Today was the annual ALL Primary Languages Conference, otherwise known as Acapulco. This year the theme was MAKING A DIFFERENCE. The programme was very varied with sessions on SEND, Transition, Using AI, Supporting non-specialists and much more.

I wasn’t able to join the conference until after 11 so need to catch up on the first two or three sessions but all the ones I attended were packed with practical ideas and thought provoking suggestions, and I was certainly inspired.

I was really pleased to conclude the conference delivering a session entitled Making a Difference – Languages and the International Dimension Anyone who knows me, or has read this website will know that this is an absolute passion of mine and consequently I had a lot to say – too much really for the time! However I did manage to briefly share the international journey of my school, explain WHY I think it’s important to explore and promote the international dimension, give some examples of the activities that you could try and signpost ways to find and make partnerships including a few sources of funding.

I promised that I’d make my slides available (you can access them (slightly reacted) below by clicking on the image) and those who bought a ticket for the event will get access to the recording so you can watch again. If you didn’t, and want to know what I (and others!) said, tickets can stioll be bought until 24th November using this link www.tinyurl.com/confpl24

If you want to find out more, I did a slightly different presentation at Language World last year that you can find here, and of course, you are more than welcome to ask questions in the comments section below or by emailing me. I’m more than happy to help!

If you read my post a few weeks ago about my recent presentations, you may be interested in an article I wrote for the Global School Alliance.

In it, I wrote about the international journey of Whitehouse Common Primary and why it has been so important. Click the link below the image to read it.

While you’re there, why not have a look at the other posts from schools around the world, sharing their projects and the impact it has had on their school communities. It’s free to join the Global School Alliance and there are many interesting opportunities to be found on their platform.

Since I last wrote a post, I’ve presented three times about international links!

In November I was pleased to speak, along with Vicky Gough of the British Council, to the ALL Portsmouth Primary Hub about Making international links to motivate our young linguists and celebrate their achievements. My contribution was summarised as:
Lisa took us on a whistle-stop tour of the many different projects she has been involved in over the past twelve years or so.  What shone through was the positive impact these experiences have had on all involved – pupils, teaching and school staff and parents.  Senior management have increasingly recognised the value of these projects and prioritised them within school planning.  Comments from pupils and colleagues, and more formal statements from school leaders, provide testimony to their success. 

In December I was invited to deliver a keynote at TMMFLIcons entitled International links and developing young linguists. I knew that 15 minutes was tight to say all that I wanted so I summarised the benefits/outcomes on the 3rd slide!

Even so, I still struggled to fit in everything I wanted to say so I wrote a summary of my points to share. You can download and read it below! If you want to see what was said and catch up with the recording, have a look at the @tmmflicons Twitter feed

And a couple of weeks ago, I spoke at Language World in Sheffield. Once more I packed in as much as I could into the time allocated, and still had more to say as I am passionate about sharing my experiences but also about the incredible value of international links and the impact it’s had on our school community.

After a bit of editing, I’m happy to share my presentation but I’m afraid that the file is too big to upload; you can however view it here or, if you attended Language World 2023, on the conference website.

I am really passionate about the international dimension, the power of links between schools around the world and the beauty of collaborating. Yes, it sometimes leaves me exhausted juggling and negotiating so that everything is done but it’s so worth it to see the impact on the staff, school, community and, of course, the pupils. Whilst some opportunities are no longer available to us and I still mourn for their loss, it’s not going to stop me. There are still ways to make links and work in collaboration with others and I will continue to search for more!

There’s a list in the summary document but a few to highlight:
If you are looking for a school for collaborations such as penpals or exchanges, particularly a French one, you can try Match My School.
The British Council has School Connect and also Partner Finding tools to help you find links and help them grow.
And the Global Schools Alliance helps create, maintain and develop links with schools all over the world.

It’s also worth exploiting any links you have as a school community, and also looking to see if your town/city has a twin TownTwinning.

If you want to find out more about the WCPS International Journey, have a look at the International section of the school website and/or our Erasmus+ blog. And please feel free to contact me to ask questions or for advice via the comments, via LiPS or Twitter.

I’ll leave you with a couple of comments and a sketchnote (thanks Clare!)

Yesterday I visited London in my role as a British Council Schools Ambassador to meet up with other ambassadors, reflect on last year and look to the future.

Throughout the day I sketchnoted the sessions, a variety of presentations giving information and sharing of international projects carried out in schools, clusters and organisations. Below are the results; I did tweet as I went along, but decided to retake the photos as they had shadows on them!

It was an interesting and inspiring day, and I hope that the notes give you a taste of the day, and what a wonderful thing international work is!

It seems a long time since Language World 2019 (it is three weeks I guess) so I apologise for the delay in uploading my presentation here; I’ve had a few website issues.

However, here it is, and below are some notes that you may find helpful in recalling what I said, or trying to decipher the slides! You’ll also find below Clare Seccombe’s lovely sketchnote of the session which summarises what I said as well!

