Month: November 2016

The ugly truth about school-based Modern Language teaching

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) General pedagogy, Language acquisition principles, Uncategorized

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(with Steve Smith)

I was recently criticised by some of Stephen Krashen’s fans for something that to me and many other teachers is a sad given : MFL teachers operating in secondary schools have simply no time to teach languages the way they should ideally be taught. Time and syllabus constraints force teachers to extremely tight schedules which do not allow for the extensive listening and reading practice that it is evident from much research that every language learner benefits from before engaging in real-life-like speaking.

If I had five hours contact time a week I would teach entirely differently from the way I teach now.  This would be my recipe: lots of daily receptive exposure to compelling aural and written input ; plenty of oral interaction through fun and challenging communicative activities (even more than the 30 minutes per lesson I do now);  engaging multimedia project-based learning ;  drama and art activities ; cultural awareness-raising through videos and realia ; exciting enquiry-based grammar learning.

The problem is, for teachers working in England to effectively prepare their students for GCSE and A-Level examinations, all of the very desirable above simply cannot be done as often as one would like. We all know that. Hence, effective teaching in our context is not merely about applying what we know best benefits language acquisition ; but it is first and foremost how to make the most of the time we have available to build our students’ linguistic competence, self-confidence and motivation adapting what we know about human language acquisition to the context we operate in.

The American army knew this all too well when they had to prepare their troops linguistically for the Normandy invasion in 1945. Surely they could not afford to put their soldiers through hours and hours of receptive learning through engaging stories in the belief that languages are best learnt subconsciously through exposure to comprehensible input (as many Americans in Dr Krashen’s camp – my critics – believe). Hence they devised an approach which was drill-based ; lots of repetition through controlled tasks aimed at practising phrase after phrase to death until they were so embedded in their soldiers’ memory that they became spontaneous. In this approach, grammar was taught through robotic repetition and manipulation of small parts of sentences, e.g. I play tennis, my mother plays tennis, my father doesn’t play tennis, we play tennis.

Although ideologically I do not agree with this method at all, and it is not the way I learnt the seven languages I am fluent in and the other seven I speak less well, I see the merit of aspects of this approach in the beginning phase of every learning, the parroting stage of classroom-based acquisition. Lots of drilling does help embed the core vocabulary and grammar structures, it is undeniable. And it can be made fun, too, with a bit of imagination – e.g. my receptive drills in the game room at http://www.language-gym.com/#/game-room  or my oral communicative drills. And if the phrases and words we embed in the drills consists of lexical items and sentences which can be very useful in the real world and are taught and practised within typical real-life communicative contexts, all the better still !

The truth is that every method language researchers and educationsts have come up with in the last fifty – sixty decades or so is effective in its own way, each of them addressing one different stage or facet of the complex process that language acquisition is. To say my method is better than yours is preposterous. Yet proponents of each method do, sometimes inspired by a genuine passion for and belief in the validity of their approach, more than often driven by a business or political agenda.

We, as school-based teachers, have been historically the victims of this state of affairs, decade after decade. Subjected to fads which were not a faithful reflection of each new method,but rather the botched-up adaptation of often-sound theories and methodologies by governments and their consultants, which reshaped them to fit the target cultural, political and socio-economic context, mindful less of our needs or our students’ than of their own agendas.

The result is a teaching profession whose pedagogic beliefs – whether we are aware of it or not- are often a hybrid of all the methodological approaches it has been exposed to in the last forty years or so  – whether through word of mouth, readings, CPD, government policies, etc. So many of us are advocates of the Communicative approach whilst teaching grammar like the Romans or the Greeks used to 2,000 years ago ; believe that reading extensively for pleasure will subconsciously result in learning whilst we train our students to teach towards reading comprehension tests that teach little ; advocate the importance of oral interaction and listening but most lessons are about reading and writing – or  embrace enquiry-based learning tasks where students barely ever speak; say one should tolerate error and that mistakes are ‘good’ (as CLT preaches) but then make a huge fuss about them by excessively focusing students on correction (through D.I.R.T., stamps and time-consuming dialogic practices).

Eclecticism or pedagogic hypocrisy ? Neither, in my opinion. The ugly truth is that a lot of us are confused and disoriented ; overloaded with government and school policy requirements which change way  too often and quickly ; overflooded with information coming from different camps ; misinformed by CPDs which squeeze years of researching and theorizing in one or two Powerpoint slides ; galvanized by keynote speakers who excite us with great ideas which are difficult to translate into our classroom practice.

