#MFLSAT Oldham

Yesterday I spent a most enjoyable day at The Radclyffe School in Oldham at the third MFL Show and Tell (affectionately and tweetingly known as #MFLSAT).  It was brilliantly organised by Isabelle Jones and brought together about forty MFL teachers from all over the UK (and Germany!).

I gave a short presentation about mini-books, something which I love and which I have used successfully (in my opinion) with my primary classes.  Here is my presentation:

Mini-books

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A lot of people have asked where I got the jigsaw thing in the PowerPoint.  I actually found it quite by chance while I was looking for a suitable template for the presentation.  The instructions are here, and you can access the actual template via the same link.  As far as mini-books are concerned, the most important link is the "how to make a mini-book" one.

As is usual with #MFLSAT, I left totally enthused, my head buzzing with lots of ideas.  In no particular order, here are some of the things I'd like to try:

Selecting pupils at random to answer a question
Marie O'Sullivan showed us The Hat, which you can use to select one pupil at a time.  As far as I can see, once you've selected one particular pupil, they are then safe from selection for the rest of the lesson, unless you start the Hat up again.
Dominic McGladdery gave us lots of examples of ways to select pupils at random, starting with lolly sticks with pupils' names on which are drawn from the "Mug of Misery" (as it has been christened by Dom's pupils!)  I really like this PowerPoint random name selector from Fresherschools.com as well.
I'm particularly interested in this as it is one of the things mentioned at my PM review, and one of the teachers at my school is very keen to get all the pupils alert and not coasting.

Intercultural Understanding
Something I am very interested in (see previous posts) and so I'm always grateful for new links and ideas to help me in my endeavours. 
Marie-France Perkins showed us the website of Collège les Tamarins on the island of Réunion.  A particularly useful part of the website is the "Visite du Collège", which shows photos and plans of the school. 
Suzi Bewell showed us "Ecoles du Monde", a book written in simple French and with beautiful photographs of schoolchildren around the world.  Suzi also guided us to Links into Languages's 10 minute guide to Intercultural Understanding.

Groovy Tech Tools
Kath Holton showed us some of the tools she uses in the classroom and to facilitate home learning.  Spicynodes looks worthy of closer investigation, as does Zondle.
Vanessa Parker from The Radclyffe School showed us some PowerPoint ideas.  I liked her idea for a twist on Kim's Game.  Instead of just making a picture disappear and asking the children which one it is, Vanessa suggests asking them which one they think will disappear and giving them a point if they are right.  I also liked her idea to have a bag or basket of images flash across the screen and pupils have to name all the objects.  Flypast taken one step further.

I can't wait for the next one.  Where's it to be, guys?

A Language Show in the North, part 2

A big thank you to everyone who completed the survey, which is now closed.  128 people responded altogether, and the results will be very useful in planning an event.  Here are the results:

A brief summary of the results would suggest that we would be looking at an event with the following profile:

• in the north-east
• at the weekend
• for teachers
• concentrating on French, Spanish and German
• concentrating on Key Stages 2, 3 and 4
• exhibition focusing on teaching resources, language learning and teaching equipment and educational publishers
• seminars focusing on language learning methods, creativity, ideas for speaking, using the latest technology, assessment for learning

I hope this is the kind of event that you would want to attend.  More anon.

A Language Show in the North

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday night, the MFL Twitterati came up with the idea of a North East Languages Show.  There was a great deal of discussion about it at the time, and it is something that hasn't gone away.

I volunteered to look into it as it was partly my idea and also because I have a day off each week which allows me that bit of flexibility.

This afternoon I was corresponding via email with Ruth O'Rourke, the North East Regional Manager of Links into Languages, about venues and dates, and whether we would actually get enough interest to be able to put on such an event.  We decided that before we get stuck too far in we need to gauge peoples' interest.

Therefore I have put together a survey, which you will find embedded below.  We would be very grateful if you could complete it.  The survey will close at 1.00pm GMT on Friday 12th November so that I can feed the results back to the Twitterati at the Show and Tell in Oldham on Saturday 13th.

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