Category: languages

Just like @msmfl, I’m so excited and just can’t hide it, so I’m going to

BREAKOUT! 

httpv://youtu.be/nnivOKYyWLY

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ll be in the UK in February to attend ILILC3 or to give its full name, the ICT Link into Language conference taking place at the University of Southampton on 9th and 10th February.

The theme of the conference is Jailbreaking the MFL classroom and there are sessions on

Mobile technologies  
Social Media
Making the most of Web 2.0 Technologies  
The Global classroom  
Developing Speaking
Closing the gap  (SEN, SOLO, supporting learning etc)

There are many many excellent practitioners participating – I’m particularly looking forward to sessions from Clare Seccombe, John Connor, Jo Rhys-Jones, Dom McGladdery, Jen Turner and Amanda Salt (to name but a few!)  and keynotes by Joe and Isabelle,  and I’m really pleased that I’ve been asked to present.

I’ll be delivering two sessions –

In I want to break free  we’ll be looking at ways to break away from ‘chalk and talk’ and involve learners, encouraging them to interact with and demonstrate their understanding as they learn using (mobile) technology. We’ll investigate some ways of doing this using tools such as Nearpod, Socrative and Memrise and whilst I’ll be using my iPad and Mac to present, that doesn’t mean you need a fruity device to join in as some tools are web based and others are both Android and iOS. And on top of that, we’re a friendly bunch so I’m sure people will share!

Let out for good behaviour? refers to leaving the classroom being (often) seen as a treat. There are many ways to ‘break free’ of the walls of your classroom, both physical and virtual, and this session will involve both. Participation is required as we explore activities and games, that will enhance teaching and learning whilst bringing a breath of free air to a stuffy classroom. Technology will be involved but you don’t need anything but your imagination and sense of adventure to enjoy the activities.

On top of the conference, there’s the Show and Tell on Saturday night at which ANYONE is encouraged to share a snippet sized piece of good practice, song or activity. Everyone has a good idea and has something to say so it’s great to hear from new people each year. You can sign up for it here.

Why should you attend?

• it’s excellent value CPD
• the speakers are excellent
• you’ll learn so much
• it’s the friendliest funn-est conference you are ever likely to attend
• you’ll learn as much from conversations as from the sessions
• your batteries need recharging
• if you don’t, you’ll miss @bellaale ‘s sequel to Academy Copout!
• I want to meet you!

And, back to the song at the start. Whilst I’m sure not everyone is at the end of their tether (at least I hope not!),  it’s good sometimes to ‘breakout’ from things that are just not working for you, or your learners, look at things from another perspective and find a new ‘way’. Come to ILILC3 and you might just find the inspiration, support and encouragement that you need!

It’s that time of year when people look back on the last 365/6 days and look forward to the next year. And at the end of 2012 I wanted to acknowledge the achievements of the last year as much to say ‘you were right’ to those who encouraged me when I was despairing as a celebration of some of the great things in which I was involved.

Moving to Switzerland was a big thing for my family, and it left a huge gap in my life where ‘work’ used to be. I miss teaching at WCPS (and judging by the reception I received when I visited in July, the feeling is mutual) and sometimes feel that I’ve thrown away all my hard work as here I am ‘just another foreigner’ rather than Lisibo. I am a very optimistic person but at times it’s not been easy to keep smiling so thanks to those who kept me hopeful because, you know what? I’ve done all sorts of things this year!

I teach English to two lovely Spanish kids each week. They went to British School in Madrid and now attend Swiss school so their parents want them to keep up their English skills. They are amazing and I always leave the lesson smiling having had a great time. We especially enjoyed talking about the Olympics and the Jubilee celebrations. And since October I’ve also been teaching English to a Mexican mum from the boys’ school. There are so many people that she’s managed thus far without speaking English but now feels she needs to make an effort for the sake of her children, and so that she can talk to more people. Her confidence is very fragile but she’s doing really well!

