“I am not a walking dictionary!”

How many times have I replied with this phrase when asked ‘How do you say…. in Spanish/French/German/Polish? (yes, there were some who felt that the Language Coordinator meant that I was fluent in all languages…) Using a dictionary was one of the skills that I feel is really important to develop as it allows greater learner independence as well as supporting and enhancing literacy.

Firstly, it’s important that learners know that a bi-lingual dictionary has two halves, often helpfully separated by a coloured band, and recognise that you won’t find the word for ‘cow’ by looking in the Spanish to English part!

Once that’s established, looking at alphabetical order is helpful. Whilst this shouldn’t be too much of an issue, it’s worth pointing out that in a Spanish dictionary there are entries under the letter ‘ñ’. I have a Diccionario Salvat from my university days that has a separate section for “ch” and “ll” as well but this not common nowadays.

One of my classes’ favourite dictionary activities was playing ‘Quick draw Spanish’ in which they competed to draw their “weapon” (dictionary) and “shoot” (find a word) as quickly as possible. Works well with individuals or as a table game with learners taking it in turns to be the Sharpshooter. There are some other good ideas of games to play with dictionaries (and other reference materials) here. I also like this game where more advanced learners could use their Knowledge about Language (KAL) to deduce what words might mean, and younger/newer learners might be given a list of 4 possibilities from which to choose.

When I was thinking about this, I found some free online resources (always a bonus!) Whilst they are linked to the Oxford Learner’s Spanish Dictionary, they can be used with any dictionary and are mostly straightforward. At WCPS we had a short period at the start of the day called SODA (Start of the Day Activity) and these exercises would be ideal to do at that time, or perhaps as part of Guided reading, developing skills. The higher numbered worksheets start to deal with more aspects of grammar and tenses so you might not want to give them as written to a group, but the ideas are useful and there’s always a child who needs a challenge! (The same worksheets are also available in French and German, and there are a variety of free primary resources for using a dictionary and a thesaurus)

And Collins also have some free resources linked to their Easy learning dictionaries in French and Spanish including an 11 page guide to using a bilingual dictionary.  ELSpanDictionarySkills

There is also a set of resources to go with dictionary skills on TES Resources. Whilst labelled as Secondary, some of the most basic ones aimed at Year 7 could equally well be used with Upper Key Stage 2.

Whilst paper dictionaries may be giving way to online versions, the skills needed to look for and successfully select the appropriate word are still as important – especially if we are to avoid such ‘faux pas’ as referring to a (video) shoot as ‘une fusillade’.

Thanks to Pat Sweeney on the Yahoo MFL Resources group for pointing out this group.

If you like Hi5, and you love a bit of 90s “cheese”, you’ll love Nubeluz.

As Pat writes –

“Many of Nubeluz’s songs seem to be innocent good fun and definitely have catchy tunes that make you want to dance and sing along.
However, some “carry a message “. For example “Papi, deja de fumar!”
( Daddy, give up smoking!) or “Cuidado ” ( Be careful!) which warns of being mislead by friends to get involved in things that are not right or good.”

She goes on to pose a question –

“I would be very interested to know what people think of the songs and whether they would deem them suitable for using as teaching aids..and if so..with which groups..how?”

So…here are some ideas for how to use  Yo quiero ser

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm1ZqJel8-c

I think this would fit well with the topics People who help us or Jobs people do that are part of EYFS and KS1. I think that the chorus is the most useful part.

Activities you might do:

• ask learners to identify the jobs they hear in the chorus. They are repeated at the very end so there are 2 chances to catch them. You might provide a tick sheet with pictures for younger learners or the names in Spanish for older ones.
• make a pelmanism game with job images and names in Spanish for matching first then for playing.
• cut the lyrics (chorus) into strips. Ask learners firstly to see if they can match the jobs with the description of what they do. This uses their LLS as they will look for cognates, make connections between the word for the job and words in the description and so on. Then they can check their answers by listening and watching again.
• I might use Amara (was UniversalSubtitles) http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/ to put Spanish subtitles on the video too. (See this example and also this post about how and why)

