Category: intercultural understanding

It’s nearly time for the annual ALL (Association for Language Learning) conference Language World. I first attended Language World in Oxford many many years ago and it’s remained an important date each year ever since.

After a year online in 2021, Language World returns to being face to face this year. Taking place in Sheffield at The Quays Hotel, it promises to be two days of discussion, thought and learning and I for one am really looking forward to it.

This year the theme is Language Learning for Social Justice, and sessions relate to the theme of ensuring that ALL learners have access to high quality language learning opportunities, irrespective of age, gender, socioeconomic (dis)advantage, mother tongue or heritage.

The programme looks really interesting and I’m particularly looking forward to sessions by:

Hannah White
5.1 Use the work you do to support EAL pupils in the Primary Languages classroom to create an inclusive curriculum and improve teaching and learning for EAL pupils throughout your school

Eleanor Chettle Cully
1.3 Isn’t it time we moved beyond ‘diversity’? Practical strategies for decolonising the primary MFL curriculum

Marion Devons
8.2 Don’t take me out! Why children with SEND or EAL should stay in your language lessons and how all children will benefit (I feel passionately about this as you can see here.)

and this really interesting looking session
4.1 Inspiring Young Multilingual Activists through Digital Technology and the Arts

In fact, there are so many session that interest me that it’s quite tricky choosing sometimes!

I’ll be speaking on Friday at 215 about “Literature”
3.4 Using ‘Literature’ to support Primary Language teaching and learning This session will consider what is meant by ‘literature’ before moving on to explore how it can be used in the primary languages classroom as a great way to support language learning. Whether as a way into a topic, to support phonics or prosody, as a sample text to be adapted or as a way to support inclusion and challenge insularity, allowing learners to see themselves in their learning, literature is a powerful tool in our toolbox.

Want to join me? You can find out how here

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Find out about my experiences at previous Language Worlds by following the links below!

Reflections on Language World 2008
Absorbing Language Learning 2009
Language World 2010 and various posts following including Raising Global Awareness and Creativity talks as well as sessions by Clare Dodd, Liz Black Cynthia Martin Oh, and my session – Bricklaying for beginners!
Language World 2011 – my session Entitled to enjoy Primary Languages and many other sessions by Chris Harte, Jan Lewandowski and Liz Fotheringham
Language World 2014 overview     Session on apps
Language World 2015 in sketchnotes
Language World 2016 in sketchnotes  Session on Sketchnoting
Language World 2017 in sketchnotes
Language World 2018 in sketchnotes My session Using Technology for collaboration 
Sue Cave’s session – Language Detectives Primary Show and Tell
Language World 2019 – The Sketchnotes My session on Supporting learners’ understanding and enjoyment of stories in the primary languages classroom.
I was briefly at Language World 2020 but didn’t blog it as it coincided with a particularly stressful time – including lockdown beginning a few days later!
Language World 2021 My session on Take One Book v2 My sketchnotes

Today is International Mother Language Day, declared by UNESCO in 2002 to “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.”

International Mother Language Day recognizes that languages and multilingualism can advance inclusion, and the Sustainable Development Goals’ focus on leaving no one behind. UNESCO believes education, based on the first language or mother tongue, must begin from the early years as early childhood care and education is the foundation of learning.

This year’s observance is a call on policymakers, educators and teachers, parents and families to scale up their commitment to multilingual education, and inclusion in education to advance education recovery in the context of COVID-19. This effort also contributes to the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032), for which UNESCO is the lead agency, and which places multilingualism at the heart of indigenous peoples’ development.

Follow the hashtag #InternationalMotherLanguageDay or #InternationalMotherLanguageDay2021 on Twitter for more celebrations of the day, and think about how you can contribute to the safeguarding the linguistic diversity of our world.

When we moved to Switzerland seven years ago, I had no job and no idea if I’d need my large collection of books. We decided not to take them all with us in the first instance so I started to make a list of them all whilst selecting some favourites that I couldn’t leave behind. The list stayed on my iPad and I forgot it was there.

