Category: ideas

Finding good CPD for Primary Languages can be a challenge but the Association for Language Learning (ALL) is always a good place to turn. Their annual Primary Languages Conference – sometimes called Acapulco – is a must attend. This year it’s even better as you can ‘attend’ at your leisure rather than being tied to a day, interact with other participants online by aksing questions and commenting, and then attend a live fringe event in November where all the speakers will be there to interact live and in person (online!)

I’m really pleased that I’ve been asked to be one of the presenters and am looking forward to interacting with participants.

Below you can see the other presenters and their themes/topics, as well as details of how to join. As an ALL member it costs only £5 which is an amazing bargain!

Presentations

There are 10 presenters speaking on the theme of ‘The Primary Languages Journey’. The presenters are all experienced teachers who have a wealth of expertise teaching languages to young learners. Their presentations have been recorded and are 20 – 30 minutes in length. They can be viewed as many times as you like until 31^st January 2027. You will be able to comment on the presentations, ask questions and share ideas. The presenters and other viewers will be able to respond. Ticket holders will be able to access the videos from Monday 5^th October. You can find out more about the programme here

Book a ticket 

The ticket gives you access to the video presentations, the Virtual Exhibition and you will also be able to attend the live fringe event via Zoom on Thursday 26^th November 7.00 – 8.30pm. Once payment is received, you will be sent a confirmation email with instructions on how to access the recordings. Book here

Booking closes on 21st December. 

Cost

The price of the ticket is the same as it has been for the previous conferences.

ALL Member/ECT/Trainee – £5

Non-Member – £25

Live Fringe Event

This will take place on Thursday 26^th November 7.00-8.30pm via Zoom. All ticket holders will be sent the link. This will be an opportunity for greater interaction. You will be able to meet the presenters and discuss the presentations with other attendees as well as network in the breakout rooms. The raffle of exhibitor prizes will take place.

Virtual Exhibition and Raffle

There will be a Virtual Exhibition in the form of a video presentation with information about publishers and service providers of primary language materials. You will be able to ask questions about the resources and the exhibitors will be able to respond. In some cases, discount codes will be available for purchasing their resources. The exhibition will be accessed via the same link as the presentations. Many of the exhibitors have offered prizes for the live raffle. To enter the raffle, it is necessary to watch all the presentations to collect the hidden letters. The raffle will be drawn at the live fringe event on the 26^th of November.

ALL Membership Offer

All participants will be given a code to obtain a 10% discount on future ALL membership.

Below are my sketchnotes from the sessions I attended at Language World. I only attended for one day this year but I have to say that my brain was still full of ideas and inspiration by the time I (reluctantly) left for home!

Must admit that my sketchnotes this year are a bit note heavy and a bit lacking in the sketch side – must practice more!

Enjoy the gallery below and feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking as part of the Language Show via Zoom. Slightly dauntingly I was opening the conference thread For Language Teachers so i was conscious of makiing a good impression and setting a precedent for quality!

My talk was similar to the one I delivered at the Talleres de Educacción in June with some additions based on what I’ve done since, focusing on ways that the theme of animals can be used as the vehicle for primary language learning, speciifically in Spanish in my case.

Those that attended live seemed to appreciate the ideas and forgave my fast talking, particularly as time flew by and the last part was a little hurried!

I did promise that I would expland more on the books section so below you will find a list of links to blogposts on books, and also a slide showing several books I recommend followed by some notes on why.

Posts on books:

Hipopótamo feliz, pato enojado http://lisibo.com/2021/09/hipopotama-feliz-pato-enojado/
¿Has visto a mi gata? http://lisibo.com/2020/11/take-one-book-phorum-presentation/
¡Ojo Oso! http://lisibo.com/2021/03/take-one-book-v2-lw2021/
Danza del corral http://lisibo.com/2021/09/danza-del-corral/
Spanish books for WBD http://lisibo.com/2018/02/spanish-books-for-world-book-day-wbd/
Non fiction science books http://lisibo.com/2017/05/non-fiction-books-science/

NB these are posts about Spanish books. I’ve also recently posted about a French book telling a traditional Alsatian story as well as writing about books in German, Italian and other languages that I’ve collected on my travels!

¡Muu Bee Así fue! – love this book as, although it’s a translation, it has the rhythm and rhyme. Also love it because I read rhe English version to my chidlren when they were younger! It’s all about the noises that animals make, although some aren’t quite right…

Un bicho extraño – a lovely book that challenges the way you see things… Good for body parts and descriptions. And the Consejería de Educacción has created activities to accompany it

El pájaro, el mono y la serpiente en la selva – a story told in rebus form – that is, words are replaced by images so it encourages learners to join in.

