Up until Christmas, watch out for a Spanish Christmas carol a day.
Day 1 – Feliz Navidad.
httpv://youtu.be/K9ULvb_FD-s
It’s nearly Christmas so here’s a lovely little video brought to my attention by @Mother Goose Club.
The Spanish Christmas song Navidad, Navidad (To the tune of Jingle Bells) with cute animation and karoake lyrics too!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRS1PjprrTQ
A little story featuring Caillou to mark Thanksgiving.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
httpv://youtu.be/1K4Z8wtJH2A
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…
Thank you to June da Silva for pointing this out via primarylanguages@mailtalk.ac.uk.
November 21st is World Hello Day on which people are encouraged to greet 10 people to demonstrate the importance of personal communication in maintaining peace.
World Hello Day was begun in response to the conflict between Egypt and Israel in the Fall of 1973. Since then, World Hello Day has been observed by people in 180 countries.
People around the world use the occasion of World Hello Day as an opportunity to express their concern for world peace. Beginning with a simple greeting on World Hello Day, their activities send a message to leaders, encouraging them to use communication rather than force to settle conflicts.
As a global event World Hello Day joins local participation in a global expression of peace. The World Hello Day web site address is http://www.worldhelloday.org.
As June says in her email, what an opportunity to promote communication in other languages too. I will be attempting to greet 10 people in Swiss German and / or their native language. I’m sure I can find 10 people who speak 10 different languages at home amongst my boys’ new classmates and parents…
www.ipl.org/div/hello will help me in my task as will http://www.digitaldialects.com/
And how about these lovely song?
httpv://youtu.be/kjwkMmdqmH4
Following on from a mentions here and here and a short review, I had my first article published in The TES today! So exciting!
Here’s the link to the article as it appeared. The original text is below – doesn’t look like it was edited much, a fact about which I am very chuffed!
I emailed Whitehouse Common immediately and told them – and within minutes it was on the school website.
Lots of lovely tweets too – thanks to @valleseco whose tweet was the first I knew of publication, and @bellaale @IrisConnect @davidErogers @matttodd1 @NajmC @suzibewell @whcps @bootleian @bgflnews @chrisfullerisms @TaskMagic @dughall and anyone else who’s tweeted it since I wrote this post!
Hope this won’t be my last article…
Me gusta / Je t’aime / Ich mag / ???
What do learners like doing in MFL? Lisa Stevens ponders this and reflects on activities that her primary school pupils have enjoyed.
When I think back to my best experiences as a learner, they were memorable because they captured my attention and imagination. And it seems that many other learners have a similar experience.
I asked my pupils aged 3-11 what they enjoyed about learning languages, and they came up with many ideas. A class I taught in Reception who are now in Year 3 always want to play a memory game involving painted toenails because a member of their class holds the school record for the game (he was 4 when he set it!), and a Year 6 group remember retelling the story of El Nabo Gigante (The Enormous Turnip) when they were in Year 2 with silly hats and actions.
These were one off examples – when I asked a group of year 6s, they were more general, listing singing, rhymes and chanting as a favourite activity because they don’t do that in other lessons. They also said that they could better remember things that they had learned this way as they recalled the tune or the rhythm as well as the words. Towards the end of Year 6 we do a unit on a Spanish café and one activity involved rewriting a song about ordering in a café to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas. The task involved recalling vocabulary but was more then that as learners had to consider whether the rhythm of the words they were suggesting fitted the tune, making them concentrate on stress patterns and syllables. It also offered the opportunity to be imaginative as each group wanted to be the most original and perhaps funniest.
