Teaching and learning

National Poetry Day takes place on 5 October. But why teach poetry to children? The reasons are many and diverse, including, of course, developing their reading skills, but in short, poetry allows children the freedom to express themselves. There is no 'right' way to write (or to interpret) a poem; children don't have to adhere to sentence structures or complex English grammar or punctuation rules, and so writing poetry can be an opportunity to build confidence and play with language. Indeed, research conducted by the CLPE in March reported that 88% of teachers say that children enjoy engaging with poetry and 89% reported that children enjoyed listening to it being read or performed. However, despite the importance of poetry in the |English National Curriculum, 61% of teachers have never had CPD on teaching poetry and 79% of classroom book corners have fewer than ten poetry books in their book selection. 

In this article, experienced teacher and author Megan Mansworth offers her 10 tips on one of the more effective classroom management strategies: teaching to the top. 

Writing isn't always students' favourite activity. At one end of the scaffolding spectrum, a blank page can be very daunting, but at the other end, copying from a sentence builder doesn't require much creative input on the learners' part. To achieve a happy medium – and hopefully happy, motivated students – I've selected some activities that provide a medium level of support and include a collaborative or competitive element.

Language teachers and students love games, but what exactly are the benefits of using them – other than injecting a bit of fun into the MFL classroom – and what types of games does Teachit have to offer?

Help students to master the essentials of English and understand it's 'magic', and they'll quickly feel more confident as writers. Jill Carter, experienced English teacher and SPaG textbook writer, shares her favourite spelling, punctuation and grammar resources.

How can we help MFL students to move beyond comprehensible input and tackle more challenging texts?