New cohort: Second half of academic Year 2013-2014

Unlike the other Elements course the ILC has not had a big change of students. 2 students left (the Korean and Polish language students) and several new students joined. Most students carried on studying the language of their choice.

There are now more students studying languages at a native level. We have new students studying Korean, German, French and Chinese following the online course. We should also have a new student starting soon studying Swedish.

I have now put all the tasks that Madoka and myself devised last term on an ISLE course called Independent Language Centre, and we continue to add tasks to the list. This gives the students a wide range of topics to choose from. Due to this I have allowed the students to pick and choose what order they do the topics in. The reason for this being that they can pursue things that interest them more, and they can choose to focus on topics that lead to a written outcome or that lead to a spoken outcome, depending on what they have identified as needing.

In the future I would like to identify the tasks we have devised and classify them according to the European Language Framework - so some tasks are definitely quite challenging and C2 level, others are more C1, and the ones that students have tended to pick to do first this term (animals and tongue twisters are probably even B2). It would be good to make this obvious to students. I think they presume at the moment that all tasks are the same difficulty level.

As ever I think one of the most difficult things about administering this course is finding native speakers who are willing to check the students' blogs and offer advice. Often this could be the parents, but in reality many of them are too busy and/or unfamiliar with the idea of posting comments on blogs and/or the students feel awkward about their parents checking their work.

A final observation: Year groups are stronger than language groups. There are now 3 Year 9s (a French and a German student have joined the 1 Year 9 Hebrew student) In term 1 there was just the 1 Year 9 Hebrew student. The Year 9s immediately formed a table of their own, which I felt was slightly odd as this splits the Hebrew group up. I am monitoring the situation.

What the teacher does

1. SUPERVISING. While the class is happening you are not teaching anything, you are setting tasks and supervising work that will be mostly in languages you can't understand. I don't feel there is much point spending a long time with different language students working on cross-cultural projects in English as for none of them is it a goal to acquire cross-cultural knowledge. Their goal is to improve their language, therefore they must work with others who study their language or by themselves if they are the only one. 

2. TEACHING. The exception being the three students who are following the scheme of work we have written for native speakers without tutors. Therefore you are teaching three students and supervising 13 students. I sometimes feel as though there is not enough of me to do this effectively. While I'm teaching a lesson to a minority of the students, how can I be watching what the majority are doing? I think an answer would be to create an ISLE course with all the resources on for the native speakers without tutors. This would mean that they could work independently at their own pace on this without me needing to introduce it each time. This said I am glad I am having a more hands-on approach in teaching it this first time round so I can find out what works and what doesn't work.

2. ORGANISING. Outside of the class there is a lot of organisation to do. Firstly the lessons for the three native-speaker students have to be planned. Secondly dialogue with individual students and parents has to happen to ascertain the students' language needs, then liaison with tutors, booking rooms etc. It is really important that any GCSE level student has a tutor.

4. ASSESSING. When the students have completed the work, unless you happen to speak the language they are studying you can't assess it. You can see if they have done something on their blog, but you can't judge the quality of the work. Therefore you can't see any improvement, or give them advice on how to improve, which can be frustrating. Therefore you are relying on getting comments from adult native speakers to give you a clue as to what to say to the student to help them improve.

What do the students think?

Natalie is studying Korean - She thinks her vocabulary is improving, but not so much grammar. Liked most tasks, but speaking task hard because hard to speak out loud. Likes writing in Korean because it's always being polite and very different to how you speak, she also likes the exclusivity of being able to write in Korean, as it 'looks cool' and not many people can do it. She would find a tutor useful but would dislike doing speaking as she is not a confident Korean speaker. This said she is keen to have a tutor for one of the three lessons. 

Kaori - Likes having more chance to write. She has learnt how to write a news article - and about how the Japanese language does this. She tends to use vocabulary she already knows, not new vocabulary. Favourite topic so far: music - able to research about Japanese music.  Having another Japanese student of the same level would be good. Having a tutor with textbook would be better - so that the course is structured properly. Used to go to Japanese Epis here in Hong Kong, but it's made for people who go back to Japan to study and this is not her plan. She has been in HK 3 and half years - in Australia for 3 years before. For two years went to Japanese school in Australia but attended the English stream. 

Victor - He is studying Polish. He was born in New York (to Polish mother and Danish father), moved to Poland at 3 years of age. Lived in Poland until 3 months ago. Stepdad's contract moved the family to Hong Kong. Still speaks Polish with six year old brother and sister who is three. It is useful to practise Polish, helps keep up the language. Liked music topic, also art, cultural norms.  Likes the format of the lessons, interesting, new, different from the other lessons, breaks up the boring sameyness of lessons. Is strongly opposed to having a tutor as he sees the Hebrew students having to do a lot of dry, book-based work for their tutor who is quite strict with them.

