Each meeting and conference I attend, I take my notebook and pens, and attempt to sketchnote proceedings. It helps me listen carefully (and sit still!), enables me to recall what was said after the event in a way that taking notes doesn’t, and also enables me to share with those who weren’t there.
I do my notes live and therefore tweeted them as soon as the sessions were over – you may have seen them on Twitter/X over the weekend, but I like to publish them as a collection after the event. It also enables me to make sure I haven’t missed anything and check I haven’t made glaring errors – like adding an s to the ALL Twitter handle @ALL4Language Oops!
Here they are, in order that they happened!
Opening Keynote – Liz Black, ALL President
How to teach languages effectively at KS2 as a non-specialist and successful transition to KS3 – Anneliese Yafai
Poetry please! – Angela Smith
We’re all ears! Developing listening skills in the primary classroom – Ellie Chettle Cully
Youpi et cocorico: celebrating primary language learning at St Jerome – Nadine Chadier
Implementing a KS2 curriculum to support Progression, Practical solutions and Personal experiences – Jane Wood and Jenni Bindon
How can we develop an effective model of practice for coordinating the experience of primary language learners and their trasnition to becoming secondary language learners? – Dr Jon Merrison
International projects in schools? Yes we can! – Jane Harvey and Richard Tallaron
Culture: Community: Connectivity. How universities can and should support KS2 and 3 language learners – Dr Charlotte Ryland
Language Research Review – HMI Bianka Zemke
Primary German. Resources, ideas and teacher support to inspire and motivate – Marian Devons
Point, à la ligne: Dictation across the Key Stages – Clare Seccombe
Language Education in an AI enabled world – the challenge, the opportunity and the future. – Professor Kate Borthwick
University Challenge – Jane Driver and Sarah Schechter
Celebrating multilingualism: supporting home and community languages – Almudena Martínez
Translation: the key to growing flexible, independent imaginative linguists – Jess Beeton
Building foundations for the future of languages – Hon. Professor Bernadette Holmes, NCLE Director
Possibilities and practicalities of ChatGPT in languages teaching and learning – Joe Dale
The ? of language teaching – Steven Fawkes, ALL Trustee
The annual conference of the Association for Language Learning (ALL) is fast approaching. This year Language World will be held in Kenilworth on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th March. The theme is Language – a unique ingredient of learning.
As the website says:
We will consider together many aspects of education today in multilingual Britain. What is unique about our subject? In what ways does the learning of a language support learners today beyond the classroom – from being a child to becoming an adult? What are the ingredients of a healthy learning experience?
Culture and International Contact
Curiosity and Observation
Connection at a personal level
Communication through all skills and modalities
A strong outward looking curriculum and external examinations
Following on from our conference last year we will continue to consider how the brain affects learning and how this can inform curriculum planning, the impact on teaching of the new GCSE and the importance of developing the intercultural agility needed to promote and support tolerance and respect for others. We are living through changing, somewhat challenging times and collaborative work is essential. We all benefit from access to research from around the world and collaboration across the key stages to university or training and jobs post 16 enables progress as we learn from each other. https://www.delegate-reg.co.uk/lw2024/
Keynote speakers include HMI Bianka Zemke and Professor Kate Borthwick, and there are more than 70 talks offered over the two days with something for every type of language learning. You can have a look at the programme here
I’m presenting on Saturday afternoon about how to make International links, something about which I’m really passionate; as a British Council Ambassador for many years and Global Schools Alliance Ambassador I do all I can to promote the value of the global dimension. You can see what I said last year when I shared the importance and impact of international links and global learning at Whitehouse Common Primary.
Whether you attend for one day or for both, I hope to see you in Kenilworth. If you can’t, be sure to follow events on Twitter/X – look out for the hashtag #LW2024 and I’ll try to give you a flavour of the event in a post at the end of March.
It’s nearly time for the annual ALL (Association for Language Learning) conference Language World. I first attended Language World in Oxford many many years ago and it’s remained an important date each year ever since.
After a year online in 2021, Language World returns to being face to face this year. Taking place in Sheffield at The Quays Hotel, it promises to be two days of discussion, thought and learning and I for one am really looking forward to it.
This year the theme is Language Learning for Social Justice, and sessions relate to the theme of ensuring that ALL learners have access to high quality language learning opportunities, irrespective of age, gender, socioeconomic (dis)advantage, mother tongue or heritage.
