In this session (based on the work of S. Allison & A. Tharby: Making every lesson count), Silvia will unpick the 6 research-informed pedagogical principles of challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, questioning and feedback that make up great teaching, develop students’ linguistic skills and enhance outcomes. She will explore what high expectations of achievement, guided and independent practice might look like in language teaching and look at some examples of effective strategies for explanation and modelling. Finally, Silvia will also demonstrate how high-quality questioning and meaningful feedback can inform our teaching as well as develop students’ metacognition.

In this session, Jennifer will share a range of strategies that she uses to 'teach to the top' in all her classes and for all her pupils, regardless of their prior attainment, as she believes her pupils deserve nothing less! Aiming high is one thing but it is also essential for Jennifer to keep her pupils inspired and wanted to learn languages. She will share tips, techniques, tried and tested strategies that works well in her experience.

Ben will showcase how the six Learning Scientists (spacing, retrieval practice, elaboration, interleaving, concrete examples, and dual coding) can be used to support and develop language learning in any classroom of any age range. Ben will share tried and tested approaches that he has used in his previous all-through school experience (5-16 years old) and how he uses them in his current post.

Developing fluency and independent learning skills are main goals in language learning and the biggest factors for motivation in students. However, such goals can be easily drowned in the system due to curricular challenges and lack of time. In this workshop, Esmeralda will explore lots of practical ideas to develop fluency, seemingly, within a sequence of lessons, at all ability levels, while equipping students with strategies to make them better learners. Esmeralda will share Ideas and tools involving all stages in the learning process: from modelling to the planned fluency stage so that we give students wings!