One of the sessions I attended at Language World was given by Sue Cave. Entitled Language Detectives, it shared a project that Sue and a colleague had devised, originally for a day long workshop for more able primary linguists, based around children using their detective skills to decode unknown languages. Sue described it as ‘a morning of training in preparation for an afternoon trying to thwart a multilingual gang of criminals.’

The session referred to and worked on the Language Learning Skills (LLS) and Knowledge about Language (KAL) strands of the KS2 Framework (NB is still a very useful document!) We discovered that gesture is important but that it works best in conjunction with words, eye contact and prior knowledge, and I discovered that I’m not as good as charades as I thought I was. (Sorry Vicky!) We also discovered that knowledge of word classes as well as how to use a bilingual dictionary are skills that a good detective needs, and that listening to the sounds and intonation of a language is also helpful.

Having undergone our (very swift!) training, we used our skills to thwart the gang who spoke Spanish, Welsh, German and Italian, stopping them before they stole a valuable item!

Sue has very generously shared not her presentation but all the resources on her excellent website on the Sharing Good Practice section (scroll to the bottom)

One idea (of the many!) that I particularly liked was the Language Detective certificates that Sue gives out when a child makes a discovery about language and shares it with the class. Sue has generously shared her certificates in the Teaching and Learning section of the Sharing Good Practice page. As I teach Spanish not French, I’ve made some of my own that you can download from the link below.

Spanish Language Detective certificates 

Thanks for an inspiring session Sue, I know I’m not the only one who went away with my mind buzzing!
And thanks to Yvonne too for my ‘lucky dip’ magnifying glasses that fit the theme perfectly and will be put to sue immediately!

PS here are my notes too!

This time last week I was mid sketch note at Language World 2018, the Association for Language Learning annual conference. After a jam-packed, fun filled inspirational weekend, my mind was spinning with ideas and coupled with the last week of term, it’s taken this long for me to get my head together and get posting! So here goes a blog-fest over the next few days!I was thrilled to be asked to be Language World’s official Sketchnoter for a second year. Armed with pens, pencils and paper, I ‘live sketch noted’ each session I attended, before the finished product was whipped away to be displayed for everyone to see. I was pleased to see that there were lots of people looking at the notes as the conference went on, and it was really amusing to hear people talking about them in the dinner queue, not knowing that I’d done them!

I took photos of (most of) the sketch notes before they were displayed, but below are my sketchnotes or visual notes that ALL have now scanned and published on their site.

Opening of Language World 2018 – AnnaLise Gordon

The Language Magician – #LMagic Steven Fawkes (Too much to fit onto one sheet!)

The Mary Glasgow Plenary – Language Futures and the future of Language Learning.
Dr Rachel Hawkes
(Again far too much to squash onto one page!)

Primary Spanish Show and Tell
It’s hard to sketch note whilst presenting, singing and playing games but I did it!

Planning for progression and transition. Liz Black once more filled my head with brilliant ideas!

The amazing things you can do with just a handful of books.
Nathalie Paris aka @nattalingo

The official launch of The LANGUAGE MAGICIAN

You can view all of Friday’s sketchnotes in one place by downloading this  – Friday PDF

Saturday morning Opening Plenary including the Primary and Secondary Language Teacher of the Year awards
AnnaLise Gordon

Putting pen to paper.
Clare Seccombe talks writing! (I learned from yesterday and used a big piece of paper for this one!)

A celebration of languages.
Danielle Dion-Jones

Language Detectives
Sue Cave

Lights! Camera! iPads!
Joe Dale

Embedding languages across the curriculum.
Richard Tallaron

Closing comments by AnnaLisa Gordon and Jane Harvey.

You can view all of Saturday’s sketchnotes in one place by downloading this – Saturday PDF

I loved sketch noting the conference. I hope that those who attended enjoy the reminder of sessions you attended and that those who didn’t get a flavour of what they ‘missed.’ I’ll certainly be having a look at Clare’s notes too as there were several clashes that meant I couldn’t attend sessions I would’ve chosen (Nigel Pearson for the second year running was speaking at the same time as me for example!)

You can also catch up with the Twitter buzz from the conference via this Storify .

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With World Book Day (#WBD) approaching next week on March 1st, I’ve been having a think over the last few days about what I’ll be doing with the classes I teach on Thursday. Last year we explored the Mr Men and Little Miss characters in Spanish as our focus at school was on illustrators. The previous year we looked at La maravillosa medicine de Jorge – you can find out about it in this post.

