We're on our way!

For those who couldn't be there, here is the text of the keynote address that I gave at the Entrust Languages Conference in Stafford yesterday.  I also did my Be a crafty Languages teacher workshop, which you can find here.

We’re on our way!

The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows when

The Hollies released this single, He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother, a couple of weeks before I was born.  Its opening lines describe the journey that we have taken so far along the road of Languages in Key Stage 2.  It certainly has been long, with many winding turns.  It has taken us more than 10 years to arrive at where we are now, and our journey is far from over.  The teaching of a modern or ancient language has been statutory in Key Stage 2 for just about one academic year now.   Can we already be sure where the road is leading us, and when we will arrive at our destination? 

The children’s journey

Where do we want this road to lead?  What is our destination?  Is it a more linguistically adept population?   It is a less monolingual country?  Is it for languages to be perceived as useful?  Is it a solid foundation of language learning and an enjoyment of the subject?

For most young people, the road will end abruptly at the end of Year 9 (unless Nicky Morgan gets what she really wants and all students really do have to continue with a language until they are 16) and their destination will not, let’s face it, amount to much. 
Our children in Key Stage 2, though, are at the beginning of the road.  We are opening the door for them, gently guiding them through it and setting them off on their way with their backpack ready to be filled with useful things. 

We hope that their journey will be long lasting.  We hope that the road will lead them through exotic colours and exciting experiences.  We hope that en route they will pass, and maybe have the opportunity to explore, the many intriguing side streets.  And we hope that they will have many songs to sing as they walk along, many stories to tell, and many friends from all over the world with whom to share it.  We definitely hope that they do not wake up one morning to find that they have to go back to the beginning and start their journey again…

What does the Key Stage 2 road look like?  Well, it starts from nothing and ends in Year 6 with the “substantial progress in one language” that the Programme of Study requires them to make.  What are the signposts on the way, the markers that will denote their progress?  The statements in the Programme of Study are vague, and can be difficult to decipher.  Dividing them up into skills helps, but it is only when we look at the journey alongside the guidebook of the Key Stage 2 Framework for Languages that it becomes clear.

For Listening, children are required by the new curriculum to “understand spoken language from a variety of authentic sources”, to “understand ideas, facts and feelings” and to “understand familiar and routine language”.   This is not to say that Year 3 children should be doing all of this.  This is the point that we should build up to by the end of Key Stage 2, as their knowledge and confidence gradually increase.

Children are required to speak about people, places, things and actions, to communicate ideas, facts and feelings, and above all to speak in sentences.  Children will speak using single words in Year 3, phrases in Year 4, gradually building up to sentences in Year 5 and Year 6.  Children will spend the 4 years of KS2 learning how to speak with increased confidence, developing their strategies to help them to say what they want to say.
They will engage in conversations with each other, asking and answering questions and giving their opinions.

The children will have a magic key in their backpack which will clarify and facilitate their journey.  They will learn the system of phonics in their language, the sound-spelling link, the key to their journey being a success.  This will lead to children who are confident readers, who can take a word they have never seen before and pronounce it correctly, thus sidestepping potential obstacles on their path.

Children will read lots of texts of different types, some written especially for them as learners, others authentic texts from one of the countries whose language they are learning.  Stories, songs, poems and rhymes will provide some of this content, and so are the ever present white lines that run all the way along the KS2 highway. 

Children will write at varying lengths during their KS2 journey, beginning with single words in Year 3, working through phrases and sentences in Year 4 and Year 5 and building up to paragraphs in Year 6.  They’ll also be able to adapt sentences that they read in order to create something new.

The children’s road will be built on a firm foundation of grammar, which will hold the whole structure steady and in place.  They will always compare the language they are learning with English, to see how it is the same and how it is different.  This will enable them not only to learn more about the new language, but also to reinforce their knowledge of English.  They will develop skills as independent learners, such as dictionary skills, which will help them to say what they want to say.  Even if the bridge between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 has been knocked down, they can confidently take an alternative route to the same destination with their Language Learning Skills and Knowledge About Language in their backpack.

