Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School, Oldham

1. Personal Learning & Thinking Skills in the Languages Classroom Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School, Oldham Twitter: @icpjoneshttp://twitter.com/icpjones My Languages Blog http://isabellejones.blogspot.com PLTS in MFL Wiki http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com

2. You will... • Look at strategies for embedding PLTS in your daily practice • Audit your own practice • Consider different approaches to promote PLTS in your classroom • Widen your repertoire of Thinking Skills activities • Find out what ICT tools can support the development of PLTS resources

3. Are PLTS here to stay? • Not a new concept: Personal Learning + Thinking Skills • Independent learning skills • Learners’ social interactions • Making the link/ transfer knowledge • NOT a government initiative-focus for good practice

4. Bloom’s Taxonomy Give opinions, assess/ criteria Express rules, summarise, create Identify patterns and rules Predict, infer Explain, describe, illustrate Information recall: identify, list

5. PRICE Taxonomy 5 types of Thinking Skills: • Information-Processing skills • Reasoning skills • EnquIry skills • Creative Thinking skills • Evaluation skills

6. PLTS in the Secondary National Curriculum self manager independent enquirer creative thinker team worker reflective learner effective participator

7. Embedding PLTS the BLP Way Building Learning Power, Guy Claxton “The 6 clusters of qualities are more than Skills that can be trained... The point is to cultivate these qualities into becoming dispositions, or habits of mind... Cultivation of the PLTS should run through the curriculum, life and ethos of the school, like lettering through a stick of rock”

8. Embedding PLTS the BLP Way The 4 Rs • Resilience: absorption, managing distractions, noticing, perseverance; • Resourcefulness:questioning, making links, imagining, reasoning, capitalising; • Reflectiveness:planning, revising, distilling, meta-learning; • Reciprocity:interdependance, collaboration, empathy and listening.

9. Audityourown practice • Which PLTS areas do I find are the easiest to integrate in my practice? • Can you give examples of activities? • Which PLTS areas do you think are the most difficult to integrate? • Why?

10. Strategies for Embedding PLTS • Aiming to deliver a wide variety of tasks in a varied way: impact on resource design and nature of interactions in classroom; • Opportunities highlighted in SoWs & examples of activities shared; • Focus on developing students’ skills and independence.

11. Strategies for Embedding PLTS • Introducing Meta-language to talk about learning: mats, display • Overlaps with AFL and SEAL • Training of support staff like FLAs • Focus on developing PLTS as a wholeschool approach • http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/2009/10/flip-cramlington-model-for-developing.html • http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/2009/10/flip-approach-for-languages-at.html

12. Promoting PLTS: Mats

13. Promoting PLTS: Using cross-curricular Thinking Skills tools

14. Promoting PLTS: Using cross-curricularThinkingSkillstools

15. Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Overlaps

16. Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Overlaps

17. Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Lesson Objectives Objectifs: • Look at the specific skills required to do well the Speaking Controlled Assessment • Identify and use “interesting” phrases to improve the range of the language used SEAL objectives: Motivation (red) • I monitor and evaluate my own work • I set challenges and targets for myself and celebrate when I achieve them

18. Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Lesson Objectives Vers le succès (Steps to Success): • Developing strategies to start off answers in different ways • Say & understand how time phrases, connectives, comparatives, reasons & opinions can improve your linguistic range • Practise speaking ensuring you do not pronounce silent letters Vers le progrès (Path to Progress): Be able to develop your speaking answers using a range of structures • Recognise your strengths • Be aware of how you are doing • Learn from mistakes

19. Strategies for Developing PLTS through languages activities Use mystery pictures Use links between pictures: and, but Compare pictures : use comprative, because Say what happened before Say what might happen after Read/Listen to clues to identify one specific picture

21. Points forts et Points faibles L’alcool: C’est relaxant mais c’est cher Le jeu Le tabac Plus … que (more … than) Moins … que (less … than) Aussi … que (as… as) La drogue L’alcool: C’est plusrelaxantque le jeu mais c’est aussicher que le tabac