I had a look through my bookcases (yes, I have more than one as I have so many books!) and realised that, amongst my collection, I have a number of books about books!

The first isn’t Spanish but as I’ll probably be dressed as Heidi I might just start with this German gem.

Das ist ein Buch

I’ve shared Das ist ein Buch before but it is one of my favourites! In English it’s called It’s a book, and in it, Esel (Donkey) has obviously not seen a book before and wonders if it texts, needs wifi or Tweets; Affe (Monkey) patiently replies Nein, das ist ein Buch until he decides that it would be best to let Esel read the book …

ISBN: 978-3-446-23937-1  Link to buy

Now to the Spanish ones:

A Rosa le gusta leer.

This is a short reader style book with short phrases on each page, containing 49 Spanish words that are listed at the end. It’s about a girl called Rosa who, as the title suggests, likes reading. However, her neighbourhood is very noisy and it’s hard to concentrate…

ISBN 0-516-24698-4  Link to buy

Book Fiesta

This is a bi-lingual book, a celebration of Children’s Day/Book Day that is held on April 30th in Mexico. It’s all about reading our favourite books, the languages in which we read,  with whom we might read and where we go to read, in reality and in our imaginations. It’s a colourfully illustrated book and can be read in Spanish or English, depending on your audience.

ISBN 978-0-06-128877-7   Link to buy 

¡Se busca! Lili la liebre, ladrona de libros

I love this book about a hare who loves books so much that she can’t stop reading. She starts visiting houses to read books, and one thing leads to another and she starts to steal them! When she starts stealing the books from a boy called Arturo, she runs into trouble as he is as big a fan of books as she is. What will happen? You’ll have to read the book and find out. I love the humorous illustrations, particularly of Lili’s favourite books.  

ISBN 978-84-9101-044-9   Link to buy

¿Para qué sirve un libro?

I bought this book in Spain last year and forgot I had it (I told you I’ve got a lot of books!) but when I rediscovered it, I remembered why I’d bought it! Each double page has a sentence about what a book is for or what it does, very simply phrased as ‘Un libro es…’ or ‘Un libro puede…’ or ‘ En un libro puedes…’ and I’m planning on using it as the basis for an activity where pupils match the English and Spanish phrases, then make up their own ideas.

ISBN – 978-84-16490-27-1   Link to buyQué leen los animales antes de dormir

My final book arrived this morning and I love it! It’s all about different animals and the types of books that they read. It’s humorous and has some very clever puns that I love. Some are accessible to beginners with a clue or two whilst some are a little more obscure. I’m looking forward to sharing this with my classes and seeing if they can guess which animal reads which type of book.

ISBN 978-8426138446   Link to buy   (Although I bought the last one – sorry!)

When I’ve finished my plans and finalised my resources, I’ll share them here (although I won’t be able to share my images of the stories unless you own the books)

I’ve made a Pinterest board of all the links I’ve gathered for #WBD and, whilst I was looking at a link to materials related to ¡Se busca! Lili la liebre, ladrona de libros, I came across a board called Libros que hablan de libros that has more ideas of books about books. And also reminded me that I have another book about books – Regalo Sorpresa (link to buy)

Perhaps you have some suggestions to add in the comments below? And please share your ideas for World Book Day too!

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With World Book Day coming up next week, I found this video that gives reasons for why reading is important. It’s in Spanish and has no commentary; all the reasons are written in the slides. Some slides contain too much to read before they change but did you know that you can change the speed of a Youtube video? If you click on the Settings cog, you can alter the speed (see below) I’d recommend 0.75 speed the audio doesn’t sound too distorted although 0.5 is OK as this has music rather than speech.

I’m still working on my plan for this year – two years ago I use a Roald Dahl book in Spanish as my inspiration and last year, we focused on the Mr Men and Little Misses as we were looking at illustrators. However, you can see the pins I’ve collected on my WBD Pinterest board, and I’ll post my idea as soon as it’s developed.

I’ll leave you with some quotations about reading; my favourites are 2 and 6.

*This is a book review as part of Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2018 #MCBD2018*

The Marvellous Mexican Misunderstanding is a delightful book about a little boy called Adri who  overhears his Mum and Aunt Chiquita talking about the Day of the Dead and gets completely the wrong end of the stick. He asks his sister Tani lots of questions about the Aztecs, the Day of the Dead but she mischievously decides to use his ignorance of the festival as a way of teasing him, and confirms his fears.  Over the seven days leading up to Day of the Dead, every visitor and every event seems to confirm his fear that he is going to die; the Dad brings him a skeleton costume for Halloween, the neighbour brings ‘pan de muerto’, his Mum makes his favourite food. On the eve of Day of the Dead, Adri writes letters to his family and prepares himself. Will the misunderstanding be unravelled or will Adri’s fear come true? You’ll have to read and find out!

