Managing choral speaking

 

In my previous post, I wrote about language lessons in the "new normal", particularly with regard to choral speaking.

To help manage choral speaking, I have made some PowerPoint slides which tell the students which group should be speaking at any one time.  It also tells them what they should be doing while others are speaking.  There are slides for two groups and three groups, and the PowerPoint is available for Spanish, French, German and Italian.  You can download it from here.

Grouping in 3 groups (which I will have to for my classes of over 30) was a slight problem for Spanish, as the flag only has 2 colours.  So the three groups will be Los Rojos, Los Amarillos and Los Escudos, which I will probably type onto the slide.  Great for phonics too!

A bit random

Fellow NE-tweep Dom McGladdery often blogs about random things.  I don't mean random in the "no specific purpose" sense or the "haphazard" sense, but in the sense that many of his posts are about random number generators, name generators and language generators.  Very useful things.  Dom gave me the link once to the Fresher Schools random name generator, a PowerPoint based generator which is very easy to use.  You just put the children's names on it, set it off and then press S to stop it, randomly.  A good thing to keep on your USB to bring out when needed.

Last week I adapted it for my Year 4 Frenchists, with whom I have been doing the weather.  I put the eight weather pictures that we have been using on the slides and we used the resulting PowerPoint to randomly select us a weather picture lots and lots of times.  The children thought of some good ways to use it.  They are a bit addicted to playing Round the World, so we used the PowerPoint to generate the weather for each turn of that.  Then they had to predict which one would come up, earning a point if they were right.  And of course we did the "say what you see" one as well.

Here is the PowerPoint if you fancy trying it out:


I'm sure this can be adapted for different areas of language.  For example choose an infinitive, then randomly select a personal pronoun or tense and the students have to give the right part of the verb.

Language Show Live 2012: Saturday

I stayed at Language Show Live until about 2pm on Saturday.  I called it a day then partly because I knew I was going to be returning on Sunday with my sister and I wanted to have some stands left to visit, and partly because it was going to be the only opportunity I would have to spend some time in my home town, which I don't get to do very often.

I began the day with Blurring the Boundaries...-Languages beyond the classroom, Rachel Hawkes's first talk of the day.  Rachel spoke about initiatives such as Spanglovision, Language Beatz and Language Leaders.  You can read about all of them on Rachel's website.  I won't say any more about them here but recommend instead that you read Sally-Jane Braisby's excellent blogpost about the same seminar.

It was during this seminar that I caught up with a large number of #MFLTwitterati.  Great to see them all in the flesh again!

The next seminar I attended had an intriguing title: GramMAGICal structures, and an even more intriguing description: "Amaze your students with magic and get them to learn, practise and perform tricks while using various grammar structures in a way they will never forget!"  It was given by James Stubbs, about whom I have heard good things on Twitter, and so I thought I would give it a try.  And it was actually about proper magic - James is a member of the Magic Circle and was mentored by the late Ali Bongo.  

I made the mistake of sitting near the back, and soon lots of taller people were sitting in front of me (not difficult to be taller than me) so I couldn't see most of what James was doing.  However I could hear how useful magic tricks are for repeating language and for introducing grammar like the imperative and pronoun objects, which are not the easiest things to teach.  The main thing that I took away from the seminar was the importance of using language for real purposes.  You could show the students a trick, or a 'make', or a piece of writing, or a picture, and then give them the instruction sheet - they then have a reason for reading, to see how to do what you have shown them.  Another idea I got from James was to have students learning how to do something and then demonstrating it to other students.  This has given me an idea for how to approach the next 'make' that I do.

The third and final seminar that I saw on Saturday was Top 10 tips to give a fabulous speech, by Morwenna Rowe from Speak Easily.  I was particularly interested in this one because public speaking is something that I am doing more and more, and I wanted to make sure I was on the right track.  

