Following months of screen gazing, limited interaction and working in isolation, our students are ready to come to life and to feel the buzz that our lively and dynamic MFL methodology brings. A foreign languages lesson is a social event where interaction and communication are essential, just what our young people need, having been starved […]
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The single most requested training I get from MFL teachers relates to listening skills. Colleagues often feel this is the most difficult skill to prepare pupils for, possibly because it is easy to misunderstand the myriad of micro-skills that make up “listening”. For pupils it is also difficult: it often triggers anxiety and leads to […]
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We will soon know Ofqual final decisions about awarding grades for GCSE and A Level students this summer. Their consultation closed just over a week ago and has received a record number of responses, not only from educators but also from the young people whose grades are at stake. In our profession we are all […]
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The last in our series of tales from language learning takes you on a journey of discovery to Somaliland. We hope these stories will help inspire your students to opt for a modern language (or two!).
Read more I believe that learning languages is not just about the language itself. You learn about culture and our differences and similarities, making you a more open-minded person in everyday life. I think this opens up different and exciting life opportunities, like being more willing to travel and live in different places.
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By Rebecca Nobes The examiners’ reports are a really useful way to pick up on areas to develop in the coming year. Here are my main takeaways from this year’s reports: Paper 1: listening, reading and writing Summary task This was by far the biggest area of weakness. The main things for students to note […]
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Having read the examiners’ reports on GCSE Spanish, French and German, here are my key takeaways in terms of what to work on this year: Listening Revise basic vocabulary It was disappointing to see that students seemed to have forgotten basic vocabulary; this was seen at both tiers. For example, students did not know the […]
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We asked Rebecca Nobes, Head of Spanish and #MFLchat on twitter to share her reflections on this year’s AQA GCSE Spanish exams. We’d love to hear your thoughts too, so please share your thoughts in the comments below. The general consensus The general consensus among the MFL teaching community seems to be that this year’s […]
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This week we’re delighted to have Dr Simon Kemp, Associate Professor of French at Somerville College, Oxford to the OUP MFL blog as our guest blogger. Teaching language skills through literature How can you best bring language and literature teaching together? On literature-heavy undergraduate courses like the one that I teach, there’s a danger that students feel […]
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It’s with an element of retrospective frustration that I regard my early years of teaching. Keen to learn the trade and to teach as well as possible, I kept my head down, taught 5-6 lessons a day, planned and marked almost exclusively alone and all within the same four walls. I often passed up opportunities […]
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