What does it do for young people?
The Language Leader Award develops student leadership skills and linguistic skills. Learners of all abilities gain a tremendous amount of satisfaction and confidence from sharing what they know with others. It is also known that we retain the knowledge that we teach actively to others far more effectively than that which we take on board in a more passive way.
Here is a summary of the principal gains of the Language Leader Award programme:
• rewards their language learning
• gives them a purpose and context for their language skills
• develops their generic communication and leadership skills
• gives them a better understanding of themselves as learners
• gives a better understanding of the role of the teacher
• enhances their self-esteem and confidence
• improves their evaluative and analytical skills
• increases their personal attainment in a foreign language
What does it involve?
Through a series of sessions that take place during the academic year (we suggest September – May) learners develop their teaching skills and prepare lessons to teach to younger learners. The process of preparation to teach involves micro-teaching and peer and teacher feedback. Teachers who deliver this Award devise their own schedules but include all of the elements described in the Award Course Overview document (hyperlink to this). These are key requirements of the Language Leader Award course:
• 25-30 hours delivery of course
• MFL teacher who can be explicit about aspects of pedagogy (ITT mentor)
• Continuous assessment and feedback by teacher
• Minimum of 1 hour (3 x 20 mins) language activity planned, delivered with whole class of younger learners and evaluated by the language leader (assessed by teacher)
Variations on the theme: Frequently Asked Questions
There are many successful variations on the Language Leader Award theme. Teachers need to decide:
· when to run the sessions
The sessions can take place in curriculum time, lunch time or after-school. We use a lunch-time model.
· which year group should do the Language Leader Award
We introduced the Award in 2006 with Year 10. This year we have moved the programme to Year 9 because of pressures of modular courses and potential overload in Year 10.
· who should teach the course and how many groups to have
When the programme first began I taught the only group of students and they offered different languages within it. Now we have 3 different groups: Spanish (& Mandarin); French and German.
· where to do the teaching
We take learners out to local primary schools. This is much more work to organise than for them to teach Year 7 but the gains for the leaders and for the primary learners far outweigh the logistical considerations.
· when to do the teaching
We had always followed a model of summer term delivery, believing that this was much preferred by our primary schools. This had the disadvantage that our leaders had to sustain interest and momentum over a very long time before ever experiencing the ‘teaching’ in a real context and then they had 3 visits within a very short time frame. This year we have decided to spread the teaching so that they will go once in January, once in March and once in May. Our experience to date suggests that this will be a much better model.
· how to select your language leaders
There is clearly no one answer to this. Much will depend on whether you are doing this award programme as enrichment activity or part of the curriculum. However, one element to the programme that we added this year was an application form (insert hyperlink) that must be endorsed by a signature from a peer and a teacher. The application asks the student to explain why they want to be a language leader and what s/he can offer the programme. We found that this was a very illuminating addition to our processes and we will definitely keep this element in for future years.
· what other responsibilities or challenges to include in your Language Leader Programme
We certainly feel that applying to be a Language Leader involves a commitment to representing languages for the school and taking on an ambassador-type role in languages. We do ask our language leaders to support the department on Open Evenings, Options Evening, and other special events such as our International Talent Evening. We find that students respond very well to these opportunities and these add a further dimension to their work as a language leader.