Thread by @cobmfl

Had the pleasure (and it was a pleasure!) of observing a few interview lessons last week, so I thought I'd put some tips together for anyone job hunting as we approach the main recruitment season! #mfltwitterati

💪 Start strong but with minimal faff! "Je suis ... (write your name on the board), copiez le titre et la date, who can translate? Off you go!"

📈 Show clear progress. Sounds obvious, but it's easy especially on an interview just to shoehorn in your favourite activities. You want to make it super obvious pupils can *do* something at the end that they couldn't at the start. Here's how I'd structure an interview lesson:

1. Introduce key vocab (if possible, choose words that are similar enough to the English that pupils can work them out, i.e. timide and honnête, not too easy like stupide, or impossible to work out like paresseux)

2. Do a few activities so pupils get to hear what the vocab sounds like and how it fits into sentences, e.g. choral repetition and associated games, narrow reading/listening, tangled translation - adapt depending on time, age of pupils and activities you are confident doing

3. Build from this to a writing or speaking activity with lots of support so pupils practise using the language, but also practise *getting it right*, e.g. MWBs, sentence stealer, trapdoor, pyramid translation, @VEverettmfl's brilliant ski slope writing idea

4. Finish with pupils writing or speaking something in French, with no or minimal support, using success criteria tying in to whatever you said were your objectives, so you can refer back to this when asked to reflect on the lesson

A few more practical tips for planning the lesson:

📝 Use simple, foolproof ideas. There's nothing wrong with a worksheet! In fact, I am actively very impressed by seeing the basics (explanations, handouts, practice questions) done really well as that's our bread and butter

💃 Model *everything*. Even things you think are really obvious may only seem that to you; lots of schools have routines or terms that won't make sense to everyone! Be really explicit on everything you want pupils to do, and do the first example of *every* task together

👍 Do less, well: we asked candidates to introduce the futur proche; the best lesson just focused on the singular forms and made sure pupils could use these really well, rather than getting bogged down with vous and whatnot

🤸 Be wary of more 'active' tasks - remember you don't know the class, so getting them running around the room for example is a bit of a risk. To be clear, I'm not saying don't do it, but you may want to think of some adaptations or precautions to make it more likely to succeed!

🔀 Adapt if you need to. I know it can be nerve-wracking to go off piste, so plan for this in advance: what will you do if you need to do more practise, or they haven't done something you assumed they would have, or you're running out of time, or they're finding it too easy?

😀 Be positive! Loads of praise will make pupils feel good and make it seem like your lesson is going really well! If you do need to adapt, pretend it was the plan all along if you can! At the same time, although pupils should be well behaved with potentially SLT in the room...

⛔ Challenge behaviour consistently (but positively) - I think some teachers avoid this on interviews because they don't want to be too negative, but I'd be much more concerned if you ignored it! Good strategies I saw were proximity, quiet words and looks - this is usually enough

🗣️ Ask for a seating plan or ask pupils to make a name badge (v quickly!) and then use their names as much as possible! If you can, use names when reflecting on the lesson, e.g. Alfie was fantastic, he had written this by the end but Harry struggled a bit so I did this to support

👣 Circulate as pupils work, and know what you're looking for! Like any class, some will need regular prompting to start anything; others fly through before you've even explained it; some might be trying but getting it completely wrong. Make sure you know how everyone's doing!

🌟 Have solid extensions for early finishers. You can guarantee there'll be an amazing pupil who flies through stuff before you've even finished explaining, and there's nothing worse than a pupil sitting there doing nothing because they've finished

A good extension for an interview is translating more advanced (but easily workout-able) sentences to english, like "j'adore les vacances à la montagne en Italie car j'aime faire du ski, mais c'est un peu dangereux"

🏗️ Scaffold too - even if youre told it's a good class, you'll always have weaker pupils, make sure *everyone* can do what you are teaching, at least partially. I saw lots of good help/crib sheets, support on the board and sentence builders which pupils could wean themselves off

🪞 As soon as possible after the lesson, write down some reflections. Even if things go wrong, it's still fixable if you say what you could have done better. You could also mention what you'd do in the next lesson, or in a full lesson if you only had half an hour

This turned out to be a much longer thread than I intended because I kept thinking of stuff and also I am not very concise! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and let me know if you have any other tips or questions! Bonne chance!