Month: March 2008

Build Your Wild Self

I’ve been having some fun making myself a new avatar. I’ve got a WeeMee (see right), a Yahoo avatar (wearing a Spanish football shirt or a Sevillanas dress), a DoppelMe wearing the Swedish football kit, and a beaver Voki of me pretending to be Mrs Beaver from Narnia (for the benefit of my kids :o))

Build your Wild Self is a site run by the Wildlife Conservation Society and New York Zoo and Aquarium. It allows you to choose a basic body and then add bit of animals, reptiles, birds etc to it to make a ‘wild self’.

I had great fun making myself into a rein-pol-conda-guin-peacock. Cute aren’t I?

I can see using this in the PLL classroom, linking body parts (los brazos, las piernas, la lengua, las orejas, la cola, las alas etc), animals (un pingüino, un reno, un pavo real, una serpiente, un tigre, una tortuga etc), descriptions (colours, characteristics like feroz, grande, tranquilo, orgulloso, peludo etc) and habitats (la selva, la jungla, el Arctico, la sierra, el desierto, el río etc) in a fun activity. Pupils could collectively discuss and describe a model Wild Self, perhaps using a scaffold text. Then they could create their own Wild Self either to match a given description (listening and / or reading) or choose their own design and then describe it (speaking and /or writing).
e.g. Tengo las orejas de un oso polar. Tengo los cuernos de un reno. Tengo la lengua muy larga de una serpeinte. Tengo la cola impresionanate de un pavo real. Tengo las piernas de un pingüino.
Perhaps the class could then play a game with all the Wild Selves – someone says a sentence in Spanish about one of them, and teams have to find the correct image, or perhaps five images and five descriptions to be matched. And what about a quiz akin to the baby photo game – whose Wild Self is whose?

What do you think? Anyone got any further ideas or comments?

I’ve travelled by train several times in the last few weeks and each time have acquired a free copy of Metro. I knew that there were different editions for major cities, but didn’t realise that it is an international paper.

Today, courtesy of MinkiePinkie aka Emmanuelle and via MFLresources Yahoo group, I discovered that not only are there editions in a number of countries, but also that they are accesible and downloadable online. You can download today’s paper in PDF from Metropoint
choosing not only from the coutries below but also from the regional edition you fancy in a number of countries, including Spain.

You can also read the papers online at Readmetro, selecting the country, region and date of the paper you require. Added to this, there is the facility to change the language of the site between English, Spanish, French and Danish.

A great feature is that, as well as a ‘global search‘, there is an ‘advanced search‘ facility, allowing you to search for a specific theme, in a specific country, region and/or time frame.

This looks a great way for older pupils to access authentic newspaper articles, weather reports, TV pages, puzzles and advertisements as well as for teachers to keep up to date not only with the language itself but also with their knowledge of countries speaking the language they teach.

I’m off to read the article about Bryan Adams on page 12 of today’s Edición Nacional from Spain.

Inspired by Jo Rhys-Jones post on Minibeasts, and her suggestion of some suitable French videos on Youtube to support it, I went in search of some Spanish equivalents – then got sidetracked!

Having followed Jo’s links to Papillons, (complete with operatic French version of Anything I do, I do it for you), I decided to search for Spanish butterflies – mariposas. I came across a clip of ‘Mariposas de Asturias‘ which is very similar (the music is more relaxing!)

Then my search took me off in a different direction when I came across a video clip called Mariposas Silenciosas. Not about butterflies, but a game that can be played in small groups to improve concentration, coordination, and also provide a bit of calm!

Then I investigated Luis Pescetti further and found more videos that I thought might be interesting. Keeping to the minibeasts theme, how about Cienpies about a centipede-

This is followed by an action rhyme with nonsense words – a bit like Gingangoolie (not sure if that’s how you spell it as I’ve never tried writing it down!) – with simple actions that get faster and faster. Amazing how muddling it can be to do simple actions fast! And here’s another – Aiepo – this time, the rhyme is said in different voices depending on the speed, starting as an elephant, very low, and finishes higher!