So the children have their journey, and their journey is planned and its itinerary written by the route planners.  Not Google Maps or the AA in this case, but their schools and their teachers.  In turn, each school and each teacher has their own languages journey.  They may well have started at a different point and the route may have been different.  They may have been stuck at roadworks a few times waiting for the road to be completed or for the way to be clear.

The teacher’s journey

As for my languages journey, I'm just coming to the end of my twentieth year as a Languages teacher.  I spent fourteen of those years in secondary schools, flogging away with French and Spanish at GCSE level.  The last six of those years have been in primary schools, altogether a very different experience.  Younger children ask lots more questions.  “Can I go to the toilet?” “When’s it lunchtime?” and let’s not forget “Are you from France?” 
My particular favourite question was “Madame, you know the Eiffel Tower, is it in Sunderland?” 

One of the most common questions, however, is "How do you know Spanish?"  My answer is that I learned at school, the same as them, and then went to university to learn some more and lived in Spain for a while to learn even more.  I tell them that they have a head start on me as I didn't start learning Spanish till I was 16.  They are lucky to start learning when they are 5.  But then I also say that I am still learning.  I learn new things about my languages and other languages every day.  Languages adapt and morph on a daily basis, and you never finish learning them.

So I am not only a Languages teacher.  I am also a language learner.  I would say that I am in my 38th year as a formal language learner.

I started to learn French when I was seven, at middle school.  I grew up in Surrey, where there was at the time a three-tier system.  We changed schools at the end of what are now Years 3 and 7.  My learning of French in the first year of middle school (equivalent to Year 4) comprised writing out lists of things like numbers and months and colours, and sticking them on the inside of our wooden desk lid so that we could see them each time we lifted it up to get something out or put something away.  We were given a French name and a number.  I was Denise and my number was dix-neuf.

Then in the second year (Y5 equivalent) we went to the new building and were allowed access to the specialist French teacher, who we shared with the private girls’ school in the next village.  I can't remember exactly what we did, but there was a lot of chalk and talk and grammar drills, and the filling in of the little booklets, which I think were Eclair.  
There was certainly no technology involved.  In fact, there wasn’t any technology to be involved!  We only learned one song - Savez-vous planter les choux? - and didn't play any games.  There was no role play and certainly no pair or group activities.  However when I left middle school in 1981, aged nearly 12, I knew avoir and être, the present tense of regular verbs, and had started the passé composé.  I knew and could explain why boys said ma cravate and girls said mon chemisier. 

Then I went to secondary school, which in this three tier system we started in Y8, and started French again, from scratch.  After half a term we moved house, to the other side of Guildford.  I arrived at my new school after the October half term holiday.  My year group was coming to the end of a carousel of second language tasters.  I did 2 lessons of Spanish and had missed the German and Latin.  The following week we had to choose our second language.  I opted for Spanish as I'd tried it and because I have a Spanish godmother. 

I was put in the Latin group.  Initially I was disappointed, but in retrospect it’s the best thing that could have happened!  Latin has been immensely helpful to my knowledge about language, to my French, my Spanish and my English.  It also helps to make me unbeatable at certain quiz games. 

Meanwhile I was continuing with French and another new teacher with whom, again, the class was starting again, but at least this time it was with Le français d'aujourd'hui and the Bertillon family.  I remember telling my mum that I found French boring.  I fell out of love with languages for a while. 

I kept the same French teacher all the way through secondary school, for all of the four years.  Gradually it dawned on me that, far from being boring, she was amazing, and had us (admittedly the top group) ready for O level at the end of the 3^rd Year (Year 9).  We spent the next two years practising, learning the past historic and writing countless 100 word essays (we did the AEB board), enjoying the challenge of trying to cram in all the great structures we'd learned.  I have spent many an idle moment trying to pin down exactly what her secret was. 

So that's my language learning journey from the late 70s to the mid 80s.  The road was unembellished, modest and traditional, but it suited me and I learned a huge amount. 
I went to France for the first time – on a school day trip - when I was 14 and was quite happy to have a go with the speaking.

