Changing Phase
I'm a Modern Languages teacher who changed to Primary after 14 years of Secondary teaching. Read about my creative ideas for language teaching, suitable for more than just primary.
Friday 7 June 2024
Adaptable Activities for your Language Lessons
Monday 11 March 2024
Dictation across the key stages #LW2024
On Saturday I attended day 2 of this year's Language World conference. I gave a presentation about dictation, giving lots of ideas to use from Key Stage 2 (age 7-11) all the way up to Key Stage 4 (age 14-16) and beyond.
It was much easier to make a video for you in order to share it than to paste all the slides into this blogpost! Here is the video:
Sunday 10 March 2024
Language World 2024 #LW2024
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"Language World" by Pixlr AI Image Generator |
Yesterday I returned from ALL's annual conference, Language World, which this year was held in Kenilworth in Warwickshire. That's a good four-hour drive from here in the north-east, but it's always worth it for the content and for seeing old friends and meeting new ones. I only attended one of the two days this year due to a family birthday, but of course it was worth it.
Here are the sketchnotes that I made from some of the sessions that I went to. I'm afraid the scanning has gone a bit wonky with some of them! I spoke about Dictation, and will post about that separately.
By the way, if you are wondering about the image at the top of this post, inspired by the theme of AI at Language World, I asked the Pixlr AI Image Generator to create a "Language World" image. As you can see, it needs work!
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Language Education in an AI enabled world: the challenges, the opportunity and the future Prof. Kate Borthwick |
University Challenge: how working cross-phase can provide support and capacity to raise aspiration and develop learning outside the classroom Jane Driver and Sarah Schechter |
Translation: the key to growing flexible, imaginative linguists Jess Beeton |
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Cognitive Science in the language classroom and learning language through images and physical representation Saleh Patel |
Promoting International Links: a practical guide Lisa Stevens |
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Possibilities and practicalities of ChatGPT in languages teaching and learning Joe Dale |
Monday 30 October 2023
Sentence Builder Bingo
I'm always on the lookout for more ways to drill and practise vocabulary and structures. During the summer holiday I had the idea of using sentence builders to play bingo with.
One unit of learning that I have used it with is Pets, in particular saying that you have more than one pet. I used the bottom half of this sentence builder:
and drew up the above grid as my checklist so that I knew which sentences I had said.
Altogether with this sentence builder it's possible to make 36 sentences. I asked Year 4 to choose 5 sentences and write them in their books. Then I read out the sentences one by one in a random order. I repeated each one twice, just in case, and then went straight on to the next one. The children needed to listen carefully and constantly check their sentences, ticking off any sentences they had that I said. When they had ticked off all 5 of their sentences they had to call out "Bingo" and then to check I asked them to read their sentences back to me. I used my grid to check they were right.
We then continued until most children had heard their sentences. Some children were frustrated at the end because they had missed one of their sentences and so didn't get bingo. I did point out, though, that they had heard and identified 4 out of their 5 sentences, so not to get hung up on just one.
The classes that I tried this with said that they enjoyed it. I liked it because they got to hear over 60 sentences all in one go.
You may well have been playing this game for ages! I don't remember having heard it from anyone else.
Friday 8 September 2023
Listening Chests
One of my schools was extended recently and has increased from single form entry to 1.5 form entry. This year, for the first time, there are 45 children in Year 2 and 45 in Year 1. Also for the first time, there is a mixed age class - Year 1/2 - alongside Year 1 and Year 2. Previously I have always taught "pure" Year 1 and Year 2, so now have had to formulate a new scheme of work with 2 cycles, to cater for the mixed class. I'm teaching it to all of Key Stage 1.
I'm beginning with a brand new Pirates unit, using my maxim of "the usual in an unusual way". The children in current Year 2 can already count to 10 and know 6 colours, but the new Year 1s only started Spanish this week. This term we will be learning greetings, saying your name, numbers to 10, and 11 colours, using Pirates as the theme. Therefore the Year 1 children will learn what they need to, and the Year 2 children will recap some learning and learn something new, using a different context to before.
I've had to think of some different activities to usual for this reason. One of them is Listening Chests.