Skip to main content

DfE desperate for language teachers

This is from the gov.uk website. They are trying to increase the supply of ML teachers to enable schools to offer the Ebacc suite of subjects at GCSE. Look at what the site says:

"As a lead school, you can apply for up to £30,000 funding for teacher subject specialism training in MFL. This can help you address workforce challenges to support the English Baccalaureate (EBacc).

The purpose of teacher subject specialism training for MFL is to provide school-led MFL subject specialism training to non-specialist teachers and MFL subject specialism training to specialist MFL teachers who:

- are not currently teaching MFL and may need refresher training to enable a move back into an MFL teaching role
- may be looking to teach a new language in addition to their language specialism

This will build capacity within the system to enable schools to address strategically workforce and deployment challenges to support delivery of the Ebacc and build the skills necessary to enable non-specialists to move into an MFL teaching role or upskill non-specialists already undertaking an MFL role.

The priority target groups for secondary MFL are:

- teachers not currently teaching MFL with post A level MFL qualifications;
- teachers not currently teaching MFL with good A level MFL qualifications;
- teachers not teaching MFL who are native/near native speakers;
- non-specialist teachers currently teaching MFL in addition to their specialist subject;
- specialist MFL teachers who are not currently teaching MFL and who need refresher training to enable a move back into an MFL role;
- specialist MFL teachers who have the capacity to teach a new language in addition to their language specialism".

So, it seems that the DfE consider an A-level in a modern language an adequate qualification to teach in secondary school. Being a native or near-native speaker is also fine. They are also happy for existing specialist teachers to mug up on another language.

Does this not smack of desperation? I thought the government expected teachers to have a 2.1 degree in their subject, not just A-level. Would they be just as happy to A-level mathematicians teaching secondary mathematics?

In short, they are willing to put anyone in front of pupils who can get by a bit with either limited pedagogical knowledge or mediocre language proficiency. This is their response to the "workforce challenge". Need one say more?

Here is the link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teacher-subject-specialism-training-funding-for-schools#modern-foreign-languages-mfl


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is the natural order hypothesis?

The natural order hypothesis states that all learners acquire the grammatical structures of a language in roughly the same order. This applies to both first and second language acquisition. This order is not dependent on the ease with which a particular language feature can be taught; in English, some features, such as third-person "-s" ("he runs") are easy to teach in a classroom setting, but are not typically fully acquired until the later stages of language acquisition. The hypothesis was based on morpheme studies by Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, which found that certain morphemes were predictably learned before others during the course of second language acquisition. The hypothesis was picked up by Stephen Krashen who incorporated it in his very well known input model of second language learning. Furthermore, according to the natural order hypothesis, the order of acquisition remains the same regardless of the teacher's explicit instruction; in other words,

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,