Category: primarylanguages

httpv://youtu.be/d_smmARX-TI

Cuento de Navidad. Matias ha pedido un tren a los Reyes Magos. Matias sabía que los Reyes Magos no dejan regalos a los niños que están despiertos pero esa noche le entran unas ganas terribles de hacer pis. Un cuento divertido para disfrutar con los niños esta Navidad.

Beatriz Montero cuenta una adaptación del cuento “Cuando a Matías le entraron ganas de hacer pis en la Noche de Reyes”, de Chema Heras, Ed. Kalandraka.

A great story for tonight! You can see the original story here and here’s a lovely little song to go with the story!

Today in Waterstones in Coventry, Maria Alexander aka @IamMariaAlex has been holding a book signing for her first book – very exciting! Entitled Welcome to Planet WizZ, it is the first of a series of books ‘Teaching children Spanish the WizZ way‘, and Maria kindly let me have a pre-launch look!

Planet WizZ is ‘a mysterious little planet..that never stays still and keeps whizzing among the other planets.’ The planet is inhabited by wizzes, including Marrón and Naranja who are twins and the ‘stars’ of the story, along with Señor VerdeRojo who runs the only school on WizZ. Spanish is the official language on Planet WizZ and, whilst the book is written in English, there are Spanish phrases in the text besides the characters names. Each chapter (five in this book) has a theme in the form of a question e.g. ¿Qué hay en tu mochila? ¿Cuántos años tienes? ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? and within the chapter, relevant vocabulary is used which is then listed at the end of the chapter.

I enjoyed the story – the characters are amusing and you quickly get to know their personalities and traits. The Spanish does not detract from the story by which I mean that the story doesn’t seem stilted as you switch reading between the two languages, and there aren’t too many new words introduced in each chapter. All the Spanish is highlighted in bold so it’s clear to the reader when the Spanish is coming, and the characters’ names are also written in the colour of their name (as I wrote the names above!) I loved the graphics – simple but very amusing and appealing. (I think all teachers could do with 5 eyes like Señor VerdeRojo) And I particularly liked the little bits of incidental ICU that appear as you read such as information about Spanish speaking countries, and also the ‘valuable lessons’ that the characters often learn by the end of the chapter! The page of vocabulary at the end of the chapter promises sound files for the pronunciation of each item on www.planetwizz.com – you can currently register for future updates and I sure that this will follow soon along with other supporting resources as soon as website glitches are sorted out.

Whilst the books are aimed at 6-9 year olds, as Maria says in this lovely interview by one of her pupils, Ellie, they can equally be used by older beginners as a starting point as the themes such as numbers and the alphabet, are ones you usually meet at the start of language learning.

The interview also talks about how some of the proceeds from the book will got to M.A.M.A., an organisation that uses art and music to make the world a better place!

According to the Bablake newsroom you can buy the book, priced £6.99, from Waterstones in Coventry (where Maria will be signing more copies  during late night shopping on Wednesday 19th), WHSmiths, independent retailers and on Amazon (although it says currently unavailable, they’ll have more copies very soon)and the Book Repository.

This is billed as the first of many Spanish books, and there’ll be more languages too…(see below!)

Good luck Maria! Looks great!

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!

Being a fan of 64 Zoo Lane and having a wild imagination, when I discovered that there was someone called the Night Zookeeper on Twitter, I was fascinated and wanted to know more. And I wasn’t disappointed when I found that the NightZookeeper pr

oject was all about encouraging children to be creative and use their imaginations.

To quote the About on the Night Zoo Teacher website (companion to the NightZookeeper one)

Night Zookeeper was first delivered as a creative project in a Lancashire school back in 2007. It was clear from the beginning that the project had huge potential to inspire children to learn through the mediums of art,

creative writing, ICT and playground games. And so, from the children’s smiles, animal noises and magical creations, a Night Zoo was born.

In 2011 we launched the website (www.nightzookeeper.com) and the project has since gone from strength to strength. Support has reigned in from education thought leaders, governments and most importantly from teachers from all around the world.

The Night Zookeeper team consists of artists, storytellers, primary school teachers and creative technologists.  We are all united in our belief in the importance of fostering a child’s creativity in the classroom and at home.

