Category: ideas

As Jo Rhys-Jones kindly pointed out last night, in all my blogging I have failed to post my own presentation!

Whilst writing an article on storytelling for a future publication, I found a song I’d downloaded to which I wanted to refer. As often happens, I couldn’t recall whether I’d been sent it by a friend, downloaded it from a fora or found it online.

After a bit of searching – which took me once more to the wonderful West Sussex GFL language resources – I found that it had come from a site called MrsJonesRoom. When I approached the eponymous MrsJones for permission to use the song, she was very accomodating and pointed me towards other Spanish resources on her page.

I’ve had a look at some of the links and particularly like the downloadable mini books and the songs, complete with sound files of the tunes! There are even some Spanish Disney songs – great for EDL? Sadly there are a number of ‘dead’ links which is a shame but it’s well worth a look.

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!

Not a post about S Club 7 (athough I will say that my boys are big fans of Hannah who’s in Primeval now!) but about something that was reinforced in my mind last night.

The Assistant Head at school had been asked to run part of the PDM on EAL (English as an additional language) and to give some brief ideas on how to make life easier for EAL pupils at school. We don’t have many but it is an important issue – and one that is relevant in general too! On a recent course she had attended, the presenter had taught them some Welsh to put the delegates in the position of an EAL learner, and Jan had asked me to emulate this – her exact request was ‘you know an oscure Spanish dialect don’t you? Could you teach us some?’ Not sure how the Catalans would respond to hearing Catalan described as such but I took the challenge.

The idea was to teach numbers 1-12 and then do some basic maths but without using visual prompts like fingers, cards, notes, actions or mimes until about half way through the session. Thus the staff were put in the place of a learner who is capable to doing the task – all our staff can add and subtract numbers up to 12!- but don’t have the vocabulary to understand the task.

What struck me was how hard I found it to teach without using actions – I literally had to put my hands in my pockets or hold them together to stop myself gesturing. I found it really uncomfortable to see the looks on my colleagues’ faces as they tried to work out what I wanted them to do – and I think I caved in quicker than I should have done. My style is very much waving my arms around, pointing, miming and using any clue I can to enable the pupils to understand.

When asked how they’d felt, it was obvious that the exercise had hit the mark as the staff immediately pinpointed the difficulty of understanding the task being the biggest stumbling block, and how much easier it had been once actions had been introduced, or the list of numbers being written on the wall. One colleague said that she’d given up trying after a few minutes as she was so baffled; another that she’d felt so inadequate and small as others had caught on more quickly than her, and almost humiliated (once she’d understood it) by the simplicity of the task that she’d been unable to do.

So, despite my discomfort at teaching in a way that is alien to me, I think the exercise served to underline just how important gesture and mime are in enabling understanding.

We played a game from Digital Dialects as part of my mini-lesson. Well worth a look if you want to learn – or even just look at – some basics in a wide range of different languages!

Friday was a busy day, starting off in London with an animation course run by Oscar Stringer at Institute of Education.

Working in two groups, we spent the day developing our animation skills, producing two short animations from initial idea to finished film complete with transitions, titles, sound and music. We used ICanAnimate to capture the animation then exported the film to iMovie to ‘finish’ it. My group used my Macbook and a Hue webcam – and it was lovely to meet the man behind Hue in the UK during the day as well (mine’s on order from Amazon – went for the blue one in the end!) whilst the other group used an iMac and a driverless webcam.

James, Carolyn and I took our inspiration from the Mr Men. Firstly, our models followed the principles of Mr Men (which are also important principles for plasticine animation – big features, bold shapes and simple designs) and secondly, we made an animation with a message – suitable for PSHE and based on friendship in the playground – a lonely girl on a bench wanting to join in with a game of ball.

The day reinforced all that I already knew about animating – the importance of keeping things simple, of planning well before you start, of working in collaboration and of how much fun it is!
We laughed so much making the animations – my group’s is posted below. This is the English version. We recorded three different ending – with the bench saying THE END in English, French and Spanish – so that we can use it in our classrooms and dub it in different languages.

If you want to find out more about animating, I can’t recommend Oscar’s courses enough. He has a real gift for making it all seem very simple (and it is) and conveys the great potential that animation has as a tool for creativity, collaboration, innovation and progression. Check out his website and his blog to find out more.

Amazing what you can do with a carpet tile, some plasticine and an idea!

Thanks to Alex Blagona and Joe Dale who recorded and edited the audio, here’s the Slidecast of my recent presentation at Language World in Leicester.

And if you want to listen on your mp3 player, you can download my podcast Lisibo talks!

Received an e-mail from CILT today with the latest copy of the Primary Languages e-Zine.

This online magazine contains news of QCA units, CILT publications and more, and also takes a topic for consideration.

The focus for this edition is STORYTELLING with ideas of how to get started, how to move on and how it fits into the Primary Curriculum and some ideas for resources as CILT staff choose their favourite books.

There’s also a section called ‘What you’re doing‘ which contains reports on how various people have used storytelling in the Primary language classroom – including Handa’s Surprise, Jules Verne and Go away Big Green Monster – written by someone you might know ;o) – as well as ideas for where to obtain *free* resources for storytelling and what research says about the use of stories.

Well worth a read!