Another rhyme along a similar vein, but this time with ‘proper’ Spanish words – in this case a traditional Spanish rhyme – Palmas, higos y castañas.

Also on a minibeast theme, scroll down to the seventh song on this page for La canción de la pulga about a flea that jumps on a dog, bites it and then has a full tummy!

In fact, having found lots of his videos on Youtube, I then went to his website http://www.luispescetti.com/ and discovered lots more too see and do. Words and (very usefully) mp3 files for songs as well as videos and jokes. Well worth investigating. From a quick look, I can see a Spanish version of London Bridge is falling down, as well as Un kilómetro a pie (referred to in a previous post on Active learning) and a lovely song called Mocos about bogies!!

And on that note, I’ll leave you to explore for yourself!

As I’m coming to the end of my reports, I thought I’d point you to some other places where you can find out about the Primary Language Show.

In his usual efficient way, Joe Dale has published the show notes and audio of his sessions in Manchester on his blog – Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom.
Si if you want to find out about ICT…so what (free tools that you can use to enhance all four skills in the MFL classroom) or Podcasting from Idea to iTunes, pop along to Joe’s blog. In fact, if you wnat the answer to just about any ICT related question, you’ll probably find it there! Also worth checking out are Joe’s pictures from Manchester – see if you can spot me!

Another colleague with whom I met up in Manchester was Jo Rhys-Jones of Talkabout Primary MFL fame. We spent the two days swapping notes on sessions so I was glad to see that Jo had followed up her promise to tell us more about one of the sessions that had intrigued me most, all about Minibeasts. As the mother of two small boys, minibeasts are something about which I have learned much in the last few years, and Jo reports back on Linda Owen’s session at PLS in which Linda described a spiralling scheme of work covering Reception to Year6. Jo has added has added some of her own ideas too – well worth a read.

The CILT website declared the show ‘absolutely outstanding’ , quoting Lorna HarveyCounty Advisor for Primary MFL in one of our neighbouring LAs, Staffordshire. ‘I got such a lot out of it, as usual. I really appreciate the opportunity to hear from so many people with so much expertise, and this has a real impact on my work.’

I’d agree with Lorna.
Anyone else got anything to share from PLS that I’ve missed? Perhaps an idea that you’ve had, a short report on a session or a comment on the event overall? Feel free to leave comment below.

The last session I attended on Friday at PLS was a really tough choice – so many I wanted to attend but I chose ¡Mira Miró!, ‘a West Sussex KS2 cross-curricular Spanish / Art project, developed by María Roberts (MFL advisor) and Jane Sedgewick (Art advisor) to escape subject silos.’

Maria introduced the project, designed to be cross curricular, not CLIL (most is in English with some Spanish language), and lasting approximately 5 hours / half a term.
The dual objectives were stated as –

• To explore the works of the Spanish painter Miró, using some simple Spanish to describe shape and colour.
• To prduce own art in the style of Miró and be able to simply describe and evaluate it.

Miró was chosen as the artist as he is 20th century, his work is abstract and also not too ‘way out’ in imagery (Dalí would perhaps be a little too disturbing!)

The language involved in the project included the vocabulary of

• shape
• colour
• size
• preposition
• evaluation

Maria showed us a number of activities that were used with the pupils to familiarise them with the work of Miró such as a game involving dominoes based on Miró’s work – each person has a domino and has to find someone with an identical image by describing it (in English) – this was an interesting activity that reminded us that our perception of a piece of art can be different to someone else’s – where I saw a man with long arms, another person saw something completely different, so it took a while to find our partners. The dominoes had been purchased from the Fundació Miró (as had other resources such as the posters that were originally part of a calendar)