However this road was not easy for everyone.  One of my friends was in the same set as me for French, and she also was the recipient of an A grade at O level.  She also had done Latin and so had a pretty good understanding of how language worked.  She should have done A level French but the thought of having to speak the language terrified her. 
It was something we had hardly done in 4 years, apart from answering the odd question in class, and so the O level speaking exam with a visiting examiner was a bit of an eye opener.

Your language learning journey will have been different, and it may or may not have suited you.  Many methods have come and gone, and in some cases come again, since then. 
The way languages are taught in primary schools now is worlds apart from the way I was taught in 1978.  Our children’s current journey is very different to the one that we will have experienced ourselves.

My road started in the south-east, and has led me gradually, and via a very circuitous route, to the north-east.  For a lot of the time I have walked hand in hand with other people.  I don’t feel that it is a journey that I have had to make alone.  Of course I have walked alongside my teachers, lecturers and fellow students.  But I have also had the company along the way of good friends, my Spanish flat mates, the family in France who housed me during my year abroad.  More recently I have walked alongside and been supported by the many language professionals with whom I have connected via social media over the last 10 years.  I feel a little like Forrest Gump when he begins his epic running across the USA and back and across and back.  It starts off being just him but gradually he is joined by more and more inspired runners until there are huge crowds running with him.  Except on my journey I am not the leader, I am not at the front of the group.  The crowds are mutually supportive, taking it in turns to direct and lead.

How has your language learning journey been?  Have you travelled alone, or have you had others walking with you?  Are you lonely and looking for someone to share your journey?

It is true that the day-to-day life of a teacher is not an easy one.  Particularly if you’re a teacher who has had to add another subject to their already busy planning and teaching schedule.  It’s easy to get stuck in a rut where there are no fresh ideas, where you can’t think round a problem to find a new way of doing it that is just right for your class, where you can’t find the information that you need to deliver the lesson to your own high standard.  And how many times have you spent ages on a resource only to find later that you have in fact reinvented the wheel?

As they said in High School Musical, we’re all in this together.  Whether we like it or not, whether we are prepared to admit it or not, we all face the same challenges and the same pulls on our time.  We’re working towards a common goal but we all have different tools at our disposal.  We have to support and help each other.

The year before I became an AST I did a “Becoming a subject leader” course.  It taught me that I didn’t want to be a subject leader, but it did teach me some useful things too. Like how important it is to build a culture of sharing, supporting and networking amongst your colleagues. 

If you want to connect with a wider audience, there are different forums and other online “outlets” that you can access.  For example there is the TES Forum, where you can discuss languages and their teaching, although the Modern Languages forum isn’t half as busy as it used to be.    I can’t recommend Twitter and the #MFLTwitterati highly enough for keeping you up to date with cutting-edge ideas and for the camaraderie.  If you follow my Primary Languages UK Twitter list, you can keep in touch with and get information from over a hundred primary languages teachers, specialist and non-specialist, as well as from organisations, publishers and suppliers.  If you are a Facebooker, there is the Languages in Primary Schools group, a closed group which has over 1700 members, and which is both immensely supportive and always positive.

It is a well-known fact that many of the teachers who find themselves having to teach Key Stage 2 Languages are in need of some help with the language itself.  They may be lacking in confidence in their own ability, or needing help refreshing the language that they learned a long time ago at school.  There has not been much money forthcoming for the majority of primary teachers who require upskilling, so the arrival of the Association for Language Learning’s network of Primary Hubs has been a godsend.  They exist all over the country so find one near you.  They are free of charge and allow you to link up and meet with other professionals who are in the same boat as you. 

The children have their language learning journey, and we as teachers have our own.  Everyone is at slightly different points along their own individual road.    And everyone has their own way of walking.

The teacher’s way

What is our “way” in terms of what we do in the classroom?

