Good Luck Willowfae

One of this blog's regular readers has her PGCE interview today. Good luck Willowfae!

The Facts of Life

I recently came across an interesting post in a parents forum, which I think raises questions about the nature of our education system. These words were attributed to Bill Gates, when he was speaking to a group of High School pupils, although I believe this is now known to be untrue. They are, nonetheless, interesting:

1. Life is not fair - get used to it!
2. The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself. 
3. You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone - until you earn both.
4. If you think your teacher is tough - wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
6. If you mess up it's not your parents' fault - so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
7.  Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening about how cool you are. So before you save the rainforests from the parasites of your parents' generation try delousing the closet in your own room.
8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have done away with failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. 
9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers and Christmas breaks off, and few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
10. Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. 
11. Be nice to nerds - chances are you'll end up working for one!

While I would never advocate treating school like in the same way as the world of work, I would definitely argue for more of a transition from school to work.

The anecdotal evidence is that schools are often so desperate to maintain good standing on league tables that they hold their pupils hands every step of the way, force feeding them information and allowing them to resit exams. In the real world if you don't work, you get sacked, and this is the harsh truth. 

As a society I feel that we place too much emphasis on our rights, and not enough on our responsibilities. Kids often feel that they have a right to do whatever they want, and if they're punished or if they fail, then the teachers have somehow denied them their right to success. Teachers have a responsibility to teach and to do everything in their power to help the children under their care to succeed, but in return the pupils have an equal responsibility to turn up, to behave and to do the work set to the best of their ability. Those that do that should succeed, and those that don't should learn that there are consequences. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they should be abandoned and unsupported. They should be given every opportunity to learn from failure and to grow, but neither should they be taught that if they are lazy or badly behaved they will be handed success, because this is not a useful life lesson, and merely produces adults who believe that the world owes them a living. 

What do you think? 

Hoops

As in jumping through them - there are so many!!!!!

Since I got home yesterday I've filled in a CRB check form, as I have to be vetted and paid £36 for the privilege, completed a health questionnaire and a formal acceptance form. I've also begun my application form for funding. I've done it online, and it needs checking, but it's basically complete. 

All there is to do now is to get contact with a provider of a French booster course... it would be easier if they actually responded to my emails. 

Next hurdles....

Right, now that the elation of being successful is over with it's time to get down to the nitty gritty of moving to a new part of the country, acquiring funding and meeting the conditions of my offer.

It's too early to make arrangements to move at the moment, though my Other Half has applied for a graduate job so do cross your fingers for him too won't you? I've started looking at rental properties, and I'm heartened to find that we'll be able to afford a much nicer place than we have at the moment on the same money.

As for meeting the conditions of my offer... That would be French. I've started a Language Centre course, which will help and I've asked about a subject knowledge booster course in the summer. Hopefully I'll get some information about that soon. Otherwise my parents are bringing my old books from A Level when they come to visit in a week or so, perhaps I'll find something useful in there. 

The big issue is the Student Loan Company. I have plenty of experience of applying for loans, and a similar amount of experience of getting well and truly fed up with them! I must admit I've been putting off beginning the application process, it's a highly annoying and long winded process and I'm not looking forward to it. I suppose I'd better get on with it soon though. As an independent student and a MFL student I should be better off than most students, getting the full loan, help with fees and a £9000 bursary. As it's tax free I won't be much worse off than I am at the moment. Got to jump through some hoops to get it though. I'll keep you updated. 

And the results are in!

After checking GTTR track for the umpteenth time it finally changed - I'm in! I have a conditional offer to do a PGCE teaching German with French at the University of Leeds. I assume the condition is that I improve my French to something that resembles A level standard as discussed at the interview!

I'm very excited and can't seem to settle. I feel like a great big weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The people at work think I'm a loony, but I really don't care.

Still nothing

I'm starting to worry about my sanity. I spent all Saturday morning stressing about the post - there was none - and today I'm checking the online tracking system compulsively (approximately every 30 minutes, sometimes less). I know that there's still time, but I'm feeling kind of aimless, like I don't know what to do with myself. Once I have an offer there's loads to do, student loan, house hunting, not to mention learning my second language but until an offer materialises I simply have to wait.

