Guest blog by Victoria Harris

When I first began exploring the work of Gianfranco Conti and associates, I was looking for curriculum rooted in solid progression, that had KS3 level learning but at a pace that KS2 could follow. What I found was much more than that. I discovered the principles of EPI.

This approach to learning languages not only helped me as teacher and consultant to really underpin a solid foundation in language learning, it also helped shape my awareness of the language beyond what I already knew.

The Reality

I’m going to be honest, Primary Languages in the UK are difficult. Most schools can barely fit a 30 minute lesson into the week. There is next to no space for retrieval in between and staff confidence has been at an all time low. As Conti states, motivation is a primary factor in sustained effort and success. If we can’t be excited to teach it, how can learners be excited to learn?

This is where EPI comes in. What I have seen since implementing EPI in my Linguastars classrooms is a clear and measurable shift – not only in outcomes, but in how children experience language learning itself.

A shift from performance to genuine learning

One of the most immediate impacts of EPI is the move away from surface-level performance towards deeper processing. Less isolated vocabulary and more integration into real life contextual speech.  Rather than rushing to produce language, pupils spend more time engaging with input—hearing, reading, and interpreting language in multiple ways. This has led to stronger retention and far greater confidence when pupils are eventually asked to produce language themselves.

Even when faced with 30 minute lessons, the productivity is high and that is fundamentally down to the carefully structured MARSEARS sequence, high frequency exposure and recycling of language… all embedded through motivational tasks and games.

EPI breaks learning into manageable steps, which has had a noticeable impact on pupil confidence. By reducing cognitive overload and allowing pupils to process language thoroughly before expecting output, learners feel more secure and less anxious. This is particularly evident in younger learners and those who may previously have struggled with language learning.

Implementation to Impact – A real look at how we use EPI at Primary Level.

It’s no secret that cognitive load is halved when learning a new language, so we must be careful in choosing the right vocabulary and surrounding structure when putting together our topics. To be able to fully build on skills and ensure recycling and interleaving is working, we break our topics into levels. For example, Ma Famille has 3 levels; saying who we live with, saying where we live and talking about our town. These 3 levels are designed to be taught over three years at KS2, meaning each level builds upon the next and recycling takes place within the remit of that topic. This enables pupils to process new knowledge and build on existing knowledge at the same time.

The example Sentence Builders below show the difference between levels 1 & 2 and would be used during the Modelling stage of the MARSEARS sequence.

Level 1 – Modelling                                                             

Level 2: modelling

As we progress through the sequence, children will explore phonics and grammar, they will process a multitude of listening and reading tasks designed to target micro processing skills in both sentence and word level before moving on to structured production in speaking and writing.

Level 1 – Receptive Processing                                                          

Level 2 – Receptive Processing

When we move to Structured Production  – we begin with speaking skills with a scaffold, we use a writing ladder to progress through varying levels of ability before returning back to speaking and removing the scaffold.

One of my favourite activities is ‘No Snakes, No Ladders’ for translation tasks. Every teacher who witnesses this comments that the children almost have no idea just how good they are at French because they are too invested in winning the game. It’s the perfect chance for me to come around, assess pronunciation and translation skills but also probe further.

We don’t often focus on the expansion element of MARSEARS at Primary Level, but rather use it as a space for misconceptions or consolidation. From there we assess core elements of the topic before moving to communicative tasks such as surveys, conversation or writing pieces.

Here is a sample of our ‘Familia 2’ topic in Spanish where a pupil has been able to write a descriptive  piece on where they live and who with. Notice how there is also mention of pets which is from another topic!

The whole MARSEARS sequence is a journey, and it’s a real misconception of Primary Teachers in the UK that children should be speaking from day 1. Of course, it’s a language, it is designed to be spoken. But just as a baby doesn’t speak from Day 1, they witness, they process, they test, they refine – this is what we apply to learning a second language.

One of the biggest triumphs for me though is the embedded skills that are now transferring to other areas of the curriculum. Pupils making links in their own languages through reading, phonics and even speech and language. The impact has been nothing short of astounding.

Greater engagement and inclusivity

Because EPI emphasises comprehension, repetition, and structured interaction, it creates an inclusive learning environment where all pupils can succeed. Activities are accessible yet challenging, and every child has the opportunity to participate meaningfully.

Let’s also not forget those low confidence teachers… Their motivation has improved; their understanding has improved. They now smile when lessons begin and get involved. Creating that culture of ‘we’re in it together’ is pivotal in Primary Languages.

The feedback we get at Linguastars is “I wish I had learned languages this way, I would have understood a lot more”.

It takes time, and that’s ok

Implementing EPI in primary classrooms has reshaped both my teaching practice and my pupils’ learning experiences. It wasn’t overnight, this takes real thought into how you want to present each topic, how they interlock and interleave. It’s an investment, but the impact is evident not only in improved outcomes, but in the confidence, engagement, and resilience pupils gain in language learning. It reinforces the idea that when we prioritise how learners process language, we unlock more meaningful and lasting progress.

                        Victoria Harris – Director of Linguastars Education

                               

(BA Hons Key Stage 2/3 Education – Modern Foreign Languages)

Victoria is a Qualified Language Teacher and Consultant with over 12 years of experience in leading and developing languages at Primary Level, preparing pupils for their KS3 journey and liaising with Secondary schools for successful transition. Her most recent work includes curriculum development and school improvement across the North-West of England and partnering with brands to bring language learning to real world context.

Walk into many language classrooms and you will hear a familiar refrain:

“Right, now discuss your holidays with your partner.”

The intention is admirable. After all, students learn to speak by speaking… don’t they? Not quite.

One of the most persistent misconceptions in language teaching is the belief that speaking practice, in and of itself, causes speaking development. But does it really? If simply getting students to talk were enough, why do so many learners, after years of pair-work, role plays and supposedly communicative activities, still struggle to express even the simplest ideas fluently and confidently?

How many times have we witnessed students perform perfectly during a listening or reading activity only to freeze completely when asked a simple follow-up question? Why do some learners appear successful during highly scaffolded classroom tasks yet struggle the moment the support is removed? And perhaps most importantly… how do we bridge the gap between knowing language and actually using it?

Decades of research in second language acquisition suggest that speaking proficiency emerges not from speaking alone but from a complex interaction between input, memory, retrieval, automatisation, interaction and fluency development (Krashen, 1985; Levelt, 1989; DeKeyser, 2007; Ellis, 2008). In other words, successful speaking instruction is not simply about creating opportunities for students to talk. It is about carefully engineering the conditions that make successful talking possible.

This distinction matters enormously in UK secondary schools and, indeed, in many Australian classrooms I have observed, where teachers must work with mixed-attainment groups, limited curriculum time, examination pressures and learners whose exposure to the target language is often restricted to just two or three lessons per week. Under such circumstances, every minute matters. Every activity matters. Every interaction matters!

The ten principles outlined below are not intended as a new methodology. Rather, they represent a synthesis of what we know from research, classroom observation and successful practice. Although many readers will recognise echoes of Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI), these principles extend far beyond any single approach. Whether one identifies as communicative, task-based, EPI-oriented or eclectic, the underlying cognitive and linguistic principles remain remarkably similar.

Ultimately, the question is not:

“How can I get my students to speak more?”

The question is:

“How can I make speaking possible for more students?”

1. Flood Learners with Comprehensible Oral Input Before Expecting Output

One of the most persistent misconceptions in language teaching is the idea that speaking practice causes speaking development. In reality, speaking develops primarily from extensive processing of comprehensible oral input. Before learners can produce a structure confidently, they need to have heard it repeatedly, processed it successfully and encountered it in multiple meaningful contexts (Krashen, 1985; Ellis, 2008; VanPatten, 2017).

This principle seems almost self-evident, and yet it is astonishing how often it is ignored. Students are routinely asked to discuss topics for which they possess neither sufficient vocabulary nor sufficiently automatised structures. The result? Hesitation, frustration and, ultimately, silence.

Approaches such as EPI have contributed significantly to the profession by foregrounding the importance of extensive teacher modelling, structured listening and repeated encounters with high-frequency language before any significant expectation of independent production (Conti & Smith, 2019). However, the principle itself extends well beyond EPI. It is supported by decades of research showing that language acquisition is fuelled primarily by successful comprehension.

Before students discuss free-time activities, for example, they might first:

• be pre-taught the key target vocabulary (in both the oral and written form)
• engage in narrow listening;
• listen to multiple short texts containing the same core language;
• complete listening discrimination tasks;
• engage in tasks targeting the various micro-skills of listening
• participate in teacher-led modelling;
• engage in choral repetition;
• complete simple comprehension checks.

Notice what is happening here: the teacher is not avoiding speaking, but, rather, they are building the foundations upon which successful speaking will later rest. After all, as I repeat ad nauseam in my workshops: how can students say something they have not yet heard?

2. Prioritise Retrieval Over Exposure

A common problem in modern language classrooms is the illusion of learning whereby, students often recognise language perfectly when they see it on a worksheet, a sentence builder or a PowerPoint slide, yet struggle to retrieve that very same language when asked to speak.

Why? Because recognition is not retrieval. Students may recognise a phrase instantly when they encounter it in print, yet, under the pressure of real-time communication, suddenly find that the language they appeared to know so well has somehow vanished. This is because recognising language and retrieving language are fundamentally different cognitive processes (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008).

Retrieval practice strengthens memory pathways, improves accessibility and dramatically increases the likelihood that language will be available when learners actually need it (Agarwal & Bain, 2019).

Many more language teachers these days are indeed embedding retrieval practice in their lessons. However, crucially, they tend to do it through worksheets or apps (e.g. Quizlet), not aurally and orally. This limits the limits of transferrability of retrieval practice to speaking tasks.

This is why in EPI, structured production lessons always contain opportunities for active oral retrieval:

• quick-fire translation;
• delayed repetition;
• oral ping-pong;
• retrieval grids;
• no-snakes-no-ladders;
• vocabulary races;
• sentence races;
• mini-whiteboard retrieval tasks.

The goal is not simply to revisit language but to force learners to reconstruct it repeatedly from memory and, as much as possible, through the oral medium.

3. Recycle Language Relentlessly Through the Oral Medium

One of the greatest weaknesses of many language programmes is not that language is insufficiently recycled, but that it is recycled predominantly through reading and writing. As we have mentioned in the previous paragraph, though, speaking fluency depends heavily upon repeated oral processing (Nation, 2007; Segalowitz, 2010).

A high-frequency chunk such as:

“Je pense que…”

should not simply appear in textbooks, worksheets and vocabulary lists. It should be heard, repeated, manipulated, retrieved, expanded and reused repeatedly over weeks, months and even years because automaticity is built through repeated successful processing. Effective oral recycling activities include:

• choral repetition;
• faulty echo;
• delayed dictation and repetition;
• oral sentence builders;
• either-or listening;
• oral retrieval games;
• Oral ping-pong
• Sentence-builder wars
• Trapdoor
• Things in common
• speed-dating conversations;
• Entry and Exit-ticket routines

The aim is not mindless repetition.The aim is repeated meaningful encounters that gradually transform fragile declarative knowledge into accessible procedural knowledge. And isn’t that precisely what fluency requires?

4. Automate High-Frequency Language

Fluency is largely a consequence of automatisation. As language becomes proceduralised, learners devote fewer cognitive resources to form and more to meaning, interaction and message construction (DeKeyser, 2007; Segalowitz, 2010).

