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Make Languages Matter

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 02:42:21 GMT

How did Natasha increase enrolments for Languages at her school? She overhauled the school's French program to have a focus on students using the language, not just learning it. She used a combination of cross-curricular learning and fun, motivating, linguistically-rich French events.

Read on to see how Natasha made languages matter at her school.

How we tripled our numbers of students electing to take French in Year 10

Written by Natasha Banks, French Teacher at St Peters Lutheran College, Springfield, Qld

In the wake of the challenges posed by COVID-19, educational programs worldwide have encountered unprecedented difficulties, especially those requiring specialised teaching staff, such as school-based language programs. Upon joining as the French teacher at our small, yet high-achieving school, it was evident that the French program was in need of revitalisation. Our institution is renowned for its unwavering commitment to excellence and consistently high standards of academic achievement. This ethos of always striving for one's best and achieving excellent results is at the core of our approach, setting the stage for the transformative journey of our French program. With a rich background in French, including tertiary studies and living in Europe, I was prepared for this challenge, despite being new to teaching languages. Our mission was clear: to rejuvenate and expand the French program. Our school, known for its supportive community, leadership, and high-achieving students, mandates French until the end of Year 9, with typically two classes per grade. This is a consideration not many language teachers have the luxury of receiving in busy curriculums. However, by Semester 1 of 2023, only six students had chosen to continue with French into Year 10.My teaching partner and I embarked on a journey to overhaul the French curriculum with an innovative approach aimed at boosting student engagement and participation. We incorporated modern educational tools such as Blooket and Kahoot! To incorporate student’s interests in gaming with learning and leveraged popular culture and digital platforms to make the learning process more relatable and engaging. By integrating comics and the online learning platform Education Perfect into our lessons, and designing assessments that were cross-curricular, we brought the French language to life in contexts that resonated with our students.

One of our standout initiatives was the introduction of project-based learning activities that connected French with other subjects and real-world applications. For instance, in Year 8, students created a French property brochure inspired by their dream houses designed in Sims 4. Year 7 students selected real animals from the SPA website to create adoption posters, combining language learning with empathy and social awareness. By Year 10, our students transformed into travel influencers, vlogging and blogging about their travels in Geneva, thus practising their language skills in a modern, digital context.

To further embed the French program into the school culture, we hosted school-wide events like participating in Manie Musicale, a global Francophone music competition. This not only increased the visibility of the French program but also fostered a sense of community and excitement around learning the language. Our efforts extended beyond the classroom, with regular updates and showcases in the school newsletter and on social media, highlighting the diverse and engaging activities within the French program. Our school community was now exposed to the wonderful opportunities available in French and were developing in understanding why language learning is so important for their learners.

The pinnacle of our initiatives was the French film festival, an event that provided students with an immersive experience in film production. From storyboarding to using green screens, the creation of advertising through film posters and editing movies, students applied their French skills in a creative and interactive setting. This event, complete with a black-tie evening, red carpet, and community involvement, showcased the students' achievements and the dynamic nature of our French program.

The results of these efforts were astounding. From a cohort of roughly 42 students, we witnessed the number of students electing to take French in Year 10 increase to 18, effectively tripling the enrolment from the six students in the current Year 10 class. This remarkable success can be attributed to a collaborative effort among the French teachers and the invaluable support from visual arts and media teachers, who enriched the program with their expertise in storyboarding and visual arts. Crucially, the ongoing support from our leadership team played a pivotal role, not only in providing the resources needed for these initiatives but also in continually communicating the value of learning French to students and our wider school community. This consistent message from the top down helped to cultivate an environment where the benefits of bilingualism and cultural appreciation were highlighted, reinforcing the importance and appeal of the French program. The sustained backing and clear vision shared by our leadership ensured that the program's goals remained aligned with the school's broader educational ethos, making the learning of French not just an academic choice but a valued part of our school's culture.

Our approach demonstrated that language learning could be immersive, cross-disciplinary, and deeply engaging, resonating with students' interests and the world around them. The enthusiasm with which students have embraced these changes, eagerly inquiring if the initiatives would continue, underscores the impact of our endeavours. As we look to the future, we are committed to maintaining this momentum, further enriching our French program, and inspiring our students to explore the rich tapestry of the French language and Francophone cultures.

Change starts in the mind(set)

Sun, 29 May 2022 09:49:16 GMT

Change starts in the mind(set)

Change is all around us right now. The seasons are changing, the government is changing, and to top it all off, the Australian Curriculum is changing, too! Change isn’t always easy. Even though for teachers change often comes with the job, that doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing.

The release of the new Australian Curriculum may be bringing up some feelings for you - from curiosity or even excitement to frustration or overwhelm. It’s normal for these feelings to come up when you’re faced with something new.

Whether your state chooses to adopt the new Curriculum next year or in a few years’ time, in the foreseeable future you may need to adjust your program to align to Version 9.0. This could be a frustrating or disheartening prospect for teachers who may only just feel comfortable with Version 8.4. The Queensland C2C resources for some Languages are barely 5 years old, and the NESA Curriculum, released in 2019, is already being reformed just 3 years later. It’s understandable for teachers to feel unhappy that the goalpoasts are about to move yet again.

Daunting as it may feel, the new Curriculum could be a golden opportunity for us Languages teachers to take an honest look at what we’re doing, and see if there might be a better way. But in a profession where there is never enough time, once you have a program established that you’re comfortable with, it’s tempting to stay in that groove indefinitely. The trickiest thing about our comfort zone is that it’s comfortable there - even if deep down we know staying in that zone is not getting the results we want.

At this early stage in the change process, it could be beneficial for us to examine our mindset. What is the prospect of this change bringing up for us? Our perception of a situation is tremendously powerful, and could make all the difference when faced with a change over which we have little control.

It’s likely you’ve heard of the term ‘growth mindset’. It’s often something we encourage in our students, but what about in ourselves?

Carol Dweck is arguably one of the most prominent researchers of fixed and growth mindsets and their impact on learning. Her work is well-known across the education sector, and she is happy that people are becoming more aware of the role mindset plays in achievement and intelligence. However, she warns against developing what she calls a ‘false growth mindset’, and against making the fixed mindset something to avoid or deny having (Dweck, 2015).

Dweck is clear that we are all a mixture of both mindsets, and it’s more valuable to recognise triggers of a fixed mindset response than to try to eliminate it completely. This is helpful to keep in mind when it comes to the new Curriculum - it gives you permission to feel those feelings, recognise them and respond.