This type of creative task, using language in ‘unusual’ ways, is popular in other year groups too. In response to the story ¡Fuera de aquí Horrible Monstruo Verde! (Go away Big Green Monster), Year 3 used 2D shapes from their Maths lessons to create faces, feature by feature with a photograph taken at each stage. They then to wrote their own (simplified) version of the story saying hello to each new facial feature then telling it to go away using the photographs to create a comic strip. The sense of achievement – “I wrote a story in Spanish!” – was echoed in Year 5 when they rewrote a section of a famous Spanish poem, La Primavera by Antonio Machado, then went on to write their own poems about seasons in Spanish. Many of them were unsure about writing poems in English let alone Spanish, and here the language learning fitted well with their Literacy lessons. Year 4 were equally proud of their work in Healthy Heroes week, creating Superheroes Saludables (Healthy Superheroes), and building on their previous learning about sport and food in Spanish to create a clean living hero and unhealthy enemies. They did something no other class had done and, in a theme week, that holds great sway.
What do all these activities have in common? They were all led by the learners, all involved independence and imagination, and they all involved a challenge. The learners enjoyed themselves, feeling a sense of achievement when they’d finished, and I enjoyed ‘teaching’ them as each learner was able to stamp their individuality on the task.
Lisa is a Primary Language educator and consultant. She is PLL and International coordinator at Whitehouse Common Primary School, and works with her LA (Birmingham) as a Language Coach supporting schools with their language provision. She is an Apple Education Mentor, an eTwinning Ambassador and BGfL MFL Curriculum Associate, and is on the Spanish Committee of ALL.
(I know – that’s not all strictly accurate, but it was when I wrote the post!)
CfBT Education Trust to provide curriculum support for languages
September 16, 2011
Below is a press release from CILT / CfBT – interesting stuff!
CfBT Education Trust to provide curriculum support for languages
International education charity CfBT Education Trust has been selected as the preferred provider of curriculum support for languages in primary and secondary schools in England. The contract from the Department of Education (DfE) runs until March 2013.
Neil McIntosh, Chief Executive of CfBT Education Trust, said: “We are
delighted at the success of our proposal. It marks the beginning of a
renewed emphasis on support for languages in schools. CfBT’s record of
success in school improvement, partnering with CILT’s considerable assets
and expertise, developed over many years of service to the languages
community, has proved a winning combination.
“We aim to work with organisations and individuals across the country who
share our passion and ambition for languages. We are determined to
ensure that the resource provided by the government achieves maximum
impact on schools and learners.”
Kathryn Board, Head of CILT, added: “Both primary and secondary schools
continue to need high quality support. This support is essential to sustain
and develop languages in the curriculum and raise the numbers of young
people taking languages to GCSE and beyond. Our proposal is to develop
new models of mutual support within the new structures for teacher training
and CPD. This will underpin the drive for an improvement in languages.”
I’m pleased to say that before I leave these shores, I will be speaking for one last time (for now!) on October 1st in London. Details are below, including the programme and the application form to complete. Great value for money at £25!
Talleres de formación de la Consejería de Educación
Sábado 1 de octubre de 2011: talleres para profesores de primaria
Sábado 8 de octubre de 2011: talleres para profesorado de secundaria
Lugar: Colegio Español Vicente Cañada Blanch, 317 Portobello Road, London W105SZ
Los programas y hojas de inscripción están publicados en nuestra página WEB:
http://www.educacion.gob.es/reinounido/convocatorias-programas/formacion-profesorado.html
Plazo de inscripción: hasta el 26 de septiembre.
Coste de la inscripción, incluido almuerzo y materiales: 25 libras por persona
Os esperamos.
Spanish workshops
The Consejería de Educación are organizing their Spanish Workshops.
Saturday October 1st: Spanish workshops for Primary teachers
Saturday October 8th: Spanish workshops for Secondary teachers
Venue: Colegio Español Vicente Cañada Blanch, 317 Portobello road, London W105SZ
Programmes and application forms are available at: http://www.educacion.gob.es/reinounido/convocatorias-programas/formacion-profesorado.html
Registration will take place until September 26th
Cost: 25 pounds, including lunch and materials
We look forward to welcoming you
Alan Peat – Raising writing standards and motivating reluctant writers.
September 5, 2011
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.
