[gentle music]

Sophie

Welcome to the School Development Day Term 2, 2024 Modern Languages K–6 session. Over the next 90 minutes, we will explore a lot of practical teaching and learning strategies to support your implementation of the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus. We recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

Marina

Today there will be 2 sessions for Modern Languages teachers in primary schools. In the first session, there'll be hands-on activities where you'll adapt resources from another language to the language you teach. In the second session, you will engage in activities designed to help you incorporate elements of effective assessment in your language classroom. The department recently released 'Our Plan for NSW Public Education'. This presentation is contributing to achieving the aims of the plan focusing on delivering outstanding leadership, teaching and learning. This session is supporting schools and teachers by providing high quality, evidence-based curriculum resources and strengthening high quality assessment.

Let's look at the learning intentions of today's session. You will adapt available resources to the language you teach and practice using effective assessment strategies. For the success criteria, you can make Word and PowerPoint resources in the language you teach and apply effective assessment strategies to language lessons. This session includes NESA-accredited PD standard descriptors, which are 2.1, 2.3, 3.3 and 6.2. Before we begin, please make sure you have accessed the Participant workbook. The activities in the workbook are aligned with this presentation.

In the first session, we will look at adapting resources that are available on the department's website from another language to your language. A broad range of resources are available on the department's Languages K–12 website that support language teachers in primary schools implementing the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus. This includes generic scope and sequences, which are a summary of what is to be taught, the sequence in which it will be taught and the syllabus outcomes that may be addressed in the intended learning; sample units and resources, which are a collection of versatile teaching materials and units that can be adapted to any language program even if they are published in a different language. These are designed to be flexible and applicable to diverse classroom settings. An outcome mapping tool and syllabus information for school leaders are also available. These resources are designed to be user-friendly, making it easy for teachers to incorporate them into their lessons and classroom activities. We will now take a closer look at some of the resources that are embedded into our units.

In this part of the session, we will walk you through the simple steps involved in changing an available resource on a Word document to your language. You will then spend some time adapting a resource of your choice to your language.

The units published on the department's website have been developed in Word. Let's take a closer look at some of the Word resources embedded within these units. In our language-specific units, new vocabulary is systematically organised into a table. This table is a fundamental component of the unit offering a convenient reference for new language concepts as they are introduced. It's laid out for teachers as a straightforward list featuring words or phrases alongside their transliterations and scripts in the target language. The table featured on the slide has English translations on the left. The middle column displays the Romanised versions as a scaffold to support reading and pronunciation and the right displays the original Arabic script. Remember, Arabic is read from right to left, which means the table's organisation is unique compared to languages that read from left to right. Embedded within the units, you can find a selection of flashcards relevant to the language being taught. These flashcards are versatile tools that are reused throughout the unit for various purposes, including pre-assessment and teaching new vocabulary. These flashcards serve not only as teaching aids but also add an element of fun to the learning process with games. Examples include matching a word in Arabic to its English translation or playing games like 'memory' or 'swat it'. Once downloaded onto your device they are easily adaptable to different teaching contexts and language. Additionally, all language specific flashcards come with English translations making them easy to adapt and embed in the unit. Sentence builders have been integrated into several units to enhance language learning for students. This slide presents an example from Stage 1 in Hindi. These sentence builders are an outstanding resource for reinforcing key grammar skills, expanding student vocabulary and providing a scaffold for conversations. They enable students to create sentences by combining different elements such as phrases, time expressions, connectors and theme-based vocabulary such as food and colours.

Sophie

Today we will be looking at the Early Stage 1 Arabic unit 'It's Me' and we will be modifying Week 2. Our goal is to convert this document from Arabic to Modern Greek. As you will see, if you're a Greek teacher, you don't need to be able to read or speak Arabic to pick up and adapt an Arabic unit to your needs. We'll start by opening the Planning, programming and assessing languages K–6 page on the department's website. Here we can find various teaching resources for different languages from Early Stage 1 to Stage 3. Scroll down until you find the Arabic unit 'It's Me'. Click on the link and download a copy of the document. Once the document has finished downloading, open it.

