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 .

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

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.

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

Another purchase on my travels to Bilbao was this book entitled Veo Veo.
It’s a really simple board book about two ‘lunas’ or moons that go for a walk to the park and play I spy. I liked it for the simplicity of the languages, for the repetition and also for the simplicity of the images.

So how would I use it?

1. A book to read as the introduction to a guessing game: a number of images on the board and the leader says Veo Veo to which everyone answers ¿Qué ves tú? (the refrain in the book) before someone guesses which picture has been chosen. This limits the number of vocabulary items that need to be known to play the game.
2. As a variation on the above, the leader could say what letter the item begins with Empieza con … or say what colour it is Es (de color) …. or give other simple clues.
3. As above but using the whole rhyme that I shared in a previous post some time ago. (Sadly at the time of writing the link to the East Riding materials in the post is broken and I haven’t managed to track down if they are still in existence. EDIT: Now updated as I’ve found it!) It’s a call and response with the leader saying the parts in red and everyone else responding with the blue words before someone guesses.
   Veo veo I see, I see,¿Qué ves? What do you see?Una cosita. A thingY ¿qué cosita es? And what thing is it?Empieza con la ……. It begins with ………

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

4. It could even lead into a Wake up Shake up style activity or PE warm up using the MiniDisco video below; I can see my KS1 classes enjoying being letters and waggling their fingers (and their bottoms!)
5. Getting away from the song/game Veo Veo, I also thought that the book would be a good stimulus for some writing.
   The story has the ‘lunas’ seeing two items, one on top of each other, then on the next double page, a third item has been added underneath, and then another so that by the end there are five items:
   
   Una estrella sobre un pez.
   Un pez en la nube azul.
   La nube sobre un ciempiés.
   El ciempiés sobre un iglú.To limit vocabulary, you could provide a number of labeled images that pupils could cut out and stick in a tower as in the book. At the most basic level they could label the items and at the next level describe using simple prepositions like en and sobre in the style of the book: [noun] [preposition] [noun]
   A little more complex would be to add some time conjunctions primero, luego, después, finalmente etc to sequence the items.
   And to add extra difficulty pupils could choose their own items to arrange and describe, perhaps not restricting themselves to placing them on top of each other but also placing them a la izquierda or a la derecha, al lado de, entre etc to introduce further positional prepositions, and adding a verb to the sentence; for example, Hay un sacapuntas debajo del arco iris or La silla está al lado de la naranja.
6. The texts from the above activity could be used for listening activities with pupils sat back to back, reading out their description for the other pupil to draw before comparing images at the end.
7. Another listening activity would be with the teacher describing a stack of items (as in the book) from a bank of given images and pupils arranging the images according to the description. Or it could be a reading activity involving drawing or sticking the items.
8. Or if you’re feeling adventurous and have a big space, what about giving instructions to place larger items in a tower (being careful of H&S of course!); this might be a good idea for a smaller group or club.
9. An added challenge for pupils would be to make the items rhyme with each other; for example
   Una vaca debajo de una butaca.
   Un payaso en un vaso.
   Un sartén sobre un tren.
   There’s a PDF of rhyming words in Spanish here which is helpful as it gives meanings, and this post gives a download of some rhyming cards as well as more suggestions on rhyming word activities. More advanced learners could use Buscapalabras, but the meanings are not givens it’s hard for a (near) beginner to choose suitable words for their sentence.
10. And finally, why not have pupils making their own books – using an app like BookCreator if you want to use technology or a mini book if you want to go ‘analogue’ – using all of the above, and perhaps having the own characters.

So, there are my ideas. Have you got any to add? Leave a comment below.

As promised, here are some of the trioramas made by Y6 at WCPS on the subject of Mi pueblo. The pupils were very excited about making them and whilst one class did a better job than the other, there were some excellent examples created. Each classroom has a (static) Spanish display and I’ve added some of the trioramas to the border of them. I was going to attach them like a row of houses but decided that it was batter with the writing flush to the wall and the townscape facing the floor so that they could be read!

Why spend the time making them?

• Yr6 needed a bit of motivation!
• It encouraged them to do their best work and take pride in presentation in a way that writing in their books doesn’t.
• Their work is now on display, or has been taken home (I took photos of them all to stick in books.)
• Others within school have commented on the work; again this would not to be true if it were in their books.
• It celebrates all the work that they have put in over the previous few weeks.

My second session was all about cross curricular language learning; how languages support other areas of the curriculum like literacy and maths as well as how languages can be taught in conjunction with and through other subjects and vice versa.

