Why did you start looking for a tool like This is School?

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‍I arrived at this school just under five years ago, and the school had already signed up for it. I got to learn about it and got to start using it through the fact that it was already available in this school and loved it, and our previous school I worked in didn't have it. As soon as I discovered it, I thought “brilliant!”. It's a great, great resource to use.

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What were your first impressions of This is School; did it feel like an intuitive platform for you?

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As language teachers, we're always searching for something online that will make our lives easier in the classroom, and I think that's what This is School did straight away. 

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Quite often there are little moments where you've got to be out of the classroom and, as long as you've got everyone signed up in This is School, you can set tasks there and it's straightforward for the kids to follow the instructions. You don't have to rely on the sub teacher understanding all the details; instead, if you know you're going to be away in advance, you can say “this is set for you”. So that's one way in which it was incredibly helpful. 

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Also, when we're following the curriculum and we're working in certain areas, I'm constantly going, “Oh, well, we'll look at the grammar exercise, which is on that area that we're studying in that unit."

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It really enhances what you're teaching in the curriculum and backs it up constantly. It's popular with the kids as well!

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It would be great to hear more about what they think of This is School!

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They love collecting peanuts, and they love the jigsaw puzzles and gap fills as well.

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What they don't like is the speed of the talking; that's partly my fault, because I don't always give them the option of slowing down. When they're learning they're obviously going to see those things as frustrating, but it's good because it challenges them.

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Everyone listens to Grammar Guy too.  Everyone in the class is watching and, because it's so ridiculous and because of the comparisons that he makes, they're actually listening. He also explains the grammar in a way which is accessible - and grammar is not all that easy to express! So I’m very impressed with him. Definitely amazing.

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The feeling of frustration around listening to native speakers is an interesting one, and is a real USP of This is School to expose them to that level of language.

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Our students are quite impatient. They don't always have the patience to go "I need to listen to that a second, or third, time." and really that's the clue and the lesson they need; you don't and won't always get it on the first go. If you listen again, you break the words down a little bit more and, if you can have the patience to listen a third time, you're going to get more out of it.

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What’s the impact you’ve seen from using This is School?

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I think the best resource for me over the last five years has been This is School's videos with authentic people talking, and that exposure. Thinking back to when I started as a teacher, it was so difficult to get authentic materials that actually make sense. Now when the kids are watching them, they know they're real people and they actively want to listen to what's being said. So they pause it, play it again, slow it down. And at the end of the day that helps with their listening exams because they have had an enhanced level of exposure. We've come a long way from listening to scripted language on cassette tapes!

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Speaking of exams, I have set exams directly on This is School before using the worksheets and the videos, so that's been really useful.

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I'm sure the students are better because of This is School - there's not really anything else that's as comprehensive, or gives them the same level of exposure.

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That's a really interesting point regarding the authenticity, as we often get asked "Why do the accents matter?". Why do you think that exposure matters for students?

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It makes students question the concept of there being a 'right' way of speaking.

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We've got so many different points of view here, because we've got students from America, and a lot of Bulgarians, and a lot of those Americans come into this school with, well the approach that the Spanish that they've learned is is very different to Castilian Spanish - but in Europe, that's the predominant Spanish that's spoken so it makes a big difference for them to see that in the videos. It's Mexican, it's Colombian, and it's Spanish. They're all very different. 

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