We all know that learning a language requires perseverance over time, so helping students to develop this is key to their success. My years in teaching have been very varied. I’ve taught languages in primary and secondary schools and taught English and PE as well. Completing the gold Duke of Edinburgh award and returning […]
Read moreIt has certainly been an extremely busy few weeks and most of us are waiting for the final versions of new specifications. I know that I am really fortunate to work with some great people and as well as working with the team at York I sometimes deliver joint sessions at Newcastle University. When I […]
Read moreTo get a reaction, while pointing out the window, I asked ‘Well, if the plural of mouse is mice, why isn’t the plural of house hice?’ This is an example of confusing plurals that I have often used over the years during Y7 lessons when one of the learners has commented on something in the foreign […]
Read moreHappy New Year to you all. I know that people from all over the UK and some teachers in different parts of Europe read this blog, and you will therefore have experienced many different things during December and the early part of January already. We hope here in the north of England that the recent […]
Read moreThis year has flown by, as I’m sure it has for you too, so I’ve been looking back at the past year and thinking about what has happened. There have been many inspiring things and many sad ones, especially in recent weeks. It has been very clear how people have pulled together in times of […]
Read moreThe government consultation document on the implementation of the English Baccalaureate launched on 3rd November gives us some facts about the learning of languages in Britain. We already know from the Language Trends reports and others that I have commented on in previous post that many, many people are concerned. The government ministers are rightly concerned that […]
Read moreOur subject association ALL and the Association for Science Education play a big part in the lives of members of my family. Whilst reading the Education in Science magazine in September (Number 261) the article Learning lessons from Finland and Estonia by Dr Neil McIntyre caught my attention. Neil gained a chemistry PhD at St. Andrews […]
Read moreDuring half term I had time to re- read the article in the Guardian about the ‘digital language divide’ and got into conversation with a few people about it. As well as mixing with people from different professions, I like to discuss language learning and the changes we are seeing with people of different ages, […]
Read moreI asked Rebecca Frost, a young NQT who trained at York last year, to write a guest post. She wrote an extremely interesting assignment on the importance of giving students time to respond to and act upon feedback. Here are some of her thoughts. Paragraph three is interesting, a reflective practitioner… As part of the […]
Read moreLast week I was leading a session at York university entitled native speaker orientation. I was trying to explain to the students from France, Germany and Spain who have just started their teacher training here the differences in the various types of schools in the UK. Of course, this involved looking at how we have […]
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