Morwenna began by talking about the impact that being a non-native speaker of English can have on giving a presentation in English.  She demonstrated the stress patterns of French and Spanish and the tonal nature of some Asian languages and how it can be difficult for speakers of these (and other) languages to give correct emphasis to English.  She then talked about the effects that nerves can have on the body and on the way that you speak.  I have experienced many of the 'symptoms' that she mentioned - tight voice, butterflies and blushing for example, and it was reassuring to find out that these are all a result of stress hormones produced by being nervous.  She stressed that it is important to stand properly - more on your toes than on your heels - and to breathe from deep in your belly not from your upper chest. It is vital to make good eye contact with your audience so as to really connect with them.  Your eyes should be parallel with the eyes of the audience.

The most interesting part for me was the section about PowerPoint.  Morwenna suggests writing your speech or presentation first, then creating the PowerPoint slides after that.  The slides should add visual interest with photos, diagrams or keywords, but never lists of bullet points and large amounts of text.  In that case the audience will switch from listening to you to reading the screen.  My PowerPoint slides now are usually an image and a couple of words.  When I post my presentations to Slideshare I like to slidecast them simply because people looking at the slides after the event won't get much detail from them.

I brought away some excellent handouts from Speak Easily, and also took some for my husband, who does a lot of speaking as well.

*Images by the brilliant Bev Evans

The prettiest little squiggles of black

"Figures are the most shocking things in the world. The prettiest little squiggles of black looked at in the right light, and yet consider the blow they can give you upon the heart." 

H.G.Wells, The History of Mr Polly

The font that we choose can have a huge impact on our resource and how it is received by our students.  Are the letters too big or too small ?  Are they too grown-up looking or too babyish ?  What does the font tell them about the tone and subject matter of the resource?  There are many very good-looking fonts around these days (I should know - I spend long enough browsing them when I should be doing something else!) but are they just "the prettiest little squiggles of black" or do they really help us to say what we want to say?

I participated in a conversation about this on Twitter a couple of evenings ago.  @littlejessw and I were discussing which fonts to use in PowerPoints and other resources, in particular those intended for students with special educational needs.  The stimulus of this conversation was "is it OK to use Comic Sans for resources or should I use something more 'grown-up'?"

At one time, Comic Sans was my default font. Then I moved on to Arial Rounded MT Bold.  Now it's ordinary Arial.  However, the difference now is that I choose my font carefully depending on who the resource is for.  For PowerPoints I use Comic Sans for primary (have to use one that the school system will recognise, which narrows the choice considerably) and Arial or Verdana for everything else.  

In 1999, the SEN department at my school gave everyone a document called "Working with children with learning difficulties".   I found the sections on Legibility, Attractiveness/Layout, Instructions and Readability incredibly useful, and they informed and continue to inform my current practice when I am making resources.   Here are my favourite tips for producing resources for students with SEN or for primary school children:

•  Choose a Sans Serif font with a "rounded a".  (This is why Comic Sans is useful.)
•  DON'T WRITE THINGS IN CAPITAL LETTERS.  Lower case letters are much easier to read as they have rounder, more easily recognised shapes.  Capitals have more straight lines.
• Choose a font size of at least 14pt.
• Leave adequate space between lines and paragraphs - don't try to cram too much onto a page.
• Include images and diagrams which are close to the relevant text.
• Make headings stand out.  Use bold, a different font or a different size.
• Make instructions clearly distinct from the rest of the worksheet.
• Try to give a working example for clarity.
• Produce a glossary of vocabulary.
• Restrict the amount of information to be absorbed at any one time.

I have since found this document, which has been produced for teachers and parents who prepare texts for children with reading difficulties, particularly dyslexic children, and which has similar tips.

I have mentioned before that sharing resources is my thing.  Well my favourite part of the whole process is creating the resources in the first place.  I would say that I spend a disproportionate amount of time creating them, making sure that they look just right.  Over the last 16 years my style has changed and evolved, and I more or less have a template now:

