It’s one month to go until the annual Association for Language Learning conference, Language World. Have you signed up yet?

This year the theme is Progress for All (like the clever logo!) As the ALL website says:

Progression in the teaching and learning of languages is a priority for all teachers and ALL as a professional association as we respond to significant curriculum changes and developments at all levels. Progress for ALL is a deliberately broad title, as we aim to serve the needs of all conference delegates. For example, we are including sessions on promoting progress in all aspects of pupils’ learning of languages, ensuring progression in curriculum planning, sustaining progress in curriculum leadership and celebrating progress in building a culture of language learning in a school.

During the two days there will be a mixture of plenary sessions, major talks and workshops with something for everyone from primary to higher education, and this year there is a slot for poster presentations which looks really interesting too.

This year the conference takes place in Nottingham at the East Midlands Conference Centre which is very convenient for me living in the Midlands and once more in the ‘middle’ of the country.

There’s a special ‘call out’ to primary colleagues issued on the ALL page with testimonials from a range of primary colleagues. Have a look at the flyer: 

I’m not speaking this year (apart from a contribution to the Primary Spanish Show and Tell) but I have a special (albeit rather daunting) role to fulfil:

I’m looking forward to attending sessions and trying to capture them ‘live’ ready to post to the timeline in the exhibition area; a shame I can only be in one place at a time though as there are several slots where I’d like to attend two or even three sessions at the same time.

If you’re interested in attending, the programme is below, and booking details can be found here.

Hopefully see you there?

On Saturday 27th February, I delivered a workshop at the #ALLMFLSW16 conference in Bristol. I’d been asked by Marie-France Perkins if I could talk about primary languages in the context of the new curriculum which is planned as a continuum from KS2 through KS3 and onto Ks4 and hopefully KS5. I called my session Building Firm Foundations for Strong Buildings, harking back to a talk I did a number of years ago called Bricklaying for Beginners!

Below is my presentation, and under that I’ve written a brief summary of what I said.

I hope you find it useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or send a message via the contact form. 

• animal symphonies – clapping the syllables of words to encourage listening and awareness of word patterns
• using rhymes to listen out for phonics and respond physically
• using songs as a way of introducing topics e.g. ¿Cuántos años tienes?
• stories as a way of encouraging listening carefully and responding – ‘safe’ due the familiarity and repetition
• branching listenings or minimal pairs (slide24)- I first encountered these last year at ILILC in a session by Julie Prince, and I shared two examples from LightBulbLanguages – colours (Spanish)  and jobs (French) Learners listen to a series of words – or phrases – and at each step choose between two alternatives until they arrive at the bottom line and give the number they reached.

• PHONICS! So important! The keystones of the foundations as they enable understanding of the spoken word, pronunciation, enable learners to read effectively and also spell. Rachel Hawkes once more had burning ears!
• vowels and setting them to DISCO by Ottawan
• phonic islands and mats, referencing Sounds and Words by Lynne Erler and Julie Prince
• “stress punching” to demonstrate intonation and stress patterns
• “Spanish glasses” to read Spanish – chocolate is spelt the same in English and Spanish but pronounced differently (slide 30 ) also false friends like gift and Gift in German.
• tongue twisters to practice ‘getting your mouth around’ certain sounds
• using Trapdoors to practice sentences – learners will play long after you’d think they’d be fed up!
• using board games to practice the question form (I shared a Snakes and ladders board game worksheet from Eurostars with learners asking a question when they land on a square rather than giving an opinion)

Reading

• using poems like Doña Pitu Piturra that have a rhythm and a rhyme, and a pattern that can be followed – and the example also shows handwriting which fascinates and is worth discussion
• using Tarsia and dominoes
  
• using storybooks isn’t a bad thing – even Y6 like a story, especially if you link it to reading to younger pupils or making something to be shared.
• books don’t have to be fiction – non fiction is important too. Books on e.g. planets can be accessed as learners have learned the facts in Science and can therefore make deductions about vocabulary etc. Plus there are diagrams and images to support.
• the importance of making mistakes and discussing WHY you thought something
• instilling the idea that you don’t need to understand every word, and linking in to literacy skills of comprehension: where will I find the answer? what are my clues? what’s the context? is there a word in the question that helps me?
• making your own texts using storybird.com – I shared ¿De dónde viene el yak? There are other MFL Storybirds shared on the wikispace both fiction and nonfiction. Well worth a look.
• dictionaries can be glossaries, picture dictionaries and encyclopaedia/thematic type ones as well as the ‘tradition’ bilingual ones. I shared an activity linked to a colour poem which Y3 had rewritten using a combination of picture dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries.

