From policy to practicality.Primary languages and beyond!

Last week at CPD in London delivered by Lisa Stevens, Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings  and Julie Prince and myself ,we shared with colleagues some effective and creative ways to bring story,cross curricular learning,technology and phonics and literacy in to the primary classroom.
In the room with us were primary and secondary colleagues, all of whom identified with what we had to share and could see pathways forward for their own learning environments! Thank you Lisa,Sylvie and Julie! 
Lisa made Sketch Notes of presentations and here are her Sketch Notes of my presentation.....and below listed in point form are the points I raised.

Policy to Practicality Points to Consider and Reflect Upon.....

1. What does language learning and thought of it make you feel? How was language learning for you at school? Why should this inform your approach in the primary classroom? 
2. If you are a secondary languages teacher - how can you make sure that your language teaching practice in the primary classroom is language learning for all and not those who pick it up quickly or in certain way?
3. If you are a primary specialist teacher then look for all thse wonderful links to literacy that you bring so readily to the classroom.
4. If secondary linguists and primary non speicialist language teachers talk and share - it will make and does make already in certain instances magic! 
5. Are languages a bit like driving a car? I learnt in a Fiat Panda and when my father asked me to reverse the Rover off the drive to pop the new Fiat Panda on the drive - I froze! why ? Well I had learnt in a Fiat ~Panda....could I really reverse a different type of car? Of course I could - slowly and stutteringly but safely .... I had learnt to drive a car hadn't I? What a sense  of pride I felt once I had done this! Even to this day I know that I can drive cars- albeit stutteringly at first in a new or strange vehicle!!
6. Pupils want to move forward .Self efficacy makes learning a "self" perpetuating need as learners achieve and want to learn more and get better.They like feeling successful- that goes withoit saying really! What we need to do is provide the tools so they can be successful.
7. Self efficacy demands that we listen to what the children want to say and we must consider what age and stage our learners are at and what they can already do.A young child for example wants to tell you that he /she has hurt his/ her knee or his/her head hurts and not that he/she has a temperature or may have a stomach upset! Young children generally want to talk about things that are relevant in their lives: sweets,toys, family and  today and tomorrow and probably not talk about things that have no relevance in their own lives.
8. The Purpose of Study in the DFE POS  is a powerful paragraph.The opening line about the "liberation from insularity" is our green light to explore the World with the children.It's the WOW factor!Tasting,investigating,meeting,speaking,singing ,dancing, understanding more about the world and moving away from the small world of the child in some instances! Breing the world in to the classroom - virtually or with real experiences and make it age and stage appropriate!
9. Balance the learning between "Listening,Speaking ,Reading and Writing". Acknowledge that not very many people are purely auditory learners.Sometimes the best primary practitioners are those that have to find lots of ways to facilitate learning of limited language because they themselves have got to re-learn or learn for the first time the language they are teaching- which helps them to understand the needs of the learners very well.
10. KS1 practitioners are fantastic at seeing the links between basic building  bkocks of sentence building in english and the transfer of these activities to KS2.They all seem to love the Sandcastle Sentence Building that we do with our KS2 Y5/6 learners in the network! It seems to me we all have so much to learn from each others' expertise!
11. Our young learners told us in a school learning journey programme a few years ago that they wanted to be able to talk to other children their own age and they wanted to hear what they have to say about their lives.This was how they saw being successful in language learning.Age and stage appropriate,this is a wonderful way to engage the language learners of the future! Personal information is still important and we need to provide them with the scaffold of questions and answers and show them how to constrauct dialogues and conversations.
12. Be imaginative and creative.I have most certainly been asking children to be "language detectives" all my teaching career with what ever stage or age of learner I have been working - indeed with adults too! Make the learning memorable.
13. Problem solve - not you but facitate problem solving for the children .I know of course  that not all children want to "do drama" (even though I love this approach!) and I advocate providing a very mixed diet of learning.
14. Encourage reading for pleasure and listening just to listen - don't always look for results and progress ....Maybe it happens without us noticing sometimes?
15. Link language learning across the curriculum - embed the learning in the curriculum and take time to  share this with the wider community.Are you looking at pirates as a school theme? Well what about going on a treaure hunt in languages and  go on a word treasure hunt as pirates gathering new treasure from their "pirate bilingual treasure chests - the bilingual dictionary".
16. Take time to meet the demands of "emerging, meeting and exceeding" statements we so often here now.Notice that I am suggesting we take time! Let's make learning accessible to all.Remember languages spiral up and spiral down- like Maths - as a learning process.If you rush it, you will lose some on the way! Share the magic tricks (if you are a linguist) - explain that you don't know every word or you don't know how to say every word or get the gender right every time.Share the tricks of phonics, synthesis , bilingual dictionaries, watching , mimicking, having another go , tryong to use new language in different circumstances, memory skills, jusing our voice machines....language learning skills ( any one remember those?) .If you are a non -specialst then go on a languages learning strategies journey with your children.Give them time to share and discuss these strategies - as this will help them if they swap languages too.(Remember my analogy -the Fiat Panda?)
17. Plan for progress.In KS1 we look at "education of the ear".In KS2 plan for progress with grammar.Make it one of the most exciting and memorable journeys that children take .I mean -how exciting is it to find out that there is more than one word for "THE"!!! ??? And if you are a languages' expert I believe that with a little help all faciliators of language learning can facilitate  basic understanding of grammar- we just need to hep others! 
18. Moving on in to Year 7 consider the progress and build on the foundations laid.Talk (perhaps work) with your primary colleagues.Don't knock the building blocks down, but review, reflect and then build upon the language explorations the children have taken part during their primary language learning journey.  