• Worksheets can be Portrait or Landscape.  Bear in mind that it's best to have text at the top (Portrait) or, because most pupils are right-handed, on the left (Landscape) and the space to write at the bottom or on the right respectively.
• Put an eye-catching title at the top.  I often use a simple Word Art image for this.  I usually put the title at the top, but sometimes down the side.  In addition I often use a picture font to put a partial border on the top or down the side, or to add some images.
• Put a box in the top right-hand corner for students to put their name.  Get them into the habit of naming their work!!  I put "Je m'appelle" on the French ones and "Me llamo" on the Spanish ones, just to drip-drip-drip how to say your name into them.
• Fill in one of the answers for them as an example.  I use a handwriting font to do this to make it clear that it's a completed answer.  I often use my own handwriting font which I rashly paid for a few years ago.
• Make sure that you give the students enough space to write their answers in.  Younger children in particular have big writing and they get frustrated when they can't put their answers where they're supposed to go.  1.5space or even double-space the lines for them to write on.
• A new part of my template is the assessment box, which is inspired the system used by my daughter's ICT teacher.  There is an "I can" statement for the sheet to start with.  The children tick the appropriate face to tell me how they found it.  Then when I've marked it I put a face in the blank circle to show how they've done, and write a brief comment.  Hopefully this will encourage me to mark more (!) and enable me to assess more easily.

On the subject of fonts, these are the ones that I use the most for my resources:

For more information about the above pangrams, by the way, and examples of pangrams in lots of languages, have a look here.

Here are some other things about fonts that you might enjoy reading:

Typography for MFL teachers and learners - an excellent blogpost by Fiona Joyce

Do typefaces really matter? - an article from the BBC

What's so wrong with Comic Sans? - another from the BBC

Fantastic Fonts and where to find them - a very helpful presentation by Jackie Berry

Fruit Miles

One of the things I do on my day off on a Friday is go to Tescos to do the weekly family shop.  We used to do it on a Saturday morning, but my younger daughter has started dance classes which are, you've guessed it, on a Saturday morning, and of course at a different time to her sisters'.

This morning I was accompanied on my shopping trip by my husband, who also has a day off today.  When we reached the fruit and veg section, I told him about the lesson I had with my Y3 class last week. 

We had watched one of the chapters of the BBC Active's DVD "Being Spanish", which shows some Spanish children picking nectarines in Valencia, and then following the nectarines' journey to the processing warehouse, the giant fridge and the delivery lorries, which then transport the nectarines all over Europe.

We then talked about where the fruit in our supermarkets comes from.  Some of the children had already noticed that some of the fruits that their parents buy come from other countries.  I asked them to have a look at the labels next time they are in the supermarket.  We talked about it again this week, briefly, but it was evident that they hadn't had the opportunity to look at the fruit, or had forgotten!  So when I was in Tesco today, I thought why don't I do a little survey to find out where all the fruits come from.

With my trusty HTC Desire I took photos of the labels showing where the fruits are from.  This afternoon I have PowerPointed them, ready for our lesson next week.  This has been quite a labour-intensive process just for one bit of one lesson, and so I thought it would be worth sharing here as I'm sure it will be useful to others too. 


Before you look at the slides, have a think about the questions I'm going to ask Year 3:
1. How many fruits did I see?
2. Which fruits do you think I saw?
3. How many countries were represented?
4. Which countries do you think were represented?


I'm going to get them to do some predicting in table groups, and then they can mark each others' while we look at the PowerPoint.

Fruit miles

View more presentations from Clare Seccombe

I'm hoping that the information will also raise important questions such as the environmental impact of importing all these different foods, why we import them in the first place, and which foods are in season when.  Even if we don't get onto that, they will be finding out the names of more fruits and the locations of more countries, which can only be good.

#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

View more webinars from cseccombe.

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?

Let's Flash(card) !

I sometimes feel that I should blog more often. But then I don't know what I would blog about. So I wait until blogs find me, if you like. And on Saturday, one did.

I received a link to ProProfs, which is an online poll, quiz and flashcard maker. It was the poll bit that caught my eye, as I have dabbled in online surveys for MFL Sunderland using questionform, which I really like.

I was then sidetracked by the flashcard bit. When I did my PGCE in the mid-nineties, we were taught to use picture flashcards to present and practise new vocabulary, but not a lot else. For KS3 I always preferred OHTs, as they were smaller and a bit easier to manipulate. Then a few years ago, presenting vocabulary via PowerPoint crept in. I have to say that I have never got to grips with that, and there are reasons why I don't like it.

PowerPoint seems a bit remote. Your pictures are always in the same order and fixed in place. Flashcards, on the other hand, are tactile, kinesthetic, portable and immensely versatile. It's sad but true that today's students aren't really exposed to the low-tech methods anymore, and so using flashcards might actually make a refreshing change for them. No more Death by PowerPoint.

