Primary Spanish Workbooks

In September last year I started using custom-made workbooks in my Key Stage 2 lessons.  Previously (for sixteen years!) each child had an A4 exercise book.  I would arrive at school early to be able to get onto the photocopier to produce lots of separate sheets, which I would then have to trim, give out to the children, and hope that they would stick it into their books.  

Their exercise books turned into glorified scrapbooks, which often looked scruffy, as the sheets were often either not stuck in, or stuck in crooked.  We also ended up doing little writing actually on the exercise book page itself.  There was also the issue of children losing sheets or not having sheets because they had been absent.

I suggested to both my headteachers that I should trial using photocopied workbooks instead, and fortunately they agreed.  Each child would have all the resources they needed all in one place, the workbooks would look neater than the exercise books, and the expense of producing the workbooks would be less than buying class sets of exercise books and funding my photocopying habit.

So far the workbooks have been a great success.  The children have the security of knowing everything that they need for the unit is in one place, knowing how far along in the unit we are and what is coming next.  It certainly makes my life easier too, and saves copying, trimming and sticking time.  The only issue we have with neatness is sometimes we have to re-staple some of the booklets.  I'll definitely be continuing to use them - I don't know why I didn't think of it before!

I teach a Spanish mixed-age curriculum in Key Stage 2 in both my schools, so the workbooks I have made so far are for that, and can be found on the webpage at the top of each unit.  I have also made editable copies of the workbooks available in my Sellfy store.  You can see an example of one of them at the top of this post.

Many thanks to the members of the Languages in Primary Schools Facebook group for their hints, tips and thoughts about using workbooks.

Flippity Randomisers

I have to admit that I use Flippity Randomiser a fair bit in my lessons.  I've been using it for different purposes.  

For example:

With this Randomiser, I generate sentences for the children to translate into English.  They use their sentence builders for support if necessary.  If the children have their own devices, they can have the link to generate sentences to help their partner to practise.

This week my Year 5s and Year 6s (age 9-11, mixed age curriculum) have enjoyed an activity using this Randomiser:

We were just starting to create short sentences using En mi pueblo hay / no hay.  I asked the children to write a sentence using their sentence builder.  There were a possible 16 sentences to choose from.  Then I rolled an English sentence using the Randomiser, and the children had to check to see if it generated the same sentence as theirs but in translation.  If they got the same sentence, I asked them to tell me their original Spanish sentence so that we could all hear the translation.  A very simple activity, but they enjoyed it!

A third way I've used the Randomisers is to check sentences for errors.

I use this one with Year 5 and Year 6 to practise adjectival agreement.  We roll a sentence, and then the children consult their sentence builders.  They check to see if the sentence is correct.  If it isn't, they have to work out the corrections that are needed.  As we work out the corrections, we nudge the rolls around so that the sentence reads correctly.  At this point, I just want the children to practise using their sentence builders, practise reading along one horizontal line to get a correct sentence, and look carefully at the spelling of the adjectives.

How do you use Flippity Randomisers?

Are there any other Flippity tools that you enjoy using?

Primary Languages CPD video series

(created by ChatGPT!)

This week I have started a series of Primary Languages CPD video series on my YouTube channel.  You can find the videos so far on this playlist.

I am endeavouring to keep them short and "bitesize" so that teachers will be able to watch them at a time that is convenient to them.

So far there are three videos, and plenty more are in the pipeline:

Also on my YouTube channel you can access the 12 French songs and 23 Spanish songs that I have made using Suno.com.

Language Learning: debate in the House of Lords

I've mentioned before that I have Google Alerts set up on my account, and they bring a number of language-related stories to my inbox each day.  Last week, on 4th January, I was alerted to a debate about language learning in schools and universities that was going to be taking place in the House of Lords on 8th January (last Thursday).  I posted the news on Bluesky, where the news received 3 likes and nothing more.  I also posted it on LinkedIn, where it got more attention that anything else I have ever posted on that platform:

The debate was moved by Baroness Coussins, a long-time supporter of languages and language teaching and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Modern Languages.  It took place to discuss primarily "measures, such as visa waivers, to improve the supply chain of qualified modern foreign language teachers and the sustainability of language learning in schools and universities".