This simple observation has profound implications for classroom practice. If learners must consciously assemble every utterance word by word, communication will inevitably be slow, effortful and fragile. However, when frequently used chunks become automatised, students suddenly appear more fluent, more confident and more spontaneous—not because they have acquired more grammar, but because they can access familiar language rapidly and efficiently.

This is why successful speakers possess extensive repertoires of high-frequency formulaic language. Such chunks function as cognitive shortcuts, reducing processing demands whilst simultaneously enhancing fluency.

GCSE Speaking Survival Chunks

Function	French	Spanish	German
Giving an opinion	À mon avis	En mi opinión	Meiner Meinung nach
Personal opinion	Je pense que…	Pienso que…	Ich denke, dass…
Justifying	… parce que c’est…	… porque es…	… weil es … ist
Adding information	En plus	Además	Außerdem
Contrasting	Par contre	Sin embargo	Andererseits
Referring to the past	Le week-end dernier…	El fin de semana pasado…	Letztes Wochenende…
Referring to the future	À l’avenir…	En el futuro…	In Zukunft…
Talking about plans	J’ai l’intention de…	Tengo la intención de…	Ich habe vor…
Expressing preference	Je préfère… parce que…	Prefiero… porque…	Ich ziehe … vor, weil…
Describing a photo	Sur la photo, il y a…	En la foto hay…	Auf dem Foto gibt es…
Describing actions	On peut voir quelqu’un qui…	Se puede ver a alguien que…	Man kann jemanden sehen, der…
Speculating	Peut-être que…	Quizás…	Vielleicht…
Giving an example	Par exemple…	Por ejemplo…	Zum Beispiel…
Concluding	Pour conclure…	Para concluir…	Zusammenfassend…

What makes these chunks particularly valuable is not their grammatical sophistication but their extraordinary transferability. They can be deployed across virtually every GCSE role play, photo card and conversation task. Students who can retrieve and deploy such chunks automatically gain thinking time, extend responses more naturally and reduce the cognitive burden associated with spontaneous communication (Nation, 2013; Segalowitz, 2010).

Activities specifically designed to build fluency through repeated retrieval and increasing time pressure are especially valuable. Examples include Paul Nation’s 4/3/2 Technique, Market Place and Messengers activities (Nation & Newton, 2009), as well as fluency-building tasks developed within EPI such as Chain Reaction, Faster, Fast and Furious, Timed Pyramid Translation and the Role-Play Carousel (Conti & Smith, 2019).

The objective is not merely repetition. It is successful repetition under gradually increasing communicative pressure. This is where automaticity begins to emerge…

5. Build Speaking from Chunks Before Grammar Rules

Research consistently suggests that learners initially acquire language as formulaic sequences rather than as abstract grammatical systems (Wray, 2002; Ellis, 2012).Unfortunately, classroom practice often reverses this process: students are taught rules first and language later.

Yet how many native speakers learned the imperfect tense before they learned how to say “I used to play football”? How many toddlers mastered subordinate clause formation before producing useful chunks? The answer is obvious: language comes first. Analysis later.

A more effective approach is often to teach useful high-frequency chunks before analysing the grammatical mechanisms that underpin them.

Grammar remains enormously important, but its role is often to explain, organise and extend language that learners have already encountered and begun to internalise (Ellis, 2008).

In other words, as I have often reiterated on this blog: grammar frequently works best when it follows acquisition rather than attempting to replace it.

6. Teach Speaking as a Set of Micro-Skills

One reason speaking can be so intimidating for learners is that it is not a single skill. It is actually a remarkably complex orchestration of multiple cognitive processes occurring almost simultaneously (Levelt, 1989). To answer even a simple question, learners must:

• understand the question;
• retrieve relevant vocabulary;
• encode grammar;
• assemble the sentence;
• pronounce accurately;
• monitor output;
• maintain interaction.

When teachers simply instruct learners to “have a conversation”, weaker students are often overwhelmed because too many demands are placed upon working memory at once.

Breaking speaking down into manageable micro-skills allows teachers to provide targeted support whilst reducing complexity. For example, before a role-play students might practise:

1. Reading key sentences aloud (articulation and pronunciation)
2. Engage in oral retrieval practice in pairs (lexical retrieval)
3. Correct inaccurate sentences uttered the teacher or a partner (monitoring)
4. Engage in an oral sentence puzzle race (sentence assembly)

Each component can then be combined gradually until genuine interaction becomes possible.

7. Move from Controlled Practice to Spontaneous Communication

One of the greatest mistakes in language teaching is assuming that spontaneous communication emerges suddenly. Of course, it does not. Like virtually every complex skill, speaking develops progressively through carefully sequenced practice (Anderson, 1983; DeKeyser, 2007).

An effective progression might look like this:

Comprehensible Input → Retrieval → Guided Practice → Structured Interaction → Semi-Spontaneous Interaction → Spontaneous Communication

Notice the gradual shift…Support is not removed abruptly. It is withdrawn progressively as competence develops. This principle is particularly important in mixed-attainment classrooms, where learners require different amounts of scaffolding before they can operate independently.

Teachers who rush too quickly towards free production often discover that students have little to say. Teachers who scaffold appropriately often find that students surprise themselves with what they can say.

8. Reduce Cognitive Load

One of the greatest strengths of EPI lies in its systematic management of cognitive load. Speaking places enormous demands on working memory because learners must simultaneously generate ideas, retrieve vocabulary, encode grammar, monitor pronunciation and sustain interaction (Sweller, 1988; Skehan, 1998).

How can we expect successful communication when learners are drowning in cognitive overload?

EPI addresses this challenge through a carefully sequenced progression. Learners first engage extensively with comprehensible input, ensuring that meaning is secure. They then move into chunking aloud, through teacher modelling, choral repetition and oral sentence-building activities. Once language has become increasingly familiar, learners engage in oral retrieval practice games such as Faster, Fast and Furious, Oral Ping-Pong and retrieval races. This is followed by structured role plays, where communicative demands remain tightly controlled, before eventually progressing towards more demanding information-gap activities, where learners must exchange genuinely unknown information.

Notice what happens at every stage…The linguistic challenge remains broadly familiar whilst the communicative challenge gradually increases.

Rather than asking learners to create language from scratch, the approach progressively increases independence whilst maintaining a high probability of success (Conti & Smith, 2019).

For mixed-ability classrooms, this careful sequencing is often the difference between participation and silence.

9. Train Interaction Explicitly

Real communication involves far more than producing accurate language. Learners must learn how to maintain conversations, negotiate meaning, respond appropriately and keep interaction moving forward (Long, 1996; Gass & Mackey, 2015). Yet interaction is often assumed rather than taught. Students are expected to converse without being given the tools necessary to do so.

Interactional competence deserves the same attention as grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.

Role-play carousels, information-gap tasks, speed-dating conversations and collaborative problem-solving activities all provide opportunities to develop these skills. Through repeated participation in structured interactions, learners gradually develop greater flexibility and responsiveness.

Communication, after all, is not merely about producing language. It is also and more importantly about managing relationships through language.

10. Create a Low-Anxiety Speaking Environment

Speaking is frequently the most anxiety-provoking aspect of language learning (MacIntyre, 1999; Dörnyei, 2009). Students know that their mistakes are immediately visible. They know that hesitation can be noticed. They know that pronunciation errors are difficult to hide. Consequently, anxiety can consume valuable cognitive resources that would otherwise be available for communication.

This is why classroom climate matters so much. Teachers can reduce anxiety by:

• normalising mistakes;
• encouraging pair work before whole-class speaking;
• celebrating effort;
• providing structured support which is gradually faded (see above)
• ensuring frequent experiences of success.
• providing pre-task planning (giving the students preparation time to brainstorm key vocabulary, predict likely mistakes, etc.)
• allowing rehearsal before performance;
• staging priming tasks (easier tasks that prepare the students for more complex tasks)
• being diagnostic and formative more than summative (i.e. giving feedback that identifies and helps solve problem rather than assigning a grade)

What This Means for Mixed-Ability Classrooms

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing language teachers today is not the examination system, curriculum time or even student motivation. Rather, it is the reality that every lesson unfolds in front of learners whose linguistic knowledge, confidence, processing capacity and prior experience may differ dramatically.

How, then, do we create conditions in which all learners can experience success? This is precisely where the principles outlined above become so powerful. They do not depend upon every learner reaching the same endpoint at the same time. Instead, they focus on processes that are accessible to virtually all students: processing input, retrieving language, recycling high-frequency chunks, building automaticity and participating in structured interaction.

The strongest students may ultimately produce more sophisticated language, deploy a wider range of structures and express more nuanced meanings. Yet weaker learners can still participate successfully because they are drawing upon exactly the same core repertoire of language. The difference lies not in the process itself but in the extent to which each learner can exploit it.

This perhaps explains why approaches such as EPI have resonated so strongly with many teachers. Their emphasis on highly comprehensible language, extensive recycling, careful sequencing and systematic management of cognitive load provides practical solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing mixed-attainment classrooms. However, it would be a mistake to view these principles as belonging exclusively to EPI. They are equally compatible with communicative approaches, task-based learning and many other contemporary methodologies because, at their heart, they reflect fundamental truths about how languages are learned.

Ultimately, speaking does not emerge because we tell students to speak. It emerges because we have spent weeks, months and years helping them process, retrieve, recycle, automate and recombine language until it becomes sufficiently accessible for communication to occur.

And that, surely, is the real challenge facing language teachers…

Not how to make students speak more.

But how to make speaking possible in the first place!

When speaking is treated as a process rather than a performance, more learners participate, more learners succeed and, perhaps most importantly, more learners begin to see themselves as genuine users of the language rather than merely students studying it.

Why Personality Matters More Than Most Leadership Books Suggest

If you spend enough time reading leadership literature, attending leadership conferences or scrolling through educational social media, you soon encounter the very same message: effective leadership is primarily about behaviours. Develop the right habits, follow the right systems, adopt the right strategies and success will follow.

There is some truth in this, of course. However, after spending years visiting well over one hundred schools annually, both in the UK and internationally, I have become increasingly convinced that one factor receives far less attention than it deserves: personality. Temperament shapes leadership more profoundly than many of us would like to admit!

This is not because personality determines whether someone becomes an effective leader. If anything, the opposite seems true. Some of the most successful Heads of Department I have encountered could not be more different from one another! Some are warm, nurturing and relationship-driven. Others are analytical, highly structured and relentlessly focused on standards. Some are visionaries who seem permanently dissatisfied with the status quo (e.g. me). Others quietly build strong cultures through consistency, patience and attention to detail.

What interests me is that these differences are not random. As I move from school to school, talking not only to Heads of Department but also to the colleagues who work for them, I repeatedly notice the same pattern. The very qualities that make leaders successful often become the source of their greatest difficulties. The highly innovative leader can create instability. The highly organised leader can create bureaucracy. The highly supportive leader can avoid difficult conversations. The highly charismatic leader can stop listening…

I visit around 100 schools a year in my work as a consultant, and the more schools I visit, the more convinced I become that leadership is as much about understanding ourselves as it is about understanding pedagogy, curriculum or management.

The Big Five Personality model

The Big Five Personality Model is the most widely researched and scientifically supported framework for understanding human personality. Developed through the work of psychologists such as Lewis Goldberg, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae during the 1980s and 1990s, it emerged from decades of research analysing the personality traits people use to describe themselves and others Rather than placing individuals into fixed categories, the model measures personality across five dimensions: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Its popularity stems from its strong empirical foundation, cross-cultural validity and ability to predict important outcomes such as leadership effectiveness, job performance, wellbeing and interpersonal relationships.