It's very frustrating!

Why am I Waiting.....

I'm reminded of a song we used to sing at school, usually when the teacher was late or the bus was slow leaving for a school trip. Perhaps you'll remember it, went to the tune of 'Oh Come All ye Faithful'....

Anyway, as there's still nothing to report I thought I'd just share that with you. I know it's still only early and I can't expect a response yet, but it's hard sitting at work and thinking that the letter might come in the post while I'm out. 

Bald teacher loses disabled claim

I couldn't resist this one! Apparently he is disabled (bald) and suffered constructive dismissal because the kids called him 'baldy' to his face. Erm.......... 

Debrief

Well, I'm back from the scary interview... it could have been better, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse! The interview started with a comprehension exercise about boys/girls learning styles in a library of childrens' fiction (it was very hard not to get distracted). The actual interview itself was quite pleasant, the interviewers were friendly and relaxed, and they asked me questions about my experiences, hobbies, degree etc. The German section was quite good, we chatted about my year abroad, what I did and how I found it. The French section was almost suicidally bad! I stumbled over every word. This was followed by a discussion now how I could best improve my French and a comment was made that any offer would be dependent my improving my obviously awful french. This is something I would be willing to do... I hope I made that sufficiently clear. After my question about 6th form teaching was answered I was sent back to the library to write my mini-essays in French and German. They were probably a bit rushed, as I needed to leave for the train, but the French was infinitely better than my speaking, while still not being that good. Then I came home, complete with grouching and complaining about the British rail system and the horrible weather.

I've been told that it'll take 2-3 weeks to hear back, but a fellow MFL PGCE applicant (a virtual acquaintance from the tes forums) to the same uni heard of her acceptance within a week (3 working days) so I have hopes of hearing soon. 

Thank you for all the messages of support. I promise to post the result as soon as I have one. 

Well here I go

Right, I'm off! Wish me luck. For those who voted for the suit you can see that you won!

Changes to MFL GCSE oral exams

Continuing in my quest to get up to date I've done a little research into changes to the MFL GCSE exams. The BBC had this to say. This the Guardian's take on the subject and this is the main Times Education Supplement Forum thread on this topic.

The main gist is that they will be removing the dreaded oral exam - where you trot out your pre prepared and learned by heart presentation on a subject of your choice and then do a role play with your classroom teacher - and replacing it with ongoing teacher assessment. The general feeling is that these exams are too stressful. The main benefit of this is that this could be considered a more realistic assessment of speaking ability, the pupils would be speaking more 'off-the-cuff' rather than in rigorously practised sentences. It also removes the element of 'a bad day' or 'nervous blank' and will help to ensure that the really able and hard working students are appropriately rewarded. 

However, this also means that there will be very little in the way of accountability for the outcome of the exam - the oral exam is at least recorded so it can be considered by a third party. More opportunity for schools to fiddle the system to make sure that they get good exam results for the purposes of league tables. Also, by removing this 'stressful' exam they are doing the pupils a disservice. The oral exam is a rare chance to test your ability to perform at the correct time - this is a very useful skill out in the real world. 

Personally I think the oral exams could do with shaking up a bit - we do need to test pupils ability to think on the spot, rather than their ability to learn by heart, and despite the opportunities for cheating I do think that this is a better way to ensure that the students who deserve the As are the ones who receive them than the current system. I would still add an 'interview' or some other one on one method of assessment, for which the student could prepare, as a way of giving the student who doesn't like to speak out in front of the class a chance to shine, and as a way to inject a little of that 'real life stress' feeling into their language learning. It can be stressful to be in a foreign country trying to get a point across, and we need to make sure they're prepared for that. 

As the interview approaches...

