So - what about the QCA units?

[Marshal Anderson]

Are these likely to provide a useful structure in terms of the vocabulary/grammar progression they put forward? I'm trying to create a resource that will support each of the 24 units (pictures/flashcards) and I'm wondering to what extent we'll all be using them as a guide.

[Lisa Stevens]

Hi Marshal

I'm using some of the QCA units as the basis for my SoW for KS2. (The whole school from Nursery to Year6)

I take the units as a basis and work from there. I've made resources for several of the Spanish units, and blogged my experiences on my own blog ¡Vámonos! I think they are a good start and include some good ideas - but ones that I love to adapt!! Currently planning A bordo, Los planetas and Nuestro colegio for this term.

Lisaxx

[Marshal Anderson]

That's exactly what I was interested to hear - whatever we think about the units I guess there has to be some consistency in content or no one will be able to share resources.

Marshal

[Jo Rhys-Jones]

Been playing around with them like Lisa, I much prefer the newer units 12-24, but they are unsuitable for mixed age classes without a lot of adaptation. Mixed age poses not just mixed ability but more importantly mixed experiences of language learning that needs to be addressed - and for this the progression needs to be much clearer, I think.
So yes I agree they are something to start with, but work much better for single year group classes, and I find are at their best stripped down. What do you do with them / what are your plans?

[Marshal Anderson]

I kinda disagree about the later units - they felt a bit thin to me. I guess I'm looking at this from the point of view of teachers with no serious MFL skills who won't find it easy to pick up and run with a subject like The Planets. But, considering these 24 units are supposed to run over the whole of KS2, I suppose there's plenty of space (planets - space - geddit) for all teachers to experiment and develop approaches (along with all that other stuff they have to do).

The resource I'm working on will be a commercial - I need to be open about that. It's based on a previous package I did for encouraging verbal work in story telling - I felt it would help to have something to support children by encouraging them to listen back to their own so I've altered that structure to present less of a creative challenge and more of a verbal one. As the package had to have soem sort of stimulious (sorry, my spell check isn't working in this box) for the speech, the QCA units seemed the most sensible thing to hang my stuff on - but they seem very, dunno, dry?

[Barbara Jones]

I too am playing around with them. On the whole I like the structure, but it will take a bit of jiggery pokery to dovetail the later units into what the kids already know. The progression is fine but it assumes a lot of prior knowledge and if you are trying to fit it on top of an older scheme, it can give you some headaches.

[Marshal Anderson]

Y'see - I'd not even thought of what it would mean for schools with existing schemes - I guess this just leads us into a discussion about centrally imposed curricula so I won't go there. Oh how I miss the web-balancing elephant of my distant youth :-/

So, Barbara - are you playing around with all three languages? If so, have you created you own common vocabulary to get past the inconsistantcies (danm I need a spell chcek)? I messed with that for a while, but abandoned it in the end because I'm always concerned about how easily the non-linguist teacher can cope with materials.