Embedding Thinking Skills in your
MFL Lessons
Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School,
Lead Teacher Oldham SLN, North West RSA (ALL)
@icjones http://twitter.com/icpjones icpjones@yahoo.co.uk
My Languages Blog http://isabellejones.blogspot.com
PLTS in MFL wiki http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com/
• Strategies for embedding Thinking Skills in
Schemes of Work
• Ideas for developing a repertoire of Thinking Skills
activities
• Ideas for using ICT to support the development of
Thinking Skills
From Thinking Skills to PLTS
and more…
• Using the National Strategies
online modules (« Nuggets »)
• PLTS in the new Secondary
Curriculum
• Building Learning Power
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Give opinions, assess/ criteria
Express rules, summarise, create
Identify patterns and rules
Predict, infer
Explain, describe, illustrate
Information recall: identify, list
Bloom’s Taxonomy
• SYNTHESIS
• Competition: Write excuses why you have not done
your homework/why you are late.
• Using the tourist website for Martinique, invent your
own “advertising a holiday destination” practice task.
• Brainstorm elements of a ghost story/fairy story,
research necessary language and write your own
story.
• Poubelle/Basura – from a selection of evidence
decide what might have happened to a missing
person.
National Strategies Online
Modules
• We’re at the start of the drive to
promote Thinking Skills.
• http://nationalstrategies.standards
.dcsf.gov.uk/mfl
• Click on CPD => Module11:
Thinking Skills (log-in needed)
National Strategies Online
Module
P
R
I
C
E
Pre new NC-5 types of Thinking Skills:
• Information processing skills
• Reasoning skills
• Enquiry skills
• Creative Thinking skills
• Evaluation skills
Information Processing Skills
•Locate and collect relevant information:
Highlight positive adjectives, food suitable for vegetarians,
Clothes you could buy as a present for your mother etc...
Sort, classify and sequence:
By chronological order, gender, similar sounds, students
classify new phrases/ vocabulary and others to guess
what the classification is.
Compare and contrast:
e.g. Comparing example of verb endings/ adjectival
Agreements to establish patterns.
Reasoning Skills
•Give reasons for opinions and actions
•Draw inferences and make deductions
•Make informed judgements and decisions
Teacher’s questions must aim to give students
opportunities to express reasons, deductions,
judgements and decisions.
•Pourquoi c’est un passé composé?
•Il est pour ou contre l’uniforme? Pourquoi?
•Un livre vert, c’est bien. Comment dit-on “a green plant”?
•What would you say if you had the complete opposite
view?
Any more questions?
Enquiry Skills
•Ask relevant questions
Students are shown text side-by-side with translation
They have 2 minutes to highlight what they understand
And think of question about something they don’t
Understand.
•Pose and define problems
Show examples of verbs following a specific rule mixed
with exceptions-where are the exceptions? Why?
Canté Bailé Comí Escuché Fui Compramos
•Plan what to do and how to use a range of resources
Planning sheet, mindmaps
Enquiry Skills
•Plan what to do and how to use a range of resources
Planning sheet, mindmaps
Creative Thinking Skills
•Develop/ extend ideas
•Write about it: newspaper article/ letter/presentation
to penpal/ blog post/ short play/ poem/ story for young
audience.
http://mfl-storybirds.wikispaces.com/French+Storybirds
•Talk about it: record an interview/ podcast (dialogue,
News report, drama...) audio/ video
•Apply imagination
Nightmare holiday/day, Famous for a day: who/what/why,
Life Swap (dice), School of the future, My film (dice)
Summer/ Winter uniform..
Creative Thinking Skills
My Film dice game (can be done in English or TL)
Raconte le film comme si tu étais dans le role principal!
