Integrating PLTS into the Modern
Languages Classroom
Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School,
Oldham
@icpjones http://twitter.com/icpjones
My Languages Blog http://isabellejones.blogspot.com
PLTS in MFL Wiki http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com
• Strategies for embedding PLTS in your daily
practice
• Audit your own practice
• Promoting PLTS in your classroom
• Widen your repertoire of Thinking Skills activities
• ICT tools to support the development of Thinking
Skills resources
Are PLTS here to stay?
• Not a new concept:
Personal Learning + Thinking Skills
• Independent learning skills
• Learners’ social interactions
• Making the link/ transfer knowledge
• NOT a government initiative-focus for good
practice
National Strategies Online
Modules
• Were 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)
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Give opinions, assess/ criteria
Express rules, summarise, create
Identify patterns and rules
Predict, infer
Explain, describe, illustrate
Information recall: identify, list
PRICE Taxonomy
P
R
I
C
E
5 types of Thinking Skills:
• Information-processing skills
• Reasoning skills
• Enquiry skills
• Creative Thinking skills
• Evaluation skills
PLTS in the Secondary
National Curriculum
self manager
independent enquirer
creative thinker
team worker
reflective learner
effective participator
PLTS in the Secondary
National Curriculum
6 groups of Personal Learning Thinking
Skills:
• Self-Manager
• Independent Enquirer
• Creative Thinker
• Reflective Learner
• Effective Participator
• Team Worker
Embedding PLTS the BLP Way
Building Learning Power, Guy Claxton
“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
Examples of languages activities
• Which PLTS area is it?
• Are there any overlaps?
Audit and barriers
Which PLTS areas do I find are the easiest to integrate
in my practice?
Can you give examples of activities?
Which PLTS areas do you think are the most difficult to
integrate?
Why?
Audit and barriers
What is creativity?
Strategies for 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 like FLAs
•Focus on developing skills wholeschool approach
•http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/2009/10/flip-cramlington-model-fordeveloping.html
•http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/2009/10/flip-approach-for-languages-at.html
Promoting PLTS: Mats
Promoting PLTS:
Using cross-curricular Thinking Skills tools
Promoting PLTS:
Using cross-curricular Thinking Skills tools
Promoting PLTS: Display
Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Overlaps
Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Overlaps
Strategies for Embedding PLTS: Overlaps
C’ était comment?
Strategies for Embedding PLTS:
Lesson Objectives
Healthy Livingprep objectives.pptx
Write/ be prepared to say in French
7 things you do to keep healthy
Garder la forme
Objectifs:
• Look at the specific skills required to do well the Speaking Controlled Assessment (CA
• Revise key phrases and how to identify and use “interesting” phrases to improve
the range of the language used
SEAL objectives: Motivation (red)
•I monitor and evaluate my own work
•I set challenges and targets for myself and celebrate when I
achieve them
Vers le succès (Steps to Success):
Developing strategies to start off answers in different ways F/H
Say & understand how time phrases, connectives, comparatives,
reasons & opinions can improve your linguistic range H
Practise speaking ensuring you do not pronounce silent letters F/H
Vers le progrès (Path to Progress):
Be able to develop your speaking answers using a range of
structures H
• Recognise your strengths
• Be aware of how you are doing
• Learn from mistakes
Showing off your PLTSexample of a lesson with PLTS-integrated
activities
Wed20Oct-Les addictions.ppt
La dépendance
Objectif:
How to discuss addictions and give your
opinion about them
SEAL objectives: Empathy (green)
•I understand others’ point of view & pay attention to them
•I value other people’s beliefs and cultures
Vers le succès (Steps to Success):
Be able to say, understand and compare different types of
addictions F
How to say and understand reasons why young people
are attracted to these addictions F/H
How to understand and give opinions on different types of
addictions F/H
Vers le progrès (Path to Progress):
Be able to develop opinions using a range of structures H
Le tabac
Le cannabis
Les médicaments
L’héroïne
La cocaïne
Le travail
Le jeu
L’alcool
Le shopping
Points forts et Points faibles
L’alcool: C’est relaxant mais c’est cher
Le jeu
Le tabac
La drogue
Plus … que (more … than)
Moins … que (less … than)
Aussi … que (as… as)
L’alcool: C’est plus relaxant que le jeu mais
c’est aussi cher que le tabac
Diamond Nine activity2.notebook
Le
tabac
Diamond nine cards.doc
Les
médicaments
Le
cannabis
La cocaïne
L’ héroïne
Le travail
Le jeu
Le shopping
L’alcool
Pourquoi les addictions?