Since May I’ve also been ‘subbing’  at ISZL in Baar thanks to someone introducing me to someone else at just the right moment. It is SOOO wonderful to be back in the classroom and to know that ‘I’ve still got it’. I’ve taught right across the age range from 3 to 11 year olds, and I keep getting asked back so that’s good! A week of Kindergarten awaits me next week (that’s Year1 in English speak) and I’m really looking forward to it.

And now I work a morning a week in the school library at my boys’ school having helped out on a voluntary basis since I got here. In fact, that library and especially the lovely Librarian/Media specialist Gretha have kept me going at times. It’s wonderful to be involved in the school and is a big step as I was told in no uncertain terms that they didn’t employ parents! Another big step was being given admin control of the school’s Facebook page.

Perhaps one of the highlights of my year was seeing my name ‘in lights’ on the television! I’ve been involved in The Lingo Show from the very beginning when the BBC was exploring the idea of doing something for very young children with a language element, through the tender process, meeting Lingo (who is also Postman Pat!) and auditioning prospective Quesos, seeing The Lingo Show launched on the Cbeebies website and finally being involved in the proposal for and production of the Spanish episodes of The Lingo Show shown on Cbeebies. I have to admit that I was very excited as I sat down to watch on 26th March, hoping that it was all OK (especially as I’d had to let someone else do the very final part of the Spanish as I was literally moving as they did it) and was overjoyed when I was contacted by people who had watched it with their children and liked it!

I’ve also done some chunks of work for the BBC Primary Languages website over the last year, writing lesson ideas, information for parents and teachers, and writing content for the various sections. Still waiting for much of it to be uploaded and appear on the site but it’s there and waiting…

And I’ve been on the TES Primary Languages panel led by the lovely Rachel Hawkes too – reviewing resources is fun but can be hard when there are huge glaring mistakes in them as you know that people have uploaded them out of the goodness of their hearts…

Whilst I’ve missed out on physically attending TeachMeets, I’ve been an avid online participant and have contributed presentations to various, both in the UK and international online ones too – see LisiboTV

And the ‘techie’ bit of me has been occupied too as I’ve worked with Apple Switzerland as an ADE and AEM, supporting at an ELS in Geneva and presenting at a conference in Basel in October as well as sharing with them some of the things that I did in the UK. I’ve also become an Apple Professional Development consultant and done training in Ticino, Zürich and Harrogate.Yes, I’ve been allowed back into the UK. In fact, twice!

Another high point of the year was in February when I spoke 1  2 at ILILC2 in Southampton. It was so great to be with ‘old friends’ and make new ones, and reaffirmed what a great bunch of people us language teachers are. I swapped Toblerone for paracetamol (you are all lovely xxxx), made everyone sing German drinking songs (and harangued those who weren’t getting into it!), reflected on being in an uncomfortable position and enjoyed the ideas, inspiration and company of others who share my passions. The Show and Tell was … unforgettable, the sessions inspiring and the conversations uplifting.

And that brings me to this year…

Well, I’m not exactly sure what 2013 will bring, but I’m excited to find out!

I do know that I’m teaching Kindergarten next week at ISZL, and I’m sure I’ll be back there regularly.

I’ll continue to teach English to M and M and Sonia, and also work in the school library – next project is working out how to fit the increasing stock into the library and media centre so that a)people can still in get in and b) find the books!

I’ll carry on delivering APD, wherever and for whoever asks, working with Apple Switzerland to promote the effective and well considered use of technology in the classroom, and helping anyone who asks with advice, training and support.

And you’ll see me at various TeachMeets – virtually in all likelihood but you never know…

February brings a definite though – I’m coming to the UK, to Southampton because…

To quote @MsMFL, I’m so excited… But more of that in the next post!

Other than that, I’ll continue

1. running (I did 950 miles last year, thwarted in my assault on 1000 by hospitalisation, and am determined to run a half marathon in 2 hours) including leading a running group for mums at ISW

2. ‘blogging’ – here, on Smiles365, and on SwissMiss-Adventures

3. tweeting – what would I/we do without Twitter?

