Kit Field

Learning to teach modern foreign languages in the secondary school : a companion to school experience

1. Modern foreign languages in the secondary school curriculum 2. How do we learn to teach 3. Teaching methods and learning strategies in modern foreign languages 4. Observing and working collaboratively with MFL teachers 5. Teaching in the target language: A critical appraisal 6. Teaching listening, speaking, reading and writing 7. Teaching and learning grammar 8. Developing cultural awareness inside and outside the modern foreign lanuguages classroom 9. Pupil differences and differentiation in modern foreign languages teaching and learning 10. Assessment, marking, recording and reporting 11. Managing resources and learners in the MFL classroom 12. The use of ICT in modern foreign languages teaching and learning 13. The first appointment and professional development 14. Foreign language (FL) learning and second language acquisition (SLA) research: some implications for FL teaching and learning

You and your mentor

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a way in which your mentor should provide opportunities for you as a newly qualified teacher (NQT) to engage in the spiral process of evaluation, reflection and review as a means of achieving continuous professional development. The role of your mentor in this approach is to provide these opportunities in order to enable reflection to take place, in turn facilitating your progress as a NQT from one ‘phase’ of development to the next.

From mentor to co-tutor: reconceptualising secondary modern foreign languages initial teacher education

This paper1 traces recent developments in the work of modern foreign languages (MFL) mentors in secondary initial teacher education2 (ITE). It demonstrates how the nature of teacher education requires mentors, i.e. school — and subject-based partners, to emancipate themselves from the apprenticeship model of mentoring propounded since the early 1990s. This we regard as an essential requirement for engaging student teachers3 effectively in the sophisticated discourses required in relation to the multidimensional nature of their learning process. This inevitably involves a consideration on the part of school-based colleagues of conceptual and theoretical perspectives traditionally associated with HEI tutors. The paper considers the convergent roles of mentors and tutors, in particular how their dual contribution to ITE programmes points towards a new model of partnership characterised, amongst other things, by a notion of co-tutoring rather than a partnership of largely contrasting if complementary duties and responsibilities. Invariably new notions of partnership bring with them challenges for both school-based and HEI-based colleagues. For the former, the broadening of roles, whilst affording intellectual challenges in keeping with their status as educational professionals, also represents additional responsibilities on top of already heavy workloads. For the latter, issues to do with forging, maintaining, developing and monitoring these new types of partnership become increasingly central. The article moves from a discussion of more generic issues of ITE and mentoring to a consideration of more MFL-specific matters.

Evidence-based Subject Leadership

Abstract Subject leaders are, in simple terms, the Heads of Academic departments in schools. However, in reality, subject leaders are teachers who have responsibility for aspects of a subject or, indeed, a subject within a larger faculty. Therefore, subject leaders may have whole school responsibilities as the middle managers of an aspect of education, which impinges upon pupil learning. Special Educational Needs Co–ordinators and Pastoral leaders are considered by many to be subject leaders. This article considers the need for subject leaders to base their practice upon evidence. The writer also considers the nature and level of evidence, and the need for subject leaders to use research and enquiry techniques to generate it. Subject leaders are also managers, and it is argued that the use of data and evidence enables effective management in a range of areas. Evidence for this study is drawn from the scrutiny of assessment tasks and evaluations conducted by subject leaders on a MA programme in Subject Leadership running at the authors Higher Education Institution over a period of 3 years (1998-2001).

From observation to independence: signs of readiness for further progression

Abstract This paper considers the signs student teachers on a PGCE Secondary Course display as evidence of a readiness to progress to a higher level of performance. It includes activity types which enable mentors to assess progress in relation to established competence areas. The arguments and proposals are founded on the outcomes of qualitative research methods conducted over a period of time with mentors and student teachers on a PGCE Secondary Modern Foreign Languages programme.