Thinking Through Modern Foreign Languages

The aim of Thinking Through Modern Foreign Languages is to provide thinking strategies that challenge and motivate pupils when teaching languages, and to stimulate thinking skills; moving away from 'teach, test, tick' methods in the languages classroom This book helps language teachers to improve their practice, make lessons more exciting and challenging for all concerned, and make pupils better learners. It connects theory and practice. The nine strategies included in Thinking Through Modern Foreign Languages have been classroom tested by teachers in a wide range of contexts. There is a body of theory that both helps to explain why the strategies work and how they can be exploited to maximum value. They provide a huge stimulus for professional development - they create enthusiasm, new ideas, the need to collaborate and to find out more about pupils' learning. The thinking strategies are deeply embedded in the National Curriculum and other national strategies which stress a focus for pupils on 'knowing how' as well as 'knowing what' - Learning how to learn.The five National Curriculum identified thinking skills of information-processing; reasoning skills; enquiry skills; creative thinking skills; evaluation skills are fully covered as are the key skills of communication; working with others; improving one's own learning and performance and problem solving. There are also cross-curricular benefits to Thinking Through Modern Foreign Languages which spread to Citizenship and PSHE. Teaching thinking contributes in quite spectacular ways to the Breadth of Study prescribed for pupils during Key Stages 3 & 4 through: *Communicating in the target language in pairs and groups, and with their teacher. *Expressing and discussing personal feelings and opinions. *Producing and responding to different types of spoken and written language. *Using the target language creatively and imaginatively. Thinking Through Modern Foreign Languages provides opportunities to promote Thinking Skills through: *Developing pupils' ability to draw inferences from unfamiliar language and unexpected responses. *Enabling pupils to reflect on the links between languages.*Developing pupils' creative use of language and expression of their own ideas, attitudes and opinions. Thinking Through Modern Foreign Languages opens up many possibilities for teachers and pupils and that in itself is liberating: *Opportunities for exploratory talk, both in and about the target language. *Giving pupils the space to think out loud, to make mistakes, to learn from each other. *Moving away from the transactional type of language and the rote learning that has tended to dominate language learning for too long. *Moving towards opportunities for meaningful interaction in the language and engagement with the language at more than a superficial level. The diagnostic value of Thinking Skills lessons helps teachers to do their job more efficiently. Lesons which 'take the lid off' how children think and learn, free teachers to make informed choices about how and when they might best intervene to take learning forward.

This book is for newly qualified teachers and PGCE students of modern foreign languages. It covers the training standards for NQTS but goes beyond this with a focus on the subject expertise they bring into teaching.

This book tackles the contentious issue of whether and how thinking should be taught in schools. It explores how best to help children become effective thinkers and learners. The book also examines whether there is one set of underlying cognitive skills and strategies which can be applied across all the curriculum subjects and beyond. Its main thrust, however, is a detailed examination of approaches to developing cognitive skills which are specific to the National Curriculum. The book provides chapters from both generalists and subject specialists to illustrate how teachers in different subject areas can benefit from taking a cognitive approach to their subject. It will give teachers a clear understanding of different approaches to teaching thinking and how these fit together.

Across the world, education is being restructured to include greater focus on developing critical and creative skills. In second language education, research suggests that cognition and language development are closely related. Yet despite increasing interest in the teaching of thinking skills, critical thinking has not been widely intergrated into language teaching. Thinking Skills and Creativity in Second Language Education presents a range of investigations exploring the relationship between thinking skills and creativity, and second language education. Focusing on cognitive, affective, social, and emotional perspectives, this book highlights current research and raises questions that will set the direction for future research. Its aims are as follows: Provide an in-depth understanding of the link between second language development and thinking skills. Consider approaches to developing thinking skills in second language instruction. Examine practices in implementing thinking skills in second language learning. Offer an updated list of sources of information on thinking skills in second language education. A new addition to the Research on Teaching Thinking and Creativity series, this book is relevant to researchers in the field of educational psychology, to Masters degree and PhD students in this field, and to anyone interested in developing thinking skills.

Issues in Modern Foreign Languages Teaching draws together a range of issues in the teaching of modern foreign languages into one volume that will encourage students and newly qualified teachers to consider and reflect on the issues so that they can make a reasoned and informed judgement about their teaching of MFL. It will be relevant for students and newly qualified teachers at both primary and secondary level and will fill a gap in their knowledge due to time constraints - and an emphasis on standards - on ITT and PGCE courses.

Learning to Plan Modern Languages Lessons contains a wealth of guidance and ideas for those learning to teach in secondary schools. Drawing on extensive experience and research in the field, it offers detailed explanation of basic lesson planning methods and the principles that underpin them, illustrated by worked examples of well-planned lessons. The book shows how to progress from planning smaller activities to full lessons to sequences of lessons, and how to ensure progression for your students. Specific aspects of language learning such as grammar and culture are explored, together with ideas for how to make your planning skills more effective in long-term collaborative and reflective practice. Starting from a presentation, practice, production (PPP) model of language teaching, the book aims to: provide structured, practical starting points in lesson planning for beginning teachers of modern languages (ML); deepen knowledge and understanding of ML as a subject and how it is learnt (pedagogical subject knowledge), in order to inform and support planning decisions; develop understanding of lesson planning as part of a planning cycle; enhance understanding of strategies and professional development opportunities to promote the further development of planning abilities. Including reflective/discussion tasks and example lesson plans Learning to Plan Modern Languages Lessons is a must-read book for beginning and more experienced teachers of any modern language.

This book presents an innovative teaching experiment and an analytical study of critical thinking and the sociocultural theory of learning to illustrate the cognitive learning development mechanisms. It addresses the issues in developing critical thinking, including the controversy surrounding the definition, measurement and teaching of critical thinking, particularly in the L2 context. The book explains how infusion-thinking lessons can be structured to help students develop critical thinking along with language learning. Further, it uses a case study as a real-world example to examine the applicability and feasibility of infusion-thinking lessons in the EFL context and their effectiveness in developing students’ critical thinking and language learning. Packed with thinking activities and techniques, this practical, hands-on manual provides original ideas and empirical data, giving teachers everything they need to plan their lessons to improve students’ critical thinking within language courses and evaluate their teaching.

The eight chapters in this book address the question of teacher development, including maintaining and developing teacher skills; applying reflective teacher practice; developing thinking skills and fostering student autonomy in ELT; carrying out educational research; developing assessment techniques; understanding and correcting students' errors and preparing for your Practicum. Each chapter includes tasks for consolidating the information and more extensive assessment tasks.