El pequeño conejo blanco – a story about a rabbit who needs help to evict the goat that is squatting in their house but none of the other animals want to help. Good for empathy and discussing the emotional journey of the characters.

¡Mamá! – a book with very very few words – mostly just a child shouting ¡Mamá! – so great ,for practising intonation and expression, and deducing meaning using picture clues. Numbers 1-10, animals and rooms of the house would be vocuabulary that could be ‘taught’ with the story.

Oso pardo ¿Qué ves? – a classic, along with many other Eric Carle books, due to the repetititve nature of the story. Good for animals and colours (often people change pardo to marrón to link with colours but ti’s good to point out the name of the species of bear is un oso pardo)

La siesta perfecta – if everyone has to wake up on time for an event, who do you leave in charge of ensuring they do? A sloth of course! Will it manage the task? Read and find out!

Cuckoo – a traditional tale from Mexico with ‘crafty’ illiustrations

Tengo alas and Tengo cuatro patas – both very simple, very repetitive board book that lend themselves well to being rewritten and reinvented by learners.

Azul el sombrero, verde el sombrero – another Sandra Boynton book featuring animals, colours and clothing, and a repeated refrain ¡Ay caramba! [see me read it here]

If you signed up for the Language Show, you can watch the replay of my session for the next few months. If you didn’t, you can still sign up and watch all 100+ sessions at your leisure. I’m enjoying working my way through the sessions I picked out in advance, as well as a few I’ve caught along the way!

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!

I’m very much looking forward to the Talleres de español at Instituto Español Vicente Cañada Blanch in London. This yearly event organised by the Consejería de Educación en Reino Unido e Irlanda and la Junta de Castilla y León is always well worth attending not simply for the learning but also for the delicious lunch! I’ve attended many times before and always look forward to it.

As you can see, there are streams for secondary and primary contexts as well as general sessions. This year there are several based around the arts – acting, dancing, music, fashion – and I am particularly looking forward to rounding off the day with some Zumba!

My session will be entitled Animania and will take, as the name suggests, animals as a theme and look at how they can be used in the primary classroom. Ideas will include using fiction and non fiction texts as well as music, movement and poetry, and discuss grammar, phonics, progression and motivation along the way.

If you’re interested in attending find out more and register here https://www.educacionfpydeportes.gob.es/reinounido/convocatorias-programas/formacion-profesorado/historico-formaciones/talleres-de-la-consejeria/talleres-de-la-consejeria-2025.html

And if you’d like to get a taste of previous years’ Talleres, there’s an archive here or you can find out my thoughts on previous events in these posts 2022 2021 2016 2011a 2011b

I was really excited to attend the Practical Pedagogies conference in Köln last week. Having attended the previous iterations in Toulouse (2015 and 2016) and Cologne/Köln (2018) I knew it would be an amazing two days of collaboration and learning.

In my previous post I shared my sketchnotes from the sessions I attended. When i counted them I momentarily couldn’t work out why I only had 9 when there were 8 workshops, a keynote and an endnote until I remembered that I presented and couldn’t sketchnote myself!

My session was entitled A Few of Our Favourite Things and in it I shared as many of the activities as I could squeeze in, drawn from pupil feedback on our language lessons. I teach primary Spanish, so most examples that were language/phase specific refelcted this. However, most ideas were transferable to other languages and phase, perhaps with a little adaptation here and there!

As promised, my presentation can be accessed below by clicking on the photo.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments or via my contact details.

Just returned from a wonderful few days in Köln/Cologne at Practical Pedagogies conference. The conference was held at St George’s School and, as the name suggests, was full of practical sessions led by research and pedagogy.

I was privileged to be asked to present, and I’ll share my presentation and tell you all about it in the next post.

Taking out my own slot, I had the opportunity to attend 7 other sessions plus the keynote and endnote. As usual, I attempted to sketchnote my way through the conference.

Sketchnotes are a visual way of capturing ideas on a page. They use words, boxes/clouds, arrows, and simple doodles to organize information. To find out more about the science behind it, you can have a look at my presentation at PracPed18 https://lisibo.com/2016/11/pracped16-sketchnoting-for-beginners/

Below are scanned copies of the #sketchnotes from #PracPed24. Hope they give you a taste of the sessions that I attended. They were all thought provoking, inspiring, practical and immediately actionable. Enjoy!

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of presenting at the PSB MFL conference via Zoom.

My presentation was entitled More than words with the subtitle Language learning is about more than learning lists of vocabulary. In it, I discussed my ‘idea of what ‘list of ingredients’ for language learning, particularly in the primary context. After discussing OFSTED’s 3 pillars and 3Is, I moved on to present my 7Cs!

And what are my 7Cs?
Context
Consolidation
Confidence
Communication
Culture
Celebration
Connection

I was thrilled with the response to my presentation and want to thank all the attendees for their kind words; I was floating on air all day despite an afternoon of stircrazy 10 year olds who’d not been out to play all day followed by parents evening!