Hence, as I always ‘preach’ in my posts, the need for (a) having a clear understanding of modern language pedagogy so as to be able to understand the state of the art of educational pedagogy beyond the different factions and fads’ political agendas ; (b) having a basic reference framework based on that understanding that will enable us to approach lesson and curriculum planning, assessment and feedback in a no-nonsense, practical and principled way.

Having such an understanding and such a framework  – which in my case is MARS + EAR ( see my blogposts on this) – has made my everyday lesson planning much easier and hassle-free and when questioned by my superiors it has allowed me to provide them with a clear rationale for my pedagogic strategies and choices rooted in Skill-Theory and neuroscience. Maybe not perfect, but working well for me. Incidentally, it was interesting to see how Rachel Hawkes and others – who had never publicly advocated Skill theory principles before – have recently published a paper which reflects all of the views I have expressed in my blog in the last year or so. It means that after all, some English MFL ‘influencers’ have finally decided to embrace neuroscience…

The path to becoming a better teacher does come through reflectivity, as most of todays’ CPD gurus preach. But understanding the basic neuroscience facts about language acquisition and developing your own framework fuels and structures that reflectivity and significantly reduces the occurrence of the cognitive block that many teachers who contact me through social media tell me they often experience when they plan lessons. It also reduces the likelihood that your planning is driven by the activities/resources you find rather than the much healthier opposite scenario, i.e.: you choosing the activities/resources to best serve your planning.

Steve Smith and I wrote our book ‘The Language Teacher Toolkit’ to provide our colleagues with such an understanding of Modern Language pedagogy  and with such a principled teaching framework. Interestingly, we came to it from totally different camps, Steve being a believer in the importance of comprehensible input, whilst I am a Skill-theory fan ; still we could come to an agreement of what constitutes a useful, pragmatic, ‘fadless’ and hassle-free approach to language teaching. Other bloggers, such as Sara Cottrel of www.musicuentos.com  and Justin Slocum Bailey of Indwelling languages have also been pursuing the same noble intent.

No, I am not merely trying to plug our book. My point is that once you have a clear understanding of the basic processes that regulate  human learning, are aware of the core research facts and regularly reflect on your classroom experience in the light of that understanding and that awareness, you will have a powerful pedagogic compass to orientate yourself through the jungle of bastardised pedagogic messages – like the ones I discussed in my previous post – which make our daily professional life so much more challenging and confusing.

In conclusion, the ugly truth that Modern Languages teachers have to contend to, day in day out is that time, logistics, syllabus constraints and government policies prevent them from teaching the way one ideally should. Educationists and researchers rarely recognize that, detached as they are from our world and more concerned with plugging their fads than with the often harsh reality of bog standard state schools. Curriculum designers, examination boards and textbook authors do attempt to incorporate the new methodologies and fads in their work but they often do so superficially at the detriment of sound pedagogy, giving rise to belief systems and practices which teachers often have to adhere to uncritically and which often clash with one another and with common sense. The result is the current state of affairs : an overloaded and overworked teaching profession that is often confused as to what constitutes best pedagogic practice disorientated as it is by mixed messages coming from multiple directions. This may affects teachers’ efficacy thereby eroding their self-confidence, motivation and, ultimately, their well-being.

The solution : getting a better understanding of pedagogy so that you can make an informed choice as to which method to apply where, when and with who ; so that you build instructional sequences based on a method rather than a hunch ; so that you do not let tasks and games you know or have found guide your teaching instead of your know-how; so that you can tell SLT why they got it all wrong.

The Language Teacher Toolkit is available here, on http://www.amazon.co.uk

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Teaching grammar through Listening (for MFL teachers)

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized

 

Please note: the examples in this blopost are mostly in French. I will publish another post for EFL teachers in the immediate future

1. Introduction

In all of my posts on grammar instruction I have made the very important point that for grammar to be fully acquired it must be practised extensively through all four skills. However, this is not what usually happens, grammar practice occurring in most language classrooms predominantly through the written medium. Hence grammar is mostly read and written, but rarely processed aurally and orally.

Of the four language skills, the one that is always neglected in grammar instruction is definitely Listening. In the typical grammar lesson, the target grammar structure is hardly ever practised through the aural medium.This may not only negatively impact acquisition of that structure, but also listening proficiency development at large. Why? The answer refers to the so-called parsing phase of listening comprehension.