Maria then took us through some of the activities that the pupils had done as part o the scheme including:

guess the name of the painting.
Pupils looked at the painting on the right and discussed what they thought its name might be. they were encouraged to comment on the form, colour, texture, lines etc of the piece. The title is Ciphers and Constellations in love with a woman – does it suit the piece? What might be a a better name?
The pupils also learned at this pint that Miró often shut his eyes and painted – interesting and quirky – perhaps they could emulate it?

looking for shapes in pictures
Looking at this painting (left) called Woman in front of the sun, pupils were asked to look for shapes – and this is where some Spanish vocabulary comes in as they describe the shapes they see. In the following lessons, they add adjectives of colour and size to the descriptions – eg hay un círculo grande y rojo.

human sentences
using cards containing images of shape, size, colour and form, we made human sentences, physically emphasising the noun / adjective word order. This could be extended with verb cards for Hay / No hay.
DIY Miró
Having been given a random selection of the shapes from the paintings, we discussed their properties, and then constructed our own picture.

Prepositions
The next step was discussing where things are in the picture – having learned a few simple prepositions, one member of the group was given a very simple extract from a painting to describe whilst the rest drew what they had understood. A good exercise in communication – it’s amazing how clear you think your explanation is until you see how others have understood it ;o)
evaluation. NB accuracy of del / de la was modelled but not insisted upon as the flow of conversation and communication was seen as more important.
How does it make you feel?
Part of art is learning to appreciate it and the end stage was discussing how the painting made them feel. Words such as ‘bueno‘ were banned – words like bonito, tranquilo, calma, alegre, triste, confuso, raro, enfadado were encouraged – I wasn’t sure about the inclusion of ‘horroroso’ as an advisable word to describe another child’s work though!

I’ve scanned the handouts for now (in My Box of Goodies as Slideshare is not liking me today :o(

Maria shared that the hope is to publish these resources on the wsgfl alongside the existing cross curricular packs on Animals and habitats, and Habitats in Spanish (there are also a wide range of French cross curricular resources including The Giant Turnip and the Little Polar Bear, and a couple in German), and also to cover a French artist, Matisse (in his later years his work is suitable!) At the moment, the stumbling

block centres around copyright issues.

I think this is another great idea for embedding PLL in the existing curriculum, and looking in a more ‘joined up’ way at children’s education. Any other ideas out there?

As I approached Conference room 1 on Friday, I couldn’t work out why there was a queue. Was I in the right place or had I taken a wrong turning and ended up by the toilets?
All was soon revealed as ‘boarding packs’ were passed back and we were instructed to fill in our passports before picking three items for our suitcase and collecting our boarding passes. By the time I arrived at the front of the queue with my holiday wardrobe, consisting of a pink bikini, red shorts and green flip flops (there wasn’t much left, and our destination was La Réunion), there was one seat left for me. And, authentically, it was right at the back and involved me climbing over everyone else :o)

We were welcomed aboard our flight by Daryl Bailey, Primary Language Coordinator at Hove Park School and Language College and Hilary Philips from St Andrews Primary. I was already aware of a previous creative collaboration of these ladies – Parachutes and PE: Active language learning in Primary School (downloadable from the Hove park site – link is to German version. Also in My Box of Goodies) so this was going to be exciting!

We were asked to fasten our seatbelts, extinguish cigarettes, and advised of emergency procedure and that our lifejackets were under our chairs, all in French. Then we took off – complete with sound effects and images on powerpoint of the view from the cockpit.

Once airborne, Hilary explained the activity. A week before International Week began at her school, Hilary was inspired to create an unforgettable experience for every child at the school.
St Andrews is a two form entry primary school with 450 pupils with a range of home languages. The idea was that the activity would focus and give context to language work and involve everyone – Hilary came up with the idea of a flight. She considered a flight to a French town before settling on different countries to match the focus country chosen by each class.

having got the staff onside, parents were contacted by letter explaining that despite what the kids may have said, the flight was a fantasy one, not in reality, and asking for any help that could be offered-
did anyone work at Heathrow or have contacts?
anyone have any equipment that might be used?
could anyone come in and give a hand?

