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!

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of presenting at the PSB MFL conference via Zoom.

My presentation was entitled More than words with the subtitle Language learning is about more than learning lists of vocabulary. In it, I discussed my ‘idea of what ‘list of ingredients’ for language learning, particularly in the primary context. After discussing OFSTED’s 3 pillars and 3Is, I moved on to present my 7Cs!

And what are my 7Cs?
Context
Consolidation
Confidence
Communication
Culture
Celebration
Connection

I was thrilled with the response to my presentation and want to thank all the attendees for their kind words; I was floating on air all day despite an afternoon of stircrazy 10 year olds who’d not been out to play all day followed by parents evening!

If you’re interested in what else I shared, my slides can be viewed below.

What do you think? Have I missed a C? Let me know!

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.