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Primary Leadership Development (Modern Languages)

Module description

This module will enable you to develop your knowledge and understanding of how to teach a curriculum area that you have a particular interest/background in. It will give you the chance to explore what curriculum leadership is and how you might prepare to be a curriculum leader in your future teaching career. This module will be taken alongside the Primary Curriculum Theory, Research and Practice module, the Primary Professional Learning in Schools module and either the Primary Education Theory, Research and Practice module or the Education Theory, Research and Practice module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The principal aims of the module are to:

• enable you to gain a comprehensive and up to date understanding of the theory, issues and practice relating to current teaching of modern languages in primary classrooms;
• developing an initial understanding of leadership in primary modern languages to enable you to evaluate and select materials, understand the importance of assessment and target setting, and support your colleagues’ modern languages teaching.
• nurture your development as a reflective and autonomous professional practitioner who is able to identify strengths and areas for development in your subject knowledge and pedagogy, through evaluating current professional practice in relationship to developments in research and educational theory.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Identify and evaluate educational concepts and issues related to primary modern languages and engage in critical debate about current educational issues, drawing on evidence from theory, research and practice
• 2. Deploy a range of personal and professional skills relevant to primary modern languages teaching
• 3. Identify and justify solutions to teaching and learning problems relevant to primary modern languages teaching
• 4. Demonstrate development of academic and pedagogic subject knowledge relevant to primary modern languages teaching

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Critically evaluate the relevance of research and theory to practice
• 6. Synthesise relevant literature in support of an argument
• 7. Use appropriate technologies for data handling and writing
• 8. Present data and findings in an appropriate form
• 9. Use research data in support of an argument

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 10. Learn effectively and be aware of your own learning strategies
• 11. Competently use library and electronic resources including databases, websites and virtual learning environments to support learning.

Syllabus plan

The module engages you in the current thinking of teaching of primary modern languages and develops your pedagogic and academic subject knowledge in this field.

Whilst the precise contents and order may vary from year to year, key elements of the module might include:

• educational theories related to good learning and teaching in primary modern languages;
• practical experience of a variety of classroom activities;
• critiquing resources and commercial schemes;
• collaborative learning and interactive classrooms;
• cross curricular approaches;
• the role of the subject leader in the twenty-first century, including planning for whole school assessment

On the PGCE, you will learn and reflect on the skills and knowledge required by the programme’s credit-bearing and non-credit bearing modules throughout the year. You will need to think about the modules in relation to each other. To facilitate this, the learning and teaching activities and guided independent study described below are scheduled to occur across all three terms both in the context of your university taught course and in the context of your 24 weeks of applied professional experience in schools.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Chambers, G (2019) Pupils’ perceptions of Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3 transition in modern foreign languages. Language Learning Journal, 47 (1). pp. 19-33.
• Driscoll, P, Macaro, E and Swarbrick, A (eds) (2014) Debates in Modern Languages Education. Routledge (e-book)
• Jones, J and Coffey, S (2013) Modern Foreign Languages 5-11: a guide for teachers David Fulton
• Pachler, Barnes and Field (2014) Learning to teach foreign languages in the secondary school Routledge (ebook)
• Ramage, G (2013) The Modern Languages Teacher’s Handbook: Continuum

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• Bauckham, I (2016) Modern Foreign Languages Pedagogy Review https://ldpedagogy.org/resources/mfl-review/
• Collen, I (2023) Language Trends Survey Report, British Council.
• Ofsted (2011) Modern Languages Achievement and Challenge
• Ofsted (2015) Key Stage 3, The Wasted Years?
• Ofsted (2021) Curriculum Research Review – Languages

Key words search

PGCE, QTS, Qualified Teacher Status, Teaching, Primary, modern languages, Education, Schools, Teacher, Teacher Training