Transcript Exploring teaching and learning

Professional Development
Consortium in MFL
Listening, reading, writing
and feedback
July 18, 2015
Underpinning Principle:
6. Learners need to develop their selfefficacy and general confidence
through teaching and feedback
approaches that draw their attention to
the link between the way they
approach solving language learning
challenges and the task outcome.
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Theoretical perspectives
• Learners’ levels of motivation are influenced by:
a) their expectations of success in a given domain
(self-efficacy)
b) the value they place on such success
• Expectancy and value are closely related – those
who expect success, tend to value it more
Motivation in MFL
• Low ‘value’ level?
• But learners are aware of potential utility – Fisher
(2001); QCA (2006)
• Perceived difficulty and lack of real progress an
important factor in giving up language learning
(Graham, 2004; Erler & Macaro, 2011)
Erler, L. & Macaro, E. (2011). Links between motivation for learning French as a second
language and learner’s ability to decode written French words. The Modern Language
Journal, 95, 496-581
Graham, S. (2004). Giving up on modern foreign languages? Students’ perceptions of
learning French, The Modern Language Journal 88, 171-191.
Self-efficacy
• Key underlying principle: self-efficacy influences
learners’ level of persistence. This is crucial for MFL.
• Self-efficacy develops from:
Successfully completing challenging tasks – ‘mastery
experiences’ (Bandura, 1993), and understanding that
success comes from the strategies one uses – this
needs to be reinforced by feedback that focuses on
that link
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Principle 5: Reading/listening (& self-efficacy)
Learners need to be taught how to access a greater
range of more challenging spoken and written texts,
through explicit instruction in comprehension strategies
and decoding.
Underpinning both reading and listening skills – and
other skills – is the notion that it is important to be able
to master the relationship between the written and
spoken forms.
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Reading and listening
• Listen to this passage. Can you work out what
the nonsense words mean? (see your pack,
‘Awareness Raising’)
• How did you work them out?
• Now read the start of the passage on the next
slide. Do you understand more/less?
• What are the similarities and differences
between listening and reading a text where
there are some challenges?
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What are the issues with listening and reading?
• Learners have very limited strategies for dealing
with comprehension –target language input
(Macaro, 2011), written texts (Ofsted, 2011),
spoken recordings – even by Year 12 (Graham et
al, 2008, 2011).
• Learners have poor decoding skills which
negatively influences their self-efficacy and
desire to continue with language learning (Erler
& Macaro, 2011); lack of progress in decoding in
the absence of explicit instruction (Woore,
2009).
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Current practice and materials
• Little current emphasis, in practice, on explicit
teaching of listening / reading / decoding
strategies (Ofsted, 2011; Graham et al, 2011;
Woore, 2011)
• ‘Doing’ listening/reading tasks rather than
‘teaching’ listening/reading as skills
• ‘Protecting’ learners from difficulties vs.
‘mastery experiences’
What research tells us
Effective listening and reading strategies don’t necessarily
develop on their own (Graham et al, 2008, 2011; Woore, 2011)
More effective listening and reading ‘teachable’ (Graham &
Macaro, 2008; Macaro & Erler, 2008; Woore, 2011)
Effective listeners/readers combine strategies in an appropriate
manner (Graham et al, 2010; Macaro & Erler, 2008)
Importance of metacognitive strategies /awareness (Goh & Taib,
2006; Graham et al, 2008; Macaro & Erler, 2008)
Exploration and discussion of listening/reading helpful (Goh &
Taib, 2006; Graham & Macaro, 2008; Macaro & Erler, 2008)
“Highly scaffolded” strategy
interventions
Monitoring
Removing the
scaffolding
Raising awareness;
feedback and
discussion
Modelling strategies
Tick lists of strategies with the
tasks/texts; individualised
feedback; teacher prompting
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Reading – Macaro & Erler, 2008
“Raising the achievement of young-beginner readers of French through
strategy instruction”, Applied Linguistics, 29, 90-119
• 166 learners of French in Years 7 & 8
• Half the learners received instruction in using reading
strategies, such as:
1. Guess from words around problem word
2. Think hard about words I might know (i.e. don’t
give up easily)
3. Use a process of deduction (“it can’t be that
because…..”)