A. Le role principal
1=une petite fille 2=un adolescent 3=une grand-mère
4=une tortue
5=une danseuse 6=un chanteur de rock
B. L’ événement principal
1=un spectacle
4=un voyage
2=des vacances horribles 3=un cambriolage
5=un concert
6=une course
B. Le lieu principal
1=l’ école
2=les Bahamas
4=un bateau de croisière 5=un stade
3=un château hanté
6=un musée
Creative Thinking Skills
http://mfl-storybirds.wikispaces.com/French+Storybirds
http://wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm
Creative Thinking Skills
http://mfl-storybirds.wikispaces.com/French+Storybirds
http://wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm
Creative Thinking Skills
•Making links: Learners are given a selection of familiar
words and asked to make a concept map by adding
connecting words between the words already on the list.
•Making links to other subjects
Using music, drama, ICT, history, geography, PSHE...
•Analogies
Understanding what is unfamiliar comparing/contrasting it
with something that is familiar
Creative Thinking Skills
•Making links: Learners are given a selection of familiar
words and asked to make a concept map by adding
connecting words between the words already on the list.
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1751079/Me_gusta
Analogies
•Create pairs of related words:
Père et
Mère
Chaussures et Pieds
•Make/guess the analogy:
Manger + bois = Table
Maison + douche = Salle de bains
•Use unusual image/ sound associations:
Students’ own
Equitación (galloping sound)
Je suis (I eat sweet)
Pink car (voiture is feminine)
Blue car (coche is masculine)
Evaluation Skills
•Develop criteria for judging the value of what they
read, hear and do
2 stars and 1 wish
Peer assessment (peer assessed by...)
wikis
Evaluation Skills
•Develop criteria for judging the value of what they
read, hear and do: wikis http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/8qF1
Evaluation Skills
•Develop criteria for judging the value of what they
read, hear and do:
Wikis http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/8qF1
Evaluation Skills
•Evaluate Information (Text/Picture)
What is it/sort of text is it?
Who is it aimed at?
How do you know?
What is inside?
PLTS in the New Secondary
National Curriculum
self manager
independent enquirer
creative thinker
team worker
reflective learner
effective participator
PLTS in the New Secondary
National Curriculum
6 groups of Personal Learning Thinking
Skills:
• Self-Manager
• Independent Enquirer
• Creative Thinker
• Reflective Learner
• Effective Participator
• Team Worker
Self Manager Activities
• Sharing strategies to cope with the
unknown (reading/ listening): language
challenge [document/ recording in a
different language/ designed for natives)
E.g. L’ hôtel de ville
• Prepare ICT presentation
– Presentation about self/ a chosen topic
– Presentation about another culture
– Grammar point
Independent Enquirer Activities
• Links with mathematics
– data handling
– making predictions
– presenting and interpreting data
(table/ bar chart/ pie chart/ pictogram
– Balance of diet
– Leisure/school activities
– Spending habits
Independent Enquirer Activities
• Mysteries
Problem solving activity based round a given central
question that is open to more than one reasonable
answer.
The information or 'clues' needed to answer the
question are presented on separate slips of paper
that your students will analyse, sort, sequence and
link.
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Create your own sandwich, fruit drink, ice cream...
• Invent mnemonics for particular vocabulary/
grammar rule
• Poems: recipes, acrostics, calligrams, comparisons
• Raps & rhythms
• Songs: “Ne me quitte pas” Je ferai...
• Rebus http://www.rebus-o-matic.com/index.php
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Create your own sandwich, fruit drink, ice cream...
• Invent mnemonics for particular vocabulary/
grammar rule
N’
aime
pas
Je

Creative Thinkers Activities
• Poems: Recipes
•
•
•
•
•
Pour faire un bon ami, il faut:
Deux cuillères de générosité
Beaucoup de sourires
Ecouter pendant des heures
Partager à la fin
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Poems: acrostics and calligrams
nOrd de l’Angleterre
Trop de pLuie
inDustriel
Humide
Ateliers textiles
Il y a un Marché
What other types of words could we use?
Names of people/ pets, favourite place/ holiday/ food/ hobbies/ colour/ music....
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Raps & rhythms
Le Rap
j’ai un chat, Hannibal
j’ai des poissons.
elle a un chien.
vous avez des lions?
nous avons un lapin
elles ont deux serpents longs
tu as un animal?