The parsing phase is the stage in the comprehension of aural input in which the listener recognizes a grammar pattern in a string of words and fits the latter to the linguistic context surrounding it. This important stage is paramount not simply to listening comprehension but also to acquisition, because pattern recognition facilitates the chunking of new L2 items and their assimilation in the learner’s existing L2-system.

In this post I intend to show how grammar can be modelled and practised aurally through highly impactful L.A.M. (Listening As Modelling) activities requiring relatively little preparation which I use regularly in my lessons.

2.L.A.M. grammar activities

2.1 Sentence puzzles

Sentence puzzles like the one in Figure 1 below are a very effective way to teach grammar and syntax through listening. The students are provided a set of jumbled-up sentences  to unscramble whilst the teacher utters them in the correct order. The task is for the students to re-write them correctly in the table/grid provided, placing each element of the sentence under the right heading. After completing the transcribing task, the students are charged with inductively working out the rule.

Whilst writing the words under each heading in the table the students build an awareness of how word order works, at the same time learning what word class each item belongs in, and all this through the aural medium, thereby combining three skills (listening, reading and writing) together. When the meaning of each word is provided in brackets, new vocabulary is also learnt.

Fig.1 – Sentence puzzle

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2.2 Sentence builders

Sentence builders take a bit more time to make, but they can be exploited in so many ways that their surrender value is more than worth the effort. The teacher makes and utters sentences using the various chunks of language in the table to demonstrate how the target structure works. Whilst the teacher models the sentences the students write down their meaning on mini whiteboards. As a follow-up, the students are tasked with working out the rule inductively.

Fig. 2 – Sentence builder 

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2.3 Sorting tasks

The teacher utters a number of sentences each containing a specific structure that s/he wants to draw the students’ attention to. As they listen, the students are tasked with categorizing the structure using a grid or table. In the first example provided in Figure 3, below, the task requires the students to identify four of the tenses employed in the five sentences by the teacher (the fifth tense is a distractor). Students enjoy sorting tasks; I do them in every single lesson of mine, often exploiting songs.

Fig. 3 – Sorting tasks

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2.4 Listening hunts

In listening hunts the teacher reads a short narrative and the students are asked to spot and write down as many instances as possible of the target structure(s) contained in the text. I usually tell the students in advance the number of occurrences of the target items in order to enhance their focus.

Figure 4 – Listening hunt

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2.5 Interlingual comparisons

This technique is particularly effective when the word order in which the target structure is deployed in the L2 is markedly different from the L1. As the example in Figure 5 below shows, erroneous versions of target structure use are provided resulting from word-for-word translation from L1 to L2. The teacher will dictate the correct version of each sentence which will be written right under the flawed version. The students are then charged with figuring out the differences between L1 and L2 usage and inductively work out the rule.

Fig. 5

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2.6. Find your match

This activity serves two purposes. Firstly, to practise decoding skills and pronunciation; secondly, aural processing of the target structure. The students are provided with cards containing simple sentences featuring the target structure(s). Each card contains four pieces of information about a person; each piece information on the cards has a match in four of the other cards. The task is to go around the classroom interviewing people in order to find the four persons whose cards match one’s own. This tasks is useful in that it elicits a lot of production and receptive processing of the target structure.

Fig 6 – Find your match (French negatives)

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2.7 ‘Find someone who’ with cards

Each students is given a card with fictitious details and a grid with the details to look for. The task is to find the people with those details on their cards by asking questions in the target language. Although it may appear as a speaking task, this activity is actually mainly a listening one as the students read out aloud details in response to questions.

Fig.7 – Find someone who with cards (grid to fill in by students as they go around interviewing)

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2.8 Partial dictations

Partial dictations are extremely easy to prepare and are very effective in focusing learners on the target structure. All one has to do is (1) create texts packed with instances of target structure use: (2)  gap the texts  where the target structure has been deployed; (3) read out the text whilst the students fill the gaps. Easy and highly effective. Tip: do not use one long text, use several short ones; it keeps the students more focused.

2.9 Songs with gapped lyrics to fill in

Songs with gapped lyrics to fill in as you play them are a great way to model and practise target language use in authentic contexts. Think about the song ‘Once I was seven years old’ by Lukas Graham; how useful for any teachers wanting to hammer in the past tense in English. The only issue, of course, is finding a song which contains a sufficient number of occurrences of the target structure. Once found one, all one has to do is to gap the song (do put the gapped words on display for less able students).

