Category: primarylanguages

Languages MiniOlympics packs – Bringing together the two threads of KS2 teaching and languages and the International Dimension   –   presented by Michaela Howard and Jo Darley

Jo and Michaela – having marvellously overcome technical issues- presented their ideas for how to use the Olympics as the inspiration for language learning activities that  are clearly linked to the KS2 Framework and specifically for the class teacher to deliver.

1. GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Take 6 athletes from around the world –

• look at their photographs
• looking at names and have a go at pronouncing the names,
• are they male or female? which country?
• present countries in original language – can you decide which country it is?
• look at different script
• pause for thought – what was hard / easy?
• greetings in their own language – which is which?
• flags of countries – research?
• sports on each day – who will be doing which sport? by process of deduction, decide!
• customs and cultures to finish – which fact belongs with which athlete?

2. SPORTS

• short activities that fit well into the school day
• adapt the sports chart (containing all the sports in 5 languages) to individual needs – use one column or all five columns but just six sports to group etc
• perhaps cut up into chunks to match up, compare languages, describe their decisoon making
• then look for the symbols for sports
• tailor it to the interests of your learners
• make links – ask partner schools to tell you about their sports

3. DESIGN AN OLYMPIC EVENT

Michaela suggested challenging pupils to come up with their own Olympic event by posing the following questions –

• what would YOUR Olympic event be?
• who is it for?
• team vs individual
• equipment?
• feelings?
• why should it be in the games?
• enjoyable?
• where will it be held?
• training?
• values?
• judging?
• skills?
• children be involved?

*excellent activity with a partner school*

*engaging learning – collaborating*

4.MASCOTS

http://www.mapsoftheworld.com/olympic-trivia/olympic-mascot.html

Design a mascot with 2 places to look for inspiration – info on Beijing mascots and how they were conceived, what they represent etc and from London Olympic mascots – very visual labelled diagrams. (Didn’t manage to note the URL but found the picture!)

A mascot for YOUR area – black cabs are specific to London perhaps – what would eg Lincoln have?

(there’s a mascot maker on the 2012 site!)

5.PUBLICITY

How might you use the job of promoting the Olympic games as a task?

In Y3 with the objective “to copy words” you might

• design a ticket
• label a map of the event
• simple bilingual dictionary to find your favourite sport
• make a welcome flag

In  y4 with the objective “to write some simple words and phrases using model and some from memory” you might make

• programme cover
• logo and label it
• whole class poster advertising all sports
• simple menu for food stand (healthy lunchbox)

In y5 with the objective “to write words, phrases and short sentences using references” you might design a cartoon strip

In y6 with the objective ” to write sentences on a range of topics” you might

• write a paragraph to describe how you feel about games
• discuss where the games should be in 2020 – make your case
• produce tourist information for another country

6. ON YOUR MARKS

Going back to the 6 athletes and using these two sites, find out the distance the athletes have to travel to London (assuming they live in the capital city of their country!) How long will it take to travel? what time is it in their city when it’s  x o’clock in London?

http://www.silkysteps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1118

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html

7. NATIONAL ANTHEMS

There are 216 countries competing. Each one has a national anthem. What a lot of music to exploit!

• What’s ours?
• Listen to the national anthems – which country is it? You might need to give some clues too!
• Look at lyrics in English and in the language of the country
• Match up original to the English

The third of a trio of presentations that I should have posted earlier (and I’ve still got a day of Language World to finish blogging too!)

My presentation at Language World this year took it’s theme from the fact that Primary language learning is an entitlement rather than statutory as we had expected a year ago. In it I explored what an entitlement meant and shared some ideas of how it might look and what it should include. Thanks to the people who attended on a hot Friday afternoon in the 6th session of a long and exciting day. I’ll put the audio with the Slideshare once I have time to edit it!

I am so behind with posting things – rather a lot going on at the moment!

Apologies to those who have been patiently waiting for my presentation at the Comenius Conference at Newman College on June 29th – here it is!

It was a really great day and it was a wonderful way to finish this phase of the project.

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

Following on from last year and Bricklaying for beginners,  and 2009 with Absorbing language learning, I’m once more presenting at ALL Language World.

