At Sackville School, students are prepared for their AS oral examination by using the motivating and encouraging environment of a luxury hotel to enable them to undertake research in German.

"We really found it stretched us, holding and sustaining a conversation in German with real Germans! However we were surprised at how much we knew." – AS student from Sackville.

View some of the good practice described in this case study. 

Context
Sackville is a mixed comprehensive school in East Grinstead  with 1600 pupils. The school has specialist engineering college status. There are four students in the AS German group this year. The AS German pupils have been studying the topic of food and nutrition, which has included looking at healthy eating, balanced diets, eating disorders and the increase of obesity in the western world.

Pupils have studied restaurant menus to look at food content and given opinions on whether the restaurants are offering a balanced diet and how easy it is to interpret their menu. The teaching combines extensive coverage of the AS topics for OCR, with a concentration on developing opinions and structured debates, with analysis and evaluation. There is also traditional grammar teaching, regular sessions with the foreign language assistant, and frequent practice of exam tasks.

Key objectives
To prepare students for their AS oral examination by using the motivating and encouraging environment of a luxury hotel to enable them to undertake research in German

Results
Seeing language being used in the workplace allows the students to see the importance of learning language and spurs them in their effort. The AS students also had the responsibility of leading conversations with the Year 10 Level 2 NVQ group which was very motivating and empowering for them.

The visit involved 2 A level teachers plus Sackville’s NVQ Level 2 German group teachers. The Schools German Assistant also accompanied the staff.

Future Developments
The students found the experience very interesting and are going back to the hotel to conduct further research to use in preparation for their oral examination.

Further visits have been planned to a German bank and the Airbus plant on forthcoming residential visit to Hamburg, where similar assessment tasks will be conducted. The skill focus will change on some of these tasks. The concentration will be on developing writing and listening skills in particular.

“It focused our teaching lessons in the weeks running up to the visit. We really pressed on to make sure the pupils had as broad a vocabulary base as possible before the visit.” – Tim Leahy, A level German Teacher

Teachers involved
Helen Valentine (Lead teacher)
Tim Leahy (A level teacher)
Jasmin Roeckel (German Assistant)

Author: Helen Valentine