One of our main aims is to get the children involved in their learning.  They are no longer the passive recipients who sit silently in rows and then complete pages of exercises in their books.  We know that children learn best when they have the opportunity to help, support and explain to each other.  They learn best when they take part in an activity that they perceive to be fun, interesting or different.  They learn best when they have the opportunity to do the things that young children like to do: singing, dancing around, playing and laughing.

Confucius said:
“I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.”
which is further clarified in the words of this Native American proverb:
“Tell me and I’ll forget.
Show me and I may not remember.
Involve me and I’ll understand.”
Both sayings emphasise the importance of children’s participation and involvement in their learning. 

When I was a secondary teacher, my colleagues and I had preconceptions about primary classrooms.  We thought that children were always up and down and out of their seats and unable to sit and listen.  It’s how we used to account for Year 7’s fidgeting and neediness.  But now I know differently.  Primary children work collaboratively, in pairs and in groups.  They change activities frequently to keep the pace going and to maintain interest.  Seating patterns are important and there is also a strong culture of helping others.  Much primary learning is characterised by active learning.  Children read, talk, write, describe, touch, interact, listen and reflect.  They learn by doing, thinking and exploring through planned and quality interactions.  The child is not a passive observer.

So what sort of activities and materials should we be aiming to include in our language lessons?  The learning set-up is a bit different to other subjects as the children rely more on the teacher as the source of knowledge than maybe they do elsewhere.

Let’s start with flashcards.  Of course they are very useful for the teacher when presenting new language to the class, but once the teacher has finished with them, they can be handed over to the children to help them to practise the new words and phrases.  They are easy to manipulate and require no ICT after you’ve made them.  And they always work when the computer, for some reason, doesn’t.  Children are very good at thinking of ways to practise new language in pairs or groups with sets of small cards.

Dominoes are a pair or group activity ideal for revising prior learning or indeed for practising new language.   There is the possibility of matching up words with pictures, words with words or even words with numbers.  How about matching up the two halves of a sentence?  There are many possibilities, all of which require the children to discuss the answer together and arrive at a decision.

Moving on one step from dominoes are shape puzzles, or Tarsias, as they are now more commonly known.  Each side of each shape has a word or picture that needs to be matched with another word or picture so as to create the final shape.  When the Tarsia is finished, it can be used as a reference tool, stuck down on sugar paper and added to.

Sorting activities like Trash or Treasure or Venn diagrams oblige children to work together to find the links between words and phrases.  The more sorting they do, the more familiar they become with the selection of words and their functions.

For practising structure in writing try a game of Showdown.  Each group of children has a set of cards with phrases or sentences in English or in picture form that need to be written in the target language.  The group captain chooses a card and puts it on the table for the rest of the children to see.  They each write on their own mini whiteboard the phrase or sentence that the card requires.  When they have all finished, the captain says “Showdown” and all members of the group show what they have written.  They discuss, looking at the evidence they now have, what the correct answer is.

For another way to practise structure, use dice, multi-link, Lego or paper chains. 
Each number or colour relates to a part of a sentence or an individual word.

There is even something as simple as giving each child a Post-It and asking them to test each other on the words you have been learning and note down the results on the Post-it for you.  Everyone will be busy, it will only be a short activity, and there won’t be lots of children sitting bored and restless while the teacher has to go round testing individuals.

When the class is playing a game like Chef d’Orchestre or Hide and Seek they will be enthusiastically speaking the language, but not thinking about it – the language is the means of winning the game or helping a classmate to find the answer.

And going right back to basics, every time the children repeat a word and perform an action to go with it, they are responding physically to the language, but also being active learners and involving themselves in the learning.

The children have their journey, each school and teacher has theirs, and we all have our own way of walking, our own style and our own preferences. 

The national journey

Where are we in terms of our national journey?

I recently invited teachers to complete a survey so as to find out a bit more about what is happening in the world of Key Stage 2 Languages.  There were 160 responses, representing 160 schools, which admittedly is only a tiny proportion of all the schools in England, but I think the answers give a good idea of what is happening.

