How do students learn literacy and language skills Louisa Larsen, Elizabeth Tossell and Grant Smith

Learning Objective To consider and evaluate our approaches to what we teach in English lessons – curriculum, content and skills.

Starter BIG THINK; THINK ABOUT THE SKILLS THAT SIT AT THE HEART OF ENGLISH AND LITERACY STUDY. What are ALL students learning to be able to do in ALL English/ Literacy lessons in the world today?

Paired Think…. As teachers (who don’t care about inspections, exam boards, mark schemes, exam papers, senior leaders, parents, league tables etc!) in an ideal world….. What do we want students to take away from a high school English curriculum? Who are they? What can they do?

Feedback; This young man is about to graduate from a Dubai Academy today. He’s had 11 years of compulsory English lessons. Who is he? What can he do? THINK CREATE WRITE READ LISTEN SPEAK

Rank Order these potentials – diamond 9 exercise A.Gain employment B.Think Creatively C.Retain information D.Communicate effectively E.Solve problems F.Adapt to change G.Ask questions H.Pass examinations I.Respond to questions

Skills or not…? Flashcards – K, S, B? Consider the following lesson learning objectives (there are 10). Are the students learning a TRANSFERABLE skill? Does this lesson add anything to the ideal English student profile we just created?

Knowledge or SKILL or both? LO1. Know when to use the apostrophe of possession and the apostrophe of omission. Skill- accurately employ apostrophes

LO2. Practice writing formal letters. Skill – be able to write in an appropriate style for audience and purpose

LO3. Read the opening of “Romeo and Juliet” Skill – read for meaning/ empathy with characters/ to understand the writer’s craft

LO4. Read the poem and be able to empathise with the speakers’ feelings. Skill

LO5. Putting yourself in the role of Shakespeare justify your word choices when creating the character of x. (directing, evaluating, justifying, explaining, describing, empathising),

LO6. To know where and when Charles Dickens was born. Skill – be able to link biological details about writers with the meaning of his/ her writing.

LO7. create a monologue in the voice of a character from a book you are reading in class Skill – empathy/ writing in role

LO8. Consider 2 different ideas about the article and evaluate which argument is the most credible and why. Skill – evaluation/ contrasting for meaning/ seeing alternative perspectives

L09. Be able to answer section 2 style questions for the examination. Skill?

LO10. learn the poetic effects used in the poem Skill – to analyse why poets might employ a given technique/ evaluate effect on the reader

Which of these lessons add anything to the ideal English student profile we just created?

Core English Skills In groups, list the core skills in English you would like students in your school to be equipped with. Think of 5-10 E.g to be able to empathise To be able to write accurately.

Key Focus Questions What can students do/ know/ show at the end of your lesson that they could not do/ know/ show at the start? = PROGRESS Have they honed/ developed/ perfected a skill? = PROGRESS What are the students learning/ What are the students doing? (LEARNING) Even if your school curriculum is driven by a text book, identifying the skill the students are learning will help them to “join up” their knowledge and capabilities helping them ATTAIN more/ evidences “meeting students needs”

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Which 5 skills are the most important? Can you take those 5 words back to your classroom and create tomorrow’s lesson plans from them? Accuracy creativity evaluation The “right” answer independence Evaluation analysis Plenary

The Next Step….. What we did at Jumeirah College that really works well.

We do not use any kind of text books. We looked at all 3 sets of assessment objectives – APP/ GCSE/ A LEVEL (OR 11-14, and years) We then condensed them all into the 6 key skills we want to equip our students with We created long term plans mapping the teaching of these skills across the academic year We created schemes of work that always refer to 1 of these key skills… We created marking rubrics/ target trackers/ assessment grids that assess how well students are doing at that key skill

DSIB Criteria Outstanding: Teaching is stimulating, imaginative and enthusiastic. Good: Teaching methods are imaginative and lead to a high level of interest from students.

Students of TOMORROW?