So this all got me thinking: What can we use flashcards for ? What are the online flashcards all about ? I set about some research, and here are the ideas that I found:
Teacher-led activities:

1. Use flashcards for choral repetition, to introduce and practice vocabulary.
2. Show students the flashcard and say '¿Es una manzana?' (etc) and they say 'sí' or 'no'.

3. Show students the flashcard and say '¿Es una manzana o una pera?' and they call out the correct one.

4. Show students the flashcard and say '¿Qué es?' and they have to say the answer.

5. Put the flashcards around the room and they point at the right one when you say it, or eventually say the right one when you point.

6. Place flashcards all around the room - on walls, hidden and stuck under tables and chairs etc. Have the TL word on the flashcard as well. Give students the list of new words, either in English or TL, and they have to go round the room and use the flashcards to find the correct translation. Make it a race to get all the words.

7. Cover and slowly reveal the flashcard, asking students to say the correct word when they think they know what it is.

8. Quickly flash the flashcard and see if students can say the correct word or phrase.

9. Students have a set of the flashcards and they hold them up to demonstrate their understanding.

10. Students have a set of flashcards. You tell a story which includes these words and they put the cards in the order in which they hear them.

11. Write some random numbers, including negatives, on the board and stick flashcards over them. Organise your students in teams. They tell you a phrase, you take off the flashcard and that is the number of points they get.

12. Guess which card / Beat the teacher Hold the pile of flashcards with the facing you. Students have to guess which one is at the top of the pile. They have to listen carefully to each others’ guesses to eliminate wrong answers and work out what the right answer is. Whoever gets it right could come to the front to take your place.

13. Slaps Stick the flashcards randomly on the board. Divide the students into teams and invite one of each team up to the board. Say one of the words or phrases and the winner is the player who can slap the right card first. Slapping the board with a fly swatter adds to the fun.

14. Noughts and crosses / Snakes and Ladders Students have to say the correct word or phrase for the flashcard to be able to draw in their nought or cross or to advance along the game board.

15. Loto / Bingo Use small flashcards, and give each student or pair of students a set. They choose a certain number (say 6 or 9) of cards and lay them on the desk, face up. You call out the words and they turn over each card as they hear it. The winner is the one who has turned over all his cards. An extra test could then be for the winner to read back to you all the cards he has turned over !

16. Pass the parcel Find a box, bag or envelope that can be passed around the room to music. When the music stops the student holding the box must pick out a flashcard) and say whatever goes with the card. If you have a large class you can add in more boxes or have groups with their own boxes.

17. Les quatre coins Stick flashcards around the room. Turn your back to the class and play some music. When the music stops (or when you call 'arretez!'), the students have to go and stand by one of the flashcards. The winners are the students standing by the one you have called out.

18. Round the World Students sit in a circle. Choose a starting person. This student stands behind the next student in the circle. The teacher holds up a flashcard. The first student to say the answer stands behind the next person in the circle. If a sitting student says the answer first, the standing student sits down in the winner’s chair. This process continues until at least one student makes it completely around the circle.

19. Team Tag Divide students into two groups. Have them form two single file lines facing forward. The first student should be about 3 metres from the front of the room. Put two equal stacks of flashcards on a desk in the front of the room. When play starts, the first person in the line races to the desk, takes the first card in his or her pile, holds it up, announces the answer to the class, places the card in a discard pile, and then races to tag the next person in line. If the student does not know the answer or gives the wrong answer, he or she puts the card on the bottom of the pile and selects the next card. This student keeps selecting cards until he or she knows the answer to one or until five cards have been selected. The two teams play simultaneously. The first team to correctly give the answer to all the cards in its pile wins.

20. Flashcards at the door As the students line up at the beginning of the class, hold up a flashcard for each of them to solve in turn. The answer to the flashcard is their "pass" into the classroom. If a student answers wrongly, they must step to the side and work it out before they can come into the room. You will want to choose flashcards according to individual student's ability or you could be standing there all day with some of them!