22. Diamond nine cards.doc http://classtools.net/

23. Pourquoi pas?  1. Parce que ça sent mauvais 2. Parce que c’est dégoûtant 3. Parce que ça donne le cancer 4. Parce que ça cause des crises cardiaques 5. Parce que c’est facile de devenir dépendant 6. Parce que c’est trop cher 7. Parce que c’est du gaspillage 8. Parce que c’est difficile d’arrêter 9. Parce que c’est illégal 10.Parce que c’est dangereux 11.Parce que c’est mauvais pour le foie 12.Parce que ça fait grossir/ ça coupe l’appétit 13.Parce ce que c’est mauvais pour la santé

24. L’alcool, le tabac ou les drogues? Le tabac L’alcool Les drogues

25. Showing off your PLTS KS3 or KS4 lesson on healthy eating What would you do to “show off your PLTS”? • Classroom set-up • Activities • Resources (including ICT if relevant)

26. How embedded are your Thinking Skills/ PLTS? *Schemes of Work: mapping out of Thinking Skills lesson opportunities sharing PLTS objectives *Evidence of: • Collaborative team work [+Seating arrangement, Display] • Students using “meta-language” • Students as Independent learners • Cross-curricular support/time dedicated to skills building across the curriculum

27. Independent Enquirer Activities • Intercultural understanding-identify features • Flickr http://www.flickr.com • taggalaaxy http://taggalaxy.de/ • French Google http://www.google.fr • Spanish Google http://www.google.es

28. Independent Enquirer Activities Intercultural understanding-reflecting on identity and finding out about France http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LXaSFgVxGs Find songs with repetitive structures And get students to also be more Creative with the language... Je viens de là où...

29. Creative Thinkers Activities • Poems: recipes, acrostics, calligrams, comparisons • Song-Stromae “Alors on danse” [Lyrics world app] • Transfer structure: Stromae_on_danse : Qui dit... • Rebus http://www.rebus-o-matic.com/index.php • Rebus Malin iphone

30. Creative Thinkers Activities Stromae-Alors on danse... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKrVB5f2W0 Structure suggested for students’ own poem/ song (complete) examples of student’s responses Qui dit amour dit … haine/ famille Qui dit parents dit… bagarres/problèmes Qui dit enfants dit … futur/larmes Qui dit vacances dit … rire/ désastre Qui dit études dit … travail/ennui Oui dit travail dit … argent/ennui Qui dit copains dit ... amusement/bavarder

31. Creative Thinkers Activities Making links: Learners are given a selection of familiar words and asked to make a concept map by adding connecting words between the words already on the list. http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1751079/Me_gusta

32. Reflective Learners Activities Fact or opinion “On mange mieux en France qu’en Angleterre” Discute et range les phrases selon leurs catégories 2 stars and 1 wish Direct Post-it notes Wallwisher http://www.wallwisher.com

33. Reflective Learners Activities 2 stars and a wish (direct/ post-it notes/ wallwisher) http://www.wallwisher.com http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/wjn8yXcz14

34. Effective Participator Activities • Get involved in outreach activities: resources for Primary (mini books, recording stories, using video-conferencing), open evening • Organising a languages club/ café • Involvement in activities to prepare for a trip, exchange, option evening • Displays, videos, LAFTA competition...

35. Team Worker Activities • Running dictation/ collective memory • Students work together to create or re-create a text or a visual image in the form of a map, picture or diagram. Each student look at stimulus for a short period of time (e.g. 10 seconds) before returning to reproduce the original • Wikis: Collaborative Writing Task: http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/l%27histoire+sans+fin

36. Team Worker Activities • Collaborative Writing Task: Wikis http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/l%27histoire+sans+fin

37. SOLO Taxonomy Stands for Structures of Observed Learning Outcomes Developed by Biggs and Collis in 1982 Describes levels of increasing complexity in a student’s understanding of a subject With the highest level being the extended abstract level, when students can make connections not only within the given area but also beyond it. Students will also be able to generalise and transfer the principles and ideas to another area. Are we allowing our students to make these connections?

38. You should have ... • More ideas for strategies to embed PLTS in your daily practice • Reflected on your own practice • Considered different approaches to promote PLTS in your classroom • A wider repertoire of Thinking Skills activities • Found out what ICT tools can support the development of PLTS resources

39. Personal Learning & Thinking Skills in the Languages Classroom Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School, Oldham Twitter: @icpjoneshttp://twitter.com/icpjones My Languages Blog http://isabellejones.blogspot.com PLTS in MFL Wiki http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com