Take a look at the triggers and responses in the table. Do any of them resonate with you?

Dweck’s advice? To accept those feelings and work through them. Look to learn from the situation rather than feeling like you are somehow to blame. Being aware that these feelings will come up can help you respond in a positive way. It could be as simple as adding the word ‘yet’ to anything you tell yourself that starts with the phrase ‘I can’t’. See if you can catch and shift your fixed mindset when it appears with the power of ‘yet’.

Language teachers in particular are surrounded by the principles of a growth mindset. Learning another language and having a growth mindset go hand-in-hand. Since it’s impossible to know all there is to know about a language, we’re always finding out new things, and we approach this new learning with an open mind. Even native speakers will hear new terminology emerging – young people use new slang almost every week! We can apply that same curiosity and openness to changes such as the new Curriculum.

This approach can benefit our students in so many ways – not only because our teaching will improve if we’re trying new things, but also because modelling good practice is a powerful teaching tool. We can promote a growth mindset in our students more effectively if they see us modelling it ourselves. If we show rather than tell our students about having a growth mindset, we are leading by example.

If the release of the new Australian Curriculum for Languages has you feeling like it’s time for change in your classroom, what next? In a job that can leave us feeling like we’re not doing enough as it is, how can we put our already precious time into something that may not yield fast results?

This is a great moment to talk about Kaizen methodology. While not technically a mindset in itself, Kaizen can help us create a shift in the way we approach life improvements.

What exactly is Kaizen? Described as ‘sustained continual improvement’, the term Kaizen comes from the Japanese ‘kai’ - meaning ‘change’, and ‘zen’ - meaning ‘for the better’. It is an approach to change that values small, sustained action that over time produces better results than a sudden, drastic change that is later abandoned. The Kaizen Institute defines Kaizen as ‘continuing improvement involving everyone’.

Kaizen is a great way to remind yourself that even a small change can have a huge impact if it’s consistent. If auditing your entire program against the new Australian Curriculum seems overwhelming, start by familiarising yourself with the changes in a particular band. If the new Curriculum release feels like an opportunity to reinvigorate your teaching program but writing the whole thing from scratch feels like too much, start with updating one assessment.

Try it for yourself – see if you can break down big changes like implementing a whole new Curriculum into smaller, sustainable Kaizen steps. Make changes that are small and sustainable, and you will be surprised how quickly progress can be made.

When faced with so much change, perhaps your next move is to apply a growth mindset to the new version of the Australian Curriculum. It could be the first Kaizen step towards the program of your dreams!

As always, we’d love to hear how you get on. Get in touch and let us know your story! And don’t forget that Languages Roadshow is here to support you during these changes.

Fran Smartt
Languages Roadshow
Italian and Spanish Specialist

The WHY of Languages teaching

Wed, 11 May 2022 03:51:29 GMT

The WHY of Languages teaching

You’ve probably heard someone at some stage talk about the importance of knowing your ‘why’. Maybe you follow Simon Sinek or have read articles about being connected to your purpose. Maybe that stuff makes you roll your eyes a bit.

Languages Roadshow is a purpose-driven business, so I’ve always found it easy to identify my ‘why’. The ‘about us’ page on the website is full of it. We exist to support Languages teachers. We want to see more kids studying Languages through to Year 12. These are good and noble ideas so I thought that was it. Simple. Done. Purpose identified – tick that off the business to-do list.

Everything I do at Languages Roadshow is line with these ideas but running an events-based business during covid has taken its toll and some days I haven’t felt as connected to my purpose as I perhaps should. I’ve been so worried about trying to get courses NESA registered or trying to sell tickets so the business can stay afloat (so that I can continue to try and achieve that ‘why’). I find myself becoming completely caught up in the demands of my inbox and trying to keep track of my diary. The busyness of running a business is all-consuming.

Teaching is much the same.

We don’t get into teaching because we are in love with writing reports or dealing with demanding emails from parents. We don’t get into teaching because we have a passion for administrative tasks. We all have many whys as teachers but we don’t always have time to reflect on those ideals.

In the last few weeks I have been able to reflect on my why. This is because I’ve been talking less and listening more. In the early days of Languages Roadshow our face-to-face programs were packed full and there was a lot of talking from me and other presenters. I can see now that I was trying to establish myself as credible and knowledgeable and to prove that I was able to put on an impressive show. did do all of those things, but in the end, when teachers come to PD, you don’t just want to be talked at. You want time to talk with the person next to you, you want time to discuss the ideas that are being presented.

The last couple of events I’ve run have been all about that – me talking less and leaving more space for the people I love so much, Languages Roadshow customers, to talk more.

Two weeks ago we ran our first Cuppa in the Caravan event – an online teacher meet up where we discussed Year 7/8 Languages programs. Hearing other teachers talk about their passion for what they do reminded me how completely not alone I am in this Languages teaching profession. Since moving to regional NSW and starting my own business, I don’t have the benefit of a staff room or regular face to face networking anymore. Hearing teachers from all over Australia saying how grateful they were for the opportunity to connect through our online event allowed me to feel reinvigorated about my own ‘why’. My customers are amazing, passionate educators and I am downright fortunate to be able to support these people, even in a really small way.

Last Friday, we ran our first ever CLIL Workshop Day in Brisbane. This was a small event of just 9 teachers and the sales pitch for the day was that you would actually be given time and space to work on CLIL units and lessons, rather than being talked at all day. I stayed true to this and it was beautiful to see teachers completely ‘in the zone’ working on ideas that I know will actually make it into their classrooms.

Prior to the event on Friday, when I’d been feeling a bit disconnected, I’d I wondered if the problems we face as Languages teachers aren’t actually as unique as we think. Maybe all specialist teachers feel like we do? Is our subject really any more valuable than others? I’ve questioned whether getting more kids to study Languages through to Year 12 is actually going to make a difference to Australian society. Not very uplifting, I know.

I think I’ve been facing some of these demons because it’s been so hard to exist as an events business over the last couple of years. I’ve questioned at times if I should keep going.

Whenever I connect with teachers face to face or online I am of course reaffirmed to continue. In fact, anytime I connect with other Languages teachers I am like I am a soft drink bottle that’s been shaken up by an overenthusiastic Year 3 kid. I am fizzing with new ideas and motivation, and I know my team feel the same.

