Wednesday 06th Jan - Thursday 07th Jan
• A non-specialist teacher who has the potential to teach either French or Spanish?
• A teacher who wants to retrain as an MFL teacher?
• A teacher wishing to return to the profession to teach French or Spanish?
If so, you could get FREE training to specialise as an MFL teacher.
The Sheffield Teaching School Alliance is pleased to offer a programme for non-specialist teachers who have the potential to teach either French and/or Spanish, want to retrain as an MFL teacher or wish to return to the profession and teach French and/or Spanish. This high quality and high impact programme will be delivered by specialists.
Nine morning workshops (9am to 12 noon) delivered remotely.
The programme aims to develop teacher engagement with regard to the following elements of teaching and learning languages in the English secondary school context at key stages 3 and 4 (11-16):
Principle focus of session |
Key questions and issues for address |
| 1 Planning | What should go into a languages curriculum, schemes of work and individual lessons plans and records? What are your successful planning strategies? Can you integrate elements of others’ models to develop your own strategies? |
| 2 Target language | What is the place of the target language use in the classroom? To what extent and in what circumstances should teachers and/or students use the target language? |
| 3 Grammar | What is grammar? What kinds of knowledge about the form and structure of French and Spanish do teachers and students need? How might we reconcile the twin goals of communication (knowledge OF language) and grammar (knowledge ABOUT language) ? |
| 4 Listening skills | What do we listen to? Why and how do we listen? How might we reconcile passing listening tests and developing listening skills? |
| 5 Speaking skills | Why is the opportunity for oral production important? What are the indicators of success? How spontaneous can it really be? |
| 6 Reading skills | What do we read? Why and how do we read? How might we reconcile passing reading tests and developing reading skills? Has the status of the written word changed with technological advances? |
| 7 Writing skills | What do we write? How advanced does this skill need to be? What may be key strategies for developing successful student writing? |
| 8 Assessment issues | Why, how and when should we monitor our students’ progress? How do we adapt our teaching and students’ learning in order to meet the requirements of summative assessment? |
| Submit assignment to tutor | Submission of a guided lesson plan to the course tutor |
| 9 Moving forward | How can we integrate the course content and learning into the demands of our teaching posts as we move forward? How have we demonstrated this by our lesson plan assignment submitted for tutor assessment, and what are our thoughts following further peer- and self-assessment in this session? |
The key questions on each topic reflect that there may be contradictions or perceived dichotomies; address of these questions will help teachers arrive at their own strategies via increased understanding of the issues. The format of the sessions will be as below; whilst some input will naturally be provided, the success of the sessions will rely on the participation of the course cohort in structured discussions.
Individual session outline: 6 main parts
Each session will have materials made available online for participants to study prior to the session; thus each session will begin with a review of, and questions about, the learning achieved by participants’ study of these materials (1). This will usually be followed by the course leader’s presentation of research-led or practitioner-generated evidence in relation to the session focus (2). After a short break (3), it will be important to apply the principles gleaned from this; thus there will always be a practical ‘rehearsal’ activity (4) involving planning with and/or teaching each other. At this stage, textbook type materials, and a combination of practising, native-speaker and training teachers will be available to refer to for participant teachers to develop planning, teaching and target language skills. The importance of student feedback will be reinforced as opinions and thoughts will always be sought via end-of-session evaluations (5) before briefing participants on preparation required for the next session (6).
By the end of the programme, teachers will have been up-skilled in terms of their own knowledge of French and Spanish, and the core elements of pertinent languages teaching pedagogy, so that their in-post role in the local and national context can be addressed with renewed confidence.
Assessment will be in the form of a guided lesson plan submitted to the course tutor by the date specified below; following tutor assessment, self- and peer-assessment of the plan will ensue in the final session.
Course facilitators
MFL Specialists. All facilitators have extensive experience teaching languages.
The programme aims to develop teaching and learning in languages for the English secondary school context at key stages 3 and 4 (11-16):
The impact will be:
Action research into an aspect of MFL teaching or the CTP or OTP.
TOPIC |
DATE |
TIME |
| 1. Planning | Wednesday 6 January 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 2. Target language | Wednesday 13 January 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 3. Grammar | Wednesday 20 January 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 4. Listening skills | Wednesday 27 January 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 5. Speaking skills | Wednesday 3 February 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 6. Reading skills | Wednesday 10 February 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 7. Writing skills | Wednesday 24 February 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 8. Assessment | Wednesday 3 March 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| 9. Moving forward | Wednesday 10 March 2021 | 09:00 – 12:00 |
| Submit assignment for tutor assessment | tbc | 09:00 deadline |
Contact us and we will talk you through the simple application process.
