Day: September 22, 2012

I’ve received an email from Spanish Consejería de Educación in the UK offering Spanish Online Courses for Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Britain through the Aula Virtual de Español (AVE), an interactive platform specifically designed by the Instituto Cervantes for the teaching and learning of Spanish.

The details are all here  AVE Spanish Online Course with Tutor Support 2012-13 but in brief –

Over 20 weeks starting in October and finishing in March, absolute and near beginners at Spanish will spend 2-3 hours a week studying Spanish online.  They will receive a weekly schedule of what to do and with support from a course tutor, will complete some suggested tasks to use their learning. At the end of the course, they will receive a certificate from Instituto Cervantes stating that they have completed the course as long as the compulsory tasks have been completed and a minimum of 5 tasks sent to their tutor. The course is massively subsidised costing just £50 rather than £140 and is a great opportunity to ‘upskill’ a little.

The closing date for applications is very soon – Friday 28th September – so have a think and then sign up!

Now, if someone could just find me a German version… ;o)

I was really interested to read the following press release this week  –

Education Scotland publishes new online resource for modern languages called ‘Passeport pour la Francophonie’ at the Scottish Learning Festival on 19 September 2012.

Passeport pour la Francophonie will support primary teachers to provide stimulating and exciting learning experiences at second level, developing skills for reading, writing, listening and talking. The website provides suggestions for exploring the other curriculum areas such as religious and moral education or maths and numeracy through the medium of French language and culture.

Below you can hear Fhiona Fisher of Education Scotland speaking about just that – ‘widening out’ the idea of French as European to go on a voyage in their imaginations to see it as a worldwide language, and how language learning can be done cross-curricularly.

Another part I really like is the Links between languages page, looking at language in general, and also the Using this resource section which gives helpful information to the teacher on using the resource and also some CPD videos on Primary Language learning (MLPS in Scotland) Lovely to see some familiar faces from Le Français en Ecossewho were so instrumental in helping me love French again (merci Richard et Elise)