Based on the course with G. Conti “Becoming an E.P.I. teacher”, and on the communicative language teaching, I create my resources according to the communicative functions I want Ss to learn. Then, I create micro-functions, I select the target vocabulary and organize it in chunks to form a sentence builder. The whole lesson will revolve around that SB providing students with more than 95% comprehensible input. After the SB I will put together the templates for different receptive tasks and I will fill the activities with the language of the SB.
The following two pictures, taken from the lessons from G. Conti, represent a guidance for the steps I need to follow.
The following picture show the importance of retrieval practice in order to reach fluency, which doesn’t mean proficiency but it refers to how automatic the retrieval of vocabulary is.
With remote learning gibing feedback can be quite challenging. I found a couple of tools which I would suggest.
The use of the shortcut of windows+V to copy items on the clipboard and retrieve them when you need them. Click here to watch a 5-minute video on how to do that.
The other option is Qwiqr for video, audio, text or web feedback, linked to a QR code that you can share with your students via email, for example.
Vocaroo is amazing to send ink with a Congratulations Certificate. You can create the certificate withCanva. It is super easy to use. You just record your voice message and save it. Then a link will appear and you can copy it to the student’s work. It can save a lot of time.
In a paper published in 2010 by the International Academy of Education (IAE); “Principles of Instruction“, Rosenshine expanded on his original list of 6 ideas. These 17 principles were collected from the 3 areas of research above.
Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning.
Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step.
Limit the amount of material students receive at one time.
Give clear and detailed instructions and explanations.
Ask a large number of questions and check for understanding.
Provide a high level of active practice for all students.
Guide students as they begin to practice.
Think aloud and model steps.
Provide models of worked-out problems.
Ask students to explain what they have learned.
Check the responses of all students.
Provide systematic feedback and corrections.
Use more time to provide explanations.
Provide many examples.
Reteach material when necessary.
Prepare students for independent practice.
Monitor students when they begin independent practice.
His principles are very similar to what a “cognitive classroom” would look like.
I will take into considerations Robert Gagne and David Ausabel
Lesson planning is not only planning for students’ learning outcomes, but as teachers we also need to take actions towards our professional development according to the Teachers’ Standards. These criteria were created by Department for Education, to “set a clear baseline of expectations for the professional practice and conduct of teachers and define the minimum level of practice expected of teachers in England”. They are statutory, which means that you must follow them in order to be allowed to teach, but they are also an excellent tool for reviewing your professional development and ensuring that you’re on the right track. I could not find anything similar for teachers in Italy and no one has ever mentioned any criteria when I started teaching. I was in no way familiar with teachers’ standards, but now I can see how they can help our teaching. At the beginning it is a time-consuming task to fill the whole Lesson Plan but then it is something that comes almost naturally. Indeed, “practice makes ….. Consistent”. The best thing I could find is a document issued by the European Commission that explain, in longer terms, the professional criteria summarized in the Teachers’ Standards that I am posting underneath.
The first part of Section B is related to section F which refers to lesson evaluation. The evaluation is both a personal reflection on the lesson taught and a feedback from another teacher observing. In Italy we have no lesson observation unless we are doing the “anno di prova”. We are thrown into classes without any inset and no one has ever come to observe any of my lessons despite some difficult and hard moments. In England this is an unbelievable scenario. During the PGCE we are observed every single lesson we teach, and we are given meaningful feedback every time. I have a full notebook with written feedbacks on it.
The second part of section B is more useful for us as it requires to fill the table with initials of the student and what they require for an individualized and personalized learning. This is very useful especially at the beginning if we don’t know the class.
In Section C we will need to note down the prerequisites to face the new lesson in order to build learning on previous knowledge.
Section D
Every lesson needs to have specific Learning Objectives, and these have subcategories. Every school has its own version and where I worked they used to use basic, higher, star. What are they? Learning objectives should be brief, clear, specific statements of what learners will be able to do at the end of a lesson as a result of the activities, teaching and learning that has taken place.
A learning objective must not include the phrases ‘to know’ or ‘to understand’ but instead active verbs such as ‘state’, ‘explain’, ‘outline’, ‘list’ or ‘describe’. Avoid using verbs that are difficult to measure objectively.
The distinction between All students, Most students and some students is a way to differentiate the learning objectives. I will make a practical example:
LO1. Be able to talk about food.
All students should be able to remember and list key vocabulary and expressions about food.
Most students should be able to express general quantities by using quantifiers like “some” and “any”.
Some students are able to express general quantities within more complex sentences. They are able to ask questions to their peers.
The E section is a “map” of the lesson, where we describe each activity. The structure of the lesson is standard in most schools and across almost all subjects. Teachers start with a “starter activity” which allows the teacher to do the register while students are busy working. Then, the starter activity is followed by presenting the learning objectives so that students know what they are going to learn. I generally do it in the TL to get students used to the language. After that I start the actual lesson with different activities which should involve the 4 skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. Some key elements that must be present in all activities are:
Clear instructions and modelling to show what it is expected from students
Support and scaffolding for lower ability students
Extensions for higher ability students.
Assessment for leaning for each activity
Final plenary that serves as feedback of the lesson and is precious material for teacher’s critical reflection at the end of the lesson.
Learning homework. I tend to assign homework at the beginning of the lesson so that all students can write it down.
I am going to show a French lesson for a year 7 class (our prima media)
As you can see this lesson plan is very detailed. As we do not use textbooks in UK schools I put the number of the slide which the activity refers to. Here following I am going to attach the slides I used in class for my lesson. You will see that at the bottom of almost each slide there is a box containing extension for more able pupils.