1. Pour échapper à la -----------
2. Pour se révolter contre ses -------------3. Pour faire comme les -------------
4. Pour -----------------5. Pour ------------- comment c’est.
6. Pour se ----------------- : c’est déstressant.
7. Pour se donner ---------------relaxer parents confiance copains réalité
expérimenter
Pourquoi les addictions?
1. Pour échapper à la réalité.
2. Pour se révolter contre ses parents.
3. Pour faire comme les copains.
4. Pour experimenter.
5. Pour voir comment c’est.
6. Pour se relaxer: c’est déstressant.
7. Pour se donner confiance.
Pourquoi pas? 
1. Parce que ça sent mauvais
2. Parce que c’est dégoûtant
3. Parce que ça donne le cancer
4. Parce que ça cause des crises cardiaques
5. Parce que c’est facile de devenir dépendant
6. Parce que c’est trop cher
7. Parce que c’est du gaspillage
8. Parce que c’est difficile d’arrêter
9. Parce que c’est illégal
10.Parce que c’est dangereux
11.Parce que c’est mauvais pour le foie
12.Parce que ça fait grossir/ ça coupe l’appétit
13.Parce ce que c’est mauvais pour la santé
L’alcool, le tabac ou les drogues?
Le tabac
L’alcool
Les drogues
Et toi, qu’est-ce que tu penses …
de l’alcool
du tabac
de la drogue
Minimum 10 words
Use: Je pense que c’est…
Parce que …
La dépendance
Objectif:
How to discuss addictions and give your
opinion about them
SEAL objectives: Empathy (green)
•I understand others’ point of view & pay attention to them
•I value other people’s beliefs and cultures
Vers le succès (Steps to Success):
Be able to say, understand and compare different types of addiction
How to say and understand reasons why young people
are attracted to these addictions F/H
How to understand and give opinions on different types of addiction
Vers le progrès (Path to Progress):
Be able to develop opinions using a range of structures H
What areas of PLTS have been used in the lesso
Showing off your PLTSexample of a lesson with PLTS-integrated
activities
DLP20Oct2010-Detailed Lesson Plan
Full document
To be included
On the plts wiki
Showing off your PLTS
KS3 or KS4 lesson on healthy eating
What would you do to “show off your PLTS”?
•Classroom set-up
•Activities
•Resources (including ICT if relevant)
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
Typical PLTS-focused MFL activities
Thinking through Modern Foreign Languages
Mei Lin and Cheryl Mackay,
Chris Kington Publishing
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.
Independent Enquirer Activities
• Mysteries
¿ Quién va a sufrir los problemas de salud y ¿ por qué?
Me llamo Bea. Tengo
catorce años. Estoy
estresada porque
siempre estoy
estudiando y nunca
me relajo.
Me encanta hacer el
ejercicio, no obstante
bebo demasiado café.
Mis amigos beben
demasiado y toman
drogas. Intentan
convencerme para
hacerlo.
El viernes pasado
comimos en una
hamburguesería.
Estoy preocupada por
los exámenes y no
duermo bien durante
la semana. Sin
embargo los fines de
semana duermo
practicamente todo el
tiempo.
Mis padres fuman y
eso me preocupa
mucho.
Hace dos años mi
abuela murió de un
cáncer de los
pulmones.
Me llamo Javi y tengo
quince años. Vivo en
el norte de España
con mi abuelo.
Hacía el footing todos
los días en el parque
con mi primo.
Tengo que trabajar
mucho ahora a causa
de mis exámenes. No
he estudiado bastante
y tengo miedo.
Soy muy gordo y no
estoy en forma.
Debería hacer más
ejercicio y comer
menos. Hay que
comer más verduras
Independent Enquirers
• Intercultural understanding-identify features
Independent Enquirers
• Intercultural understanding-reflecting on
identity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LXaSFgVxGs
Je viens de la où...
Find songs with repetitive structures
And get students to be more
Creative with the language...
Creative Thinkers Activities
• Create your own sandwich, smoothie, ice cream...