On Friday we talked indirectly about our ‘why’ as Languages teachers. Many of the teachers talked about their language teaching being the last connection to their family’s heritage and how special it is for them to not only keep that linguistic heritage alive for themselves, but to ignite that interest in other people. Teachers told stories about how they are trying to leverage Languages at their schools as a way of helping kids from non-English speaking backgrounds start to see their own multilingualism as an asset rather than a deficit. Teachers shared deeply personal stories of their own recent tragedies and how their commitment to making a difference to Languages education was what was keeping them going right now.

I felt privileged to hear all of those stories.

On my drive home from Brisbane that night I recorded a voice memo trying to bring all of this together and what I came to was that Languages has the power to make Australia a better place. It has the power to make us better people. Languages has the power to make our society more inclusive. There is SO much heart in the Languages classroom and it can mean so much to so many different people.

Allowing kids to learn about themselves and those around them through language and culture will never be able to be fully automatised, computerised or dealt with by Google. In an age where what our kids are arguably struggling with most is building human to human connection, we have a massive role to play.

Yes, I still care deeply about seeing more students studying Languages through to Year 12. That matters – a lot. But I realise there’s so much more to that measure – our why as Languages teachers runs deep in our souls and runs much deeper than enrolments.

To wrap up, I keep thinking about something really cool a South Australian Languages teacher said on our first Cuppa in the Caravan call. She works in a regional high school and when asked what she does for a living, she tells people, “I teach kids the way to the airport.”

She said this with great love and zero disrespect to her country town. She just knows the power of the Languages class.

Case Study 3

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 20:47:22 GMT

Starting a CLIL / Immersion program from scratch

My name is Kelsey and I currently work at a very large regional state high school in Queensland. Since 2019, I have been fortunate enough to lead the curriculum implementation of our CLIL/Immersion program.

I have spent most of the last nine years working at a school with approximately 2000 students, 140 plus full-time teachers, and approximately 70 support staff. The student and staff population at my school come from the most diverse cross-section of our community that you could possibly imagine.

I am extremely proud to belong to my school community because it produces some of the most outstanding academic, sporting, career, and cultural outcomes for students – not only in regional Queensland but also the state and, indeed, the country. In saying this, though, we are most definitely not a leafy green school, or based anywhere remotely close to a leafy green suburb.

Approximately three-quarters of our student population sits in the bottom two quartiles for socio-economics – with roughly 43% in the bottom quartile itself. As you’d expect with such a large and diverse student population at a regional school, we deal with a broad range of behaviours, levels of academic engagement, and attitudes toward education – particularly language education – from all fronts (students, parents, and the wider community).

The move to introduce a CLIL/Immersion program at our school began with an initial proposal in 2016 – a full three years before we welcomed our foundation cohort. The school has long been a leader in global education and academic excellence, and as such was seeking a new and dynamic program that could offer students in the regions something truly unique and enriching!

As the teacher in charge of developing the curriculum for our CLIL/Immersion program, my initial considerations were drawn from pedagogical research as well as my own previous experiences in one of Queensland’s most outstanding language immersion programs.

For context, I was fortunate enough to participate in a French Immersion program myself at high school, as well as completing all my practicums in an immersion setting. I know first-hand the truly phenomenal opportunities that such a program can provide – both academically and with respect to personal growth and development.

The initial curriculum planning process began in late 2018 with the design of our Year 7 work programs for French and Humanities. For our school, this comprises History, Geography, and Civics and Citizenship. The process was guided by the school’s commitment to delivering the Australian National Curriculum, and also conformed to our overarching pedagogical framework, Marzano’s The Art and Science of Teaching.

We decided that in Term 1, students would use their timetabled Humanities class time to do additional French. This offered an intensive introduction to the French language and the necessary forms and functions students would need to successfully access their Humanities coursework in Year 7. This also set them up for the introduction of a third learning area in Year 8 – a school-specific, multidisciplinary subject. Students would then revert to their allocated timetable for French and Humanities in Term 02 and for the remainder of Year 07 (210mins per curriculum area).

With this consideration in place, I worked on the development of the work program. This encompasses the units of study, the mapping of grammatical skills, the mapping of anticipated vocabulary, an outline of all assessment, as well as the alignment to the Standard elaboration statement.

For our Immersion/CLIL program, we follow the prep/foundation-entry standard elaborations rather than the Year 7 Entry standards to ensure students are not restricted to the prescribed language and themes presented in the latter. Since we do not follow the C2C unit mapping, I was able to select thematic units that prioritised both our school’s and our community’s priorities, including embedding indigenous perspectives and our relationship with our East-Side neighbours, all whilst allowing students to develop their language capabilities.

With respect to the initial planning for Humanities and our school-based subject, students in our CLIL/Immersion program complete the same depth studies and assessment as their mainstream peers. For this to be done authentically and successfully in terms of both content and language, I worked (and continue to work) closely with the subject team leaders for these subject areas. We identify the core priority standards for both skill and content, and develop our units from there.

As we don’t follow a textbook in the mainstream Humanities or school-based subject programs, students in our CLIL/Immersion program have all their content-based learning resources developed and designed expressly for them. This has proven to be time-consuming in the early days of our program’s roll out, especially as our assessment continues to be refined to allow students to better demonstrate their competencies against the appropriate standards.

However, ultimately the decision not to follow a translated textbook has proven to be extremely successful with respect to the development of language and content-based skills – especially the historical skills – and the students’ overall academic results.

Introducing and sustaining such a program isn’t without challenges. As the program we offer at our school is the only one of its kind in the region, there isn’t a great deal of community understanding about what CLIL/Immersion is and the great benefits that it provides for students. We have worked extremely closely with our feeder primary schools to build the profile of the program with students and their parents, thanks to some amazing support from the French teachers at these schools.

Our CLIL/Immersion program is open to all who can demonstrate a strong work ethic through their primary school reports, and who can complete a short application form where they articulate their desire to join the program. We have welcomed students from the full spectrum of academic achievement –from students who are straight A+ across the board and have been since kindergarten, to students who engage with literacy and learning support for the majority of their subjects. It is our commitment in our program to make learning in language accessible to everyone.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly to those familiar with using the CLIL approach), our students recognise success in the program irrespective of their “typical” academic progress. Additionally, the support of the school’s admin has played a vital role in promoting the importance of learning language and access every opportunity whilst living in the regions. Overall, we have found that parents and guardians of our CLIL/Immersion students are extremely pleased with what the program offers their children, and are excited to see how such a program can help them grow into the global citizens that our school is so proud to produce.

