How do trainees plan for input, output and interaction / input and practice?

speaking activities, it became apparent that there was another more pressing issue, that of input.

Although not all 33 units of work focused on speaking skills, they should all have included some speaking and listening activities, as explained below, and they were therefore used as suitable sources of data for this research question.

Speaking and listening are integral parts of language development and of teaching and learning in MFL. The roles of input, output and interaction in theories of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) are discussed in the literature review. At the level of practice, all MFL teaching is expected to include all four skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing. This is reflected in the requirements of the National Curriculum for languages, Revised KS3 Framework for Languages (2009), and in the GCSE specification (e.g. Edexcel, 2009, AQA, 2014). It is made clear to trainees that a focus on one skill for the academic writing in the assignment should not lead to neglect of the other three skills in the unit of work. Therefore, all 33 units of work are included as sources of data for this part of the analysis

The Revised KS3 NS MFL Framework (DCSF, 2009:1), included five strands concerned with speaking and listening:

Understanding and responding to the spoken word. Developing capability and confidence in listening. Being sensitive to the spoken word. Talking together. Presenting and narrating.

Speaking and listening are established, acknowledged elements of MFL teaching. Van Ek (1977) and Mitchell (1994) wrote of the benefits of using recorded material to give students experience of hearing other speakers as well as their teachers. Before the introduction of the tripartite lesson and AfL, the expectation was that all four skills would be included in each lesson. This expectation has disappeared, apparently because a proportion of lesson time is now needed for the plenaries and AfL introduced in the KS3 NS MFL Framework (DfES, 2003).

Now that the lesson time has to be shared in these ways, it has become more difficult to cover all four skills in one lesson but the expectation is that all four skills would be included in a unit of work. This is made clear in the guidance on writing a scheme of work, given to trainees in the Macadamia University’s MFL ITE Handbook, and reinforced

in CS sessions on lesson planning and on preparation for the written assignment of which the unit of work is an integral part.

The lesson plans in the 33 units of work were analysed using Ellis’ (2005) Principles of Instructed Language Learning, discussed in the literature review, as an evaluative framework. Matching planned activities to ‘principles’ was not always straightforward but it did give an overview of trainees’ practice, or at least of their lesson planning. The analysis was done twice, first looking only at the type of activity included in the plans to identify any omissions and secondly looking at the time allocated to those activities. A significant omission across all three cohorts was the provision of substantial input as either reading or listening activities.

4.3.1. Planning for Input and practice

Input was considered as both listening and reading exercises. Practice activities included writing and speaking exercises and games. The first qualitative analysis suggested that extensive input was lacking across the three cohorts, with very little of any sort in Cohort 1. Only one Unit in each of Cohorts 2 and 3 included a substantial piece of text. Listening activities were particularly scarce across all three cohorts, confirming the impression noted in field notes on lesson observations in the 19 schools during the three years of the study.

Most trainees in each cohort used games as practice activities. Interaction opportunities were planned pair work and group work activities but in each Cohort these were often scripted as part of an earlier writing task. The use of a script raises doubts as to whether the dialogues produced should really be classed as practice activities rather than interactions.

Writing a script for a dialogue limits pair work to practising rather than extending students’ existing knowledge, but it does allow planning time for speaking which is accepted as a beneficial stage in a task-based approach (Willis, 1996). The challenge is to move beyond reliance on script to improvisation, to achieve what Caré terms the ‘rupture’ between the two (Caré, 1993) and this is explored further in the analysis of the seven units of work which focused on speaking skills. Of those seven, the trainee who achieved the greatest movement away from reliance on script was Yvonne in Cohort 3, working with a top set Year 9 class. She allowed preparation time for speaking activities but forbade the students to write a script.

The time planned for input, output and interaction was counted in all the units of work which confirmed that some trainees planned very little input, but with a range of 4 - 42 %, and time for interaction in TL ranged from 0 to 17 % (see Appendix 7). The quantitative analysis yielded fewer helpful insights than the qualitative had done, largely because the difficulty of categorising some activities, for example scripted dialogues or speaking games from the lesson plans raised doubts about the reliability of the figures produced.

All seven trainees who worked on speaking skills planned their units of work with a range of activities to practise the language the students would need to use in their presentation or dialogue but there were striking differences in the balance of activities and the amount of input provided in each unit of work, as shown below. The lowest proportion of input was in Karen’s lessons which used two listening activities and a model script as the only input in seven lessons. Whereas Yvonne’s four lessons included three listening activities, Lindsay’s students did one listening exercise which involved matching vocabulary to pictures but not the dialogue they would later perform. Surprisingly, Zoe spent half the time in her four lessons on writing activities but she included a large number of speaking games to increase students’ confidence. Guy’s class did eight speaking exercises and apparently completed the most challenging speaking task although he does not indicate whether students had access to support materials during the task. The ratio of input: output: interaction in the seven trainees’ plans for their units of work on speaking skills is shown below:

Karen Timings are unclear; plans included more output, e.g. writing script, than input activities.

