MFL – ¡Vámonos!
 

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I’ve had a busy few weeks and I’ve finally found a moment to catch up with myself. As I have done for many years now, I took my pad and pens to #LW2023 and sketchnoted all the sessions I attended. I tweeted them as I completed them but I promised to collect them all in one place for easy access. And here they are! Thanks to all the speakers for their interesting presentations that all left me with lots to think on!

(too much to fit on one page!)
Liz Lord – A calendar of cultural activities to support language learning.
Tracy Williams – What really matters?
Isabelle Jones – Being a research informed language teacher

If you’d like to see how someone else saw the same (and some different) sessions, have a look at Clare’s sketchnotes!

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!)

Today I have spent my Saturday in Acapulco. Sadly not in Mexico but the online conference run by ALL.

Between 9am and 3pm, there were 6 presentations all on the theme of An Ambitious Primary Language Curriculum for all.

I’ve shared previously (and done whole training sessions about) how I find sketchnoting really helpful to aid listening to, processing and also retaining what is said during sessions, and today I decided to get out my pens and paper to record the day.

Obviously I couldn’t sketchnote and present at the same time (I’m clever but not that clever!) so there are only 5 in my collection but I hope that you find them helpful.

If you signed up for the conference, you will receive a link to watch the recordings. If you didn’t, this will hopefully give you a taste! It was an excellent way to spend a Saturday although I’m now going for a run to help me further process my thoughts.

My overriding thought – well, it’s actually Clare Seccombe’s thought but I’m SO with her on this!

“We owe it to the children to get this [an ambitious primary languages curriculum] right – they can’t be ambitious if we are not ambitious on their behalf for a cracking languages curriculum that really works.”

Clare Seccombe @valleseco
taking us through the rollercoaster of primary Languages over the last 20+ years and provoking us to look to the future that we owe our learners. www.lightbulblanguages.co.uk
Kate Percival Primary Languages Network offering us an insight into the role of the primary languages coordinator – what do we need to do and how can we best enable that ambitious curriculum?
Vicky Cooke @MsVCooke shared how to bring order out of “chaos” as we plan our ambitious curriculum – what do we want our learners to achieve and how will we help them get there?
Ellie Chettle Cully @ECCMFL gave us advice on how we can facilitate ambitious learning for ALL learners, those with SEND as well as the ‘high flyers’, emphasising that ‘accommodations’ often benefit everyone in the class not just those for whom they are made! https://myprimarylanguagesclassroom.com/
Marie Allen brought the day to a close explaining her model of assessment and clearly explaining the rationale behind and process of ensuring ALL stakeholders (learners, school, OFSTED, secondary colleagues) understand the progress being made.

Notes on my presentation will follow later!

A couple of months ago, Clodagh from ALL contacted me and said that Teach Primary were looking for someone to write a primary languages lesson plan for their magazine, and would I be interested? I said yes and last week, the new edition came out, complete with my lesson on p76-77.

It’s a lesson that I used on World Book Day 2016 when my school went with a Roald Dahl theme.  Whilst I teach Spanish, and the resources are therefore in Spanish, it’s an idea that could easily be done in French, German, or any other of the 58  languages into which Dahl’s work has been translated!

You can access the lesson and resources here on TeachWire .

And if you’ve come to my website via Teach Primary, welcome! There are lots of other ideas for lessons here, including more for World Book Day here.

And if you’ve never seen Teach Primary, have a look at the lesson plan for KS2 French on directions from last issue, by Amanda Barton or this lesson by Liz Black that links French and juggling!

Hopefully there’ll be another of my lessons published in the near future…

PS Thanks to Clare for sending me her copy so I have one for posterity!

Sunny Bognor Regis!

I was happy to be asked to present at the annual University of Chichester MFL Conference last week, and as I noted in a previous post, thoroughly enjoyed the positive and inspiring sessions I attended.

I delivered two sessions. You can access the resources and ideas from the session entitled Using Technology for collaboration in a previous post  Sadly, TodaysMeet no longer exists but otherwise the ideas, recommendations and apps are the same!

The second session was entitled Tell me a story! and concerned the use of stories and books in the languages classroom.

The presentation is below to view. You’ll also find the links to some helpful posts and bookmarks below. I hope those that attended found the session helpful. Please feel free to leave a comment on the post if you have questions or comments!

Mi Madrid (including newly published videos of the songs!)

