I was really pleased to be asked to present at the annual Association for Language Learning national conference, Language World. This year it was held in Kenilworth with the title Languages – a unique ingredient of learning. There were several threads running through the weekend including parental engagement, AI, transition and international partnerships. It was on that latter topic that my presentation focussed.

My talk was on Saturday afternoon, and over the preceding 36 hours I attended several presentations that celebrated and promoted international links including one by Jane Harvey and Richard Tallaron of LFEE entitled International projects in schools? Yes we can! as well as a session delivered by Almudena Martinez entitled Celebrating multilingualism – supporting home and community languages. In addition, conversations with exhibitors and other delegates meant that I was adding to my presentation until the last moment and ended up with too much to say in the given time. Therefore, as well as uploading my slides, I’ve made a recording of my presentation (click the image.) All the links in the PDF are clickable but I’ve added a few key ones below.

Lisa Stevens – Promoting International links – a practical guide PDF

Here are some key links:
British Council video
British Council Partner Finder
Global Schools Alliance
UK -German Connection (partnerships) Survey I mentioned is here
LFEE
GSA Student Council
International School Award
Global School Award
Turing funding
Taith (For Wales)
Languages in Primary Schools FB group
Last year’s presentation

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments below, in the comments on the video, via email or on social media. And if you attend the GSA 5th birthday event in Liverpool, please say hello!

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!

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.