Lindsay 14:23:11 Output was one speaking exercise and 4 exercises where students wrote sentences.

Patsy 24: 26:9 5 out of 6 lessons involved at least one exercise in each of speaking, reading and listening

Guy 15: 26: 10 Output was 8 speaking exercises and 4 writing exercises Zoe 16: 50: 2 6 speaking games and 4 writing exercises in 4 lessons Yvonne 19: 15:16 3 listening, 3 speaking and 3 writing activities in 4 lessons

Tina Timings are unclear; plans included a number of speaking games and one evaluation notes a need for more input

There are a number of difficulties in interpreting the figures. The assignment brief to focus on one skill in the essay might have skewed the trainees’ choice of activities, although the guidance notes remind trainees to include all four skills in the unit of work.

4.3.2. Target language use as input - trainees’ lesson evaluations

In the seven assignments which had focused on speaking skills, the trainees’ evaluations of their individual lessons were analysed for references to the trainees’ use of target language (TL) in their lessons. Eight of the 40 evaluations mentioned TL use, in each case regretting missed opportunities for greater use of TL or resolving to use more TL in future lessons.

Trainees’ experience of using target language

Although some had used TL successfully with at least some of their classes, most trainees’ experience of using TL in their lessons had been negative, either because the students were openly hostile to using TL or because the students were simply unused to it. This was put most succinctly by Frank (Cohort 1 line 40) but also in the exchange which followed in which other trainees speak of behaviour management problems if they tried to use TL (Cohort 1 line 43), although one trainee found the opposite (Cohort 1, line 44). One trainee teaching German had tried using TL to reprimand a student but this provoked references to Hitler from the students (Cohort 1 line 45). The full transcripts of the Cohort 1 and 3 discussions are presented in Appendix 8 and their comments on using target language in their placement schools are collated here.

Students’ Hostility and frustration

Trainees spoke of the hostile reaction they had encountered form their classes when using TL and one quotation speaks volumes:

I tried speaking French, the kids said “fuck off we speak English in this country”, so quite negative really (Frank, Cohort 1 line 40)

One trainee, Faye, who had had a much more positive experience, and was already committed to the use of TL, had worked with two mentors with an established pattern of TL use. The importance of departmental culture was clear. At one school, a student had asked the Cohort 3 trainee, Yvonne “Miss, are you taking this class because you can speak Spanish?” which Yvonne took to be a comment about the class teacher’s use of TL. Other comments from trainees were:

It needs for department cohesion, teachers help each other. TL is new to the students (Cohort 1, line 88)

The class is not used to TL, they need it consistently (Cohort 1, line 91) It depends on the routines with the previous teacher. I try to use as much as possible but, if they’re not used to it, it’s more difficult (Cohort 3, line 16) I have Y7 not understanding écoutez in March, they can’t have had any target language . (Cohort 3, line 17)

It’s more difficult to impose than I expected (Cohort 3, line 18)

This demonstrates the obstacle to trainees’ TL use created by the lack of established TL use in schools. Hence the validity of “Teaching is a craft best learned in the classroom” (Gove, 2010) is challenged by trainees’ experience.

Other comments on using TL include students’ lack of confidence or experience in using TL and students’ shyness as a barrier to their participation in speaking activities, for example

Some are badly shy, they’re afraid of looking silly (line 67) This was echoed by a cohort 3 trainee who said

Some classes are easier than others some just look at you like “what?” and they don't understand. It’s not just experience it’s the personalities if they’re afraid of [ridicule], it affects their confidence. (Cohort 3, line 15)

The most striking example of speaking as a neglected skill is in line 68

They tend not to do many [speaking] activities because it’s difficult then it makes the exam a big deal. (line 68)

The type of Target Language use

As well as the need for students to be able to practise using TL, Cohort 3 discussed the type of target language use which would support students’ learning.

Also you have to separate out types of TL, is it just instructions or explanations too? [Gives examples from yesterday’s lesson] It’s getting them to use it. (Cohort 3 line 19)

Is it speaking or any exposure....is it reading, listening and writing too? It’s getting them to use it. It’s too limiting if it’s just instructions. (Cohort 3 line 120 There seems to be a tipping point, all of a sudden it clicks, for example at sixth form, are we expecting too much at this stage?(line 33)

At the moment, students want it all in place so they know exactly what to say, there’s a tension, how can you explain things if they don't know “écoutez” or instructions. (line 29)

This exchange questions the assumption that the use of TL by the teacher will somehow enable the student to speak the language. Not all the expressions suggested in textbooks, or in lists produced for use in language classrooms, have obvious transferability to other contexts. The expressions are often imperative forms of verbs for use by the teacher. For student use, the list includes apologies, such as “I have forgotten my book” or requests likely to be met with a refusal, such as “May I go to the toilet?”. The question about the role of the other three skills in language acquisition is perceptive. It is similar to the point made in line 1 of the earlier group’s discussion, but phrased in more tentative language, combined with the further point that the issue is encouraging students to use the language.

4.4. The balance of generic and subject-specific pedagogy