Rushabh - Is studying GCSE level Spanish. He says he is definitely learning a lot of Spanish. No tutor outside of school but planning to get a tutor later. He thinks that not having a teacher makes him more independent with his learning, he is quite happy about how the course is going. 

Emma - Studying GCSE level Spanish. She feels she is getting to grips with the basics - clearing up everything. Feels like she has to motivate herself. First two lessons does whatever has been set by me. Third lesson doing tutor set work. 1 hour a week with tutor, doing past papers and building vocabulary. Wants to do GCSE this year, but if does not mind doing it again next year if she does not get a good grade first time round. 

Daniel - Studying GCSE level Spanish, but has not studied Spanish previously so starting from scratch. Now has a tutor to work with him 2 lessons a week during the Elements course. 

Hana - Studying GCSE level Japanese. She thinks it is good. She enjoys working independently but thinks that sometimes it's hard when you don't understand without tutor there. It's working well being tutored by Mayumi. She thinks it would be better to have the lessons scattered throughout the week. 

Ada -  She is studying Norwegian on the Norwegian government portal. She sometimes finds it hard to do everything. It's hard to ask questions as it takes time for the online teacher to reply because of the time difference. The online stuff is interesting - sometimes reads the news and learns about Norway.  Was 6 when came to Hong Kong. Hopes to go back and live in Norway. Would like to study in England or Australia. 

Nir - Hebrew. He thinks it's good because better than having lesson after school - now they have time to take part in after-school activities that they couldn't do before. Work with Riki helps him to improve. Groups are uneven his group doesn't feel as good as the other one. He sometimes finds the work too easy as he is the best student in the second group. Thinks he is in the middle of the native speakers in terms of level. Needs to work on spelling and most of grammar - and making his writing more descriptive. 

Barak - Hebrew. Bookwork - reading comprehension is easy, some of it is medium. Good structure. Discusses work with other students. Wants to do Hebrew self-taught. 

Nini - Hebrew. She thinks is it good. She thinks she has improved Hebrew. She is not a native speaker. Her heritage is American-Moroccan / South African. She feels like she is being pushed a lot being with native speakers. Classes are challenging. Riki speaks only in Hebrew. Needs Hebrew for IB, Bottom set Mandarin. 

Carol - Hebrew - she thinks it is good, but she feels as though doesn't speak enough. Would like to have more speaking work. The level is appropriate. Looking at IB self-taught.

Noa, Oded, Michael, Maya - All doing Set 1 Hebrew were having their lesson with the Hebrew tutor when I carried out these interviews. 

Thoughts upon reaching the halfway point of Term 1

EXTRA WORK. It is important that all the students have something to do in their language, such as a novel to read or a film to watch. This is because they all finish at different times and need to keep themselves occupied with different tasks.

DIFFERENTIATION. In any case the entire lesson is highly differentiated. The board in the classroom becomes a tangle of boxes and bubbles with instructions for different language and groupings quite early on in each lesson. It is very much like spinning a lot of different plates, there is so much to keep an eye on. On the other hand we are definitely treating each child like an individual with a highly individualised learning plan in this course.

BLOGS. The blogs are coming on well with the students who are putting their creative tasks on their. The students who work with a tutor or from a book don't understand very well why they are writing down what they do on their blog, as in doing this they are not necessarily learning anything. So they need regular reminding to keep a record of this.

ARR. This week the students added their comments to the ARR. Mostly they seem positive about the course.

INTERNET. We have been having problems with a very slow internet connection this week, which made me realise just how heavily this course relies on connecting to the Internet. It's hard to think of a way of students learning and practising languages I don't speak, together with speakers of other languages in a non-Internet way. I suppose I could set a written task - "What I did last summer" or similar, but then it would need reading and marking by a speaker of the relevant language.

First Cohort

In the first cohort of students (Aug-Dec 2013) we have the following:

HEBREW

Who is doing it? 8 students of Hebrew, ranging from fluent speakers to GCSE level speakers, all with Hebrew-speaking parents. They have hired a tutor between them. The tutor has split them into two groups of four according to ability. We have three lessons in the Elements course. The Hebrew students do prep work during period 1, set by the tutor. The higher level students have a lesson with the tutor in the second period while the lower level students complete a test. This situation then reverses for the third period

Is this working? To a certain extent, yes. They are by far the biggest group in the class, so they can dominate when they are all in the class. Splitting them into smaller groups and getting them out of the class for their lessons with the tutor is good. My concern is that the tutor's materials are very dry and purely grammatically based. There doesn't seem to be much room for creative or cultural work in what they do.