Writing

• writing texts from other texts e.g. rewriting stories by substituting nouns and or adjectives (El bicho hambriento), or writing a story in the style of another (rewriting El Nabo Gigante to feature a teacher stuck in the PE cupboard who calls for help to pull him out!)
• the value of whiteboards and technology to allow for quick correction without committing it to their book – rehearsing and making mistakes
• giving structures using card, human sentences to physically demonstrate word order e.g. making sentences negative, or the noun-adjective order in Spanish compared to adjective-noun in English
• scaffolding
• memorisation – I shared another activity from LightBulbLanguages to demonstrate a way of supporting learners in memorising spellings by giving them the shape of the word

Grammar

• Grammar is the cement that holds all the bricks together!
• link it to English – and/or other languages e.g. making plurals
• using songs is quite effective e.g. ¿Por qué es mi mochila tan pesada? introduces Es+ singular noun and Son+plural noun – learners picked it up without me saying a word!
• I also shared songs for verbs in Spanish, German and French
• using parallel texts to compare language
• making verb spiders or flowers – if you teach South American Spanish you can use a hand!
• verb drilling isn’t wrong – Y6 quite enjoyed it last year and treated it like a code or game that they conquered as they did it more!

I then talked about the importance of promoting language learning in general and that no one language is an island – let’s celebrate the multilingual nature of our schools and draw out the experiences of our EAL learners. Comparing and contrasting languages is one of the things my learners enjoy more than anything else, and it’s language learning skills that are going to be key for their future success, especially as most of my learners will start a new language at KS3. I briefly highlighted the importance of including culture in whatever you do as languages need a context and it’s jot just about words!

Finally we considered that not all foundations are the same – some are more basic than others i.e. some pupils will arrive at KS3 with less language learning, or perhaps with gaps in the expected knowledge (whatever that may be!) Some may have experienced lots of vocabulary and not much structure, some may have had a very sporadic language input, some may have encountered several languages and some only one. Whatever the experience, and however many ‘cracks’ there may be, my plea was to not destroy what has gone before but repair it, and shore it up.

The final part of my presentation (which I admit we don’t reach due to overrunning previous sessions) considered the need for Ks2 and KS3 to communicate. KS2 can’t moan about what happens at KS3 if they don’t tell their secondary colleagues what has been done, and KS3 can’t throw their hands up and say it’s impossible to deal with all these children if they don’t talk to KS2 and give an idea of what would be helpful to them. On p69 of Language Trends survey  it says:

“The need to promote effective transition in languages between Key Stages 2 and 3 is not yet high on the agendas of either primary or secondary schools….the introduction of compulsory language learning has not yet stimulated increased contact between language teachers in state primary and secondary schools.”

That has to change!

My final thought was from an article about building foundations:

“The three most important purposes of foundations are to bear the load of the building, anchor it against natural forces such as earthquakes, and to isolate it from ground moisture.”

I’d categorise those three things as future learning at KS3 and beyond, wavering confidence as ‘it gets a bit serious’ and the ‘rising damp’ of adolescence! Ultimately, we want learners to ride those storms and sit proudly atop their magnificent linguistic skyscrapers, not falling like Humpty Dumpty never to be put together again!

Last Thursday I headed to Newcastle for ALL Connected, the title of this year’s Language World conference taking place on 20-21st March at Newcastle University. I look forward to LW each year as it’s a conference that offers lots of ideas but also lots to challenge my “little grey cells” and make me think.

This year I decided to replace my normal note taking with Sketchnoting as started at #ililc5. I’d tried using Paper app on my iPad there and found it quite tricky to use to the extent that it was distracting me from the session content. I’ll persevere and practice further but for Language World I choose a different tool – the notebook and pen! Actually, notebook, pens and pencils! I’m a strong believer in choosing the correct tool for the job, be that an iPad, a pencil and pen or a slate and chalk, and this combination allowed me to write more easily, select colour at will and, most importantly, focus on what was being said rather than worrying about zooming in and out or accidentally drawing whilst trying to make the toolbar reappear!

Below are my sketch notes created over the two days. I did them all ‘live’ – no retouching afterwards apart from one on which I’d made a mistake with someone’s name and felt I really should correct it as she’d won an award and deserved it!

