Category: Language World 2011

ALL Presidential team

Cynthia Martin – Past president

Karl Pfeiffer – President

Bernadette Holmes – President elect – absent so we had a ‘supply president’ in the form of Steven Fawkes

Looking back to look forward

Whilst KS2 entitlement still stands, it’s uncertain and as yet there are no clear messages from the coalition about whether they will or won’t be statutory. We’re also in the middle of a huge curriculum review of both secondary and primary education. But change can provide us with opportunities to reassess and reflect.

Change often happens simultaneously, sometimes across sectors too.

Many issues that arose with Nuffield are seen replicated now – developing languages vertically down from KS3 but also horizontally across ability range at time when languages were elitist. At the same time, comprehensive education began.

National curriculum – Languages for all September 1992 with all children 11-16 studying languages led to questions about approaches to teaching all abilities. This had an impact on dual linguists as FL2 got squashed out (although people studying language and …business / development etc increased)

National Language Strategy brought some coherence to languages in England – many success stories especially in primary phase, widening of choice post-14 etc.

KS2 Framework has been a key document in bringing coherence to primary provision. In 2009 92% primaries offering language in KS2 and 70%+ offered throughout the school.

MFL KS3 Framework arrived with an emphasis on understanding pattern, structure and grammar, but lessened target language in the classroom.

Building for the future – what do we need?

• contact time – more needed across the board – not adding at one end and taking away at the other
• coherent language learning experience – a continuum across KS2 – KS4 and beyond
• consistency of teaching approach, again across the phases
• content – creativity – cognitive challenge even in years 5 and 6
• continuing professional development
• cultural dimension
• NSC/CLIL4Ts/LinkedUp
• collaboration at local regional and national level –  cutbacks but still the need for support

Resetting the foundations

A policy for the future

“Languages are vital for the personal professional and economic growth of all UK citizens”

“Language learning and teaching must take their rightful place in Britain as educational and social priorities”

“All British pupils must have full open and equal access to language learning to ensure a level playing with their peers abroad”

“The professional status of language teachers must be of equal standing compared to teachers of other subjects.”

We believe that language learning and teaching are an essential part of rounded education for all UK citizens.

“languages are not about labels, they’re about people” ECML Graz

We believe that all learners should have the opportunity to learn their first language and at least one other language, including English, if this is not their first language.

Our education system should provide:

• access to the range of languages existing in the UK including recognition for the languages of new communities
• coherent learning programmes from primary to secondary

We believe that languages teachers should have access to high quality initial teacher training and continuing professional development.

Policy makers should ensure that

• languages have a settled curriculum with a favourable time allocation in comparison to other successful jurisdictions
• decisions relating to how children are taught should remain as close to the point of learning as possible

We advocate statutory status for languages from 7-16.

Opportunities through the Curriculum Review

• the position of languages at primary needs urgent clarification
• there should be continued language training for primary class teachers
• adequate time allocation should be provided  in the curriculum to allow pupils to elarn to a similar standard to their peers in other major jurisdictions.

(At this point my RSA Typing1 couldn’t keep up with the note taking so I took pictures instead)

Why do we need language skills? 

Languages employability and entrepreneurship

Tolerance and challenge

Changing hearts and minds

• All human beings can enjoy a language learning experience
• All pupils should learn languages
• Language learning has significant educational benefits
• Language learning brings invaluable personal benefits
• ALL pupils from KS2-4 should have the right to learn languages in the school curriculum
• All citizens should have access to lifelong language learning

Languages MiniOlympics packs – Bringing together the two threads of KS2 teaching and languages and the International Dimension   –   presented by Michaela Howard and Jo Darley

Jo and Michaela – having marvellously overcome technical issues- presented their ideas for how to use the Olympics as the inspiration for language learning activities that  are clearly linked to the KS2 Framework and specifically for the class teacher to deliver.

1. GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Take 6 athletes from around the world –

• look at their photographs
• looking at names and have a go at pronouncing the names,
• are they male or female? which country?
• present countries in original language – can you decide which country it is?
• look at different script
• pause for thought – what was hard / easy?
• greetings in their own language – which is which?
• flags of countries – research?
• sports on each day – who will be doing which sport? by process of deduction, decide!
• customs and cultures to finish – which fact belongs with which athlete?