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Songs/ Poems: Ne Me quitte pas (Jacques Brel)
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfegOxTCuOQ
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Rebus : Rebus http://www.rebus-o-matic.com/index.php
Je m’appelle Isabelle
C’est lundi
J’aime les chats blancs
Reflective Learners Activities
• Odd one out
raison
saison
pantalon couleur
Gender, phonic pattern, plural, verb,
agreement, alphabetical, abstract, linked...
• Fact or opinion
On mange mieux en France qu’en Angleterre
Discute + range les phrases selon leurs catégories
Reflective Learners Activities
• Intercultural understanding-identify features
Reflective Learners Activities
• 2 stars and a wish (direct/ post-it notes/
wallwisher) http://www.wallwisher.com
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/wjn8yXcz14
Effective Participator Activities
• Teach part of the lesson: from initial
vocabulary input to re-introducing the past
tense for regular –er verbs
• Get involved in outreach activities: resources
for Primary (mini books, recording stories, using
video-conferencing), open evening
• Organising a languages club/ café
• Involvement in activities to prepare for a trip,
exchange, option evening
• Displays, videos, LAFTA competition...
Team Worker Activities
• Running dictation/ collective memory
• Students work together to create or re-create a
text or a visual image in the form of a map,
picture or diagram. Each student look at stimulus
for a short period of time (e.g. 10 seconds)
before returning to reproduce the original.
• Mysteries
• Living graphs
• Wikis
Team Worker Activities
Living Graphs
Team Worker Activities
•Collaborative Writing Task:
•Wikis http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/l%27histoire+sans+fin
Further ideas and examples
– Secondary Strategy Leading in Learning
materials
http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/n
ode/96254?uc=force_uj
– Thinking Through MFL, Mei Lin & Cheryl
Macky, Chris Kington Publishing
– Curriculum Now! Rachel Hawkes, ALL
– PLTS in MFL Wiki http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com
Embedding PLTS the BLP Way
BLP?
Building Learning Power
Prof. Guy Claxton
Embedding PLTS the BLP Way
“The 6 clusters of qualities are more than
Skills that can be trained...
The point is to cultivate these qualities into
becoming dispositions, or habits of mind...
Cultivation of the PLTS should run through
the curriculum, life and ethos of the school,
like lettering through a stick of rock.
Embedding PLTS the BLP Way
The 4 Rs
Resilience:
absorption, managing distractions,
noticing, perseverance
Resourcefulness: questioning, making links,
imagining, reasoning, capitalising
Reflectiveness: planning, revising, distilling,
meta-learning
Reciprocity: interdependance, collaboration,
empathy and listening
Embedding PLTS
•Aiming to deliver a wide variety of tasks in a varied way: impact on
resource design and nature of interactions in classroom
•Opportunities highlighted in SoWs & examples of activities shared
•Focus on developing students’ skills and independence
•Introducing Meta-language to talk about learning: mats, display
•Overlaps with AFL and SEAL
•Training of support staff
•http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/2009/10/flip-cramlington-model-fordeveloping.html
•http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/2009/10/flip-approach-for-languages-at.html
Embedding PLTS
Embedding PLTS
Embedding PLTS
Embedding PLTS
How embedded are your Thinking Skills/ PLTS?
*Schemes of Work:
mapping out of Thinking Skills lesson opportunities
sharing PLTS objectives
*Evidence of:
• Collaborative team work [+Seating arrangement,
Display]
• Students using “meta-language”
• Students as Independent learners
• Cross-curricular support/time dedicated to skills
building across the curriculum
• Strategies for embedding Thinking Skills in
Schemes of Work
• Ideas for developing a repertoire of Thinking Skills
activities
• Ideas for using ICT to support the development of
Thinking Skills
Points for Action?
Embedding Thinking Skills in your
MFL Lessons
Wiki: PLTS in MFL http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com/
Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School,
Lead Teacher Oldham SLN, North West RSA (ALL)
@icjones http://twitter.com/icpjones
My Languages Blog http://isabellejones.blogspot.com