Classroom management is a recurring theme for most teachers. In the ‘comprehensible input’ classroom it takes on even greater significance as you are looking for intent listening, total engagement and 100% understanding from your learners. You plan compelling, interesting stories and activities, and this breathes life and even more energy into your teenage students. It can sometimes result in a fear of things getting out of control or too noisy which can in turn impact their acquisition. The ‘Class Constitution’ is a way to get immediate buy-in from your students on Day 1. By co-creating it together as a team you are building strong and meaningful relationships through mutual respect from the very first time you meet them.

​The three core tenets of quality classroom management are: Clear expectations, Consistent routines and Strong relationships. The ‘Class Constitution’ hits all of these. It usually takes a full double period (for me that is 80 minutes) to do it properly. Dedicating a full class to this may seem like a lot but it is the best time investment you will spend all year and will save you hours and hours in the long run whilst also keeping you as that happy, enthusiastic and motivated teacher you want to be all year. 

Step-by-step guide to your ‘Class Constitution’:
As students arrive on the first day, greet them at the door with care and respect, looking them in the eye. As they take their seats I tell them they are all no longer in school but in the ‘Embajada de Españoland’ (Embassy of Españoland). I bring them to the door and show them my 'border' (black tape on the ground and something we use a lot later on when talking about migration) and ask them to explain what they know about ‘borders’ and ‘embassies’ to me. For my total beginner students I tell them that normally in Españoland we only speak Spanish but just for today we will be doing everything in English. Yes, I know this is valuable time when they could be getting more input but in my experience, showing the students that this is important enough for a full double lesson sets us up for the year and allows me to have much more time giving them Comprehensible Input throughout the year as they are totally bought-into the process. With all other year groups/levels we do it in Spanish but I allow responses and group talk in English that I will translate for them.

Step 1: What is a ‘safe’ learning environment?
In small groups of three or four, students firstly have some quiet thinking time and then they chat about what a 'safe classroom' means to them. On large sheets of paper, they start jotting down ideas. You can do this in whatever way works for you but I usually have one big A3 piece of paper on each table, for every group, and it is divided into three sections. Each group writes their ideas in one section of their paper with the heading “safe”.
​
Step 2: Teacher led discussion
After 5 minutes (or less if you wish), I ask each group for some ideas or key words they wrote down. I jot these on the board, making sure to recognize any great words or concepts that come out. Obviously though, you, as the teacher, are a skilled practitioner and professional, so you keep probing for answers until they come up with what you really want to hear. Students will quickly realise that while silly or immature words are listened to but not accepted, the teacher gets very enthusiastic and excited about concepts like ‘respect, listening, we love mistakes’ etc.

​Step 3: What is a 'fun' learning environment?
The above two steps are now copied in the same way but changing the focus to ‘fun’. I usually have each group move to a different table so they can see the words and answers that other groups wrote down. They can add some words if they wish. In the discussion part for this question you will see the enormous impact of the tone you set and the way you looked in their eyes and smiled when they gave you a great word in the first discussion. You will start getting really great stuff here right from the outset. Again, use your skills to facilitate a discussion until those key concepts start to surface.
​
Step 4: What does it mean to be 'linguist'?
The final section of their paper is about being a linguist. I introduced this last September and it worked wonders as a classroom management piece throughout the year. They follow the same procedure as before but you may need to explain what a ‘linguist’ is. I tell them that by being citizens of Españoland they are all now part of a very elite and special group, they are no longer mere students or learners but linguists. Just watch their faces light up as you call them ‘linguists’. When we get to the group discussion part, I explain that we as linguists, are different, we do not act like everyone else. What do we do that is different? After some probing, they will come out with things like “we respect other cultures, we listen to other languages, we read and inquire into cultural differences, we love speaking languages, we love listening to others talk in a different language” etc. This simple element of naming them for the whole year as linguists has a profound impact on behaviour, attitude and confidence. 

​Step 5: Pulling it all together
Once we have all our key ideas on the board under our three headings, I ask them what they notice. Someone will point out the word ‘respect’ has magically appeared in all three areas so this must be the centre and core of our constitution. We then circle and highlight other ‘big ideas’ or key concepts together. Finally, I ask them if it would be ok if I could represent them and pool all of this together into our very own constitution. I also ask them, “if we have an embassy based on these ideas do you think it will be a good year in Españoland?”, they inevitably will answer yes. I also explicitly point out and say that they did not walk in here and get handed a list of ‘my’ rules of the class. Instead, they wrote their own constitution, they came up with the key values and concepts of being a citizen of Españoland themselves.

Step 6: The next class
I start the next class by showing them their constitution… it is no surprise that all my classes have a constitution that is almost identical. I ask them if I have represented their ideas adequately and if they are happy that this be our ‘guiding document and principles’ for life in Españoland. There is also great cross-curricular learning here with Humanities; I often have the younger students speak to their humanities teacher about our constitution and allow them to show off that they know what it is and why it is important to countries and citizens to have one.