Next step is to use the 'Find and Replace' function in Word to change all mentions of Arabic to Modern Greek. To do this, click on the 'Editing' tab in the home ribbon then select 'Replace'. In 'Find what', type Arabic. In 'Replace with', type Modern Greek. Then click 'Replace All'. There are detailed instructions in the workbook on using this function. Our next step is to revise the vocabulary table. We are going to replace Arabic phrases and scripts with their Modern Greek counterparts. Scroll down to the 'Vocabulary 2: What's your name?' table. Delete the sentence 'What is your name?’ in Arabic and replace it with the Modern Greek sentence (Sophie speaks in foreign language). In Activity 1, we will adjust the focus to Modern Greek phonetics. The activity will now involve identifying the first sound of names in Modern Greek. For Activity 2, we’ll swap out Arabic elements for Modern Greek. This includes using Modern Greek question forms and Greek language flashcards. We will do this by clicking on the hyperlink ‘Resource 2: What’s your name? flashcards’.

To update these to Modern Greek we’ll use the available English version to change the text. This is done by highlighting the Arabic text in ‘Resource 2: What’s your name? flashcards’ and replacing them both with a Modern Greek translation (Sophie speaks in foreign language). Next, we'll update the pronunciation guide 'Vocabulary 2: What's your name?' from the Romanised Arabic to the Greek. Instead of (speaks in foreign language) and (speaks in foreign language), it will now read (speaks in foreign language) for both. Unlike Arabic, the same phrase is used in Greek when asking males and females their name. Continue making changes to the document until all references to Arabic are replaced with Modern Greek and that the activities align with our new language focus.

We are now going to pause the recording so that you can complete Activity 1.1 in your workbook. Choose a published unit and adapt a word resource, such as flashcards or sentence builders, and follow the recorded instructions to adapt it to your language.

[gentle music]

Marina

In this part, we'll follow a similar process in adapting editable PowerPoint resources. Some resources embedded in the units are presented in PowerPoint. These include learning maps and storybooks. We will begin by exploring learning maps – a planning process that incorporates Aboriginal intellectual tradition. They are a visual pathway of what students will learn and are designed to guide students through each step of their learning journey, providing a clear overview and setting expectations for their learning outcomes. Featured on the slide is a visual representation of the 8-week unit 'Stage 3 – Eating at a restaurant' learning map. The learning map serves as an easy-to-understand roadmap outlining the course of the unit. Storybooks have been created for a number of language units. These are designed to help students acquire the necessary language to meet each unit's outcomes. They offer a fun and engaging way to introduce and model new vocabulary and grammatical structures. Featured here is the Stage 1 Hindi book, 'Who did I see in the jungle?'

Sophie

We will now walk you through how to adapt a PowerPoint resource from Hindi to Modern Greek using the PowerPoint storybook, 'Who did I see in the jungle?' Even though this is from a Hindi unit, all the resources are also available in English for teachers of other languages to adapt to their contexts. We'll start by opening the Planning, programming and assessing languages K–6 page on the department's website. Here we can find various teaching resources for different languages from Early Stage 1 to Stage 3. Now let's scroll down until we find the heading 'Stage 1' and select the tab unit 'Hindi – Who did I see at the zoo?' We'll see it expand to show the available resources. Click on the Resource 'Stage 1 – Who did I see in the jungle?' – English to download the English version of the storybook. Make sure to click on the link to begin the download and wait for the file to fully download before proceeding. After opening the PowerPoint, we begin on slide one. Here we will translate the title from 'Who did I see in the jungle?' to (speaks in foreign language) in Modern Greek. We will now look at slide 3 of the PowerPoint book. Here we will translate the English sentences, 'I saw a lion.' 'I saw a big lion.' 'I saw a big yellow lion.' to the Modern Greek (speaks in foreign language). We are going to pause here and complete Activity 1.2. Choose a resource made in PowerPoint such as a storybook or a learning map from an available unit and follow the recorded instructions to adapt it to your language.