Bertram Richter and Rebecca Bolland – Planning for Progress @KS2

Vicky Cooke – Teaching reading in KS2: leading learners towards independence

Jackie Rayment – Primary Languages Quality Mark

Bernadette Holmes – Interculturalism: The Power of 3

Clare Seccombe – Be a crafty languages teacher

Greg Horton – Talking the talk in the MFL Classroom

Rachel Hawkes – ALL for all and all for ALL: ALL CONNECT

René Koglbauer – ALL Connected: a celebration of language learning & teaching and volunteers.

Nadine Chadier – It’s all about the code

Wendy Adeniji – How can your teaching be consistently good or outstanding?

Roma Franziska Schultz and Emma Whittle – Ideas for using literature and developing literacy in the Primary Classroom

Rachel Hawkes – Memory and thought: why we can’t have one without the other.

Steven Fawkes – Now we are 25

Looking back on them, it’s amazing how much more I can recall about the sessions than I would following my more traditional note taking; my page was smaller than A5 so I had to carefully consider each word/phrase I wrote or picture I drew. I successfully kept to one page per session (45-50minutes) apart from two sessions where there was just too much to fit onto one page.

I’m still learning and developing my own style and I certainly need to work on my drawings (there’s a tortoise on one that looks like a sheep!) but I’m pleased with the way it’s going. I intend to keep working on it, and I’ll persevere with my iPad but I’ll save that for times when there’s no ‘time pressure.’

If you want to see someone else’s take on many of the same sessions as sketch notes, have a look at Clare Seccombe’s post that includes hers. And you can see many of the actual presentations by clicking on Friday programme or Saturday programme.

Today I’ve been in Devon (where it was raining!!!) speaking at a conference at Newton Abbot College entitled Modern languages, Modern teaching. A great way to start half term!

I gave two presentations today, one on Top Tips for Primary Language Learning and the other on cross curricular language teaching. It was lovely to meet the people in my sessions – thanks for joining in and participating in my songs games and activities.I’m currently trying to upload my presentations to Slideshare as they won’t upload directly here, but until then, here are a few of the video clips I shared today!

Ana y Enrique – Los planetas

This version has pictograms too!

And then there was the soundtrack to our Sumo phonics

And the amusing German tongue twister/ story about Barbara and her rhubarb bar

And if you want to know what it means… http://youtu.be/l3_tRPRt9x8

Hope that’s whetted your appetite. More when I get home as the Internet is straining 😉

(That’s my red/black shoulder at the front!)

It was touch and go whether I’d make it to Language World this year but having missed it for the last two years, I was determined to make it even if I wasn’t 100%.

And I did, albeit deaf in one ear and in need of frequent sit downs.

Below are my notes from sessions I attended.  You can also download many of the presentations from the two days on the ALL site – Friday and Saturday

Language World is always special to me and this year was no different. Thanks to everyone who ‘looked after’ me, especially Joe who was poised to do my part of the presentation should I keel over; Philip, my chauffeur(!); Julie P who also chauffeured me and with whom I had some excellent chats; Julie D for returning my cap when I left it lying around; and everyone who looked out for me, willed me to be better, and/or remembered to speak into my good ear at any point! Language teachers rock! 😉

Elaine Minnett session

Rachel Hawkes – President’s Plenary

Liz Black

CLIL (Judith Woodfield); Janet Lloyd; Kati Szeless

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

ALL Presidential team

Cynthia Martin – Past president

Karl Pfeiffer – President

Bernadette Holmes – President elect – absent so we had a ‘supply president’ in the form of Steven Fawkes

Looking back to look forward

Whilst KS2 entitlement still stands, it’s uncertain and as yet there are no clear messages from the coalition about whether they will or won’t be statutory. We’re also in the middle of a huge curriculum review of both secondary and primary education. But change can provide us with opportunities to reassess and reflect.

Change often happens simultaneously, sometimes across sectors too.

Many issues that arose with Nuffield are seen replicated now – developing languages vertically down from KS3 but also horizontally across ability range at time when languages were elitist. At the same time, comprehensive education began.

National curriculum – Languages for all September 1992 with all children 11-16 studying languages led to questions about approaches to teaching all abilities. This had an impact on dual linguists as FL2 got squashed out (although people studying language and …business / development etc increased)

National Language Strategy brought some coherence to languages in England – many success stories especially in primary phase, widening of choice post-14 etc.

KS2 Framework has been a key document in bringing coherence to primary provision. In 2009 92% primaries offering language in KS2 and 70%+ offered throughout the school.

MFL KS3 Framework arrived with an emphasis on understanding pattern, structure and grammar, but lessened target language in the classroom.