Links on Pinterest that accompany this presentation : https://www.pinterest.co.uk/lisibo/supporting-storytelling-lw2019/

La Belle au Bois Dormant resources from Bernadette Clinton

A post I wrote related to using Pictogramas – Leyendo con Pictogramas

Examples of stories and poems in pictograms – Coleccíon de Cuentos con Pictogramas and also Super colección de cuentos realizados con pictogramas Y ACTIVIDADES

Pictocuentos
Pictotraductor
Pictoaplicaciones
Unfortunately I haven’t managed to find an equivalent for French or German.
WidgetOnline is a subscription website that allows you to make visual stories similar to the Pictoaplicaciones suite but in English, or other languages with an add on pack.

I wanted to share more about using Makaton and to highlight that there are a number of free as well as reasonably priced resource packs that can be downloaded from Makaton.org
I got the materials to accompany my retelling of Dear Zoo/ Querido Zoo from there and then translated them/applied them to the Spanish story.
And there’s an article on Using Makaton in Storytelling that you might find interesting.

Ten in the Bed songs :
In Spanish – Diez en la cama
In French – Dix au lit
In German – Zehn im Bett
Download the Makaton signs here to accompany the story/song
And watch the story told in English and Makaton by Rob Delaney below:

Finally, I had a pile of books to share but completely forgot with the pressure of time so here are screenshots from a couple. Firstly, Don Quijote de la Mancha which has the 2 USPs of being an authentic Spanish text, and also being written in Spanish ‘handwriting’, and El Pájaro, el Monoy la Serpiente en la Selva which is a charming story about living and working together.

If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below, or you can contact me via social media!

Thanks to José García Sánchez in the Secondary MFL Matters Facebook group for this lovely infographic/ map of European present givers. Whilst Christmas is past for most, Spain and those who follow the Orthodox calendar have another day or so before they receive their gifts on 6th January or Epiphany. I’ll certainly be thinking of activities to use this next year, perhaps preparing comprehension questions based around practising name of countries and / or nationalities but I’ll also be using it as soon as we go back to school as a way of eking out one last activity from the array of Christmas cards and greetings we received as part of our eTwinning projects.

Below are some images of our cards, temporarily taking over the Achievement Tree!

This year at Language World I was invited to present some ideas for using technology for collaboration in language learning. I teach primary so the focus was on that age group but there are many ideas and tools that are equally applicable for young and old! In spite of some technical hitches and running out of time as there was so much to share, the ideas were well received and I hope that this will serve as a reminder/update for those who attended, and a snapshot for those who didn’t.

Below is my presentation. Whilst all the links work, the videos don’t I’m afraid but you’ll find some below to give you a taster.

A little later than planned, and with huge apologies, here are my presentations from the East Midlands Primary Languages Conference held on Nottingham on 5th December!

Más vale tarde que nunca.  Mieux vaut tard que jamais! Besser spät als gar nicht.

Firstly, my presentation on Crosscurricular links:

And here’s the presentation on Technology for collaboration:

It was a pleasure to speak, and I was also able to attend a few other sessions which are sketchnoted below.

A marvellous keynote by the ever effervescent John Rolfe.

An inspiring session by Chris Henley about being BRILLIANT – finding my WHY? and being Ms Different.

A Taste of Spain delivered by Carmen Santos from the Consejería de Educación in Manchester – loved making – and eating – my brocheta de fruta!

And Elaine Minett charing her Healthy Eating resources based around the story ¡Hoy no, Claudio!

I spent this past weekend in Nottingham at the 12^th eTwinning UK National Conference held at The DeVere Jubilee Conference Centre – always the NCSL to me though! The name of the venue might have changed but the sense of community, fun and learning never varies, and once more I came away inspired, energised and still laughing at onions, pants and Bollywood Maori dance moves.

The theme this year was inclusion and below are my sketchnotes from the sessions I attended. Lots to reflect on and many ideas forming already.

If you want to find out more about eTwinning or any of the other British Council programmes including the International School Award or ISA, feel free to ask questions using the comments below or the contact form. I am a British Council Ambassador and would love to help!

Professor Sonia Blandford – Achievement for All

An interesting session on Lyfta, a Finnish designed VR and AR resource to facilitate global awareness and empathy.

Manju Patel-Nair – Diversity in the global classroom; beyond the single story

Andy Cope – The Art of Being Briliiant
Amazingly motivating session – being a #2%er in my special pants.

Jo Speak talks passionately about Inclusive Pedagogies

Paddy Carroll shares about The F word – failure, and how his project worked on developing resilience through learning from failure.

Joe Dale shares how to use Clips by Apple as well as Autodraw (a web tool) and a number of other apps.

Walking the walk as well as talking the talk, I’ve tidied up my sketch notes from Nottingham and the National eTwinning Conference, added references that I needed to look up and completed quotations that I’d not managed to finish.

They’re presented below in chronological order. I hope that they give you a taste of the weekend’s sessions if not the atmosphere of communication, collaboration and celebration of all things eTwinning. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment and I’ll try and answer them!

Opening thoughts from Susan Linklater and the NSS.

Keynote by Rohan Guntillake about digital wellbeing, and the connection between mindfulness and technology.

Drew Buddie talked about how you might use Microbits in the curriculum and in projects.

Participants in a recent PDW reflect on their experiences.

eTwinning, digital literacy and beyond – a presentation by José Mour Carvalho about society, technology and the need for awareness to lead to action.

Ray Chambers talks about Minecraft in education; lots of ideas of how Minecraft can be used in curricular projects.

Joe Dale’s session on Green screening – very practical but tried hard to take notes too 😉