Mr E

What Makes a Great MFL Lesson? A Reflection This post was prompted by a post by Ian Astbury on LinkedIn. I often find myself reflecting on what truly transforms a language lesson from “just another class” into an experience that sticks. Over ne...

🚀 What makes a great MFL lesson?

☑️Speak more than the teacher
☑️Communicate with purpose, not just complete worksheets
☑️See grammar clearly & use it meaningfully
☑️Connect vocabulary & skills across listening, speaking, reading & writing
☑️Engage with culture
www.fraubastowmfl.co.uk/post/what-ma...

What if our scaffolds are holding pupils back? Well hello there, and welcome to update #180!

Don't let the 'scaffold' become a 'ceiling'...
@marymyatt.bsky.social for @myattandco.bsky.social: marymyatt.substack.com/p/what-if-ou...

Hope you are better soon!

Abstract in English, article text in Portuguese, which I really love having a reason to practice. I'm hoping I can find some practices to adopt in my occasional first-year writing courses.

Scholarly aside: reading things in other languages is a great joy I wish more people were able to experience.

The Iran Israeli war seems to be affecting supply of rich tea fingers to all supermarkets. Unless it's just Brexit.

Reflecting with Pupils on Beliefs about Language Learning. Is there a right answer? In a recent post , I shared some work my Year 9s wrote in their writing assessment after the first half term's work. I enjoyed the confide...

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2026/02/refl...

Why is it that we have no mainstream language learning options post 16?

Unfortunately there is a reason and it's an ugly one:

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2023/10/colo...

It's also in Mar a Lago with just a curtain put up round them. Maybe in the bathroom with all the boxes.

Oracy - Pupil Voice KS3 French French is a lesson where taking part and speaking is going to be important. We have done a "pupil voice" survey of Key Stage 3 pupils. This...

Pupil voice survey wasn't designed to collect pupils' emotional reaction to French. But that's what came through:

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2026/02/orac...

AQA Conversation really not working At our latest ALL in the East meeting (scroll down for previous meetings on this ALL page ), we discussed the implications of the AQA marks...

Just a few weeks left until the speaking exam. Has anyone heard any more from @aqaeducation.bsky.social? Here's their latest replies to me:

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2025/12/aqa-...

‎Gemini - direct access to Google AI Created with Gemini

I had an idea and I asked AI. Now I don't know if this is true or if it's just flattering my idea.

gemini.google.com/share/44f4c0...

The Language Lab Podcast I was a guest on episode 4 of   https://www.languagelabpodcast.co.uk  with Will Marks. We examined in detail where we are with teaching lan...

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-...

What do we mean by "meaning". And does it matter? In language teaching, we seem to be struggling with two different meanings of the word "meaning". On the one hand we have " I know that tor...

Why meaning matters. Even from a purely "cognition" point of view

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2025/12/what...

I have always managed to avoid Charlie Parker with strings. Nice to have something to listen to in your old age.

Even for just a theory of cognition alone, this is deficient.

Happy birthday Gaston!
Loved these cartoons by Franquin when I was a kid.
This picture made an ever lasting impression on me.
Gaston goes missing at the office, eventually his colleagues find him like this in the archives:

#BlackSky #BlackFathers #BHM #Poet #Poem #Poetry #Lit

Re: U.S. colonizer-oppressor influences on educ & language, when Carter G. Woodson (who taught Spanish & French) taught* in the Philippines from 1903-1907, he also saw the harm of the children studying materials written by white Americans.

This influenced "The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)

U.S. schools need this yesterday.

But regime wants to ban books instead of teaching critical thinking,

Spherical Children in a Vacuum. I do like the adage that, "There's nothing so practical as a good theory." In CPD, an insightful understanding that equips you to plan and ...

The knowledge theory is a great theory. To use it on real pupils you have to put a lot of effort into making them conform to the theory.

Ignores thinking, feeling, imagination, agency, development, experience, emotion, life...

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2026/02/sphe...

> @covie93.bsky.social

J'aime la glace. J'aime manger de la glace au chocolat. J'aime la glace avec des guimauves. Excellent. Really have something to think about. And I think I know the answer, but I have to be open to the alternative and give it a real...

I always forget what this post is about. But people are always reading it in big numbers. Interesting questions about language learning:

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2022/08/jaim...

Get this out of schools entirely

Disciplinary Literacy and MFL Disciplinary Literacy is one of the latest terms to be imported in to the school context. You can tell it belongs elsewhere because of the ...

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2023/01/disc...

“I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus,
‘Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, and who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he had striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the downtrodden of every race and language and color.’”
- T. Stevens

Oracy - Pupil Voice KS3 French French is a lesson where taking part and speaking is going to be important. We have done a "pupil voice" survey of Key Stage 3 pupils. This...

Pupil survey wasn't aiming to get pupils' view of the emotional side of learning. But that's what came through:

whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2026/02/orac...

Thanks. Yes. If I ask myself "Is it important to stamp out my pupils' desire to express themselves?" then I am only ever going to say NO!

Wow!

www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/12...

Epic who?

Oooh. Look at that car park!