Why the Big Five Has Stood the Test of Time

Whenever personality is discussed, people often think of colourful quizzes that place individuals into neat categories. Such frameworks can be entertaining, but most have relatively weak scientific foundations. The Big Five is different. Why?

Emerging from decades of research conducted across multiple countries and cultures, it is widely regarded as the most robust and empirically validated model of personality currently available (Costa & McCrae, 1992; John, Naumann & Soto, 2008). One reason it remains so influential is that it consistently predicts meaningful outcomes, including workplace performance, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction, wellbeing and interpersonal relationships (Barrick & Mount, 1991).

What makes the framework particularly appealing is that it does not place people into boxes. You are not an “Openness person” or a “Conscientiousness person”.Instead, each of us possesses all five traits to varying degrees. Think of them as five sliders rather than five categories. Every leader displays a unique combination of these dimensions, and it is that combination that influences how they communicate, make decisions, respond to pressure, manage conflict and inspire others. For instance, as a middle manager, I was high in Openness to Experience and Extraversion, moderate in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and low in neuroticism (although some of my colleagues may disagree on this one…).

As you read the descriptions below, you will almost certainly recognise aspects of yourself in several of them! In fact, if you only recognise yourself in one, you are probably oversimplifying your own personality or not being completely honest with yourself….

Openness to Experience: The Innovator

Openness reflects intellectual curiosity, creativity, imagination and a willingness to explore new possibilities. People who score highly on this dimension are naturally drawn to ideas, innovation and experimentation.

In leadership, this often manifests itself as a tendency to challenge assumptions and ask uncomfortable questions. Why are we doing it this way? Is there a better alternative? Are we confusing tradition with effectiveness?

Research consistently links Openness with creativity, innovation and strategic thinking (Judge et al., 2002), which is hardly surprising. Organisations improve because somebody somewhere decides that existing practice is not good enough. Most talented language learners score highly in this trait.

Looking back on my own career, I can see this trait at work repeatedly. When I first began questioning many of the dominant assumptions surrounding communicative language teaching and started advocating approaches that eventually evolved into EPI, I was frequently told that I was over complicating matters, challenging setttled wisdom or trying to fix something that was not broken. Had I been less open to alternative possibilities, I would probably have accepted those criticisms and moved on.

However, Openness comes with risks: one of the most common leadership mistakes I observe amongst highly innovative leaders is that they become addicted to novelty. They move from initiative to initiative, conference to conference, idea to idea, often leaving colleagues exhausted in their wake. Innovation is exciting. Implementation is not. Yet successful departments are built far more often through consistent implementation than through constant innovation… a statement that may not win me many friends amongst educational influencers!

For MFL leaders, Openness can be enormously beneficial because our profession is constantly evolving. New specifications, new technologies, new research findings and now AI are transforming the landscape. Leaders who remain intellectually curious are often better equipped to navigate these changes. The challenge lies in ensuring that curiosity serves improvement rather than distraction.

Conscientiousness: The Architect

If Openness generates ideas, it is Conscientiousness that turns them into reality!This dimension reflects organisation, self-discipline, reliability and persistence. In the literature, this is the personality trait most consistently associated with professional success across occupations (Roberts et al., 2009).

Highly conscientious leaders create clarity. Expectations are explicit, systems function properly and deadlines are met. Staff know what is expected of them and can generally trust that commitments will be honoured.

Whenever I think about Conscientiousness, I am reminded of the years spent developing Sentence Builders, refining resources and building The Language Gym. None of those projects emerged from flashes of inspiration alone. They required thousands of hours of repetitive, often unglamorous work. The reality is that ideas are cheap. Execution is expensive and requires many hours of work and the ability to delegate effectively – something not many individuals are keen to do.

Conscientiousness also has a darker side, though. Many conscientious leaders become victims of their own strengths. Because they value organisation and precision, they can gradually drift towards perfectionism, excessive control and bureaucratic thinking. They begin to assume that every problem can be solved through another procedure, another spreadsheet or another monitoring process.

I have occasionally encountered departments where systems became so elaborate that they seemed to consume the very energy they were supposed to save. From marking to assessment, from predicted-grades monitoring to retrieval-practice schedules.

For MFL leaders, Conscientiousness is invaluable when designing curricula, sequencing content, ensuring progression and maintaining consistency across classes. However, language learning remains a profoundly human endeavour. Not everything that matters can be measured and not everything that can be measured matters.

Extraversion: The Influencer

Extraversion refers to sociability, assertiveness and the tendency to gain energy from interaction with others. Research consistently associates Extraversion with leadership emergence (Judge et al., 2002). In simple terms, extraverts are more likely to become leaders because they are often more willing to speak up, take charge and influence others. Thst’s me through and through.

Much of my professional life now involves standing in front of audiences ranging from twenty teachers to several hundred. I enjoy those interactions enormously. I enjoy debating ideas, provoking discussion and engaging with colleagues. Yet one lesson I have learned over the years is that visibility should never be confused with wisdom.

Some of the most insightful teachers I have encountered barely speak during workshops. They listen, reflect and contribute only when they have something genuinely valuable to add. Highly extraverted leaders can sometimes fall into the trap of believing that because they communicate effectively, they are also listening effectively. Unfortunately, the two are not always correlated.

For MFL departments, Extraversion can be particularly useful because language subjects often require enthusiastic advocates. Whether promoting uptake, defending curriculum time or building departmental identity, leaders frequently need to persuade others of the value of languages.The challenge is remembering that some of the department’s most important voices may not be the loudest.

Agreeableness: The Connector

Agreeableness reflects empathy, kindness, cooperation and concern for others.Highly agreeable leaders tend to create environments characterised by trust, psychological safety and collegiality. Their staff often feel valued, supported and respected.

Given the mounting pressures facing education, it is difficult to overstate the importance of these qualities. One aspect of my career that has surprised me over the years is the sheer number of teachers who contact me seeking advice, reassurance or support. Many of these individuals are complete strangers. Whenever possible, I respond. Not because I feel obliged to, but because I remember how isolating teaching can sometimes feel, particularly early in one’s career.

However, leadership is not friendship, and this is where Agreeableness can become problematic.The leaders I have seen struggle most with difficult conversations are often highly agreeable individuals who genuinely care about their colleagues. They worry about upsetting people. They delay challenging conversations. They hope problems will resolve themselves.

Unfortunately, they rarely do. For MFL departments, Agreeableness can help create cultures in which teachers willingly share resources, collaborate and support one another. Such environments are often highly enjoyable places to work. Yet harmony and effectiveness are not synonymous. A department can be warm, supportive and collegial whilst simultaneously tolerating weak practice.

The most effective leaders somehow manage to combine kindness with accountability. This what I love about Tom Ball, my last Head of Department ever, the only one I have ever worked under, who managed to combine both consistently.

Neuroticism: The Sentinel

Of all the Big Five dimensions, Neuroticism is probably the most misunderstood.The term sounds negative, yet research suggests that moderate levels of Neuroticism can actually confer important advantages (Nettle, 2006). Individuals who score moderately highly on this dimension often notice problems earlier, prepare more thoroughly and think more carefully about risks. In other words, they worry for a reason.

Throughout my career I have occasionally found myself at the centre of heated professional debates. Whether discussing methodology, curriculum design or aspects of language acquisition research, criticism has never been in short supply. What has always struck me is how differently people respond to criticism. Some become consumed by it. Others move on remarkably quickly.

Leaders who score very highly on Neuroticism often struggle because they ruminate. They replay conversations. They imagine worst-case scenarios. They carry professional worries home and struggle to switch off.

At moderate levels, however, Neuroticism can be useful. It can prevent complacency. It can encourage preparation. It can promote vigilance. Hence, for MFL leaders, a moderate degree of concern about uptake, examination outcomes or curriculum quality is probably healthy. Complete indifference would hardly be desirable.

The key, as always, is balance, isn’t it?

The Leadership Lesson Nobody Talks About

After visiting hundreds of schools and observing countless leaders, I have become increasingly convinced that leadership failure rarely stems from a lack of strengths. More often than not, it stems from strengths taken too far. The visionary can becomes chaotic, the organiser can become bureaucratic, the communicator can becomes overpowering, the nurturer can become too permissive and, finally, the vigilant leader can become too anxious and burn out.

In other words, our greatest strengths often contain within them the seeds of our greatest leadership challenges. This is why self-awareness matters so much.

Mind you: the goal is not to become somebody else. The goal is to understand your own tendencies sufficiently well that you can compensate for them. The innovative leader needs discipline. The conscientious leader needs flexibility. The extravert needs to listen. The agreeable leader needs courage. The vigilant leader needs perspective.

Perhaps that is the most valuable lesson the Big Five has to offer. Not a set of labels or a collection of boxes to fit yourself of others in, but rather a useful framework for understanding why we lead the way we do and how we might become slightly better versions of ourselves.

After all, leadership is rarely about perfection. As I always say in my workshops, it is usually about recognising our predictable mistakes before they become costly ones.

The events

This June and July I will be delivering a ‘Teaching Lexicogrammar: from modelling to spontaneity’ workshop in London (17th June) and Manchester (1st July) focused on one of the biggest challenges in language teaching: how we help learners move from heavily scaffolded classroom performance to genuinely fluent and spontaneous communication. You can obtain the details of the workshops and information on how to enroll by contacting University of Bath Spa’s Denise Martin here: d.martin@bathspa.ac.uk.

Although the workshop is rooted in Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI), it is absolutely not “just for EPI teachers”. In fact, much of what I will discuss applies to any teacher who wants students to remember more language, speak with greater confidence, retrieve language faster and become less dependent on prompts and memorised scripts.

One important feature of the session is that participants will not simply hear about the activities theoretically. Throughout the workshop, teachers will experience many of the tasks first-hand exactly as learners would. Malay — a language unfamiliar to most participants — will be used extensively to model and practise activities so that attendees can directly experience what it actually feels like to learn, retrieve and produce unfamiliar language under varying levels of cognitive load.

The content

The session will unfold progressively, following the same input-to-output journey we ideally want our students to experience in the classroom.

We will begin with the WHY behind EPI.

• Why many learners fail to become fluent despite years of study
We will look at what actually happens cognitively when students try to speak. Using simple teacher-friendly explanations of Levelt’s speaking model, I will show why speaking overloads so many learners: they must plan ideas, retrieve vocabulary, apply grammar, organise word order, pronounce accurately and self-monitor — all at speed.

At this stage, participants will experience short interactive activities in Malay designed to simulate the cognitive demands novice learners experience when attempting spontaneous production.

• Why “communicative activities” often fail weaker learners
We will discuss why throwing students into spontaneous tasks too early frequently leads to hesitation, guessing, anxiety and fossilised errors. I will explain why fluency is not built through pressure but through carefully sequenced processing and retrieval.

Teachers will take part in interactive demonstrations showing the difference between unsupported performance and carefully scaffolded processing.

We will then move into the EARLY PHASES OF FLUENCY BUILDING.

• Building strong phonological representations through oral input
Participants will explore how carefully structured oral work strengthens pronunciation, automatisation, listening accuracy and confidence whilst reducing cognitive overload.

A range of interactive Malay-language activities will be modelled at this stage so participants can experience how repeated oral processing gradually strengthens recall and fluency.