2. SPORTS

• short activities that fit well into the school day
• adapt the sports chart (containing all the sports in 5 languages) to individual needs – use one column or all five columns but just six sports to group etc
• perhaps cut up into chunks to match up, compare languages, describe their decisoon making
• then look for the symbols for sports
• tailor it to the interests of your learners
• make links – ask partner schools to tell you about their sports

3. DESIGN AN OLYMPIC EVENT

Michaela suggested challenging pupils to come up with their own Olympic event by posing the following questions –

• what would YOUR Olympic event be?
• who is it for?
• team vs individual
• equipment?
• feelings?
• why should it be in the games?
• enjoyable?
• where will it be held?
• training?
• values?
• judging?
• skills?
• children be involved?

*excellent activity with a partner school*

*engaging learning – collaborating*

4.MASCOTS

http://www.mapsoftheworld.com/olympic-trivia/olympic-mascot.html

Design a mascot with 2 places to look for inspiration – info on Beijing mascots and how they were conceived, what they represent etc and from London Olympic mascots – very visual labelled diagrams. (Didn’t manage to note the URL but found the picture!)

A mascot for YOUR area – black cabs are specific to London perhaps – what would eg Lincoln have?

(there’s a mascot maker on the 2012 site!)

5.PUBLICITY

How might you use the job of promoting the Olympic games as a task?

In Y3 with the objective “to copy words” you might

• design a ticket
• label a map of the event
• simple bilingual dictionary to find your favourite sport
• make a welcome flag

In  y4 with the objective “to write some simple words and phrases using model and some from memory” you might make

• programme cover
• logo and label it
• whole class poster advertising all sports
• simple menu for food stand (healthy lunchbox)

In y5 with the objective “to write words, phrases and short sentences using references” you might design a cartoon strip

In y6 with the objective ” to write sentences on a range of topics” you might

• write a paragraph to describe how you feel about games
• discuss where the games should be in 2020 – make your case
• produce tourist information for another country

6. ON YOUR MARKS

Going back to the 6 athletes and using these two sites, find out the distance the athletes have to travel to London (assuming they live in the capital city of their country!) How long will it take to travel? what time is it in their city when it’s  x o’clock in London?

http://www.silkysteps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1118

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html

7. NATIONAL ANTHEMS

There are 216 countries competing. Each one has a national anthem. What a lot of music to exploit!

• What’s ours?
• Listen to the national anthems – which country is it? You might need to give some clues too!
• Look at lyrics in English and in the language of the country
• Match up original to the English

Reframing languages  – presented by Dr Shirley Lawes , subject leader PGCE languages at Institute of Education; Mark Reid, Head of Education, British Film Institute and Muriel Huet, Lampton School

This talk reported on project funded by Esmee Fairburn Foundation carried out with 4 schools in conjunction with Institute of Education and the British Film Foundation

Why use short films?

• short (5-6 minutes)
• subject matter often wacky, outside learners experience
• introduces to film technique

Why do the project?

• revitalise the KS3 curriculum
• optionality means we need to attract learners in Y9 onwards
• what it means to learn another language
• PGCE MFL experience proved it a great way of learning

Aims

• to improve motivation/attainment
• develop interest in film as a cultural form
• develop cultural knowledge

Learners experienced 3 sequences of 5 lessons over 3 terms.

The project marks a development of work done by the BFI on using film in literacy, moulding it to the needs MFL teachers in mind – Cine-minis a DVD of short French films is the result.

One of the techniques used was “Tell me” grids with boxes for story / mood / character / setting – en français, qu’est-ce qui se passe? / ambience / qui? / où? ou quand? The soundtrack of the start of the film is played and learners fill it in with their ideas.

This encourages learners to build up pictures from sounds in their head, drawing on their  knowledge of the world and of film / narrative / text.

Once the first part of the film is shown, another grid considers surprises – is it as you expected? And what’s going to happen next?

I’m not going to spoil it, but we watched Les crayons and it was very unexpected!

Muriel was one of the four teachers involved and she shared the outcomes for her and her pupils.

It motivated her pupils greatly, leaving them more willing to take risks without necessarily realising it. It took them out of their comfort zone  whilst easily linking to curriculum, using the lack of prescribed content to an advantage.

