Innovation in Language Learning
From Professional Development to Classroom Practice: Sustained Professional Learning as a Driver of Improvement in Modern Foreign Languages
Ian Astbury, Broadleaf Partnership Trust (United Kingdom)
Abstract
Professional development in schools can become episodic: individual training sessions may generate immediate engagement without producing sustained changes in classroom practice. This experience-based paper examines an alternative approach to professional learning in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), drawing on the author’s experience of designing and leading teacher and leader development across school and multi-school Trust contexts in England. It explores professional development as a sustained process connecting evidence-informed input, collaborative professional dialogue, coaching, deliberate classroom application, reflection and evaluation. The paper draws particularly on experience of leading an 18-month Embedding Formative Assessment programme, alongside curriculum and assessment redesign, practitioner development and bespoke programmes for teachers and middle leaders. It considers how the principles identified by Black and Wiliam, and subsequently operationalised through Wiliam and Leahy’s formative-assessment model, can be supported through professional learning structures designed to build knowledge, develop teaching techniques and embed practice. Particular attention is given to implementation: the role of professional trust, contextual responsiveness, repeated opportunities for application, collaborative evaluation and alignment with departmental and school priorities. Evidence from the contexts discussed includes staff evaluation, changes to curriculum, assessment and classroom practice, and pupil outcomes associated with wider improvement work. Rather than claiming a simple causal relationship between professional development and attainment, the paper examines how professional learning can operate as an enabling mechanism within a coherent improvement strategy. It concludes by proposing practical principles for designing sustained, context-responsive professional learning in language education that remains explicitly connected to classroom practice and learner outcomes.
Keywords: Professional Learning; Modern Foreign Languages; Teacher Development; Formative Assessment; School Improvement
REFERENCES
[1] Education Endowment Foundation (2021). Effective Professional Development: Guidance Report.
[2] Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139–144.
[3] Wiliam, D. & Leahy, S. (2015). Embedding Formative Assessment. Learning Sciences International.
[4] Sharples, J., Eaton, J. & Boughelaf, J. (2024). A School’s Guide to Implementation. Education Endowment Foundation.