Well, the train tickets are bought (though I'm still worried about relying on the railway system for something this important), all my documents have been dug out and photocopied (degree certificate, A Level and GCSE results, passport, bank statement and utility bills) and the paperwork has been completed. French has been learned to the level where it is still very bad, and has managed to push a significant amount of German out of my head - so just the right amount then, and, as this blog bears witness, I have spent some time thinking about my motivations for becoming a teacher, as well as current educational issues. I didn't manage to get any observation though - nice lady from the gym never contacted me - I think she might have taken my number wrong. Still, this is a small thing, so other than this I think I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be and there's nothing to worry about!

Wish someone would tell my stomach that.

Classroom Management

The question of how to handle and motivate disengaged and rowdy pupils is one that I've put a lot of time and energy into considering. I've read several books on classroom management, regularly trawl through the TES behaviour forum and spend time looking at teachers blogs for inspiration. You see, up until mow my teaching has been quite sheltered - nice children hand picked for university outreach days, the advanced English classes during my year abroad and other university students when choreographing or directing for university performances. I don't have a lot of experience with troublesome teenagers (though I'd better be careful not to mention this in the interview). 

I do have some thoughts, though, based on the few problem classes I had during my year abroad combined with my own school days. At school I found that the teachers who could best manage a class were the ones that didn't shout and didn't lose their temper, but they also didn't cave in to student demands or allow bad behaviour. 

In Germany there was one class, the class that wanted to know about my personal life when asking me questions. They were the ones who didn't want to speak to me in English and who claimed not to understand me. And there was a small group of boys at the back who didn't want to learn English. I can understand, this was a vocational college, not a grammar school, and they were they to learn accountancy, not English. This was compulsory though, so they had to put up with it.

The lesson I remember best was one where we read from a play about footballers, with the students taking turns to play the characters. They liked it, it was a good play, not too difficult and about  a very popular topic. What really surprised me was when one of the boys in the back repeatedly volunteered to play anyone he could. He always put his hand up rather than shouting out, because he knew that if he did he wouldn't get the part, which he did a pretty good job of. This one lesson idea has formed the basis of what I hope will be my idea of classroom management. Find something they enjoy doing and use it as a reward. For many of the disengaged pupils punishment can be worn as a badge of honour, what they need to learn is that it's better to be rewarded for things done well than punished for bad behaviour, even is this does result in kudos from their peer group. The point is that a punishment is not something they care about, whereas if they lose the chance to do something they like they may well do what's necessary to get it - even if that does mean sitting down, shutting up and getting on with their work.

French March Against School Plan

Like it or not, the French really know how stage a protest! Teachers and students seem to care enough to kick up a stink when their government tries to do something they don't like. Perhaps our teaching profession could learn a thing or two?

What Makes a Good Teacher

I googled 'what makes a good teacher' and got quite a few hits. Clearly this is something that has been thought about and considered by a lot of people around the world. Teachers are important because they help to shape the next generation of people, and good teachers can have a long term effect that goes well beyond just getting good/bad marks in their subject.

Here are a few examples I've gleaned from my surfing.

good teachers really want to be good teachers

good teachers listen

good teachers take risks

good teachers never have enough time

good teachers love their subject and are able to convey this

good teachers are firm but fair. 

good teachers are fun

good teachers try to understand their students

When I was at school my favourite teachers were the ones who loved their subject and made me love it too. They were the ones with a sense of humour but good classroom management skills. Most importantly, they were the ones that made me feel like I had really achieved something. 

Usually these were the same people. 

This survey asked the most appropriate group - my favourite was the young lad who said the best teachers are the ones that don't turn up!

Inspiring Others Towards Happiness Brings You Happiness

Let me explain - I drink a trendy herbal tea with yoga poses demonstrated on the box, and every little tab on the tea bag gives me a spiritual thought for the day. Today it told me that 'inspiring others towards happiness brings you happiness' and it rang true for me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not usually an introspective, spiritual person at all, but I've been giving a lot of thought to the nature of teaching and the reasons for its appeal, and I can honestly say that this particular quote sums up my motivation nicely. 

It gives me great pleasure to make people happy. To give you an example, I love to cook, and more importantly, I love to feed people. I do a great line in crowd pleasing food, and I love it when people come to stay. I make sure everyone has enough to eat, that there's plenty to drink and that there's a good mix of people so no one gets bored. I also like to make sure there's dessert, and that it's chocolate. Everyone likes chocolate!