Building for the future – what do we need?

• contact time – more needed across the board – not adding at one end and taking away at the other
• coherent language learning experience – a continuum across KS2 – KS4 and beyond
• consistency of teaching approach, again across the phases
• content – creativity – cognitive challenge even in years 5 and 6
• continuing professional development
• cultural dimension
• NSC/CLIL4Ts/LinkedUp
• collaboration at local regional and national level –  cutbacks but still the need for support

Resetting the foundations

A policy for the future

“Languages are vital for the personal professional and economic growth of all UK citizens”

“Language learning and teaching must take their rightful place in Britain as educational and social priorities”

“All British pupils must have full open and equal access to language learning to ensure a level playing with their peers abroad”

“The professional status of language teachers must be of equal standing compared to teachers of other subjects.”

We believe that language learning and teaching are an essential part of rounded education for all UK citizens.

“languages are not about labels, they’re about people” ECML Graz

We believe that all learners should have the opportunity to learn their first language and at least one other language, including English, if this is not their first language.

Our education system should provide:

• access to the range of languages existing in the UK including recognition for the languages of new communities
• coherent learning programmes from primary to secondary

We believe that languages teachers should have access to high quality initial teacher training and continuing professional development.

Policy makers should ensure that

• languages have a settled curriculum with a favourable time allocation in comparison to other successful jurisdictions
• decisions relating to how children are taught should remain as close to the point of learning as possible

We advocate statutory status for languages from 7-16.

Opportunities through the Curriculum Review

• the position of languages at primary needs urgent clarification
• there should be continued language training for primary class teachers
• adequate time allocation should be provided  in the curriculum to allow pupils to elarn to a similar standard to their peers in other major jurisdictions.

(At this point my RSA Typing1 couldn’t keep up with the note taking so I took pictures instead)

Why do we need language skills? 

Languages employability and entrepreneurship

Tolerance and challenge

Changing hearts and minds

• All human beings can enjoy a language learning experience
• All pupils should learn languages
• Language learning has significant educational benefits
• Language learning brings invaluable personal benefits
• ALL pupils from KS2-4 should have the right to learn languages in the school curriculum
• All citizens should have access to lifelong language learning

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

Reframing languages  – presented by Dr Shirley Lawes , subject leader PGCE languages at Institute of Education; Mark Reid, Head of Education, British Film Institute and Muriel Huet, Lampton School

This talk reported on project funded by Esmee Fairburn Foundation carried out with 4 schools in conjunction with Institute of Education and the British Film Foundation

Why use short films?

• short (5-6 minutes)
• subject matter often wacky, outside learners experience
• introduces to film technique

Why do the project?

• revitalise the KS3 curriculum
• optionality means we need to attract learners in Y9 onwards
• what it means to learn another language
• PGCE MFL experience proved it a great way of learning

Aims

• to improve motivation/attainment
• develop interest in film as a cultural form
• develop cultural knowledge

Learners experienced 3 sequences of 5 lessons over 3 terms.

The project marks a development of work done by the BFI on using film in literacy, moulding it to the needs MFL teachers in mind – Cine-minis a DVD of short French films is the result.

One of the techniques used was “Tell me” grids with boxes for story / mood / character / setting – en français, qu’est-ce qui se passe? / ambience / qui? / où? ou quand? The soundtrack of the start of the film is played and learners fill it in with their ideas.

This encourages learners to build up pictures from sounds in their head, drawing on their  knowledge of the world and of film / narrative / text.

Once the first part of the film is shown, another grid considers surprises – is it as you expected? And what’s going to happen next?

I’m not going to spoil it, but we watched Les crayons and it was very unexpected!

Muriel was one of the four teachers involved and she shared the outcomes for her and her pupils.

It motivated her pupils greatly, leaving them more willing to take risks without necessarily realising it. It took them out of their comfort zone  whilst easily linking to curriculum, using the lack of prescribed content to an advantage.

For teachers, Muriel reported that the project gave an opportunity to

• develop new pedagogical knowledge / approaches
• develop their knowledge / confidence in exploring film as a cultural medium
• change of their expectations in terms of attainment
• integrate more ICU into teaching

Muriel reported that you need to have confidence to take risks professionally, to try out new ideas, be original and develop yourself professionally -and that this was an opportunity that she was given and took.

Cine-minis is available from http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk

And here are some free downloadable PDFs of information about film and languages.

Can’t wait for them to do some short Spanish films (hint hint!)

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!