Category: global awareness

You may have noticed I’ve got a new widget on ¡Vámonos! labelled Where in the world…??
This follows someone (I’m afraid I can’t recall who!) Tweeting about placeSpotting.com, an online map game based on Google maps. There are numerous riddles showing a satellite picture of somewhere in the world in the top box, and in the bottom box is a Google map of the world. Your task is to find the exact satellite picture to ‘solve’ the riddle. Some people have left clues to help you – for example, I’ve just solved on with the clues

leading me to Miami.

As I approached Conference room 1 on Friday, I couldn’t work out why there was a queue. Was I in the right place or had I taken a wrong turning and ended up by the toilets?
All was soon revealed as ‘boarding packs’ were passed back and we were instructed to fill in our passports before picking three items for our suitcase and collecting our boarding passes. By the time I arrived at the front of the queue with my holiday wardrobe, consisting of a pink bikini, red shorts and green flip flops (there wasn’t much left, and our destination was La Réunion), there was one seat left for me. And, authentically, it was right at the back and involved me climbing over everyone else :o)

We were welcomed aboard our flight by Daryl Bailey, Primary Language Coordinator at Hove Park School and Language College and Hilary Philips from St Andrews Primary. I was already aware of a previous creative collaboration of these ladies – Parachutes and PE: Active language learning in Primary School (downloadable from the Hove park site – link is to German version. Also in My Box of Goodies) so this was going to be exciting!

We were asked to fasten our seatbelts, extinguish cigarettes, and advised of emergency procedure and that our lifejackets were under our chairs, all in French. Then we took off – complete with sound effects and images on powerpoint of the view from the cockpit.

Once airborne, Hilary explained the activity. A week before International Week began at her school, Hilary was inspired to create an unforgettable experience for every child at the school.
St Andrews is a two form entry primary school with 450 pupils with a range of home languages. The idea was that the activity would focus and give context to language work and involve everyone – Hilary came up with the idea of a flight. She considered a flight to a French town before settling on different countries to match the focus country chosen by each class.

having got the staff onside, parents were contacted by letter explaining that despite what the kids may have said, the flight was a fantasy one, not in reality, and asking for any help that could be offered-
did anyone work at Heathrow or have contacts?
anyone have any equipment that might be used?
could anyone come in and give a hand?

In this way, the school discovered that several parents had old cabin crew uniforms in the loft that were worn by staff on the day; an airline captain that someone knew became involved on one of the two days and several authentic posters and articles from airports were lent to the school.

Each flight was for two classes across Key Stages to enable the older pupils to look after the younger ones. According to Hilary, this led to some lovely moments as pupils read to one another, looked after those who looked apprehensive, and helped carry luggage.
The airport was in the school hall so had to be easily moveable to allow for it to be packed away at lunch time and for activities after school. There were checkin desks, a luggage desk with luggage for each flight being placed in a trolley (lent by Iceland!) and wheeled round to baggage reclaim in the corridor after the flight. The caretaker made a metal detector archway from carpet tube and sliver paint, and all kinds of old technology such as old fashioned phones, obsolete keyboards and walkie talkies were discovered and used.
Pupils each had to pack a small piece of baggage with suitable clothes for their destination (researched as part of the activity earlier in the week) and prepare their pass port that they had to present at Passport control where the staff found all sorts of excuses for querying passengers being allowed to board.
Staff had a corporate image – black tops with a chiffon scarf and a badge – and everyone gat involved including kitchen staff, governors and even the local vicar!
Once through passport control, pupils waited in the ‘departure lounge’ where they had a choice of reading materials – magazines prepared earlier in the week about the destinations of the flights. The first pupils through were allocated to the ‘First Class’ loinge, giving a front seat and the best choice of the magazines.

Once boarded on the ‘plane – marked out by tickertape – passengers had a magazine, menu and advertisement sheet to study in a polypocket on the back of the seat in front. At takeoff, a big screen formed the front of the ‘plane on which were projected pictures as if from the cockpit on takeoff with accompanying sound effects of engine noise.
Once airborne, there was even a refreshment trolley before the flight dropped off the first group of tourists, perhaps in Sark (Reception) before flying on to La Réunion (Year6) – bizarre but fun!
The experience was unforgettable for the pupils – Daryl tracked down some pupils who had been at St Andrews last year for the flights, and had now moved on to Hove PArk, and they still recalled the excitement and delight of the whole thing.

Hilary and Daryl pointed to the plurilingual nature of our world and how this activity drew together all the other activities of the week. It promoted teamwork, involved everyone, gave huge opportunities for speaking and listening, offers a context for language learning, brings the wider world closer to home and offers opportunities for FUN! Hilary also pointed out that this linked in with the QCA Geography unit on La Réunion, and was thus also cross curricular.

The Air St André experience sparked and inspired a Chinese Day, links with Travel and Tourism and Enterprise at Hove Park, and perhaps most importantly of all, the pupils are still buzzing about it six plus months on.

A really interesting idea – I wonder how the staff at my school would respond if I went to a staff meeting and made such a suggestion? Might try it out….