Let's not try to square the circle.One Key stage is different to anothet ,but let's enable each of us to put building blocks in place,so that children can move forward and access joined up thinking that takes our young language learners on a very exciting skill development journey ...becoming a linguist!

 Some of us remember the last time we felt the "language learning train had set off  from the station" ... this time in my opinion we must all keep going on the journey!
I picked a lego train on purpose (left) because we all have something valuable to contribute and we must join up the dots to make progress.  
Linguists like recurring patterns,problem solving, puzzles and communicating with others - so we should be able to do this!

Function machines and the processing and recording of grammar knowledge

One of the best things about working with groups of class teachers is often the links that teachers make with language learning using tools and focuses across the primary curriculum.On the first day back after October half term Emilie and I worked with a start up school  in their first year of rolling out primary French.When we work with schools where languages are new this year,we often hear them ask  "what about the grammar?"

Well today we were considering nouns and I have in the past blogged about ways we can approach breaking down the understanding the function of nouns and how to support children to grasp that in other languages there is more than one word for "The" and"A" (Teachers are often afraid too!) (Here is my blog from June on nouns and definite/indefinite articles or the washing machine grammar device)

Over the last couple of CPD sessions Emilie and I have been asking the teachers to realise that nouns in French have "tags" .

Emilie explains how she is teaching her own little boy French and always introduces new nouns with a tag (un cochon/la tante) never a noun alone!

We make sure that the teachers can see that words "masculine" and "feminine" do not mean " male and "female" and we ask them to visualise pulling nouns out of  "masculine" /"feminine"  tag labelled drawers.The idea of physically opening the drawer and being able to select a noun, take it out and use it seems to work well.Teachers also like the idea of the tag being a "function button" on a virtual drawer.It works.We can quite easily  get the teachers to see the link then between the  le/un  or la/une.We love it when the teachers then feel that they confidently use and also explain nouns over a period of time to young learners. They can see and identify the stages in the process of practising and becoming confident in the use of nouns too! It's a lightbulb moment!  

  

Today I clarified this with a flow chart .... and then that was the magical moment,when a teacher amongst the staff who enjoys the logical process of maths suggested she would like to add "function machines" to the children's learning journals we had been discussing. She explained that this would help her and the children she teachers and then receives the following year to progress through the stages of learning from beginners, to moving on to advanced! She explained that clear diagrams help her to process and use information and data.Do you know I completely got this! Faced with teaching Year 6 Maths whilst on supply along time ago the class and I created function machines not just to help the children but to help me as the teacher who wasn't an expert to understand how to grasp new mathematical concepts!

And do you know I think that this will work for lots of us - teachers and children in language learning.Hence the robot machine at the top of the page as here is our link to functions and processes.It's also a learning tool that we can pass from year group to year group and even pack in our virtual suitcases at the end of the academic year. 

We then went on to explore how over four years we could build up these function machines on nouns, adjectives and verbs so that in Year 5 or 6 a teacher can ask the children to refer back to their function machines to independently look for and use new language! It gives the teacher in every KS2 year group and especially up in UKS2 a point of reference and support too!

Drawing sketches of animals using target language to link KS2 and KS3 creative learning

I have spent a wonderful couple of days in Germany  have purchased a selection of books.some of the books I have selected have been to support local teachers to develop transition resources between KS2 and KS3. I found this glorious book: "Wir zeichnen Tiere".Before you dismiss this as just to use in German,the ideas are so transferable!

