PowerPoint tricks, metacognition, top cognates and more.
2nd April – Behind the scenes of the new MFL proposals, International Day of Multilingualism, GCSE exam strategies workbook, lie detector game, AQA word list hacks and more.
26th March – Easter resources, 90-word writing templates, mosaic translations, the 2021 Innovative Language Pedagogy Report, GCSE MFL word lists and more.
💪 MOTIVATION The importance of time out Do you find your best ideas often come to you in the shower?
Mine certainly do – and it's because we do our best thinking when we're relaxed.
So, somewhat paradoxically, if we want to keep growing we have to keep taking time out.
😂 AND FINALLY... MFL teachers vs. silent pupils
As an MFL teacher, have you ever been faced with a wall of silence in class? Thankfully it doesn't just happen to us...
Thank you so much for reading this week's email, and I hope you have a lovely weekend!
If you liked this email, please do hit forward and share it with your team.
See you next week!
Blaine
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