​Throughout the year:
The constitution remains on our ‘embassy’ wall for the year. If there are any lapses in behavior or standards that we all expect from each other, I simply bring the student(s) in question to the constitution and point to the requisite section and smile. This usually does the trick but sometimes I might have to remind the entire class of our underlying constitutional values that they themselves designed and wrote. These lapses in standards are actually incredibly rare. In general, co-creating the shared ideals together results in a respectful classroom where everyone feels safe, where we have fun, where we act like the linguists we are and where we thrive upon our favourite mistakes as unique learning opportunities. I always remind students that “as linguists, we are special, we are unique, we listen intently to understand and therefore learn”. Simply changing the discourse and calling them linguists possesses some magical power to keep everyone engaged, enthused and eager to represent themselves as the linguist they are.

Planning to motivate not to laminate:
As my regular blog followers will already know, the thesis for my Doctor of Education studies is focused on strategies that motivate both the teacher and student in the language classroom. Specifically, I am looking at Ryan and Deci’s (2000) Self-Determination Theory relating to intrinsic motivation. It posits that when activities meet the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence, this results in intrinsic motivation; where we engage in something out of pure joy and interest rather than external forces acting upon us. This forms the backbone of all my classroom planning as, in my opinion, motivated students who like the class and want to be there, who want to listen and learn, make for great language learners. The ‘Class Constitution’ meets all of the three psychological needs of Self-Determination Theory:

• Autonomy: Students are co-creating this constitution themselves with the teacher; they have control, choice and ownership over what to suggest and what is ultimately included.
• Relatedness: Through building the ‘Class Constitution’ together in groups and then with me as the teacher, they are fostering strong bonds and relationships both to each other, to the teacher and to 'Españoland' itself.
• Competence: When the teacher acknowledges the students' ideas and then accepts their concepts as important enough to go into the constitution, the students feel ‘able’ for what is being asked, they feel competent.

If you are a language teacher based in Europe you must get yourself to Agen, France next summer for the next instalment of this incredible week of meeting, laughing and sharing with like-minded passionate teachers. I am sure most of you have been to ‘professional development’ workshops before that left you far from… well, ‘developed’. This workshop is different. You walk away feeling professionally enriched, enthused, motivated, supported and connected.

When I first heard about the Agen TPRS workshop, I was excited to have the opportunity to meet and learn from amazing teachers from around the world but I was a little apprehensive that it was for an entire week in the middle of my long awaited summer holidays. I arranged to attend the conference from Monday to Friday morning, planning to leave at lunchtime. However, after just a few days I could see why people love this week so much. The workshops, the presentations, the activities but even more so, the social aspect… picnicking in one of Agen’s beautiful parks as the sun was going down, chatting about pedagogy and motivation with other like-minded souls. I was sold. I was all in. I quickly cancelled Biarritz and booked the Friday night in Agen too so I could attend every session right up to the final one on Saturday morning.

​The workshop focuses on teaching strategies related to Dr. Stephen Krashen’s ‘Comprehensible Input’ (CI) theory and the method of ‘Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling’ (TPRS). The fundamental principle of CI teaching is to give students vast amount of ‘input’ (through listening intently and reading) at a level that is close to 100% understandable so they acquire language naturally rather than having to ‘learn’ it through drilling and practising. The results that CI teachers are achieving in a short amount of time are astounding… but the more important part, for me at least, is that CI students adore their language class; they find it fun, entertaining and are highly motivated to speak the language outside class and to continue learning it into the future.

This isn’t just anecdotal either… the research around TPRS and CI points to increased retention and numbers of students taking the language. As part of the Doctorate in Education that I am completing with the University of Bath, my research study with 12 high school students (full text here) found that TPRS was highly motivating to them and led them towards feeling intrinsically motivated – learning Spanish out of pure joy and interest rather than because of extrinsic rewards. Surely this has got to be our core goal as teachers. For our students to not only acquire language rapidly and achieve their potential, but to love our subject so much that they can’t wait to use their learning outside class and are eager to keep learning more about it long into the future.
​
Susan Gross kicked us off with a witty, engaging, keynote address about the history of CI and TPRS on Monday afternoon after an ‘official welcome’ to Agen at the Mairie. For those who have not been to the Agen Workshop before, the mornings are ‘language labs’ where you can be part of a real language class for the week or simply drop in and observe some exceptional teachers, hand picked from around the globe, working their magic. The afternoons are dedicated to workshops and presentations focusing on various strategies that aim to increase our use of CI in the classroom by sharing our practice with one another.