4. Sound out the word or phrase
5. Use common sense (prior knowledge)
6. Remember to read the whole sentence to see if it
makes sense
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Feedback in reading – on strategy record sheets
Example of feedback on a learner’s reported strategy use on
a reading task:
Well done for following the instructions so carefully. It now really shows me what
words you had trouble with. So you can use more strategies to help you solve the
riddles of guessing. For example “le dernier film de Batman” what could “dernier”
possibly mean? What would make sense? What about: “mais” in “mais je vais au
cinéma..”??? Keep going. You’ll get there!
Outcome
• Strategy group showed significant
improvement in reading compared with
the non-strategy group
• They were also more positive about
reading and about learning French in
general.
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Mastering the relationship between the
written and spoken forms (GPC)
• Particularly crucial in French – need to make learners
aware that French and English GPC are different, and
that French ones are more consistent
• Teach the most important French GPC
• Provide practice in segmenting and decoding
unfamiliar written words
• Provide practice in segmenting and transcribing
spoken words / phrases; work on liaisons
• Both aspects part of Macaro & Erler (2008) and
Graham & Macaro (2008); taken forward by Woore
(2011).
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Listening: Graham & Macaro, 2008
“Strategy instruction in listening for lower-intermediate learners of French”, Language Learning, 58, 747-783
• Year 12
• 11 schools received listening strategy
instruction, mostly from class teacher
• Compared with four schools who didn’t
receive the training
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Examples of strategies taught
Examples of strategies taught:
 Effective prediction + verification
Inferencing / identifying real key words
 Segmentation / sound distinctions
Feedback:
• Learners kept diaries of strategies used on
homework and class listening task
• Feedback on process, not product, as in
reading study
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Impact of strategy instruction in listening
• Intervention groups performed significantly
better than comparison group at post-test
• Intervention groups had significantly higher
levels of self-efficacy at post-test
(see also Graham, 2007 – “Learner strategies and self-efficacy: making the
connection”. Language Learning Journal, 35, 81-93.)
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How could this work in practice?
• Awareness-raising: class given ‘nonsense’ passage to
listen to on VLE – how did they work out words?
• Next lesson starter – discussion of strategies used and
how they could be used in MFL listening
lotticks
• Focus on effective prediction, verification, identifying
real key words, dealing with unknown words; teacher
modelling
prediction 2
• Guided practice – with difficult passage
• Feedback – discussion, tick sheets, teacher feedback on
strategy use.
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Task
Look at the two listening lesson outlines in your
pack. For each version, note:
• The aims/objectives of the activity, and
particularly of the teacher’s feedback.
• What lessons pupils would learn from the
feedback for subsequent listening tasks.
• What knowledge/skills seem to be neglected.
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One teacher’s reactions to this approach
I feel I have learnt a lot; not least that it's worth the
investment of time to take a few lessons out of the
curriculum to tackle this issue of Listening, and I can
tell the pupils are convinced by that too. The
confidence it gives pupils[….] is priceless; even if they
gain no more points from the score of the product,
they have grown in confidence and found the
experience of the process more positive. There was a
lot less groaning, and "Oh miss, I didn't get any of
that", and more focus on listening to the tape. And we
have opened up a dialogue about Listening which is
no bad thing!
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Principle 7 (writing)
• Writing in L2 should be developed as a skill in its
own right not as a consolidation of other language
skills.
• For this to happen students should frequently
write using their own resources rather than
resources provided by the teacher
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Macaro (2007) – ESRC funded project
Macaro, E. (2007) “Do beginner learners of French have any writing strategies?”,
Language Learning Journal, 35/1, 23-36.
What free-writing strategies to beginner learners use?