Here is the link to the description of the book by James Kruss the author.

The description is in English and the clues are in this text as to why I think this book could help us primary practitioners to link work by our older children in Year 6 or also as a transition project between Year 7 and KS2 children  

Exactly as the description says the simple instructional rhymes linking letters,shapes,actions and animal sketches allow the children to create a veritable zoo of animal sketches that dance across the page!

The grammar included is present tense, commands, present participles ,use of nouns ...

I can see how the language used to draw the animals  can take young learners of a target language - who have progressed through two,three years of target language learning -on to the next stage of sentence structure, because they want to be able in the first instance to understand certain instructions to draw the animals and then move on to create their own instructions. 

Language focuses I can see in the simple instructional rhymes are as follows:

• sounds of the alphabet (for a practical creative purpose- using the letter shapes to create the animal shapes)
• recognition of sound patterns and  rhyming links to create the rhymes and the rhythm of theses instructional texts
• identifying and understanding commands
• reading comprehension - trying to understand and draw objects from the original text or from a text created and then written or spoken by a partner in the class
• creating simple written rhymes
• recognition and recall of names of animals
• locating and using nouns of different objects to create  new rhymes about different objects e.g clothes items/foods/furniture etc

Transition Idea!

So how can I see such activities being useful ways of developing projects between Y6 and Y7 pupils?

• One year group creates and writes(in the target language) the instructional rhymes to create a series of objects.
• The texts are swapped with the other year group and the children must read ,understand and then draw the creations in the written texts.
• It may be that one year group reads and responds only or maybe that both year groups write,read and respond to texts! 
• Different levels of grammatical challenge can be set for the Year 6 and the Year 7 pupils.
• With Year 6 children can be encouraged to include commands, nouns,interesting and descriptive present tense verbs and pay attention of possible to the rhyme and rhythm.
• In Year 7 the expectation could be that the pupils should have specific structures etc included in their rhymes.

Drama and Art activities 

You may already know that I love Drama and can see opportunities with this book and the rhymes to create performance opportunities:

• A performance of zoo animals that appear before our eyes as the children in pairs or groups become the shapes,actions etc to form their animals 
• Physical drawing in the air as if we are artists at the zoo of the animals - in the style of different artists!
• Spoken presentations that bring the rhymes they have explored or created to life- voice,cadence, rhythm, actions..... 

  

KS2 to KS3 language learning.Beginning to make sense of the many windows on this World

To be able to look for practical ways forward in how we build and disseminate the possible constructive and effective links between primary and secondary languages is both an exciting and also challenging opportunity.   

I love this picture below.It makes such a statement!It tells me about building blocks and layers and colour and diversity and different shapes and sizes all coming together and all having windows on the world.I think this translates well as a a visual depiction of how we are trying to bring KS2 and KS3 together as windows of opportunity on the world of language learning

"Aren't there many windows on the same language learning World!"

As I write,I am in Germany- getting the "language buzz".Why? Well, German is my foreign language and I love the language with a passion.It's the reason that I continue to speak French and that I can try to access Spanish and generally love languages.It wasn't the first foreign language I learnt, but all those skills I continued to practise in French were so much more easily accessible when I was learning German.I  relaxed in to the second foreign language and my learning was accelerated.

Even now at 52,I am still learning the skills of communication and still enjoy puzzling out the structure of language.When you are in the actual country you are reminded how you don't always have to be absolutely accurate to be understood,how you can rephrase or say something again,how it's okay to make a mistake,how there are always new words or phrases to take on board and first and foremost how very important it is that you feel confident when communicating.

This year as part of our DfE funded Warrington Teaching Schools Alliance project I have the great opportunity to work with Jo Gierl. Jo has been a HOD in one of our local high schools for several years and now teaches German and French from KS3 to KS5.She has two young bi-lingual children and already on a personal level see the bigger picture of the value of language learning from an early age. 

We are very fortunate that Jo now works as an associate primary languages teacher within our network too - one afternoon a week in KS2.
Jo's first challenge was to start a blog diary of her observations this academic year(2104-2015) as she explores the language world of KS1 and KS2 and also as she disseminates her findings to her own department and then meets and shares with other local HODs and their colleagues..Jo's blog already has me hooked From Primary to Secondary.