The main themes of the debate were:

• the importance of language learning to the economy
• the importance of the language learning continuum and lifelong learning, including effective transition between phases
• improving the teacher pipeline, including teachers from overseas and the "homegrown pipeline" (but no remarks about how this might improve teaching in primary schools)
• the dangers posed by the recent spate of university language department closures

The text of the debate is available to read on Hansard.  I have compiled here the parts that relate to primary languages teaching, for the benefit of primary languages practitioners.

Baroness Shephard of Northwold, a.k.a. Gillian Shephard, Education Secretary 1994-97, a French and Latin graduate:

Many years ago, in an earlier career, I set up a number of projects to teach French in primary schools, with tight and co-operative links to the appropriate secondary schools. We trained teachers and hired peripatetic staff and French assistants. Our strong in-service training included what became known locally, rather unfortunately, as “French weekends”. In this residential training, French was spoken throughout, French food was served and there were obviously quite a number of wine tastings. The whole scheme brought together primary and secondary teachers with the Alliance Française. It was a true languages pipeline, with stellar O-level and A-level results in languages as a consequence. This was one way of achieving that improvement.

Baroness Garden of Frognal, also a languages graduate:

We need a strategy to boost language learning. Ideally, as the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, set out, this should start at primary school when young minds are open and young mouths can develop to make the different sounds needed by different languages. If you do not start languages until secondary school, young people are already getting anxious about making new noises and talking with new words. Can the Minister say what is being done to encourage languages in primary schools? Some years back the British Academy ran competitions to find imaginative language learning in primary schools, with some schools focusing on food and some on drama, music or clothing to stimulate ideas, often with great success. What happened to those imaginative programmes?

Baroness Prashar:

The economic security and other personal benefits of learning and speaking a second language have already been articulated in this debate, so I will not repeat them. It is clear, however, that we need urgent, concerted and co-ordinated action—from primary schools through to universities and beyond—to address the inadequate, long-standing and worsening supply of language learning and teaching skills needed to meet our future needs. It is also clear is that we need a joined-up and holistic approach that is coherent across education and skills systems. While the Government have ambitious reforms to address teacher shortages, their immigration policies risk undermining them, particularly in regard to MFL and, as we have heard, in maths and physics.

Baroness Smith of Newnham:

As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, pointed out, we should be thinking about modern languages as not just things that people study at school but as part of lifelong learning. What thought has the Minister given to people having the opportunity to learn languages at various stages? Yes, primary schools are important, as the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, said. It is much better to learn a language at nursery or primary school than in your 50s—as I tried to do recently—but the opportunity to learn those languages is important.

Lord Chartres:

In the Government’s response to the conclusions of the report [the Curriculum and Assessment Review], which was very constructive, there is support for a much clearer focus on the provision of languages in primary schools.

My fundamental question, which echoes comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, is how precisely are the Government going to substantiate that aspiration for a clearer focus on the provision of languages in primary schools? That is not only European languages, because I take the point made around the House about the vital importance of the very large numbers of non-European languages spoken in our schools, which give us an enhanced view of the world.

I am thinking particularly of a remarkable school in Harrow, Saint Jérôme Church of England Bilingual School. It was quite deliberately named after a translator, because that primary school not only teaches modern languages as a subject; it delivers a large part of the curriculum in French. It is a bilingual school. When the Government are looking at how to create a much clearer focus on the provision of languages in primary schools, I hope that it will be possible to look at that school’s experience of over 10 years.

I had the privilege of opening that school 10 years ago. The founding headmaster, the Reverend Daniel Norris, is just about to retire after enormous achievement. The experience of and results achieved in a school where 80% of the pupils have a mother tongue other than English that they speak at home are a valuable indication of what can be done to lay the foundations of constructive language learning at a primary level.

Baroness Smith of Malvern, the Minster of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions:

Languages are a vital part of the curriculum. We want to ensure that all pupils have access to a high-quality language education, starting at primary where languages are a compulsory part of the national curriculum at key stages 2 and 3. We are committed to enhancing early language education through to secondary to build that strong foundation for language skills and to increase the languages pipeline.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Chartres, referenced the Curriculum and Assessment Review. It recommended that we update the key stage 2 languages programme of study to include clearly defined minimum core content for French, German and Spanish to standardise expectations about what substantial progress in one language looks like. There is an issue about how you ensure the continuity of learning from the last two years* of primary education through the transition into secondary. Sometimes pupils have to move to a different language, or the secondary school does not recognise the learning that has happened in primary schools. [*I'm sure the Baroness means four years!]

