A rather amusing song about the progress of social networking! Rather tongue in cheek I feel!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYP-wBaqQAI&hl=en&fs=1]

You can check out the French translation and the lyrics by going to Ben Walker’s site.

NB I know it’s been around since August, but I’ve only just found it and it amused me in my bunged up state so indulge me 😉

Now I’ve broken up for Christmas holidays, I’m ill – isn’t it always the way with teachers? So, to get myself in the Christmas spirit, and because it is very funny – and true! – here’s the inimitable Stephen Fry explaining a couple of rather particular Catalan traditions. Perhaps not the clip to use to explain it in class though!!

Warning – these clips contain coarse language that may offend.

And here’s a clip of children attacking their Caga Tio!

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

Following on from El pequeño petirrojo, here’s another idea for Christmas that is adaptable to a variety of age groups.

Courtesy of HGfL (Hertfordshire Grid for Learning) comes ideas for using Raymond Briggs’ Snowman in French, Spanish and German.

You can download a set of flashcards in the form of a Powerpoint, and also the script of the story in the above languages. Here are instructions for how it’s suggested you might use the resources:

The basic idea is to show the DVD, which (apart from the introduction) has no words, accompanied by a reading of the script. Some confidence and competence in the chosen language is required as the text, although in the present tense, presents some challenges as you need to understand when to pause to allow the film to tell the story. Some ideas:

1. Introduce key words with the flashcards.
2. Play flashcard games.
3. Develop actions for each flashcard. Children repeat the actions whenever they hear the words in the story.
4. Distribute flashcards. Children wave flashcards when they hear the appropriate words in the story.
5. For older children you may want to introduce the written word and distribute word cards which the children show as they hear in the story.
6. When the children have watched the film and listened to the script in the appropriate language several times, they could act out the story as it is being read (first of all with the film and then without the film).
7. Older children could be given a simplified text, cut up which they then need to put in order. A similar activity could also be carried out using the smartboard or something similar.

I think this is a marvellous idea! Not only do you get to watch a classic, it also serves as a teaching resource.

And in case you haven’t got the DVD, here it is from Youtube – in three parts!

And here’s just the song – Walking in the Air – which I have just discovered was not originally sung by Aled Jones.

Stuck for a present for Christmas? Don’t want to waste your money on a present that will be discarded as soon as you’ve left? Want to give something with that will have a lasting value?

Here’s an idea, presented with all the cheesiness of a ripe Gorgonzola as only Mr P can ;o)
(Congratulations on the European Podcast Award win)

Alternatively, check out Oxfam Unwrapped or Send a cow :o)

You know you’re doing something right when you ask a class to write a Christmas poem and several kids ask you for a Spanish dictionary – in a Literacy lesson!!

I have to explain that as well as teaching Spanish, I teach other subjects too and whilst I like to integrate Spanish into other areas of the curriculum, on this occasion I had meant them to write in English. However, I wasn’t going to discourage them so off they went to fetch the dictionaries. I did advise them to stick to a simple structure and suggested ‘Navidad es….’ as a repeated line but otherwise left them to it!

Most of the class did write poems in English – although several finished their English one then wrote in Spanish too – but there were three or four Spanish ones. We shared our some of our poems and, using an Easispeak microphone, we recorded some of them (sadly didn’t have time for all of them but we’ll do it next week!) Then, at lunchtime, we made them into Voki. They’re on the school website, but here are two Spanish ones.

One is written as an acrostic using Regalos as its theme.

AC_Voki_Embed(200,267, ’52a91f93ccdfb6f325a8d09584aab6c9′, 1033309, 1, ”, 0);

Get a Voki now!

The other was written by a lovely girl who finds literacy very tricky so I was really proud of her!

AC_Voki_Embed(200,267, ‘dc8a0e377b89808645868c8b762622f7’, 1032816, 1, ”, 0);

Get a Voki now!

Just read an interesting article in The Telegraph Education section with the above title. It reports on a group in the Harrogate area called French for Fidgets (a great name for the group!) that teaches French to toddlers through song and games. Taking kids as young as 18 months, their philosophy is –

“… to make it fun. When devising these classes, I asked myself what children this age enjoy doing and the answer was singing, eating and rolling around the floor. So that’s what we do. It just happens we speak French while we’re doing it.”

I’ve taught Kindergarten at a previous school and also had pupils as young as 18 months, so I can completely agree with and endorse the benefits of catching them early. In fact there were children with emergent speech who had as many words in Spanish as in English – and all that from 20 minutes first thing on a Monday! The analogy ‘little sponges’ is a very apt one.

And research backs this up – Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith of the Birkbeck Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development in London is quoted in the article saying –

“Right from birth, the brain has the capacity to learn three or four different languages and in many countries that’s what happens,” she says. “In fact, the majority of children in the world are bilingual, either because their country has a number of borders or because their parents speak different languages.