In this way, the school discovered that several parents had old cabin crew uniforms in the loft that were worn by staff on the day; an airline captain that someone knew became involved on one of the two days and several authentic posters and articles from airports were lent to the school.

Each flight was for two classes across Key Stages to enable the older pupils to look after the younger ones. According to Hilary, this led to some lovely moments as pupils read to one another, looked after those who looked apprehensive, and helped carry luggage.
The airport was in the school hall so had to be easily moveable to allow for it to be packed away at lunch time and for activities after school. There were checkin desks, a luggage desk with luggage for each flight being placed in a trolley (lent by Iceland!) and wheeled round to baggage reclaim in the corridor after the flight. The caretaker made a metal detector archway from carpet tube and sliver paint, and all kinds of old technology such as old fashioned phones, obsolete keyboards and walkie talkies were discovered and used.
Pupils each had to pack a small piece of baggage with suitable clothes for their destination (researched as part of the activity earlier in the week) and prepare their pass port that they had to present at Passport control where the staff found all sorts of excuses for querying passengers being allowed to board.
Staff had a corporate image – black tops with a chiffon scarf and a badge – and everyone gat involved including kitchen staff, governors and even the local vicar!
Once through passport control, pupils waited in the ‘departure lounge’ where they had a choice of reading materials – magazines prepared earlier in the week about the destinations of the flights. The first pupils through were allocated to the ‘First Class’ loinge, giving a front seat and the best choice of the magazines.

Once boarded on the ‘plane – marked out by tickertape – passengers had a magazine, menu and advertisement sheet to study in a polypocket on the back of the seat in front. At takeoff, a big screen formed the front of the ‘plane on which were projected pictures as if from the cockpit on takeoff with accompanying sound effects of engine noise.
Once airborne, there was even a refreshment trolley before the flight dropped off the first group of tourists, perhaps in Sark (Reception) before flying on to La Réunion (Year6) – bizarre but fun!
The experience was unforgettable for the pupils – Daryl tracked down some pupils who had been at St Andrews last year for the flights, and had now moved on to Hove PArk, and they still recalled the excitement and delight of the whole thing.

Hilary and Daryl pointed to the plurilingual nature of our world and how this activity drew together all the other activities of the week. It promoted teamwork, involved everyone, gave huge opportunities for speaking and listening, offers a context for language learning, brings the wider world closer to home and offers opportunities for FUN! Hilary also pointed out that this linked in with the QCA Geography unit on La Réunion, and was thus also cross curricular.

The Air St André experience sparked and inspired a Chinese Day, links with Travel and Tourism and Enterprise at Hove Park, and perhaps most importantly of all, the pupils are still buzzing about it six plus months on.

A really interesting idea – I wonder how the staff at my school would respond if I went to a staff meeting and made such a suggestion? Might try it out….

Jane Halsall, Primary Advisory teacher for Liverpool and Maria Romeo, a FLA in Liverpool have worked together to develop some ideas for linking PE and MFL. Maria is a trained PE teacher in Spain and brings lots of ideas for warm ups and spontaneous ideas that can link areas of the curriculum. Examples in French and Spanish.

Sardinas en lata

Pupils move around the room as instructed

eg walk / andad, jump / saltad, run / corred. Teacher calls ‘Sardinas en lata de … / Get into groups of…. ’ and pupils have to get into a group of that number; you could get the pupils to lie down head to toe like a can of sardines.

Hoops

Spread different coloured hoops around the hall. As a warm up, name parts of the body as practice

French rap – tête bra main doigt jambe pied et dos de dos

Yeux nez bouche oreilles et stomach.