This year Language World is entitled All together now. Here’s the invite from ALL:-

Join us ALL Together at Language World 2011, 8-9 Jul 2011 @ Imperial College, London:

It’s a conference: A packed programme of over 60 speakers from around the language teaching world…

It’s a training event: It’s only 2 days out of your busy schedule… great CPD for a fantastic price!

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 and inspiration!

It’s a celebration! Get together with other language teachers from around the UK, and around the world… and in the lead up to the London 2012 Games, celebrate language teaching and learning with your community!

For more information, and to book, go to: http://tiny.cc/LanguageWorld2011.

My session this year will be called Entitled to enjoy Primary languages.

Here’s the blurb!

This session will consider the position of language learning in the primary curriculum

(currently as an entitlement) and give practical examples and ideas about how

language learning can be more than a “bolt on”.

It will consider:

• why PLL is so important

• the current position re primary languages

• what is an entitlement?

• what does it mean to me?

• PLL integrated into the curriculum ? learning journeys, cross curricular

activities and CLIL

• international dimension (ref to Comenius Reggio, eTwinning projects)

• motivation to learn

• creativity let loose!

The session will include practical ideas including storytelling, song, dance,

drama, physical activity, international projects, cross curricular links and

exploiting ICT. Examples will be mainly in Spanish with some French ? other

languages may appear!!

I always have a great time at Language World, whether running around the Quad in Oxford, nearly missing the bus in Leicester or dodging goose poo in York, and this year I’m really looking forward to the conference being in London at Imperial College.

I’ve just found this lovely clip on BBC Learning Zone yesterday. Funny and good for daily routine in Spanish. There are also Not now Farley episodes for weather, pets, food and clothes. And they’re also available in French and Mandarin!

GrowStoryGrow, a story-telling website for learning languages, is holding a story writing competition.

Open to children aged 9-11, the winner will have their story translated into different languages, animated and publish

ed online with their name and school. The story can be written in any language so taking part will benefit general literacy as well as language learning.

The deadline is 30th June 2011 and the winner will be announced on 11th July.

The winning entry will be showcased at the London Language Show.

Yes, I’ve been to IKEA again in search of a blind and more inspiration in the form of squishy things!

You’d think I’d bought up the whole shop by now but I did purchase this set of farm animals.

How might I use them?

Well, I’ve thought of the following-

a) colours –

Busco algo negro.

Busco un animal de color rosa.

¿De qué color es la vaca?

¿El cisne es amarillo?

b) size/shape

Busco algo negro y pequeño.

Busco algo blanco con un cuello largo.

Althernatively, you could give half the information and the pupils to ask for more information.

Busco algo grande.     >    ¿Es negro?

No, es marrón y blanca.    > Es la vaca

c) a song (there’s always a song involved isn’t there!)

El granjero tiene una granja or En la granja de mi tío or En la granja de Pepito or whichever version you sing would work well!

d)looking at names of baby animals –

una oveja – un cordero

una vaca – un ternero

un cerdo – un cerdito

leading into the use of -ito to mean little  (cf un pollo – un pollito)

(btw – if you fancy a giggle, have a look at this for finding out how to say little baby cow in different languages!)

e) storytelling

Una vez había un grupo de animales en una granja había una vaca y su ternero, un cerdo y sus tres cerditos, una oveja y su cordero negro y un cisne.  Su vida era perfecta aparte de una cosa… en la granja también había un toro gruñón..

I’ll leave you to finish off the story!

So, there’s a few ideas. Perhaps you could add your own in the comments below?

PS I was very taken with these wonderful large squashy fruit and vegetables. I resisted the temptation to buy them though!

My two minute presentation is about Postcrossing. I have mentioned it before but it’s worth mentioning again as it’s always so popular when I do!

In its simplest terms, you “send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”

Really easy! Writing a postcard is a short focussed activity that can be done anytime there’s a spare five minutes – even the most reluctant writer can manage a few lines. Pop it in the postbox and off it goes. Then you wait – and you receive a postcard from somewhere in the world! It’s a surprise!

We made an actual display of all the postcards with pins on a world map – but as we have 3 buildings at our school this was a bit ‘exclusive’ so we made a virtual map too on Google Maps.

And the postcards themselves are artefacts that we have used for all sorts of activities to enhance international awareness and ICU. One example is year 6 making fact files based on the cards with famous people from tht country, language, music and so on, plus an impression.

And I LOVE the motto!