Last summer I decided that I needed to work out how many books I had and list them somehow in some semblance of order. So I started a few Google Docs so that each time I purchase new books I can add them easily. And Google Docs have the added bonus that I can share the links so others can see too.

I’ve added the title of each book, the format and an idea of what the book is about and/or links that could be made to topics or to other curricular areas. Sadly it’s not searchable but you’re quite welcome to have a look!

Ideas:
If you’re looking for books on a topic, have a browse.
If you want ideas of books to purchase.
If you’re not sure about a book’s suitability, check and see if I’ve got it, and ask my opinion, or for a look. (I’m happy to do either!)
If you’re starting teaching a language and are looking for ideas.
If you just want to be nosey, go ahead!

So here are the links:
Spanish fiction
Spanish reference and non fiction
Spanish rhymes, poems, plays and puzzles
French
German
General ICU/GL/International/language promoting

Let me know if you find anything interesting or helpful!

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!

A couple of years ago I was asked to help produce some lesson plans for around celebrating and exploring diversity and enabling everyone to be themselves without fear of discrimination.* 

As part of this I did some research into books in Spanish that would be suitable for this purpose.

One of the plans I wrote was around families all being different and getting away from mum, dad and 2 kids = a family. At the time I did not use a book as the basis of the resources I made, but I’ve since found this book that I think is a lovely resource that I’d like to use next time we look at families. I envisage choosing a few chapters to read and discuss as a five-ten minute segment, perhaps in conjunction with RE/PSHE that I often teach as well as Spanish.

ISBN – 978-607-9344-32-0

Buy from Amazon 

Mi familia es de otro mundo literally means My family is from another world, but actually means My family is out of this world in the sense of being amazing. The book tells the stories of seven children, each one with a family to share, each family different.

There’s Juli whose parents have split up and spends part of the week with each, Lu who has two Dads who get married with her as ring bearer, Santi who looks nothing like his parents as they adopted him as a baby, Sol and Matu who are test tube babies, Vale who has an Argentinian Dad and a Chinese Mum so has two cultural identities, Leo whose Dad died when he was small so it’s just him and his Mum – and Negro the dog, and Fran who has what he calls una familia enredadera, literally a tangled family with parents who have split up and have new partners and/or children.

Each story is told very simply in short paragraphs of a very sentences with a longer information box that clarifies or explores some of the ideas and issues raised. The book concludes with more family models including grandparents as prime carers, parents whose jobs mean that they don’t see their children for months on end, surrogate mothers, extended families. foster families and globetrotting families with children born in a variety of countries.

El Mundo de Juli – Dos casas	El Mundo de Vale – Dos años nuevos
El Mundo de Lu – Papá, Papi y yo	El Mundo de Santi – Tomados de la mano

I really like some of the images that are used to explain families, in particular the idea of some families not fitting on a family tree but rather a family climbing plant!

The book concludes as below. In English:

Every family has a way of living, of sharing, of celebrating, of arguing, of loving. There are no two the same.

Sometimes because of that when we compare our family with another we think “My family is from a  different world!” Or when someone sees something in a family that is a bit odd to them they whisper “Every family is a world (or each family to their own)”

But in fact, there is only on world, this one, where there’s room for all families.

This is a message that I think is really important as we look to encourage children to value diversity and to understand that our life is much richer by learning about and from others’ experiences. We might not share their beliefs and we may find some of their ways a little odd but we all live on the same planet, have the same basic needs and, in the words of Jo Cox, “we have far more in common than that divides us.”

I’ll share more of my ideas of how we can do this in other ways too in future posts. Other books that might interest you along the same lines:

El gran libro de las families  (in English The Great Big Book of Families )

Cada familia a su aire; el gran libro de la familia

The Family Book

*I wrote the KS 1 and 2 MFL, and KS1 and KS2 ICT lesson plans that you can find on the Educate and Celebrate website here under PRIMARY. 

