Just returned from a wonderful few days in Köln/Cologne at Practical Pedagogies conference. The conference was held at St George’s School and, as the name suggests, was full of practical sessions led by research and pedagogy.

I was privileged to be asked to present, and I’ll share my presentation and tell you all about it in the next post.

Taking out my own slot, I had the opportunity to attend 7 other sessions plus the keynote and endnote. As usual, I attempted to sketchnote my way through the conference.

Sketchnotes are a visual way of capturing ideas on a page. They use words, boxes/clouds, arrows, and simple doodles to organize information. To find out more about the science behind it, you can have a look at my presentation at PracPed18 https://lisibo.com/2016/11/pracped16-sketchnoting-for-beginners/

Below are scanned copies of the #sketchnotes from #PracPed24. Hope they give you a taste of the sessions that I attended. They were all thought provoking, inspiring, practical and immediately actionable. Enjoy!

After a six year hiatus, Practical Pedagogies returns in 2024. To say I was excited when Russel first floated the idea would be an understatement!

Practical Pedagogies is a conference like no other. Over to Russel Tarr to explain:

Educational conferences can be prohibitively expensive for ordinary teachers, and often focus on abstract theory rather than real-world ways of immediately improving classroom practice. In contrast, “Practical Pedagogies” believes the best training is delivered by practising teachers, sharing effective and creative strategies and resources at an affordable price.

Three successful Practical Pedagogies conferences took place in 2015, 2016 and 2018 at the International School of Toulouse, France and at St. George’s British International School Cologne. At each event, teachers from all over the world delivered upwards of 100 sessions in a vibrant, friendly and enriching event over two days. Lunches, refreshments, and evening gatherings provided social opportunities for carrying on the conversations with old friends and new acquaintances.

After a COVID-imposed hiatus, we hope that the next conference in November 2024, once more in Cologne, will be the biggest and best so far… and delegates will be encouraged to purchase their tickets from March onwards.

Russel Tarr, lead organiser

Having been at all three previous conferences I immediately signed up to present and am looking forward to talking about A few of our favourite things! Activities for the Primary Languages classroom

You can find out what I thought about and learned from the conference in 2015, 2016 and 2018 by clicking on the dates and reading my reflections accompanied by my sketchnotes (subject of my 2026 presentation!) If you want to know what others think, check out the testimonials here including mine. I stand by my assertion that you can’t leave unchallenged and unchanged! One of the things I particularly value is that, as it is an international conference, you get a wider view of education and a different perspective on familiar topics. I love picking up wisdom from other education systems and curricula as well as debating the current issues facing us all.

This year I’m looking forward to finding out about Using Thinking Maps to enhance instructional experiences for variable learners, learning more about AI (no point burying your head in the sand!) and also catching up with Laura ‘smiley’ Riley-Genton who has had a busy time since I last saw her (getting married, becoming a Mum and changing job!) and attending her session More than just a language:ideas to teach foreign languages to mixed nationalities. I’m also looking forward to catching up with Carol Allen although I unfortunately won’t be able to attend her session as I’m speaking at the same time. You can check out the programme for yourself here.

125 workshops have been confirmed, led by educators from all over the world – including me! – and delegates can pick 8 to attend over the two days. There are a limited number of Early Bird tickets available if you’re quick! It’s worth it as the price rises after that.

I’m also looking forward to visiting Cologne/Köln once more.It’s a wonderful city and this time I can even speak almost passable German! I’d love to see you there. Lisa x

Each meeting and conference I attend, I take my notebook and pens, and attempt to sketchnote proceedings. It helps me listen carefully (and sit still!), enables me to recall what was said after the event in a way that taking notes doesn’t, and also enables me to share with those who weren’t there.

I do my notes live and therefore tweeted them as soon as the sessions were over – you may have seen them on Twitter/X over the weekend, but I like to publish them as a collection after the event. It also enables me to make sure I haven’t missed anything and check I haven’t made glaring errors – like adding an s to the ALL Twitter handle @ALL4Language Oops!

Here they are, in order that they happened!

The annual conference of the Association for Language Learning (ALL) is fast approaching. This year Language World will be held in Kenilworth on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th March. The theme is Language – a unique ingredient of learning.

As the website says:

We will consider together many aspects of education today in multilingual Britain. What is unique about our subject? In what ways does the learning of a language support learners today beyond the classroom – from being a child to becoming an adult? What are the ingredients of a healthy learning experience?