The programme looks really interesting and I’m particularly looking forward to sessions by:
Hannah White 5.1 Use the work you do to support EAL pupils in the Primary Languages classroom to create an inclusive curriculum and improve teaching and learning for EAL pupils throughout your school
Eleanor Chettle Cully 1.3 Isn’t it time we moved beyond ‘diversity’? Practical strategies for decolonising the primary MFL curriculum
Marion Devons 8.2 Don’t take me out! Why children with SEND or EAL should stay in your language lessons and how all children will benefit (I feel passionately about this as you can see here.)
and this really interesting looking session 4.1 Inspiring Young Multilingual Activists through Digital Technology and the Arts
In fact, there are so many session that interest me that it’s quite tricky choosing sometimes!
I’ll be speaking on Friday at 215 about “Literature” 3.4 Using ‘Literature’ to support Primary Language teaching and learning This session will consider what is meant by ‘literature’ before moving on to explore how it can be used in the primary languages classroom as a great way to support language learning. Whether as a way into a topic, to support phonics or prosody, as a sample text to be adapted or as a way to support inclusion and challenge insularity, allowing learners to see themselves in their learning, literature is a powerful tool in our toolbox.
I once more had the pleasure of presenting at Language World, the annual conference of Association for Language Learning (ALL). My presentation was entitled Take One Book and was the sequel to the presentation I did at PHOrum in November (you can read about it here) this time choosing a book that was originally written in Italian and has no English translation.
I really enjoyed sharing my ideas of how to use ¡Ojo Oso! and was pleasantly surprised that I managed to finish in time and have time for questions. I experimented with using subtitles/captions during my presentation after comments by Helen Simpson on LiPS made me think about accessibility. I need to watch back the recording of my session (which has just been made available for those who registered for the conference but missed the session) to see exactly how accurate they were but I know that when I spoke Spanish they definitely had trouble as they were set to English! For example un agujero became ‘all alcohol’ and una madriguera became ‘mother together.’
Below you can find a PDF of my presentation. I’ve removed the story slides due to copyright but you can find links to versions of the story read online, as well as to where you can purchase a copy.
At the end there is a link to my Pinterest where I collected together materials for the talk, some of which I didn’t use! You can also access it via this QR code.
http://bit.ly/OjoOso
Perhaps you have ideas that spring to mind? Or you have a book that you could use in a similar way? If you have any comments or questions, do leave a comment below.
Postscript – you can watch the ‘standby/rehearsal’ recording of the session here.
Here are my sketchnotes from Language World 2021. All done live so please excuse the slight untidiness at times as I tried to get everything written down! I tweeted most of them after the sessions and was really glad to see many tweets saying how helpful people found them.
There are more to come as I have several sessions that I want to catch when all the recordings are posted later in the week. If you want to see sketchnotes of some different sessions (and many of the same ones!) have a look at Clare’s blog.
Opening keynote – A rich curriculum for all: the pressured yet pivotal position of languages Michael Wardle, HMI, Ofsted
What Languages can learn from Coding Mark Pallis ——- Stimulating curiosity and developing students’ investigative skills also leads to greater international thinking. If this is important how can we develop this? By sharing intercultural understanding using authentic materials? Liz Black
Multilingualism, Language Learning and Social Cognition Professor Li Wei, UCL Institute of Education, University College London
An introduction to Language Teaching: Learning from the Past Prof Nicola McLelland, Dr Simon Coffey & Dr Lina Fisher, History of Modern Language Learning and Teaching in Britain (HoLLT)
International partnerships and exchanges – the latest on what programmes exist and on travel advice for teachers and pupils Vicky Gough and Brian Stobie https://twitter.com/schools_british
British Council Language Trends England 2021 – Interim Results Vicky Gough, British Council and Ian Collen, NCILT
Engaging, enriching, inclusive: ensuring a primary MFL curriculum which delivers for SEND pupils – Eleanor Chettle Cully
Day 2 Opening Keynote – Challenges and Rewards in the CLIL unit design process Dr Marie Petersen, Coburg West Primary School, Melbourne
Making connections between languages with translation skills: for easier transition between KS2 and 3 Helen Stokes ——- The Missing Link – transition between KS2 and KS3 Suzanne O’Farrell Transition toolkit
Consolidating Knowledge with Meaningful Practice: An Introduction to NCELP Resources Professor Emma Marsden, National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP)
At this time of year, I’m normally gearing up for my annual ‘weekend away’ at Language World. It’s taken me to York, Lancaster, Leicester, Rugby, Nottingham, London, Newcastle, Manchester, Loughborough and of course, Oxford where Language World and I first ‘met.’ This year, things are a little different as I won’t physically be going anywhere as the conference is coming to me in my home via the wonders of video conferencing. And it can come to you too if you sign up!