4. writing – articles, resources and opinions

5. practising German

and most importantly

6. smiling :o)

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to a 2013 that’s even more exciting than 2012!

httpv://youtu.be/m-EPhwID1Bg

David Bisbal cuenta contigo para cambiar la situación de pobreza en la que viven muchos niños de nuestro país. Por ello ha versionado “Cuento de Navidad” y te pide que le ayudes a difundir su mensaje compartiendo este cuento.

Cuenta conmigo contra la pobreza es un proyecto de la Obra Social “la Caixa” a favor de Save The Children que quiere cambiar la situación de pobreza de muchos niños y niñas de nuestro país.

Descubre cómo en http://www.cuentaconmigocontralapobreza.org/es/?utm_source=yt_desc&utm_me…

I came across this website earlier when searching for something else and thought I’d share it.

TuDiscoveryKids is the website for DiscoveryKids in Latin America and features all sorts of activities in Spanish linked to some of their programmes. I thought I’d highlight a few that you might find interesting!

Juego de los colores

In this game, learners are given five tubes of paint and challenged to make the colour indicated – in the example above ‘bordo’ or burgundy. They squeeze the tubes to squirt the paint onto the palette, use the paintbrush to mix the colour and then paint the picture with the colour they mixed. Great for linking to colour blending in art.

Fábrica de palabras

In this game, the crane challenges you to complete words by finding the missing consonants. The letters are then hoisted into the word and the crane repeats the sound and tells you if you’re correct. Then you are asked a yes/no question about consonants and vowels before being given another challenge. Great for looking at sound/letter link.

Todos a bordo

A game for dinosaur fans – and every class has them! The dinosaurs travel from Triassic to Jurassic to Cretaceous period and you are in charge of showing the dinosaurs to their seats, checking the tickets, feeding them and making sure that they get off in the correct period. As you go, you learn what type of food the dinosaurs eat and also in which time period they belong.

 Conoce los 5 sentidos

This game links to your senses and asks you to choose from three objects that match a description e.g. Algo que tiene olor – something that smells or algo brillante – something shiny, and then decide which sense you would use to find out. As you play, you can learn the names of the objects from which you select, increase your knowledge of adjectives, and also consider your senses. You need to be careful as well not choose the correct sense for the adjective e.g. I had to find something ‘silencioso’ (silent) which was ‘una pluma’ (a feather), and this linked to ‘Oido’ – hearing rather than touch which you might have chosen had the adjective been ‘suave’ – soft. A fun link to science!

Each game also has links to other activities that have a link – for example, a video called Masa repugnante is suggested for this game which links to a video about an experiment to make a gooey yucky dough!

And there are also articles that would be of interest to educators and parents. This one links to the game above.

  Así se dice

This is a very simple game that wants you to indicate the animal that makes a certain sound by clicking on the animal. This is made harder by the animals being in silhouette on what looks like a sight chart! A fun game that could be played when discussing animals as well as when thinking about how languages have similarities and differences.

 Leer es un juego

Our final example is accessed via the image of a library where you click on the book you’d like to read. The book is read to you but there is a missing word in the text. In the first example, there are three images from which to choose to fill the gap; in the second you have to choose the word that has the syllables correctly ordered. A fun way of keeping attention if you are using the story with the whole class as well as a little challenge for an individual reader.

I hope you’ll investigate the site more yourself – there are many more games and activities that merit attention. Perhaps I’ll come back with a follow up post in the future to explore further!

Here’s my presentation for #TMTwist on using Skitch on the iPad to explore shape and structure with PreK/Reception.

[vimeo clip_id=”54517651″]

Skitch is a great app that is now part of  Evernote making it a very versatile tool for all sorts of tasks and activities! As the’official description’ says

Skitch is a simple, powerful collaboration tool for annotating images, and is available for Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices.

Skitch allows you to quickly capture, annotate, modify and share all kinds of images, and sync them to your Evernote account so that they are available to view, share and edit everywhere you have Skitch.

Here are some blogposts about using Skitch in the classroom.

Reflect and Refine

eLearning@SIS

Teaching and Tech

NB Skitch is an app on the Mac as well as on the iPad.

Hurrah! In the last week, the following press release has been issued.  It looks like Primary language learning is going to be made statutory. At least that’s the ‘intention’.

On 6 July 2012 the Rt. Hon. Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Education, launched a public consultation on the Government’s proposal to make languages a compulsory subject at Key Stage 2 in maintained schools from September 2014. The consultation closed on 28 September 2012.

The vast majority of respondents agreed with the Government’s intention to introduce foreign languages at Key Stage 2. That consultation provided the Government with an opportunity to reflect on and reconsider its initial views in relation to specifying the choice of language at Key Stage 2.

Having carefully considered the responses to the consultation, as well as a range of relevant factors, the Government has confirmed its intention to make the study of a foreign language compulsory at Key Stage 2 and now seeks views on:

• The draft of the Order necessary to make foreign languages a statutory subject at Key Stage 2 from September 2014.
• A new proposal that requires primary schools teach one or more of French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish or a classical language (Latin or Ancient Greek) to pupils at Key Stage 2. Schools would, of course, be free to teach other languages in addition if they wish to do so.

You can access the REPORT and the DOCUMENT as well as a SUMMARY of the consultation.

The report on the initial consultation makes encouraging reading with a high level of support for languages at KS2, and the responses obviously had the desired effect (as far as i’m concerned anyway!)

It seems that rather than dictating that schools focus on one language solely, the proposal allows for learners to experience more than one language (including languages not on the list of 7 as long as they do one of those too). That’s good, as is that fact that 1/5 of people mentioned the KS2 Framework as important – I still believe that it’s key to the success of PLL as it has a broad view of language learning as being far more than “learning a load of words”. There is still concern over KS2/KS3 transition – a thorny issue that we’ve got to get right! – and also concern over the damage that the ‘hiatus’ of the last few years may have done with loss of funding, loss of expert support and loss of impetus.

I’d encourage anyone with an interest in Primary Language Learning to respond to the two questions posed –

1. Do you have any comments on the draft Order attached at Annex 1? (i.e. that language learning should be made statutory at KS2)

2. Do you agree with the Government’s proposal to require primary schools to teach one or more of French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish or a classical language (Latin or Ancient Greek) at Key Stage 2?  Please explain the reasons for your answer.

You can download the consultation response form from the website, or fill it on online.

You have until 16th December to respond. However, why not do it NOW so you don’t forget? ;o)

[vimeo clip_id=”52943020″]

Here is my presentation for TeachMeetBrum and TeachMeetiPad. As they’re at the same time, I’ve done one presentation rather than two!

Explain Everything is a great app for the iPad and it’s hard to explain in 8 minutes. So below are a few links that might add to my presentation.

Explain Everything website

Tutorial Tutorial 

A helpful blogpost 

One final (for now!) Storybird, this time a little more complex than previously. This book is about animals and from where they come. It could be used as part of a cross curricular unit (geography /Science / Spanish). Whilst making it, I found a great website called Animalandia which has information in the form of short ‘fichas’ and a paragraph about over 400 animals and great pictures too. I particularly like the Carrusel de imágenes that can be set to flick through a certain animal group or just pop up images of random animals.
I wish I’d known of this site when I wrote this post about the QCA unit El Carnaval de los Animales, but it would certainly help with the latter tasks such as writing about an animal in the first person,  creating My Wildself and describing it.
¿De dónde viene el yak? on Storybird

PS I promise to get a new ‘obsession’ for November! ;O)

This book was never properly finished as I can’t go back to the pictures now to add more. However, it has quite a few ‘tener’ expressions even without being complete!
TENER. on Storybird

Not quite sure what to do today? Nor is our hero. Read on to find out what he decides to do.

¿Qué voy a hacer hoy? on Storybird