2.10 Interactive oral tasks

Any interactive oral task designed to elicit use of the target structure will obviously provide the students with plenty of aurally processing as well as production practice. It is not the scope of this post, but I reserve to deal with ways to provide oral production practice in target structure use in a future post

2.11 Concluding remarks

Grammar must be heard, read, spoken and written by our learners if we want them to fully acquire it. This multi-sensorial approach to grammar instruction is rarely implemented in language lessons. The skill that is most neglected in grammar instruction is undoubtedly Listening, regardless of the fact that the brain is naturally wired to acquire grammar acoustically. More effort must be put by teachers in this area of grammar teaching by integrating traditional activities with skill-based approaches to instruction which provide extensive receptive oral practice through Listening-As-Modelling activities (LAM) and oral interaction.

For more on my ideas on listening, get hold of the book co-authored with Steve Smith ‘The language teacher toolkit’ available on www.amazon.co.uk

Five mixed messages that have severely damaged modern language education

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) General pedagogy, Uncategorized

Introduction

Over the decades, since the 70’s pedagogic revolution which saw the total rejection of Grammar-Translation methodology and Audiolingualism, teachers have been the recipients of scores of mixed messages about how languages are acquired and should be taught which have greatly damaged the teaching profession and Modern Language provision at large.  I referred to them in the title as ‘mixed messages’ because they have often been the result of the overgeneralization , misinterpretation, vulgarization or distortion  of research findings, hypotheses or even theories of some validity, which have given rise to ‘myths’ about language teaching and learning that have been haunting the teaching profession for decades and still shape in many cases the way many of us teach.

1.Languages are acquired by children subconsciously, hence no need to teach them grammar – This belief is at the root of the ban on grammar teaching that affected MFL provision in England for decades. The main culprit was a man by the name of Stephen Krashen who maintained that languages are acquired through being passively exposed to masses of comprehensible input (i.e. input mostly consisting of known language), just like children do in their first language. Well, we now know that Krashen’s theory might apply to immersive environments in which one is bombarded by masses of L2 language input, but not to input-poor settings like a secondary school with one or two hours’ contact time a week. And in fact, many studies have shown that even in immersive environments this is not entirely true.

This ‘mixed message’ has damaged language learning in a number of ways. Firstly, by basically saying: no need to really teach grammar, as it simply doesn’t work. Secondly, by overemphasizing target language talk in the classroom, so that at one point it was anathema to use the first language even  to give basic instructions; all based on the preposterous belief that by talking in the target language lesson in lesson out the students would miraculously acquire the language. A likely scenario if one sees their students every day; an unlikely one if you only see them once or twice a week.

It is not simply enough to speak to students in the target language for them to assimilate the vocabulary, grammar structure and pronunciation they hear. For learners to acquire a given L2 item they must notice it, understand what it means in their own language, whether through body language, imagery or by using objects or the first language as references.

By the same token, it is not enough for students to read extensively in the target language to massively speed up acquisition, unless, that is, they are exceptionally proactive and inquisitive students who asks themselves lots of questions, who consistently try to answer those questions with dictionaries or by asking language experts; who effectively store and recycle the vocabulary they come across, etc. Reading independently helps, for sure, but at a lower level of proficiency especially, it is what one reads that is very important, how patterned, how repetitive, how novice-learner-friendly the input is.

2. Do not use the first language in the classroom – Another preposterous myth. Why not? When we know that every language learner uses their first language as a starting point for their inferences and hypotheses on how the target language works; when it is a fact that code-switching does not interfere at all with language activation in the brain and acquisition; when it is obvious that it is very common for learners to learn the target language grammar by comparing what they hear or read in that language with their first language version; when it is clear that the L1 translation scaffolds Target language learning. Why not?

Well, the first part of the answers was provided above: the idea that learners would acquire the second language by simply being exposed to comprehensible input. The second part of the answers is the ugly truth of business, of the multimillion business called TEFL , i.e. Teaching English as  Foreign Language. A business that thrives on three flawed principles: (1) you do not need to speak your students’ foreign language to teach effectively – which means that any reasonably educated English native speaker can teach it; (2) you do not need to teach grammar that well – which means you do not need to have a linguistics degree to teach English; (3) because language teaching works best when it is student-centred, the role of the teacher is less important – which means that less training is required.