During the week, I had the pleasure of attending a Japanese class with Pablo Ramón, French with Sabrina Janczak, Spanish with Margarita Pérez Garcia, Mandarin with Diane Neubauer and Breton with Daniel Kline Longsdon Dubois. In my current school we have an open door policy where we encourage anyone to come along and observe but the reality of a busy school week often means that we don’t observe or have observers anywhere near as often as we would like. The week in Agen gave me that opportunity to just go, watch and take notes from truly expert teachers, masters of their craft, for 2.5 hours per day and then to chat with them over lunch, picking their brains for more tips and tricks I could steal for the benefit of my students. Each of them has inspired me to try new things in September and I now have concrete goals and examples to aspire to. A major take-away for me, from these observations, was that despite entirely different styles, with some teachers being very extrovert and animated, and others very calm and collected, TPRS was equally as successful in both these situations. TPRS can sometimes feel like you have to be quite a ‘big’ personality to do it well, but this is simply not the case. You must stay true to who you are as a person, as a personality and as a teacher but if you employ the skills and principles of CI and TPRS, both the achievement and the engagement in your class will take a dramatic upward turn.

In the afternoons, you have three choices to choose between. Although they are broken up into Track 1 (new to CI), Track 2 (developing with CI) and Track 3 (experienced with CI), in reality you end up jumping between the Tracks a little depending on your particular interests and what the presenters have planned. As I was presenting twice during the week I could not get to everyone but the ones I did see were all carefully planned, presented with enthusiasm and gave me a host of ideas to implement when I get back to school.

Scott Benedict showed us some clever ways to successfully carry out speaking assessments and then later in the week gave a plenary on classroom management with a CI focus. Laurie Clarcq gave us very practical, hands-on activities and skills aimed at increasing the amount of CI in our classrooms while Diane Neubauer demonstrated the power of ‘listen and draw’ both for comprehension checking and for maximizing input in the class and also led a plenary session on current research and issues in second language acquisition. On Wednesday, Robert Harrell explained how to use ‘Breakout’ (think Escape Rooms in the classroom with a box) to encourage ‘reading for meaning’ at the same time that Adriana Ramirez presented on her ingenious use of personalized photos in the class to encourage and develop oral fluency. I could only attend one so Adriana kindly gave me a mini 1 to 1 presentation on her ‘picture talk’ as I had heard such great things about it from others. At the end of the week, Adriana also went through what a whole week of TPRS and CI looks like for her. 

​The inimitable Jason Fritze explained how to take Total Physical Response (TPR) to a whole new level, backward planning it into our lessons to enable students to read more and then developed this further in his plenary on Saturday morning. Alice Ayel talked us through her use of ‘Story Listening’ and the results it has achieved, and then delivered an example for the whole group so we could see it in action. The final session on Thursday afternoon for me was Sabrina Janczak’s ‘Star of the Day’, where a student is the ‘star’ who is interviewed in front of the whole class allowing for lots of rich input and encouraging a real sense of community among the students. The last session on Friday was a big discussion on the use of the ‘Mafia’ game, facilitated by Diane Neubauer, with a focus on how it allows us to maximize the amount of CI we can get into a lesson while students are intently listening so they can follow along in the game.

It is clear why the Agen Workshop is so motivating, as it meets all three of the basic psychological needs required for intrinsic motivation as outlined in Self-Determination Theory (Ryan and Deci 2000):

• Autonomy: You get to choose which sessions you want to attend in the afternoons and which teachers to observe in the mornings; it is also very inclusive so you feel like your ideas and contributions have merit and are accepted by the group.
• Relatedness: There is an immediate sense of community and togetherness at the workshop as we are all working towards a common goal of boosting motivation and allowing students to acquire language naturally through CI. In many cases, we are ‘lone wolves’ in our respective schools, maybe the only CI teacher in the department, but at this workshop everyone is so passionate about CI and has seen its results. It brings everyone together immediately. The social events (especially the 2.5 hour lunches!) and also foster a genuine feeling of belonging as we chat together about pedagogy and teaching over the incredible French cuisine.
• Competence: Even if you are new to CI, by attending the workshop you start to feel like you can really implement some of the principles in your classroom. The more sessions you attend and more times you practice the techniques, the more comfortable and competent you feel about being a CI practitioner.

Before you book anything else next summer, book onto the Agen workshop. Think ‘working holiday’ in Southwest France with lots of like-minded people, passionate about improving their practice and more importantly, improving their student’s outcomes. Put it in the Agen-da now! You can thank me later. 