I mentioned my Pinterest pages; here’s the link to my Roman resources for Spanish. And if you click through the presentation, you’ll find links to things like the music for The Carnival of the Animals, a slideshare of Querido Zoo, links to BuildyourWildself and Switchzoo for making hybrid animals and that cheesy song in Spanish about the planets.

Some resources I showed included:

Habitats matching activity sheets

LAT SP FR ROM NUMBERS 1-31

I also recommended looking at The Iris Project for  Latin/Greek resources, and LightbulbLanguages has some lovely Latin stuff as well as planets linked to maths and science, and much more. And check out TES Resources from Joan Miró resources from Helen Stanistreet and Rachel Hawkes.

I’d also draw your attention to the list of helpful sites and documents in the last few slides for further ideas!

As it’s World Book Day or El Día del Libro in Spanish, I thought I’d share some ‘books’ written by year 5 at WCPS. After a session by Clare Seccombe on Minibooks at #ililc4 and a circular “All about me” mini book I saw on Pinterest, I came up with the idea of making a planet book.

Originally I’d planned on making it with lots of circles and a split pin like the Pinterest example, but my idea developed and I decided to use a paper plate to keep the book stronger and more rigid. The lines around the edge of the plate also made me think of the rays of the Sun so it seemed a perfect idea! I made a prototype, drawing around numerous circular objects to make the different sized planets (vaguely the correct proportions!), colouring the front of the circles and writing sentences in Spanish on the back. I punched a hole in each planet and joined them to the plate using a split pin.  However, I found that whilst the split pin joined all the parts together, it was impossible to read the writing on the backs of the planets. So Mark 2 used a treasury tag as they have a longer ‘stem’. Below are images of my example.

I shared the idea with Year 5 who had spent a few weeks on their planets unit. Unfortunately I was ill the penultimate week of term and they therefore had less time than I’d envisaged to complete their books but below are some pictures of their efforts – made, written (they had practiced some sentences in previous weeks but put them together in this lesson) and constructed in an hour. I’m really pleased with their efforts and how they tried to use vocabulary they knew in new contexts e.g. talking about the Sun which is not a planet, using negatives and looking up words in a dictionary.

Here’s a link to the cheesy song with which I always start the Planets unit! And below that, some links to helpful material on Los Planetas

httpv://youtu.be/qE78tXPYb-Y

My Pinterest board

Quizlet flashcards

LightBulbLanguages resources 

Planetas del Sistema Solar

El sistema solar infantil 

Poemas y adivinanzas sobre los planetas

Discovery Channel – Los Planetas

Just before Christmas I wrote about Night Zookeeper’s Drawing Torch app , a brilliant app that encourages users to use their imagination and creativity to undertake missions, drawing with their magic torch.

I was therefore very excited this week to hear that Night Zookeeper has launched a new app – Teleporting Torch.

The premise is similar – here’s the blurb!

Night Zookeeper Teleporting Torch inspires you to draw pictures and write stories about magical animals!
Do you think you could become a Night Zookeeper? Enter a world of Spying Giraffes, Time Travelling Elephants and scary Fear Monsters.
On your journey you will take on creative drawing missions to protect the zoo from monsters and care for thousands of magical animals. Can you turn one of your friends or family into a strange animal? Could you paint the ocean, if a monster has stolen the colour blue? It’s time find out!

Some of the features are similar to the Drawing Torch e.g. you still ROAR! to unlock the Night Zookeeper story, and the drawing panel is still as cool! Where it differs from the Drawing Torch is that missions are delivered on a daily basis “like a never ending activity book” rather en bloc and you can now create your own missions.

Here’s a video explaining it.

httpv://youtu.be/lRqPwoirBck

The ability to create your own missions is particularly exciting from my point of view. In the original post, I documented my conversation with @nightzookeeper about the possibility of having the missions in other languages. 

Now you can write your own missions on www.nightzookeeper.com, there’s nothing to stop you writing them in other languages. Accents work (always a worry!) and it’s really easy. You can use existing templates or write your own.

I’ve written two in Spanish so far. I used the existing ideas and templates, simplifying the language a little and translating them. And i’ve only scrolled down a little bit – there are many more ideas that I have yet to read, and I’m sure I’ll be inventing my own ideas soon! So, there’s a food based mission, and a clothing based mission. Once learners have completed the mission, we could share them as a class with learners presenting their creations and then discussing them as a class.

Another thing I love is that you can add as many zookeepers as you wish to each iPad meaning that I can do the challenges and so can my children; that’s great in the context of a class where learners are sharing iPads and can simply change the zookeeper to their identity and complete the challenge before passing on to another learner who can complete the same challenge or another!  You can also decide who will receive each challenge. So it’s easy to send different challenges to individuals, tailored to their interest, age or ability.

