When I was
an NQT I remember getting into a flap about having to cover the course. I must
make sure that I have got through the textbook! I must make sure that I have
covered all of the language on the scheme of work (which was the textbook),
including that language on transport! What happens if ‘gare routière’ comes up
on the reading paper? I must teach them this content. It was a familiar
pathway; make sure I cover the curriculum. At that time I wasn’t aware of the
difference between learning and performance (there’s an excellent David Didau
blog on this, with reference to Soderstrom and Bjork); just because students
showed me at the end of the lesson that they could recall vocabulary knowledge
or apply knowledge of a grammatical rule I had imparted during the lesson
didn’t necessarily mean that I had done my job. ‘Great performance in today’s
lesson guys!’ I used to shout as the students were leaving, not really
understanding the true meaning of performance and just applying my own brand of
teacher cum pseudo football manager encouragement-speak by using this language.
In other words, just because the students could recall and apply language I had
taught in that lesson there and then didn’t necessarily mean that they would be
able to retain this knowledge and then apply it later on in the course. I was
as far away from Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve and the fluency illusion as
referred to by Carey as those students who had been taught ‘gare routière’ in
Year 10 and were expected to recall the meaning of it in their Year 11 GCSE
reading paper.
Nowadays,
though, we talk about spaced practice, testing students’ retrieval as a means
of learning, nothing having been learned if there has been no change in
long-term memory, interleaving different topics and vocabulary instead of
teaching using massed or blocked practice strategies.
All of these strategies involve practice and testing, so that students can retain language in their long-term memories and apply it. It is how we get the students to practise and how we test the students so that they can do this over the longer term that is key. Hattie refers to being ‘motivated by knowledge gaps, but put off by knowledge chasms’.
With low A
level and GCSE take-up in mind, the MFL Twitterati are after you!
The wonderful
MFL Twitterati, being the army of like-minded practitioners that they are, have
shared some excellent apps about how to get students to both practise and test
their retrieval of the language. Apps like Memrise, Quizlet, Duolingo, Zondle
etc. work well as a means of testing the students with the view to making
longer-lasting and more durable learning. I am enjoying incorporating these
more and more into my own practice. I’ve also been using VFLAs; Vocab Fun
Learning Activities which involve immersing students in as much vocabulary and
short phrases as possible, practising all the language in ways that engage the
students before then covering up their meanings and testing students’ recall.
VFLAs like Penalty Shoot-Out, Verbal-Volley and Bob-Up are designed to get
students to practise in a competitive environment before testing students’
retrieval all with the aim of moving the focus away from students’ performance
to their learning over time.
Spaced
practice and spaced retrieval of key long-term memory essential language will
give students the confidence to avoid a case of the ‘gare routières’ which
befell and befuddled me in my NQT year. Have a look at the new draft GCSE
specifications, which language do we want students to recall with automaticity
by the time they sit the exams in the summer? Interleave the practice and
testing of this language no matter what the topic is.