For teachers, Muriel reported that the project gave an opportunity to

• develop new pedagogical knowledge / approaches
• develop their knowledge / confidence in exploring film as a cultural medium
• change of their expectations in terms of attainment
• integrate more ICU into teaching

Muriel reported that you need to have confidence to take risks professionally, to try out new ideas, be original and develop yourself professionally -and that this was an opportunity that she was given and took.

Cine-minis is available from http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk

And here are some free downloadable PDFs of information about film and languages.

Can’t wait for them to do some short Spanish films (hint hint!)

The third of a trio of presentations that I should have posted earlier (and I’ve still got a day of Language World to finish blogging too!)

My presentation at Language World this year took it’s theme from the fact that Primary language learning is an entitlement rather than statutory as we had expected a year ago. In it I explored what an entitlement meant and shared some ideas of how it might look and what it should include. Thanks to the people who attended on a hot Friday afternoon in the 6th session of a long and exciting day. I’ll put the audio with the Slideshare once I have time to edit it!

Make it real 

Liz Fotheringham, 

Use authentic materials to make it real! All sorts of reasons why online resources are particularly useful – one might be that textbooks are out of date as soon as they’re published!

See http://lizfotheringham.wordpress.com for slides and links

Skills –

• odd one out
• skimming and scanning
• looking for similarities – cognates, near cognates
• Venn diagrams
• matching text and pictures
• statistics – making links with maths skills
• thinking skills – card sorting
• longer texts – blanking out words – you need to look at context, grammar (what part of speech is needed)
• reordering texts requiring looking at numbers, dates, sequencing words (trois ans plus tard)
• fortune lines – high and low points of a career
• colour coding texts / jigsaw reading

When using video

• using cards to match to stills from clips eg songs  (Gregoire – Toi plus moi)
• songs (on video) can be used as listening as well as audio
• McDonalds advert  – made into a sound file using RealPlayer – and then slow it down in Audacity to make it more accessible

Progression in reading and writing … and STILL having fun!

Presented by Jan Lewandowski, Bedford Borough Council

Ina  whistle stop tour of reading and writing in KS2, Jan showed that teaching reading and writing need not be onerous, scary or boring, but fun and creative!

Here are my notes – I was too busy drawing, singing and making up stories to write more!

Y3 Nous promenons dans le bois (comptines)

www.jeuchanteenclasse.com/promenons1.swf

Show with words – even if they can’t read the text, it makes links with word and sound.

 Y4 Loup (Olivier Douzou) (story)

There’s an unexpected ending – he’s going to eat a carrot , not the person / rabbit that you might expect.

So much to do with it – the simple language lends itself to repetition, rewriting and easy comprehension.

Looking at the (French cursive, joined up) writing – good or bad?

Use it with a visualiser to overcome size, or make your own big book – Jan has one with a paperbag wolf finishing with upside down wolf with ‘prune’ in stomach (false friend)

Structure Je mets…. /Pongo… can also be used for setting table and talking about what you put down and then what you eat.

Y5 Un petit bonhomme (poem)

‘topics’ – fruit and veg.

Split sentence work

Make articulated veggie/fruit people – talk through process in French / Spanish.

Then link to Arcimboldo – part of the existing art curriculum so great for embedding

http://www.wga.hu/art/a/arcimbol/vertemnu.jpg

http://www.artsology.com/gfx/Arcimboldo/my_arcimboldo.jpg

Y6 Qui était Arcimboldo? (short text)

Looking at highlighted words – why? Some cognates, some links to ‘our’ language, some near cognates.

Jan finished with showing us some ‘sous-main’ or learning mats that she’d found from French schools to support recollection of language. A great idea. I’ll now be looking for some in Spanish!

The narrative approach to language learning in KS2 and KS3

Jo Cole

Jane Humphris

Linked Up project – to develop pupils’ linguistic independence and confidence in speaking, based on immersing kids in language

Aims of project

• to enable project work to be firmly embedded in classroom realities
• to build on partners strengths and enthusiasms to address identified needs
• to build capacity in partner schools and the wider school community

The process 

• tell the story
• imitation stage
• role of the teacher
• whole class / group / paired retelling
• moving onto innovation stage
• see the text
• move to invention (re writing the stories)

Things to note 

Pupils could lead activities – it wasn’t scary for them – they like the variety and also the opportunity to lead.

A resource bank was made with reference to grammatical structures.