I understand that I approach CLIL/Immersion education from a truly unique and privileged position that isn’t afforded to all. I was educated in an Immersion setting. I did my teacher training in an immersion setting. I have led the curriculum development of a CLIL/Immersion program from its absolute foundations. Learning in language is all that I have ever known. However, if I could offer any advice for language teachers out there, it is that using CLIL pedagogy is the game changer we need in our curriculum area.

We know that in Queensland a staggering and truly heartbreaking 93% of Year 12 students don’t do a language in their ATARs. However, in my school’s context, we have over 90% of our Immersion students choosing to continue with their language studies post-program. There is nothing (left) to lose in incorporating CLIL units in your instruction, but there is a great deal at stake if we don’t start to see more students enrol in senior languages.

If you’d like to know more about CLIL, send your questions to kelly@languagesroadshow.com.au

Case Study 2

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 20:36:16 GMT

CLIL in the high school – A Languages teacher ‘going it alone’

Owner of Languages Roadshow, Kelly Harrison, never expected that a single cherry blossom collage lesson would change the trajectory of her teaching career.

Up until that lesson, she had been teaching Japanese basically the same way she had been taught – her classes were based on a communicative model, and imparting the joy and intricacies of Japanese culture were front and centre, but most of the interaction with students was in English.

This wasn’t just because she was replicating what she had experienced as a student, but also because as an early career teacher she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to form meaningful relationships with her students if she spoke to them predominantly in Japanese.

Just as her teaching methods were mirroring her experiences as a learner, Kelly also found the struggles she faced as a learner were being mirrored in her students. Kelly was a top-notch rote learner at school and got excellent marks for Year 12 Japanese. However, when she started at UQ in her Japanese major, she realised she couldn’t hold a conversation to save herself.

A year on exchange in Kitakyushu eventually sorted that out, but she felt very strongly that she didn’t want her Year 12s to graduate and have that same experience of feeling completely deficient as a speaker of the language. She wanted better for them, and was shopping around for ways to break that cycle.

Back in 2015, Kelly was encouraged by her Japanese-teaching principal, Dr Margaret Lee, to try Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Having not heard of CLIL, Kelly did some research and felt very alarmed. She felt there was no way she could manage to teach another subject area in Japanese, and as embarrassed as she is to admit it now, she wasn’t convinced her students could handle it.

The research was there, though: CLIL worked, and it worked across diverse settings with a diverse range of students. Kelly set about trying to test this for herself and started with a single lesson – a craft activity for Year 7 on their first day.

The feedback from that lesson transformed Kelly’s career. Students who had been completely disengaged with Languages at primary school commented that they hoped all Japanese lessons would be like this at high school. Students remarked on the sense of accomplishment and pride they felt at being able to successfully participate in a lesson that was delivered entirely in a language that was, until that point, completely unfamiliar.

Kelly could see the immense potential for engaging students in those compulsory years and could picture CLIL as a solution for keeping students engaged who’d already done a few years of primary school Japanese but got sent back to ‘the start’ when they entered high school.

She then undertook a variety of other trials, including an after-school cultural program with native-speaking guest teachers, and a three week Year 8 Japanese history unit. Her biggest learning from the Year 8 History unit was that students who had traditionally struggled with Japanese (some of whom had diagnosed speech and language difficulties) felt better supported in the CLIL setting than they did in the ‘standard’ Languages setting. She also found that with every trial she undertook, she was more excited by the possibilities of CLIL.

During this trial and research phase, Kelly was given some good advice. Whilst these after school activities and short units were fun, she needed to develop a year-long ‘real’ subject – something that either filled a gap in the school’s offerings or something that the school community would value.

Kelly settled on developing a year-long Japanese Media Studies course, for Year 9/10. She chose this because the Media Arts curriculum played to her skills and interests as a high school English teacher, and secondly because the school she was at didn’t have any ‘film and tv’ style offerings. Also, Japanese media (tv, commercials, anime etc) is a treasure trove of fascinating content that she knew her students would find engaging.

And so the planning began.

It was a massive, humongous, overwhelming process. Kelly was working completely alone, with no mentor and no access to any suitable Australian Curriculum-aligned resources. Everything had to be created from scratch and she had to seek advice from more experienced CLIL teachers, who were generally interstate.

The huge time investment required to get this program off the ground was only made possible because Kelly had secured a $20,000 grant (through Brisbane Catholic Education but funded by the Commonwealth Government) to work on the program. Apart from a few books and a trip to a conference, most of those funds were spent on teacher release time that allowed Kelly to plan.

This is the great challenge of getting a well-resourced CLIL program off the ground: You need time. You don’t need amazing technology. You don’t need to have native speaking proficiency. You do need time. And time is money.

If Kelly could have had one thing to help her during that time, she would have chosen access to CLIL resources that were Australian Curriculum aligned and already translated into Japanese. So many of the CLIL resources available online are written for the European market and are generally for teachers of English as an additional language. There is little to nothing available for CLIL teachers in Australia. And this is a problem, because there is so much untapped potential within this pedagogical approach.

Was that time investment worth it? Yes, yes, and yes again. 100% of the kids in that first Year 10 CLIL class continued into senior Japanese. They were undoubtedly the most proficient Year 11 students any of the teaching staff at that school had encountered. That class formed meaningful, long-lasting bonds with each other, as they all struggled, laughed and built new brain pathways together.

Kelly was already pretty excitable about her job, but this experience took it to a new level. She felt compelled to help other teachers on their CLIL journey, so she started speaking at conferences. Then, after having her first baby, she started Languages Roadshow so she could dedicate herself full-time to being the CLIL mentor she wished she’d had!

Languages Roadshow is working on resources to support teachers who are keen to experiment with CLIL but don’t have the time to create an entire program from scratch. Make sure you are on our mailing list to stay up to date.

Case Study 1

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 01:55:42 GMT

CLIL in the primary school: a collaboration between a Languages teacher and a classroom teacher

This is Enza.

She has been teaching Italian in Queensland for 13 years.

Her school, St Martin’s, is a Catholic primary school and whilst the school admin team is supportive of their staff and of Languages in general, Enza still faces a challenge most other primary Languages teachers share: she only sees the kids for 40 minutes a week. And once you factor in transitions into and out of class, that leaves just half an hour of teaching time, if you’re lucky!

Enza has a warm and outgoing style of teaching, and the kids respond in kind – they want to talk to her, engage with her and are interested in Italian because she makes them feel good about it.