• Making repetition purposeful and engaging
One of the major themes of the workshop will be how to recycle language intensively without lessons becoming mechanical or repetitive. We will discuss how retrieval, repetition and interaction can coexist successfully when tasks are designed around cognitive principles rather than entertainment alone.

Teachers will participate in a series of highly interactive retrieval routines in Malay in order to experience how repeated processing can remain cognitively engaging and motivating.

The workshop will then focus on TRANSITIONAL TASKS.

• How to bridge the gap between comprehension and independent production
This is arguably the area where many language lessons break down. I will show how transitional tasks reduce cognitive overload whilst gradually increasing retrieval demand and learner independence.

Participants will work through staged Malay-language activities that demonstrate how learners can be guided progressively from recognition towards increasingly independent production.

• Helping learners proceduralise language rather than merely recognise it
We will examine how carefully sequenced retrieval and reconstruction tasks help learners move vocabulary and grammar from short-term performance to longer-term automatised use.

Again, the activities will be modelled interactively so teachers can directly feel the difference between shallow familiarity and proceduralised control of language.

We will then move into STRUCTURED SPEAKING.

• How oral scaffolds and sentence builders support fluency
I will show how oral scaffolds can be designed to balance challenge and accessibility, enabling students to speak successfully whilst gradually reducing support over time.

Teachers will complete scaffolded oral tasks in Malay that illustrate how effective support can increase confidence whilst still maintaining sufficient challenge.

• Moving from controlled production to freer communication
Participants will explore how highly structured oral work can gradually evolve into semi-structured communicative interaction and eventually into spontaneous communication.

At this stage of the workshop, teachers will participate in fluency-oriented communicative activities that gradually remove support and increase spontaneity.

Finally, the workshop will culminate with FLUENCY TRAINING.

• How to engineer fluency systematically
We will explore how cumulative retrieval, oral rehearsal and carefully sequenced communicative practice can build speed, confidence and automaticity over time rather than leaving fluency development to chance.

Participants will experience a sequence of fluency-training activities in Malay specifically designed to demonstrate how automatisation emerges through repeated successful retrieval and structured communicative practice.

Throughout the workshop I will continuously connect classroom practice to cognitive science and SLA research, but always in a very practical and teacher-friendly way.

Most importantly, teachers will leave with a much clearer understanding of how fluent performance develops and how classroom routines can be engineered to support that development more effectively, regardless of whether they identify as “EPI teachers” or not.

Why you may want to attend this workshops

Because many of us sense that there is often a gap between what our students can do with support in class and what they can actually retrieve and use independently under pressure. This workshop is about understanding why that gap exists and, more importantly, what we can do about it in practical classroom terms.

Whether you fully embrace EPI, partially draw on it, or do not use it at all, the session will provide a very large number of concrete, adaptable ideas rooted in cognitive science, skill-acquisition theory and real classroom practice. Above all, the workshop aims to help teachers build classrooms where students feel more successful, more confident and more fluent — not through gimmicks or unrealistic communicative demands, but through carefully engineered sequences that make language easier to process, retain and retrieve over time.

Importantly, one of the reasons EPI has attracted increasing attention internationally is that many teachers have reported substantial gains not only in fluency and retention, but also in student confidence, motivation and continuation rates. This aligns with research suggesting that learner self-efficacy — the feeling that “I can do this” — is one of the strongest predictors of sustained engagement and uptake in languages. By making input more comprehensible, reducing cognitive overload and allowing students to experience success earlier and more frequently, EPI seeks to create the conditions under which more learners remain motivated enough to continue studying languages beyond the compulsory years.

Guest post by Annelise Gill, German teacher of 14 years at a public secondary school in Adelaide, South Australia.

Introduction by Gianfranco

In this post, a very passionate and indefatigable German teacher working in a state school in Adelaide, details her experience with EPI, spanning a few years, working with large mixed ability classes. Her EPI journey has not always been easy, but has paid massive dividends, as the data Annelise reports below clearly evidence. I want to thank her for sharing her journey here with us and for being such a strong advocate for EPI over the years.

Annelise’s Post

I first met Gianfranco in September 2022, when he presented a joint session to the German and Italian language associations in Adelaide. I had never heard of him before and took advantage of the opportunity for some fully funded PD! I walked away from those 2 days thinking that this was how all language classes need to be taught. It seemed completely logical and so simple. I was ready to throw away textbooks and old-fashioned ROTE learning then and there.

But I knew I needed more training first. So, I enrolled for his online sessions and over the next two years completed all the modules for his ‘Becoming an EPI teacher’ course. Along the way, I implemented what I was learning as I learnt it, so the classes I was teaching progressively got more and more of the EPI method. I could see that, even with only a ‘half dose’ of the methodology, it was having a huge impact. Behaviour issues reduced. Engagement increased exponentially. And slowly, but surely, grades improved – even from those distinctly unwilling to try!

Halfway through having completed the modules, I began tracking data on my classes, with the goal to seeing them through all 3 years of middle school. I compared this with results from previous year levels and the improvement was astounding. The only students who failed were the ones who didn’t turn up to class. Even the most reluctant, unwilling learners were absorbing enough during lesson to earn pass grades on the end of term summatives. I have always regularly surveyed my classes for feedback, but the answers started to change. The kids started telling me they loved German, and that increases every year. Students with learning difficulties still felt successful because the learning was done in so many different ways, they could still access it.

Images show: Year 8 and Year 9 assessment data across three years, with definitive iprovement in grade bands across consecutive years. 2023 is pre-EPI. 2024 was partial EPI. 2025 was full EPI. In IBMYP – ‘A band’ = 7-8 grade, ‘B band’ = 5-6 grade, ‘C band’ = 3-4 band.

At a practical level, this method isn’t just better for the students – it’s better for the teacher as well. It definitely took some hard work and a lot of time investment to transform our 4 year levels of curriculum over to this format. Mostly that was because, as I am at an International Baccalaureate school, the pre-made units in the Sentence Builder books did not usually align with what we were teaching, and we had to make all our own resources. But now that that work has been done, teaching German has become infinitely easier for me. My PowerPoints have an accumulated wealth of activities built into them and it’s easy to pick and choose what to do on a given day, to match your own and your class’s energy level. There’s nothing left to prepare except printing out the sentence builders and occasional worksheets – generated for me each time by the SentenceBuilders and Text Activities websites.

Differentiation is also significantly easier. This whole process is designed to meet the lowest level students where they’re at, so that EVERYONE can be successful. There is no differentiating down for anyone. You only have to differentiate up – and personally, I’ve always found that much easier! The Language Gym books and resources have been great for this – they provide ready-made extension work that supports the higher level students so they are appropriately challenged. Still with minimal extra work for me, still giving the students what they need. It’s a win-win.

My biggest brag point for having made this change is that in just about every lesson, every student has practised reading, writing, listening and speaking skills, and received instant personalised feedback on their skills. Prior to changing to EPI, there is no way I could have said this with any confidence. Speaking was the last skill we spent time on because the student attitudes were just too hard to battle. Now it’s the first – they are listening and speaking before any writing happens.

I have to confess that I do use various prizes as additional motivation for many of the games! But making it clear when we are and are not using prizes has not been a problem, and students will still participate in the ‘practice only’ activities. Every class has their own favourites. But for me, in every subunit I teach, we play Quickfire Translation, Delayed Dictation and Sentence Stealer. I also really love Trapdoor, One Pen One Dice and Running Dictation/Translations, and we do these frequently! I love that the activities aligned with MARSEARS also address the range of physical needs students have – so they aren’t just sitting still, there is movement in different ways as well.

No new method is without its implementation challenges. The first and biggest was the time investment in making the transition. This workload would have been greatly reduced by using ready-made units by Language Gym, and only doing one unit of one year level at a time. Secondly, getting my language colleagues on board with these changes was not always easy. There were many discussions and compromises where I did the vast majority of the unit transformations so they would be more inclined to ‘follow me’. Some teachers of the other languages did observations of my classes to see how they ran and most have implemented at least some aspects of EPI into their teaching and are seeing positive change. Leadership was usually verbally supportive, but this hasn’t always translated to practical support. I completed most of the training modules at my own expense, outside of school hours and in addition to my usual workload. I have also privately funded most of the resources that EPI commonly uses, such as the whiteboards, textas, dice, (prizes), Language Gym books and even the website subscriptions at times – though some resource replacements and additional copies of books were eventually funded.

Each year we add a few more activities to each unit to increase the options available. We tweak sentence builders to align with the interests of the student cohort in front of us. I endeavour to try at least two new activities each term, to keep things fresh. I am most definitely still learning things as I do this, even though I’m more than 3 years into it. But the units now run smoothly and I am able to walk into a classroom with little forethought about the teaching plan, and have a full lesson of engagement with the language.

I have had many other preservice teachers and German colleagues from other schools come to observe, and they all walk away inspired and enthused because they see how the students feel about language and how involved they are in the lessons. I have now made many presentations at various conferences and professional development days about EPI – sometimes about using the method itself and making changes to your teaching, other times just showing groups more of the games and activities. One unexpected benefit was realising how easily this method and many of these activities are transferred to other subject areas entirely, and developing a PD session for my site about this, repeating it a number of times, has proven invaluable in gaining deeper support from leadership as well as other faculties at my site, as now this isn’t just ‘a languages thing’.

You don’t have to enrol and complete any of the EPI modules in order to start making this change. I highly recommend doing the first module, ‘Becoming an EPI teacher’, and you can easily get the ball rolling with just that one behind you (watch out – you’ll get hooked and want to keep going anyway!). But you don’t even have to do that. You can start implementing the activities and using sentence builders (that you’re probably already using in some format) in a MARSEARS process just by reading the many blog posts that he, and others like me, have written. No financial outlay required.

If you’re on the fence about making the change to EPI, just jump. You will not regret it.

Annelise’s bio

Annelise Gill is a long time German and EALD teacher in public education in South Australia. Having instilled the EPI approach firmly into the German curriculum at her site she has since been working on spreading the word and making this approach even more accessible to other languages and subjects. She makes regular presentations for sites, language associations, and professional development events on various aspects of EPI. She is passionate about teaching the students we have in front of us, and firmly believes that this is a fantastic method that easily caters to all students.

Introduction

There is a persistent tendency in language teaching to explain listening failure almost exclusively in linguistic terms: students struggle because they do not know enough vocabulary, because their grammar is weak, because they have not had enough exposure, because they are not applying the “right” listening strategies, or because they supposedly lack resilience, concentration or motivation.

Often, of course, this diagnosis is correct. Vocabulary knowledge, grammatical competence and phonological familiarity remain the strongest predictors of listening success (Nation, 2013; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012), and without them there is no listening competence to speak of.

However, as I have repeatedly argued on this blog over the years, especially in my work on listening pedagogy, decoding and micro-listening, this explanation is incomplete, because listening in a second language is not merely a linguistic act. It is also a highly demanding cognitive activity which places considerable strain on working memory, attentional control, processing speed, inhibitory control and executive functioning, particularly when learners are required not only to process language accurately in real time, but to sustain that processing repeatedly over extended periods whilst simultaneously managing uncertainty, stress, partial comprehension and continual decision-making.

In other words, what listening exams frequently measure is not simply whether students know the language, but whether they can continue accessing and deploying that knowledge efficiently once cognitive fatigue begins to accumulate.