All pictures are saved in the Night gallery as well as on the iPad – here’s my gallery!

The app costs £1.99 but I think that this is worth it as it is now so much more versatile and customisable. And it can be used across the curriculum, not just in literacy! Once I’ve played some more, I’ll no doubt be back with more ideas!

Being a fan of 64 Zoo Lane and having a wild imagination, when I discovered that there was someone called the Night Zookeeper on Twitter, I was fascinated and wanted to know more. And I wasn’t disappointed when I found that the NightZookeeper pr

oject was all about encouraging children to be creative and use their imaginations.

To quote the About on the Night Zoo Teacher website (companion to the NightZookeeper one)

Night Zookeeper was first delivered as a creative project in a Lancashire school back in 2007. It was clear from the beginning that the project had huge potential to inspire children to learn through the mediums of art,

creative writing, ICT and playground games. And so, from the children’s smiles, animal noises and magical creations, a Night Zoo was born.

In 2011 we launched the website (www.nightzookeeper.com) and the project has since gone from strength to strength. Support has reigned in from education thought leaders, governments and most importantly from teachers from all around the world.

The Night Zookeeper team consists of artists, storytellers, primary school teachers and creative technologists.  We are all united in our belief in the importance of fostering a child’s creativity in the classroom and at home.

I have to admit that, not having had a class on which to try it out, I’ve not explored as much as I might. However, following on from #TMTwist last week which was organised by @nightzookeeper (with @jodieworld  and @oliverquinlan) and held at NightZookeeper HQ (looked wonderful – wish I’d been there in person rather than virtually), I revisited and was particularly interested to hear of an app!

Night ZooKeeper Drawing Torch is a FREE app for iPads that is just amazing or as Apps Playground says ‘ A CREATIVE IPAD TREAT FOR KIDS’. Taking the premise that you are  a Night Zookeeper, you are set challenges or missions to look after thousands of magical animals and defeat the monsters that attack the zoo. And how do you do that? By drawing of course with your drawing torch! I am no great artist but that doesn’t matter – in fact, I find that it helps me in the classroom as no one can EVER be intimidated by my drawing being better than theirs! And because it’s a drawing app that asks for you to use your imagination, there’s no right or wrong answer so there’s no fear there. AND it’s all part of a story too, beautifully narrated! Examples of the challenges (I’ve taken them form the iTunes page as I don’t want to spoil the surprise by revealing more!) – “What do you think a Spying Giraffe looks like? Can you turn one of your friends or family into a strange animal? Could you draw a frog, if a monster has stolen the colour green?”

So far I’ve completed two missions of the 22 on the app, each a star in the night sky. I’m trying hard to ration myself and not do them all in one go but it’s very tempting! The naughty monsters are already being tricksy and making life interesting. Below are the first two drawings I made (told you I wasn’t very good at drawing!), saved to the CameraRoll of my iPad using the save option – you can also email. Very simple!

As I said, I love any opportunity to get people thinking and exploring their creativity – whether young old or in between! And I’m having a blast playing with this app. In the classroom I can see this app as a great springboard to some brilliant imaginative writing, dancing, singing not to mention drawing of course. It could be linked to Science e.g. adaptation and habitat, to PSHE e.g. problem solving, and that’s just a few ideas for starters without a) exploring the whole story and b) looking at the resources offered on NightZookeeper Teachers page.

I’ve already tweeted @Nightzookeeper asking about the app in other languages – a bit impatient of me considering the app is only 3 weeks old! However, I like to get my requests in as soon as possible, especially when I like something! It takes Build your Wildself  (which I love and have mentioned before here and here ) a step further – so much further – and that’s just one aspect of it.

Two ways I might use it.

1. At the moment, I teach English to some delightful kids and over the last couple of weeks we (coincidentally) talked about animals and made up our own hybrids so I think this app will be a great next step – you can redo the challenges so that’s not a problem!

2. And although the challenges are written in English, there’s nothing to stop you using the Drawing Torch for things other than the official missions, is there? So I could set my own mission in Spanish for example and learners could carry it out using the app. They wouldn’t win a star but I’d find another reward! ;o)

I’m sure that’s there’s more to come from Drawing Torch in the future. In fact, there’s a competition for kids to devise a new mission and win an iPad Mini (closing date 4th January and you don’t need an iPad to enter!).

And I’ve just discovered that, despite only being 3 weeks old, Drawing Torch has already been nominated for Best Edu Mobile app in the Edublog Awards . Way to go @NightZookeeper!

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!)