This is Sandra. She has been teaching for 35 years and is currently a Year 6 classroom teacher at St Martin’s.

Across her career she has taught a variety of year levels, has held leadership positions, and also did a stint as a secondary school teacher. Sandra has high expectations for her students, and she holds them to account. This pays dividends for their learning and their preparedness for high school. Sandra has an unbeatable sense of humour, and she develops fiercely loving relationships with her students. She does not, however, have any past experience speaking or learning Italian.

Enza and Sandra have worked together over the last three years to develop and refine a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) program that integrates Year 6 Humanities and Social Science (HASS) and Italian, with a focus on food and Italian migration to Australia. Enza was the Italian Language expert, and Sandra provided the Year 6 HASS curriculum expertise.

Enza was looking for a way to enhance her students’ Italian proficiency, and in particular their willingness and confidence to speak in the target language (TL). This is a challenge for Languages teachers everywhere, but it’s particularly tough when you only see the kids for such a short time each week. And some weeks that one lesson may be lost due to the general interruptions and events of the school year.

Sandra, on the other hand, was looking for a new challenge.

Sandra and Enza attended Languages Roadshow: Brisbane as a team in 2019 and 2020. They listened to Kelly’s presentation on CLIL in 2019 and were keen to give it a go. Maybe it was the bubbly talking at that first conference, but then after hearing more about CLIL in 2020 they were certain – it was going to happen.

The conferences gave them the initial ideas and motivation to get the planning started. They then completed the Languages Roadshow online course ‘Integrate to Maximise with CLIL’ to further their pedagogical understanding.

Together, they created a term-long unit. The process was very iterative. As is usually the case when writing CLIL units, they planned way too much content and had to keep cutting it back and tightening things up to ensure that they’d actually reach the end of the unit in the time available, and that the most critical content and language was prioritised.

The key HASS concepts covered included who migrated to Australia and why – including push / pull factors – and what contribution these migrant groups have made to Australian society.

From the Italian Curriculum, they focussed on Italian cuisine and the impact of Italian migration on Australian food culture. The specific language they chose to focus on were likes and dislikes, adjectives and giving reasons. There were also ample opportunities to review previously covered language like colours, countries and food words, as well as classroom instruction language.

Enza committed to a renewed focus on using predominantly TL in Italian class. She implemented a range of fun strategies to keep her and the students accountable, as she describes in the video.

Last year, Enza was on the hunt for another Italian teacher to help extend the program. She connected with another Brisbane teacher and created a Penpal project. The project allowed students to introduce themselves online via the Teams platform.

As part of the CLIL program, students discussed the cultural diversity of this Penpals program, which in turn led to students recognising the diversity of their local community. At the end of the year, the students met one another in person in a meet and greet morning. This encounter, embedded within the CLIL program, made for a memorable, real life language learning experience.

Unless you count the words gelato, fettuccine and Prosecco, Sandra doesn’t speak Italian. So how does a CLIL program work when one half of the teaching team doesn’t speak the language?

It’s important to note that Sandra came into this project with an excellent mindset. She threw herself into the task with a beginner’s curiosity and a true enthusiasm for making mistakes - which her Year 6s regularly pointed out to her! Enza also made time to informally tutor Sandra to get her started with a few basics.

The teachers also did the following:

Enza and Sandra structured the lessons so key language for the upcoming HASS lesson would be taught or reviewed in the Italian lesson earlier in the week.
Enza recorded herself reading the learning intentions and success criteria for the HASS lessons in Italian and would embed the video in the HASS powerpoint. She would also sometimes record herself saying any key words or sentences for the lesson.
Sandra learnt some key greetings and instructions at the start of the term and added to her vocabulary as the term progressed.
Most lessons used the alternating input / output method of translanguaging. In other words, students would often read or listen to something in English (like a video sharing experiences of migrants) and would then do something with that in Italian – such as answer a multiple-choice quiz that used mostly familiar language.

Fast-forward to 2022, and Sandra and Enza are about to embark on their third year of running and refining the program. Both teachers feel that the implementation of CLIL has been professionally reinvigorating for them, and has had significant benefits for the kids.

For the students, target language use increased dramatically, which allowed them to handle more input and output in Italian. Students’ behaviour and engagement across both subject areas were much higher as they had to really focus on the content that was being presented to ensure understanding across the two areas. The more capable students were able to extend themselves for assessment thanks to the variety offered by the program and the multiple opportunities for students to express their understanding.

For the teachers, the benefit of the CLIL program was being part of an innovative program with a focus on a specific outcome.

At Languages Roadshow, we love sharing this story because it shows that you don’t have to have every duck in a row in order to make things happen. If Enza had waited until she encountered an Italian speaking classroom teacher, she’d probably still be waiting!

This story also shows the power of working with the right people. Sandra and Enza are a great team – they have different backgrounds but similar educational philosophies and enjoy having a laugh together. They were willing to take a (educated) chance on something new. And it’s paid off.

The video below will give you more insight into this project.

If you’d like to learn more about CLIL, you might like to check out our online course or come along to one of our face-to-face events .

C2C Adaptation Tips

Sat, 19 Mar 2022 23:40:48 GMT

C2C: these 3 letters could bring up all kinds of feelings for you.

The C2C resources for Languages, written by Education Queensland and released between 2016 and 2019, cover the F-10 sequence of the Australian Curriculum for Languages. For all languages, the Curriculum is organised in Bands of 2-3 school years, and the C2C resources also follow this structure. They assume that schools allocate the recommended time for Languages teaching, and that students have learned the language since the Foundation stage.

For most of you, there’s a good chance that one or both of these conditions is not met. In the Primary sector, you’re likely to have students starting a language in Year 5 and having less than the recommended time. And in the Secondary sector, even if you have the recommended contact time, chances are at least some of your Year 7s haven’t studied your language before.

This means that for many Languages teachers, C2C is not an off-the-shelf solution. But the resources can save you from having to create everything from scratch if you know how to work with them.

The scope of this document is not to pass judgement about C2C resources - it’s here to give you some ideas about how you might be able to adapt the resources to work within your school context, and leverage them in a way that benefits you and your students. This is especially useful for teachers working in schools that insist their staff use C2C, but could be of interest to teachers in other schools as well.

You may be thinking:

“How do I know you’re the person I should listen to about this?”

I was involved in writing the C2C units for one of the 6 languages, so suffice to say, I know the resources very well!

