During these uncertain times, we are all wondering what will happen with our classes next year.
Will our students have learned enough during lockdown, or is there is something we can do to smooth the transition to hopefully face-to-face teaching in September?
When teaching languages at an international school, the support at home and the language spoken by parents or carers will vary dramatically, so it’s likely some students will have progressed more than others.
Therefore, during the last weeks of term and thinking ahead to summer, I have gathered a few ideas and tips for MFL that should help students who might have some catching up to do.
Revision packs
One thing that we can do as teachers is to provide our students with a revision pack. This is something that I have put together for my GCSE and A-level groups.
These packs have a summary of the key grammar studied and help students to practise the different skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing). These can be collected from the resources that are already provided in the assessments or revision packs of the books that you use.
Additionally, in order to minimise the workload afterwards, they come with the answers provided. You can go over key points or misconceptions after summer and this will allow students to self-mark, reflect, and build independence.
Booster websites
Another great tool that you can provide your students with is a document with websites to support their practice of the four skills and vocabulary. There is a myriad of websites for these purposes: they offer listening and reading exercises according to levels and year groups and they also provide answers and even transcripts.
We should encourage our students to use these websites for independent learning a couple of times a week. This might not come naturally to them. However, if they keep a note of the activities they have done, or take screenshots, this hard work can be rewarded once we are back in school.
If you can, it would be a good idea to get parents or carers on board for this to ensure consistency.
Mobile apps
Another possibility that might be more appealing to students is the use of apps. There are many out there and sometimes it is hard to select one. One of my favourites is Busuu and during the time that we have done distance learning, I have asked my students to complete one lesson weekly.
On this app, you can take a placement test or you can start learning a language from scratch. Apart from teaching vocabulary, it also teaches you grammar and explains rules that are invaluable when learning a language.
Additionally, it is very dynamic and shows a clear progression more in accordance with the European Framework for Languages.
Depending on the year group, the level, and the student, you could ask them to complete up to Elementary A1-2 or Intermediate B1-2. After summer, they can show you on their phone how much they have completed and rewards can be given accordingly.
Like many other apps, the premium version is more complete, but my students are happy to learn with the free version.
Music and TV
Something that is not so focused on content but will help with students’ engagement and motivation while also improving their listening skills and culture knowledge, is music and TV in the target language.
For music, they can listen to playlists on Spotify (for example, Canciones Españolas Verano 2020), online radio, or YouTube playlists. There are also fantastic websites and apps like lyricstraining in which they listen to a song and then fill in the gaps in the lyrics. My students really like this and I would say that sometimes they even know the words better than me.
Finally, one amazing platform that is available to most students is Netflix. There are so many movies and series they can watch on it (be mindful of recommending any depending on the age rating).
For those ones who don’t know this yet, Netflix released an extension a while ago called Language Learning with Netflix. This is an amazing tool that allows you to see the subtitles in two languages at the same time.
This way, students can focus on the subtitles in the target language and compare it to their mother tongue. It also saves them a lot of time since they don’t have to look up any words in the dictionary.
These are just some suggestions that might work differently depending on the school you work at, the students you have, and the methodology you use for teaching. However, I hope everybody will be able to find something useful that they can use with their groups this summer.
Luis Moreno is a modern foreign languages teacher (Spanish and French), who has taught in international schools in the UK and overseas
