Livening Up Listening

Listening is often deemed to be one of the hardest skills for learners and can be a difficult skill to teach and develop. Once you have your degree and experience of listening to authentic/native level language, it can often be difficult to relate to our learners who haven't had the same experiences as us. In this post I aim to show you a few ways in which you can develop listening skills.

Valuing Vocabulary

Vocabulary building can be one of the most arduous tasks for pupils. Pupils can feel bombarded at the start of a topic when they are learning lots of new words thick and fast. In this post, I hope to show you some ways in which you can present vocabulary in a more fun, accessible way allowing for pupils to learn independently.

Diversifying Differentiation

Languages aren't an easy subject to study and sometimes it can be difficult to make them accessible for a whole range of different learners in your class. In this post, I hope to show you how you can differentiate effectively for a range of abilities supporting those who need it while pushing those most able.

Perfect Plenaries

I won't lie, plenaries aren't my strong point. I'm frequently caught at the end of the lesson with 3 minutes until the bell with homework to dish out and a plenary still to go. However, I've picked up a few techniques for checking pupil progress quickly and effectively throughout the lesson.

Spicing Up Speaking

Speaking can often be the hardest skill to get pupils involved in and to assess on a regular basis. With many of our teenagers being shy and not overly confident with their speaking and presentation skills in English (never mind in another language!), it can be quite a hard barrier to overcome.

Reflecting on Reflection

Reflection is deemed to be one of the most important things a teacher should be doing on a regular basis. On the eve of my fifth observation (of six) to go towards my NQT portfolio, I decided to reflect on how far I've come in the past year.