By Camille Gautier, Head of Secondary at DSB International School and French teacher

Retrieval practice is “the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you” (Cult of Pedagogy, 2017). How useful is that in languages? Whether you are in front of an exam paper or, more importantly and more authentically, in front of someone you are trying to communicate with, remembering words and grammar is pretty damn useful.

Don’t start a lesson without revising the last one

Yeah, but I have a syllabus to get through. Sure. But if your students can’t remember what you did last class, there’s no point in moving on. So take 10 minutes and engage them in meaningful retrieval practice.

The beauty of starting with a retrieval practice task is that you don’t have to plan it. Here are some examples of minimum input, maximum output tasks:

1)     How many new words can you remember from last lesson?

→ This is particularly effective for your beginners.

2)     How do you form the future (for example)? Write the rule and the verb endings and then write an example.

→ Great for metacognition. If they can explain the rule, they can apply it.

→ Getting them to write an example or two as a follow up is great independent practice.

3)     Translate the sentences

→ Write sentences in English (or whichever language you teach in) that include grammar/vocabulary from the previous lesson.

→ Don’t plan them in advance. Write them up as the students enter the room. By the time they’ve come in, sat down, asked around for a charger because their laptop has died AGAIN, borrowed a pen from a friend, and opened up their book/laptop, you’re done writing on the board.

→ Write 2 sets of sentences, one for advanced students and one for less proficient students, so there’s something meaningful for everyone.

4)     Write down 4 sentences using a given structure.

→ Say you’ve learned the immediate past in French (je viens de + infinitive), ask them to write 4 things they’ve just done.

→ This is a little more authentic as it gives them independence to write what they want, within a framework. It also gives them ownership over how simple or complex they want their sentences to be (look, differentiation!).

5)     Answer questions.

→ Put questions up on the board (or write them up as the students come in) and get them to write an answer.

→ This can be a speaking exercise. Pair them up and ask them to take turns asking/answering questions!

Students are retrieving, you are assessing: assessing whether they remember the content from the previous class, but also whether they have understood it or whether you need to adapt your next lesson plan to provide them with additional opportunities to connect with the material. I know, you have a syllabus to get through. Trust me, it’s worth it. What’s the point in teaching them the subjunctive if they still can’t use the perfect?

There’s one bonus reason why these tasks are great: they create a routine at the start of your class. After a few lessons, students will know exactly what to do when they walk in. You don’t have to start your instructions all over again when a student walks in 5 minutes late. Learning happens before teaching even takes place. They’ll be a clear start to your lesson and that’s just great for classroom management.

I recently asked my Grade 11 students which part of my lessons they thought was the most effective. They all responded it was the retrieval practice activity. Hands down.

Test them regularly

Short, regular tests encourage students to engage with the material. It also provides them with additional opportunities to (re)connect with the material at home and in their own time.

1)     Vocab tests

→ A weekly vocab test on the previous week’s work is great, but don’t forget to give students the opportunity to review vocabulary that was taught weeks or months ago. Otherwise you are still only engaging their short-term memory.

2)     Conjugation tests

→ Let’s face it. French irregular verbs are completely unreasonable (« je suis » means both « I am » and « I follow » and the future tense of « être » is « je serai ». Urgh). No matter how exciting and engaging you want your language lessons to be, at the end of the day students are going to need to learn these conjugations by heart. Not an exciting prospect, but short, regular conjugation tests help.

By the way, I don’t grade these. They wouldn’t fit in any assessment rubric anyway. I just use the data to inform my conversations with parents and students.

Minimum input, maximum output

The only way you survive in this profession (and thrive) is if you work out how to do things well, without planning into the wee hours of the morning. Do less, expect more. Except perhaps for the vocab/conjugation tests, all of the above tasks are planned in my head 3 seconds before I walk into the class. And they are the most important part of my lessons.

References:

The Cult of Pedagogy (2017), available at: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/retrieval-practice/ (accessed 2 December 2021)