• I might use other video clip such as Los oficios which features a famous song, or this version with the words.
• This clip Cuando sea grande would be a good step onto using the future tense. Seré dentista/artista etc. I also like the final lines – “Cuando sea grande, haré mil cosas/Porque estoy seguro que podré. Y mientras tanto llega la hora/Solamente niño quiero ser”
• There is a whole unit of work on Udicom on Los oficios. These resources are intended for ‘alumnos de compensatoria’ or learners needing extra help in Spain so many are very simple exercises on copywriting, phonics, matching and writing words and short phrases. I particularly like the phonics sections and the use of little rhymes too.
• This interactive site is useful for learning the names of jobs by hovering over the people, and clicking to see/hear a short sentence about what they do. Further forward (click on arrow bottom right) it talks about “profesiones” – professions as opposed to “oficios” – jobs.
• Here’s a free poster that you can download – I believe you need to purchase the other posters tagged Los oficios but you can look at them for ideas!
• I also found this blog with an image and short descriptions for 6 jobs/professions.
• And this is a wonderful site with lots of ideas and materials for a wide age range. There are a number of stories at a variety of levels (primary and secondary) as well as comics and ‘information books’, all presented online. As this resource is aimed at social studies for Spanish learners, so you need to bear that in mind e.g. Look at the complexity of language rather than going by the age indicated. I looked at a few stories – Alejandro el canguro pintor (basic) is a lovely tale about a kangaroo that draws all the time, and Maria auxiliar de ayuda a domicilio is more complex and a home help who makes Grandma’s life better. There’s a teachers guide that includes ideas and some activity sheets. Well worth an explore if you’re looking to work cross curricularly at primary or secondary level!

So, Pat. Does that answer your question? 🙂

A day early I know but I figured it would be more useful to tell you about it BEFORE the day so that you might be able to use it ON the day…

Via Twitter, I discovered this lovely activity from OnlineFreeSpanish.com for making Valentine’s Day cards.

I particularly like this resource as it offers lots of choice! You can choose a border, an image and a bilingual message to suit your personality and the recipient. Not all the messages are ‘slushy, lovey-dovey’ ones so it’s quite safe to use with a group of children who might not be into romance. And you can also choose to have the image in colour or leave it black adn white to be coloured in. Additionally, you can choose to print the card as a poster (one loveheart icon), as a sheet of four (four lovehearts) or as a sheet that can be folded to form a proper card (heart on card icon) The only downside is that the inside of the card is only in English 🙁

More Spanish Valentine’s fun here  on Youtube from Babelzone/LCF with a little video and a new take on He loves me, he loves me not!

For more Valentine’s ideas (mostly in French) check out Jo Rhys-Jones’ post on Talkabout Primary MFL.

And why not get adventurous and follow the lead of @wizenedcrone aka Fiona Joyce who had her Y9 learners writing a simple collaborative poem. Following a simple structure

Te quiero como ………… quiere a …………

learners can use dictionaries to suggest nouns to fill the gaps. In the example from Fiona, my favourite line is

‘Te quiero como las abuelas quieren a los crucigramas’

My example –

Te quiero como el mono quiere al plátano.

Te quiero como el pato quiere al agua.

Te quiero como los profes quieren a las vacaciones.

Te quiero como la fresa quiere a la nata.

Or you could try it with this pattern

…………. son rojos

…………. es azul

Quiero a ……………

Como quiero a tí

substituting the dots with a plural noun, a singular noun and another noun that you like a lot.

My poem might be

Las cerezas son rojas

El cielo es azul

Quiero al chocolate 

Como quiero a ti

Not sure how I got to this today – I think the cold in Konstanz has wiped my brain! However, I just had to share this lovely magazine in Spanish for small people, downloadable free from elnuevodia.com All you need is Acrobat Reader and the PDF downloads for you to read it.

The graphics are big, bright and bold, and the topics covered fit well with the primary curriculum – healthy eating, family, the world, animals, festivals and so on. Lots of puzzles and activities, and short pieces of writing make it ideal for using with young learners.

I like the current issue which celebrates the 13th birthday of Mi pequeño día, with lots of lists of 13 things including 13 great inventions, 13 places to visit in Puerto Rico (the country of origin of the magazine) and 13 ecological habits.

I also enjoyed the issue Somos más about the world population reaching 7000000000. It includes some nice activities about people of the world and someone talking about their life.

It seems that you can only access the last 10 issues so might be worth visiting periodically and downloading some for future reference…

Great way to start the school year – an inspiring INSET day with not a dress code, health and safety lecture or mission statement in sight.

Alan Peat, addressing the subject Raising writing standards and motitvating reluctant writers was EXCELLENT! He engaged the room all day long; noone was muttering, noone was fidgetting and at the end of the day there was unanimity about the value of the day (rare indeed as every group has at least one or two cynics)

I tweeted all day – here are (most of) my tweets. Unfortunately they start at the end and work back through the day! But I think you can tell my thoughts on the day by the final tweet – which appears first!

And here are my notes – do they make sense? Possibly! I’ll attempt to expand!

Alan Peat  www.alanpeat.com

A blank sheet is scary
Games based approaches are not a waste of time – they are vital.
Bite sized chunks are best and *DBW and decontextualised drilling should be avoided at all costs (* death by worksheet)

Brainbreaks or brain warm ups are anything that has nothing to do with the task – NOT braingym which is a big fib.