• Culture and International Contact
• Curiosity and Observation
• Connection at a personal level
• Communication through all skills and modalities
• A strong outward looking curriculum and external examinations

Following on from our conference last year we will continue to consider how the brain affects learning and how this can inform curriculum planning, the impact on teaching of the new GCSE and the importance of developing the intercultural agility needed to promote and support tolerance and respect for others. We are living through changing, somewhat challenging times and collaborative work is essential. We all benefit from access to research from around the world and collaboration across the key stages to university or training and jobs post 16 enables progress as we learn from each other. https://www.delegate-reg.co.uk/lw2024/

Keynote speakers include HMI Bianka Zemke and Professor Kate Borthwick, and there are more than 70 talks offered over the two days with something for every type of language learning. You can have a look at the programme here

I’m presenting on Saturday afternoon about how to make International links, something about which I’m really passionate; as a British Council Ambassador for many years and Global Schools Alliance Ambassador I do all I can to promote the value of the global dimension. You can see what I said last year when I shared the importance and impact of international links and global learning at Whitehouse Common Primary.

Whether you attend for one day or for both, I hope to see you in Kenilworth. If you can’t, be sure to follow events on Twitter/X – look out for the hashtag #LW2024 and I’ll try to give you a flavour of the event in a post at the end of March.

This Tuesday (27th June) I’ll be speaking at the L.E.A.D. TSA Hub Online Primary Languages event. Jo Darley has put together a really interesting programme covering learner autonomy, linguistic thinking, “quality first” teaching for all, literature and culture, and the value of supporting and celebrating languages through global communication.

I’m really excited to be taking part. My presentation will be about the benefits of international links and global communication in the primary classroom. As a primary languages teacher, it will be heavily influenced by the impact of my young linguists but also refer to the effect on the whole school.

It’s a full day, online conference starting at 915 and running until 330. You can join live for the whole day, pop in as you can, or watch it all back later with the recording being available for 30 days after the event. As I’ll be teaching all day (until my session) I’ll be doing the latter!

There are still tickets available at this link if you’re interested. If you’re planning on attending, let me know so I can give you a shout out!

Following on from the success of last year’s event , it’s time for the second (online) ALL Primary Languages Conference. Colloquially (and rather romantically) known as Acapulco, this event on Saturday 6th November promises to be another memorable event.

The conference title is An Ambitious Primary Languages Curriculum and features a keynote from Clare Seccombe followed by sessions from Kate Percival, Vicky Cooke, Ellie Chettle-Culley, Marie Allen and someone called Lisa Stevens 😉 If you use Twitter, the hashtag will be #ALLplconf.

I’m really looking forward to a quality few hours of ideas and inspiration and hope that you can join too.

If you’re a member of ALL or a trainee student it only costs £5 otherwise the cost is £25. How do you become a member of ALL? Find out here! Heads up – you can join as a primary school for £50 which is less than an individual!

The programme is viewable here and you can register here.

At this time of year, I’m normally gearing up for my annual ‘weekend away’ at Language World. It’s taken me to York, Lancaster, Leicester, Rugby, Nottingham, London, Newcastle, Manchester, Loughborough and of course, Oxford where Language World and I first ‘met.’ This year, things are a little different as I won’t physically be going anywhere as the conference is coming to me in my home via the wonders of video conferencing. And it can come to you too if you sign up!

Language World is the annual conference and training event of the Association for Language Learning (ALL).
The theme of Language World 2021 is “A rich curriculum for ALL”.

As the blurb on their site says:
“Schools are currently exploring how they can offer rich, exciting education for all their pupils. Ofsted encourages schools to make positive decisions to preserve or develop richness of experience along with breadth and depth of curriculum – for example, giving pupils the opportunity to learn a number of foreign languages and arts subjects, recognising local ambitions.  We look forward to sharing ideas and best practice from among our languages community about these kinds of curricular aspects, and about learning that goes deeper into content, motivates learners of Languages, culture and communication, and is broader than the exam specifications.”

Keynote speakers this year include:

• President of ALL (2020-22), Kim Bower;
• Dr. Michael Wardle, Language Lead for OFSTED;
• international expert on CLIL and Professor of Languages Education and Classroom Learning at university of  Edinburgh, Professor Do Coyle
• Professor of Applied Linguistics at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, Professor Li Wei

Im particularly looking forward to hearing from Professor Li Wei on Friday talking about Multilingualism, Language Learning and Social Cognition and then from Jane Driver on Saturday talking about Using CLIL and MFL strategies to maximise the curriculum for EAL learners.