The illustrations by Nefeli Malie are wonderful – bright and childlike, and coupled with the lovely prose by Evi Triantafyllides, they tell the story of Adri in a clear and appealing way, at the same time exposing readers to aspects of the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) festival. And the book is not just a story. There’s a dictionary of Spanish and English terms related to the story as well as questions posed as ‘Mexican mysteries’ about the text that highlight facts about Mexico.  The book itself forms part of the first ‘parcel’ offered by Worldwide Buddies.

Worldwide Buddies is a series of fictional, educational stories with characters from different countries around the globe that allow children to imagine a more beautifully complex world. Stories are designed to promote cultural awareness and introduce little ones to the diverse realities and wonders of the world, early on.

“A Marvelous Mexican Misunderstanding” is the first story of the series and will become available for purchase through their website in a couple of weeks: www.worldwidebuddies.com

Alongside the story, readers can also purchase a story box with additional games, toys and activities that accompany the book. You can find out more on their website or via Facebook or Instagram.

As Worldwide Buddies will start accepting orders for the books ($18) and story box ($35) soon. As they are based in the USA, I asked Evi if the book and story box will be available in the UK, and she confirmed that yes, delivery will be possible to the UK too.

As a teacher of Spanish to young children, I love this book as it is amusing and gently makes fun of Adri’s misunderstanding to reveal the wonder of the Day of the Dead festival, explaining how it is a happy festival and a time to remember those who have passed away. I’ll certainly be sharing it with my learners next year in the run up to November 1st. It also leads into a pertinent discussion about our fears often that fit well with the  SMSC (Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural) agenda here. I look forward to reading more Worldwide Buddies books!

Details about #MCBD2018:

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2017 (1/27/18) is in its 5^th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.

MCBD 2018 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board. View our 2018 MCBD Medallion Sponsors here: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/2106-sponsors/mcbd2018-medallion-level-sponsors/

View our 2018 MCBD Author Sponsors here: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/2106-sponsors/2018-author-sponsors/

We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/about/co-hosts/

TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual Twitter Party will be held 1/27/18 at 9:00pm EST.

You can join the conversation and win one of 12-5 book bundles and one Grand Prize Book Bundle (12 books) that will be given away at the party! http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/twitter-party-great-conversations-fun-prizes-chance-readyourworld-1-27-18/

Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta

Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teacher-classroom-empathy-kit/

Did you know that Saturday 27th January is Multicultural Children’s Book Day? Nor did I until I saw a tweet asking for reviewers who were interested in books and multicultural/ intercultural awareness. As a fan of both, I jumped at the chance, and my book review will follow in the next post. 

Below are details of the event. Please note that it is based in the United States so timings are not GMT, and some offers may not be available to those in the United Kingdom. However, all the online resources are available irrespective of where you live – the beauty of the Net!

Come back tomorrow for a review of The Marvellous Mexican Misunderstanding by Evi Triantafyllides of WorldwideBuddies.com

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2017 (1/27/18) is in its 5^th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.

Current Sponsors:  MCBD 2018 is honoured to have some amazing Sponsors on board.

2018 MCBD Medallion Sponsors

HONORARY: Children’s Book Council, Junior Library Guild

PLATINUM:Scholastic Book Clubs

GOLD:Audrey Press, Candlewick Press, Loving Lion Books, Second Story Press, Star Bright Books, Worldwide Buddies

SILVER:Capstone Publishing, Author Charlotte Riggle, Child’s Play USA, KidLit TV, Pack-n-Go Girls, Plum Street Press

BRONZE: Barefoot Books, Carole P. Roman, Charlesbridge Publishing, Dr. Crystal Bowe, Gokul! World, Green Kids Club, Gwen Jackson, Jacqueline Woodson, Juan J. Guerra, Language Lizard, Lee & Low Books, RhymeTime Storybooks, Sanya Whittaker Gragg, TimTimTom Books, WaterBrook & Multnomah, Wisdom Tales Press

2018 Author Sponsors

Honorary Author Sponsors: Author/Illustrator Aram Kim and Author/Illustrator Juana Medina