Games based approaches
Staircase
Build a chain as a staircase
Lateral thinking – bans the obvious
Across word
Sets of letters – first and last
1 pt for adding one letter; 2pt for 2 etc
*the anecdotal sticks in the mind* makes the less engaging more palatable
Glidogram
1st letter, 2nd letter, 3rd letter, 2nd letter, 1st letter

Aardvark

pArrot

snAke

jAguar

Antelope

rally
Like a staircase but harder! Last 2 letters of the word – you need to think ahead so you don’t break the chain

I found the OULIPO concept by Raymond Queneau fascinating. The idea that constraints are needed for creativity seems very contrary but when you think about it, some constraint actually makes you think! Some examples follow –

lipogram  – ban a letter of the alphabet

eg ban the a in

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall …. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men

and it beomes ..

Humpty Dumpty perched on the brick construction … Every one of the King’s horses plus every one of the King’s men.

A book that demonstrates / celebrates? this is “Ella minnow pea” by Mark Dunn

Hendecasyllabic
11 syllable sentences

I like sausages becomes I really like juicy, sizzling sausages.  Great for recognising syllables as well as being creative with language. And an activity that could easily be used in language teaching – in Spanish, syllables are different!

Rashomon effect
examples include Akutagawa – At the grove ;  Anthony Browne – Voices in the park;  Hoodwinked

Same story from different perspectives

Beyond acrostics
Where do you go from basic acrostic?
Hidden acrostic– word as 2nd letter
Telestich– word as last letter
Tele-acro – word as start and finish of sentence

(I tried these out on my son when he was bored the other day – he loved the challenge!)

Genre modification
See below.

I loved this idea as it is very supportive, is a useful ‘working wall’ with context, and also because it provides assessment at start and finish without fuss!

Wordless storybooks

I loved this too as one of my favourite actvities as a kid was making up stories about what’s happening in a picture – in fact, i loved the bit of my Spanish exam. where I had to do that!

Monosyllabic – rewrite texts in monosyllables – it’s very tricky. We tried with Little Red Riding Hood. Again, constraint lead to creative thinking as we thought of ways to avoid syllables!

Yoked sentences – last word of first sentence starts second sentence then last of second the third etc A good tool for persuasive writing.

One word at a time storytelling

Like storytelling ping pong! Yout hink you know where the story is going then your partner throws in an unexpected word and you need to rethink! Makes you listen! http://www.alanpeat.com/resources/listening.html

Plot skeleton – using one skeleton ie the bare bones of the story, and adapt for another genre – genius!

If you Google Citation of a phrase / word, it gives usage and when first used v useful!

7 key pedagogical approaches which underpin effective teaching of non-fiction writing
1.linked to real experience GGM – growing going and making
2.fictionalise it
3.link to books being read in class
4.link to pupils’ interests – know your pupils
5. Use talk/oracy as start
6.maximise cross-curricular links
7.ensure breadth of real purposes and audiences

A quotation I loved from the day was

“to be creative you need a body of knowledge to accept modify and reject”

I (sadly) got over excited with the quotation and didn’t note down who said it :o(

And also sadly, at this point I became so engrossed in the course that I stopped taking notes digitally and started scribbling!

However, one thing I’ll share is that the nailing down of level appropriate prompts for genre types was a very valuable activity – a good point that learners shouldn’t have to relearn the structure of genres according to their teacher’s way of putting it – why not have a common lexis?

Another thing I thought was great – and would again be easily used for language learning, is the sentence structuring activity Alan described for use with those who aren’t yet reading.

You pick a card from each envelope to ‘write’ phrases – and then sentences.

And another activity I loved was based on The Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks.

Look at the image below. It is the B page. How many things beginning with B can you find? My partner and I got 70 in our 3 minutes.

And finally – it wouldn’t be at all like me if I didn’t mention technology of some kind – and Alan was on my page. He mentioned Twitter – and made me blush by mentioning that i followed him and had loads of followers! And Wordle – www.wordle.com – so excited when staff around me said ‘Oh, you showed us that Lisa!’ – hurrah, I’m not a freak now! E-pals – www.epals.com was another recommendation – look for classes around the world studying the same things as you and share your learning. Alan also advocated using Skype – tick!  And then a new one on me – Padworx. Checking that out now!

To summarise my thoughts – I thoroughly enjoyed the day because it challenged, encouraged, inspired and confirmed. Alan obviously believes passionately in learning being an enjoyable activity and that that is the best way of getting the best out of learners. I admire the fact he is inspired by and champions ‘normal’ teachers who are in the classroom, and that he is obviously an practical educator at heart rather than a theorist. I loved the fact that so many of the ideas were so easily transferred to learning languages. And he loves his iPad too so must be a good bloke ;o)

Find out more at www.alanpeat.com or follow @alanpeat on Twitter.

