Over the last month or so our language department meetings have focused on trying to agree some common ground on what the ideal language classroom looks and sounds like. What is 'good' or 'effective' language teaching and learning? How do we achieve it? Whittling all those 'good things' we try to do down to a list of just 3 or 4 is actually a much tougher task than it seems.  An easy way to find out is of course to just ask the students! So here are my two key points from my 8 years of teaching, lots of conversations with other language teachers, a look at the relevant research and literature in the area and, of course, asking the students what they think. I'd love to know what you guys think so please leave your comments below:

1. 'Use' of the Target language is key:
Both by the students and the teacher. The teacher should speak almost entirely in the target language but at a level understandable to the students so they get that all important 'comprehensible input'. Students need to wrap their mouth around the new words and sounds they are hearing so should speak the language with their peers and teacher in every class. Pair work and group work is a great help here as are things like 'exit tickets'. As I often say to my students: Do you play an instrument? Do you play a sport? Will you improve your guitar or football playing by just watching someone else do it and studying how their feet or hands move? Maybe a little, yes. But how do you really improve? You need to actually play the guitar or kick the ball. It is the same with learning  language.

2. The classroom should be Active, Supportive and Cooperative:

• Active: Varied tasks that get students up and moving at least once during class to keep them awake and concentrated 
• Supportive: Everyone should feel comfortable making mistakes and asking questions in the target language 
• Cooperative: Students should frequently work together on varied tasks using the target language to communicate.

If, like me, you are a language teacher trying to find this elusive ‘ideal language-learning environment’ maybe all we need to do is follow the advice we routinely give our students: “If you are unsure, just ‘ASC’”.

Below is a paper I wrote entitled "Towards a model for the ideal language learning environment for secondary school adolescent pupils" for anyone who like to read a bit more on this topic. Please do leave your comments below or tweet me @liamprinter. 

Towards the Ideal Language Learning Environment

For the past few years I've been researching various PhD and Doctorate programs in Education and finally I took the plunge and applied for the one that really stood out to me last November: The Doctor of Education in the University of Bath. To be honest I really didn't think I had much chance of being offered a place so only told a couple of friends. One being the Head of our Maths Department, Jason Murphy. He seemed keen too and we kind of pushed each other to actually follow through on all the chat and apply. In fact it was Jason who applied first and when I got that text from him that simply said "application sent" I knew I had to do it too. 

The 6 week turn around deadline came and went just before we left for winter break so we both silently thought "oh well, at least we tried". But then, just a few days before the program is supposed to start I received an email from the University of Bath admissions team apologizing for the delay as a key person had been off for a month on leave. The email was an "unconditional offer" and they sincerely hoped I could get everything organized to join next week. I was absolutely ecstatic. This was something like a life long goal I'd set myself about 10 years ago and now it was going to begin. (Yes, I am aware there is the little matter of 4 years of study plus a Doctoral thesis still to come!!). So the last few days have been hectic filling of forms, registrations and emailing colleagues to ensure everything would be in place to cover my absence.

The best part though - Jason was also offered a place so we will start together... in 3 days time!! Luckily we both work in a school that supports us fully where getting the release time and class cover was never an issue. We have a really vibrant professional learning program headed up by Dr. Paul Magnuson and a new Educational Research department this year you can read more about here that is always there to help us and support us with improving our practice. 

Why on earth do you want to do a Doctorate? Are you crazy??

This is the common response I heard whenever I mentioned my desire to do a PhD to people who are doing a Doctorate or have done one already. Expect my business partner actually - the newly crowned Dr. Sean Foy of The Learning Curve Institute. He said what he always says "Do it man". Why do a Doctorate? Quite simple because I know I still have so much to learn. I want to be a better teacher. For me, engaging in professional learning and always trying to improve my practice keeps the job as exciting and makes me love it even more. Trying out a new approach, collaborating with colleagues about teaching ideas and discovering what the evidence and research says are all things that keep the job fresh and alive. I love teaching and I love learning and there are always things I know I can do better. I want to be better at my job. I want my students to be genuinely happy and love coming to my classes. I'm still a long way off achieving these elusive goals but hopefully the Doctorate will allow me to research some areas that will bring me closer to achieving them in the future.