I have also taught in a Primary school where I had only 40 minutes a week with students from Prep to Year 6, so even before considering transition time at the start and end of the lesson, my students got far less than the recommended time. In my school, I was asked to use the C2C assessments, but how I got my students to that point was up to me.

So not only do I have extensive knowledge of the C2C resources, I have used them myself in a situation where languages were under-timetabled. So I’ve probably experienced the same struggles you have, and I want to share with you what I’ve learned about making C2C resources work in a less-than-ideal situation.

A step-by-step process

In the next few pages I will take you through a step-by-step process that may help you use the C2C resources in a way that works for you and your students.

Before we get started, I’d like to make it clear that my approach is GREATLY simplified - so it may not be considered “best practice” by some. I was fortunate that my school allowed me to make my own way to the assessment task, but I still had only 40 minutes a week. To make my job achievable, I prioritised covering the Achievement Standards over the Content Descriptors when planning my lesson sequences. As I said, it may go against the grain, but given how little time I had to work with, something had to give.

If your school insists that you use C2C resources, it might be worth asking if they would be prepared to compromise and allow you to use the assessments ‘out of the box’ but with a bit of flexibility on how you get your students to that point. This would also allow the C2C assessments to be used with different teaching methods and pedagogies, because as long as the crucial content and skills are covered, how that is delivered is up to you!

I will now take you through the process I used to select C2C assessments that would cover as much of the Achievement Standard as possible in my limited time allocation. The steps below assume the assessment will be used as-is, with the resources being adapted or replaced as appropriate.

Step 1: Work out what percentage of the recommended teaching time you have.

If you don’t have the recommended time allocation for your language classes, I hear you. I took the approach that I would cover the curriculum pro rata in accordance with the time I was allocated. So you may like to start by figuring out what proportion of the recommended time you actually get in your school. From Prep to Year 2, the recommended time is 60 minutes a week, in Years 3 to 6 it’s 90 minutes, and 120 minutes a week for Years 7 and 8.

In my case, the 40 minutes I had for Years P-2 worked out as ⅔ of the recommended time for that Band, so I would aim to cover at least two-thirds of the Achievement Standard. For Years 3-6 I only had 44% of the recommended time allocation, but I decided to round it up to 50% of the Achievement Standard for each of these bands. Obviously I would cover as much as I could, but this was the minimum I aimed for. I did this by completing 3 C2C assessments per year in Years P-2, and at least 2 per year in Years 3-6.

This did have implications for reporting - my school reported on students twice per year, so often I had only covered one assessment by Semester 1 reporting time. My rationale was that as the assessment covered both strands (Communicating and Understanding), one assessment per semester should suffice. For the grades in which my students completed 3 assessments per year, the Semester 2 reports would include the results from 2 assessments, covering a greater range of skills. On balance I felt that this worked to give an accurate picture of student achievement over the course of the year.

Step 2: Work out which assessments to prioritise.

Once you’ve figured out how much of the Achievement Standard you can realistically cover, you can figure out which assessments to prioritise.

You may already know this, but the C2C assessments for each band cover all parts of the Achievement Standard at least once, but some are covered multiple times.

A good starting point for prioritising assessment is to plot which parts of the Achievement Standard are covered in which units. This allows you to see which are the most important assessments to try and cover - usually because they include a part of the Achievement Standard that isn’t assessed anywhere else.

You can find which parts of the Achievement Standard are assessed in which units in either the C2C Band Plan or in each Unit Plan.

I start by copying and pasting the Achievement Standard into a table, one sentence per row. I add a column where I can record the unit in which each part is assessed. This shows me where the duplicates are, and also which parts are only assessed in one unit. I can then use this information to identify the priority assessments in the Band.

Below is an example of what this looks like for the Year 5-6 Band for Italian:

As you can see, the units that assess part of the Achievement Standard not covered elsewhere are Units 5, 6, 7 and 8.

This doesn’t mean you MUST do the assessments for these units - if there are other assessments you prefer, by all means choose those! As we’ve already seen, if you don’t have the full time allocation, you physically can’t cover everything. The idea is to make an informed decision about the units you choose.

Step 3: Choose and sequence your assessments.

Now you know what percentage of the Achievement Standard you can realistically cover given your time allocation, and which units you may wish to prioritise, you can start to choose your assessments for the bands you teach, and figure out a sequence in which you’ll complete them.

I am a visual person, so I like to get my mapping table from Step 2 and compare it to the assessment overviews in the Band Plan to see which could work.

Below is an example of the assessment overview from the Italian 5-6 Band Plan:

Another tip I have here - which is entirely personal - is to organise your assessment schedule so you have a receptive assessment in Semester 1, and a productive assessment in Semester 2.

I found this particularly helpful in Years 5 and 6, as my students typically found assessments based around listening and/or reading easier, which built their confidence. I also found I could cover the content my students needed more quickly, as it was focused more on vocabulary and listening / reading skills and practice.

By leaving the written assessment until Semester 2, I was actually able to start the unit in the last weeks of Semester 1. My assessments typically had to be finished by Week 7 of Term 2, in line with our reporting schedule. This enabled me to start working on the next unit in weeks 8, 9 and 10, giving me the full 20 weeks in which to prepare my students for the written assessment and have it finished by Week 7 of Term 4.

Looking at the Band Plan, I can see that Units 1 and 7 have listening/reading assessments, so I’ll keep these in mind for Semester 1 of Year 5 and Year 6. Unit 7 has parts of the achievement standard not assessed elsewhere, so it’s definitely a contender.

Assuming I choose these units, I shade the parts of the Achievement Standard this will cover to help me choose which other units might work. Once I highlight the Achievement Standards covered in Units 1 and 7, my mapping table looks like this:

Out of the 17 different parts of the Achievement Standard, 7 are at least partially covered in just these two units. If I choose these assessments, I’m already well on the way to covering at least half of the Achievement Standard! This gives me some flexibility to choose the units for Semester 2 that I think will be the most engaging for my students. Whichever assessments I choose, I know that there will be a written component which will give me a good balance of macro-skills.

Looking at the remaining parts of the Achievement Standard and the corresponding units, Units 2, 6 and 8 jump out at me - Unit 2 because ideally I’d like to have an early band unit for my year 5s and there’s not too much duplication of the Achievement Standard assessed, and Units 6 and 8 because they cover several parts of the Achievement Standard not covered elsewhere.