What Listening Actually Involves

I know I have repeated this ad nauseam, but let me say it once again: listening in a second language is arguably one of the most cognitively expensive things we ask novice and intermediate learners to do. Unlike reading, where learners can pause, re-read and control the pace of processing, listening unfolds in real time and disappears almost instantly, forcing the learner to process, interpret and integrate incoming information under severe temporal pressure.

The learner must:

• decode the acoustic signal,
• segment the speech stream into meaningful units,
• retrieve lexical meaning,
• interpret grammatical relationships,
• suppress competing interpretations,
• hold partial meaning in working memory,
• integrate new information with previous clauses,
• and construct a coherent mental representation of meaning,

all within fractions of seconds!

Research over the last two decades has shown repeatedly that these processes rely heavily on:

• working memory (Baddeley, 2003; Andringa et al., 2012),
• attentional control (Mackey et al., 2010),
• processing speed (Segalowitz, 2010),
• executive functioning (Miyake & Friedman, 2012),
• and automaticity (DeKeyser, 2007).

Neurolinguistic research using fMRI and EEG methodologies has further demonstrated that L2 listening recruits substantially more frontal-lobe activity than L1 listening, especially in lower-proficiency learners, because processing remains effortful rather than automatised (Abutalebi, 2008; Perani & Abutalebi, 2005). In practical terms, this means that novice listeners must consciously allocate attentional resources to processes which, in expert listeners, occur automatically and below conscious awareness.

As I have often pointed out in earlier posts, what students know certainly matters, but how efficiently they can process what they know often determines whether performance remains stable under pressure. A learner with reasonably secure vocabulary but weak decoding or slow retrieval may perform far worse than expected simply because each listening decision costs too much cognitive effort.

The Nature Listening Exams

As we all know, exam listening papers are usually composed of:

• multiple short extracts,
• repeated cycles of listening and responding,
• continual task-switching,
• and sustained cognitive engagement across thirty to forty-five minutes.

This entails:

• repeated high-load processing,
• cumulative cognitive effort,
• and fatigue accumulation over time.

Students are required to:

• listen,
• decode,
• interpret,
• infer,
• decide,
• and respond,

again and again, often with relatively little cognitive recovery time in between.

A typical exam listening paper may involve well over one hundred separate micro-decisions, each requiring rapid allocation of attentional and working-memory resources. Whilst any individual extract may appear manageable in isolation, the cumulative effect of repeated processing under pressure is far more substantial than many teachers realise.

Hence, the bottleneck is very often not the difficulty of the text itself, but rather the learner’s ability to sustain accurate processing across repeated listening events.

Cognitive Fatigue: What It Is and Why It Matters

Cognitive fatigue refers to the gradual decline in mental efficiency following sustained effortful processing (Borghini et al., 2018; Hockey, 2013). In listening contexts, this fatigue manifests itself through:

• reduced attentional control,
• slower processing speed,
• weaker error monitoring,
• diminished working-memory efficiency,
• reduced inhibitory control,
• and increasing susceptibility to distraction.

Crucially, learners do not suddenly “switch off”. Rather, because attentional resources become progressively depleted as processing demands accumulate, they gradually lose the ability to process accurately and efficiently, even though outwardly they may still appear focused and compliant.

Across the school day, this process is cumulative. A learner sitting a listening paper at 3pm is not cognitively equivalent to that same learner at 9am. Prior lessons, emotional stress, sustained concentration, social interaction, screen exposure and decision fatigue all consume cognitive resources, particularly in adolescents whose executive-control systems are still developing neurologically (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006).

Within a listening paper itself, fatigue often evolves in a recognisable sequence:

• early phase → relatively efficient processing,
• middle phase → attentional drift and increasing effort,
• later phase → greater reliance on guessing, partial cues and heuristics.

This aligns closely with research on attentional depletion and executive control (Kahneman, 2011; Miyake & Friedman, 2012), as well as with studies showing that sustained cognitive effort progressively reduces accuracy in tasks requiring rapid auditory discrimination and working-memory updating (Warm et al., 2008).

As I have often reiterated in previous discussions of listening instruction, the issue is rarely that learners stop trying. Rather, the cognitive system itself becomes less efficient over time.

Who Is Most Likely to Be Affected?

Not all learners are equally vulnerable to cumulative listening fatigue. Those most affected are usually the learners for whom each listening event already carries a high cognitive cost.

Learner profile	Why they are vulnerable	What it looks like in class/exams
Students with poor working memory	Cannot hold enough information online long enough to integrate meaning	“I understood the beginning but lost the rest”
Slow lexical retrievers	Lexical access is too slow for real-time processing	“I knew the word — but only afterwards”
Weak phonological decoders	Cannot reliably map sounds onto known words	Confusions such as fui/fue or je vais/j’ai
Poor segmenters	Struggle to identify word boundaries	Hear an undifferentiated stream
Fragile grammar processors	Miss small but crucial grammatical cues	Tense and negation errors
Low-automaticity learners	Processing remains effortful and conscious	Rapid fatigue accumulation
Anxiety-prone learners	Anxiety consumes working-memory resources	Performance collapses after mistakes
Learners with weak attentional control	Cannot efficiently reset after failure	One error destabilises several subsequent items
Students with limited vocabulary depth	Too much input remains uncertain	Heavy reliance on guessing
Students with auditory-processing difficulties	Speech processing itself is effortful	Need excessive repetition
Fatigued or overloaded learners	Reduced cognitive reserves	Stronger late-day decline

As I have often stressed on this blog, many of these learners are not weak in any simplistic sense. Rather, because the cognitive cost of each listening event is substantially higher for them than for more automatised listeners, fatigue accumulates earlier and more aggressively.

Listening Twice (or Three Times): Help or Illusion?

Most exam boards replay listening extracts twice, whilst Pearson uses three repetitions.

On the surface, this appears entirely beneficial, and indeed there are important advantages:

• reduced immediate memory load,
• opportunities to confirm interpretations,
• greater support for lower-proficiency learners,
• improved local accuracy (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012).

However, the situation is more nuanced than it first appears.

Repeated listens do not eliminate global cognitive fatigue. In fact, they may contribute to it! Why?

Firstly, some learners reduce attentional effort during the first hearing because they know another opportunity is coming, a phenomenon linked to effort-regulation theory (Hockey, 2013). Secondly, incorrect initial interpretations can become reinforced rather than corrected, especially when learners engage in confirmation bias rather than fresh processing during subsequent listens. Moreover, whilst replay may reduce local task difficulty, it simultaneously extends the cumulative duration of high-load processing across the paper.

In other words: repetition helps locally, but it does not fully solve the broader problem of cumulative fatigue. In fact, it may exacerbate it!

Implications for Teaching

If listening performance reflects not only linguistic knowledge but also processing efficiency, cognitive stamina, decoding automaticity and attentional resilience, then classroom practice must address all of these dimensions explicitly and systematically.

As I have argued repeatedly in my CPD and writing, merely “doing more listening” is often insufficient if the underlying sub-processes remain weak, fragile and effortful.

1. Build Stronger Linguistic Foundations

Vocabulary breadth and depth remain the strongest predictors of listening success (Nation, 2013). However, vocabulary knowledge must become rapidly accessible, not merely recognisable, because listening does not allow learners the luxury of extended retrieval time. This means:

• cumulative retrieval,
• narrow recycling,
• delayed retrieval,
• frequent low-stakes reactivation,
• and rapid retrieval practice.

For example:

• “Write five verbs you can use with je vais”
• “Past, present or future?”
• “Translate rapidly: I used to eat / I ate / I am going to eat”

The goal is not simply memory, but speed and automaticity of access.

2. Develop Aural Competence Explicitly

As I have often emphasised in earlier posts, many listening failures originate not in comprehension but in perception. Learners therefore need systematic work on:

• phonological discrimination,
• segmentation,
• reduced forms,
• chunk recognition,
• syllabic awareness,
• and stress/rhythm perception.

Practical classroom examples include:

• pero/perro discrimination,
• je vais/j’ai contrast tasks,
• chunk-marking exercises,
• rapid dictation races,
• syllable grouping activities,
• shadow reading,
• and selective dictation.

Even five minutes daily can significantly reduce future cognitive load because learners gradually begin to process these forms more automatically.

3. Increase Processing Efficiency and Automaticity

Automaticity matters enormously because the less effort each micro-decision requires, the more cognitive resources remain available for comprehension and inferencing. As I have repeatedly argued on this blog, speed of processing is not an optional extra. It is central to successful listening. Useful classroom routines include:

• three-second sentence exposure,
• rapid chunk reconstruction,
• constrained listening retrieval,
• timed sentence rebuilding,
• rapid-fire tense identification,
• disappearing transcripts,
• and rapid-response mini-whiteboard routines.

For example:

1. Show a sentence for three seconds.
2. Remove it.
3. Play it aloud.
4. Students reconstruct it from memory.

Such activities force faster parsing, retrieval and integration.

4. Train Attentional Recovery

One of the biggest problems weaker listeners face is that one missed word destabilises subsequent processing, creating a cascade effect across multiple items. Students therefore need explicit practice in:

• recovering after failure,
• resetting attention,
• tolerating ambiguity,
• and continuing to process despite partial loss.

Teachers can train this by:

• deliberately inserting unknown words,
• interrupting extracts,
• masking small sections,
• or using “recover and continue” listening routines where students must keep processing despite uncertainty.

5. Reduce Cognitive Load Strategically

Research in Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller et al., 2011) strongly suggests that instructional design matters enormously.Teachers should therefore:

• pre-teach essential lexical items,
• reduce unnecessary task complexity,
• sequence input carefully,
• avoid overloading students with simultaneous demands,
• and progressively increase difficulty.

Importantly, simplifying cognitive demands does not mean “dumbing down”. It means allocating attentional resources more intelligently.

6. Build Listening Stamina Indirectly

Importantly, stamina is not built simply by making students endure increasingly long listening texts.As I have consistently argued in my work on listening pedagogy, stamina improves primarily when processing becomes less effortful.This means:

• stronger decoding,
• faster retrieval,
• better segmentation,
• more automatised grammar recognition,
• and greater attentional efficiency

In other words:students become more resistant to fatigue not because they “try harder”, but because each listening event gradually costs less cognitive effort.

The Role of Micro-Listening (MCL) Tasks

This is where micro-listening tasks — or MCL tasks, as developed extensively in my book Breaking the Sound Barrier — become particularly powerful. Those familiar with my work will now that MCL tasks consist of:

• short,
• highly interactive,
• cognitively manageable listening cycles,

usually lasting between ten and twenty seconds. Each cycle typically involves:

1. listening,
2. making a rapid judgement,
3. responding immediately,
4. receiving corrective feedback.

As I have repeatedly maintained in my writing on listening pedagogy, these short cycles are far more aligned with the actual cognitive architecture of listening than the traditional “play a long text then answer comprehension questions” approach.

Those of you who are familiar with my book ‘Breaking the sound barrier: teaching learners how to listen’ (Conti & Smith, 2019) will know that MCL tasks are not random quick listening games. Each one targets a specific listening sub-process.

