TRAINING TEACHERS EXPLORING THE ITE CURRICULUM

Above all we must be careful with our language; everyone needs to know what terms mean, where they are drawn from and what implications they carry: Back in 1982 Joyce & Shower stated that ‘the conditions of the classroom are different from training situations; one cannot simply walk from the training session into the classroom with the skill completely ready for use – it has to be changed to fit classroom conditions’. An old reference, but a relevant concept – we have to build the language bridge that transverses the valley between theory and practice, paper and the classroom, the training room and the real-life manifestation.

As we move from the Core Content to the Hinterland we expand the frames of reference for our trainees; we give them the tools to be autonomous, to be individual. Robin Alexander stated that teachers should be able to give a ‘coherent justification for their practices, citing i) evidence, ii) pedagogical principle, and iii) educational aim rather than offering the unsafe defence of compliance – anything else is educationally unsound’.

By deepening understanding, mitigating lethal mutation through shallow implementation, providing training and a knowledge base that supports the use of language appropriately, we give purpose as opposed to ‘performance’; we believe in what we are saying in formative, professional dialogue – we aren’t just paying lip-service to terminology.

Language identifies individuals but also helps to build coherent communities; trainees and mentors can still maintain their own identity and autonomy but operate within professional frameworks built on a core of shared understanding.

The evidence base on which the CCF - and therefore any accredited provider curriculum - is built has been contested, but it isn’t a closed book; there are opportunities to enrich, broaden and strengthen to suit context. A provider must, I feel, grasp the chance to personalise their curriculum beyond the CCF by embedding their own choices of evidence.

There’s still room to develop trainees as critical practitioners, capable of using educational research to inform their own developing practice - ‘subject-related educational research can play an important role in trainee teachers’ learning since it provides a disciplined perspective from which trainees can derive new ideas and understandings related to their own developing practice as well as a critical basis from which to formulate, examine and justify their views through reference to a wider, collective pool of experience’ (Counsell et al, 2000, p.467). Whatever decisions a provider makes, they must believe in them; ‘standards, not standardisation’, as Shulman said - monitor, support, assure and, above all, contextualise.

Remember to make assessment the curriculum’s servant, not its master; communicate regularly to ensure efficient and effective practice, and respond to the needs of the individual trainee - one size fits very few.

The key to effective implementation across the various aforementioned settings is understanding; as recent work by Windsor et al indicates; ‘without understanding the different arrangements that both form and are formed by practices, professional development of teachers cannot be fully realised’ (Windsor et al, 2022, p.652).

It doesn’t matter how ‘knowledge rich’, ‘domain-specific’, ‘evidenceinformed’ or cognitively aware the ITE curriculum is on paper; it is how the trainee teacher manifests this into effective and efficient classroom practice that matters.

References: • Ayers, W. (2001). To teach: The journey of a teacher (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. • Hilary Burgess (2000) What future for initial teacher education? New curriculum and new directions, The Curriculum Journal, 11:3, 405-417 • ITT Accreditation Criteria - accessed via https://www.gov.uk/guidance/initial-teacher-training-itt-accreditation • Counsell, C., Evans, M., McIntyre, D., Raffan, J; (2000); The Usefullnes of Educational Research for Trainee Teachers’ Learning; Oxford Review of Education; 26:3; 467 - 482 • Joyce, Bruce R. and Beverly Showers. “The Coaching of Teaching.” Educational Leadership 40 (1982): 4. • Windsor, S., Kriewaldt, J., Nash, M., Lilja, A., Thornton; (2022); Developing teachers; adopting observation tools that suspend judgment to stimulate evidence-informed dialogue during the teaching practicum to enrich teacher professional development; Professional Development in Education; 48:4; 642 - 656

HOW CAN WE TEACH NEW VOCABULARY MORE EFFECTIVELY?

It’s no secret that students with better vocabularies are more likely to succeed in school. So how can we teach new vocabulary more e ectively, to help all students access education and to maximise their learning? Kelly Coleman explains…

By Kelly Coleman

In 1986, Gough and Tunmer presented a scientific theory called the Simple View of Reading. This theory looked at a student’s ability to understand written words depending on how well they decode them and understand their meaning. If they could comprehend these things, their reading comprehension would significantly improve.

Gradually, the teaching of vocabulary is coming to use this theory to underpin the work that we do, notably, that word recognition and language comprehension work together and not in isolation. It is not just about teaching new vocabulary, it is about teaching it to a level of mastery that can be applied by students. ‘Mastery in early decoding leads to skilled reading. As readers become more proficient, they progress from sounding out each word to recognizing words instantly.’ (Parker, 2019) Nowadays, vocabulary is at the forefront of our teaching, and it is not just down to English specialists to achieve this, but requires a whole-school approach. Despite GCSE exam papers being written for the expected reading levels of a 15 or 16 year old student, researchers have concluded that by Year 9, most students are reading at least 3 years below their chronological age (TES, 2018). This impacts all GCSE exams, regardless of the subject.

