Learner Evolution ~ Chris Harte

CSI Sunderland

Being a Geordie, I feel that I should have a genetic dislike of Mackems (those with the great fortune of being from Sunderland) in fact my uncle told me a joke yesterday; "They are not going to do a series of CSI Sunderland because the Mackems have no dental records and they all share the same DNA" at which I smirked. However, after having spent 6 years working in Sunderland LA, I actually really like the place. Indeed I met and worked with some fantastic people including Lynn Langford, Phil Drabble and Clare Seccombe. So for those of you who do not know what the best thing to come out of Sunderland is, it is undoubtedly the Sunderland MFL website (of which Clare is the web mistress!) which celebrates its 5th birthday this month. If you have never visited, go and have a look at the fantastic resources which are hosted there and if you are feeling generous, you may even want to upload your own resources there and share them with everyone.

TTFN

GCSE Speaking Exams - worse than Guantanamo Bay?

It is coming round to that time of year again for hopefully the last time ever. My heart sinks as I think about the logistical, psychological and emotional trauma that is GCSE speaking exams. I remember reading an article in the Guardian last year about the horrific and illegal torture methods used in Guantanamo Bay during which I had a post traumatic stress-like flashback of conducting GCSE French speaking exams. The format for the exam board we use (not going to mention the name but it has a very watery feel about it) is:

Roleplay - you sit in a room trying your hardest to remember the word for a stamp which you then have to ask your teacher for while a tape whirrs ominously in the background picking up every noise (including your racing heart) but most importantly the silence of your brain forgetting the word for a stamp which makes you feel terrible and completely throws your confidence out of the window so you end up with the opposite of a stream of conciousness - a dam of nothingness. (And this is only the first 30 seconds!)

Presentation - you recall only the irrelevant bits of a presentation you have spent the last 3 months learning by heart. You hope that the Miró-esque pictures you have drawn on a prompt card will help you, however they only end up helping you appreciate modern art.

General conversation/interrogation – okay, I am going to throw question after question at you in order to make sure you use three tenses, opinions, connectives and intensifiers to demonstrate that you have actually learned something over the past 7 years. Oh by the way, I really do not give a monkey’s (a monkey’s what I may add?) about any of the answers – especially those where you tell me if you eat healthily, the fact that you hate your Dad and your parents are divorced, that you play football three times a week with your friends and that the kinds of problems young people have today are alcohol (or al-kool) and peer pressure. I am especially disinterested in your school uniform that I can see for myself every day. By the way, well done for learning all of this by heart, suffering huge levels of stress and demonstrating that you have a really good memory.

Wonder what would happen if while in France you really did need a stamp??? 

Perfick (tense in French that is)

I hate teaching the perfect tense in French. It is (as the kids in my school say) "proper solid". I have finally (I think) cracked it using the most basic but effective of tools - a flow chart. Actually when you break it down, the perfect tense in French is very logical so using a decision flowchart is a good way of externalising the thought process needed to successfully conjugate this compound tense. The attached picture is a flow chart which should help students to conjugate any verb. I have road tested it with a couple of classes who spotted some mistakes but I think it is basically there. I am going to try to make an interactive flash version over the holidays which I will post when it is ready. Happy tensing...