Now, while I'm not sure you can make a direct correlation between being a good hostess and being a teacher, there are clear links. As a hostess it's my job to cater for everyone's needs before mine, to make sure everyone's needs are catered for (i.e. no nuts for a friend who's allergic and plenty of veggie alternatives). Teachers have to ensure that all of their pupils are learning to the best of their abilities and that any special learning needs are noted and dealt with. 

Teaching pupils might not make them happy in the short term, after all, who really likes going to school, but it does help to ensure long term happiness. These young people learn a subject from you which helps them to get the qualifications and life skills they need to hopefully do whatever it is in life that makes them happy. 

You can't ask for more than that out of life.  

Further situation update

Right - well I'm not having loads of luck getting some observation, however, my new best friend (aka a very nice teacher person I met at the gym) has offered to see what she can do for me. She's offered to do this for me before we even knew each others' names. I'm definitely entering a profession full of kind people!

I've added a poll asking what you think would be appropriate to wear for my interview - opinions will be gratefully received but probably ignored ;) If you think I should wear something else I'd be grateful for a message to elaborate.

Book Review - Learn French in 3 Months

This is an excellent self-study course, which can get you to a level of french competence in no time at all. If I get my place on my PGCE it will be due in no small part to having completed this course. Easy to understand, small sections on grammar and recurring vocabulary, which you learn as you practice grammar points, means that by the end of the course you know quite a lot of vocab and enough grammar to get by. I squeezed this course into a couple of weeks out of necessity, but if you took a couple of months over it you could really get something out of it. I'd be very tempted to use the same method to learn another language. 

Situation update

Well, I've successfully crammed learn french in 3 months into 1 month - I'm feeling a little smug, I'm not sure if that's justified. I've now started an advanced learn at home course by the same people - my target is to finish that by next weekend. I've also gotten hold of Harry Potter en français, so that should help matters.

On the other hand, I'm not showing any similar success in arranging some observation time before the interview. I've had one refusal so far, and everyone else is ignoring my emails. The school that said no simply can't manage another student, as they have loads at the moment and they are in the middle of oral exams and preparation - all the language departments in all the schools across the country will be in this situation, I don't think I'll be able to manage it! Still, this wasn't essential for the purposes of the interview, just helpful, so I'll just have to try my luck without it.

Diplomas

Ok, I'm stumped. I have to admit that these new qualifications are confusing - I'm a product of GCSEs, A Levels and a Degree from a good university. I never tried to understand NVQs, GNVQs or BTECs, I never needed to, so the world of vocational qualifications is a little outside of my realm of experience. It seems that these Diplomas are intended to be more than just a vocational qualification though, and that's where it gets complicated.

In my quest to understand 'current educational issues' I read this, this, this and even this in order to better understand these Diploma things. I've come to this conclusion - the government intends them to be the be all and end all of educational qualifications at the earliest possible opportunity. The foundation diploma is 'worth' about 4/5 GCSEs and can be done at age 14, as can the higher diploma, which is 'worth' about 5/6. The Advanced diploma is the A Level alternative and is 'worth' three A Levels. There is also a progression diploma, which is worth just two A Levels. The government has also recently announced an extended diploma - and to be honest I'm not entirely sure I know what to make of that. Perhaps that would be worth 4 A levels? Or maybe a full set of GCSEs?

As far as content is concerned, these diplomas will contain a bit of everything and will attempt to combine traditional GCSEs and A Levels with more vocational courses. There are 5 diplomas currently available, in IT, Engineering, Creative and Media, Society, Health and Development and Construction and the Built Environment. They will combine classroom teaching in necessary subjects, as well as functional numeracy and literacy, with experience in employment. There are more to come, with the planned implementation of 'academic' diplomas in maths, science and languages - is it just me or does that sound like a direct replacement for A Levels?