NORWEGIAN

Who is doing it? 1 student of Norwegian. Both parents are Norwegian. This student began the course by following the work set from the scheme of work we had prepared for native students. However, after three weeks of this she opted to follow instead the Norwegian governments online course for native Norwegian speakers living abroad, which she was already doing at home. In this she has an online tutor and is placed in a class of similar ability students located around the world.

Is this working? Yes. I think so. It is harder for me to monitor what she is doing on the government website, apart from looking at what she is doing in class and occasionally asking questions. However, on the face of it, the online course should be a very useful tool to help her with her language learning.

POLISH

Who is doing it? 1 student of Polish. This student is following the ILC scheme of work and producing a blog, on which he completes weekly tasks.

Is is working? Yes, he is doing the work and I hope he is improving. As a non-Polish speaker it is difficult for me to judge, and as yet we have had no parental input.

KOREAN

Who is doing it? 1 student of Korean. This student is following the ILC scheme of work and producing a blog. This is a very conscientious student. Her mother is very involved in what she is doing in this course. She sometimes phones her mother during the lesson to ask questions. Her mother has also suggested a site she can use to work on her Korean grammar.

Is it working? Definitely, with this hardworking and conscientious student the results seem to be good, she is practising her language and hopefully making an improvement.

JAPANESE

Who is doing it? 1 student of Japanese (native speaker) and 1 student of Japanese (GCSE level). The native speaker is following the ILC scheme of work and is doing well, there is parental input in the form of comments on the blog. The mother is very good at offering tips on what to do to improve. The GCSE student is a conscientious, hardworking student who has a tutor outside of school time. This tutor sets her work to do during the ILC session

Is it working? Yes for the native speaker. Yes, probably for the GCSE student, although it seems a shame she is one her own rather than in a larger GCSE class for Japanese in which she could interact with other students.

SPANISH

Who is doing it? 3 students of Spanish (GCSE level). Under my guidance they are following a GCSE Spanish course. This has already had to be differentiated, one of the students is weaker than the other two. Two of them may be able to take their Spanish in Year 10 as they are gifted and hardworking. 

Is it working? It is frustrating for me as I cannot teach them to the best of my ability, as I have to monitor the work of the other students and give every student equal attention. As with the Japanese GCSE student I feel they are missing out on something that the GCSE class provides. Self-studying a GCSE seems like a lonely task with little fun or enjoyment. However, none of them have complained. 

Links to all the students' blogs can be found here: ILC BLOG

Independent Language Centre

I have created this blog as somewhere to reflect upon the creation of a new academic course within Elements called 'Independent Language Centre'. The description of this course is as follows:

What it is: A place for students to study the language of their choice at the level of their choice, be it a home language or a second/third language. Each week will have a theme such as ‘Environment’, ‘Music’, ‘Traditions’ and a differentiated task to be completed by the end of the 3-lesson period. The second period of the three periods will be an independent study period.  
What it isn’t: Somewhere where students will be given a strict grammatical-based syllabus to learn a language or 1-1 tuition provided by the school in the student’s particular language choice. The school has always encouraged students to take in exams in languages other than those they learn in their regular MFL lessons, and this will continue to be the case. It may be the case that our Independent Language Centre students do wish to be entered by the school for a qualification at some point during years 9-11, but this will not be the primary focus of the ILC lessons.
What the staff do: Facilitate the individual, independent language learning of each student after liaising with parents. Students will be mapped against the European Language Framework to give them a level and encouraged to move on to the next level. Staff will introduce each lesson in an imaginative way and facilitate sharing sessions at the end of each 3-lesson period. Staff will talk to students each week on an individual basis about their progress and what they are doing to move on with their language studies.
What the staff cannot do: Teach individual students in the language of their choice. However, someone will need to regularly check the students’ work and offer feedback. For students studying a language not spoken by the teachers currently staffing this course (FR, ES, PT, JP, RU) they will need a tutor or adult who speaks the language to regularly check the work they are producing. This may be done for one hour during the middle of the three lessons or outside of school time.
Ongoing elements of the ILC course:Blog/Vlog: Students store their work in a multimedia blogReading Log: Students keep a record of books and articles they have read, programmes and films they have watched, songs they have listened to on their blog.Literature: During the course students choose and read a novel.
European Languages Framework (A1,A1+, A2, A2+, B1, B1+, B2, B2+, C1, C1+, C2) 11 levelshttp://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/elp-reg/Source/Key_reference/EAQUALSBank_levels_EN.pdf