• Invent mnemonics for particular vocabulary/
grammar rule
• Poems: recipes, acrostics, calligrams, comparisons
• Raps & rhythms
• Song: “Ne me quitte pas” Je ferai/ je ferais...
• Song-Stromae “Alors on danse” [Lyrics world app]
• Transfer structure: Stromae_on_danse : Qui dit...
• Rebus http://www.rebus-o-matic.com/index.php
• Rebus Malin iphone
Creative Thinker Activities
Stromae-Alors on danse...
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKrVB5f
2W0
Structure suggested for students own poem/ song (complete)
examples of student’s responses
Qui dit amour dit …
haine/ famille
Qui dit parents dit…
bagarres/ problèmes
Qui dit enfants dit …
futur/larmes
Qui dit vacances dit …
rire/ désastre
Qui dit études dit …
travail/ennui
Oui dit travail dit …
argent/ennui
Qui dit copains dit ...
amusement/bavarder
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: calligrams (word mosaic)
• Image Chef: http://www.imagechef.com
How would you use these symbols?
What other symbols might you find useful?
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
Creative Thinking Skills
My Film dice game (can be done in English or TL)
Raconte le film comme si tu étais dans le role princial!
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
Fruit machine http://classtools.net/
3=un château hanté
6=un musée
fruit_machine.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.
The links can also be made from a series of pictures
http://www.wordle.net http://www.tagxedo.com/ http://taggalaxy.de/
http://www.screenpresso.com/ http://wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm
•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
•Verbal tennis
Can be used to revise vocabulary on a given topic or
to tell a short story one word at a time.
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
Reflective Learners Activities
• Odd one out
raison
saison
pantalon couleur
Gender, phonic pattern, plural, verb,
agreement, alphabetical, abstract, linked...
Can be done with words or pictures
Can teach Target Language for justifying
oinions
Odd One Out - Model
Plays an
individual Sport
Only woman
Only blond
person
British
Celebrities
Married Couple
Jackie Howis AST Bennett Memorial
Diocesan School
¡Pilla al intruso!
desayunar
comer
merendar
cenamos
descansar
leche
pan
zumo
té
café
queso
jamón
mermelada
fruta
golosinas
despierta
desayuna
energía
come
cena
agua
tostadas
cereales
queso
uvas
frutas
verduras
hortalizas
cereales
dulces
Rachel Hawkes
• Fact or opinion
“On mange mieux en France qu’en Angleterre”
Discute + range les phrases selon leurs
catégories
• 2 stars and 1 wish
Direct/ Post-it notes/ wallwisher
http://www.wallwisher.com
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: Collaborative Writing Task:
http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/l%27histoire+sans
+fin
Team Worker Activities
Living Graphs
Team Worker Activities
•Collaborative Writing Task:
•Wikis http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/l%27histoire+sans+fin
Widening your repertoire:
• SYNTHESIS
• Competition: Write excuses why you have not done
your homework/why you are late.
• Brainstorm elements of a ghost story/fairy story,
research necessary language and write your own
story.
• Poubelle/Basura/Enquête – from a selection of
evidence decide what might have happened to a
missing person/ somebody from the past.
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
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...)
Look a your AFL good practice e.g. Feely gauge
Wikis http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/8qF1
http://langwitch.wikispaces.com/8qF1 (dicussion tab)
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?
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
SOLO Taxonomy
Stands for Structures of Observed Learning Outcomes
Developed by Biggs and Collis in 1982
Describes levels of increasing complexity in a student’s understanding of a subject
With the highest level being the extended abstract level, when students can make
connections not only within the given area but also beyond it.
Students will also be able to generalise and transfer the principles and ideas to
another area.
Chris Harte, Head of Languages at Cramlington Learning Village has applied
the taxonomy to language-learning
Are we allowing our students to make these connections?
• Strategies for embedding PLTS in your daily
practice
• Audit your own practice
• Promoting PLTS in your classroom
• Widen your repertoire of Thinking Skills activities
• ICT tools to support the development of Thinking
Skills resources
Integrating PLTS into the Modern
Languages Classroom
Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School,
Oldham
@icpjones http://twitter.com/icpjones
My Languages Blog http://isabellejones.blogspot.com
PLTS in MFL Wiki http://pltsinmfl.wikispaces.com