As the blurb on their site says: “Schools are currently exploring how they can offer rich, exciting education for all their pupils. Ofsted encourages schools to make positive decisions to preserve or develop richness of experience along with breadth and depth of curriculum – for example, giving pupils the opportunity to learn a number of foreign languages and arts subjects, recognising local ambitions. We look forward to sharing ideas and best practice from among our languages community about these kinds of curricular aspects, and about learning that goes deeper into content, motivates learners of Languages, culture and communication, and is broader than the exam specifications.”
Keynote speakers this year include:
President of ALL (2020-22), Kim Bower;
Dr. Michael Wardle, Language Lead for OFSTED;
international expert on CLIL and Professor of Languages Education and Classroom Learning at university of Edinburgh, Professor Do Coyle
Professor of Applied Linguistics at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, Professor Li Wei
Im particularly looking forward to hearing from Professor Li Wei on Friday talking about Multilingualism, Language Learning and Social Cognition and then from Jane Driver on Saturday talking about Using CLIL and MFL strategies to maximise the curriculum for EAL learners.
And then there are the talks and presentations from which you can choose. Each session is 30 minutes long with a 20 minute presentation followed by 10 minutes for questions. Easier for concentration but challenging when you’re planning a session and always have too much for 45 minutes…
Some sessions that caught my eye as a primary languages practitioner include:
Promoting intercultural understanding through cross curricular and extra-curricular activities in the primary classroom – lots of practical ideas led by Bernadette Clinton and Raquel Tola Rego
A recipe for success! Creating a bespoke scheme of work – Clare Seccombe
Engaging, enriching, inclusive: ensuring a primary MFL curriculum which delivers for SEND pupils – Eleanor Chettle Cully
Celebrate your bilingual learners and promote linguistic diversity in your school with an International Mother Tongue Day project – Hannah White
As usual, I have a problem! The first two are at the same time as each other AND I’m speaking at the same time! And the second two are also concurrent. I’m hoping that with the online nature of the conference we might be able to catch up… but I’m not sure so don’t quote me on it!
Decisions decisions!
Other sessions I’m looking forward to:
What does an anti-racist, decolonised MFL curriculum look like?
Embedding languages into the curriculum: practical examples from Scotland and Wales
Teaching Phonics – Mapping, Method and Moving on
Another innovation this year is that some 30 minute slots split into 3 mini talks and I’m looking forward to many of those too including Dr Judith Rifeser talking about Nurturing intercultural understanding and celebrating pupils’ diverse and multilingual voices through creative projects, Bryn Llewellyn sharing Learning Languages on the Move – Developing Language Vocabulary using Physically Active Learning Approaches, Helen Stokes talking about Making connections between languages with translation skills: for easier transition between KS2 and 3 and How MFL teaching can boost whole school literacy led by Clare Caio.
So much that it’s hard to choose! You might even want to ‘attend’ my session entitled Take One Book in which I’ll explore how to make full use of a storybook (a different one from the one I shared at PHOrum!) You can find further details on the Language World 2021 website and the programme can be found here.
I am very much looking forward to a new experience and whilst I’d rather we were meeting together as usual, I’m excited for the new format and will still be wearing LiPS themed clothing and sketchnoting!
IMAGO Conference Centre Friday 22nd-Saturday 23rd March 2019
This last weekend I have attended the annual ALL conference, Language World, in Loughborough. It’s been as inspiring and thought provoking as usual and it’s been lovely to see friends old and new. Given the current political atmosphere, and the issues facing languages in particular, it was great to find that a spirit of optimism prevailed and that there was a resolve to ride the storm together and come out the other side stronger amongst speaking and delegates alike.