Link to resources for El artista que pintó un caballo azul as a text to discuss diversity.
The book I mentioned that was recommended and demonstrated by Nathalie Paris at Language World was called Poux by  Stephanie Blake – check out the sketchnote of her session here, and follow her book blog and podcast here for more great book ideas!

Storybird wiki   Watch this space for what happens to this when Wikispaces shuts later this year!

My Storybirds

ALL Literature Wiki

Pinterest links to research on Storytelling and stories in language learning

Pinterest board of online stories

Blogposts on books on ¡Vámonos!lots of posts!

#LW2018 Sketchnotes

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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 .

 

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Continuing on my posts about books I bought in Bilbao, we come to a couple of non-fiction texts that I bought at the Día del Libro market.  I was drawn to them as they are colourful, very visual and were also very reasonably priced at €5 (always a consideration when I’m buying several!) Non-fiction texts are less readily available than storybooks and it can be tricky to find ones that are appealing as well as accessible to primary school learners. So I was really pleased to find these. There are four in the series Aula del Saber and I selected these two as I already have books about the planets, and dinosaurs is a topic that y1 cover.

Firstly Curiosidades del Cuerpo Humano, chosen as it supports the Science curriculum as well as containing pages that will be useful for Health Week.  For example, this page will be useful to Y1 who are looking at dental health in Health Week as well as Y4 who look at what happens to our teeth, completing experiments using egg shells and Coca Cola!

Y5 are looking at life cycles and human reproduction so the page above would be interesting. As you can see, even without knowing much Spanish you can understand that the table shows the gestation times of various animals. There are several pages that outline the whole process of reproduction including the female and male reproductive system so it’s perhaps not one to put in the school library but rather a resource to be used in context.

I like that the information is on bite size chunks and that there are lots of diagrams and images to support understanding. This section would be good for finding cognates.


And the second book is Insólitos Animales which has a similar mixture of short texts, diagrams, tables of information and Did you know..? sections.

I’ve selected a few pages that drew my attention.

This one could be the stimulus for a sorting activity, giving learners a list of animals to classify into groups and create simple sentences e.g. Una ballena es un mamífero. Una rana es un anfibio.

Here’s an idea of what a double page spread looks like:

Some interesting vocabulary in the tables below; learners could follow the model and complete for other animals. The short texts could be used for a ‘Find the word for…’ activities as well as simple comprehensions that guide the learner through the text, calling on their existing knowledge of elephants/frogs as well as their linguistic knowledge to respond.

Y4 will finish their unit on animals before the end of term so I think we’ll have a look at this book together! And I’ll let you know any further ideas we have to use it.

In my next post I’ll share some other non fiction texts that I have collected. In the mean time, here are some other of my posts on a similar subject that might interest you:

Muy Interesante Junior

ColoradoLibraries (the West Sussex link no longer works but there are some resources here that are based around animals and their habitats)

¿De dónde viene el yak? my own non fiction text written using Storybird.

 

 

I’ve finally had a moment to photograph and upload my sketch notes from last week’s Babcock4S conference, The Future of Language Learning to add to my earlier post on my session. Hopefully they provide a flavour of the day, and allow you to benefit from some of the words of wisdom! If you want further explanation/elaboration, please leave a comment!

Janet Lloyd's keynote address, complete with hot chocolate and balloons.

Janet Lloyd’s keynote address, complete with hot chocolate and balloons.

 

Dan Alliot talks about Progression and Assessment.

Dan Alliot talks about Progression and Assessment.

 

Two sessions on one #sketchnote! Suzi Bewell talking about Cooperative Learning in MFL, and Joe Dale shares some top tips for using technology in the MFL classroom.

Two sessions on one #sketchnote! Suzi Bewell talking about Cooperative Learning in MFL, and Joe Dale shares some top tips for using technology in the MFL classroom.

LW2016 large logo 10247503_10154802425704152_2236117332103244839_n

Language World was held in Rugby at Dunchurch Park
, a beautiful setting made all the lovelier by the wonderful people who attended the conference. As René Koglbauer said at the (misty) start: ‘There may not be sun but there are lots of smiles!’ (The sun did come out soon afterwards as well!)

Below are the sketch notes for the sessions I attended. Wish I could have attended more sessions but it wasn’t possible without Hermione’s TimeTurner.

And I’ll share my presentation on sketchnoting later in the week.