21. I'm going on a picnic Students sit in a circle. The first one takes a flashcard from a bag. They say the word in target language. The next pupil takes another flashcard and has to say the word of the first person, plus their own, and so on around the circle, until all words are used. Words can be duplicated.

22. Monsieur Intelligent Ask the students to stand up. Show the flashcard, model and the students repeat. Except sometimes you use the wrong word and then they don't say anything. Those who speak when they shouldn't are out and sit down.

23. For moving them on to the written word: Have a set of flashcards with the vocabulary in the target language blu-tacked at the front of the class. Students have a mini whiteboard each. Call out the English word and they have to find and write the appropriate Spanish word from the list, onto their whiteboard. You can choose a student to be teacher and call out the words. And you can reverse it - you call out the Spanish word, they have to write the English word.

24. Kim’s game Stick the flashcards to the board. Ask students to close their eyes, remove one, then they have to work out and say the one that is missing. Alternatively, students put small picture cards on their table. They study them for a few seconds and then, at a signal, turn them over (but keeping them in the same order). Call out a card and invite them to try to select this from memory. They hold it to their chest until you say Show me. If they have guessed correctly, they put the card to one side. If not, they return the card, face down, to the same place. The first child to have guessed them all correctly is the winner. The winner can be the caller in the next round.

25. Odd one out Use the pictures to make some Thinking Skills-style odd ones out. For example, put together pictures of un crayon, une règle and un sac. Which one is the odd one out ?

26. Stand up sit down Set the students up in two teams and get the teams to line up in rows. Walk up the middle of the two teams and show a flashcard to each member in turn. The student that is shown the card should then say what is on the card. If the student is successful then he or she is able to stay standing. If the student is incorrect or then he or she should sit down on the floor where they are standing, and remain sitting until the end of the exercise. When the teacher has shown the flashcards to all of the students and they have all had the chance to take part in the activity the teacher then allocates one point for each student standing.

27. Board memory game Place all of the flashcards on the board that in a line so that all of the flashcards can be seen. Re-drill the vocabulary. Turn one of the cards over and then drill the line of flashcards again with the students saying what is on each card, including the one that has been turned over. The process is then repeated until all of the cards are turned the wrong way up. By this time all of the students should be able to say what is on each card even though they are unable to see the pictures on each card.

28. Use them to build up sentences. Use a structure such as J'ai or As-tu..? and add the nouns to it using the flashcards to illustrate the sentence. You can also add an adjective, the cards and their position making the word order clear.

29. Human sentences Students hold flashcards and make 'human sentences'. They can also work in pairs or groups with mini-flashcards to do the same. They are learning to read and write without using a pencil.

30. Sound-spelling link Have a set of phoneme cards and a corresponding set of picture cards. Say the sound and the students have to identify the word (picture) containing that sound.

31. Avalanche Stick 5 cards going vertically down the board for team 1 and 5 cards going vertically down the board for team 2. Team 1 line up behind the first set of cards and team 2 line up behind the second set of cards. The teams start at the same time and the first person in each line writes the French next to the first flashcard. Then the second person writes the French next to the second flashcard and so on. Each member of the team gets 2 points for a correct answer and 1 point for an attempted but incorrect answer. If there is an avalanche due to a wrong answer, all is erased and the next person in line starts with the first card again.

In pairs or groups:
1. Pelmanism Each pair or group has a set of flashcards showing, for example, pictures and the corresponding words. They have to find the pairs by turning over pairs of cards in turn, and remembering where each card is.

2. Classification Students sort the cards into groups and explain why they have grouped certain words together.

3. Dance mats / Hopscotch Put the flashcards on the floor, and students take it in turns to call out the order in which their partner must jump to the cards.

Private study:Students can make their own flashcards, with a picture on one side and the word on the other side, or the English on one side and the TL on the other side. They can then use them to help them to learn the vocabulary or structures. The electronic flashcards from online activity makers like ProProfs and Quia can provide an alternative to paper versions.


I'm looking forward to trying out some of these ideas with KS1 and KS2 next year. I've already started to make some flashcards, which I have uploaded to MFL Sunderland, and will add more as I make them.

Do you have any other flashcard activities ? I'd love to hear about them. ¡Viva el low-tech! Let's all flash(card)!