• 16 students from three schools (part of larger project
on reading and writing)
• Data collected at two time points, June of year 7 (Time
1) and March of year 8 (Time 2)
• “task-based interview” - to elicit their free-writing
strategies.
• Could write about anything they wanted; given as much
time as they wanted; interviewer asked questions
about how they were going about it.
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Free-Writing at time 1 (June, Y7)
• Sample produced on average 5.7 words
(range: 0 to 10 words)
• After at least 9 months of learning French!
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How did they go about formulating sentences?
“I was thinking about some work we did about after school
and stuff and I remembered it and then um, *je
mangeay a snack* just came into my mind. Thinking
about it I just wrote it”
“I remember back to when we did it…it’s on my graffiti
wall”…(meaning a visual image he has? Or, teacher
name for a notebook?)
• “I keep thinking what I could put but I don’t know how to
say these things. That’s my problem”
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Formulation strategies used
• most popular formulation strategy was to try to recall
a set phrase which roughly matched the idea that
came into their heads
• Any formulations were linked to a specific learning
episode in a lesson; not created
• if the set phrase strategy failed, the only other
available formulation strategy was to avoid saying the
idea altogether
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Free-Writing at time 2 (March, Y8)
• students produced an average of 17.3 words (range: 3
words to 38 words)
• After 16 months of learning French!
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Time 2: two groups ‘emerged’
1. Those few who were beginning to move away from
the single strategy of trying to recall a set phrase from
a specific learning situation:
I was just thinking how to start. I adore, no I love
football [mumbles and writes] je….play….je
joue… I play football on …what’s on ….uh, well I
can’t think what “on” is [for “on Fridays”] Eh,
vendredi et dimanche avec mes copains [sounds
s] because it’s got to be “mes” which is plural.
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Time 2: two groups…
2. those still limiting themselves to this single
strategy:
I’m going over the sentences (in my head) which we did in
class about how to describe yourself. I think I can kind of
write them
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Conclusion: free-writing
• Writing inextricably linked to topic taught
• Students do not use clusters of formulation
strategies – strategy use limited
• Monitoring strategies used, but ineffectively
because of lack of linguistic knowledge
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Proposed solution
Based on projects carried out at Oxford with partnership
schools
See also: Graham & Macaro (2007) “Designing Year 12 strategy training
in listening and writing strategies: from theory to practice”, Language
Learning Journal, 35/2, 153-174.
• Completely rethink they way we teach (or deal with)
writing in the L2
• Writing needs to be taught as a skill – develop the skill
of writing within limited linguistic resources
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Processes in writing
• Conceptualizing: thinking about ideas to write
(matched to the task)
• Formulating: converting those ideas into language (in
the head and [then] on paper)
• Monitoring: (using own resources -what they think
they know already about the language)
• Checking: (using external resources e.g. Dictionary)
ADDITIONALLY FOR L2 WRITERS:
• Dealing with feedback: peer and/or teacher
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Where KS3 and KS4 students have most difficulty
Evaluating decisions
taken
Avoiding
(content)
Recombining
(set phrases)
Formulation
strategies
Generating via
Translation
(word for word)
Restructuring
(unpicking set
phrases)
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Workshop task
Please look at the two “writing lessons plans” in
your folders.
• In what ways are they radically different?
• How do they address ‘processes’ in writing?
• What difficulties do you envisage if you used
“writing lesson plan 2”?
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Post-task discussion
Two points to be made first:
1. this is only one way that we might address
the principle. There are certainly other ways.
2. It is not intended that all writing comes at
the beginning of a topic!
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Teacher starts a new topic by ‘doing writing’!
• Teacher says:
We’re going to do some writing about (e.g.) ‘my
town’, ‘ma ville’. We are going to do this in stages
and after each stage I’m going to give you some
feedback on how well you have done. The final
target is to write at least 100 words in French/
Spanish etc.
• NB: apart from stage 1 and (possibly stage 3) all
this can be done for homework.