Opening Address by René Koglbauer

Opening Address by René Koglbauer

The Language Magician: developing a tool for assessing young learners by Louise Courtney

The Language Magician: developing a tool for assessing young learners by Louise Courtney

A window on the world - PLL and SMSC

A window on the world – PLL and SMSC

Show and tell - Clare Seccombe

Primary Spanish Show and tell – Clare Seccombe

Primary Spanish Show and Tell - Jesús Hernández

Primary Spanish Show and Tell – Jesús Hernández

Mary Glasgow Plenary Lecture - Curriculum Innovation by Gareth Mills (NFER)

Mary Glasgow Plenary Lecture – Curriculum Innovation by Gareth Mills (NFER)

Curriculum Innovation: Challenges and Opportunities by René Koglbauer

Curriculum Innovation:
Challenges and Opportunities by René Koglbauer

#ALLConnect KS2 Coordinator's handbook by Katherine Monument and Kirsty Williams

#ALLConnect KS2 Coordinator’s handbook by Katherine Monument and Kirsty Williams

Language is all around by Nadine Chadier

Language is all around by Nadine Chadier

Tackling the issues in KS2 #ALLConnect with Steven Fawkes

Tackling the issues in KS2 #ALLConnect with Steven Fawkes

What's the point of teaching languages to pupils with SEND? by Alison and Patrick Organ

What’s the point of teaching languages to pupils with SEND? by Alison and Patrick Organ

Innovation requires resilience by Anne Lise Gordon

Innovation requires resilience by Anne Lise Gordon

Tartan CLIL by Fiona Moffatt

Tartan CLIL by Fiona Moffatt

Closing remarks with René Koglbauer and Anne Lise Gordon

Closing remarks with René Koglbauer and Anne Lise Gordon

If you want to compare and contrast sketchnotes, and see some from some other sessions too, why not look at Clare’s post too.

IMG_8436On Saturday 27th February, I delivered a workshop at the #ALLMFLSW16 conference in Bristol. I’d been asked by Marie-France Perkins if I could talk about primary languages in the context of the new curriculum which is planned as a continuum from KS2 through KS3 and onto Ks4 and hopefully KS5. I called my session Building Firm Foundations for Strong Buildings, harking back to a talk I did a number of years ago called Bricklaying for Beginners!

Below is my presentation, and under that I’ve written a brief summary of what I said.

I hope you find it useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or send a message via the contact form. 

I began by talking about the importance of foundations, and the role they place in keeping buildings upright and stable. Although they are often unseen, they are the last things that are destroyed by time and erosion; I shared my own experience of primary language learning and how my 4 years of middle school French have stayed with me. We moved on to considering why starting language learning at primary is so important before considering what should be taught/covered at KS2, referencing a survey by Clare Seccombe and also a document compiled by the ESAGMFL group.
Looking directly at the Programmes of Study, we used Rachel Hawkes’ helpful “KS2 and KS3 side by side” document to look at the progression of skills and I shared the document below with participants, acknowledging the source as Rachel’s website.
For me, my most important task as a primary language teacher is to nurture a passion for languages and an excitement about learning and communicating in other languages. That, however, does not mean that it’s all  ‘fun and funky singing, dancing, cutting and sticking ‘ with no substance. There is a clear rationale to what I teach and I shared some ideas linked to each of the four skills as well as grammar.
Listening
  • animal symphonies – clapping the syllables of words to encourage listening and awareness of word patterns
  • using rhymes to listen out for phonics and respond physically
  • using songs as a way of introducing topics e.g. ¿Cuántos años tienes?
  • stories as a way of encouraging listening carefully and responding – ‘safe’ due the familiarity and repetition
  • branching listenings or minimal pairs (slide24)- I first encountered these last year at ILILC in a session by Julie Prince, and I shared two examples from LightBulbLanguages – colours (Spanish)  and jobs (French) Learners listen to a series of words – or phrases – and at each step choose between two alternatives until they arrive at the bottom line and give the number they reached.
Speaking
  • PHONICS! So important! The keystones of the foundations as they enable understanding of the spoken word, pronunciation, enable learners to read effectively and also spell. Rachel Hawkes once more had burning ears!
  • vowels and setting them to DISCO by Ottawan
  • phonic islands and mats, referencing Sounds and Words by Lynne Erler and Julie Prince
  • “stress punching” to demonstrate intonation and stress patterns
  • “Spanish glasses” to read Spanish – chocolate is spelt the same in English and Spanish but pronounced differently (slide 30 ) also false friends like gift and Gift in German.
  • tongue twisters to practice ‘getting your mouth around’ certain sounds
  • using Trapdoors to practice sentences – learners will play long after you’d think they’d be fed up!
  • using board games to practice the question form (I shared a Snakes and ladders board game worksheet from Eurostars with learners asking a question when they land on a square rather than giving an opinion)