What is so very real and refreshing about her observations are that she is looking at primary language learning as it really is happening - not on special occasions but  as it is really happening and planned for on that day in the week she visits the schools.Jo is able to look at the learning she has read about and heard me speak about for herself . She is seeing the different approaches to the same big picture in 3D....

To help Jo when she works with her KS3 colleagues it will be important that she can share concrete examples. so over the last couple of weeks Jo has observed French,Spanish and German primary language learning here in Warrington.
Here are some of Jo's observations so far that are beginning to colour in the bigger picture for her of what language skills Year 6 children can already use or are developing.

Two weeks ago she observed @joanne_hornby delivering Spanish in a local primary school. 

"Pupils knew how to use the bi-lingual dictionary, a skill we teach in Year 7 as many children have never come across them in previous years. 
Cross-curricular links and further dictionary skills were made via Roald Dahl’s book titles in Spanish and the children had to recognise words and use the dictionaries to find out the English book titles. Pictures of the Spanish books were shown and the children were commenting on how front covers differed in Spanish compared with their English counterparts."

The following day,she observed @EWoodruffe as she taught primary French.I love the fact that watching KS1 was a revelation to Jo in this blog but here are some very specific comments about what she saw in Year 6.

" This was a full-on lesson…their previous knowledge ensured a prompt start to greetings and general conversational questions. A physical warm up conducted in French, demonstrated by Emilie ensured they were all up and participating, followed by a game of tennis, whereby the questions were batted out and a speedy whole class response was expected in return! When it came to the introduction of school subjects, they knew of cognates, pronunciation rules, grammatical terminology and ways to decipher meanings".

This week Jo has observed German with our very own Barbara Foerster:

"They were asked to match likes and dislike questions with their answers and most pupils were aware of looking for correlating words and patterns in the language. Connectives “und” and “aber” were slipped in and pupils were extending sentences within minutes. Negation was looked at “nicht” and “keine” readily identified by pupils. My partner had a super accent, mimicking that of Barbara and was so confident speaking to me in German"

Jo is beginning to see the bigger picture.She has identified in the snippets of her observations that I have copied and pasted above -taken from her blogposts -that the Year 6 children,who we would describe as "moving on " learners(not beginners) have developed skills that can not be ignored in secondary language learning.

Our big challenge this year is to see how we can take the diverse and language rich learning of KS2 languages and support KS3. Jo and I hope to explore and look for the "real" links between KS2 and KS3 language learning in our own local settings and then to share our observations and  potential ways forward.
Yes we will need to ask children to learn the same or a different language at the start of KS3, but we need to plan for ways forward that mean children will be able to return to another coloured seat -if they have changed languages or select a completely new seat and try a new language challenge.The option to explore other languages too and move to the other coloured seats successfully needs to become the success story of KS3!  

Text tracking language learning tools

At the start of this academic year I am looking for more  transferable tools to support language learning and to build bridges between year groups and across Key Stages. 

Thanks to Twitter this morning I saw this tweet from @Primary_Ed “Ideas for students to annotate text as they read”  and it reminded me very much of primary school classroom Literacy and Maths working wall annotations and it got me thinking about how we can adapt this already familiar tool for primary languages and beyond into secondary languages……! First take a look at the picture:

For my purposes I am going to call my applications of the  idea  “Text tracking tools”

1. Modern Day Hieroglyphics

We need to remember that in the first instance we are teaching key language understanding with young primary language learners so  let’s ask the children to annotate the text with their own hieroglyphics to share the meaning of the words visually – so for example the simple text

“Ich sehe eine grüne Katze” (I see a green cat)

could have above the key language the drawings of  an eye (ich sehe) a green cat (eine grüne Katze).

Imagine how creative the children could be with a description of presents in a Christmas sack , a witch’s potion, directions to visit different places in the town ….etc, etc ?

It could very easily be a drag and drop activity on the IWB for a whole class reading activity too!

We could ask the children to add “honesty spots” ! Simple coloured spots above the drawings that denote where the children had to use a bi-lingual dictionary to ascertain meanings etc. A skill we need to encourage not deter so the “ honesty spot” needs to have a positive spin!

2. Running commentaries

With our more advanced primary language learners and certainly in Year 7 and beyond we can use and add to the annotation  “codes” in the Twitter picture at the start of the blog.

It will work in my opinion in KS2 especially with our moving on and advanced Y4,5 and 6 learners to allow them to share with us how much they can not only  decode but also comprehend and appreciate of the texts using and revisiting familiar target language themes  in different text types( stories, songs, menus, postcards, letters, poems, rhymes, instructions, posters, emails).

