I read the above Tweet and decided to investigate.

It took me to Building Peace, the blog of Reach364, a Captain in the US Airforce and C-17 pilot, and a post that begins with a question –

Why should American military officers learn foreign languages? For that matter, why should Foreign Service Officers or any other representatives of the American government?

And whilst the context of the article is military, considering the situation in Afghanistan and Jordan, the comments Reach makes are relevant to language learning in general, not just in volatile situations.

Acknowledging that advances in technology and translation software mean that people can ‘talk’ to one another without being able to speak the language, Reach makes the following statement –

I still believe learning human languages the old fashioned way is important. Why? This is the crux: foreign language ability is not just about converting information from one format to another. It’s about human relationships.

He talks of language as ‘a way of building relationships, of winning trust.‘ Couldn’t agree more. How many times have I been met with a beaming smile and extra special attention because I spoke in Spanish, French, Catalan, or even when I attempted to speak German in Switzerland? I see it as a mark of respect to attempt to communicate in someone’s language, even if it is a job to get your mouth around the sounds and intonation. I’ve mentioned before that some of my favourite and most rewarding teaching experiences have been when pupils have led, sharing their experiences and language with joy and pride – and been amused by my efforts!

As Nelson Mandela said –

Reach concludes –

Language is extremely hard. We need as many language solutions as we can get, and technology certainly can and should help fill the gap. But no matter how good the technology gets, no matter how prevalent English becomes, old-fashioned speaking of a foreign language still matters.

Certainly with him there.

What do you think?

I received notification a few days ago that the latest edition of the Primary languages ezine is available on the Primary Languages website.
All about cross curricular links this time, Ruth Churchill from CILT says-

articles include integrating languages with work on mini beasts, keeping fit, growing sunflowers and music. There are also features on CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) from the University of Nottingham’s Dr Philip Hood and a research project involving French and the Tudors. All this with the latest news and resources.

Visit the primary languages website to read the latest issues online and find out how to subscribe to automatically receive future issues for free: www.primarylanguages.org.uk/link/ezine.aspx

Lots there to give you ideas ready for September – and links to more advice and ideas if you can’t get enough!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgmu3PtJVNY&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca&border=1]

With all sorts of bugs doing the rounds at the moment, here’s another little gem that is
a)fun
b)free
c)useful and topical.

El Barrio Sésamo in Mexico has made this little video to encourage children to wash their hands and advises them to sing part of the song ‘Pin Pon’ to help them judge how long it should take.

So let’s see if the sinks will be ringing to the sound of children singing and washing…;o)

Just come across this lovely cuddly family – Los Patata on Youtube.

As the blurb says

Telemadrid emite todos los fines de semana, por la mañana, “Los Patata”, una serie infantil realizada con muñecos, dirigida a niños en edad preescolar. Estructurada en mini episodios, pretende entretener fomentando conocimientos, valores, respeto e igualdad de roles… Además, la familia Patata, cada noche invita a los niños a irse a la cama con la canción “Hasta mañana, un beso”. “Los Patata” también están a diario en la programación infantil de laOtra.

I love this goodnight song – very sweet and makes a change from Chris Jarvis on CBeebies with his mobile eyebrows telling us ‘The time has come to say goodnight….’

Here’s the short version-
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp0k45cYwu4&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

Apologies to those of you who have been waiting for four weeks for this!

On 19th June I spoke at the Birmingham Primary Languages Conference along with Dr Lid King and Lucy Adamson of CILT amongst others.
Held at the beautiful Birmingham Botanical Gardens, the conference was attended by many of those involved implementing and delivering primary languages in the area.
My talk was on eTwinning and the International Dimension, my main point being that looking outside the classroom and making links with others is a nobrainer for so many reasons.

Below you can listen to and look at my presentation. If you want further information, feel free to contact me via the comments, or by going to the eTwinning site.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I’m a big fan of sporting events and particularly football, and I aim to use sporting events to make language learning relevant to my pupils. For example, a couple of years ago we had a Spanish scheme of work for all of KS2 Autumn term based on the Rugby World Cup.

Therefore I was really pleased to read a blogpost on Talkabout Primary MFL by Clare Seccombe entitled World Cup 2010.

In her post, Clare links to a presentation she did recently in the NorthEast, offering ideas and links on how to integrate and use the World Cup in the Primary classroom.

Well worth a look!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EZ25NIjJA&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1]

On the day of his funeral, here’s Michael Jackson singing in Spanish. For a 2001 special edition of his “Bad” album, Jackson recorded “Todo mi amor eres tú,” a translated version of his hit “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” He performed it as a duet with Siedah Garrett.

(Thanks to About.com for sharing this)

Today I took part in a Primary Language workshop at Plantsbrook School.

My contribution to the day was called You and Youtube and addressed the use of video and slideshows to facilitate and enhance primary language learning. Below is my presentation. If you click on the videos or the titles, they are all hyperlinked to their source. I’ve added a few of the clips I used as well.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkQCtzdQFto&hl=en&fs=1&border=1]

Additionally, to address some of the questions posed:

I was asked a few questions about ANIMATION – can I direct you to Oscar Stringer’s wonderful site for guidance ideas and resources – particularly his useful PDF that gives directions on how to animate.

Putting SOUND in POWERPOINT – check out this post from the ubiquitous Joe Dale.

Good places to find RESOURCES – ready made – are Talkabout Primary MFL and TES Staffroom.

All my bookmarks are available to access here – http://delicious.com/lisibo so if you need some ideas on festivals, click on the link, then click on ‘festivals’ on the right hand side and you’ll find all the sites I’ve bookmarked.

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Spanish Hand Gestures, originally uploaded by KatsAsleep.

Just picked up the following from Twitter via @josepicardo who was alerted to it by @luciax.

Published by The Guardian in its Language Resources – Spanish area, ‘Learn Spanish gestures’ is a guide to some typically Spanish gesticulating that you could employ to look truly authentic as you complain of being fed up or tell your friend how busy the bar was at lunchtime.

Gesticulating is something that I can’t help doing when speaking, especially in Spanish so this is just up my street. And I can see that this would be a useful resource for intercultural understanding activities, comparing typical gestures. I recall discovering the hard way that gestures that are innocuous in one country can cause offence to other nationalities – not my fault that Greece lost 5-0 in the football and noone had told me that holding up five fingers with my palm facing a Greek was rude!

Well, something exciting happened yesterday and I was too busy at the MFL Flashmeeting to notice.

My blog received its 20, 000th hit at some point – when I checked today the counter stood at 20,095 which shocked me rather!

Thank you to all those who have read my blog over the last 20 months. Hopefully you’re still finding it helpful.