It is no wonder then that there has been such an array of pedagogical books by teaching professionals as to how we can reflect on how we embed the development of vocabulary in our long term curriculum, but also how we can teach it to our students so that they can retain this information. One well-known book has been Alex Quigley´s Closing the Vocabulary Gap (2018). In it, he has identified 7-steps to developing vocabulary:

One of the key strategies that Quigley emphasises is studying morphology – breaking down words by components and roots. It is not enough to read the words, students need to explore them and understand where they have derived from and how they can be used.

Since reading this book, I have experimented with various strategies for each step. Step 1 and Step 2 can work well alongside one another. Firstly, whole school CPD is often required to agree the main objectives and how each department can work smarter by identifying any overlaps and looking at consistent strategies than can be applied across the school so that students are exposed to the same patterns when exploring new vocabulary. This draws in to Step 2 in which departments can look at their learning journeys and long term plans, focussing on specific vocabulary that will be both essential knowledge, as well as achievable retrieval over time. For instance, rather than a knowledge organiser, I have been experimenting with vocabulary organisers for each unit in English. Students receive this at the start of the unit and every homework task is related to it, which is then tested every lesson through short tasks and questioning. Rather than over-burdening students, the 5 upgraded key words have created a manageable task for students with words that can often be re-used in many different units (examiner tip: pick words with more technical spellings for students to learn and use in any writing task to help them achieve the higher levels at GCSE).

Currently, I work in an International School and a majority of my students have English as a second language. I trialled many of these strategies with my Year 8 class and was amazed that by our final unit of the year (Macbeth) they were able to accurately use, and apply, many of the key terms they had learnt in the first term of studying Gothic literature. By this stage, we were building their analysis of this new vocabulary. Rather than simply understanding what it means and being able to use it, they were able to use the words for higher level questions such as “explaining the effect of the writer’s choices” – What does the word ominous mean? became How does Shakespeare present an ominous atmosphere? Here, it became possible for them to connect the words on our vocabulary organiser: Shakespeare presents an ominous atmosphere through Macbeth’s barbarous behaviour and grotesque vision of reality. Intentionally, he has given in to temptation and been manipulated by the supernatural creating a sense of foreboding for the deeply religious audience who would be fearful of the consequences.

Vocabulary Organiser

Example lesson task for new vocabulary.

Example homework task to investigate the word.

Teach students tech-niques for learning the spellings. I play this game every lesson with one of the spellings and get students to create their own to test the class. Easy extension: what does it mean? Or write it in a sentence.

Get them using the words. Begin by giving them structures to help them explain these new words.

Model how to use the words to get them started. Many of my students have commented on how “posh” their work sounds!

I get them to highlight the words every time they use them accurately and reward them for doing so.

Test their knowledge of the words every lesson. What word starts with…? Can they match it to a synonym? Can they un-jumble it? Can they think of an antonym? Don’t let them forget the words!

“It is not enough to read the words, students need to explore them and understand where they have derived from and how they can be used.”

“vocabulary is at the forefront of our teaching, and it is not just down to English specialists to achieve this, but requires a wholeschool approach”

Once Step 1 and 2 have been agreed, it is about looking at what strategies will work with your students.

In English, students have to deal with unseen extracts in which they will never know the meaning of all of the words in it. However, in exposing them to the skills of morphology and etymology, they can make a fairly accurate prediction as to what this new vocabulary could mean. Likewise, learning this more advanced vocabulary can develop their writing skills by challenging students to spell more complex words, particularly if it is learnt over a period of time and used in every piece of writing that they complete in order to grow in both confidence and accuracy.

Similarly, modelling these words in our spoken language, and being persistent when questioning students shows students that their vocabulary is transferable between each of the skills they need to succeed both at school, and once they leave school. I regularly, “pretend” I can’t remember a key word and the students I teach definitely enjoy knowing something more than me! In the past, vocabulary development was taught through a glossary – copy new words and their definition in the back of your book – something students rarely looked at again, nor did it have any meaningful impact in understanding what the words mean or how they can be used. Now with the vast array of pedagogical readings, strategies and changes to exams, the development of vocabulary can be both exciting and challenging for our students and over time, and with a consistent whole-school / department approach, can have a positive impact on student progress.

References: Gough, P.B. & Tunmer, W.E. (1986) Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10 Parker, S. (2019) Guest Post: The Simple View of Reading: Still Conclusive after 33 Years, The Snow Report, Pam Snow. http://pamelasnow. blogspot.com/2019/02/the-simple-view-of-reading-still.html Many GCSE pupils have reading level of a 13-year-old | Tes Magazine (2018)