3. Structure running commentaries

Finally with our more advanced learners why not ask the children to annotate the text to indicate where they find an adjective, a verb , a noun, a pronoun, a definite article etc….All you and the class need are agreed symbols for each structure that they can identify . Send them on structure hunts in the texts you give them as individuals, pairs and groups. 

4.AfL opportunities

Looking at individual children’s annotated texts will also allow us as teachers to see where there are gaps in knowledge or just how much the children understand and also how they can empathise with the text and spot the funny bits (a green cat !!!) etc.

This transferable learning tool can start in Spring Year 3 and run right through a young linguists language learning career. 

For Jo, up in  Year 7, it’s will be a  familiar  learning tool for the children which she can adapt as a series of reading  games and activities and a tool which could allow her as class teacher to see what the children do understand in a target language when they arrive in school. 

Real transition and next steps forward

This is probably a note to self and also a reference blog for a cluster of primary schools and one of their local high schools, who are working together to generate real and purposeful transition.
These are practical points from a real scenario.I think that is important to understand should you read on,as it's a record of what is really happening and can be achieved and a solution for one set of circumstances .Below is a link to a blog which shares links to other possible solutions ....

transition and possible ways forward

A real way forward 

Today I have had the pleasure of considering the Year 7 Autumn term and the resources that the secondary department started to use last year.During our shared cluster/dept meeting in spring it became obvious a review would help to maximise the resource.The HOD does not want to just go over old ground and wants to extend and challenge the new Y7 arrivals from KS2 in September but also wants to be secure that all pupils get the same start.I am certain that there are teachers out there who recognise this scenario too. 

Transition does not happen overnight. 
Today though in this transition project the momentum is gathering pace and the primary and secondary schools together are taking over the reins.
Great news!

It's taken us three years and then "some" to get to the point where there is not just dialogue but effective action to address what primary into secondary language learning is beginning to look like.The "then some" are the five or six years prior to this that the y practice local primary schools and myself have been working toward what good primary practice looks like in their individual schools and circumstances (staff, timetable, resources). You will also notice that I wrote "beginning to.." as  things will continue to change and the organic nature of change is important. The last three years have been crucial......

 In these three years there have been: 

• primary meetings of cluster teachers with myself
• feedback to the HOD
• meetings with the secondary staff with myself
• reviews of progress
• access to shared learning tools (the High School belong to our network and can access all the webiste materials and resources)
• shared emails 
• a "re-look" and changes to the  Autumn Year 7 materials at the High School
• discussion of materials with HOD and myself 
• sharing of Year 7 resources with Year 6 teachers
• year 6 performance and sketch project 
• year 7 taking the performance and sketch project and creating their own opportunities to develop and extend this
• shared department and cluster meeting with real examples from KS2 and real examples from Year 7 and 8 that sparked exciting dialogue and real commitment to see the links.
• a Summer 2014 Year 6 celebration project to be revisited and built upon in Year 7 Autumn first three weeks.... and don't forget the sketches from the sketch and performance project too!

It's not racing ahead. It's small sensible steps.It's not asking KS3 colleagues to approach language learning in a primary manner or to ask KS2 colleagues to set up listening comprehensions "secondary " style. It's been about fitting jigsaw puzzle pieces together and making room for additional pieces of the ever evolving picture..... It's getting exciting.

Reading this it may seem a naive blog but since the mid 1990s I have been working in both primary and secondary language learning. Each has it's own identity.What is required is a scaffold and someone to support the building of the scaffold. Different solutions will be needed for different local challenges and additional rungs and support keep on being required. KS3 does have the challenge of drawing together different primary school approaches etc but this happens or has happened across other subject areas too. 

So my review of Autumn Y7  today tells me that we don't necessarily need to throw the baby out with the bath water.That resources and approaches  in KS3 to meet the new POS requirements can fit alongside good primary practice.

How? Well,as always take simple strategic and achievable steps:

Next academic year KS3 needs to be (and some of this is already happening):

• Be aware of the contexts and content your KS2 colleagues deliver
• Understand how primary look at phonology - songs, rhymes, phonics activities
• Understand be aware of the stories and exposure to text
• Understand and be aware of primary creative outcomes and the writing that will take place
• Understand and build upon the learning tools such as games to develop recall, memory , participation, communication

Next academic year KS2 needs to promote(and some of this is already developing):

• the use of bilingual dictionaries
• understanding of basic grammar - nouns, adjectives and some common verbs
• the development of memory and recall
• quality exposure to the written word
• offer primary creative learning 
• provide a platform in year 6 to secondary language learning- through shared learning or reviews of prior knowledge and skills

So today we are at our next point in this evolving journey and what the first term in Year 7 can really look like from September 2014 within this cluster.