And then there are the talks and presentations from which you can choose. Each session is 30 minutes long with a 20 minute presentation followed by 10 minutes for questions. Easier for concentration but challenging when you’re planning a session and always have too much for 45 minutes…

Some sessions that caught my eye as a primary languages practitioner include:

• Promoting intercultural understanding through cross curricular and extra-curricular activities in the primary classroom – lots of practical ideas led by Bernadette Clinton and Raquel Tola Rego
• A recipe for success! Creating a bespoke scheme of work – Clare Seccombe
• Engaging, enriching, inclusive: ensuring a primary MFL curriculum which delivers for SEND pupils – Eleanor Chettle Cully
• Celebrate your bilingual learners and promote linguistic diversity in your school with an International Mother Tongue Day project – Hannah White

As usual, I have a problem! The first two are at the same time as each other AND I’m speaking at the same time! And the second two are also concurrent. I’m hoping that with the online nature of the conference we might be able to catch up… but I’m not sure so don’t quote me on it!

Other sessions I’m looking forward to:

• What does an anti-racist, decolonised MFL curriculum look like?
• Embedding languages into the curriculum: practical examples from Scotland and Wales
• Teaching Phonics – Mapping, Method and Moving on

Another innovation this year is that some 30 minute slots split into 3 mini talks and I’m looking forward to many of those too including Dr Judith Rifeser talking about Nurturing intercultural understanding and celebrating pupils’ diverse and multilingual voices through creative projects, Bryn Llewellyn sharing Learning Languages on the Move – Developing Language Vocabulary using Physically Active Learning Approaches, Helen Stokes talking about Making connections between languages with translation skills: for easier transition between KS2 and 3 and How MFL teaching can boost whole school literacy led by Clare Caio.

So much that it’s hard to choose! You might even want to ‘attend’ my session entitled Take One Book in which I’ll explore how to make full use of a storybook (a different one from the one I shared at PHOrum!) You can find further details on the Language World 2021 website and the programme can be found here.

I am very much looking forward to a new experience and whilst I’d rather we were meeting together as usual, I’m excited for the new format and will still be wearing LiPS themed clothing and sketchnoting!

Find out about my experiences at previous Language Worlds by following the links below!

Reflections on Language World 2008
Absorbing Language Learning 2009
Language World 2010 and various posts following including Raising Global Awareness and Creativity talks as well as sessions by Clare Dodd, Liz Black Cynthia Martin Oh, and my session – Bricklaying for beginners!
Language World 2011 – my session Entitled to enjoy Primary Languages and many other sessions by Chris Harte, Jan Lewandowski and Liz Fotheringham
Language World 2014 overview     Session on apps
Language World 2015 in sketchnotes
Language World 2016 in sketchnotes  Session on Sketchnoting
Language World 2017 in sketchnotes
Language World 2018 in sketchnotes My session Using Technology for collaboration 
Sue Cave’s session – Language Detectives Primary Show and Tell
Language World 2019 – The Sketchnotes My session on Supporting learners’ understanding and enjoyment of stories in the primary languages classroom.
I was briefly at Language World 2020 but didn’t blog it as it coincided with a particularly stressful time – including lockdown beginning a few days later!

Having participated in the inaugural Practical Pedagogies at International School of Toulouse in 2015 (reflections and sketchnotes, presentation)and then returned there for the second edition #PracPed16 (presentation and sketchnotes), I was over the moon when I was invited to participate in the part three,  this time held in Cologne at St George’s School. This is what I said after the first two conferences…

…and do you know what? Edition 3 didn’t disappoint!

From start to finish, I laughed, nodded, puzzled and pondered. I didn’t stop for 72 hours, and am now utterly exhausted, but it’s the sort of exhaustion that comes from having had a good time, not wanting it to end and having lots to think about. It was lovely to meet ‘old’ friends and, as we discussed several times, pick up as if we’d seen each other last week rather than two or three years ago. It was also wonderful to make new friends, and deepen friendships made at previous meetings. For example, I loved having guided run home with Laura, exploring the woods and parks between school and the city and having a good chat as we ran. 