Original –
http://www.argentina-excepcion.com/en/maps-argentina/maps-argentina-chile/map-ponchos-argentina

Gaucho salteno Find out more about gauchos here.

Thanks to Vicky Cooke for sharing this lovely image this morning and the luxury of a train journey to London and back on which it write this post!

Whilst Intercultural Understanding (ICU) is no longer an explicit section of the Languages Programme of Study, it opens with the following words:

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.

I firmly believe that learning a language needs a context to bring it to life, and that context should not be limited to Spain for Spanish, France for French or Germany for German; the latter all the more important to me as I learned German in Switzerland! So I’m always looking for ideas to incorporate an aspect of ‘culture’ into activities. What’s more, learners really enjoy such activities. Clare has some marvellous ones on Light Bulb Languages such distances between Spanish cities to practice large numbers, Moorish tiles to look at shape and colour, Saints days to practice saying the date and so on. In fact there’s a whole section of resources marked ‘Intercultural understanding’ that includes Guatemalan worry dolls, Aztec codices and Mayan maths.

I’m about to start a unit on colour and shape with Y3 and, with a long-ish half term, Y4 are going to finish their topic early too so I’ve been looking for a little something to fill a gap. I was therefore pleased to see Vicky’s post this morning which sparked an idea. Can’t say it was earth shatteringly original but it was a good idea nonetheless (Vicky had it too!)

The above map plus the one on the left show the ponchos worn across Argentina  and I’ve so far thought of the following:

1. Knowledge of Argentina – count the provinces, name them, pronounce them. Countries that border Argentina.
2. Compass points / prepositions – Santa Cruz está en el sur de Argentina. Jujuy está en el norte de Argentina en la frontera con Chile y Bolivia. Entre Ríos está en el este al norte de Buenos Aires. 
3. Colour – giving the name of a place and requiring the colour(s) in response, either in a single word, a phrase or a sentence. Soy de Chubut ¿de qué color es mi poncho? or ¿De qué color es el poncho típico de San Luis? – blanco y naranja/Es blanco y naranja/El poncho típico de San Luis es blanco y naranja.
4. Pattern – ¿Cómo es el poncho de Salta? Es rojo con una franja negra en el cuello y en el borde. This site gives a description of some in English as well as historical information about ponchos. And here is a more extensive article in Spanish.
5. Combining all the above. Soy de Neuquen. Está en el oeste de Argentina, en la frontera con Chile, al norte de Río Negro, al sur de Mendoza y al oeste de La Pampa. El poncho típico de Neuquén es blanco con puntos azules.

I’ve also found more useful graphics on this subject:

A chart of ponchos in three sections according to their geographical position in Argentina at would be even better for detailed descriptions.
A chart of traditional Mapuche patterns used in ponchos – it would be an interesting challenge to replicate these patterns using graph paper – cross curricular link with maths there! See also http://matematicas-maravillosas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/puede-notarse-que-las-figuras-que.html
A colour wheel giving some of the symbolism of wearing that particular colour.

6. Using the above, design your own poncho using traditional colours and patterns:
Mi poncho es …… El rojo significa ….. Tiene estampa…… Es como el poncho de ….
(A similar activity can be found on Light Bulb Languages for flags/banderas)

Here’s a blank poncho that you might use (or you might just like to draw your own!) NB this poncho is the wrong shape as is this one.
You could also make a mini gaucho out of a lolly stick or old fashioned clothes peg like the chap on the right!

I’ve saved some links on Pinterest – Argentinian ponchos including the image below.

If you like the original map, I’ve also found maps of Argentina giving animals according to region and mates too as well as a beautiful vintage map of Argentina with images depicting the terrain, industry, dress and wildlife of each area and an info graphic of ‘La Argentina, el país dé los seis continentes’, the slogan of an advertising campaign I’m 1998 that emphasises the diversity of Argentina. Finally, a map of 24 ‘must visit’ places in Argentina. Having never been there, I couldn’t say whether it’s a comprehensive list or whether there are other places to add?