Author Janet Balletta, Author Susan Bernardo,  Author Carmen Bernier-Grand, Author Tasheba Berry-McLaren and Space2Launch, Bollywood Groove Books, Author Anne Broyles,  Author Kathleen Burkinshaw, Author Eugenia Chu, Author Lesa Cline-Ransome, Author Medeia Cohan and Shade 7 Publishing, Desi Babies, Author Dani Dixon and Tumble Creek Press, Author Judy Dodge Cummings, Author D.G. Driver, Author Nicole Fenner and Sister Girl Publishing, Debbi Michiko Florence, Author Josh Funk, Author Maria Gianferrari, Author Daphnie Glenn, Globe Smart Kids, Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle, Author Quentin Holmes, Author Esther Iverem, Jennifer Joseph: Alphabet Oddities, Author Kizzie Jones, Author Faith L Justice , Author P.J. LaRue and MysticPrincesses.com, Author Karen Leggett Abouraya, Author Sylvia Liu, Author Sherri Maret, Author Melissa Martin Ph.D., Author Lesli Mitchell, Pinky Mukhi and We Are One, Author Miranda Paul, Author Carlotta Penn, Real Dads Read, Greg Ransom, Author Sandra L. Richards, RealMVPKids Author Andrea Scott, Alva Sachs and Three Wishes Publishing, Shelly Bean the Sports Queen,  Author Sarah Stevenson, Author Gayle H. Swift Author Elsa Takaoka, Author Christine Taylor-Butler, Nicholette Thomas and  MFL Publishing  Author Andrea Y. Wang, Author Jane Whittingham  Author Natasha Yim

We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.

TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual Twitter Party will be held 1/27/18 at 9:00pm. (EST which is 2am GMT)

Join the conversation and win one of twelve 5 book bundles and one Grand Prize Book Bundle (12 books) that will be given away at the party! http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/twitter-party-great-conversations-fun-prizes-chance-readyourworld-1-27-18/

Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta 

Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teacher-classroom-empathy-kit/

Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.

Following on from the success of Practical Pedagogies 2015 and 2016 at International School of Toulouse, the third Practical Pedagogies conference is on the move to Cologne, and specifically St George’s International School.

I have been fortunate enough to be invited to speak at both Practical Pedagogies so far – in 2015 about Using technology to enhance Primary Language Learning and then, after my sketch noting caused interest,  in 2016 I delivered a workshop on Sketchnoting for Beginners and also sketch noted the conference. I was dismayed when I discovered that IST was unable to hold the conference in 2018 as it is such an amazing event. Fortunately, my dismay and disappointment was short lived as a new plan was hatched and it’s all systems for November 2018 in Cologne.

At this stage, the programme has yet to be set and Russel Tarr, Practical Pedagogies mastermind and the man behind Classtools and Active History, has issued a Call for Presenters. He told me today that there have already been 120+ ideas submitted – including one of mine! – and that there’s still time for more. The deadline for submission is 31st January and I’d encourage you to apply if you have an idea. It doesn’t have to be primary language related – it’s a conference for anyone involved in teaching and at whatever level. It’s international and one of the things I love most is being inspired by educators from around the world who teach in other educational systems, under different ‘rules’ and circumstances, and discussing with them how they experiences can be applied in other contexts. If you do want to submit an idea, you can do so via this link to the Practical Pedagogies site.

Once all the submissions have been reviewed, a programme will be drawn up and booking will open in March! The advantage of being a speaker is that you get to attend the conference for a highly reduced price (50 euros but you get your restaurant meal on the first night paid for which would cost that, more or less!) and you get your foot in the door before anyone else. Plus speaking at Practical Pedagogies is a great experience! This year, I’m really pleased that it’s taking place during half term so I won’t need to beg to be released from school if I’m chosen to speak – and I’ll get to visit Germany and try out my developing German!

So go for it – nothing ventured, nothing gained and then, fingers crossed and thumbs pressed!

I’ve yet to see The Greatest Showman but I love the soundtrack so when I found this video today I was delighted.