Listening sub-process	What the learner is training	Example MCL task	Student response
Phoneme discrimination	Distinguishing similar sounds	pero/perro	Choose correct word
Segmentation	Identifying word boundaries	jevaisaucinéma	Mark chunk boundaries
Morphological parsing	Detecting grammatical morphology	je mange/j’ai mangé	Identify tense
Negation processing	Detecting negation cues	je n’aime pas	Positive or negative?
Person identification	Recognising subject/person markers	hablo/habla/hablan	Identify speaker
Lexical retrieval	Rapid meaning access	Hear-and-match	Give rapid meaning
Syntax parsing	Understanding grammatical relations	“Who did what?”	Assign roles
Distractor resistance	Ignoring misleading lexical cues	Keyword trap task	Reject distractor
Working-memory updating	Holding and integrating meaning	Listen-hold-select	Retain then decide
Error detection	Monitoring linguistic accuracy	Correct vs incorrect version	Identify the change
Discourse integration	Linking clauses coherently	Cause-result matching	Identify logical relationship
Attentional reset	Recovering after missed input	Interrupted listening	Continue processing

Because the tasks are:

• short,
• interactive,
• repetitive,
• feedback-rich,
• and cognitively manageable,

they reduce overload whilst simultaneously increasing engagement and attentional reset. Moreover, because processing becomes faster and more automatised over time, fatigue accumulates much more slowly.

This is one of the most important points to understand: students do not become resistant to listening fatigue because they “try harder”; they become resistant because processing gradually becomes less effortful.

Conclusion

Ultimately, listening performance reflects the interaction of:

• linguistic knowledge,
• aural competence,
• processing efficiency,
• attentional control,
• working-memory capacity,
• executive functioning,
• and cognitive stamina.

Overemphasising any one of these variables inevitably produces a distorted understanding of why learners succeed or fail.

The danger in many classrooms is that we continue to interpret listening breakdown purely as a knowledge deficit, when in reality it is often the product of cognitive overload interacting with fragile processing systems, inefficient decoding, weak attentional recovery and insufficient automaticity.

If we genuinely want students to perform better in GCSE and A-Level listening exams, then we need to move beyond the simplistic notion that more listening practice alone is the solution. What matters is not simply how much learners listen, but how efficiently, accurately and sustainably they are able to process what they hear under pressure and across time.

And that, in my view, changes the pedagogical conversation quite profoundly.

If you want to find out more on this topic, read my book ‘Breaking the sound barrier: teaching learners how to listen’ (Conti and Smith, 2019)

Selected References.

• Andringa, S., Olsthoorn, N., van Beuningen, C., Schoonen, R., & Hulstijn, J. (2012). Determinants of success in native and non-native listening comprehension: An individual differences approach. Language Learning, 62(1), 49–78. Wiley.
• Baddeley, A. (2003). Working memory and language: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders, 36(3), 189–208. Elsevier.
• Blakemore, S.-J., & Choudhury, S. (2006). Development of the adolescent brain: Implications for executive function and social cognition. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(3–4), 296–312. Wiley.
• Conti, G., & Smith, S. (2019). Breaking the Sound Barrier: Teaching Language Learners How to Listen. Piefke Trading Singapore.
• DeKeyser, R. (2007). Practice in a second language: Perspectives from applied linguistics and cognitive psychology. Cambridge University Press.
• Field, J. (2008). Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press.
• Hockey, G. R. J. (2013). The Psychology of Fatigue: Work, Effort and Control. Cambridge University Press.
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Penguin Books.
• Mackey, A. (2010). Input, interaction and corrective feedback in L2 learning. Oxford University Press.
• Nation, I. S. P. (2013). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Roussel, S., Joulia, D., Tricot, A., & Sweller, J. (2021). Learning subject content through a foreign language should not ignore human cognitive architecture: A cognitive load theory approach. Educational Psychology Review, 33, 1225–1249. Springer.
• Segalowitz, N. (2010). Cognitive Bases of Second Language Fluency. Routledge.
• Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive Load Theory. Springer.
• Vandergrift, L., & Goh, C. C. M. (2012). Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening: Metacognition in Action. Routledge.
• Wallace, M. P. (2020). Individual differences in second language listening: Examining the role of vocabulary knowledge, working memory, and personality. Language Teaching Research, 24(6), 707–727. SAGE Publications.

Introduction

In recent years, many language teachers have noticed a striking overlap between classrooms informed by Rosenshine’s principles and those shaped by Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI). Both frameworks look structured, purposeful, and highly interactive. Students are engaged, teachers model clearly, and practice is carefully scaffolded. It is therefore tempting to conclude that the two are essentially the same thing. However, they are not.

What they share is a set of high-quality teaching behaviours. Where they diverge, on the other hand, is in the underlying theory of how learning—specifically language learning—actually happens over time. Barak Rosenshine distilled what effective teachers do across subjects; EPI, in addition, operationalises insights from second language acquisition and cognitive science to control how learners process, store, and retrieve language.

Where EPI and Rosenshine Align

Below, each shared principle is briefly unpacked—with concrete examples rooted in a typical English secondary school MFL curriculum (e.g. French/Spanish at KS3–KS4)—so that it maps directly onto the table that follows.

• Structured teaching → Both rely on carefully sequenced instruction rather than ad hoc activity selection.
  Example: A Year 8 French lesson on future plans follows a clear arc: recap prior tense (je joue), introduce future meaning through input (je vais jouer), then structured micro-listening tasks followed by macro-listening followed by chunking aloud tasks followed by chunk-level written and oral retrieval practice followed by mini role plays, etc.
• Small steps → New learning is broken down to manage cognitive load (John Sweller).
  Example: Instead of teaching the full future tense paradigm, the teacher starts with “je vais, tu vas, il/elle/on va + infinitive” only; whilst the other persons are postponed to the end of the instructional sequence.
• Modelling → Both require clear models; however, in EPI this is primarily realised through Sentence Builders, not teacher exposition. In addition, these make language visible, selectable and processable before independent use.
  Example: A Sentence Builder such as:
  Le week-end, je vais + jouer au foot / regarder un film / sortir avec mes amis + parce que c’est…
  is used for listening, reading aloud, decoding, translation and choral response before students produce language independently.
• Guided practice → Learners rehearse new material with support before moving towards independence.
  Example: Students manipulate the Sentence Builder to create sentences with controlled variation; moreover, the range of options is gradually expanded.
• Checking understanding → Frequent formative checks prevent misconceptions from embedding.
  Example: Mini-whiteboards: teacher says “Je vais manger” → students write “future” or “present”; in addition, misconceptions are immediately addressed.
• High success rate → Tasks are calibrated to ensure learners experience frequent success.
  Example: Listening tasks where only one variable changes (e.g. tense marker), thus ensuring high accuracy and confidence.
• Active participation → Students are constantly engaged cognitively, not passively listening.
  Example: Whole-class choral translation or rapid-response tasks using Sentence Builders; furthermore, no student remains inactive.
• Retrieval practice → Recall strengthens memory; however, in EPI it is most powerfully realised during Structured Production, where learners retrieve and recombine language under controlled conditions.
  Example: Students are prompted to produce sentences from partial cues:
  “tomorrow / play football / because fun” → Je vais jouer au foot demain parce que c’est amusant.
  This, in turn, forces retrieval from memory rather than reliance on full models.
• Review and consolidation → Learning is revisited over time to secure retention.
  Example: Je vais + infinitive reappears weeks later in a holidays topic; moreover, it is embedded within new contexts.
• Scaffolding → independence → Support is gradually withdrawn as competence increases.
  Example: Sentence Builder → reduced prompts → free GCSE-style writing; in addition, accuracy expectations increase.
• Clarity of goals → Clear objectives and success criteria guide learning.
  Example: “Today you will understand and say what you are going to do this weekend”; furthermore, success is explicitly defined.
• Teacher-led guidance → Novices benefit from explicit instruction rather than discovery (Paul Kirschner). It should be noted, however, that whilst explicit instruction is leveraged, it is used in synergy with implicit instruction, which has an equally if not important role in the EPI pedagogical cycle (MARSEARS)
  Example: Teacher provides structured input and modelling rather than asking students to infer rules independently; on the other hand, independence is gradually built later.

Commonalities Table

Dimension	Shared Principle	What it looks like in practice	Research anchor
Structured teaching	Learning benefits from clear, well-sequenced instruction	Lessons follow a deliberate progression, not ad hoc activities	Barak Rosenshine
Small steps	New learning should be broken down to reduce overload	Limited new material introduced at a time	John Sweller
Modelling	Learners need clear models of target performance	In EPI: Sentence Builders; in Rosenshine: teacher demonstration/worked examples	Rosenshine; Conti & Smith
Guided practice	Learners need supported rehearsal before independence	Scaffolded tasks before freer application	Rosenshine
Checking understanding	Misconceptions must be identified early	Frequent questioning, mini-whiteboards	Rosenshine
High success rate	Frequent success enhances learning	Tasks calibrated to avoid repeated failure	Rosenshine
Active participation	Students must be cognitively engaged	Constant response, no passive listening	Rosenshine
Retrieval practice	Recall strengthens memory	In EPI: intensified in Structured Production; in Rosenshine: review routines	Robert Bjork
Review and consolidation	Learning must be revisited over time	Spaced review, cumulative practice	Rosenshine
Scaffolding → independence	Gradual release is essential	Support fades as competence grows	Rosenshine
Clarity of goals	Clear aims support learning	Explicit success criteria	Instructional research
Teacher-led guidance	Novices need explicit instruction	Limited unguided discovery	Paul Kirschner

Where They Diverge Fundamentally

Again, each difference below is aligned directly with the table that follows, with examples grounded in an English MFL classroom.

• Theoretical base → EPI draws on ISLA and psycholinguistics; Rosenshine, on the other hand, draws on general cognitive psychology.
  Example: EPI designs listening tasks to develop parsing (e.g. distinguishing hablo vs habló), not just comprehension.
• Primary goal → EPI targets long-term language competence; Rosenshine, however, focuses on successful lesson outcomes.
  Example: EPI may delay speaking to ensure retention, even if it feels less “productive” in the lesson.
• Unit of design → EPI sequences learning processes over time; Rosenshine structures individual lessons.
  Example: A Year 9 scheme ensures past tense reappears across multiple units, not confined to one topic; furthermore, recycling is systematic.
• Core driver of learning → EPI prioritises input processing; Rosenshine prioritises explanation and practice.
  Example: Students spend extended time interpreting Sentence Builder content before producing; in contrast, Rosenshine would move more quickly to practice.
• Role of input → Central and sustained in EPI; however, often brief in Rosenshine-informed teaching.
  Example: Multiple listening/reading exposures before any speaking task.
• Nature of practice → EPI emphasises processing and retrieval; Rosenshine emphasises correct rehearsal.
  Example: Students decide meaning (now vs future), not just repeat sentences; in addition, they recombine language.
• Timing of output → Delayed in EPI; early in Rosenshine.
  Example: No speaking until sufficient processing has occurred; on the other hand, Rosenshine encourages early guided responses.
• View of early production → Risky in EPI; acceptable in Rosenshine.
  Example: Avoiding premature pairwork speaking to prevent incorrect automatisation.
• Role of explanation → Minimal and delayed in EPI; central and early in Rosenshine.
  Example: Grammar explanation follows exposure, not precedes it; furthermore, it is brief.
• Cognitive load management → Domain-specific and staged in EPI; more general in Rosenshine.
  Example: Limiting simultaneous novelty in vocabulary and structure.
• View of grammar → Emerges from processing, then systematised in EPI; explained then practised in Rosenshine.
  Example: Students recognise patterns before seeing full conjugations.
• Retrieval → Core engine in EPI; routine strategy in Rosenshine.
  Example: Frequent timed retrieval tasks driving fluency; in addition, embedded in structured production.
• Fluency development → Explicitly engineered in EPI; less theorised in Rosenshine.
  Example: 4-3-2 speaking to build automaticity.
• Curriculum design → Cumulative and interleaved in EPI; largely assumed in Rosenshine.
  Example: Structures recycled across topics over months; furthermore, deliberately interleaved.
• Attention to form → Engineered through tasks in EPI; less explicit in Rosenshine.
  Example: Tasks where meaning depends on noticing verb forms.
• Transfer → Explicitly built in EPI (Transfer Appropriate Processing); less foregrounded in Rosenshine.
  Example: Practising exam-style listening mirroring GCSE conditions.
• Typical classroom → Input-rich and recycling-heavy in EPI; fast-paced and response-heavy in Rosenshine.
  Example: Longer processing phases vs rapid-fire questioning; however, both remain structured.