Reading

  • using poems like Doña Pitu Piturra that have a rhythm and a rhyme, and a pattern that can be followed – and the example also shows handwriting which fascinates and is worth discussion
  • using Tarsia and dominoes
  • using storybooks isn’t a bad thing – even Y6 like a story, especially if you link it to reading to younger pupils or making something to be shared.
  • books don’t have to be fiction – non fiction is important too. Books on e.g. planets can be accessed as learners have learned the facts in Science and can therefore make deductions about vocabulary etc. Plus there are diagrams and images to support.
  • the importance of making mistakes and discussing WHY you thought something
  • instilling the idea that you don’t need to understand every word, and linking in to literacy skills of comprehension: where will I find the answer? what are my clues? what’s the context? is there a word in the question that helps me?
  • making your own texts using storybird.com – I shared ¿De dónde viene el yak? There are other MFL Storybirds shared on the wikispace both fiction and nonfiction. Well worth a look.
  • dictionaries can be glossaries, picture dictionaries and encyclopaedia/thematic type ones as well as the ‘tradition’ bilingual ones. I shared an activity linked to a colour poem which Y3 had rewritten using a combination of picture dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries.

Writing

  • writing texts from other texts e.g. rewriting stories by substituting nouns and or adjectives (El bicho hambriento), or writing a story in the style of another (rewriting El Nabo Gigante to feature a teacher stuck in the PE cupboard who calls for help to pull him out!)
  • the value of whiteboards and technology to allow for quick correction without committing it to their book – rehearsing and making mistakes
  • giving structures using card, human sentences to physically demonstrate word order e.g. making sentences negative, or the noun-adjective order in Spanish compared to adjective-noun in English
  • scaffolding
  • memorisation – I shared another activity from LightBulbLanguages to demonstrate a way of supporting learners in memorising spellings by giving them the shape of the word

Grammar

  • Grammar is the cement that holds all the bricks together!
  • link it to English – and/or other languages e.g. making plurals
  • using songs is quite effective e.g. ¿Por qué es mi mochila tan pesada? introduces Es+ singular noun and Son+plural noun – learners picked it up without me saying a word!
  • I also shared songs for verbs in Spanish, German and French
  • using parallel texts to compare language
  • making verb spiders or flowers – if you teach South American Spanish you can use a hand!
  • verb drilling isn’t wrong – Y6 quite enjoyed it last year and treated it like a code or game that they conquered as they did it more!IMG_8437

I then talked about the importance of promoting language learning in general and that no one language is an island – let’s celebrate the multilingual nature of our schools and draw out the experiences of our EAL learners. Comparing and contrasting languages is one of the things my learners enjoy more than anything else, and it’s language learning skills that are going to be key for their future success, especially as most of my learners will start a new language at KS3. I briefly highlighted the importance of including culture in whatever you do as languages need a context and it’s jot just about words!

Finally we considered that not all foundations are the same – some are more basic than others i.e. some pupils will arrive at KS3 with less language learning, or perhaps with gaps in the expected knowledge (whatever that may be!) Some may have experienced lots of vocabulary and not much structure, some may have had a very sporadic language input, some may have encountered several languages and some only one. Whatever the experience, and however many ‘cracks’ there may be, my plea was to not destroy what has gone before but repair it, and shore it up.

 

The final part of my presentation (which I admit we don’t reach due to overrunning previous sessions) considered the need for Ks2 and KS3 to communicate. KS2 can’t moan about what happens at KS3 if they don’t tell their secondary colleagues what has been done, and KS3 can’t throw their hands up and say it’s impossible to deal with all these children if they don’t talk to KS2 and give an idea of what would be helpful to them. On p69 of Language Trends survey  it says:

“The need to promote effective transition in languages between Key Stages 2 and 3 is not yet high on the agendas of either primary or secondary schools….the introduction of compulsory language learning has not yet stimulated increased contact between language teachers in state primary and secondary schools.”

That has to change!

My final thought was from an article about building foundations:

“The three most important purposes of foundations are to bear the load of the building, anchor it against natural forces such as earthquakes, and to isolate it from ground moisture.”

I’d categorise those three things as future learning at KS3 and beyond, wavering confidence as ‘it gets a bit serious’ and the ‘rising damp’ of adolescence! Ultimately, we want learners to ride those storms and sit proudly atop their magnificent linguistic skyscrapers, not falling like Humpty Dumpty never to be put together again!

 

 

 

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