“The typical pattern is for a child to learn one language from their father, one from their mother and another at school or in the street. As for brain capacity, I know children with Down’s syndrome who have three languages simultaneously. The truth is that languages shouldn’t be introduced at primary school, but at nursery school.”

And she concludes with a radical idea-

“Teach a language at nursery school and you won’t need to teach it at secondary,” she maintains. “By that time, the children will already be able to speak it.”

Well, it’s December 1st and as much as I’ve tried to be strong, Christmas has finally got me! School is full of Christmas plans for plays, parent partnership days, activities, assemblies and the like, and home is likewise in Christmas mode as littl’un plays the lead in the Infants’ play tomorrow as The Little Angel – if his temperature doesn’t get any higher :os

And, obviously, plans for classroom activities are turning Christmas-ward too!

So, I’ve been through my files and found some Powerpoints that might help you – and me! to get our classes in the Christmas spirit as well as ticking a few Intercultural Understanding boxes!
I am not claiming responsibility for all of these as lots have been kindly shared by people on Yahoo! MFL resources group, or the Consejería.

So – to start you off, why not try learning how to say Merry Christmas in 10 languages other than English? Perhaps you could take one each morning for the next two weeks?

Here’s a Disney video from Youtube if you want more languages – and it’s even got the pronunciation for you!

Then perhaps have a look at some Christmas vocabulary in Spanish? If your room is decorated for Christmas, why not label the decorations – or use them for a game of ‘Búscame…’ ?

Christmas in Spain is very particular and the Ministerio de Educación y Cienciain conjunction with the Consejería de Educación en el Reino Unido e Irlanda have produced a great powerpoint presentation choc-a-block with authentic pictures of the events in December and January – not all of which are religious.

They have also produced a presentation about El Belén – the traditional Nativity scene that decorate Spanish homes at this time of year. I usually use my ELC nativity scene to retell the story of Christmas from the Biblical perspective completely in Spanish. Kids understand because it is a story with which they are familiar and also because I’m very dramatic in my retelling – the Head of the Catholic Prep, School where I used to work was rather taken aback by my reenactment of Mary being told by an angel that she was pregnant with Jesus ;o)

I also uncovered this very comprehensive presentation about Spain at Christmas complete with more photos and information in bite size chunks. It includes details of El Gordo, el Caganer (in ploite language!) and el Roscón de Reyes.

I’ve also found a presentation I did a few years ago at Birmingham Council House (I think it was!) about ideas for Christmas in the MFL classroom. It includes ideas for French, Spanish and German, and the ideas are suitable for right across the age range. I posted it last year too but in case you didn’t catch it….hopefully something for everyone! (hope the links still work!)

to be continued!!

I love this poster, shared with me on Twitter by @nwinton from the imaginatively named I love Typography blog in a post entitled Diacritical Challenge. The challenge is to a) name the font and b) identify the diacritical marks!

I’ve got to say that I couldn’t name all of them but there are plenty of people having a go in the comments!!

The subtitle of the post is ‘Squiggly bits’ which is how many of the pupils I teach describe them. As they’re unfamiliar in our language, it can take a bit of explaining but ñ isn’t too hard to explain, and the accents in Spanish to show where to stress words is easily explained when I mispronounce their names by stressing the wrong bit. And ¡ and ¿ are explained by the need to know if something is a question or exclamation a the beginning of the sentence so that your intonation is correct – cue much overacting ;o)

All counts towards Knowledge about Language!

Via my FriendFeed, I was asked by John Johnston (via Twitter!) what type of blog I had, linking to Typealyzer. Being a nosey, inquisitive soul, I decided to find out! And what I found was rather interesting.

I’m forever doing quizzes and surveys on Facebook like Which Sesame Street puppet are you? (Zoey) Which Heroes power do you have? (Peter Petrelli) and Which Scrubs character are you? (Elliot) and frankly, whilst amusing, they interest me for about 10 seconds before I move on to poking someone or finding out if I remember the 80s.

However, this captured my attention for much longer. I put in my URL as requested and was given the following analysis.

And apart from the bit about being impulsive (have to work at that!) and following things through (which I do!), I’d say it was rather accurate! especially the bit about sitting still and remaining inactive!

But even more interesting was the next bit which analysed my brain activity.

Made me think – why am I so low on feeling, intuition and imagination? I’d say I was that way inclined but my blog doesn’t. Perhaps it’s the way it’s analysed – not sure if it’s on the last post or on the whole thing. Perhaps I’ll have another go in a week or so and see if it tells me anything different.

If you’ve got a blog, I’d be interested to know what it says about you. I did check a few and discovered that Chris Fuller is a Doer like me, Joe Dale and Oscar Stringer are Guardians, Tim Rylands is a Mechanic, Tom Barrett is a Scientist and Jo Rhys Jones is a Duty Fulfiller.