I have to admit that, not having had a class on which to try it out, I’ve not explored as much as I might. However, following on from #TMTwist last week which was organised by @nightzookeeper (with @jodieworld  and @oliverquinlan) and held at NightZookeeper HQ (looked wonderful – wish I’d been there in person rather than virtually), I revisited and was particularly interested to hear of an app!

Night ZooKeeper Drawing Torch is a FREE app for iPads that is just amazing or as Apps Playground says ‘ A CREATIVE IPAD TREAT FOR KIDS’. Taking the premise that you are  a Night Zookeeper, you are set challenges or missions to look after thousands of magical animals and defeat the monsters that attack the zoo. And how do you do that? By drawing of course with your drawing torch! I am no great artist but that doesn’t matter – in fact, I find that it helps me in the classroom as no one can EVER be intimidated by my drawing being better than theirs! And because it’s a drawing app that asks for you to use your imagination, there’s no right or wrong answer so there’s no fear there. AND it’s all part of a story too, beautifully narrated! Examples of the challenges (I’ve taken them form the iTunes page as I don’t want to spoil the surprise by revealing more!) – “What do you think a Spying Giraffe looks like? Can you turn one of your friends or family into a strange animal? Could you draw a frog, if a monster has stolen the colour green?”

So far I’ve completed two missions of the 22 on the app, each a star in the night sky. I’m trying hard to ration myself and not do them all in one go but it’s very tempting! The naughty monsters are already being tricksy and making life interesting. Below are the first two drawings I made (told you I wasn’t very good at drawing!), saved to the CameraRoll of my iPad using the save option – you can also email. Very simple!

As I said, I love any opportunity to get people thinking and exploring their creativity – whether young old or in between! And I’m having a blast playing with this app. In the classroom I can see this app as a great springboard to some brilliant imaginative writing, dancing, singing not to mention drawing of course. It could be linked to Science e.g. adaptation and habitat, to PSHE e.g. problem solving, and that’s just a few ideas for starters without a) exploring the whole story and b) looking at the resources offered on NightZookeeper Teachers page.

I’ve already tweeted @Nightzookeeper asking about the app in other languages – a bit impatient of me considering the app is only 3 weeks old! However, I like to get my requests in as soon as possible, especially when I like something! It takes Build your Wildself  (which I love and have mentioned before here and here ) a step further – so much further – and that’s just one aspect of it.

Two ways I might use it.

1. At the moment, I teach English to some delightful kids and over the last couple of weeks we (coincidentally) talked about animals and made up our own hybrids so I think this app will be a great next step – you can redo the challenges so that’s not a problem!

2. And although the challenges are written in English, there’s nothing to stop you using the Drawing Torch for things other than the official missions, is there? So I could set my own mission in Spanish for example and learners could carry it out using the app. They wouldn’t win a star but I’d find another reward! ;o)

I’m sure that’s there’s more to come from Drawing Torch in the future. In fact, there’s a competition for kids to devise a new mission and win an iPad Mini (closing date 4th January and you don’t need an iPad to enter!).

And I’ve just discovered that, despite only being 3 weeks old, Drawing Torch has already been nominated for Best Edu Mobile app in the Edublog Awards . Way to go @NightZookeeper!

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)

Thanks to @AliceAyel on Twitter for flagging up a great post on a blog called Teaching Spanish w/ Comprehensible Input by Cynthia Hitz. The post is entitled Using videos of children’s stories and lo and behold, there was my son’s favourite story as a child, playing to me in Spanish.

Entitled Click Clack Muu, Vacas escritoras (Click Clack moo, Cows that type) the story is set on a farm where the cows get hold of a typewriter and start sending letters to Farmer Brown demanding electric blankets. And then the ducks get involved… Isaac is now 14 and can still recite it verbatim. And so can I! So it’s great to see this post with so many ideas of how you might use it in the classroom. If only I had a class with whom to share it.

httpv://youtu.be/MQS-_5_MP-Q

I found these Resources from PBS  – they’re in English but there are some great ideas that could be translated into Spanish.

Gracias @sonrisadelcampo and thanks Isaac for the memories ;o)

“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’.