I was lucky enough to be asked to present this year at Language World, the annual conference of the Association for Language Learning (ALL), which took place at University of Leicester on 3rd and 4th April.

My presentation was entitled Absorbing Language Learning and offered ideas to engage enthuse and stimulate language learners, particularly focusing on the Primary Language Learning context although the ideas are all transferable.

I was really glad to be on the programme near the beginning of the conference as I was then able to relax and enjoy the rest of it. And I was also really chuffed that my session was so full – we only just had enough chairs!

As promised, here is the presentation with links to all the resources. The battery on my iRiver sadly gave up midway through the session, but the lovely Joe Dale had given the equally lovely Alex Blagona an iRiver to record me too so I will shortly add the audio to the Slideshare and then you’ll be able to hear me too!

Links to sites and resources can also be found in my delicious bookmarks under lw09

photos – http://www.?ickr.com/photos/emerging/

Hot on the heels of CILT’s Primary Language Show, Birmingham’s ELL RSG meeting at the Martineau Centre in Harborne on 9th March was led by Helen Leigh from Worcestershire LA and was full of ideas for five to ten minute language activities that can be done in the classroom. Whilst the recommendation of one hour per week language learning has been understood as a discrete lesson by some, the ideal is that the hour is spread throughout the week. Not only because an hour is a loooong time to maintain attention and energy, but also because little and often fits well into the already packed primary curriculum. Helen suggested the term ‘language exposure’ too as a good way of viewing it.

The session was jampacked wth ideas which Helen related to the KS2 Framework.

Here are some exmaples –

O3.3 – perform simple communicative tasks using single words, phrases and short sentences
‘Snail stories’ – can be done in many languages as so simple! Un escargot (actions draw s – drive a car – point GO!)
Un escargot….deux escargots…..bonjour….bonjour…… kiss kiss……au revoir…au revoir
Un caracol…… dos caracoles…..hola…….hola……..kiss kiss……. adiós…..adiós
could add to it by asking how you are, name etc

Brain gym –
a)letters and number – using the chart (right), say the alphabet whilst lifting arms and legs as indicated by the number as below –
1- right hand and left leg
2- left hand and right leg
3- both hands

Kids could make up their own versions, have a competition to see how fast they can do it correctly? It also fits the idea of Daily Physical Activity. See also Take Ten en français / en español.

b. colours – Dr Kawashima-like stroop test – as a timed test perhaps, or inter table competition?

Another idea was a Mexican wave of word cards and/ or pictures?

O3.2 to recognise and respond to sound patterns and words O4.3 to listen for sounds, rhyme and rhythm

‘Phonics’
eg Une poule sur un mur (see here for song mp3)
focus on ‘ou’ sound – touch your head when you hear the sound.
then ‘u’ sound
actions

Helen then used pictures of Marge and Homer Simpson, breaking the sad news that they were splitting up and had to split their belongings, to demonstrate an activity with phoneme. Homer was in a house labelled ou and Marge in one labelled u – the task was to divide all the things in the home. eg Marge got la jupe, Homer la tortue, Marge le mur etc

Dans la forêt lointaine is a good song to use for reinfrcing the phoneme ou – pupils stand up and sit down each time your hear ‘ou’
This also covers ICU as traditional song. Helen reiterated that it is not necessary to understand every word.

“Splat’
A simple activity – two pupils compete to splat the number, animated on PPT to pop up and down. Make it harder by asking pupils to splat multiples of 3 for example.

L4.1 to read and understand a range of familair written phrases
O5.1 to prepare and practse a simple conversation, reusing familiar vocabulary and structures in new contexts
Fishing rods – hook a fish – on the back of the fish is a number – the team that gets the number closest to x that wins.
Add them orally! Alternatively, make it harder by allowing the use of all operations to reach a more difficult number.

Helen also showed an idea using an alphabet mat – give two people a word to spell out by ‘dancing’ on the letters. their partners cmpete to write the word phrase down.

Another idea was to ask questions with three possible answers. Someone is sent out. whilst they are outside, the group decide on the correct answers. When they return, the person has to get all three right or start again. This allows the class to practise the question form which the part they often struggle to learn.

Above is a slide about a game of Cluedo that could be played with the class – involves colours, classroom objects and rooms, and pupils repeat the same vocabulary over and over until someone gets the correct answer. And a bit of blood and gore always go down well ;o)

O3.4 listen attentively and understand instructions, everyday classroom language and praise words

‘spells’
Helen then showed us some magic! Dice that changed colour, books that lose colours and regain colours, disappearing things, psychic displays – all the usual stuff!
We made up a spell about colours –

We then had a look at the story Je m’habille et… je te croc! all about a wolf who gets dressed then comes to eat us! Helen had found a Powerpoint in French already prepared – there are lots more great ideas on the site too!

The final activities involved the Months of the year – firstly, using a mgaic bag – everyone wrote their birth month on a slip of paper and put them in a bag. Helen then got someone to choose a month and wrote the month that she thought it would be on a magic board. of course she was right as there was a secret compartment n the bag! The other activity involved betting on the month that disappears forst from the board, then, once they’ve all gone, which comes back? The disappearing involves pupils copywriting on a whiteboard, and reappearing involves recall.

Loads of ideas!! Thanks Helen x
pass the bomb!

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)