Once more I was asked to be ‘official Sketchnoter’ which basically involves sketchnoting (which I’d do anyway!) but in real time to be posted as soon as the session was completed on a display board outside the main conference room as well as on Twitter. A little more intense and stressful than doing it in my notebook and tidying it up and making it pretty later! Still, I enjoy the challenge and it was again good to eavesdrop on people admiring the sketchnote display without knowing I’d done them.
Professor David Crystal – I could listen to him for hours! Lots of links to look up here!
Noelia Rivas and Sara Montero talk CLIL in their primary language classrooms. www.networkforlanguageslondon.org.uk/resources/ http://francaispourloulous.blogspot.com/
Friday 22 – Saturday 23 March 2019 at Imago, Loughborough
Language World 2019: Speaking up for Languages
Now that the holidays are drawing to a close, and thoughts turn to work once more, it’s a good time to think about how the next year will pan out in terms of teaching and learning. You might be considering how to move forward with your appraisal targets, looking to discover new ideas or simply seeking to refresh yourself with some camaraderie and inspiration.
I’ve found that Language World is a perfect place to do all three of those things, and I’d encourage you to consider attending. As the website says:
The Association for Language Learning’s annual conference and CPD event offers a packed programme with speakers from across the languages sector which attracts up to 250 participants a day, with a large number coming from primary and secondary schools. – 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, debate and inspiration – It’s a celebration: get together with other language teachers from around the UK, and around the world…… at Language World!
The programme is always strong but this year it includes plenary sessions from Heather Fearn, Ofsted Language lead, Suzanne Farrell, ASCL and Dr Rachel Hawkes who always inspires and enthuses me. I’m particularly excited that ALL Patron, Professor David Crystal, OBE, will be delivering the Mary Glasgow Plenary keynote entitled 25 years of not (yet) having a House of Languages. I’m really looking forward to what he has to say, and also hoping that I can sketchnote his thoughts whilst listening too!
It includes sessions for all phases of learning with a strong primary languages thread that has sessions from Vicky Cooke, Nadine Chadier, Clare Seccombe, Sue Cave, Eleanor Chettle Cully, Sara Montero, Noelia Rivas and me to name but a few! I’m also looking forward to a session on SEND in the MFL classroom, on supporting EAL learners and how to include families in language learning.
I’ll be speaking on ways of supporting learners’ understanding and enjoyment of stories in what I hope will be an interactive and fun session with lots of delegate participation! In addition, I’ll be ‘official sketchnoter’ for the third year, trying hard to capture sessions as I listen ready to be displayed on a huge board for all to see. No pressure, eh?
Hopefully all that has whetted your appetite! There’s an Early Bird offer that runs until Friday 11th January so you have one week from publication of this post to book for the lowest price possible. Do have a look at the website for further details; the link to book is at the bottom of the page or you can click here to save you having to scroll!
Looking forward to meeting you there and celebrating all that is great about teaching and learning languages.
You can find out about my experiences in previous years in the following posts (I wasn’t blogging for my first couple of Language Worlds and I missed 2012 and 2013 as I was living in Switzerland!)
It’s one month to go until the annual Association for Language Learning conference, Language World. Have you signed up yet?
This year the theme is Progress for All (like the clever logo!) As the ALL website says:
Progression in the teaching and learning of languages is a priority for all teachers and ALL as a professional association as we respond to significant curriculum changes and developments at all levels. Progress for ALL is a deliberately broad title, as we aim to serve the needs of all conference delegates. For example, we are including sessions on promoting progress in all aspects of pupils’ learning of languages, ensuring progression in curriculum planning, sustaining progress in curriculum leadership and celebrating progress in building a culture of language learning in a school.
During the two days there will be a mixture of plenary sessions, major talks and workshops with something for everyone from primary to higher education, and this year there is a slot for poster presentations which looks really interesting too.
This year the conference takes place in Nottingham at the East Midlands Conference Centre which is very convenient for me living in the Midlands and once more in the ‘middle’ of the country.
I’m not speaking this year (apart from a contribution to the Primary Spanish Show and Tell) but I have a special (albeit rather daunting) role to fulfil:
I’m looking forward to attending sessions and trying to capture them ‘live’ ready to post to the timeline in the exhibition area; a shame I can only be in one place at a time though as there are several slots where I’d like to attend two or even three sessions at the same time.
If you’re interested in attending, the programme is below, and booking details can be found here.