Like many other Irish expats, I've always thought about going back to 'scoil' and doing an Irish (or 'Gaelic' Irish to those of you not from Ireland!) refresher course at some stage... but low and behold our prayers have been answered as Duolingo has released a new course in Irish now!

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Duolingo is an excellent language learning app in the style of a game. It's free and really easy to use. I have my classes use it all the time for 5 minutes at the beginning or end of class and award extra points to those who are top of the leaderboard at the end of the week. As language teachers we are always trying to find ways to get our students actively involved in the language outside the class. With Duolingo it seems I have really managed to achieve this as I can see that almost all my students are using the app on their own outside class in their free time.

Of course, in my opinion at least, it is no substitute for the real live classroom or for immersing yourself in the language by going to where it is spoken. However it is a really excellent complimentary tool if you are currently studying a language or as a way of refreshing language skills you learnt a few years ago, as I've been doing for German and now, for Irish!

My students have become really interested in it and they compete against each other to see who can get to the highest level. It has been a really great way for them to learn new vocabulary and to practice grammar we are doing in class. The great this is that you can easily login with facebook and you can also follow your mates and see their progress. 

If any of you have an account please feel free to look me up and follow me:
https://www.duolingo.com/liamprinter

And now it is 't-am' for some Duolingo 'as Gaeilge'! 

I can't take all the credit for this one I must admit but I wanted to share as it worked so well. My Department Head and excellent French teaching colleague, Mrs. Sarah Goodman, allowed me to steal her wonderful idea for teaching the house vocabulary so I now want to share with all of my fine readers. The brilliant thing about this project is that the students are more or less teaching themselves and they learn so much more than the mere vocabulary associated with the house; they also learn prepositions of place, the verbs "hay" and "estar", places in the town, expressions of opinion, quantities, sizes, colours and so much more... all in one project.

The project is called "The house of my dreams" and the students have to plan and draw out their dream house on a large poster, labeling all the rooms and pieces of furniture on their minimum two floors. They are encouraged to be as creative as possible. Next they have to write a 'sales pitch' with at least 25 phrases outlining why the buyer should purchase their house. They have to list what amenities are close-by, what is in the neighborhood, where items are located etc and all using very persuasive vocabulary. 

Finally on 'Sales Day' they dress up and present their house to their classmates and teachers who are circling the room asking them questions. Teachers from other classes stopped by and some even brought their native Spanish speakers with them to increase the authenticity of the speech yet further. They were not allowed to have any notes or their speech in front of them, they had to go from memory using their house plan as a guide. In the end, after they had all played the role of both buyer and seller, they each received one voting card where they could vote for one house they would buy listing their reasons (in Spanish) as to why they would purchase it. Every vote they received earned them an extra point on the marking scheme.

I circled the room and talked to them all about their houses and used a grading rubric to mark them on their spoken Spanish as well as their written speech which they had to submit. To say the project was a success is an understatement. They excelled, especially the students with a lower language ability. On their 'one minute summary' feedback post-its they said they loved telling others about their house and loved having others come and "inspect" their plans. They also stated how they liked "getting dressed up as a real estate agent" and they said they surprised themselves at how much they could say. They learnt so much in this two week project that I wouldn't hesitate to do it again and their confidence with speaking grew exponentially. Thank you to Mrs. Goodman for such an awesome idea! Let me know if you've done anything similar in the comments below guys!

Every year the Irish Teaching Council organize 'FEILTE' - the Festival of Education In Learning and Teaching Excellence where a mix of showcases and workshops spanning projects from across the education sector, demonstrate the innovation happening in teaching and learning at the moment.

This year the event took place on October 4th and I was lucky enough to be selected to present on my use of on-going feedback and specifically "How student feedback changed my classroom". The official title was "The Irish Abroad: A look at the action research projects undertaken by Irish teachers in a Swiss International School". My colleague, Dublin born Ronan Lynch, joined me and he started our workshop with an overall presentation on the professional learning programme here in our school. I then went on to explain how I use feedback in my class to increase motivation and student ownership of their learning by modeling various methods of feedback collection I use in my class.

Some of the most popular ones with the group were the really simple ones like "close your eyes and show me with your hands your understanding of how to give feedback. 1 finger being no understanding at all and 5 being that you consider yourself an expert". This is such a simple method that can be used at any time in the class to get into the heads of your students and find out what they really know or understand about a concept. It is also a very safe method for the students as they can safely say they have no idea without the fear of being ridiculed or feeling silly in front of their peers.

