June 2025 – ¡Vámonos!
 

Month: June 2025

I’ve just attended a webinar run by the British Council to launch a brilliant resource that links to the Women’s Football European Championships that begin next week in my beloved Switzerland.

As the British Council site says:

Developed by the British Council, in collaboration with the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and funded by the Welsh Government’s Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, this resource supports key curriculum areas while promoting languages, gender equality and international collaboration.

Designed for learners aged 9-13 (but it was decided by those at the webinar that parts would be perfectly accessible for younger learners) the resources explore the languages of the participating teams as well as linking to PSHE, sport, geography and wider issues such as gender equality and inclusion.

I particularly liked the language part where learners are encouraged to match the language with the country and also these two activities that I thought sounded great fun and also give children choice and control over the language they want to explore.

The resources are freely downloadable from the British Council website here, and if you teach in a Welsh medium school, they are available in Welsh too.

I’m going to explore further and use some of the activities with Y6 as it’s that time of year and I feel they’d enjoy it. I also think it’s good to have a debate about equality in sport and discuss why women’s football was banned for so long (do the children think it’s unfair?)

If you use the resources, please share on social media or email the British Council as they and the Football Association of Wales (FAW) who worked with them and and the Welsh Government’s Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund that funded the resource would love to know how it’s gone.

So – congratulations Y Dreigiau on qualifying. I’ll be supporting you just as long as you’re not playing the Lionesses (13th July)

Animania

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Animania – Talleres de español 2025

It was my great honour to be invited to speak once more at the Talleres de español in London last weekend. Hosted by the Consejería de Educacción at Instituto Vicente Cañada Blanch, the day was packed with sessions focused on good teaching and learning in the Spanish classroom.

After the keynote delivered by the inimitable Bernadette Holmes, I attended a workshop led by Sara Alonso Jimeno all about using music and art in the primary Spanish classroom – AICLE con ritmo y color before moving on to a session led by Irene Carmona Velasco from the Europa School who was talking about creativity and technology – Español en movimiento.

Lunch as usual was delicious and the Estrella Galicia was very welcome on a hot day.

In the afternoon, I delivered my talk entitled Animania based around using animals as the starting point to explore learning in the Spanish classroom. I started by talking about choosing and ntroducing vocabulary, and SPaG in Spanish complimenting and reinforcing English. My second section was about using ‘noise’ – animal sounds to encourage participation, making an animal symphony and songs that can be used for a multitude of reasons. The third part was focused on reading and ideas for exploiting books – and I have so many of them! Following on naturally from here we explored creativity and culture, and giving learners agency for their learning by providing a structure that they then innovate. Finally the focus moved to how Spanish can be used in a cross curricular way in PE, Science, Geography, PSHE and for outdoor learning.

The day ended with a Zumba class – what a way to end the day, singing, dancing and perspiring profusely whilst having fun!

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