I’ve just received an email about an exciting new venture from Lingua@Hillcrest.  Based at Hillcrest School and Sixth Form centre in Birmingham, Lingua@Hillcrest is already known for its virtual visits to France, Spain and Germany including passport control, currency exchange, shopping and refreshment experience as well as language games.

Now they are offering …

Murder Mystery? 

 in French, German and Spanish

Why not challenge your students to solve the crime at

lingua@hillcrest

Birmingham

Using their language skills students take on a role in a team of detectives in order to solve the crime.

Investigations include

• examining the scene of crime
• forensics   
• scrutinising news bulletins, recorded interviews & CCTV
• analysing suspects’ bank and telephone records
• cross-examining suspects

Recommended for year 9 – 11

Available every Monday

Bookings before 31 December 2012 – £150 per session or £250 for the full day.

After 1^st January 2013 – £180 per session or £330 for the full day.

For further details www.hillcrest.bham.sch.uk/lingua

Contact 0121 464 3172  or email lingua@hillcrest.bham.sch.uk

Sounds fun to me and a great way to learn and practice language that can become very ‘borong’ after a while – personal identification, descriptions and so on!

Details of other activities at Lingua@Hillcrest are below.

Do you want to get your pupils ahead of the game in MFL?

fun, hands-on activities for KS3 in

French, German and Spanish

lingua@hillcrest,  Birmingham

Half day visits include:

• Passport control
  
• Exchanging currency at the bank
• A carousel of interactive language activities
• Simulated shopping in our international shopping village
• Collecting stamps for every transaction completed
• Buying refreshments and souvenirs at the shops

 Available every Monday

Bookings before 31 December 2012 – £150 per session or £250 for the full day.

After 1^st January 2013 – £180 per session or £330 for the full day.

Discover how your pupils could benefit from a visit at

www.hillcrest.bham.sch.uk/lingua

To book a visit call us on 0121 464 3172 and ask for lingua bookings

or email us at lingua@hillcrest.bham.sch.uk 

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 message from Linda Parker of ALL

Primary Spanish teachers – join us for free at Language World on Saturday 31 March! http://www.all-languages.org.uk/events/language_world/language_world_2012

Are you looking for ways to improve your Spanish?  ALL Corporate Member, the Fundacion Comillas, will be with us at Language World to talk to teachers of Spanish about their professional development courses in the beautiful village of Comillas in Cantabria.  As well as these opportunities for teachers, this region has a lot to offer for school group visits and exchanges. Want to know more? Then why not take up this invitation to come along and find out for free on Saturday 31 March?   As well as visiting the Language World Exhibition (open from 08.30 – 14.00), you can come along to the following session completely free of charge:

11.55 – 12.40

 Fundacion Comillas

The Comillas Foundation: research, academic programs, and professional development

Professor Kim Griffin will present the Comillas Foundation programmes for professional development for Spanish teachers.  The Comillas Foundation was created in 2005 as a centre for the teaching and learning of the Spanish language and Hispanic culture.  Located in the picturesque town of Comillas on the northern coast of Spain, the Comillas Foundation offers a variety of courses specially designed for primary and secondary teachers of Spanish.  Courses are taught at all levels of competency and “classroom-without-walls” activities complement the academic environment.  The Comillas Foundation courses are total immersion courses and professors are trained to help participants use the Spanish language to their full potential.  Courses are also available for teachers who bring groups of young students to Comillas.

Dr. Kim Griffin has been a resident of Spain for thirty years. Dr. Griffin currently directs the academic program at the Comillas Foundation. Previously she directed the Middlebury College School in Spain; an undergraduate and post-graduate institution. A graduate of SUNY Oswego, Middlebury College, and the Ohio State University, she has taught both English and Spanish as a Second Language, founded and directed the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation for a Spanish university, and teaches post-graduate courses at several Spanish institutions. Dr. Griffin has also presided over the Association of North American University Programs in Spain, which represents over fifty of the most outstanding American universities that host programs in Spain.

Interested?  Contact us for a free pass today!  Email info@all-languages.org.uk

Please note that this invitation does not include refreshments, lunch or any other Language World sessions.  To join us for the full event, register HERE