Looking at the topics, these units cover family (Unit 2), comic characters (Unit 6) and life changes (Unit 8). Out of these topics, I think Units 2 and 6 have the potential to be engaging, so I’m going to highlight these in my mapping table.

As you can see, this only leaves 4 out of 17 parts of the Achievement Standard that I won’t be assessing - and considering I have less than 50% of the recommended time, I am happy to be able to cover so much of the Achievement Standard from just 4 assessments!

To summarise, my overall plan for my Year 5 and Year 6 students looks like this:

Step 4: Establish the key learning for your chosen assessments.

Once you’ve chosen and sequenced your assessments, the next step is to figure out how you’re going to get your students equipped with the knowledge they need to tackle them.

As my starting point, I take a look at the assessment and identify what language and structures come up. I use this information to identify broad topic areas which will form the basis of my teaching sequence.

Let’s use the assessment for Unit 1 as an example.

I go straight to the Guide to Making Judgements (GTMJ) so I can see what I’ll be looking for when I’m marking the assessment:

Under Communicating, I can see that my students will need to know greetings, asking about and giving names, plus other details from the text. This is a bit vague, but looking at the assessment text I can see that the speakers introduce themselves and discuss the origins of their names. At first glance it looks like the vocabulary topics I’ll need to cover are introductions, the different names we may have (first name, last name, nickname etc), people in our family, and the origins of names (including countries).

Under Understanding, I can see that my students will need to know about naming practices, gender of Italian names, and dialects, and they will need to compare languages and cultures. I can see that I will need to cover how Italian names work (including the gender of names), cultural approaches and conventions around naming children, and comparison skills. I can also see that I will need to give students some information about the existence of dialects in Italy.

From this, I can start drafting an initial list of topics:

Meeting new people (greetings, introductions)
Who’s in our family?
Where do our names come from? (People, countries)
Italian names (gender, family name traditions)
Dialects in Italy (including an introduction to regional Italy)
Comparing cultures

This has the potential to be accessible even to students who begin Italian in Year 5, because it covers some of the ‘traditional’ starting points of greetings, self-introductions and family. It also includes an introduction to Italian culture and to the grammatical convention of gender in an accessible and relatable way.

Step 5: Resource your unit.

Once you have a rough idea of the topics you need to cover, you can decide whether you want to use the C2C lessons, create your own from scratch, or adapt the C2C lessons to work with your teaching style and your allocated teaching time.

I understand that not everyone will work in the same way when it comes to planning or resourcing their lessons. My personal preference is to create a powerpoint to support the lesson sequence so I don’t have to spend valuable time writing too much up on the board. Also, a consideration for my planning was that my students had an exercise book rather than a laptop.

The following process assumes that each lesson will have a detailed slideshow to present the key learning. If that’s not how you like to work, you may need to adapt this process so it works for you.

I am sure everyone has their own perspective on the C2C resources, and as previously mentioned, the purpose of this document is not to pass judgement. No matter what you think of the C2C resources, they do have some positive points which you may be able to leverage to your advantage:

They already exist so you don’t have to start from scratch, saving you time.
The avatar characters are cute!
The interactive resources are useful for teaching listening skills, and are well-supported with images.
The documents are editable, so you can add animations and pictures, and add or delete slides - whatever you like!

I have sometimes combined content from multiple C2C presentations, cherry-picking the best bits, and adding slides with mini-activities to practise the new content. For other topics that I didn’t feel were covered sufficiently in the resources, or for topics where my students didn’t have the assumed prior knowledge, I created my own presentations - such as to teach the vocabulary for countries and nationalities in Italian.

Let’s take a look at the C2C lessons for this unit, and compare it to the topics I want to cover:

There is some potential overlap, so I can start by looking at the powerpoints for these C2C lessons to see if there are any sections I feel I could use.

I’d like to include a note here about the C2C Languages ‘Making connections with prior learning’ slideshows. I have often adapted these to teach the content from scratch, as I know for my students it’s not actually prior learning. I’d like to share with you how I turned these ‘prior learning’ slideshows from Unit 1 of the 5-6 Band into resources that teach the content for the first time.

Unit 1 has two Prior Learning slideshows that cover a lot of information. As this would all be new content for my classes, I needed to prioritise. I went through both and pulled out the sections I thought could work for my topic list in the table above - asking and giving your name and age from slideshow 1, and asking about birthdays, where you live and family from slideshow 2.

I changed the wording of the slides to reflect the fact that my students may not have learned this language before, exchanging phrases like “Do you remember how to say…” for questions such as “Can you spot how to say…”

I then supplemented this with extra information about numbers and months, and added activities to allow students to practise the phrases with each other. And just like that, I had the foundations of a lesson (or series of lessons) on self-introductions.

I then checked through the remaining resources - even the ones that initially didn’t look like they would overlap. Sometimes I have just taken one section out of one C2C powerpoint and popped it into a different one, or I have created some “mash up” slideshows by mixing and matching different C2C sections with my own. You can be as creative as you want - and use as much or as little of the C2C slideshows as you like.

And remember, as long as in the assessment the students can understand the main points of a spoken or written text, are aware of dialects, and can show that different countries have different cultures and customs, they are on track to meet the C grade benchmark.

That almost brings us to the end of our C2C Adaptation tips. I hope that this information will assist all my wonderful Languages colleagues out there to work with the C2C resources in a way that helps rather than hinders!

But wait… There’s more!

BONUS INFORMATION: How to adapt the C2C interactive resources

The C2C slideshows aren’t the only resource you can change to suit your style - you can also adapt the interactive resources. While the interactive resources in themselves aren’t easily editable, when you download these resources the accompanying folders are a goldmine of images and sound files that you can easily reuse, as long as you know what to find where!

The folder that contains the interactive resource also contains several sub-folders which house the resource’s components - the images, the audio and the behind-the-scenes wizardry that turns them into an interactive resource. The folder for the interactive texts look something like this:

The folder I would like to draw your attention to is the assets folder. This is where you’ll find the images and the audio to go with each individual page:

You can use these individual images and audio clips to make a shorter version of the interactive resource - perhaps if you want to zero in on a particular part of a conversation for a short listening activity, or if you just don’t have time to go through the whole thing.

You can easily insert the images and audio into a slideshow to create your own interactive resource. Just go to the Insert tab at the top and you can either insert a picture or audio from your computer.

If you are quite tech savvy, you can even edit the audio using programs like Audacity. This is especially useful for the resources where one audio file goes with several images.

