Category: primarylanguages

I normally make Slideshares of my presentations and add the audio for Slidecasts.

However, the lovely @eyebeams was UStreaming the MFL Show and Tell from Nottingham today so I’m able to embed the video of my presentation!

Hope you find it useful.  Although my pupils are primary aged and some of the ideas are very ‘primary centric’, I think that there are many things that secondary colleagues can take and adapt to their situations.  teh fun doesn’t have to stop at the end of KS2, you know ;o)

CILT advertisement that might be of interest to people – If you’re interested in this, the closing date is 15th September, so best to sign up before the holidays!  Find out more on the CILT website or by emailing ptp@cilt.org.uk

Uploaded on November 21, 2009 by eyesplash Mikul

There has been much debate about the status of Primary Language Learning, beginning when the General Election process led to the rejection of The New Primary Curriculum being added to the Statute books.  Will the entitlement become statutory or will, heaven forbid, PLL be abandoned?

Forums have been buzzing with ideas opinions and worries.

Today, Kate Board, Chief Executive of CILT wrote the following letter to one such fora:-

Dear colleagues

In light of recent discussions on the forum, we thought it important to clarify the current status of languages at Key Stage 2.

Key Stage 2 languages do not currently have the legal status to become statutory in September 2011. However, the entitlement to learn a foreign language in Key Stage 2 still stands, having come into effect this year.

As many of you are aware, reforming the primary curriculum was one of the key provisions removed from the Children Schools and Families Bill during consideration of Lords Amendments in April 2010. The introduction of statutory languages in Key Stage 2 from September 2011 was part of the proposed new primary curriculum and therefore was also removed from the Bill. (For more information, please see the Children Schools and Families Bill

The future shape of the primary curriculum and the statutory status of languages will depend on the policies of the new government. CILT is in close contact with Baroness Coussins, and others in a position of influence through the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, and we are very grateful to her for raising this issue so prominently. We will continue to work together to encourage this dialogue and to promote the further development of language teaching in the primary school.

Kind regards,

Kate Board

Chief Executive

CILT, the National Centre for Languages

As far as I’m concerned, I passionately believe in Primary Languages and will fight for the continuance of a policy that gives pupils the right and entitlement to learn other languages during their Primary years.

Just realised that I hadn’t blogged the Wallwisher made by Year 5 just before Language World.

Created with Padlet

I made friends with Claire on Facebook just before Language World – what a great decision that was! She’s as mad and lively as me!

Her session was on Embedding Languages in the Curriculum and gave plenty of ideas for doing just that!

Highlights including dancing to www.genkigerman.com (just tried it out again with Isaac – a big hit!) and learning a song in Italian about food! It went to the tune of La Cucharacha and I think the words were

Then Claire asked me if I’d contribute some French / Spanish which I happily did! I shared www.UptoTen.com and the duck song – Peux-tu marcher comme un canard? and then demonstrated the ‘animal symphony’ activity I used to link Spanish, music and literacy. Materials and instructions to replicate it can be found here.

Molto bene Claire!

I’ve been looking for resources about healthy lifestyles and food today, and came across this song on my travels around Youtube.

Another useful video on the same theme, and with the same ‘quirk’ is the one below. This time it’s a rap that could easily be adapted to include other items of food, or other vocabulary too.

A proper blog post will follow tomorrow, but here are the photos from today!

At the ELL Local Support Group (LSG) last week, we were talking about short activities that needed minimal preparation and could be used for the ‘little and often’ model.

One of the activities discussed was I spy…

In Spanish there is a lovely little rhyme that goes with the game – check out the East Riding site for sound files, instructions and words. A good game for playing with kids who have a wider vocabulary, but also for discrete groups of words eg food, sports, colours. You could change it to ‘tengo tengo’ (I have..) and play with items in a bag even.

Veo veo I see, I see,

¿Qué ves? What do you see?

Una cosita. A thing

Y ¿qué cosita es? And what thing is it?

Empieza con la ……. It begins with ………

¿Qué será? ¿Qué será? ¿Qué será? What can it be? (x 3)

I also came across this catchy sung version of the rhyme – here I’ve chosen the kiddies version rather than the tropical island and bikinis! Lyrics below.

Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?

empieza con la “A”, ¿qué será?, ¿qué será?, ¿qué será?, alefante

no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así

con la “A” se escribe amor, con la a se escribe adiós

la alegría del amigo y un montón de cosas más

Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?

empieza con la “E”, ¿qué seré?, ¿qué seré?, ¿qué seré?, eyuntamiento

no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así

con la “E” de la emoción estudiamos la expresíon

y entonando esta canción encontramos la verdad

Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?

empieza con la “I”, ¿qué serí?, ¿qué serí?, ¿qué serí? invidia

no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así

con la “I” nuestra ilusión va intentando imaginar

cuan insolita inquietud una infancia sin maldad

Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?

empieza con la “O”, ¿qué seró?, ¿qué seró?, ¿qué seró? oscuela

no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así

no no no eso no no no eso no no no es la hora del final

Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?

empieza con la “F”, ¿qué seraf?, ¿qué seraf?, ¿qué seraf?, final

si si si eso si si si eso si si si es así

si si si eso si si si eso si si si llegó el final

cha cha cha

photo from Look Into My Eyes on Flickr

My love of trees is becoming very well known now – I now get sent all sorts of tree related links.

Today is Shrove Tuesday – I’ll be making pancakes very soon for my hungry ‘bichos’. However, in Spain and other Hispanic countries, they celebrate differently – as we found out at WCPS during our eTwinning project.