These three ‘beautiful lies’ suited the EFL business in the 70’s and 80’s when it was booming and expanding overseas and the demand for cheap manpower (EFL teachers) exceeded the supply. Hence, the new methodology, CLT -in its extreme form – offered a convenient justification for allowing any Tom, Dick and Harry with native speaker competence to teach English in China, Korea or Japan after a six-week diploma. I often wondered, had they not invented the Communicative Approach would the EFL industry have boomed as it did; without the Target-Language-only dogma, would such industry even be able to exist?

3.It is not important for students to understand all they read or hear. It is understanding the main points that matters

This is another mixed message which has damaged much modern language education. Yes, it is the main message that counts if you are teaching L2-learners to cope; however, if you are using reading and listening to enhance their linguistic competence, it is not enough for them to simply understand the main points in an utterance or text they process. Research shows clearly that a learner needs to understand 90 to 95 % of what they process to be able to learn from it, e.g. to notice new language structures or vocabulary embedded in a text.

This mixed message has shaped the approach to reading and listening adopted by many a language teacher and has led to generations of disaffected language learners fed up with guessing their answers to True-or- False or ‘who-has-done-this-or-that questions.It is obvious that this approach will be acceptable when you are teaching survival language skills, but not if you are preparing L2-students for the kind of autonomous linguistic competence that the 21st century language learner will need for a business conference on Skype, a customer service phone-call, a professional e-mail, to study in a foreign university or to be an effective interpreter or translator.

4.Teachers must be tolerant of mistakes

This is one of the fundamental tenets of Communicative Language Teaching and came about as a reaction against Behaviourism which preached the total opposite. i.e. that errors had to  be avoided at all costs. The fact is that the truth is somewhere in the middle: errors should not be avoided or penalised; in fact they should be encouraged as they are the natural by-product of learning. Hence, teachers must be tolerant of errors as by being intolerant they would discourage their students from experimenting with the language.

The problem, however, is that in many quarters this has led to an overly tolerant acceptance of error and, more importantly, to overly encouraging fluency at the expense of accuracy. This has led to cohort after cohort of language learners who have fossilised (automatized) mistakes because they have often been encouraged to talk beyond their level of competence through unstructured tasks they were not ready for. I still see this happen in many TBL (task based learning) and PBL (project based learning) classes in which students are asked to tackle tasks way beyond their level of competence.

I see the effects of this attitude on many primary students who come to secondary with many fossilised mistakes (especially pronunciation errors) they have automatized because ‘it is okay to make mistakes’ at that age and correcting them or focusing them on accuracy would put them off languages. ‘Children learn subconscioulsy anyway…’

Truth is, if  a learner keeps making the same mistakes over and over again because they are made to talk or write beyond their level of competence and are not sufficiently focused on accuracy those mistakes will become engrained in their production system and, once fossilised, will never be amenable to correction or re-learning (Mukkatesh, 88; Ellis, 1994). Whilst teachers must be tolerant and encouraging of error to a certain degree, they must be able to stamp them out as early as possible, before they become fossilised – unless, once again, our aim is simply to forge language survival skills not highly competent speakers.

5.Pronunciation is not important – it is to be able to be understood by a sympathetic L2 native speaker that matters

Pronunciation has been another victim of Stephen Krashen’s methodology and of Communicative Language Teaching. Hence, it comes very low in teachers’ priority these days, despite the fact that vocabulary recall is activated by sound; that reading comprehension is impeded by poor decoding skills (the ability to effectively pronounce L2 letters/words into the target language). Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating here that every learner must become a near-native pronouncer; tons of research shows clearly, though, that an effective decoder of the target language is more likely to be successful at language learning than an ineffective one. Obvious corollary: L2 learners should be taught masses of pronunciation and decoding skills as early as possible, in primary, and pronunciation mistakes – based on what we said in the previous paragraph – should be stamped out as early as possible.

Conclusion

The five misconceptions discussed above are only a few of the myths about language teaching and learning that have crept into our profession’s core of shared beliefs and have in some cases assumed the status of dogma, to the point that if one does not conform to them is deemed as less competent or ‘rogue’. Two obvious instances of this are the over emphasis on the fact that the target language should be used most of the time by the teacher when interacting with the class and the semi-total ban on detailed grammar teaching in the classroom. As I often reiterate on this blog, teachers need to equip themselves with the know-how about language acquisition and pedagogy which will ultimately allow them to dispell such strait-jacketing dogmata and any other theory and methodology imposed on them by unscrupulous ‘fad’-mongers or self-proclaimed language-education gurus.