[gentle music]

Stephen

In today's second session, we'll look at how the five elements of effective assessment can be used in your language classroom. The content in this session draws on the research underpinning the department's 'What works best: 2020 update' and 'What works best in practice' along with NESA's NSW curriculum. In her research, Sharon identified five elements of effective assessment. These are establishing learning intentions that are drawn from the relevant syllabus and clearly describe what students should know, understand and be able to do at the conclusion of a sequence of learning. Creating success criteria that describe what success looks like in relation to the learning intentions and are co-created by students and teachers. The third element is providing explicit descriptive feedback to students in a timely manner and ensuring that it is clearly understood by students. Next is building the capacity of students to peer assess and self-assess using the success criteria as a reference. And finally, developing the capacity for individual goal setting by students, which includes them asking questions such as: ‘What do I need to do to improve?’ and ‘What is my next step?’ Together, these elements enable students to develop skills to become assessment-capable learners. We will now look at how these elements of effective assessment are embedded in the published language units.

Let's begin with Learning intentions and success criteria. You may wish to take notes in your Participant's workbook. What are learning intentions and success criteria? Learning intentions are statements aligned to syllabus outcomes which clearly describe what students should know, understand or be able to do following an activity, lesson or series of lessons. Effective learning intentions are written in student-friendly language modelled by the teacher and referenced throughout the sequence of learning to ensure students know what they are learning and why. Success criteria are linked to learning intentions. They are developed in conjunction with students and describe what success looks like. They help teachers and students make judgements about the quality of student learning.

Learning intentions are embedded in the published language units in 2 ways. Firstly, there is the learning intention of the communicative task, which is effectively the overall learning intention of the unit. And secondly, each weekly lesson has one or 2 individual learning intentions. In this example Stage 2 communicative task, students are asked to create a video of themselves preparing a culturally relevant recipe that they have written in Hindi. This learning intention will be communicated to students with the stem we are learning too as this learning intention is for students. In the Stage 2 weekly lessons, however, the learning intentions are targeted specifically for teachers and the stem students will is used. Learning intentions are most often expressed in terms of specific knowledge, skills or understanding. This is the case for the published Stage 2 unit 'Food Fair'. Students will learn factual information related to food vocabulary, phrases and imperative verbs. They will develop an understanding of the features of a recipe and the requirements of the communicative task. They will also develop the skill of writing their own recipe. When learning intentions are expressed in the form of knowledge, understanding and skills it makes it easier for the teacher and student to understand what they are teaching and learning and what's expected of the lesson.

When students know the success criteria, they are more informed about how they will be assessed. This means they can better assess their own and others' work to identify successes and areas for improvement which will help them to become independent learners. Keep yourself and your students focused on the criteria that the work will be assessed against. This will allow you and your students to provide more relevant feedback. Further, knowing exactly what is expected of them will enable your students to confidently engage in the activities they have been asked to complete.

Learning intentions and success criteria form the basis of assessment in the language units that are available on the department's website. The learning intentions and success criteria for communicative tasks in Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 are very simple and visual. The text in the visual rubrics that support assessment of the task is taken from the success criteria. The thumbs up or sideways strategy makes it easier to understand for K–2 students. In Stages 2 and 3, success criteria form the basis of a more detailed task notification and student rubric that is based on the five-point reporting scale.

We are going to pause here and complete Activity 2.1. In your workbook, you'll find the Stage 1 task for the unit 'Party Time' along with a section to record your suggested learning intentions and success criteria for this task. Refer to the previous slides to view examples of learning intentions and success criteria to help you in completing this activity if required. Remember, your learning intention should be clear and focused on the communicative purpose of the task while your success criteria should be explicit, measurable and directly related to the learning intention. Record your responses on the provided pages. If you have time, you may want to record what some of the weekly learning intentions and success criteria might be.

[gentle music]

Kanu

Feedback is a key high-impact strategy that is recognised as one of the most powerful but variable influences on student learning. It is very important to note that teachers work with their students to develop a growth mindset and that they actively engage with and use feedback. Feedback should use what we know about a student's capabilities from their past work and should focus on what's next, not what's past, which will help them to create learning goals for themselves.

Research shows that feedback is an important classroom factor that impacts students' academic outcomes. The purpose of feedback is to guide students to bridge the gap between where they are now, which is determined by assessment, and where they need to be. Using high-impact assessment strategies with students helps them to develop the skills they need to become assessment-capable learners who can set and work towards achieving their own learning goals.