Back at the end of August, Paul Harrington blogged about Imagiverse and mentioned being involved in their Hands around the World project last year. As I’m always on the lookout for new ideas for global links, I investigated further and signed up Whitehouse Common.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, the time came to take part and on Friday I sent off a large parcel of handprints to Michelle Mock in California.

A brief idea of the project –

Hands Around the World – Students from classrooms around the world will create cut out paper “handprints” which they will send to Imagiverse for distribution to other participants. You will receive as many handprints as you send (at least one per student). The Fall exchange is themed “Holidays Around the World”. Since many countries and cultures are celebrating major holidays at this time of year, we would like to celebrate how and what you celebrate. What are the traditions celebrated where you live? What are the customs and traditions you observe? What might someone in another country not know about your celebration? What is the history behind the tradition?

So, being an adventurous kinda gal, I decided that the whole school should get involved, so over the last ten days, 480 kids have been drawing around their hands and decorating the prints to depict a festival of their choice. Then on the back they have written the name of the festival and a sentence or two about why it is special to them. Most classes cut them out too but I did end up with over 100 to cut out myself, and then I took photos of them all for posterity before parcelling them up and posting them to the USA.

Now we await the arrival of our parcels of Hands from around the world! Hopefully we’ll find out about some festivals and celebrations with which we are not so familiar as well as discovering how other people celebrate the ones we know.

Just as with our eTwinning project last year, I feel that this exercise has once more given the pupils the opportunity to reflect a little on events that happen every year, like Bonfire Night, Diwali and Christmas, and to remember the reasons why we have these events – even if some of their reasons for choosing to depict them were based on sweets and presents!

So – why not get involved? There’ll be another exchange in the Spring, with a new theme. You don’t need to involve the whole school, but nothing ventured, nothing gained! It could be a gentle way to introduce the idea of International projects to your school, and, as Paul pointed out in his blog, it’s an excellent idea for keeping kids busy during wet breaks!

My BBC Online daily e-mail informed me this morning that, according to a British Council survey, ‘UK children aged 11 to 16 have the lowest international awareness among their age group in 10 countries’.

The article reported that 4,170 children with Internet access were asked about language learning and international affairs and the results were scored on an index from 7 to 0 –

1. Nigeria 5.15
2. India 4.86
3. Brazil 4.53
4. Saudi Arabia 3.74
5. Spain 3.29
6. Germany 3.24
7. China 2.97
8. Czech Republic 2.51
9. USA 2.22
10. UK 2.19

When questioned, children in the UK were least likely to want to try and understand world affairs, and saw themselves as citizens of their country rather than the world. Young people in Brazil were among the most likely to agree with the statement “it is a good idea for schools in my country to have links or partnerships with schools in other countries” but the least likely to be in schools that had such links.

The article finishes with the comments of Martin Davidson, British Council chief executive
“Our school children cannot afford to fall behind the rest of the world. For the UK to compete in a global economy, it is vital that we encourage our young people to have an interest in and engagement with the world around them.”

Intercultural Understanding is a key strand of the KS2 Framework for MFL (although we’re supposed to use PLL (Primary Language Learning) to get away from the negative connotations that ‘foreign’ can have) As far as I’m concerned, opening the ‘window on the world’ is a vital part of learning languages. At Whitehouse Common, we’re taking this seriously and I’ve written raising international awareness and understanding into the SIP for PLL as a specific target.

Last year we made a start on this with an eTwinning project called Somos lo que Celebramos. Working with Colegio Público César Hurtado Delicado in Valverde de Leganés, near Badajoz in Spain, we compared and contrasted festivals and celebrations in the two countries. The project not only broadened the pupils’ knowledge of Spanish festivals and culture but also made them look at their own celebrations through new eyes. We won a Runners-up Prize in the National eTwinning Awards for the project too – I was very pleased – my head wanted to know why we hadn’t won!
(If you want to find out more about this, have a look at the presentation I prepared for The Isle of Wight Conference where I spoke about the project, and eTwinning in general – you’ll find it in my Box of Goodies. )

This year we’re on a roll and are pushing the boat out into deep waters! We achieved the Intermediate International Schools Award for last year’s efforts and this year, we’re hoping to achieve the Full Award (fingers crossed!)

We’re taking part in the Voices of the World project , have two Ted-E-Bears in North America and are about to become involved in a new Teddy based project with Silvia Tolisano. Our eTwinning project for this year is called Somos lo que comemos and hopefully will involve five countries comparing and contrasting food and healthy lifestyles in our countries (details being finalised at the mo!). Then there’s Hands around the World – 480 handprints to parcel up (and cut out!!) to be sent around the world to other classes as we compare ‘Holidays around the world’ and, later on in the year, a postcard exchange. I’m working on email links with South America and, following on from the success of this
year’s European Day of Languages, I’ll be starting planning for next year after Easter!

I’ll tell you more about these projects over the next few weeks but just wanted to respond to the article with some examples of how we might address this – hopefully in a few years’ time, children in the UK will be more globally aware and see themselves as ‘global citizens’, as they are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences as they appreciate those of others.