Professional Development Consortium in MFL

Who we are Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) University of Reading: Suzanne Graham and colleagues University of Oxford: Ernesto Macaro and colleagues The Willink School, Reading Cherwell School, Oxford Bartholomew School, Eynsham Larkmead School, Abingdon Katie Lee and Rachel Hawkes

How we came together Previous work together on classroom-based research projects Strong links with consortium schools through research projects and PGCE work An on-going commitment to teacher professional development A strong desire to make MFL teaching and learning in England the best it can possibly be

Our aims To work with teachers and teacher educators to close the divide between research-based principles for effective language teaching and learning, and the current MFL curriculum and pedagogy To exemplify how eight research-based principles can be applied successfully in the classroom To help workshop participants to then apply these principles in their own teaching

Starting point Please look at the questionnaire being handed out and read the Information Sheet about it in your pack If you are happy to fill it in, please do so now! Please write your date of birth so we can match this questionnaire with two others we will give you (responses will remain anonymous!)

Current practice A series of reports from Ofsted from the 1990s to 2011 Aspects of good practice, but on-going problems with limited opportunities for:  spontaneous talk  developing effective listening, reading and writing skills Concerns regarding teachers’ classroom use of the target language (Ofsted, 2011)

Canale and Swain (1980) Communicative Competence Grammatical competence evidence of a developed or developing rule system Strategic competence Ability to deploy strategies to get meaning across when in difficulty Sociolinguistic competence Awareness of how language use is linked to the society and culture it is embedded in (+ awareness of how discourse works)

What are we aiming for? We believe that communicative competence is indeed what we should be aiming for:  The principal focus of pedagogy should be on developing language skills and therefore the teaching of linguistic knowledge (knowledge of grammar and vocabulary) should act in the service of skill development not as an end in itself.

What might this look like? Read through the two lesson segments being handed out How do they differ in terms of teaching and learning?

The way forward These are the principles we believe in How they are put into practice is down to the individual professional judgement The following workshops will give insights into how some teachers have interpreted them.

To be added to the #PDC list on twitter, Follow our PDC in MFL blog: