Category: lisibo talks

Did you know that the Association for Language Learning (ALL) has a Youtube channel? I didn’t until today when I attended the ALL Council meeting and discovered that not only did an ALL channel exist but that one of the first videos on it features me talking about sketchnoting!

There are currently a number of playlists and numerous really interesting videos. Most of them are really short, getting the message cross succinctly which is always a bonus. One of the playlists is full of videos recorded at Language World 2017 that cover things like what ALL does, how it supports language teachers and learners through networking and CPD, why you’d want to attend Language World and why languages are beneficial in the workplace.

One video I found particularly interesting – as a teacher and also as the parent of a child who’s just started studying German at university  – is entitled UK LINGUA – the students viewpoint in students discuss the transition from learning languages at school to learning languages at university. I’ve embedded it below.

I’d really encourage you to take a look at the channel, particularly if you’re not sure about what ALL does! You can find the channel here .

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Now that term is at an end I have finally got around to uploading my presentation to Slideshare and writing this post!
As I said previously, it was a very successful day and I hoped that what I had planned to share would live up to that which had gone before! There were lots of encouraging noises made as I was speaking and also some lovely messages afterwards so I think there were at least a few nuggets of gold!

You can find supporting links on this wikipage (link also on the penultimate page of the presentation) including the URLs of the quizzes that we didn’t have time to complete including my Classtools bin sorting and my Kahoot Schwytzerdütsch quiz!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment or send me a message via Twitter, LiPS or email!

On Thursday, I had the privilege – and it really was a privilege – of delivering one of the keynotes at the Primary Languages Network conference in Lymm. It was a day jam packed with ideas and demonstrated the power and value of a community of teachers and learners, bouncing ideas of each other and sharing their light bulb moments. And celebrating those ideas too.

I did my best to sketch note all the sessions, including the Spotlight sessions, and you can see them below. I would recommend that you follow the PLN blog to keep abreast of all the fantastic ideas that spring out of the network (This post was inspired by the day), and even consider joining for further support and inspiration!

Thanks to Janet for inviting me – I had a wonderful day! You can see some of the highlights in the video at the bottom of the post!

Details of my session will follow in the next post!

Keeping it Primary – the wonderful Therese Comfort shared what makes Primary language learning so special, with special stickers from La Petite Souris/El Ratoncito Pérez/ die Zahnfee.

How to identify progress – Dan Alliot talked about what progress looks like in primary language learning, and challenged us to flip the triangle so it’s not always point first!

Embedding phonics in Language Learning – Sue Cave challenged us to pronounce Hungarian words using phonics to support us, talking us through the 7 stepping stones to ‘code breaking’ and sharing ideas of how to practice and reinforce phonics in French.

Throughout the day there were Spotlights – shorter presentations of one or two ideas each from PLN associates and also exhibitors. I’ve tried to capture them all in the above – some with more success than others (spot the pig that looks suspiciously like a cow!) Ideas included songs for EDL, games, purposeful writing activities using technology, AR dragons, using actions and creating raps and poems.

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I am very pleased to have been asked to speak at the North West Primary Languages Conference in Warrington in June. This is the annual conference run by Janet Lloyd’s Primary Languages Network and this year the theme is Progress with Primary Languages.

The keynotes will focus on the identifying progress, phonics, using technology and the wonders of primary language learning, and there will also be sessions on singing and dancing, speaking and listening and reading and writing as well as an exhibition.

I’m excited to be sharing ‘keynote’ duties with Sue Cave, Daniel Alliot and Therese Comfort, and I’m looking forward to the ‘Spotlight’ sessions too which I believe will share some of excellent practice from the PLN teachers.

You can find out more and register for the event on the Primary Languages Network site  and there’s an online Flyer too. See you there!

As I reported in February, at this year’s Language World conference in March I was asked to be Resident Sketchnoter and record all the fun and excitement as well as as many sessions as I could possibly attend. It was a challenge as I normally go back to my sketch notes later to ‘pretty them up’  but in this case the sketch was immediately posted on the display board so I had to just go for it! I was really pleased that people took time to look at the display and there was a buzz of discussion and excitement as people paused to discuss what they’d seen. My hand was really struggling by the end of Saturday but it was all worth it!

I’ve deliberately delayed posting them until ALL had done so (although they were all tweeted as I finished them!) and today I received notification that they are now uploaded and ready to view! And they’ve kindly made them into a PDF!

So, here’s the PDF of them all: http://www.all-languages.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lisa-Stevens-LW-2017-Sketchnotes.pdf (too big to upload here!)

And here they are individually with comments and links to the presentations where available!

DAY 1

Tried to capture a few of the exhibitors before the conference started in the top section then AnnaLise’s opening words in the bottom section.

Assessment without tears – Jackie Rayment and Yvonne Kennedy

Now here was a challenge – sketch noting and presenting simultaneously! Also presenting with me, Jesús Hernández from the Consejería de Educación and Sara Montero, Primary Language Teacher of the Year 2016      Presentation

Mary Glasgow Plenary A period of calm and stability – Bill Watkin    Presentation

Julie Prince talking about primary language learning supporting Grammar Punctuation and Spelling (not navigation as the title might suggest!)   Presentation

Suzi and Lynn presented AIM methodology to us in this session.   presentation

The poster sessions – lots of exciting projects were highlighted here – I suggest you check out the ALL site to find out more! (scroll down to Poster sessions then click on the + for the abstracts)

How do you sketch note a wine reception? Thanks to Vicky Cooke for my inspiration, and to all my vox pops!

The national treasure that is Steven Fawkes had us all crying with laughter at his witty speech including references to jelly, taxis, triangles, and of course, his trousers!

The Conference Dinner – scribbled on a napkin then ‘done in neat’ later 😉

DAY 2

A summary of The Teaching Schools Council Review of Languages Pedagogy, delivered by Ian Bauckham. Very interesting! (Not often I have to use another sheet, and as you can see, a little hard to represent very visually!   Presentation

ALL President AnnaLise Gordon was up again to talk about Progress and present the awards for Language teacher of the Year.

The super fantastique Richard Talleron went fruity in his session on embedding languages across the curriculum.  Presentation

Starr Green spoke about Languages for ALL and gave advice on teaching languages to pupils with SEND   Presentation

The always inspiring and incredibly clever Dr Rachel Hawkes helpfully talked about creating a positive learning environment, pointing out that sometimes staff can not give or do any more than they already are so something else has to change!    presentation

Lovely Nathalie Paris aka Nattalingo shared some ideas and research on the important two way relationship between literacy and languages.  Presentation

And finally it was time for thanks yous, AnnaLise’s quiz (foiled on the last question!) and the revelation of the date and venue for next year – March 23rd and 24th at Jury’s Inn Hinckley Island near Leicester. presentation

If you want to access any of the other sessions at the conference, many of the presentations have been uploaded to the ALL site Friday and Saturday, and you can read more about it here (also more sketch notes) and here. If you were there and have any reflections, please leave a comment and I can update the post!

And here’s a summary of the tweets!

I was privileged to be invited to speak at the recent SW London Primary Languages conference organised by the Merton and Kingston Primary MFL Network. I had attended and spoken at a previous conference three years ago and was eager to attend another as it had been such a positive experience (Tube and a stinking cold not withstanding!)

This year I was asked to speak on Sketchnoting and I began the conference by doing some! Here are my sketchnotes of the sessions prior to mine, delivered by the ever inspiring Sue Cave and Kati Szeless.

Sketchnote of Sue Cave‘s talk on “Grammar Moves” (actively learning grammar)  at SW London Primary Languages Conference.

Sketchnote of Kati Szeless‘ session at SW London Primary Language Conference on encouraging non specialist staff to support and get involved in language learning. I can now count to 10 in Hungarian!

My presentation was very similar to the one on Slideshare below, but this time I had a go at a bit of live sketch noting and switched the order around a little to give people more of a feel of the HOW before I talked about the WHY. Thanks to Sue Cave for taking the photo at the top and the one below! I hope that people found it helpful; I certainly had some lovely initial feedback and quick chats immediately afterwards!

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.

There’s a special ‘call out’ to primary colleagues issued on the ALL page with testimonials from a range of primary colleagues. Have a look at the flyer: 

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.

Hopefully see you there?

As I said in my previous post, I’ve just come back from the Practical Pedagogies conference in Toulouse. Last year I attended the inaugural #pracped conference and presented about Using technology to enhance primary language teaching and learning  As you can see from this post which charts my impressions, I vowed I wanted to attend the next one. And that post also explains what I was asked to speak on this time.

I have, over the last 18 months, discovered sketch noting or visual note taking to be an excellent tool. I sketch noted last year’s conference and several people commented that i should do a workshop on it. So I did!

Below is my presentation. You can’t read the notes so I’ve added some below that.

I’d also like to highlight certain things:

1. Slide 7 in the presentation is a slide deck of the development of my sketch noting but only the last slide is showing. You can see more of my sketch notes in my Flickr album Sketchnotes – bit.ly/lisibosketch – where you can see for yourself how my style has developed!
2. There are several books that I recommend in the presentation; if you click on the book covers, I’ve linked to where you can purchase them. I wanted to highlight the free iBook Sketchnoting for teaching and learning that  is downloadable from iTunes (see slide 39). I didn’t know that it was finished in time to share it at the conference but @lanclassrach (one of the authors) put me right and shared the link with the description “the book is designed by teachers for teachers to help them get going with sketch noting.” Recommended reading, especially if you want to know more about using technology to sketch note.
3. I wanted to highlight one of the blog post mentioned on slide34 – 4 quick myth busters about visual notes in the classroom. It’s a good summation of a large part of Wendi’s book and gives practical answers to questions that are often asked about getting pupils to use visual note taking.
4. Slide 38 is Sylvia Duckworth’s guide to sketch noting digitally. She has further advice since then and says ‘ I draw on the iPad with Procreate app (tutorials here and here) and the Musemee Notier Prime Stylus (If you buy one, make sure to get extra replacement tips as well). Thanks to Sylvia for giving me permission to share her sketch notes and for her advice!
5. As I finished my workshop I discovered a new Twitter account just started by the lady who made the image on slide 51, so please follow @sketchadoodle for more beautiful visual notes.
6. Finally, proof that you just need to try – one of the delegates went straight from my session and had a go during the next workshop. Here’s the evidence! Well done @asperatus07!

I’ve just got back from the Practical Pedagogies conference at the International School of Toulouse. Organised by Russel Tarr, the two day conference brought together educators from around the globe. Here’s the rationale behind the conference which explains why I travelled to Toulouse at my own expense to speak (I wasn’t paid to it):

“Educational conferences can be prohibitively expensive for ordinary teachers, and often focus on abstract theory delivered by professional academics with very little hands-on classroom experience. Such events often appear more concerned with making money than with genuinely improving the quality of education being delivered within schools.

In contrast, “Practical Pedagogies” comes out of the belief that the best teacher-training conferences are delivered by practising teachers, for the benefit of each other and their students, as not-for-profit events.”

I attended some excellent workshops and chatted to so many people that further inspired me.

Below are my sketch notes of the conference that document the sessions I attended. I hope that they give you a flavour of the conference. You can find out more by checking out the Twitter hashtag #pracped16 (which was trending at various points in various countries over the two days!) or by looking at the conference website. I’m sure that many will share their presentations and that there’ll be lost of blogging so I’ll update the post over the next week or so to share them.

Opening Keynote by Ewan McIntosh. @ewanmcintosh @notosh

Curriculum, controversy and current affairs: manoeuvring in a multicultural world by Mariusz Galczynski @MariuszEDU

Philosophy for Children across the primary Curriculum by Jenna Lucas @JennaLucas81

I’m a teacher: Get me out of here! by Mike Watson @WatsEd

Coding with cards by Yasemin Allsop @yallsop

The Art of Voice:bringing characters to life by Ben Culverhouse @ben_culverhouse

You shipping it? Closing keynote by Ewan McIntosh @ewanmcintosh @notosh

by InkyEllieC www.inkythinking.com

This weekend I’ve been in Nottingham at the NCL (I think that’s what it’s now called!) for the National eTwinning Conference. “Interesting” given the events on Friday but also good timing as I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather have been at such a time, reaffirming the joy and value of collaboration.

After several requests following fascination with my sketchnoting at last year’s conference, I volunteered to lead a seminar on sketch noting, thus completing my busy week with a third presentation. You can see a very similar presentation on my Slideshare channel here. I also sketchnoted as many sessions as I could, trying not to be intimidated by the wonderful @inkythinking InkyEllieC from inkythinking.com who was provided ‘real time graphic animation’ of the event.

I’ll post my sketchnotes as soon as I’ve had time to tidy them up (not a spare moment all weekend!) as well as my reflections on the event. A hint: I had a great time!