An Roinn Oideachais agus Eolaíochta
Department of Education and Science
Subject Inspection of German
REPORT
Saint Leo’s College
Dublin Road, Carlow
Roll number: 61140K
Date of inspection: 8 November 2007
Subject provision and whole school support
Summary of main findings and recommendations
Report on the Quality of Learning and Teaching in German
Subject inspection report
This report has been written following a subject inspection in St Leo’s College, Carlow. It presents the findings of an evaluation of the quality of teaching and learning in German and makes recommendations for the further development of the teaching of this subject in the school. The evaluation was conducted over one day during which the inspector visited classrooms and observed teaching and learning. The inspector interacted with students and teachers, examined students’ work, and had discussions with the teachers. The inspector reviewed school planning documentation and teachers’ written preparation. Following the evaluation visit, the inspector provided oral feedback on the outcomes of the evaluation to the principal and subject teachers. The board of management of the school was given an opportunity to comment on the findings and recommendations of the report; a response was not received from the board.
Subject provision and whole school support
St Leo’s College offers a range of subjects and programmes to its student cohort of 902 girls; the Junior Certificate, Transition Year (TY), the established Leaving Certificate, the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) and the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP). School management is commended for maintaining the long established tradition of languages forming a central strand of the school curriculum in St Leo’s College. The study of a modern European language is mandatory and students have the possibility of studying two languages from the outset. On entry to the school, all students study French as a core subject and German is offered as one of the options from which students select two subjects: Art, Home Economics, German and Technology. It is commendable that students can take two modern languages in junior cycle, and at senior cycle, there is a very high uptake of modern languages.
The number of students opting for German is currently at a constant sustainable level. The fact that forty-eight students of a total first year cohort of one hundred and forty-nine students selected German is an encouraging uptake. This is due in no small way to the commitment and diligence of the German teaching team. There are four fully qualified teachers of German, two of whom are currently teaching the subject. A very positive classroom atmosphere and stimulating learning environment were experienced at the time of the evaluation. The German teachers demonstrated not only a linguistic competence to effectively model the target language country and community but also a pedagogical competence and a commendable awareness of how learners learn. The class groups for German are mixed ability and the range of active learning methodologies, coupled with the effective integration of artwork, music and song, accommodated different learning styles and abilities. This is very good practice.
Single lesson periods are allocated to German as much as possible. Given the importance of regular and sustained encounters with a modern language, it is desirable that students engage with a language at frequent intervals across the week to ensure continuity and effective progress. In this regard, the allocation of five lesson periods and the distribution of those units of time across the week at senior cycle are optimal. School management is commended for this. At junior cycle, there are four periods assigned to German and this may include a double period, if German is timetabled alongside the practical subjects of Technology or Home Economics. The distribution of those units of time is spread across the week. Students who study German up to Junior Certificate are required to continue with the language in TY. Class periods are of thirty-five or forty minutes duration.
In line with the mission of the college, which is the holistic development of its students, the college has a broad range of co-curricular activity available to students of German, including interschool debating, participation in the German film project, the Austrian essay writing competition and the organisation and facilitation of a student exchange programme and school trips to the target language country. St Leo’s is twinned with a German school and an exchange is organised at junior and senior level. There are also TY tours to Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Participation in such initiatives and programmes not only enhances the language learning experience of the students, but also provides language teachers with the necessary support for maintaining and developing their own language skills and competence.
Other praiseworthy co-curricular activities include: the German club, where younger students are supported in their language learning by the senior students of German; primary school visits, where taster lessons in German are provided by the German teachers to 6th class pupils in the main feeder primary schools. Cross-curricular links involve co-operation across a number of subject departments and links are established with Geography, History and Home Economics, through intercultural projects or the provision of German breakfasts or typical German fare. The school regularly applies for a language assistant and the German teachers have cooperated with the scheme over the years. It was reported to have always been very successful, and has greatly enhanced the teaching and learning of German in the school. Both school management and language teachers alike acknowledged the positive impact of the native speaker, and representative of the target language community, in the school and classroom.
German teachers attend any available in-service, and the school has facilitated the attendance of one of the German teachers to attend the seminar for schools receiving language assistants. The German Teachers’ Association membership is paid by the board of management. The board also tries to accommodate teachers pursuing courses in further education.
Teachers don’t have their own language base rooms, but efforts had been made to create a stimulating and culturally rich language learning environment in the language classrooms visited. Additional resources, such as charts and diagrams to clarify and facilitate student learning, as well as the display of student work, craft work, posters, and maps were effectively deployed and drawn upon in the course of lessons. German teachers have access to the school’s language laboratory and multi-media centre, where teachers may take language lessons, if timetabling allows. An attractive and stimulating learning environment was created in the language laboratory. The German department has access to ICT in the computer room. A data projector is also available. It is recommended that school management explore the possibility of clustering the language classrooms in the same corridor or block. This would facilitate and optimise the integration of a range of resources, such as DVDs, German Satellite TV and ICT. Each subject department is allocated a yearly budget to facilitate the ordering of a range of resources, such as language games, DVDs, posters, maps, books, novels and magazines.
