Findings - What ICT offers MFL
Findings from the writing frames project
Teaching and learning:
- Students working with writing frames maintained a high level of engagement with the writing task.
- The scaffolding afforded by the writing frames and drop down menus enabled students from a range of ages and attainment levels, including SEN, to write at greater length and in a more complex way than before. It seemed to ‘unlock something' in the students. For example, a year 7 student with literacy problems who was able to write only 4 words in an assessment before the design initiative produced a paragraph using writing frames and a week later wrote a paragraph unaided under assessment conditions.
- The use of writing frames seemed to make abstract grammatical concepts into something tangible and concrete.
- When the scaffolding of the writing frames was removed students in year 10 subsequently gained higher marks in the GCSE examination than those in similar classes who had not been involved in the design initiative. Their written coursework was well- structured and they knew how to make their writing personalised and amusing.
Sustainability of the work:
- The use of writing frames with drop down menus has spread successfully to other curriculum areas in the school featured in this flyer. It has also been used in primary schools in the area.
Preliminary findings from the long-term e-mail project
Teaching and learning:
- Students showed sustained high levels of engagement when writing for a real audience
- In writing e-mails to a real German partner most students were more careful and accurate in what they wrote on screen than would have been the case if writing in their exercise books. They wanted to match the linguistic level of their partners and to avoid ‘losing face' with them.
Impact
This work is likely to contribute to theory related to links between teaching and learning and to have an impact on the design and development of curriculum activities in modern foreign languages. More specifically, it should:
- provide evidence to indicate whether the use of writing frames in MFL is effective in terms of pupil confidence-building and accuracy;
- give a valuable perspective on longer term e-mail exchanges between British pupils and those in mainland Europe;
- show whether working on a creative project destined for the public domain motivates pupils and helps develop fluency and accuracy in language learning.
- An additional possible outcome of the project is that teachers and students will work more closely on ICT related work, with pupils' out of school computer skills being used more fully to aid learning of modern foreign languages in school.
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