Starter activity that is also a revision of past lesson / lessons. The activity is followed by the solution and students need to correct their exercise
Learning Objectives and homework
Start of the lesson. I always put a timer on the board so that I can go around the desk and support students without worrying about the time. Another idea would be to put a song and tell students that they must finish the activity by the end of the song. If the lesson is after break I usually put some piano music so that students can wind down.
Reading activity
Grammar point: finding the rule. This exercise aims at training students to work out the rules in a deductive way. The activity is scaffolded so that each students can work according to their level
Writing activity
Plenary: game with translations
Section E requires teachers to choose what strategies we adopted for differentiation and assessment.
This was the first of a series of lessons I prepared for my final PGCE task. Here following I am attaching the series of lessons (lesson plan and resources in pdf) and the rational behind my work. I hope this can be useful
Key competences for lifelong learning: what we teach to students is not only our discipline but we should always keep in mind what competences our activities can trigger. In my case cooperative learning would probably involve personal, social and learning to learn competences. Please find the pdf of the European Commission (2019).
Make Learning Objectives (LOs) clear for all the class. Present students with what they will learn and what it is expected from them. This gives them power over their learning and we are less tempted to have farfetched illusions about what students will learn. I think that SMART objectives are a clever approach. In a lesson there might be up to 3 LOs and all of them are divided into three categories. This division was a bit difficult for me to get so I will focus on it in a different post. However I am going to post the smart objective which I find amazing, not only for teaching but for life in general. Do you remember all the new year’s resolutions that never turned into reality? Well, this might help making better plans 🙂
Recycle language as much as we can. I always start the lesson with a warming up activity to activate their prior knowledge. I tend to include routines that require students to practice vocabulary or structures already studied in the past. For example, I introduce activities where they need to ask questions about the topic we are studying. I focus on the 5 Wh- questions. On this topic I find the Gianfranco Conti’s blog extremely useful. He is a linguist and experienced MFL teacher who knows exactly what the teacher’s challenges are, especially in terms of time constraints (I lost the count of the times I said “If I had more time I would….”). He gives advice about how to convert explicit knowledge into Implicit knowledge through the use of different techniques: Internal Learning Routines, Universals and Seed-planting.
For each activity always think about: Scaffolding, differentiation and modelling. Scaffolding for weaker students (SENs, in Italian would be BES) refers to instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. Scaffolding is generally used to reduce the affective filter (Krashen). Indeed the main goal is to reduce the negative emotions and self-perceptions that students may experience when they get frustrated, intimidated, or discouraged when attempting a difficult task without the assistance, direction, or understanding they need to complete it. In every activity I also provide students for information about where they can retrieve vocabulary or grammar structures that they need to carry out the activity. This allows students to be independent. Differentiation is very similar to scaffolding but I tend to refer to it when I introduce the challenging element in an activity. I generally use differentiation to engage higher ability students. Modelling simply consists in modelling the activity and setting the criteria to carry out the task.
Keep in mind the natural order of acquisitioni+1 (Krashen theory of Second Language Acquisition). How many times have we tried to use the target language (TL) in class but we gave up sooner than expected? Or maybe it was just me who had no idea of how to do that properly. Reading this theory and observe teachers applying it has been life-changing. This doesn’t mean it is an easy task, but it means we can work on it with a different approach. So, what does i+1 mean? i is the amount of language that students already know while +1 is the communicative elements that students will potentially learn. Since not all of the learners can be at the same level of linguistic competence at the same time, teachers must ens
Assessment for Learning (AfL) and Assessment of learning (AoL). The following is the answer I got when I asked my tutor about the difference between the two types of assessment: “Assessment of learning is a way to see what the students can do while assessment for learning is a way to see what the teachers should do in response”. This answer maybe simplifies too much the concept but it made more sense to me than any definition I encountered at that time. In all the activity of my lesson plan I put AfL, a type of feedback activity that allowed me to “take the temperature” of the students’ learning. AfLis a tool that we teachers use to check if our explanations or activities have been understood. Based on AfL we plan/ adjust the following lessons. However, here I will provide a more academic distinction: (AoL) are typically administered at the end of a unit or grading period and evaluate a student’s understanding by comparing his or her achievement against a class-, district-, or nationwide benchmark or standard. Whereas AfL, also described as assessments aslearning – assess a student’s comprehension and understanding of a skill or lesson during the learning and teaching process. This provides educators with ongoing feedback and allows them to: a) Identify at-risk students early; b) Adjust instruction accordingly and immediately; c) Monitor student progress.
Individualised learning Vs Personalised Learning. This is another interesting combo. Individualised learning is essentially instruction that is tailored to students’ strengths and weaknesses. When students complete an assignment, their performance on the task dictates whether they will move forward to more challenging assignments or be given additional practice to strengthen skills they’ll need to accomplish more long-term goals. Personalized learning is an approach that not only allows but also encourages students to learn in a way that suits their unique preferences and abilities for digesting and building upon the information they receive in the classroom. Lessons are taught in a way that takes into account the needs and interests of individual students, and additional help is given when necessary through the same approach.
I hope this first post will be useful. In the next post I will provide a scheme of lesson plan and I will go through it in details trying to adapt it to the Italian teaching.
Please, if you have any question do not hesitate to write.
E se iniziassimo il primo giorno di lezione parlando delle varietà di inglese che ci sono nel mondo? magari iniziare con un brain storming dal titolo “Global English” per poi andare a vedere il perché l’inglese è diventato lingua globale. Questo libro è stato di aiuto: David Crystal English as a Global language
Happy Knowledge 