Differences Table

Dimension	EPI (Extensive Processing Instruction)	Rosenshine (Principles of Instruction)
Theoretical base	ISLA + psycholinguistics	General cognitive psychology
Primary goal	Develop implicit and procedural language competence	Ensure successful lesson learning
Unit of design	Learning processes over time	Lesson structure
Core driver	Input processing and form–meaning mapping	Explanation and guided practice
Role of input	Central and sustained	Often brief and front-loaded
Nature of practice	Processing + retrieval + recombination	Repetition of correct responses
Timing of output	Delayed	Early
View of early production	Risky (fossilisation, shallow encoding)	Necessary and beneficial
Role of explanation	Minimal and delayed	Central and early
Cognitive load management	Strongly staged and domain-specific	Managed via small steps
View of grammar	Emerges from processing, then systematised	Explained then practised
Retrieval	Core to automatisation	Routine review strategy
Fluency development	Explicitly engineered	Not explicitly theorised
Curriculum design	Cumulative, interleaved, recycling-driven	Largely assumed
Attention to form	Explicitly engineered in tasks	Not systematically targeted
Transfer	Built via Transfer Appropriate Processing	Less explicitly addressed
Typical classroom	Input-rich, delayed output, heavy recycling	Fast-paced, interactive, frequent responses

Conclusion: Same Tools, Different Logic

In conclusion there is a significant overlap between the two frameworks as they are both based on sound educational and theories and research. The overlap explains why both approaches often produce classrooms that look effective. However, the divergence, on the other hand, explains why outcomes—especially in language learning—can differ significantly over time.

Rosenshine gives us a powerful framework for instructional clarity and effective lesson delivery. EPI, in contrast, provides a model for how language learning unfolds cognitively over time, ensuring that teaching aligns with how memory and processing actually work.

Whilst Rosenshine help teachers structure how you teach EPI enables them to control how learning happens over time. If one gets that balance right, one will move from lessons that work… to learning that lasts.

Introduction

When I work with schools to improve their students’ vocabulary retention rates, one thing I consistently notice when observing Do-Now tasks is that they often feel like isolated islands, narrowly focused on the unit at hand.

A Do-Now task should instead recycle new/recent items alongside previously learnt language. For instance, if in Year 8 Term 2 you are teaching Unit 4, you should be deliberately bringing back items from Units 1 and 3 in Term 1—and ideally even from Year 7. This approach is vital not only for combatting the rate of forgetting but, more crucially, for fostering the lexical automaticity required for true spontaneity. By reducing the cognitive effort of retrieval, we free up the working memory for higher-order communication.”

If this is your modus operandi, you will find the Vocabulary Matrix extremely useful. This is a low-tech, high-impact retrieval strategy that forces students out of their comfort zone and into combinatorial thinking. Instead of simply “knowing” words, they begin to build language.

How the Vocab Matrix works: The 4×4 Mix

Draw a 16-square grid on the board (or handout). The secret sauce is interleaving.

• Top 2 rows → “Old” Year 7 sets (high-frequency anchors)
• Bottom 2 rows → “New” Year 8 sets (new grammar, concepts, opinions)

If you are as busy as I am, AI can help massively. Just give Chat Gpt or Gemini the right prompts and the grid will be ready in no time.

What students actually do

Students must build sentences by combining items from different rows.

For example:

• Mis padres reciclan porque es importante
  → My parents recycle because it is important
• Mi hermano malgasta agua y me molesta
  → My brother wastes water and it annoys me

	Columna A	Columna B	Columna C	Columna D
Fila 1: Y7 (Familia)	Mi hermano	Mis abuelos	Mi hermana mayor	Mis padres
Fila 2: Y7 (Ciudad)	El parque	Mi instituto	El centro comercial	Las tiendas
Fila 3: Y8 (Medio Amb.)	Reciclar	Ahorrar energía	Malgastar agua	Usar menos plástico
Fila 4: Y8 (Opiniones)	Es preocupante	Me molesta	Me parece esencial	Es una lástim

The benefits

The rationale for this activity revolves around three key principles:

1. Strategic interleaving

It systematically forces the retrieval of Year 7 vocabulary alongside Year 8 structures. So, you are not just “mentioning” old words—you are making them the core building blocks of new language.

2. Collocation awareness

Students don’t just learn reciclar → to recycle. They also learn who or what can realistically recycle:

• Mis padres reciclan → My parents recycle ✔
• El parque recicla → The park recycles ✖

They begin to internalise the lexical behaviour of words, not just their meaning.

3. Deep processing

This is not passive work, since, in order to build a sentence, the learner must:

• Retrieve meaning (Year 7 knowledge)
• Select the correct form (Year 8 grammar)
• Combine both into a meaningful message

This kind of effortful thinking—what Robert Bjork calls desirable difficulty—is precisely what makes learning stick.

Conclusions

The Vocab Matrix is an activity which tackles a problem which language teachers often have to contend with: the fact that students’ learning often develops in “Topic Silos.” They can talk about “The Environment” in Year 8, but they’ve “forgotten” how to talk about “Family” from Year 7.

The Vocabulary Matrix just like the Language Gym’s Rock Climbing game, Cumulative Writing and Spiral Sentence builders forces Synthesis. When a student has to use a Year 7 noun as the subject for a Year 8 verb, they are performing “Desirable Difficulty” (Bjork, 1994). This cognitive effort is what moves the language from short-term “recognition” to long-term “proceduralization.” In other words through activity like the Vocab Matrix you are engineering (in under five minutes, with zero technology):

• retrieval
• interleaving
• controlled production and
• automaticity (if a time limit is imposed)

Summary: This article outlines the 14 core staples of the Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) approach, bridging cognitive science with what I call ’empathetic pedagogy’. It provides a research-validated roadmap for language teachers to move students from initial exposure to spontaneous fluency through a success-first model. The research basis for each ‘staple’ is provided alongside the full list of references.

0. The 14 Staples: A Universal Blueprint for the Heart and Brain

In the modern MFL landscape, I firmly believe that effective teaching must be a meticulous balance of cognitive engineering and human empathy. Hence, while the EPI approach is a research-informed instructional system designed to align classroom practice with the brain’s natural cognitive architecture, it is fundamentally driven by a commitment to the student’s emotional well-being and, in particular, to the development of self-efficacy as conceptualised by Bandura’s (1986)  SCLT.

Fostering self-efficacy (a ‘Can-Do’ attitude) is in my view the primary safeguard against the ‘Cognitive Triad’—the psychological framework Aaron Beck identified as the catalyst for chronic disengagement and learned helplessness:

1. Negative Views of Self: The learner perceives themselves as linguistically ‘inadequate,’ often attributing temporary struggle to permanent personal deficits.
2. Negative Views of the Experience: Lessons, homework, and assessments are perceived as an unfair gauntlet of obstacles, leading to cognitive overwhelm.
3. Negative Views of the Future: The learner anticipates perpetual failure, viewing the path to fluency as hopeless—a mindset that inevitably triggers anxiety and withdrawal.

By prioritizing ‘successful processing’ and the ‘science of success,’ we do more than build linguistic competence; we dismantle the systemic anxiety that has plagued language classrooms for decades. We move students from initial exposure to spontaneous fluency not just through logic, but through the joy of achievement.

The principles below represent a universal blueprint for language acquisition because the biological constraints of human memory remain constant across all learners. Applying these staples globally ensures an inclusive pedagogy where fluency becomes a predictable outcome of a scientifically grounded process, rather than a lucky accident for a select few.”

Figure 1 – Beck’s (1960) Cognitive triad

1. The MARS EARS Cycle

This foundational instructional sequence respects the learner’s cognitive architecture by moving from MARS (Modeling, Awareness-Raising, Receptive Processing, Structured Production) to EARS (Expansion, Autonomy, Routinization, Spontaneity).

• Research Basis: Rooted in Skill Acquisition Theory (DeKeyser, 2007) and Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 2011), which emphasizes managing working memory during the fragile initial stages of proceduralization.

2. Extensive Processing of highly comprehensible input before Controlled Practice

EPI prioritizes “depth over breadth,” favouring “input flooding” where students process a limited set of high-frequency structures hundreds of times across diverse, multi-sensory tasks. Crucially, this occurs within the context of highly comprehensible (>98%) and patterned input. Input flooding ensures repeated processing of target linguistic features; when engineered intelligently—integrating input-enhancement, opportunities for Language-Related Episodes (LREs), and process-based instruction—it facilitates both conscious and subconscious learning.

• Research Basis: Grounded in Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) Involvement Load Hypothesis and Nation’s (2006) research on lexical coverage, alongside Swain and Lapkin’s (1998) work on the efficacy of Language-Related Episodes in consolidating formal accuracy.

3. Sentence Builders

Sentence Builders serve as the primary cognitive scaffold, presenting language in logical, horizontal “chunks.” This allows students to create complex, grammatically correct sentences immediately, bypassing the “grammatical bottleneck.” Consistently with Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory, they constitute worked examples which provide a clear, step-by-step path to the final linguistic “product.” By explicitly laying out the combinatorial possibilities of the language, they significantly reduce the extraneous cognitive load that occurs when students are forced to search for words and rules simultaneously.

Instead of struggling with the mechanics of sentence construction (the “problem-solving” phase), learners can focus their finite cognitive resources on the mapping of form to meaning. This allows for the successful automation of these structures into long-term memory, effectively transforming a high-effort task into a low-effort retrieval process over time.

• Research Basis: Supported by Usage-Based Linguistics (Tomasello, 2003) and modern interpretations of Scaffolding (Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2005), providing the frameworks necessary for learners to perform beyond their independent capacity. Also supported by Sweller (2006) on the “worked-example effect,” which demonstrates that learners perform better when they are shown a solution rather than being forced to discover it.

4. Lexical Chunks: The Unit of Acquisition

EPI treats the formulaic sequence or “chunk” as the fundamental building block of acquisition, rather than the individual word. By focusing on these pre-fabricated units, students bypass the high-effort process of assembly-on-the-fly, which is often the primary cause of cognitive overload when learners, who lack a robust mental lexicon, attempt to apply grammatical rules in real-time. This allows for “holistic retrieval,” where phrases are stored and accessed as single cognitive units, drastically reducing the burden on working memory and creating the “lexical agility” required for real-world interaction.

• Research Basis: Supported by Wray (2002) and Schmitt (2010), who demonstrate that native-like fluency is the mastery of a massive repertoire of pre-fabricated chunks that allow the brain to focus on the message rather than the mechanics.

5. Narrow Reading & Listening

This technique involves exposing learners to multiple, highly similar texts that repeat the same target structures in slightly different contexts. Rather than overwhelming students with one taxing “authentic” document, narrow processing ensures a “flooding” effect that builds deep familiarity, even though the content remains diverse enough to sustain engagement, because the repetition occurs within varied but predictable contexts. This facilitates the incidental acquisition of syntax and vocabulary through high-frequency, comprehensible repetition.