This diploma system has ousted the governments former pledge to offer the International Baccalaureate as an alternative for all school children. Personally, I believe the IB is a tried, tested and proven system which gives a well rounded education and allows for good educational and career progression. I'm concerned that kids who take up these new diplomas will be cutting their options - a diploma in engineering, for example, probably won't include the hard maths that's a prerequisite for an engineering degree, nor will the IT diploma provide the necessary maths for a degree in Computer Science. I'm also concerned that students taking diplomas in the 'softer' subjects, such as Creative and Media' will be cutting their university choices in half - the best universities already don't look favourably on subjects such as media studies. 

If their goal is to get more young people into universities I'm not sure this is the way to do it. Universities whose degrees are worth having have high entrance requirements for a reason and they are slow to accept change. 

On the other hand we are short of social workers and carers, people who can sort out your computer when it goes on the blink (i.e. IT technicians rather than computer scientists) could be considered as highly useful and there is always a place for creative workers. The country doesn't need an endless supply of graduates, but nor do we need manual workers, we need plumbers, construction workers and staff to man the endless number of call centres. These jobs need numeracy, literacy and IT skills, so if the new diplomas can provide us with young people with the necessary skills then perhaps there's a place for them after all. 

 

Countdown widget!

I thought my blog needed some colour so I decided to put up a countdown to the date of my interview (April the 15th, put it in your diary and cross your fingers for me) to help me panic. 

I'm currently half way through my French in three months course and I have three days to get to the end of it. Then I can start on the advanced course!

Website Review

I've found a very useful learning french website. The idea is that you listen to the podcasts - they do the conversation twice, then explain the new vocab. It's very good. I'm currently listening to one about the Bejing Olympics!

Interview date

Yay! My interview date has come through - though the snail mail was clearly faster than the GTTR tracking system. 

I'm terrified though - I have to write in French (and German and English, though I'm not too scared about those) and I can still pretty much only say "je m'appelle Miss B Have, j'ai deux frères!" So I have two weeks to get my french up to date - find a school willing to let my do some observation - and get up to date with current educational issues. I'm worried about the french, but I can swot up on the relevant vocab, and I'm not sure I can get a school at this short notice, especially as it's Easter holidays at the moment. This is the biggest worry of all I think! 

Unions, yay or nay

This is an interesting question for trainee teachers to consider - whether or not there is any point in joining a union, and whether the unions will make the changes that really matter. 

On the one hand the NUT has shown it is willing to make a stand on the issue of below the rate of inflation pay rises, but on the other they seem to be willing to make all teachers look like liberal lefty idiots by voting to 'reject army propaganda'. 

Will a day's strike actually make a difference? I don't think so. It doesn't seem strong enough to me. In my opinion all that will be achieved is that the general public will see teachers as whiny complainers trying to squeeze a little more money out of the taxpayers, rather than an essential service who are under-respected and insufficiently rewarded for what they do. 

The biggest problem

This is why teachers are having such a hard time at school. This young man has obviously never been taught tolerance, he clearly only knows intimidation and mindless violence and has absolutely no fear of the consequences. 

The quote that really terrified me was this "when Harris was initially interviewed about the assaults he was 'laughing and joking' with his mother." How are teachers supposed to teach these kids anything when their parents maintain this kind of attitude?

Book Review - Getting the Buggers into Languages

This book by Amanda Barton is one of a series of 'Getting the Buggers to...' books. 

Barton concentrates on the age old problem of engaging students, and particularly boys, with the idea of language learning. Her main premise is that boys and girls are generally different, and often need different styles of teaching as a result, i.e. boys might prefer more active and performative lessons while girls might not want to put themselves forward by speaking up during a class. Barton's book is separated into sections for reading, writing, listening and speaking, and provides detailed explanations of why there might be problems and suggestions on how to solve them.

The overall tone is lighthearted, and there is a sense that she is not taking herself seriously. This makes it much easier to read than other books with similar topics. It has quotes from students she interviewed while writing the book, which are cited complete with grammar mistakes, linguistic idiosyncrasies and often swear words. Many of them are insightful and show genuine interest in language learning, others are just hilarious!

I can definitely recommend this book, it's lighthearted and down to earth style make it easy to read, but the author's clear expertise and subject knowledge make it a very useful read too.