This is me in Spanish – Así soy. Below the video I’ve posted the lyrics too. It won’t be a song I necessarily teach the children but it’ll make a pleasant background to activities, and it has such uplifting and important lyrics that I’ll happily tell the children what it means. Unlike Despacito…

No soy ajena a la oscuridad

Escondete me dicen

No te queremos como estas

Ya aprendi mis cicatrices pena dan

Escapate me dicen

Porque así nadie te amará

Que me eliminen, no los dejaré

Tenemos un lugar, yo sé

Somos gloriosos

Con palabras duras me quieren herir

Las voy ya inundar y las voy a hundir

Fuerte soy con dolor

Porque soy quien debo ser

Así soy

Paren porque aquí voy

Si marchando voy a mi propio sol

Sin temor veanme no me voy a disculpar

Así soy

Oh oh oh

Oh oh oh

Una ruta más de balas viene a mi

Disparen más, porque ya

Más penas no voy a permitir

Barricadas vamos a destruir

Hasta llegar al sol

Si es lo que solo soy

Que me eliminen, no los dejaré

Tenemos un lugar, yo sé

Somos gloriosos

Con palabras duras me quieren herir

Las voy ya inundar y las voy a hundir

Fuerte soy con dolor

Porque soy quien debo ser

Así soy

Paren porque aquí voy

Si marchando voy a mi propio sol

Sin temor veanme no me voy a disculpar

Así soy

Oh oh oh

Oh oh oh

Así soy

Yo se que me ves con tu amor

En nada equivocada estoy

Con palabras duras me quieren herir

Las voy ya inundar y las voy a hundir

Así es hay dolor

Porque soy quien debo ser

Así soy

Paren porque aquí voy

Si marchando voy a mi propio sol

Sin temor veanme no me voy a disculpar

Así soy

Oh oh oh

Así soy

Oh oh oh

Así es hay dolor porque soy quien debo ser

Así soy

Songwriters: Justin Paul / Benj Pasek

Just found a post I wrote 2 years ago and never published! It a companion to this post about Calming songs and rhymes about hands! 

I shared the Chocolate rhyme previously but I think it’s worth sharing again as it’s been so popular with Y2. And, as this post shows with ‘mariposa’, any other four syllable word works. It would work with cucuracha, elefante or even Barcelona! The clapping is the same as for  Double double this this in English so pupils find it less tricky than you’d think!

Or you could try with your feet too 😉

Spanish playground also shares El marinero que se fue a la mar (a sailor went to sea) and Por aquí pasó un caballo (a counting song) – more complicated but still fun!

And Alejandra Lopez on Youtube and her little sister have plenty of other ideas of clapping rhymes, some with words like Milikituli (although the words are mostly nonsense!)

and others simply rhythms like Punchis clap and Palmas en la mesa (the instructions in Spanish obviously!)

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Today I had a ‘random’ lesson with Y6, one of those times in a two form entry school where I only have half the year group so need to do something different.

A series of happenstances made the choice easier:

• A tweet from Janet Lloyd that Primary Language Network were offering a free resource about snowflakes
• A flurry of snow
• Recent work on infinitives and (se) puede.

So I decided that this afternoon, Y6 would work on the poem Los mágicos copos de nieve that I’d downloaded from PLN. 

I removed the snowflake image and the header from the PPT slide so there was no clue to the topic other than the words and asked pupils to discuss in small groups what they thought the poem was about.

They immediately picked up it was something magical; someone suggested it was about a magic carpet; a fair guess.  Someone else had picked up blanco and suggested it was about nine white rabbits, misreading nieve as nueve. Another picked up ‘repaid’ meant fast and another group that ‘frío’ meant cold. Between them they worked out it was about snowflakes.

We then looked together at the middle section where each sentence had the structure ‘Un copo de nieve puede + infinitive’

We identified the infinitives, reminding ourselves that infinitives in Spanish end with -ar, -er or -ir, and tried to deduce the meanings. Bailar and cantar had been met before. We linked girar to gyrate and gyroscope, and I was able to give a clue to volar by linking it to ‘un avión’ that we’d met last week in a lesson on transport and ‘una mariposa’ that we’d met when we drew mini beasts with finger prints: un avión puede volar; una mariposa puede volar’ Planear was a bit trickier but a dictionary soon helped!

We read the poem and then I let the pupils loose on the dictionaries with their imaginations. We only had 35 minutes but you can see in this post some of the outcomes.

Some chose to use the same verbs as in the poem (the resource from PLN has the 5 from the poem already in the template but I removed these to allow for more freedom) but others used their dictionaries to come up with some alternatives. One lad wanted to write ‘calm’; we discussed why that wouldn’t work and I suggested using it as an adverb by adding mente to the end. So he chose a suitable verb and added the adverb. He also decided that he wanted to use ‘despacito’  like how he paired it with ‘bailar.’

I loved the illustrations pupils used to show the meaning of the verbs. I particularly liked  the ones with faces, and the shhh for susurrar!

If you want to download the resource, it’s available here.

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