Another very simple method that the participants really liked was the 'one minute summary'. We actually did this with them at the end of our workshop where we asked those in attendance to write down two things they liked from the session and one burning question they had. The idea is they first see if the person next to them can answer their question and if not then the teacher can answer it in the next class. This can be adapted in lots of different ways but essentially you use the 'power of the post-it' to get some quick feedback from the class as to what methods are helping them and what they still need help with.

Please feel free to contact me directly for any further information on the use of feedback in the classroom. You can also check out the full Prezi by clicking here.

So after a week of various activities designed to teach and practice the future tense ('will do' etc) such as TPRS, making up stories, worksheets and reading, I needed to come up with a fun way to assess the students learning. The previous week the class had voted to be assessed orally this time. Where do you always hear lots of the future tense in life? A fortune teller of course! The off the cuff plan was hatched!

How was the room arranged?
We arranged the chairs so the fortune tellers were seated around the room by the walls facing two chairs. The two chairs would be filled by pairs of students who were to be two newlyweds desperate to know what the future holds for them. My highly skilled psychic fortune tellers were hand selected by me as I wanted to use those with the best level of Spanish so they had a chance to show off what they know whilst also subconsciously teaching the pair of newlyweds. They were instructed to come up with the wildest, craziest, weirdest futures they possibly could.

Teach skills as well as content
My 'newlyweds' all composed of at least one person who was a 'mega rich billionaire' who had paid over $350,000 (figure the kids came up with!) for 15 minutes with this world renowned fortune teller. At these extortionate rates it was vital the fortune teller gave lots of information and spoke continuously for the 15 minutes. If he or she didn't do this then it was the role of my 'billionaires' to give out and say 'I am paying you a lot of money. Give me more information'. Some of my recently married couples were also in very modern relationships containing two men, two women or in some cases even 3 people. (This is a lovely way to tackle head on those kids who laugh or complain when placed in a 'modern' couple... challenging and questioning openly their stigmas towards homosexuality if they had any).

Any specific language based instructions?
The only specific language instruction was that the future tense "you will" had to be used. In addition the couple were instructed that they must repeat in utter shock every detail they are told. So it sounded like this "aha... yes I see, you will both go to Jamaica next year" to which they had to respond "What?? We will both go to Jamaica next year". I modeled this with a student at the front of the class before the activity and it served to ensure the entire class was laughing, smiling, enjoying class and most importantly... speaking the target language.

The students (all aged 16-18) loved this part with me being involved. In addition it kept the activity going longer and made our eclectic psychics go through a whole new 'future' with the couple and repeat the process all over again. After another 5-7 minutes the happy couples were instructed to leave without paying and say they will never be back again. At this stage all the couples rotated and went to the next fortune teller where they had to tell the new fortune teller what the last one had told them... "he told us we will have 5 children, then he told us we will go to Jamaica etc." = more practice. 

Using TPRS circling technique to review
The final piece involved getting the fortune tellers to stand up at the end and say what their clients will do in their future. Here the class is now listening to and practicing the 'they' form. I would interrupt every so often at this stage using the TPRS technique of circling - repeating the phrase with a question that I know is false so the class then had to respond together and correct me: "What? They will go to France"... "No Sir, they will go to Jamaica"... "ahhhh, yes, that is right. They will go to Jamaica". Or asking an 'either/or' question like "Will they go to France or will they go to Jamaica?".... "Ahh, yes, I remember, they will go to Jamaica". Once again here this is all in order to increase the repetitions and the comprehensible input.

How did we review and solidify the learning? First step was an 'Exit Ticket' - students had to tell me one thing that will happen according to the fortune teller in order to be able to leave the room. Second step was homework - write out what the fortune teller told you or write out what you told the clients.

Final thoughts and reflections:
The students absolutely loved this activity and some of them mentioned it directly in their class feedback at the end of the week, stating how much fun it was and how much it helped them to learn. In addition, I also loved my day at work that day. I laughed so much and had such a fun time with them listening to their crazy creative minds being let loose on someone else's future! So much so that I will definitely do it again... see what I did there huh huh? "Will" definitely do it again? Ahhh... never mind! Until next time! Please leave me your comments!