Feedback can take many forms: formal, informal, formative, summative, interactive, visual, written, verbal and non-verbal. Constructive feedback plays a very important role in helping students to understand what they're doing well and what they need to improve on. Another effective strategy is to use sentence starters, such as: ‘I like the way you... (use the correct order of words in a sentence).’ ‘You have missed... (adjectives in your sentence).’ ‘Go back and check... (the spelling of highlighted words).’ ‘Next time, make sure you say "X" sound correctly.’ Some additional strategies include ‘Find it and fix it’ – where teacher returns the work to the student by using a coloured pen simply to indicate the location of errors in the text. Then students find the errors they made, for example, vocabulary, tense, adjective-noun agreement, subject-verb-object et cetera. ‘Thumbs up and down’ – highlighting whether students are on the right track or not using hand gestures. ‘Intentional observation checklist for communicative activities’, which will be explained on the next slide. ‘Two stars and a wish’ – a constructive feedback strategy where two stars are the highlights of the work and one wish is something that student can improve on. ‘Formative assessment opportunities’ are embedded within the published units, which also provide opportunities for feedback. ‘Traffic light system’ – a system that teacher uses to record their student observations. We will be using intentional observation checklist in conjunction with the traffic light system for the next few activities.

This is an observation checklist that is used to record student observations on certain criteria of the communicative activities. When completing the table, you can refer to the following questions: ‘Does the student… complete all aspects of communicative activity, speak confidently with appropriate speed and expression, say language words in the correct order, pronounce all words correctly, use a range of vocabulary, engage and respond appropriately with peers?’ The teacher has used the traffic light system to record their observations of students in a hypothetical class. They highlight each box green where the student is on track, orange where the student may need some support and red where the student is not on track and needs support.

We are going to pause here and complete Activity 2.2 and apply high-impact feedback strategies to this hypothetical class. Please refer to the table under explicit descriptive feedback section in your workbook. Remember, green is when the student is on track, orange where the student may need some support and red when the student is not on track and needs support. Based on these observations, what feedback would you give to the students listed in the table to help them improve? Write your feedback in the space provided. Remember to link your feedback to the success criteria created in the previous session.

[gentle music]

Stephen

Now let's take a closer look at the roles of peer and self-assessment in the language classroom. What is peer and self-assessment? Peer assessment involves students assessing each other's work according to a set of criteria and offering feedback suggestions. Self-assessment involves students applying success criteria related to a learning goal, reflecting on their efforts, identifying improvements and adjusting the quality of their work. Meaningful peer and student self-assessment have the potential to positively contribute to student learning and achievement. Steps of assessment for students include teacher assessment, peer assessment and self-assessment before becoming an autonomous learner.

Let's look at some strategies for peer assessment. The sample units include several peer assessment strategies designed to foster a constructive learning environment, such as Two stars and a wish, which allows for positive reinforcement paired with constructive feedback. The Thumbs-up, sideways or down method is for quick responses. Detailed rubrics and marking criteria tailored to the communicative tasks and the TAG approach where students tell something they like, ask a question and give a suggestion. To ensure these strategies are effective, it's important to set some ground rules for how students give feedback to each other. This involves reminding students to maintain respect, fostering a growth mindset and using sentence starters to keep the feedback task relevant. Remember, developing the skills for successful peer feedback requires time, practice and clear modelling from teachers.

Let's now look at some strategies that can facilitate effective self-assessment. Just as with peer assessment, it's important for teachers to explicitly model how to self-assess. This modelling sets the stage for students to effectively engage in the process themselves. Other strategies include encouraging students to maintain a learning log or journal. This practice helps them document their learning journey, reflect on their progress and plan their next steps. Reflecting on what has been learned and what lies ahead is crucial. Structuring this reflection can be done with a portfolio. It allows students to compile their work, providing a tangible record of their learning and a space for self-evaluation. To guide students’ thinking and self-reflection, providing sentence starters or prompts can be helpful. Examples include, ‘I now feel confident… (in reading and saying words related to colours).’ ‘I feel confused when… (I have to change the verb endings depending on the gender).’ ‘The next step for me… (is to say a sentence using the correct word order).’ These strategies not only help in self-assessment, but also help students take control of their learning which is a step towards becoming an independent learner.