I have been able to identify with the HOD at the High School September's next steps:

• provide all year 7 staff next year with access to a brief resume of prior learning
• apply the shared knowledge of prior learning sensitively and intelligently to the Y7 Autumn term learning resources (knowledge gained from cluster meetings,emails,access to  JLN SOW)
• celebrate prior knowledge and skills and look for age appropriate revisiting and consolidation of learning through the spoken and  written word- familiar content in the existing secondary resources with unfamiliar twists! 
• encourage and support continued use of bilingual dictionaries to create independent learners
• continue to promote creative outcomes 
• support the pupils to access secondary style listening comprehensions and to identify and apply skills of listening they have been developing in KS2
• promote and encourage extended writing in age appropriate ways
• expect and support the pupils to use prior learning particularly using memory and recall and see the links with new knowledge
• have confidence to revisit and extend and also to move quickly through areas in which the pupils are very secure

Now we need to see what will happen next and how we will need to tweak , re-adjust and move on again next year!

Transition in a suitcase between year groups

This half term we are at the end of the year's academic study of the target language across both KS1 and KS2. 
The new DfE POS requires that substantial progress is made ..... we also need to take stock and enjoy what the children have learned and the games, songs, stories and language knowledge they have explored.
In a previous blog I shared how I was supporting a school to put together a cohesive start up programme so that KS1 can enjoy learning alongside KS2 and so that staff have shared strategies and learning tools.Here's the blog 

Ready! Steady! Go!

Transition  happens between all year groups. How effective this transition is supports how effective and successful progression for all the children will be.

As you head back to school for the final Summer half term ...it's time to start packing those target language suitcases and sharing the strategies , learning tools and activities the children have enjoyed with the next class teacher!

Designer Suitcases

Ask the children to help you decide what your target language suitcase for the year's learning should look like?What have they learned this year?What content and contexts have you explored. Create the labels for your suitcase from this content and contexts. Your suitcase may be a folder with notes from the class to the next teacher , a virtual suitcase or a folder kept on the school VLE ...but it needs to look like you have all travelled on a language learning journey together this year- hence the labels!

Packing the suitcase!

Ask the children to share with you the games, songs and stories that have enjoyed this year.Revisit and use again some of the activities and resources and take a class vote on which to put in your class suitcase ready to set off for the next year of language learning.

Maybe it's your.....

 Plant pot story

Easter Movie

Shape sentence jungles

and remember the books you have enjoyed reading too!

Don't forget those always useful items!

Discuss with the children the grammar that you may have explored. Add a noun treasure chest (facts about nouns and some key nouns from different content) and an adjective atlas (a picture on which the children can stick or add key adjectives they have met e.g colours/sizes/characteristics).Pop in a listening stick or two - so that the children with their new teacher can play some very familiar listening games and then build on these and move on!

Listening sticks

Have you packed your phrase book?

What can the children now ask and say about themselves that means they are moving more toward independence in simple basic dialogue and conversation. Pack an example totem pole -if you made them- or create a cartoon strip or recording of a typical dialogue.

What's a totem pole? Take a look here!

Totem Poles 

Hurrah off we go! 

Celebrate with the children their success this year.Why not put on a class language exhibition to share with another class or parents what you have done this year?

Now it's time to check what's in the suitcase and pass it on to the next class teacher...so they can unpack the suitcase with the class next year.

When are we there?

Once September arrives then the next class teacher has a reference point that can act as a prompt with the children and the whole class can have great fun unpacking their suitcase and explaining what they already have learned. The suitcase can come out throughout the year when content or contexts are supported by the prior learning.

What does this look like in practise?

Well the wonderful @EWoodruffe has been packing her classes suitcases this July and here is her blog all about this Let's pack our suitcases

Transition between KS2 and KS3 in languages

Transition?

Yesterday evening after the @guardian live chat on how to teach the new languages curriculum it was time to take stock and consider all the points raised and discussed.






What do we have to do?

In the new DfE POS teachers of languages are required

at KS2 
to provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries. 

and at KS3 
should build on the foundations of language learning laid at key stage 2, whether pupils continue with the same language or take up a new one. 

Local solutions and different approaches are being generated it appears. 