It is commendable that the German teachers do not depend on the text book as the main resource for teaching, but rather access recent texts from the internet, TV and other media and devise accompanying worksheets, ensuring the authenticity of texts, effective integration of both language and cultural awareness and up-to-date and relevant lesson materials. This requires a lot of work in selecting appropriate materials, devising and designing accompanying exercises and ensuring the systematic building on student linguistic competence on the part of the German teachers. This level of commitment to both students and subject is highly commendable.
Planning and preparation
Subject planning is an ongoing activity with time allocated by school management for this purpose. Formal subject planning meetings are scheduled for the beginning and end of the year and an effort is made to allocate time to subject planning throughout the year at staff meetings. Teachers also meet in their own time. Guidelines were initially given by school management on matters to be addressed in planning. Minutes are kept of these meetings and these can set the agenda for the following meeting. There is a coordinator for German, who is selected by the German department by consensus. Curriculum planning meetings have added a formal dimension to the many reported informal contacts and discussions among the German and language teachers.
It is recommended, in the context of time available for planning, that school management consider providing one meeting for the modern languages faculty as a group, to promote collaboration, sharing of expertise and a cohesive approach to the modern languages provision.
An effective subject plan for the teaching and learning of German is now in place. All the elements of good planning were included in the planning documentation made available. The German plan opens with the mission statement of the college, an overview of the curriculum in St Leo’s and the aims and objectives for the language. Long-term planning was informed by the curriculum, was fully in line with syllabus approach and guidelines and demonstrated a commendable level of reflection on the part of teachers. The planning documentation lists effective teaching methodologies which include: the use of the target language; encouraging students to use the language; practice of pronunciation; use of pair and group work; pre-reading and pre-listening exercises; development of worksheets to reinforce learning; use of authentic materials; independent student learning. It is particularly commendable that specific learning outcomes are set and met. The plan also includes strategies for use with students with special educational needs (SEN). Examples of differentiated worksheets were observed to be used in the course of the evaluation. SEN students are encouraged to participate in all language activities and trips. Home work procedures, record-keeping and assessment procedures and procedures for reporting to parents are outlined. The work achieved to date is very good.
The plan as outlined for TY is very good. What is particularly commendable is the focus on what the students will be able to do. The broadening out of the use of the European Language Portfolio (ELP), in which student outcomes are expressed in “can-do” statements, has already been recorded as a priority by the teachers. In developing the overall plan for German further, teachers are encouraged to elaborate on learning outcomes in terms of can-do statements. The template deployed for the TY plan is a good model for development of the plan.
There was clear evidence of short-term planning for the individual lessons observed. The level of planning contributed to the good pace of the lessons and to the preparation of appropriate materials, worksheets and availability of appropriate resources.
Teaching and learning
There was very good, consistent use of the target language as the language of communication and instruction in the classroom. Students were presented with clear and constant use of the language at every phase within lessons. Students were correspondingly accurate in the pronunciation and intonation. Students heard and used a lot of German, and this was reflected in the good level of fluency and accuracy of the learners. The use of a range of media when introducing lesson content also helped in this regard. For example, students initially listened to an audio recording of a story, they engaged in an activity to place sentences into the correct order to tell the printed version of the story and finally, they listened to an accompanying song to the same theme. Lesson timelines recorded in the course of the evaluation illustrate very clearly the frequency with which activities changed and the integrated nature of the learning activities. The systematic yet engaging approach of the teachers ensured active participation on the part of students together with effective reinforcement of lesson content.
Very effective work in the integration of skills was also observed in the course of the evaluation. The teachers directed the learning initially, then followed this with the integration of learning activities. On one occasion, where the objective of the lesson was a focus on a literary piece, the lesson opened with recalling vocabulary relating to the theme of the poem; a theme which was appropriate to a senior cycle group. The “W-Fragen” employed were used effectively to ensure participation by all students. Such pre-reading activities were a very useful stimulus for the students, who in pairs tried to work out the meaning of the poem. It was praiseworthy to see the way in which students checked individual words in dictionaries, independent of teacher support. The building on student competence was very effectively achieved in this way. At this level, any queries relating to homework were asked in German by the students themselves.