Let's consider what peer and self-assessment actually look like, sound like and feel like in a classroom setting. Peer and self-assessment are based on the learning intentions and success criteria. Samples of their own and other's work are used to provide guidance to students. Feedback is modelled by the teacher. Students acknowledge when they need support and peer and self-assessment are seen as an important part of the learning process. We're going to pause here and complete Activity 2.3. Based on the learning intention and success criteria created in Activity 2.1, what peer and self-assessment strategies would you use with your students while completing the activities for the Stage 1 – Party Time unit? Refer to the previous slides on peer and self-assessment strategies, then record your response in the workbook.

[gentle music]

Kanu

Goal setting is a strategic tool that empowers students to shape their educational journey by setting clear goals. It involves identifying academic challenges targeted towards individual growth and equips them to identify and plan what they need to do to achieve their goals. Goal setting motivates students to outperform their previous efforts by pushing boundaries and striving for self-improvement. Effective feedback that is tied to well-defined learning intentions and success criteria is a key to successful goal setting. It serves as a roadmap for students, showing them exactly what they need to do to reach their goals.

We will now unpack the SMART framework for goal setting, a structured approach to ensure goals are focused and achievable. SMART is an acronym where S stands for Specific – clearly define what the student wants to achieve. M represents Measurable – establish criteria to track the progress, which allows both students and teachers to monitor advancements towards the goal. A stands for Achievable – set out actions that students can take to reach their goals. R is Realistic – this ensures that the goal aligns with the students' overall learning journey and is practical. T is for Timely – set out reasonable timeframe for success.

Let's consider what a suitable learning goal for Asha would be. Based on the intentional observation checklist, it is clear that Asha is a dedicated student. Her progress in various aspects of language learning is satisfactory. However, she needs to focus on pronunciation. To create a learning goal for Asha, we will use the learning goal template and the SMART criteria to define her objectives. Specifically, we'll look at how Asha's goal aligns with the SMART framework. Asha's goal is to improve her pronunciation of a particular sound in the language she's learning. This is more targeted than a general aim ‘improve pronunciation’, making it a specific objective. Her goal is also measurable because Asha will practice pronouncing 5 different words with a target sound every day and she will use games, recording and feedback to track her improvement. The goal is achievable and realistic because it involves daily practice, which is a manageable and a practical strategy for learning. The use of tongue twisters and feedback from peers and teachers are realistic methods for improving pronunciation. These strategies will go under 'The steps I will take' section of the template. The goal is timely because a target date is set for Term 2 Week 8. This provides a clear deadline for Asha to work towards giving her a set timeframe.

We are now going to pause here and complete Activity 2.4. Using the intentional observation checklist, consider the learning goal you would set for one of the following students: Ken, Aoife, Kim or Arya. Refer to the previous slides to view Asha's learning goal example to help you in completing this activity. Draw on the information provided in the notes section of your workbook. Then write your learning goal using the template. Remember, SMART learning goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

[gentle music]

I hope you have enjoyed setting a SMART learning goal for one of the students. This diagram summarises the flow of the five elements in the published language units. Effective assessment incorporates these five key elements with the foundation established by learning intentions and success criteria. They serve as the bedrock for successful units and learning activities outlining what students are expected to achieve and how success will be measured. Explicit teacher feedback provides students with insights into their performance, strengths and areas for improvement. This feedback is complimented by peer and self-assessment. This multifaceted approach not only provides a comprehensive assessment but also fosters collaborative learning and reflective thinking. Engaging with peer and self-feedback allows students to actively participate in their language learning journey, getting a deeper understanding of their strengths and areas of improvement and empowers them to set meaningful learning goals. Utilising these five elements of effective assessment in language teaching and learning empowers students to become assessment-capable learners.

The resources linked on this slide support language teachers in primary schools to implement the Modern Languages K–10 syllabus. There is a Primary Languages Statewide Staffroom that is dedicated to language teachers, school leaders and principals to successfully implement language programs at your schools. We provide regular curriculum updates, resources and conduct webinars and network meetings through the various channels in the staffroom. If you haven't already joined the staffroom, scan the QR code to join the Primary Languages Statewide Staffroom.

These are some resources to support you in implementing the effective assessment practices. You can find live links to these resources in your workbook.

Please complete the Modern Languages K–6 evaluation survey to help us provide further support. Thank you for participating in the session.

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