Keep ourselves informed!

Maybe some of these links will help to inform help to inform the learning journey

• I found Liz Black's articles on transition and the potential of challenges raised by the new curriculum here both thought provoking and full of common sense.
• Take a look here at Rachel Hawkes PDF document about Primary Languages Transition
• Maybe we can learn from the experiences of SCILT if we take time to reflect on the messages here in the sample approaches documents for Transition Primary to Secondary
• Keep an eye on the Nuffield Foundaton study Primary modern languages and the impact on teaching approaches
• And maybe there are general thoughts and approaches that we can learn from and adapt or adopt from the ongoing Hampshire Teaching Schools Alliance  transition project
• Here is a blog post in which I try to reflect upon the progress that is being made in primary and how this can both impact and enhance the learning of language in the first term in Year 7 in our network.Progress and creativity in primary.Mind the gap!

What is it looking like out there in the real World?

Well I am sure we can all share examples of transition and good primary practice and this all needs sharing too!

Here are two blog posts about two local developments to try to tackle the local challenges of transition.These are not necessarily solutions for everyone but are ways of setting off on the journey and approaching the demands of keeping continuity and building upon prior successful learning.

One high school is able to have a French learning continuum from Y3 to Y7 and is now holding meetings together with their primary colleagues to understand what the children can do.Simple projects that are easy to manage and deliver have been set up and are supporting developing dialogue about language learned and skills being developed.

The second high school has an alternate year French/Spanish Year 7 learning programme and is looking at transferable skills and links between French and Spanish that allow the pupils to access language. 

Who are you? The start of a developing project

KS2 and KS3 making link. A French and Spanish challenge

What we are learning .....

• Share models that you create. 
• Accept that they won't work for everyone
• Be willing to listen, adopt and adapt 
• Be willing to trust and have meaningful dialogue
• It takes time!
• It takes commitment
• It's slowly slowly dripping tap...small steps forward and adjustments are required. 
• Establishing networks both virtual and  face to face keep the dialogue and developments moving forward
• Remember that when the children move to Year 7 it's a gap of six weeks in language learning but on entering secondary school the children will need time to adjust.
• When it works, then the teachers on both the primary and secondary side of the fence feel valued and willing to go forward with the next steps.

My current conclusions?

Should we not accept perhaps many roads that lead to Rome! and maybe too this is at the moment necessary?

In our network we have schools starting off, schools who have children who have been learning to speak a new language from Nursery , schools where the children already have languages they speak well as home languages and schools where other priorities have meant that here have been staff changes etc. 

It's certainly challenging but we can address the demand of effective transition if we go step by step and support each other.

KS2 and KS3 making links between language learning

This morning I sat down with the  HOF, Julie Sutcliffe, at University Academy  High School  to plan a link lesson visit to local cluster primary schools. Here is another “work in progress” transition project that JLN are working on.

First a little context , over the last 18 months the High School language staff and I have been considering the links between KS2 and KS3 .The school has access to the JLN SOW JLN SOW. The high school runs an alternate year French Spanish Y7 language learning programme with the option to pick up the second language in Year 8.We are looking for simple solutions to local transition here.

Julie is aware that some of the children are just setting off and other children are writing simple texts in the present tense.Over the next couple of years the children will all begin to work at a similar level

Last academic year Julie and I looked for links between KS2 and KS3 learning by using the SOW as our reference point. All Julie’s main cluster primary schools are working at an early or more advanced stage with this SOW in French or Spanish. We were looking for links – in language , structure and skills..

Julie and I then adapted the current 2013-14 Year 7 first term learning scheme, offering KS2 children the opportunity to share prior learning, access familiar games and songs and use familiar learning tools and approaches. We considered ways of sharing knowledge across the two languages of French and Spanish to bring children up to speed or to allow children to value the knowledge that have gained during their primary language career. Last Summer term we held staff training for the secondary language department to look at prior learning and development of skills.

There was a light bulb moment when we saw a way forward for this high school and its year 7 intake! How often do we as linguists move from French to Spanish to find key words or to understand structure or grammar? As linguists we can promote with the children in Year 7 some of our “tricks of the trade” and how we can reinforce “language linking skills” they may not as yet have realised they possess! We are therefore building on prior language learning and knowledge as the new DfE POS asks KS3 to do! 

The children in Year 7 this year have made the links between the language learning that took place (mainly in French in KS2) and the new language for most of the children in Autumn term Y7 in Spanish. Masculine /feminine nouns- much easier to develop , because there have been similar links made in KS2, foods, animals, days of the week ,months of the year  etc, etc– the children as “language detectives and explorers” are simply making links between prior learning of French and the new language of Spanish. 