Another of the poems suggested by Joaquín Moreno in his presentation about poetry in Spanish teaching and learning was Nanas de la cebolla by Miguel Hernández.

He played us the poem sung by Joan Manuel Serrat – here it is below, along with a perfomance of it in spoken form and also the words.

Spoken version

httpv://youtu.be/ktZEWJAoai0

Nanas de la cebolla

La cebolla es escarcha
cerrada y pobre:
escarcha de tus días
y de mis noches.
Hambre y cebolla:
hielo negro y escarcha
grande y redonda.

En la cuna del hambre
mi niño estaba.
Con sangre de cebolla
se amamantaba.
Pero tu sangre,
escarchada de azúcar,
cebolla y hambre.

Una mujer morena,
resuelta en luna,
se derrama hilo a hilo
sobre la cuna.
Ríete, niño,
que te tragas la luna
cuando es preciso.

Alondra de mi casa,
ríete mucho.
Es tu risa en los ojos
la luz del mundo.
Ríete tanto
que en el alma al oírte,
bata el espacio.

Tu risa me hace libre,
me pone alas.
Soledades me quita,
cárcel me arranca.
Boca que vuela,
corazón que en tus labios
relampaguea.

Es tu risa la espada
más victoriosa.
Vencedor de las flores
y las alondras.
Rival del sol.
Porvenir de mis huesos
y de mi amor.

La carne aleteante,
súbito el párpado,
el vivir como nunca
coloreado.
¡Cuánto jilguero
se remonta, aletea,
desde tu cuerpo!

Desperté de ser niño.
Nunca despiertes.
Triste llevo la boca.
Ríete siempre.
Siempre en la cuna,
defendiendo la risa
pluma por pluma.

Ser de vuelo tan alto,
tan extendido,
que tu carne parece
cielo cernido.
¡Si yo pudiera
remontarme al origen
de tu carrera!

Al octavo mes ríes
con cinco azahares.
Con cinco diminutas
ferocidades.
Con cinco dientes
como cinco jazmines
adolescentes.

Frontera de los besos
serán mañana,
cuando en la dentadura
sientas un arma.
Sientas un fuego
correr dientes abajo
buscando el centro.

Vuela niño en la doble
luna del pecho.
Él, triste de cebolla.
Tú, satisfecho.
No te derrumbes.
No sepas lo que pasa
ni lo que ocurre.

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

Yesterday, as the European eTwinning Ambassadors PDW at National college of School Leadership in Nottingham drew to a close, I took part in what Drew Buddie aka @digitalmaverick entitled ‘a Teachmeet style-y thingy’.

Drew introduced the idea of an ‘unconference’ explaining both TedX and Teachmeet before opening the floor to others to share their 7 minute micro or 2 minute nano presentations.

I was first up – see the next post for my presentation – and later for a video of it (if it’s not too hideous!)

Other presenters were-

Lieven from Flanders who shared his magnificent projects, all documented on his blog. These included repurposing old computer mice, decorating them and then using TuxPaint to animate them (MouseArt), using Pivot to make animations of bubbles (B@llobees) and also to make animated characters @ni & M@te who travelled to other schools and found out about them.

Two things that particularly struck me were firstly when Lieven said he liked ‘making the unexpected valuable’ which struck a chord, and also the use of technology to back up and enhance more traditional methods eg the Kindergarten pupils made bubble pictures with paint and straws, and those pieces of art were used as the background for the Bubble animations.

Next up was Paddy who talked about his eTwinning project Wii will rock you which used the Nintendo Wii as a stimulus.  I enjoyed this presentation as Paddy underlined that it was not all about playing games, but that the games were the starting point for other activities – writing letters, designing CD covers, planning tours with travel plans and money considerations, cooperation with other children, publicity and negotiation.  They also worked on a joint sports day with a school in ireland with some ‘traditional’ sports day activities as well as Wii based ones.

Then Susi Arnott shared about using comic strips and Comic Life, and how the process of looking at comics enhanced the understanding of texts and enhanced literacy skills.  She mentioned Bitstrips which I will be investigating!

Drew used Twitter to ask why people went to Teachmeets- responses included:

‘the range of ideas’

‘a cross subject sharing of ideas’

‘non threatening’ collaborative spirit’

‘celebrating work done in my classroom’

‘meeting like minded colleagues leads to great PLNs’

‘at least 20 ideas for use tomorrow’

‘widens my ideas’

Nick Falk finished up the meet with a nano-presentation on the use of QR codes and QR readers in mobile phones.  Very interesting, and something I need to investigate!

No camel, no fruit machine and no alcohol; but otherwise pretty like a normal TeachMeet! Oh, and no cupcakes.  Sorry @niiloa