By working with oral approach, reading aloud improved as confidence with sounds

At no stage does teacher say what it means – use the storymap to decode – partial competence

For more details see

www.ilrc.org.uk

http://www.linksintolanguages.ac.uk/resources/2547

*Part of a series of posts trying to summarise some of the sessions at Language World this year*

The opening of Language World saw a presentation by Anna Turney and Nick Fuller.

Anna Turney, Paralympic Snowboarder

Anna loved snowboarding and wanted to get good enough to compete. She moved to France after her degree, and decided that her best plan was to hang out with the French boys who’d know the place well (so her language skills came in very useful!) One season turned to three then she did a TEFL course, went to Japan and taught whilst still snowboarding at the weekend. In order to get sponsorship, she needed to win some races. Having played hooky one day to compete in a race, Anna crashed and ended up in hospital with 98% chance of walking again. In hospital, Anna had plenty of time to think and decide that she wanted to fight on. Language proved “fun” in hospital with misunderstandings and communication issues, but someone told her about sit-skiing which gave her new hope.

After a year of not being able to do extreme sports, Anna had a go and discovered it was harder than it looked! After practice, Anna came back to England, was spotted sit-skiing and invited to join the development squad, but had to self finance. A mystery donor bought her first monoski and off she went, on the road to Vancouver.

Anna set out to be the fittest and best she could, spending long periods of time away from home. Olympic values of friendship, excellence, respect, cooperation have been really important to Anna, and the buzz at Paralympics was enormous. Everyone has to wear team kit and it’s an amazing sight. When someone who’d won a medal came in, the whole dinner hall clapped. In Alpine skiing, each country is given an area of the hill, and countries need to work together to set courses. It is hugely competitive but there is a real togetherness about the whole experience too. The volunteers are amazing too.

Anna’s achievements in Vancouver – 6th in sitting slalom with which she was really pleased.

Anna acknowledges the debt she owes to all the people who have helped her – volunteers, family, sponsors, training partners – it’s a team effort.

www.annaturney.com 

Nick Fuller, Head of Education at LOCOG

In London there will be 170 nations.

Pierre de Coubertin saw Olympics as a sporting cultural coming together  – it’s more than sport! The vision for 2012 is to reach young people around the world. That’s been done through linking schools across the world, reaching millions of kids.

GetSet is delivered through a digital platform – www.london2012.com/getset

Cross curricular resources – themed and free!

GetSet schools have a strong local agenda as well as a national / international one. Big opportunities to work together too – National Sports Week has just ended! Also Musubi in East Midlands where Japanese team will be based.

Language and sport joined together eg handball in Spanish

Greenwich are offering free courses in Spanish, French, Japanese and Chinese – a focus on functional language.

Let’s get cooking around the world – recipes in Spanish, French, Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese – encouraging schools to engage the community and parents in language teaching and learning.

MYLO – Track list – to build a training track for French team

Get Set goes global – recognises that we’re literally just about to welcome the world to UK. In September – Get Set for the Olympic Truce – to promote peace through sport and culture. In November, we’ll be encouraged to choose our Olympic team to support and find out about it. 25th June 2012 World sports day in Sports week.

Resources available from September onwards.

There are rewards and recognition for GetSet network by filling in a short form – access to benefits and a plaque!

Does the legacy of the Olympics revolves around West Ham vs Spurs? No, it’s more to it than that – it’s looking to inspiring young people, capturing hearts and minds, instilling values and inspiring lives.

Really enjoyed this session as it brought together two of my favourite themes – languages and global / intercultural understanding.

*Part of a series of posts trying to summarise some of the sessions at Language World this year*

A review of inspection findings, and recommendations to improve provision in modern languages

Anne Looney HMI (Subject survey advisor for OFSTED)

The role of the subject survey advisors is management leadership and organisation of subject survey service.

Subject surveys are carried out in 30 primary and 30 secondary a year. They last 1 day for primary or 2 days for secondary and carried out by specialist inspectors supported by additional inspectors. The letters (reports) are published on OFSTED website and the primary letters do not have gradings on them. There is a 3 year cycle of reports and this report pulls together evidence from 2007-2010, with some reference to emerging evidence.

