As a Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teacher, one of the things I found most frustrating was planning for multiple language levels in a single classroom – ranging from beginner to advanced level students. To plan for these classes, I needed access to all three levels’ objectives at my fingertips, and I needed to be able to combine them on a single planning document in order to avoid each class having multiple lesson planning documents for a single lesson, which would have been a nightmare to keep track of. And because of this, our upcoming planning software, ESBPlanners, was designed specifically to address this need.
 
As an MFL teacher, ESBPlanners will not only allow you to access as many different language level objectives as needed from drop-down menus, but also to combine them all on a single document, which means easy planning for any classes you teach! Or, if planning on a single document isn’t for you, you also have the option of opening and working on multiple planning templates at once and copying/pasting between them as needed. As a bonus, we have already created an extensive template blank with ready-made multi-level MFL templates to start your planning from – these templates can be modified as you like. And, if you can’t find one that suits your needs, you can always create your own personalized templates that can be saved as planners and used over and over again. These templates can also be easily shared between colleagues to facilitate unified team planning. 

In prior blog articles I have also highlighted the benefits of transdisciplinary planning on language learning – however, to do this effectively, the MFL team must have access to the mainstream and specialist teachers’ unit planning in advance. With ESBPlanners, this becomes a snap as teachers can instantly share any planning documents they are working on, and shared planners can be commented on if any clarifications are needed, thus eliminating the need to always meet in person.
 
In addition to all these fantastic features, the software also will enable you to do the following:

• design any type of template – yearly, unit, lesson, for any amount of time and based on whatever teaching schedule they may follow (daily, 2-day rotation, weekly, etc.).
• choose objectives from our bank of already uploaded curriculums, or enter your own – in any language of your choosing!
• track both class and individual student progress on a single document – ideal for classrooms with students on IEPs who may be working on modified goals.
• easily modify existing templates to accommodate new learnings from professional development attended.
• shift rows and columns around to accommodate changes in teaching schedules, such as on snow days.
• share individual planner cells so that teachers can collaborate on one or more blocks of time for the week without having to work on identical planners.
• create, store, share and work collaboratively on timetables, rubrics and documents!

 
These are but a few highlights outlining what ESBPlanners will offer for MFL teachers. Stayed tuned for its upcoming release in 2022!