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New Topic:
Task Length: 100 words
Individually,
students
brainstorm
in L2
Here it is essential that students really do brainstorm in L2
without external sources (dictionary or teacher) so that the
identify what they already know and can
manipulate/adapt. Taking risks etc. this also ensures that
they do not always start by translating from English
What would I
like to say?
Write in L1.
Here the idea is to identify the gap between what they
want to say and what they have currently at their disposal.
This will inevitably be a big gap
Identify gap
and reduce
the gap
In order not to attempt anything too ambitious they
identify how to simplify what they want to say (e.g. shorter
sentences with no subordination)
Use resources
wisely to
bridge gap &
start writing
(first draft)
Use of prompt sheets for using the dictionary (not
overusing); use of strategies prompt sheets
There is teacher feedback of some sort at each of these four stages
Students can be shown this slide (after explanation) when
composing first draft
Evaluating decisions
taken
Avoiding
(content)
Recombining
(set phrases)
Formulation
strategies
Generating via
Translation
(word for word)
Restructuring
(unpicking set
phrases)
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Students can be shown this slide (after explanation) when
composing first draft
Strategies in the monitoring process
Auditory monitoring (does it sound right?)
Visual monitoring (does it look right?)
Back-translating (usually shows up extra or missing words)
Common sense monitoring (does it make sense?)
Content monitoring (have I put in the right information?)
Coherence monitoring (do the sentences follow each other)
Conventions monitoring (is this right for a business letter?)
Prompting a specific monitor (what are usual problems
with this? E.g. present, future, conditional tenses = 1 verb)
Personalised monitoring (watch out for my usual mistakes)
Evaluating monitoring process
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Stage 1
• Activity: Individually, students brainstorm in L2 (10 minutes?)
• Purpose: They identify what bits of language they already know
and can manipulate/adapt. They reduce the strategy of “when
did we do this in class/homework? This also ensures that they
do not always start by translating from English.
• Tips: It is essential that students really do brainstorm in L2
without external sources (dictionary or teacher). It may take
some time to get them used to doing this. This could be done
as a starter or single activity in one lesson with remaining
stages done at different times.
• Feedback: Teacher provides individual feedback (written or
oral) on how much language they were able to recall which
matches the task requirements. Also corrects some or all
mistakes.
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Stage 2
• Activity: Students write 100 words in L1 of what they
would like to say. (15 minutes?)
• Purpose: To identify the gap between what they want to
say and what language they have currently at their
disposal. This will inevitably be a big gap. However, it
avoids them believing that writing in L2 is trivial and
childish.
• Tip: Teacher could say already ‘try not to be too
ambitious! You’ve got to put some of these ideas across
later in French/Spanish etc.’
• Feedback: Teacher provides individual feedback (written
or oral) on how realistically they have selected the ideas
that they want to write about
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Stage 3
• Activity: Students make the L1 text simpler in preparation
for first L2 draft.
• Purpose: Identify the gap between what they already
know and what they want to write and try (with the
teacher’s feedback) to reduce the gap by a number of
strategies (e.g. SVO)
• Tip: stages 2 and 3 could be done at the same time as a
‘single stage’
• Feedback: Teacher walks round and provides quick oral
feedback as to whether they are ready to produce first L2
draft
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Stage 4
• Activity: Students begin to write first draft. They have in front of them
their first brainstorm, all teacher feedback, a bilingual dictionary,
writing strategy check sheets.
• Purpose: encourage students to use full range of strategies (including
avoidance), not just translating from L1
• Tip: Teacher tells students to use resources wisely. To tick when they
have used a formulation strategy and also when they have used a
monitoring strategy. Ask them to underline any words they have
looked up in the dictionary (support slides)
• Feedback:
1. Use peer feedback sheet for comments on content.
2. Teacher selects 3 or 4 mistakes s/he wishes the student to ‘deal
with’. Underlines them, and hands out the ‘reaction to teacher
feedback sheet’ which is then collected in.
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