Pupils move around the room – Marchez vite / lentement / par tout on y va marchez

Dansez

Leader says part of body and pupils put that part of the body in the hoop eg pied (gauche), nez, stomach

After a bit, use colour of hoop in which to put part of body eg pied, rouge; oreille bleu

Julie, c’est quelle couleur?

Coloured cones to mark the designated area, then hoops (or other coloured objects) spread around the room.

One child is ‘Julie’ or ‘Julien’

Group say ‘Julie, c’est quelle couleur?’

Julie says a colour – all touch that colour and Julie tries to catch someone.

If she does, they become Julie o Julien

You could add instructions for saying the phrase eg Plus fort / Comme un elephant etc

Can be adapted to other topics- animals, number

El panuelo

Two equal lines, numbered as high as necessary

Person in centre has a scarf held high.

Call a number and the two people with that number run to the centre and grab the scarf.

To win a point they need to make it back to their line without the opponent stopping them or snatching the scarf.

Could be adapted with two objects and groups race to fetch and get back, or perhaps with a pile of animals or clothes with the caller calling the number and name of animal to find and take back.

1,2 ,3 chocolate

Like what’s the time Mr Wolf

Person who is ‘on’ stands at one end of the room by a wall and chants ‘uno, dos, tres chocolate’ or ‘uno dos tres chocolate, ingles a la pared.’ if you think the pupils need more time, whilst the rest of the group approach. The person who is on turns on the last word to see if anyone is moving. If they see someone, they ask a question eg ¿Cómo te llamas? and send them back ‘atrás por favor’ Once someone arrives at the wall, they become ‘on’

Earthquake

groups of 3 – minimum of 9 people – in each group, there is a devant / derrière / dans. Devant and derrière make as house shape by joining hands as a roof; dans stand in the house.

If the teacher calls devant , all those people move to form new house.

If the teacher calls derrière , all those people move to form new house.

If the teacher calls dans , all those people move and get inside another house.

If the teacher calls tremblement de terre , everyone moves to form a new house.

Cambia si

Learn features like eyes, hair` – can add clothes too

Teacher calls out ‘cambia si …eres morena (swap if …you have dark hair) etc all those people swap places – once the game gets going, specify two features eg Cambia si eres rubio y tienes ojos azules. You can also add how to move – eg Cabia saltando si / swap by jumping if…

C’est quel objet?

Give a flashcard to each grou

p– the group are going to make the shape with their bodies as living flashcards. Rest of class guess the object – in French / Spanish etc.

All these activities link the language with PE and physical activity. They could all form part of a warm up / cool down, or as ‘Wake Up Shake Up’, or simply for those days when you want to do something a bit different!

Similar ideas can be found in Take 10 en français (soon to be in Spanish too!)

The abstract for this session promised –

‘This workshop will look at ways in which Primary Languages can play a central part in a relevant, exciting primary curriculum which engages young learners through stimulating contexts, stunning starts and fabulous finishes! Rather than treating PL as a bolt on extra, & schools in West Sussex have committed to placing PL at the heart of their curriculum. From commotion under the ocean, through lost worlds, empires and eruptions and into the unknown, all with a global dimension…’

Sounded intriguing – and turned out to be inspirational.

Elaine Minett, Primary MFL advisory teacher for West Sussex presented the project to us, explaining that it stemmed from a focus on a creative curriculum in the LA, and on raising standards in Foundation subjects through developing skills, producing successful learners who

• Enjoy learning
• Make progress
• Achieve
• Make progress in attributes, attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding
• Experience relevant learning opportunities (ECM)

She shared that deep learning was the underpinning concept – how can learning be made memorable? She shared that key thoughts included a learning journey, first hand experience, use of environment, focus on talk, quality texts, celebrating learning, and making meaningful connections. A couple of aspects I’d pick out as particularly interesting are

Exciting contexts –The Romans became ‘Empires and Eruptions /Les empires et les éruptions’; Underwater worlds sounds much more mysterious called ‘The hidden forest / le foret cachée’; Prehistory was renamed ‘Lost World / Les mondes perdus’

Stunning starts and fabulous finishes – each project (lasting a term) had a really special opening activity or experiences – and the kids were hooked, inspired, gobsmacked, the lot for the whole topic. Equally, the end of the project was celebrated and had a ‘fabulous finish’ – bookending the experience.