There are grade descriptors on OFSTED website for each of the common features –

• achievement
• teaching
• curriculum
• leadership and management

and special issues  (for 2007-2010)

• reading
• ICT
• take up KS4
• progress to entitlement at KS2

In Primary languages, there is generally a positive picture with language learning becoming an integrated and established part of the primary curriculum.

Achievement

• good – outstanding in just under 6/10 schools
• most progress in speaking and listening
• less systematic development of reading
• least developed skill is writing
• KAL and understanding of basic grammar developing well
• ICU developing well in most but not all (very creative ways seen of developing ICU, using ICT, native speakers, not just about language they’re learning in many – more than the language they’re studying)
• clear enjoyment

Teaching

• good/better in 2/3 of 235 lessons observed
• teacher subject knowledge and teaching methods mostly good; occasional shortcomings in pronunciation and intonation (these shortcomings are significant when in the key language of the lesson)
• class teachers well supported by native speakers, FLAs and other specialists
• assessments predominantly satisfactory (emerging evidence shows that often still the weakest area)

Curriculum

• good / better in more than 1/2
• combination of calssroom and external specialist generally supported provision well
• Fr most popular; Sp and ger in a smaller number also others
• by end of survey, large majority planned using KS2 Framework
• not all schemes wewre adapted sufficiently to match needs of mixed age, time constraints,
• planning for progression through KS2 remained a relative weakness (can be due to exploiting comptetence of staff etc)

Leadership

• good / better in more then 2/3
• strong commitnmtn from senior leaders
• generally clear rationale
• transition arrangements to secondary schools genrally underdeveloped
• weaknesses in montoring and evaluation of provisoon – senior leaders often didn’t feel competent to judge
• improvement in teacher training over period of survey (emerging evidence of more trainees with language skills)

Entitlement to learning

• progress towards entitlement improved during survey – good in 2/3 schools visited in the final year
• of 14 schools contacted during survey who were not then tehing MFL all but 2 were by the end
• rationale for deciding which language to teach increasingly sound  with improving sustainable plans  – clear that many are continuing with commitment to the benefits for the pupils.

From the secondary report-

“KS3 are increasingly looking at KS2 experience BUT insufficient acknowledgement of language work done in feeders”

“Strong leadership is typified by innovation, good use of local initatives and networks, and good liaison with primary and post 16 providers”

Challenges for primary

• development of pupils’ early skills in reading and writing
• clarification of progression through KS2
• teaching straegies for mixed age classes

OFSTED offered the following advice to DfE – “consider how best to support effective consolidation of Primary languages” and also advised groups of schools to support increased liaison to bring coherence and continuity of language learning at point of transfer.

Following on from last year and Bricklaying for beginners,  and 2009 with Absorbing language learning, I’m once more presenting at ALL Language World.

This year Language World is entitled All together now. Here’s the invite from ALL:-

Join us ALL Together at Language World 2011, 8-9 Jul 2011 @ Imperial College, London:

It’s a conference: A packed programme of over 60 speakers from around the language teaching world…

It’s a training event: It’s only 2 days out of your busy schedule… great CPD for a fantastic price!

It’s an exhibition: A large and varied exhibition showcasing the latest in language learning resources and support.

It’s a real boost to your teaching: A great way to recharge your batteries – a two day shot of ideas, advice and inspiration!

It’s a celebration! Get together with other language teachers from around the UK, and around the world… and in the lead up to the London 2012 Games, celebrate language teaching and learning with your community!

For more information, and to book, go to: http://tiny.cc/LanguageWorld2011.

My session this year will be called Entitled to enjoy Primary languages.

Here’s the blurb!

This session will consider the position of language learning in the primary curriculum

(currently as an entitlement) and give practical examples and ideas about how

language learning can be more than a “bolt on”.

It will consider:

• why PLL is so important

• the current position re primary languages

• what is an entitlement?

• what does it mean to me?

• PLL integrated into the curriculum ? learning journeys, cross curricular

activities and CLIL

• international dimension (ref to Comenius Reggio, eTwinning projects)

• motivation to learn

• creativity let loose!

The session will include practical ideas including storytelling, song, dance,

drama, physical activity, international projects, cross curricular links and

exploiting ICT. Examples will be mainly in Spanish with some French ? other

languages may appear!!

I always have a great time at Language World, whether running around the Quad in Oxford, nearly missing the bus in Leicester or dodging goose poo in York, and this year I’m really looking forward to the conference being in London at Imperial College.