As usual I sketchnoted my way through the conference. It was lovely – and also slightly weird – the number of people who greeted me with ‘oh, you’re the doodler!’ or ‘ooh! I thought it was you, I recognised your writing from Twitter!’ and also those that started to see my notes over the conference and sought me out to find out more. Below are my notes from the sessions I was able to attend. One day I’ll work out how to sketchnote my own session…

Opening keynote by Hywel Roberts – could be subtitled Let’s say…  or How to teach Tyler. Via stories of teaching early years, kids in Barnsley, Vikings and an abandoned factory, Hywel shared his three words – imagineering, botheredness and phronesis – and challenged us to consider our curriculum.

After my first choice was cancelled, I attended a session on Language for Maths, a reflection on how games can be used to practice maths vocabulary. Without the necessary vocabulary, EAL students cannot enjoy success in solving maths problems, and the games we played and discussed required repetition of key words and phrases such as more than, fewer than, equal to, equivalent to, ratio, decimal and fraction. An interesting session that I’ll be feeding back to my colleagues.

My second session has not been sketchnoted as it was an immersive experience and to fully participate you have to join in rather than sit in a corner doodling, but I do have a photo of our island! Oh Brave New World; Getting to grips with Shakespeare, presented by Emma Bramley and Matt Wardle, took us on a journey through The Tempest focussing on Caliban as he is born (that was interesting acting…), loses his mother, grows, is ‘adopted’ then rejected and abused by Prospero. We considered the relationship between Prospero and Caliban, and ended considering what Caliban should do – follow Prospero and continue being ‘civilised’, stay on the island and stay ‘savage’ which raises all sorts of questions about what it means to be civilised, what isolation is, what freedom is, and what the power of language is. Was Prospero? Is Caliban? Very interesting and very challenging questions!

Session 3 saw me face another challenge – playing with LEGO whilst sketchnoting. Dominic Tremblay presented a session on Storybricks: Using LEGO for Literacy. He offered some advice on LEGO organisation as well as suggesting several ways in which LEGO can be used to provoke language sharing, reading and writing. A fascinating session in which my group and I wrote a Halloween story involving a witch, two children and a hero police officer. We were so engrossed in characters that our setting is rather sparse, but that demonstrated the need for greater coordination of effort, and perhaps reflected my preoccupation with sketchnoting… Here’s our story (imagine the children in the last picture – I didn’t take one after we’d moved them from scene 1 to scene 3!)

Two children are trick or treating on Halloween, dressed as a pirate and a ninja.	A wicked witch spies them, waves her wand and chants a magic spell. Poof!  The children are turned into an owl and a spider.	Fortunately, a police man passes by and commands her to turn them back into children.  The witch does as she is told and all is well once more.

Dominic was a brilliant presenter and is obviously very much in demand as he had to leave dinner that evening early to present via video link!

Last session of Day 1 was the ambitiously entitled 60 tech tools and tricks in 60 minutes – tech tips, tricks and tools you need to know as a primary teacher. Jon Kitchin whizzed his way through nearly 60 (I counted 51 but I’m sure I missed a couple!) ideas, tips and tools, all free, to make teaching and learning easier, more interesting or more effective in the primary classroom. I had heard of several of the ideas and some weren’t really relevant to me but there was plenty that was new and helpful including some music sites like Sampulator   Hum On and Incredibox that I’ll be trying out in Y5 music lessons! 

Day 2 began with Finding quality images and media resources led by an old friend, Theo Kuechel who led us through how to choose images that are suitable in terms of size, quality and possibly most important in this litigious day and age, safe to sue without being sued! I now understand Creative Commons much better and Theo kindly shared a curated bank of sites that provide images – and other media – for use via CC license.

Then it was on to a session I’d been looking forward to, my only ‘languages’ session over the conference as all the others were for older pupils than I teach, and also one that I knew would be high energy and great fun. I certainly wasn’t disappointed as Laura ‘Smiley’ Riley presented Grammaté and more with such energy that I defy anyone NOT to enjoy languages if she’s your teacher! Lots of ideas for teaching grammar including human sentences, hats, Gringo, Battleships and the aforementioned Grammaté which involves combining movement to parts of speech – the title coming from grammar and karate.

Here we are in action (everyone else can actually speak German, properly!)