How to enhance your students’ chances of succeeding at listening (part 1)

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Listening, Uncategorized

(co-authored with Dylan Vinales) 1.Introduction The present article is a sequel to the post ‘Eleven reasons why your students underperform in Listening’ published a couple of days a…

Source: How to enhance your students’ chances of succeeding at listening (part 1)

Three major shortcomings of SEN provision in modern languages teaching (guest post by Ian Young of BISHMC Vietnam)

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized

Please note:  this is a guest post by Mr Ian Young, Head of Learning Support at B.I.S. (British International School Ho Chi Minh City)

Introduction

Mr Ian Young, the most talented  and passionate head of Learning Support I have ever come across in 25 years of teaching careeer. During his tenure at Garden International School he often shared with me his serious concerns with the often superficial and nonchalant way students with emotional and cognitive deficits are dealt with by us MFL teachers in schools. I often asked him to put his thoughts down in writing in an attempt to raise language-teacher awareness of the issues that in his opinion undermine LS provision in their subject. He has finally acquiesced and sent through this very concise but hard-hitting piece which definitely resonates with my own experience.

My immediate reaction in reading this was ‘guilty as charged’ and I would be very interested in hearing your reaction, so please do leave a comment below if you can spare a minute or too. Here it is.

SEN Coordinator: Three things that keep me up at night about MfL Departments…

by Ian Young

1. Not realising that SEN is the responsibility of ALL Teachers

MfL teachers, on average, get fewer students with significant SEN because it is where most students are pulled from for their additional support lessons (this is true in UK, American and Canadian schools). As a result there tends to be an undercurrent of “SEN matters do not apply to me and my department” and they are grouped with underachievers who may seem to have the same difficulty as many other students but for very different reasons.

Because of this potential for “blending”, it is crucially important for MfL teachers to confirm with their registers because these needs will likely cause a greater level of difficulty for many LS students (hence their need to often be withdrawn), and may impact SEN students differently than

2. Disregarding how specific learning disorders impact their subject

There are LDs (learning disorders) that impact students in MfL much more acutely that it may in other subjects. Specifically, students who are hearing impaired of have a receptive language difficulty will need a great deal of individual support. Students with Dyslexia will have the added challenge of accents or different alphabets altogether to contend with that can be indecipherable without appropriate support (e.g. blue or yellow paper, and use of a clear font that provides adequate space in between letters and accents).

In fact, there should be specific intervention planning – in coordination with the SEN Department – to address these needs.

It is even worthwhile to go deeper than the IEPs and Profiles, as Speech and Language Therapists and Educational Psychologists may have included in their written reports useful recommendations that did not get transcribed into the documents that are designed for all teachers.

3. Neglecting proper assessment planning for SEN students

There are a lot more listening exams in MfL that many departments often fail to plan for with SEN students.

This can often be unique to MfL and there are even specific regulations as it relates to topics such as additional time in listening exams (note: additional time is not granted in exams as replays of the audio, it is granted by pausing the audio and resuming as appropriate).

Many of these exams – listening in particular – will require additional equipment, staff, and a separate setting – all of which will need to be planned. Unfortunately, the end result in many cases is very last minute and incomplete or it is not done at all.

Therefore it is always a good idea to review access arrangements for students and get an idea which students are recommended for individual support on listening exams by your SEN Dept. They should also be able to assist with providing additional staffing and space, provided advance notice is given.

Concluding remarks

Overloaded as we are with lesson planning, marking and classroom management and student-behaviour issues, we do not always devote to SEN students the special attention they deserve, from carefully reading their IEPs and information about their specific learning disorders to effectively liaising with LS staff. I have been guilty of that in the past and I have only got better in recent years, after becoming a father and asking myself ‘What if my daughter was one of those kids?’. The emphasis MFL teachers lay on SEN provision is often a reflection, in my experience, of the whole-school attitude towards it; where SLT are sensitive to the needs of SEN students MFL departments tend to be more switched on and proactive. As Mr Young often said to me, it all starts with the powers that be; however, ultimately, we do have an important duty of care which must fulfil to our best.

Thanks, Mr Ian Young Head of LS at BISHMC for providing this very useful reminder that very child matters – the first guest blogpost on The Language Gym !