And that’s a wrap for our C2C Adaptation Tips! We really hope you find the ideas useful, but as always if you have any feedback or suggestions we’d love to hear from you!

Author Bio: Fran Smartt

Fran is a Modern Languages graduate (Italian and Spanish) from the University of Bristol, UK. She trained as a Secondary Languages teacher in London, covering studies in Second Language Acquisition as well as practicums teaching French and Spanish at schools in Forest Gate and Tottenham.

After graduating in 2012, she worked for an all-through school in North-West London teaching Spanish across Years 4 to 11 (equivalent to Years 3 to 10 in Australia). In 2013, she was promoted to Deputy Subject Leader for Spanish.

Fran relocated to Australia in 2015, and has taught Italian in a High School and two Primary Schools on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. She also spent 18 months working as a Senior Project Writer for C2C.

In early 2021, Fran became interested in Copywriting and Content Marketing, studying the subjects in her spare time and working as a casual intern for a Digital Marketing Agency. She joined the Languages Roadshow team in January 2022 to leverage her love of writing and her Language teaching experience and expertise in support of the wonderful Languages teachers of Australia.

A brief history of language teaching

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 23:51:21 GMT

For as long as humans have travelled to other lands, they have studied other languages. Approaches to language teaching have evolved considerably over the centuries thanks to developments in our understanding of how people acquire language.

As well as scientific approaches, language pedagogy has also seen its fair share of fads and fashionable, experimental methods over the years. From the reliance on dreary sentence translation to the use of Baroque music to create an optimal learning environment, language learning has been a fertile field for innovation.

While language pedagogy has seen dozens of distinct methods emerge, they have followed several broad trends. From the 1600s to the 1900s, language learning was seen primarily as a scholarly pursuit, and therefore was only really for the very wealthy or the highly educated. The focus was on learning grammar, and not on being able to actually speak the language.

In the 20th Century, more humanistic approaches to learning were starting to emerge. The emphasis was shifting towards engaging the learner as a whole, rather than just their mind. This holistic, learner-centred style replaced the more authoritarian approaches of the past.

In the 1970s and 1980s, language teaching started moving towards our modern communicative methods. Academics started observing how children learn their first language and applying their findings to second language acquisition.

We have put together a timeline of the key language teaching approaches of the last 200 years. You may find some familiar elements, and some you’re probably glad are no longer in vogue!

ELT (English Language Teaching) methods – applied to other target languages

1800s - Grammar Translation Method

In this method, grammar was seen as central to language learning. A concept was presented and practised through translating sentences into and out of the target language – usually Latin or Ancient Greek.

1900s - Direct Method

The Direct Method involved students making direct associations between objects or concepts and the corresponding words in the target language. Teachers frequently used images, objects and realia to represent the vocabulary.

1920s - The Oral Approac h

Unsurprisingly, this approach focused on speaking – and listening. Language was presented in everyday scenarios, and students had to mainly listen and repeat. Lessons were based around the principles of selection, gradation and presentation.

1940s - The Audiolingual Method

This language teaching approach, nicknamed the “Army Method”, was developed in the US after World War 2. It was created in response to the need for the military to acquire language skills quickly. It focused on intensive oral drilling of the target language.

Humanistic approaches start to emerge

1960s - Situational Language Teaching

Situational Language Teaching was in many ways similar to the Oral Approach and the Audiolingual method. It emphasised presenting grammar and vocabulary in real-life situations, and prioritising oral and aural skills over linguistic accuracy.

Total Physical Response

Total Physical Response language teaching focused on giving students instructions and commands that encouraged physical movement. Similar to children learning their first language, the initial focus was on receptive skills before developing productive skills.

1963 - The Silent Way

As the name suggests, the Silent Way was based on the principle that the teacher should say as little as possible, thus encouraging language production from the students.

1970s - Suggestopedia

This method, created by Bulgarian psychologist Georgi Lozanov, centred on the idea that the brain learns more under the right conditions. It therefore focused on creating a relaxing atmosphere for optimal learning, with music often featuring strongly.

Community Language Learning

Community Language Learning focused on group interest learning, with the teacher in a counsellor role, helping the client (learner) to understand.

Communicative approaches become dominant

1980s - Communicative Language Teaching

In Communicative Language Teaching, interaction is both the way people learn, and the ultimate goal of language learning. Accuracy is less important than production.

The Natural Approach

Tracy Terrell and Stephen Krashen published The Natural Approach in 1983. It assumed language would emerge spontaneously once students had heard and seen a lot of target language content.

1987 - Task-based Learning

This approach entails using authentic language to complete meaningful tasks. It was first presented in the book Second Language Pedagogy by N. Prabhu in 1987. A typical lesson is structured around 3 elements – the pre-task, the task, and the review.

1990s - The Lexical Approach

Developed by Michael Lewis, the Lexical Approach is based on the idea that language is made up of lexical units rather than grammar structures. This approach focuses on understanding and producing these lexical units.

1994 - Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

CLIL was first coined by UNICOM, University of Jyväskylä and the European Platform for Dutch Education in the mid-90s. It is a method of teaching an area of curriculum content entirely in target language. It is similar to the extremely successful Immersion approach, pioneered in Canada. It is a method which is gaining momentum in Australia and other countries who are struggling to retain enrolments in Languages.

It’s rather fitting to end this timeline with CLIL, because at Languages Roadshow we love helping teachers get started with and extend their understanding of CLIL. The Immersion method is widely agreed to be one of the most effective ways of teaching a second language, but the criteria can be hard for many schools to meet. CLIL shares the advantages of improved first-language literacy and second language competency, but it’s much more flexible so can be applied in most school contexts.

If you are curious about CLIL and would like to know more, contact me at kelly@languagesroadshow.com.au

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Make Languages Matter

How we tripled our numbers of students electing to take French in Year 10

Change starts in the mind(set)

Change starts in the mind(set)

The WHY of Languages teaching

The WHY of Languages teaching

Case Study 3

Starting a CLIL / Immersion program from scratch

Case Study 2

CLIL in the high school – A Languages teacher ‘going it alone’

Case Study 1

CLIL in the primary school: a collaboration between a Languages teacher and a classroom teacher

C2C Adaptation Tips

C2C: these 3 letters could bring up all kinds of feelings for you.

A brief history of language teaching

ELT (English Language Teaching) methods – applied to other target languages ﻿

ELT (English Language Teaching) methods – applied to other target languages