Some examples of the starters-

– Voyage dans l’inconnu began with the pupils returning from Christmas to discover a crater in the school grounds, containing bits of metal and an advert for ‘jeunes astronautes’ in French, calling for fit young people.

– For Les empires et les eruptions, Dr Who arrived in the school hall in his TARDIS, covered in volcanic ash having escaped Pompeii. Can the pupils find out more about what happened to Vesuvius and volcanoes in general – are there any in France?

– Les mysteres de Paris – pupils ‘flew’ to Paris courtesy of the local college who have half a plane (see later post for another way of doing this if you don’t know anyone with half a plane :o) )

So – what sort of things did they do?

Each school did a baseline assessment of skills, attitudes and integration of MFL into school at the start and from this wrote individualised targets for the school. Then each school looked at existing curriculum and, using the targets as a starting point, created a topic or module lasting 6 or 12 weeks that enmeshed all the subjects including MFL (in most cases French) .

I’ve taken pictures of some of the plans- hope you can read them 😮

(A tip – if you click them, they get bigger!)

(please excuse the scribbles – can’t find the ‘blank’ copy I picked up)

At the end of the project, the results were really exciting. Benefits included:

• increased motivation for pupils and teachers
• increased time spent ‘doing’ French, but no feeling that anything had been squeezed out in doing so
• big impact on literacy
• increased parent – child conversation about school work!
• attendance improved as pupils didn’t want to miss things.

Some quotes from particpants –
‘Science and Maths are linked to French somehow’
‘The talk which went on on the launch day would have fulfilled my Speaking and Listening objectives for the whole term’
‘The children are excited about learning’
‘I’m doing more language but I don’t feel it’s encroaching on other areas’

And the one I liked best:
‘Just because pupils are in KS2, why does creativity have to stop?‘
AMEN!!

I love this approach – I’m all for creative curriculum planning and in the light of recent posts about the preponderance of literacy and numeracy, it’s heartening to see the use of other areas of the curriculum enhancing these skills.

Elaine pointed out that this wouldn’t necessarily be a termly event, but rather something that was done every year / two years. As such it seems a great idea – manageable and a truly thrilling activity for pupils and teachers – one final quotation from a teacher –
‘I don’t know who is more enthusiastic – the kids or me!’

I was just having a look at my Google alerts and was reminded that I’d signed up for TeacherTube ages ago. For those who don’t know, TeacherTube is like Youtube but for teachers!
Surprisingly for me, I remembered my password and managed to find my account, including the videos I’d bookmarked.

And I once more came across this lovely video called Three little men. Made by children with severe learning difficulties at Frank Wise School in Banbury, it use Playmobil men greeting one another in Spanish as the pupils practice speaking skills.

There is often debate about the merits of teaching MFL to children with ‘special needs’. I’ve always found that MFL has been a good leveller – by that I mean that pupils who are struggling in other areas of the curriculum find themselves on a fairly equal footing with their peers, particularly if their difficulty is with the written word as there is so much speaking activity.
And as to it being a ‘waste of time’ as I’ve heard many times – well, having watched the video, judge for yourself!

I’m part of a group of teachers and educators called EdTechRoundup – see my previous post.

Recently we had the opportunity to pose some questions to a representative of Google. We asked for questions via the ETR wiki, Twitter and word of mouth, and received a number that we put to Google.

The responses are being serialised as 15 days of Google on the ETR blog – edtechroundup.com.
Tomorrow will be day 4.

Why not have a look – I’m learning lots from reading the questions and answers – and leave a comment too!