I’ve just got back from the Practical Pedagogies conference at the International School of Toulouse. Organised by Russel Tarr, the two day conference brought together educators from around the globe. Here’s the rationale behind the conference which explains why I travelled to Toulouse at my own expense to speak (I wasn’t paid to it):

“Educational conferences can be prohibitively expensive for ordinary teachers, and often focus on abstract theory delivered by professional academics with very little hands-on classroom experience. Such events often appear more concerned with making money than with genuinely improving the quality of education being delivered within schools.

In contrast, “Practical Pedagogies” comes out of the belief that the best teacher-training conferences are delivered by practising teachers, for the benefit of each other and their students, as not-for-profit events.”

I attended some excellent workshops and chatted to so many people that further inspired me.

Below are my sketch notes of the conference that document the sessions I attended. I hope that they give you a flavour of the conference. You can find out more by checking out the Twitter hashtag #pracped16 (which was trending at various points in various countries over the two days!) or by looking at the conference website. I’m sure that many will share their presentations and that there’ll be lost of blogging so I’ll update the post over the next week or so to share them.

Opening Keynote by Ewan McIntosh. @ewanmcintosh @notosh

Curriculum, controversy and current affairs: manoeuvring in a multicultural world by Mariusz Galczynski @MariuszEDU

Philosophy for Children across the primary Curriculum by Jenna Lucas @JennaLucas81

I’m a teacher: Get me out of here! by Mike Watson @WatsEd

Coding with cards by Yasemin Allsop @yallsop

The Art of Voice:bringing characters to life by Ben Culverhouse @ben_culverhouse

You shipping it? Closing keynote by Ewan McIntosh @ewanmcintosh @notosh

I’ve been asked to share the following project to ensure that as many people as possible hear about it and have the opportunity to participate. I wish I was a teenager again as I think I’d have jumped at the chance!

GUERNICA: SPEAKING TO MANKIND

“Guernica is to painting what Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is to music: a cultural icon that speaks to mankind not only against war but also of hope and peace.” Alejandro Escalona

80 years on from the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Picasso’s painting Guernica is as powerful and disquieting today as it was when the artist expressed in paint his revulsion and outrage over the first ever bombing of civilians within Europe.

The GAP Arts Project is looking for 20 motivated, creative young people aged 11-18 who are interested in immersing themselves in an exploration of the most controversial and moving anti-war painting of the 20th century, exploring its impact, its component images and reflecting on their resonances in today’s 21st century world.

Over three weeks the assembled company will engage in practical workshops, creative activities and rehearsals, working towards devising a collective artistic response – a performance utilizing a variety of artforms such as drama, movement, poetry and more, to be produced for a public audience.

If you are excited by this chance to work creatively as part of a team, to explore this key turning point in the history of Europe and to devise and perform your artistic response publicly, we’d love to hear from you. Whether your interest is in Drama, Art, Movement, Poetry or History, this project is for you. No experience needed, just enthusiasm, curiosity, an open mind and a willingness to explore.

Dates: 8 – 29 August 2016                   Times: Tbc (initially daytimes, potentially some additional evenings/weekends in last week)

Director: Ian Yeoman, formerly artistic director of Theatr Powys, 30 years experience of directing and devising theatre for and with young people. (Ian and all adults working on the project are DBS certificated)

Venue: The GAP, Jubilee Centre, Pershore Street, B5 6ND (city centre)

Cost: £80 per participant. This covers all rehearsals, costumes, production costs etc, PLUS membership of The GAP – Birmingham’s only young people’s arts space – and all the associated benefits –free arts events, free wifi, free tea & coffee, arts library, and the opportunity to be part of The GAP’s young creative community.

Contact: Ceri Townsend             07533456387

Reservation: To reserve a place please go to https://guernica-thenandnow.eventbrite.co.uk/

Payment: To confirm your place please pay online at www.gaparts.org.

Deadline is 9pm Wednesday 20July.     NB: Places are limited so please reserve and confirm your place asap!

Further details are attached here: GUERNICA

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 😉