Teaching and Learning Languages in Primary Schools: Putting Research into Practice
Our MOOC is ready to go! A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course, a hugely popular way of delivering interactive courses, and we have our very own course embodying the very essence of RiPL – the symbiotic relationship between research and practice. If you are interested in primary language teaching and learning, and would like to follow our MOOC CPD course – read on!
Who is the course for?
The course welcomes pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, school leaders and parents; in fact, anyone who has ever wondered how primary school children learn foreign languages, what motivates them and how we can ensure children’s successful progress.
Who designed the course, and why?
The MOOC was planned and prepared by a team of researchers at the Universities of Southampton, Essex and Reading to encourage research-informed practice in primary foreign language classrooms.
What are the weekly themes?
The course focuses on key themes such as motivation and engagement, language development and literacy.
The MOOC is a three-week course, and each week, you will be guided through some of the answers research has provided to issues surrounding these key themes. We draw out the pedagogical implications of these findings, looking at which pedagogical tools are appropriate, and why they work.
What will I achieve?
The MOOC is interactive and there are three staged pathways, evaluator, reflector, and innovator. You can explore and choose any or all of these. There are many opportunities to engage and reflect, with self-tests and engagement questions. By the end of the course, you should have a better understanding of the latest young language learning research, and be able to reflect and experiment with new resources to expand your language teaching practice. There are also plenty of tips and ideas to think about and try.
MOOC start dates:
The MOOC will run three times over the next year. Each time will be slightly different as with the easing of Lockdown we should be able to fulfil our original intentions and film different activiites in schools. Dates below are start dates, but remember that you can join at any time after a session has launched and work through it at your convenience.
6th July 2020
5th October 2020
10th May 2021
Language Resources
Below we present some resources in different languages that we invite you to browse, and hope that you’ll find some of them helpful and useful in your teaching. The majority of them are powerpoint presentations, several with added MP3 audio. If the resources are housed on another site, we provide links.
Resources from ‘Lightbulb Languages’
The links below will take you to an external sites hosted by Clare Seccombe where you can download the resources.
Spanish Language
Los colores, and using ser to say what colour something is
Primary Spanish new scheme of work
Southampton University Primary Language Resources – SUPL
Some of these texts (predators, weather) were created on interactive story websites www.storyjumper.com and www.storybird.com . You might wish to create your own resources using these tools and teachers can create free accounts.
French Language
Que Tiempo HaceEnglish Language
We are working on producing music and schoolchildren texts in English and these will be uploaded shortly.