Wasn’t it Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? On Friday my twitter feed lit up with news that the UK government had “announced the creation of a national language centre and nine schools that will lead language hubs in a drive to improve the teaching of Spanish, French and German”… sounds great doesn’t it? And they are throwing £4.8 million at the initiative over the next four years, with the aim of “raising standards of teaching in languages”… all very positive so far, right? In addition, it seemed this was an evidence based proposal coming from “recommendations made in the Teaching Schools Council’s Modern Foreign Language Pedagogy Review led by headteacher and linguist Ian Bauckham.” I was genuinely feeling very optimistic and excited about this… until I clicked the link that is.

Let me be clear, I am not from the UK, I have never taught in the UK and I do not live in the UK. So why am I bothering to write this blog? Well, I work in an international school with many British teachers, parents and students. I have a large group of teacher friends who are British and my girlfriend is also British. I am also completing a Doctor of Education programme at the University of Bath in the UK and there is a strong likelihood I will teach in the UK at some stage in the future so their language education policies are important to me. From numerous conversations with Britons of all ages, it seems languages are taught, for the most part, in a very similar to way to how I was taught and how many teachers continue to teach.

In the Modern Foreign Language Pedagogy Review that underpinned this big announcement, there is a distinct focus on continuing down the road of old school grammar and vocabulary teaching. Yet there is also references to students becoming demotivated and disinterested. Let’s just put this straight out there and say it clearly: these two concepts are closely linked. In my 11 years of teaching, I have chatted to hundreds of students and parents, and they say the same thing my classmates and I said 20 years ago when you ask them about their language class… it’s boring! It is just fill in the blanks, vocabulary lists, worksheets, grammar tables and stilted, forced “talk to your partner” conversations about ‘Pierre from Paris who likes baguettes’. Yes, there are some students who like learning this way but the vast majority are bored stiff and only keep going with the language as they perceive it as useful or their parents tell them it will be useful one day. The sad thing is that it does not have to be this way.

I was one of these textbook, grammar table and vocabulary list teachers too but then I discovered teaching with “Comprehensible Input” (CI). It is a well established theory of language acquisition, coined by Dr Stephen Krashen. Dr Krashen’s work does not feature in the appendix of the Modern Foreign Language Pedagogy Review, and the word “comprehensible” is not present anywhere in the 27 page document. Yes, like everything in the world, it has its critics but those critics are certainly not my students, or the students of the thousands of CI teachers (and growing rapidly) around the world. This is not just some passing ‘fad’ or ‘method’. More and more teachers are converting to CI teaching as they see the incredible achievement and fluency it fosters but more importantly, their students now love their classes and their teachers love teaching them.

I can already see some language teachers who are unfamiliar with this shaking their heads and saying “that would never work”… but it does. While the research around TPRS is still limited, it is growing. Karen Lichtman’s overview of all the current TPRS research shows that students achieve very highly when compared to traditional methods. In fact, 87 of 88 of my students mentioned "stories" as one of three things that helped them learn most in their end of year feedback surveys last year.

​More importantly though, for me at least, is that both students and teachers find it to be highly motivating. My own doctoral research with the University of Bath focusses on this ‘motivational pull’ of teaching and learning languages with TPRS and the data is overwhelming: Students love learning with TPRS. As Stephen Kaufman of LingQ pointed out so aptly in his tweet “Unfortunately too few language teachers recognize that the role of the teacher is not to teach the language, but to motivate the learner to learn the language.” We all need to remember this. If you focus on the motivation, the students will do the learning and acquiring themselves. TPRS gives you a tool that will motivate your learners and they will come to class in eager anticipation. As one student said in my research study about learning through stories:

TPRS is just one piece of the CI jigsaw. There are loads of other ways to get the vast amounts of comprehensible input, that students need, in to the class like Movietalk, one word images, picture talk, star of the week etc but the aforementioned principles stay the same.. and you’ve got to admit, it makes sense, right? We are all language learners, we have learnt and are fluent in at least one language already so we know we can do it. But how did we ‘acquire’ that language as we certainly didn’t learn it? Well, we listened and were read to for about two whole years before we ever felt ready to start to say some of those words. We certainly didn’t start off learning about adverbs, conjunctions and the irregular verbs in the passé compose before we could even speak and read the language. Or if our parents did start us off learning that way, I’m not sure how much love or motivation I’d have for the language (or for them!) today!
​
Yes, it is great that the UK Government recognize the importance of language learning and I applaud their consultation approach. However, I also implore the Minister for Education and the authors of the Modern Foreign Language Pedagogy Review to do their research. Go and read about CI and TPRS. Talk to teachers and students who are using it. Be ready for some enthusiastic and motivated responses. If we keep teaching languages in the same boring way we will have the same problems with uptake and retention for years to come. The frustrating thing is that we have the one subject that we can literally teach, talk and read about anything we want as long as it is the target language. We have the scope to be the most loved and interesting subject in the school. Any language teacher can do this by embracing ‘Comprehensible Input’ teaching approaches and working to make the input we give, “compelling” to our students’ ears and eyes.