In line with syllabus objectives and guidelines, there was ongoing development of both cultural and language awareness. In one case, the development of language awareness and grammatical structures were skilfully integrated into the correction of homework. Some grammatical items causing difficulty were highlighted on the board and discussed. The systematic work on vocabulary acquisition as observed was excellent. New items of vocabulary were explained through the use of synonyms, thus broadening out the vocabulary base of the students and minimising recourse to mother tongue support. Students were observed to review vocabulary while the roll was being taken. In junior cycle lessons, there was a mixture of new material and reinforcement of material already learnt and teachers drew on vocabulary items on display on charts. Lexical items were systematically gathered, explained and noted.
Evidence from examination of students’ notebooks shows very useful colour coding introduced to the recording of items of vocabulary. The definite article was presented simultaneously as a matter of course which is good practice. The use of diagrams, visual stimuli and artwork evident in the student notebooks examined appealed to different learning styles and is good practice. In lessons observed, there was also some very good use of music, with students playing their own instruments, of listening to and singing songs in the target language. On another occasion, deployment of an authentic game appropriate to the level and age of the group to augment the learning in the topic and to stimulate interest was particularly effective. These are very good examples of active learning, which help students to more readily internalise the linguistic structures. There was good participation on the part of all students.
The approach and lesson content for the TY group was appropriate and in line with the philosophy of TY. It was both imaginative on the teacher’s part and required creativity on the students’ part in the target language. Students applied themselves with diligence and enthusiasm to the task. The lesson closed with a simple narration of the original story the exercise was based on. The theme of the lesson had an interesting and timely cultural awareness dimension to the lesson content, in line with TY recommendations.
Classroom atmosphere was characterised by positive, warm student-teacher relationships, and a language learning environment which was engaging and conducive to real interactions and communication in the target language.
Assessment
Continuous assessment is the policy of the school for all years, and regular testing across the skills is a feature of assessment in German. Class tests are given at the end of a theme or topic and a range of assessment modes are employed. The good practice of the correction and assigning of homework was a feature of all lessons. The implementation of the school’s homework policy was observed in practice in lessons visited. In German, homework is assigned regularly in all four skills. Homework is checked in class and the student journal is stamped, if a student fails to complete homework assigned. It is suggested that the German teachers devise a system of annotation of homework exercises to identify more readily for students, particularly at senior cycle, the different types of linguistic, structural and lexical errors. It is praiseworthy that oral assessment forms part of the continuous assessment from first year onwards. Mock orals are conducted by teachers for 6th year students. There are house examinations in May for all class groups. The German teachers work together to produce a common examination. This is commendable.
The results from state examinations are analysed by the Mercy order office. The German teachers also conduct an informal review of attainment of their students in state examinations. The German teachers are encouraged to formalise their analysis of student attainment. Over the years students of St Leo’s have been recipients of scholarships awarded by the German government based on Junior Certificate results. The uptake of higher-level German at both Junior and Leaving Certificate is very high and attainment at both levels is very high. This is testament to the quality of the teaching and learning.
Summary of main findings and recommendations
The following are the main strengths identified in the evaluation:
· Students have the possibility of studying both French and German, and the number of students opting for German is currently at a constant sustainable level.
· The German teachers demonstrated not only a linguistic competence to effectively model the target language country and community but also a pedagogical competence and a commendable awareness of how learners learn.
· Subject planning is an ongoing activity with time allocated by school management for this purpose. An effective subject plan for the teaching and learning of German is now in place, and all the elements of good planning were included in the planning documentation.
· There was very good, consistent use of the target language as the language of communication and instruction in the classroom. Students heard and used a lot of German, and this was reflected in the good level of fluency and accuracy of the learners.
· Lesson timelines recorded in the course of the evaluation illustrate very clearly the frequency with which activities changed and the integrated nature of the learning activities.
· Continuous assessment is the policy of the school for all years, and the good practice of the correction and assigning of homework was a feature of all lessons.
· The uptake of higher-level German at both Junior and Leaving Certificate is very high and attainment at both levels is very high.
As a means of building on these strengths and to address areas for development, the following key recommendations are made:
· It is recommended that school management explore the possibility of clustering the language classrooms in the same corridor or block. This would facilitate and optimise the integration and sharing of a range of resources.
· In developing the overall plan for German further, teachers are encouraged to elaborate on learning outcomes in terms of “can-do” statements and to broaden the use of the ELP with students.
· It is suggested that the German teachers devise a system of annotation of homework exercises to identify more readily for students, particularly at senior cycle, the different types of linguistic, structural and lexical errors.
· The German teachers are encouraged to formalise their analysis of student attainment to inform planning and review.
Post-evaluation meetings were held with the teachers of German and with the principal at the conclusion of the evaluation when the draft findings and recommendations of the evaluation were presented and discussed.
Published June 2008