What inspires you about teaching modern foreign languages? 

‍

At The Castle School we believe in a rich curriculum that celebrates diversity, which is why our students have a choice between four modern languages; French, German, Mandarin and Spanish. For us it isn’t about just leaving school with a GCSE in a language, but rather using a language competently, proficiently and with confidence and getting to know and understand other cultures. 

‍

We want to create a love of learning languages and to develop strong, lifelong linguistic knowledge and skills, encouraging students to become curious about and interested in the wider world. We want to equip students with the skills and confidence to become global citizens in a multicultural, mutually respectful world and to help them to explore, respect, celebrate and understand other cultures.

‍

We’re opening students’ eyes to the positive experiences that they can get from travel and speaking another language, encouraging our students to be more open to the world, broadening their horizons. For me a big part of this is our trips, cultural visits and exchanges; we’ve recently had language trips to Paris and Madrid, and we have another study visit to Shanghai this summer. German remains really strong with an exchange with a school in Immenstadt, collaborative projects and visits with a school in Unna, and a Christmas markets trip to Cologne and Aachen. Taking our students to places like this, where they can experience the culture and use the language that they are learning is one of the best parts of the job!

‍

When did you start using This is School? 

‍

I first started using This is School around nine years ago. We initially signed up because we found that for some of our students listening was proving to be the weakest skill. Listening was our weakest skill for our GCSE students, and some were struggling in exams. For other students, they were keen to hear more authentic language. We really liked how the platform worked, with the authentic videos, using typical standard GCSE questions but getting ‘real life’ answers from native speakers. So we started out using This is School to help our students develop their listening skills, and as the platform has evolved over the years, the way that we use it has evolved too. 

‍

How do you currently use This is School? 

‍

We often set tasks as homework for our GCSE students and a lot of the tasks we set are listening and grammar based. Our students are used to using those and give us positive feedback. We’ve been using This is School for French, German and Spanish for a while and have recently begun trialling Mandarin. Our students have said it’s really good to hear native speakers. They’ve talked about the authenticity of videos and conversations. They like the level of challenge and say that they get more interesting vocabulary or things which are a bit different to standard textbook answers. And they like the peanuts! Our students talk positively about how This is School is good for homework and they find it useful to have access to the transcripts and the ‘snail button’, so that they can break things down. Occasionally we use a computer room to compete, playing Nutty Tilez, but we mainly use This is School in a blended way, regularly setting tasks for homework. We use This is School to stretch students and develop their understanding. It’s not an optional extra – it’s an important part of our curriculum that allows them to practise. We’ve also noticed the leaderboards have been very effective in motivating students to complete tasks so that they can compete with one another. The website supports our students in developing their vocabulary, phonics and grammar.

‍

What’s kept you using This is School? 

‍

There are definitely other things alongside the listening. From a vocabulary learning point of view This is School is really good. We also like the grammar videos that are two minutes to explain key grammar points, followed by activities – we use these in class and as part of homework and revision tasks. The self-marking nature of the platform reduces teacher workload, and it’s really good that you can see how the students are doing, check they’re doing the work and identify areas for feedback to see what they’ve struggled with - without having to invest all that time in going through and marking individually. We also like ‘suggest a feature’ and feel that we are listened to; a grammar video was created for a German grammar point that we felt was missing and is now available on the website. 

‍

Regarding learning Mandarin, what impact or results have you seen so far? 

‍

It’s still reasonably early for us in terms of using This is School to teach Mandarin, but we've seen our students motivated by their learning and the tasks they’re doing and they’re getting used to a range of accents. Otherwise, normally, they’d only hear their teachers’ voices and a limited number of speakers on the audio tracks from the exam board materials. This is School gives our students a wider range of accents and speakers which is nice. Anecdotally we’re seeing that they’re motivated and are making progress by using the videos and developing their listening skills.   

‍

How do you use This is School to differentiate between students’ learning abilities? 

‍

This is School has definitely helped to stretch our more able students. Some of our students go onto the website to use it independently and it’s given them scope to have access to more complex and authentic language, which has worked really well. In some cases, we’ve started creating two groups within one class, so we are able to set two different videos or two different tasks for each group. That’s working really well in terms of helping to set differentiated homework. 

‍

Would you recommend This is School? 

‍

I’m happy because we really like the platform and use it a lot. Our students give really positive feedback on it and our Mandarin learners have said positive things since they’ve been using it. We are absolutely happy to recommend This is School to others.

‍