The children who have arrived in Year 7 with Spanish are not being held back as the speed with which links are made between French and Spanish is allowing progression to happen quite naturally. I loved an email earlier in the year  from Julie that told me the children just conjugated the verb “tener” because they could already do this in French and they understood why and how!

So what comes next? Well that’s what we have been planning today. Next year the cohort arrive with French and learn French in Year 7 .So Julie’s challenge with this next  year’s academic  cohort is to look more deeply at the skills the children are bringing with them from KS2 and how to build on these in a language they are familiar with already We remind ourselves all the time that we are helping young language learners with competent basic skills become linguists. So what skills of a linguist have the children already developed? 

Reading this on paper or hearing it from me for Julie  is not the same as actually experiencing this. With limited time and finding days that suit primary and secondary, Julie is flipping the languages and trialling the following school visit to two cluster schools,where the children learn French. They are going to explore some text level Spanish… because don’t forget she also needs to promote the Year 8 second language option. After the trial visits she will be better equipped to inform her secondary colleagues about  what to expect of young year 7 language learners who are looking forward to becoming linguists!

The activities are based on this you tube clip ………….

And a  power point word document that one of the associate Spanish JLN teacher uses to help her KS2 classes in Y4 when they learn this song with both the words and pictures to explain the actions and body parts. 

Why have we chosen this?

All the children will have practised the parts of the body in Year 4 as part of the class alien building activities and throughout their language learning with songs such as “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes”. Take look here – Karen the teacher at one of the cluster schools presented her simple ideas about the use of Mr Potato Head to practise parts of the body with Year 4 French.

It is a song that the Year 6 class teachers can then follow up and practise and use as part of their end of year leaving assembly or as part of their World Cup                                             celebrations  and link to the Brazilian Crown making 

                             activities as a Spanish samba style dance!

It also allows Julie to get beyond word level quite quickly , allows her to engage with the primary style of language learning and to promote the liveliness, cross curricular nature  and effectiveness of speaking another language!

Below are the simple steps and activities that Julie will follow when she visit and works with the trial cluster primary year 6 groups .She should meet  approximately 90  children in total in the two schools and will feedback her simple observations to secondary colleagues that are written below in red.We will let you know in a later blog post how she gets on!

Activity	Reason	Resource
1.French – revisit familiar body parts language with a song e.g. Heads, shoulders , knees and toes/ Jean petit qui danse (nb You Tube clip)	Reinforce and practise/ revisit language so all children are comfortable with the key words for transfer activities. Feedback : knowledge and retention of language	You Tube clips: Jean  petit qui danse / Heads, shoulders , knees and toes
2.Spanish key word cards / French key word cards- matching activity	Promote the skill : finding meaning of new language through second language knowledge Seeing links  and patterns in words from different languages Feedback : making links between la familiar and an unfamiliar language	Spanish body part word cards French body part word cards
3.Finding the key words in the Spanish bilingual dictionary What else can we now find out about these nouns	Use of bilingual dictionary Recognition of masculine and feminine nouns Feedback : prior understanding of how to use a bilingual dictionary/are children aware of masculine and feminine nouns and how to use the (m) and (f) to find this out?	Spanish bilingual dictionaries – one between two – provided by high school.
4.Match the written word to the spoken word	Listen ,read, respond activity Feedback :  listening for key  sounds /word recognition skills	Spanish word cards for children Teacher to only use spoken word
5. Listen and watch the You Tube clip – which just show the words of the text. Spot the key words and point to the correct part of the body	Identifying and understanding key familiar words in an unfamiliar text. Feedback : accessing sentence level text to find familiar language.	You Tube clip
6.Add the missing words to a text Look for cognates / semi cognates in commands within text	Understand text by accessing picture and clue prompts To feedback  : following a foreign language text and anticipating key language. Exploring unfamiliar text by context	PPT of song with pictures on IWB – key body parts omitted. Children have Spanish word cards
7.Perform the song Recall prior knowledge and familiar language   Listen, read, respond and join in You tube clip 8.Leave text and song for follow up by class teacher as part of World Cup/ end of year celebrations
9. Children’s feedback	Children to complete simple slip of paper with 3 points that they have realised/ considered/ explored whilst exploring a new and unfamiliar language about their own language skills Feedback to secondary colleagues	Paper for children