Grammaté in action at #pracped18 . Top contribution from @lisibo and thanks to Laura Riley for a great workshop. pic.twitter.com/3PFOGarxpb

— 3d Backlash (@3dBacklash) November 2, 2018

Great fun and a good way to test my German (made slightly easier by Laura kindly colour coding the sentences!) Another activity I loved and will ‘steal’ was her take on Tagtiv8 that involved retrieving words from the walls, firstly verbs, then pronouns to sort, match up, discuss, create sentences and so on. 

And what’s more, I  now understand about TMP and know that Sven who likes wenn kicks the verb to the end 😉

Session 7 concerned Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the classroom, led by Adele Bates. This session challenged us to consider what these words mean for our students. Adele gave each of us a pupil profile and took us on a Privilege Walk though a school day in their shoes. I ended up far behind others due to being a wheelchair and being EAL. I was very interested in the Pyramid of Hate, and how bias escalates into acts of prejudice and upwards. Really thought provoking. Key thoughts – Avoidance is not a neutral strategy (@r_e_e_t_a_) and sometimes you have to forget about being a “teacher” and be “human.”

I was speaking during session 8 (post to follow!) so my final sketchnote was from the closing keynote by Hywel Roberts.

And then it was time to leave St George’s and drive off into the sunset (literally!), wondering where #PracPed20 will be taking place. 

Another brilliant conference, with great teaching and learning as well as opportunities to socialise in pubs, restaurants and bars. Looking forward to October 2020 and the fourth edition of Practical Pedagogies – if you want to find out where and exactly when, sign up for notifications here.

See you there!

After two successful years at the International School of Toulouse in 2015 and 2016,  Practical Pedagogies is returning in 2018. This time it’s moved to Cologne and St Goerge’s English International School. Here’s what Russel Tarr, the conference organiser says:

Educational conferences can be prohibitively expensive for ordinary teachers, and often focus on abstract theory delivered by academics with little hands-on classroom experience. In contrast, “Practical Pedagogies” believes the best training conferences are delivered by practising teachers, for the benefit of each other and their students, at an affordable price.

Practical Pedagogies 2015 and 2016 took place at the International School of Toulouse, France. Teachers from all over the world delivered upwards of 100 sessions in a vibrant, friendly and enriching event lasting two days. Hot lunches, refreshments, an evening restaurant meal after day 1, and a bar tour after day 2 provided social opportunities for carrying on the conversations with old friends and new acquaintances.

The feedback was so enthusiastic that it’s been decided to take the show on the road, with St. George’s International School Cologne scheduled to host the next conference in November 2018. Session proposals will be invited as from January, a programme will be drawn up in February, and delegates will be encouraged to book their places from March onwards.

Russel Tarr, conference organiser (@russeltarr)

100 workshops have been confirmed, led by educators from all over the world – including me! – and delegates can pick 8 to attend over the two days.  And the good news is, you’ve got two more days to get the Early Bird discount.

Still need convincing? Here’s what I think!  

Would be great to see you there. Lisa x

On Thursday, I had the privilege – and it really was a privilege – of delivering one of the keynotes at the Primary Languages Network conference in Lymm. It was a day jam packed with ideas and demonstrated the power and value of a community of teachers and learners, bouncing ideas of each other and sharing their light bulb moments. And celebrating those ideas too.

I did my best to sketch note all the sessions, including the Spotlight sessions, and you can see them below. I would recommend that you follow the PLN blog to keep abreast of all the fantastic ideas that spring out of the network (This post was inspired by the day), and even consider joining for further support and inspiration!

Thanks to Janet for inviting me – I had a wonderful day! You can see some of the highlights in the video at the bottom of the post!

Details of my session will follow in the next post!

Keeping it Primary – the wonderful Therese Comfort shared what makes Primary language learning so special, with special stickers from La Petite Souris/El Ratoncito Pérez/ die Zahnfee.

How to identify progress – Dan Alliot talked about what progress looks like in primary language learning, and challenged us to flip the triangle so it’s not always point first!

Embedding phonics in Language Learning – Sue Cave challenged us to pronounce Hungarian words using phonics to support us, talking us through the 7 stepping stones to ‘code breaking’ and sharing ideas of how to practice and reinforce phonics in French.

Throughout the day there were Spotlights – shorter presentations of one or two ideas each from PLN associates and also exhibitors. I’ve tried to capture them all in the above – some with more success than others (spot the pig that looks suspiciously like a cow!) Ideas included songs for EDL, games, purposeful writing activities using technology, AR dragons, using actions and creating raps and poems.

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