Category: german

Thanks to Liz Fotheringham last week for telling me about this wonderful site!

As it explains here,

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator.
Google News automatically groups news tories with similar content and places them based on algorithmic results into clusters. In Newsmap, the size of each cell is determined by the amount of related articles that exist inside each news cluster that the Google News Aggregator presents. In that way users can quickly identify which news stories have been given the most coverage, viewing the map by region, topic or time. Through that process it still accentuates the importance of a given article.

What’s really great is that you can choose the country from which you’d like the headlines – the list includes Spain and Mexico as well as Germany and Austria which allow a comparison of headlines in the smae language. Canada is included as well as France but the headlines are in English!

And there’s a tool bar at the bottom as well where you can choose the type of news that you’d like included.

Here I’ve just selected Sport in this screen shot :-

Another thing I like about this site is that if you hover on a headline, you get the beginning of the article plus a photograph. Just enough to give you more information about the headline, and just enough to be a ‘short text’. The ‘hover’ also tells you how many articles have been written on the same topic, and from which paper that headline came.

Liz mentioned it in the context of KS3 and 4 and using authentic materials for reading. I wholeheartedly agree – and would venture that it might be good to use with KS2 for

• gist
• looking for cognates
• ICU about what’s in the news in other countries
• comparing languages by using an unknown language eg by choosing Brasil or Netherlands
• match the headlines

Jude has just – finally!!- finished a topic on Ancient Egypt.

Isaac received a postcard home from his German teacher, Herr Götschel, this week for getting full marks in three tests.

So, in their honour and in celebration of their achievements, here’s one of their favourite tunes!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3FG4EOgyU

And the lyrics in German –
Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil.
Komm aus Agypten, das liegt direkt am Nil.
Zuerst lag ich in einem Ei,
dann schni-,schna-,schnappte ich mich frei

[Refrain]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil,
hab scharfe Zähne, und davon ganz schön viel.
Ich schnapp mir was ich schnappen kann,
ja ich schnapp zu, weil ich das so gut kann.

[Refrain]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil,
ich schnappe gern, das ist mein Lieblingsspiel.
Ich schleich mich an die Mama ran,
und zeig ihr wie ich schnappen kann

[Refrain]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil,
und vom Schnappen, da krieg ich nicht zu viel.
Ich beiß dem Papi kurz ins Bein,
und dann, dann schlaf ich einfach ein.

[Outro]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (schnapp!)
Schni Schna Schnappi (ja!)
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (schnapp!)
Schni Schna Schnappi (mhmm!)
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (ja!)
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi (hmm) Schnappi Schnapp

And in English –

Artist : Schnappi

Title : Schnappi das kleine Krokodil (English)

—————–

I am Schnappi the little crocodile.

I come from Egypt, it lies right on the Nile.

At first I lay in an egg,

Then I schni- schna- snap myself free.

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

I am Schnappi the little crocodile,

I have sharp teeth and they are quiet pretty.

I hog what I can snap,

Yes I snap because I can do it so well.

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

I am Schnappi the little crocodile,

I like to snap, it’s my favorite game.

I creep onto my mommy,

And show her how I can snap.

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

I am Schnappi the little crocodile,

And because I’m snapping I don’t get there very much.

I briefly bite into my dad’s leg,

And then I easily shrink.

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (Snap)

Schni Schna Schnappi (Yes)

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (Snap)

Schni Schna Schnappi (Mhmm)

Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (Yes)

Schni Schna Schnappi

Schnappi (Hmm) Schnappi Schnapp

I take my job as a parent very seriously and when I heard that Isaac would be learning German, I decided to prepare him adequately.

Firstly, we looked at the importance of language learning.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOTpIVxji8

Then we looked at some numbers.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJa7TAnR9SA

Tonight we’ll be working on some instructions.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5P7RsC9TI

When I said i take my job as a Mum seriously, that doesn’t mean I’m always serious! ;o)

Via my Google Reader, I was led to the following book published on Scribd.

Over 300 pages of games and activities for use in the PLL classroom.  What’s more, there are all mapped to the KS2 Framework objectives and helpfully split into sections for specific vocabulary areas, counting, literacy and language learning.  Plus there are sections of vocabulary in Spanish French and German to support those who are less fluent.

Looks a brilliant resource to enhance the learning of languages at primary – and I’m sure there are a few secondary pupils who wouldn’t mind a nostalgic game of Duck duck goose once in a while?
Games and Activities for Primary Foreign Languages

PS I am checking re copyright as the author is not the one who uploaded it!

Here is the Slidecast of my second presentation from Brighton.

Apologies for the audio cutting out before the end – no idea what happened there!  Perhaps the iRiver overheated!

Apologies to @wizenedcrone for forgetting her real name – it’s Fiona Joyce!!!

And the German site I mentioned was called GenkiGerman.

CILT advertisement that might be of interest to people – If you’re interested in this, the closing date is 15th September, so best to sign up before the holidays!  Find out more on the CILT website or by emailing ptp@cilt.org.uk

I came across this wonderful website today, linked from Teaching Ideas site.

Chillola.com is a multilingual site, offering simple resources in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

There are attractive vocabulary presentations accompanied by audio on subjects like colours, numbers, months, fruit and vegetables and body parts.  There are also very simple printable activities and colourables.

It’s a great resource for introducing vocabulary and for individual access, as well for raising awareness of other languages that are not necessarily taught at your school.

My favourites are the hamster teaching prepositions and the lovely illustrations for the opposites.

The site also offers links to several other websites about which I’ve never previously heard.  I feel more posts may be forthcoming…

I made friends with Claire on Facebook just before Language World – what a great decision that was! She’s as mad and lively as me!

Her session was on Embedding Languages in the Curriculum and gave plenty of ideas for doing just that!

Highlights including dancing to www.genkigerman.com (just tried it out again with Isaac – a big hit!) and learning a song in Italian about food! It went to the tune of La Cucharacha and I think the words were

Then Claire asked me if I’d contribute some French / Spanish which I happily did! I shared www.UptoTen.com and the duck song – Peux-tu marcher comme un canard? and then demonstrated the ‘animal symphony’ activity I used to link Spanish, music and literacy. Materials and instructions to replicate it can be found here.

Molto bene Claire!