• Research Basis: Grounded in Lightbown (2014) and Nation and Webb (2011), which confirms that repeated exposure across predictable contexts is the most effective driver of structural “anchor points.”

6. Focus on Receptive Skills First

In EPI, “Input is King.” We prioritize the construction of a deep “receptive base” before demanding output to allow students to develop a robust mental representation of the language. While traditional methods often force premature production, which frequently results in fossilized errors and high anxiety, the EPI model delays output until the learner has internalized the phonological and syntactic code. This avoids performance anxiety and ensures the “depth of intake” is maximized.

• Research Basis: Anchored in Marsden and Shintani’s (2022) meta-analysis on the superiority of Input-Based Practice (IBP) and Leow’s (2015) cognitive-pedagogical theory.

7. Listening as Modelling (Input Enhancement)

Listening is redefined as the primary vehicle for modeling, employing Input Flood, Input Enhancement, and Process-Based Instruction to explicitly train “listening micro-skills.” This ensures that students move from hearing a stream of noise to segmenting the sound into meaningful chunks, a process that is notoriously difficult for beginners unless the teacher provides structured decoding practice, which focuses specifically on bottom-up processing.

• Research Basis: Based on Field’s (2008) work on decoding skills and Wong’s (2005) research on making linguistic features salient without interrupting communicative flow.

8. Structured Production: The Scaffolding Bridge

Oral activities are meticulously engineered to move from low-stakes chunking aloud to chunk retrieval and eventually to semi-structured tasks. By scaffolding challenging oral tasks with written priming and pre-planning, we ensure that students are never “thrown into the deep end,” since providing these cognitive supports allows them to focus on pronunciation and fluency, which would otherwise be compromised if they were simultaneously struggling to retrieve vocabulary.

• Research Basis: Supported by Skehan’s (2009) Cognitive Approach to task design, which emphasizes planning time and task complexity as the dual levers for output quality.

9. Focus on Sound-to-Spelling Correspondence (SSC)

We place a primary emphasis on SSC through micro-listening and chunking aloud. By explicitly teaching the relationship between sound and script from the outset, we provide students with the “keys to the code,” which significantly reduces the likelihood of students mispronouncing written words, as they have been trained to recognize the phonological patterns that underlie the orthography. This builds the awareness necessary for fluent reading and confident speaking.

• Research Basis: Draws on Ehri’s (2005) phases of sight-word learning and Woore’s (2009) research on the benefits of explicit phonics instruction for beginners.

10. The Cumulative Curriculum: Recycling & Interleaving

The EPI curriculum is a “spiral” where we use cumulative texts that intentionally embed material from all previous units. By building in “curriculum holes” and interleaving different topics, we force the brain to constantly retrieve language, which is essential for creating permanent neural pathways, because language that is not regularly re-activated during the learning cycle will inevitably be lost to the forgetting curve.

• Research Basis: Supported by the Spacing Effect (Cepeda et al., 2006) and Interleaving Theory (Rohrer, 2012), proving distributed practice is superior for long-term memory.

Figure 2 – Cumulative texts

11. Routinized High-Efficiency Classroom Habits

A high-performance classroom requires high-efficiency habits, utilizing snappy, low-stakes assessments every 6–7 lessons. Consistent classroom routines and Do-Now tasks maximize “time on task,” ensuring that every second of the lesson is dedicated to linguistic processing, although the atmosphere remains supportive because the students find the predictable structure comforting rather than stifling.

• Research Basis: Aligns with Rosenshine’s (2012) Principles of Instruction and Hattie’s (2009) meta-analysis on high-impact formative feedback.

12. Fluency Training (The Nation Influence)

Inspired by Paul Nation’s (2007) “Four Strands,” we incorporate timed activities to increase retrieval speed. By practicing known language under time pressure, we move to the “automaticity” phase, training the brain to access the lexicon with the rapid-fire speed required for conversation, even if the student is initially nervous about the time constraint.

• Research Basis: Grounded in Nation (2007) and Segalowitz’s (2010) work, emphasizing that fluency must be practiced using familiar language.

13. Integrated Grammar: Proactive vs. Reactive

Grammar is Proactively housed within Sentence Builders and clarified through Reactive “Pop-up Grammar” moments. This approach ensures that the explanation addresses the “how” and “why” only once the students have developed a mental representation of the structure, a strategy that is far more effective than traditional deductive methods, where students are often taught rules for language they have not yet encountered in a meaningful context.

• Research Basis: Supported by Macaro’s (2003) research, suggesting grammar is most effective when contextualized and tied to an immediate communicative need.

14. Low-Stakes Retrieval Practice

We use frequent retrieval tasks to pull language from long-term memory, strengthening the neural pathways. This creates a positive feedback loop where successful retrieval causes student anxiety to drop, especially when the tasks are gamified so that students forget they are being tested, which ultimately leads to a surge in self-efficacy and motivation.

• Research Basis: Rooted in the Testing Effect (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006) and the “Desirable Difficulties” framework of Bjork and Bjork (2011).

Conclusion

To wrap this up, it is essential to remember that while the cognitive engineering of the EPI approach provides the framework, the teacher provides the lifeblood. We aren’t just teaching a language; we are rebuilding the learner’s belief in their own ability to succeed.

By grounding our practice in these 14 staples, we move away from the “hit-or-miss” nature of traditional instruction and toward a universal standard of excellence that respects the limits of the human brain while celebrating its potential. When we harmonize the science of the synapse with the empathy of the classroom, we don’t just create speakers—we create confident, global citizens who no longer view a second language as an impossible barrier, but as a bridge they are fully equipped to cross.

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*any moment during a task when learners stop to think about language itself — its form, meaning, or use.

Selected References

• Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the Real World.
• Cepeda, N. J., et al. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin.
• DeKeyser, R. M. (2007). Practice in a Second Language: Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology. Cambridge University Press.
• Field, J. (2008). Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press.
• Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge.
• Laufer, B., & Hulstijn, J. (2001). Incidental vocabulary acquisition in a second language: The construct of task-induced involvement. Applied Linguistics.
• Leow, R. P. (2015). Explicit Learning in the L2 Classroom: A Cognitive-pedagogical Theory. Routledge.
• Lightbown, P. M. (2014). Focus on Content-Based Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.
• Macaro, E. (2003). Teaching and Learning a Second Language. Continuum.
• Marsden, E., & Shintani, N. (2022). Input-based practice, production-based practice, and the development of L2 proficiency: A meta-analysis. Applied Linguistics.
• Nation, I. S. P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching.
• Nation, I. S. P. (2013). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge University Press.
• Nation, I. S. P., & Webb, S. (2011). Researching Speaking. Heinle Cengage Learning.
• Puntambekar, S., & Hubscher, R. (2005). Tools for Scaffolding Students in a Complex Learning Environment: What Have We Gained and What Have We Missed? Educational Psychologist.
• Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The Power of Testing Memory: Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
• Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know. American Educator.
• Schmitt, N. (2010). Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Segalowitz, N. (2010). Cognitive Bases of Second Language Fluency. Routledge.
• Skehan, P. (2009). Modelling speaker performance in second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics.
• Sweller, J. (2011). Cognitive Load Theory. Psychology of Learning and Motivation.
• Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press.
• Wong, W. (2005). Input Enhancement: From Theory and Research to the Classroom. McGraw-Hill.
• Woore, R. (2009). Investigating the development of beginner learners’ French pronunciation and sound-spelling knowledge. University of Oxford.
• Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.

Here is the complete list of sessions I’ll be leading for the University of Bath’s Network For Learning this term.

Note: This doesn’t include my (pretty hectic) international schedule for the Australia tour in May or the European tours running through June to September!

Many of you have reached out recently asking for strategies that “cut across” different teaching styles. While I’m usually deep in the world of EPI, we’ve listened to you and have included a new series of methodology-neutral workshops that provide universal instructional strategies—perfect for any teacher looking to sharpen their toolkit, regardless of their specific pedagogical preference.

For those interested in the EPI accreditation: go straight to the bottom of the page. Why should you be working towards the EPI accreditation? Here are some of the key reasons:

Why Join the EPI Accreditation Journey?

1. Join the Most Rapidly Growing MFL Community in the UK

The data speaks for itself. According to the recent British Council Language Trends survey, the EPI (Extensive Processing Instruction) framework is now the most widely used research-informed methodology in English secondary schools. By becoming accredited, you aren’t just learning a method; you are joining a professional movement that has redefined the national landscape of language teaching.

2. Master the “Science of Teaching” and Learning

EPI is more than just a collection of “fun activities.” The accreditation process dives deep into the cognitive science of how the brain actually acquires language. You will master the MARS EARS cycle, learning how to move students from initial awareness to spontaneous fluency by respecting the limitations of working memory and the power of “chunking” for long-term retention.

3. The “Direct from Source” Advantage

It is a poorly kept secret in the MFL world: many of today’s most prominent MFL bloggers and CPD providers have attended several EPI courses and/or have drawn heavily on its methodology and techniques. While they may have rebranded the strategies or called them by different names, their most successful techniques—from Sentence Builders to Narrow Listening—draw heavily and directly on the EPI framework. Accreditation allows you to bypass the “second-hand” versions and learn the original, high-impact principles directly from the creator.

4. A Blueprint for True Adaptive Teaching

With the removal of the EBacc and the rising diversity of learner needs, “one size fits all” no longer works. EPI accreditation provides a robust toolkit for adaptive teaching. You will learn how to scaffold complex linguistic tasks so that the weakest learners feel successful, while simultaneously providing the high-frequency “lexical agility” that pushes your most able students toward the highest grades.

5. Professional Authority in the New GCSE Era

As the new GCSE specifications move toward a focus on defined vocabulary and high-frequency structures, EPI-trained teachers are already ahead of the curve. Your accreditation proves that you possess the pedagogical “heavy lifting” skills required to deliver results in the current climate, making you a highly sought-after leader in the MFL community.

Here’s the full list with links you can click on for more information and to enroll.

Strategies for Effective Grammar Instruction                       29 AprilFind out more                        29 JulyFind out more __________________________________

From Rehearsed Answers to Exam-Ready Performance – GCSE Speaking Exam                        8 June Find out more __________________________________

Writing that Scores – Preparing Students for  new MFL GCSE Writing                      11 JuneFind out more __________________________________

Becoming an EPI Teacher: A Deep Dive into Dr Conti’s Extensive Processing Instruction  17 June LondonFind out more 22 & 23 JuneFind out more 21 & 22 JulyFind out more ___________________________________

Implementing EPI at KS4 for the new MFL GCSEs         18 JuneFind out more __________________________________

Curriculum Design & Lesson Planning in MFL    29 & 30 JuneFind out more  25 & 26 AugustFind out more _________________________________

Becoming an Accredited EPI Teacher – Final Assessment Tutorial            8 July            Find out more 16 September            Find out more __________________________________

Applying Memory Research to L2 Vocab Instruction – Classroom & Curriculum Design Strategies for Long Term Retention               9 JulyFind out more __________________________________

Phonics in MFL                 28 JulyFind out more ____________________________________

Implementing EPI for Learners in High School       15 SeptemberFind out more __________________________________

Becoming an Accredited EPI Teacher Program Gianfranco Conti | variousFind out more _______________________________________