Newly qualified as a language teacher?
The ITT Ofsted Inspection Framework highlights the importance of professional subject associations like ALL e.g. the ITE curriculum prepares trainees for a fulfilling and successful career as a teacher. Trainees are taught how to manage their workloads and how to maintain their own health and welfare, as well as how to engage with relevant subject and/or scholarly communities, including communities of practice relating to technical and vocational training, where relevant.
ALL offers information, guidance, peer-to-peer support and CPD events to primary and secondary language teachers through its professional networks around the country. If you are an Early Career Teacher then we have a special membership package for you.
We are here for you from your first to your final day of teaching with information to support you at every career stage. As time progresses you may feel able to give something back to the next generation of trainee teachers and ECTs. We encourage you to retain your membership so that you can raise your profile perhaps as a CPD speaker, lead or contribute to a local ALL network, blogger, reviewer of resources or contributor to one of our online collections or our magazine, Languages Today.
The more you explore your membership benefits and engage with the Association, the more you, your students and your school will benefit. Ongoing membership of your subject association is a worthwhile investment in your professional future.
Advice for primary language teachers
For those actively teaching languages in primary schools, whether you are completely new to language teaching or an experienced practitioner.
Advice for secondary language teachers
For those actively teaching languages in secondary schools, whether you are completely new to language teaching or an experienced practitioner.
Keep learning & explore our Research Collections!
Early Careers Framework
The early career framework (ECF) sets out what early career teachers are entitled to learn about and learn how to do when they start their careers. It underpins a new entitlement for 2 years of professional development designed to help early career teachers develop their practice, knowledge and working habits.
Explore ALL's Language Zones - culture, practice and resource reviews
There are 5 language-specific Language Zones. Contributions are from language learners, trainee teachers, practising teachers and academics. Content is in English or the target language.
Explore our academic research collection online
This online repository of peer-reviewed academic articles about language teaching and learning, from international authors, can support your study and develop your broader thinking about pedagogy.
Explore articles focusing on action research in classrooms
This collection houses peer-reviewed articles which highlight the findings and learning which students and teachers extracted from classroom-based research.
Get the most out of ALL's practitioner collections
Read ALL's Language Matters collections
Language Matters is the section of the ALL website which hosts collections of articles about matters which are pertinent to teachers of languages. These collections are updated all the time and are pay per view or member-only.
Learn about what works in other teachers' classrooms
As an ALL member, the Languages Today magazine comes to you once a term. This is packed full of stories from teachers on what works well in their classrooms, as well as articles which challenge your thinking and inspire you to try something new. Guaranteed to boost your learning and give you tangible ideas to use in your own classroom.
Seeking advice through networking online
If you want to connect to other language teachers online for discussion, support and developing your practice check out the following:
Also don't forget to read this article on how to thrive as an ECT here:
Events 2022
On 1 September ALL hosted the annual 'Making a good start' for new Language teacher trainees and ECTs online. The ALL welcome presentation can be viewed here.
Events 2021
ALL London have hosted a rich and varied selection of webinars so do work your way through these for free and fantastic CPD all with an MFL focus.
First Friday October 2020
ALL First Friday, October 2020
Chris Jadav
As we rapidly approach the start of a new month and indeed a new half-term, I'm crossing off my list of jobs not yet done and remembered an enthusiastic offer to write up the October First Friday meeting. Why did I do that I ask myself (?) and then remember the enthusiasm I felt seeing the gallery of attendees, including some experienced sages of the MFL world, alongside the weary but keen expressions of those of us much newer to the profession. It was an hour well spent.
It underlined to me, as an RQT, how much I've learnt in the past couple of years, much of it from ALL members, and indeed how far there is to travel, but that we don't need to do that alone even if our own departments may seem small and distant. The generosity of the teaching community and especially the MFL community has been well documented but is no less significant for that. Again, at the end of a long week, colleagues were willing to share the wisdom and encouragement of years as well as to share successes, questions and concerns from their classrooms that week. It was good to be part of a group coming together to ask questions, share experiences and try to work out how to get better together for the sake of our students. It was also good fun.
There were many practical ideas shared of ways to encourage and inspire learners but the take home message for me from the session was remembering to create a Leonardo da Vinci moment. I found this especially pertinent in light of how time pressed we are at present, trying to squeeze our curriculum content into shorter lessons and make up for as much lost learning as possible. It highlighted to me how 'force feeding' as much content as possible into each session might well be driving the joy out of some of my lessons and that I needed to be a bit more imaginative in the weeks ahead. This isn't to suggest that we shouldn't be presenting learners with challenges or being rigorous in our delivery but to recognise as Charlie Berney succinctly put it, that even if the content that needs to be taught is sometimes boring in and of itself, the output doesn't have to be .
It meant I went back to Mary Glasgow resources to find suitable film clips to liven up my Día de Hispanidad / Día de las Razas and that the very dull vocabulary section on helping at home was enlivened by creating comic strips and a quick game of charades along the way. When asking the Year 11s to write a piece about their holidays I wasn't afraid to take my imaginary elephant up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and slip and bump back down to the bottom... It's a meagre start but it's something and the challenge will be to keep being creative in the weeks and months ahead. According to Einstein, "Creativity is intelligence having fun" so when I feel the curriculum content pressure squeezing in, I'll endeavour to keep a space for it and see what fruit it yields in the weeks and months ahead. And I'll definitely be making a date in my diary for First Fridays in the months ahead.
Book here :
Third Thursday 2021-22
ALL invites you to monthly ‘Third Thursday’ social webinars for trainees and ECTs at 8pm.
They will last 45 minutes (and no longer) to allow Q&A in hat or live for sharing 'what has worked’.
A game / icebreaker / song / resource for replication - suggested by the group notification of up-coming ALL events / new content.
Dates to be confirmed in ALLNet (please note: some are not the third Thursday because of holidays or clashes):
• Thursday 16th September 2021
• Thursday 21st October 2021
• Thursday 25th November 2021
• Thursday 16th December 2021 (one week early)
• Thursday 20th January 2022
• Thursday 24th February 2022 (one week later to avoid half term)
• Thursday 24th March 2022
• Thursday 21st April 2022
• Thursday 19th May 2022
• Thursday 23rd June 2022
• Thursday 25th August 2022
Please click here to book:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/all-trainees-and-ects-social-relax-join-in-and-share-tickets-120658668325
Making a good start 2021
The presentation created by Veronica Otero Gonzalez is available from this link:
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=2BFE19771E363A0E!1928&ithint=file%2cpptx&authkey=!AD-txY0bfxSNsko
The Chat from the events is available from:
http://www.all-london.org.uk/site/index.php/webinars/making-a-good-start-2021-an-all-august-webinar-for-ects/
and join us on Twitter @ALL4language and follow the #mfltwitterati
Events 2020
ALL London have hosted a rich and varied selection of webinars so do work your way through these for free and fantastic CPD all with an MFL focus.
and join us on Twitter @ALL4language and follow the #mfltwitterati
Guest Blogs
Get out and meet others - boost your confidence and be enthused
Attend one of ALL's local events
ALL hosts a range of events across the country. Most are low cost or free to ALL members. Events range from Show &Tells, informal discussion and peer support, to themed CPD sessions and regional day conferences. New attendees are always welcome.
Attend the language teacher CPD event of the year - Language World
Make the case to your head of department and head teacher early to attend ALL's flagship annual conference. The programme is packed with plenaries, talks and workshops and an amazing exhibition.