This is (hopefully) the start of a series of posts looking at setting up interaction with a beginners’ class of Spanish in Year 7. My plan is to blog fairly briefly after each lesson for this half-term to show how interaction can be built up from the very beginning. I’ll have to see how doable this is in the thick of a term, but I’ll have a go. Everything I do in Spanish, I would also do with a French class, but I don’t have French on my timetable this year. There are only a few things I need to do slightly differently if I teach French, and if I remember to do so, I’ll mention those as I go along.

This is an area we’ve been looking at in an online event which takes place towards the middle of every half-term (and if you’re interested in hearing more about teaching through the target language and you’d like to come along, please drop me a line – it’s free!), called The Target Language Classroom Clinic, which is run in partnership with the National Modern Languages SCITT programme and it’s open to anyone interested in TL teaching.

Today, I saw my new Year 7 class for the first time. It’s a class of 20, so it’s small compared to classes I’ve taught elsewhere, 5 girls and 15 boys, mixed-ability. They are all doing just the one language at least up to the end of Year 8, when they can add another if they wish and if they’ve got on well with this, and they will have 6 one-hour lessons per fortnight. This is now the third year of us using this system, rather than dividing their time between two languages, and without any shadow of a doubt at all, it’s far better. For most of the pupils, Spanish is entirely new to them. Some have done a little bit, one or two have done a bit more, but for most, it’s new. The fact that this will all be in Spanish will be new to everyone in the class, which certainly helps to keep hold of those who have done some Spanish before so they don’t feel they’re doing the same thing all over again.

If I refer to anything any of the pupils say in these posts, obviously I won’t use any names, so I’m going to use the letters A-T depending on where they sit in my room. I use a horseshoe arrangement, with 4 pupils down the left side, 6 along the back, 4 down the right and 6 in a block in the middle.

Today was the very first lesson, so hardly any Spanish today – that starts next lesson – but this is what we did this morning, and all of it is vital if the rest is going to succeed:

  • Lining up outside the MFL block, how and where.
  • Register – all answer with ‘Presente’. Everyone was there today, so no need yet for ‘Hoy no está’ or ‘Ahora viene’, but I had my visuals ready, just in case.
  • Seating plan: The teaching world is divided on whether to use them or not and there are good reasons on either side. I do, and I change them every half-term. Apart from anything else, I value having pupils with SEND in parts of the room I can get to easily or where I can support discreetly, and also to make sure that any pupils who I know need to be apart are, and even in parts of the room where it’s not so easy to see each other (either end of the same row). This is also the moment I check pronunciation of names.
  • Scenario. This is where I describe to pupils something that happened in a normal lesson last year and they have to guess which year group I’m describing and when it was in the year. (It was Year 7 by October half-term). If you’d like to read the scenario, it’s almost word-for-word this.
  • Expectations: I tell them that they will be able to do the same by October half-term providing that they and I do certain things. Here they discuss with their partner what those expectations might be (that I have of them). They tell me (I throw a beach ball to individuals before they tell me their idea) and then I show them my list and everyone agrees to abide by them. I then tell them what they can expect of me.
  • Books: I give out the exercise books and they fill in the front with me, a line at a time, starting off in English but I slip into Spanish during this part. They write: Nombre / Apellido / Clase / Asignatura / Profesor. We pause between each one for examples to check understanding. It also gives me the opportunity to tell them about apellidos, double letters (doble s/f/p ¡no existe!) cognates (profesor) and false friends (asignatura). And it also helps them to get used to not picking up a pen until I say, etc. The books are collected back in a particular way (so that they are in the same order for giving out next time and all done in 10 seconds while I count down in Spanish) and that’s another routine set up.
  • Learning names: I use the same technique I’ve used for about 28 years now! It never fails and you can read all about it here, in a post from almost exactly 10 years ago! The beach ball makes a reappearance for this stage.
  • And that’s it! That was an hour. Next time (twice next Tuesday), I’ll take a few minutes to stick those Expectations into their books and to talk about Coping Strategies, and then we’re off.

Enjoy the weekend!