If you’re interested in what else I shared, my slides can be viewed below.

What do you think? Have I missed a C? Let me know!

Since I last wrote a post, I’ve presented three times about international links!

In November I was pleased to speak, along with Vicky Gough of the British Council, to the ALL Portsmouth Primary Hub about Making international links to motivate our young linguists and celebrate their achievements. My contribution was summarised as:
Lisa took us on a whistle-stop tour of the many different projects she has been involved in over the past twelve years or so.  What shone through was the positive impact these experiences have had on all involved – pupils, teaching and school staff and parents.  Senior management have increasingly recognised the value of these projects and prioritised them within school planning.  Comments from pupils and colleagues, and more formal statements from school leaders, provide testimony to their success. 

In December I was invited to deliver a keynote at TMMFLIcons entitled International links and developing young linguists. I knew that 15 minutes was tight to say all that I wanted so I summarised the benefits/outcomes on the 3rd slide!

Even so, I still struggled to fit in everything I wanted to say so I wrote a summary of my points to share. You can download and read it below! If you want to see what was said and catch up with the recording, have a look at the @tmmflicons Twitter feed

And a couple of weeks ago, I spoke at Language World in Sheffield. Once more I packed in as much as I could into the time allocated, and still had more to say as I am passionate about sharing my experiences but also about the incredible value of international links and the impact it’s had on our school community.

After a bit of editing, I’m happy to share my presentation but I’m afraid that the file is too big to upload; you can however view it here or, if you attended Language World 2023, on the conference website.

I am really passionate about the international dimension, the power of links between schools around the world and the beauty of collaborating. Yes, it sometimes leaves me exhausted juggling and negotiating so that everything is done but it’s so worth it to see the impact on the staff, school, community and, of course, the pupils. Whilst some opportunities are no longer available to us and I still mourn for their loss, it’s not going to stop me. There are still ways to make links and work in collaboration with others and I will continue to search for more!

There’s a list in the summary document but a few to highlight:
If you are looking for a school for collaborations such as penpals or exchanges, particularly a French one, you can try Match My School.
The British Council has School Connect and also Partner Finding tools to help you find links and help them grow.
And the Global Schools Alliance helps create, maintain and develop links with schools all over the world.

It’s also worth exploiting any links you have as a school community, and also looking to see if your town/city has a twin TownTwinning.

If you want to find out more about the WCPS International Journey, have a look at the International section of the school website and/or our Erasmus+ blog. And please feel free to contact me to ask questions or for advice via the comments, via LiPS or Twitter.

I’ll leave you with a couple of comments and a sketchnote (thanks Clare!)

On Saturday I was once more at InstitutoVicente Cañada Blanch in London for the annual Talleres de español run by the Consejería de Educacción. It had only been 9 months since I was last there as the 2021 edition was postponed thanks to the C word and I was once more privileged to be asked to speak. More of that later!

The day started with a keynote to get you thinking by Crista Hazell who talked about The Joy of Language Learning.

My tweets at the time summarise the bits I particularly liked:

Following this, I attended a marvellously active and fun session led by Eva Rodríguez Moya entitled «JugaÑol: el poder del juego como herramienta de aprendizaje» during which she shared a number of ideas and techniques that are used in her classroom to enable learners to recall and use Spanish as the language of communication. I loved the energy and pace of the delivery as well as the great ideas, and it was good to see that others use gesture as a key way of embedding vocabulary and structures. I will certainly be using “Hola Año x” with my classes – a simple way to keep the class on their toes. I recommend you check out Eva’s presentation when it’s available!

My presentation was entitled A few of our favourite things and highlighted as many of the things that my pupils say they enjoy as I could fit into my time slot! As is often the case, I had far more to say than there was time to share, and below you can find my slides (minus a couple that can’t be shared which unfortunately means you can’t see the videos of my class retelling El Nabo Enorme or reciting Doña Pito Piturra)

I did manage to share that I see myself not a Spanish teacher but as a languages teacher and that whilst the language in which my pupils should have made ‘substantial progress’ by the end of Y6 is Spanish, I am also teaching them how to be language learners which is just as important if not more so. What i ran out of time to share was the range of things that we do to celebrate languages as well as our amazing Erasmus+ project that is just coming to an end. Perhaps I can share that next time… hint hint 😉 You can see the slides anyway.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment. I’d be happy to answer!

Thanks to the rail strike I couldn’t stay for the afternoon sessions but I did enjoy a lovely lunch and a good chat with lots of enthusiastic joyful people. at the end of the day, I shared the tweet below which I feel summed up my experience. Here’s to the rainbow unicorns! 🌈🦄