Strengthening the national curriculum—taking up some of the good ideas talked about by the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, in terms of work between primary and secondary schools—could make an important difference. It is an area in which we can support further work. I know that all noble Lords—there has been mention of it already—are intrigued by the French weekends of the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, and would be very willing to accept invitations.

We are going much further than the review’s recommendations to tackle a range of issues that impact the languages pipeline. For example, we are exploring the feasibility of developing a flexible new qualification. This would mean that all pupils can have their achievements acknowledged when they are ready rather than at fixed points, enabling a recognition of progress and development in languages. This could also be extended to languages beyond those mainstream modern foreign languages.

We will continue to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education to ensure that all language teachers, regardless of location, have access to high-quality professional development and the skills they need to deliver the curriculum, and are able to develop the sort of networks that noble Lords have talked about.

We are working with the sector to learn from successful approaches to supporting the languages pipeline, including at A-level and degree level, and ways in which we can, for example, support A-level teaching through innovative partnerships with higher education and from approaches such as the one in Hackney, which is improving primary provision and transition.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, raised the issue of education technology; we are also exploring how AI and edtech can support stronger outcomes in language education, including exploring how those tools can help to deliver consistent curriculum content and support more coherent language provision across key stages as well as reduce teacher workload.

[......]

Languages are a vital part of the curriculum, and we want to ensure that all pupils have access to high-quality language education. That is why, starting at primary, we are committed to enhancing early language education, through to secondary, and to building a strong foundation for language skills to ensure a continuation on to A-levels and therefore to provide an appropriate pipeline into higher education. I recognise the concern that many noble Lords have expressed about the reduction in the number of students going into higher education to study modern foreign languages and the threats to some of those modern foreign language courses.

More experiments with AI: choral music

Disclaimer for language teachers:  As you may have gathered from the title, this post isn't about languages, but it does include another language and the skills that I have picked up by using AI in my language work!

I have spent over thirty years being a language teacher, and over fifteen years writing about it on this blog.  During all of that time I have also been a choral singer and director.  I started choral singing in middle school (age about 9), continued at secondary school and the local youth choir, and then at university where I began conducting for the first time.  Since 1996 I have been a member of a local mixed voice choir (it was a condition of my first teaching job, but that's another story!)  I took over as conductor after our leader sadly passed away in 2020.  I'm always looking for new pieces to sing, and over the Christmas holidays undertook an experiment to create a new choral piece.

I decided (Why? asked one of my choir!) that I wanted the words to be in Latin.  Latin A level never leaves you!   I asked ChatGPT to create "a short 4 line poem in Latin about the joys of singing".  Its first attempt was a bit prolix so I asked it to simplify it.  Then it turned out that a four-line poem gets very repetitive in one piece of music, so I asked it to create a second verse.  Here is the whole thing:

Canto laetus sum
Vox mea clara est
Cantare amo
Cor gaudet semper

Canto cum amicis
Ridemus simul
Vox fortis, cor magnum
Gaudium manet

(I sing and I am happy
My voice is clear
I love to sing
My heart always rejoices

I sing with friends
We laugh together
Strong voice, big heart
Joy remains)

I changed the original parva (small) to fortis (strong).  Otherwise the words are exactly as ChatGPT created them.

Next I pasted these lyrics into Suno.com.  (Read more about my work using Suno here and here.)  My first prompt was "a capella, 4 part harmony".  This just gave me results that had clearly been scraped from the work of the vocal group Pentatonix.  I tried some other prompts, adding the adjectives happy and joyful, and then "in the style of a folk song", "in the style of a spiritual" and "in the style of Palestrina" among others.  Finally, after seventy-two iterations (yes - 72!) it finally gave me a song that I thought I could work with.

I downloaded the mp3 from Suno and transcribed the soprano (melody) and bass lines.  I then ran it through a free mp3->pdf transcriber, which didn't do a very good job but was enough to tell me the keys and possible chords quicker than listening and transcribing would.

The final step was to add in the alto and tenor lines.  I edited it a little to prevent it from being quite so repetitive, and added an ending phrase.

I introduced it to the choir last night, and they seem to like it!

So would I do it again?  Probably yes.  I have a new piece created especially for my choir, and it didn't actually take that long to get from the lyrics stage to the full score stage.  I used AI in the initial creation stage, but it still needed real person input to get to the finished piece.  It would doubtless have taken longer to start the piece completely from scratch.  However there is always the ethical and copyright concern of where the AIs have got the content from.