76% of schools offer French, and 34% Spanish.  You’ll see that the percentages don’t add up to 100, and of course this means that some schools are offering more than one language.  Some schools offer two, and a smaller number offer three.  As you can see, the percentages for German, Italian and Mandarin are very low compared to French and Spanish.  This is probably largely to do with teacher expertise and experience, as well as being a reflection of the number of resources and the amount of support that is available for each language.  It is interesting to compare this with the same question posed to KS3 teachers.  There is a lot more German offered in KS3 while the French and Spanish are quite similar.

Language learning in the primary phase is only statutory in KS2, but about half of respondents said that their children learn a language in KS1 as well.  In the case of the school where I teach French, French lessons happen every other half term, so a half term on, half term off pattern.  Starting in Year 2 means that by the end of KS2 they have had more time overall.

More than half of the teaching is done by language specialists.  It is difficult to know how much the results of this survey are skewed by the profile of those responding.  Although more and more schools do seem to be going down the route of having a specialist do their Languages lessons for them.  I have been approached by 3 schools in the last few weeks.  We need to bear in mind the impact that this will have on staff skills.  If teachers are at a school where a specialist delivers the language lessons, and they then move to a school where they are expected to deliver the language themselves, they will have no experience to draw on.

The vast majority of children have their language lessons once a week, throughout Key Stage 2.  The new Programme of Study doesn’t specify a time allocation for the teaching of Key Stage 2 Languages, and the DfE has been less than forthcoming.  The Framework recommends an hour a week, saying that this hour can be cut into, say two half hours or three lots of 20 minutes.  There are some schemes of work, the Jolie Ronde for example, whose plans allow for several short lessons per week rather than one long one.  It is surprising, therefore, that very few schools appear to be going for the “little and often” model.  Maybe it’s just that it’s easier to timetable for and actually teach a longer session.

The majority of children have languages lessons that are between 30 and 60 minutes.  Personally my Spanish lessons work out at about an hour, and the French at about 45 minutes.  It’s also good to see that Year 6 don’t appear to be missing out on their language lessons too much.

It’s when examining some of the issues raised by this survey that we trip over some of the obstacles that have been left scattered on our road.  One the biggest obstacles is the big thorny briar that is Key Stage 2-Key Stage 3 Transition.  The word Transition in itself is misleading, as it implies a change.  However we now have a 7-14 Languages continuum, and we should be aiming for the journey to be as seamless as possible to maximise the progress.  It is clear, though, that at the moment this is not happening.

I asked teachers if they sent transition information for their Year 6s to the secondary schools.  26% of teachers said yes, 56% said no.  I also asked KS3 teachers if they receive information from their feeder primary schools.  8% said that yes, they receive the information from all or most of their feeders.  34% receive information from some of their feeders.  48% of secondary schools do not receive anything.  This means that about half of secondary teachers do not know what their new Y7s will have been doing in KS2, the language that they have been learning, and what they have covered.  If we don’t tell them this information, we are doing the children a huge disservice and probably consigning them to a Year 7 of repeating what they have already done in Key Stage 2.

In order to look in more depth at the situation I asked some more questions of the Year 7 teachers.  Only 21% agreed that their new Y7s will continue the same language that they started in KS2.  Only 40% agreed that they have adjusted their Year 7 Schemes of Work to take into account KS2 experience.  63% agreed that they disregard KS2 experience and effectively start again with Year 7.

All of this is disheartening for those of us who spend so much time investing in the linguistic future of Key Stage 2 children.  It is clear that the two phases have a lot to do.  Communication must take place and those links must be made.  Transition is so important, and can’t be ignored under the pretext of “We have so many feeder primary schools it would be impossible” or similar.  We have to make KS2 Languages work.  We have come too far down the road to let it fail now.

Transition isn’t our only obstacle, of course.  There are other obstacles such as Ofsted, who are reluctant to tell us what exactly they will be looking for apart from that it will be inspected in the same way as the other Foundation subjects.  They don’t appear to be taking a huge amount of interest in the subject, and don’t appear to be voluntarily observing lessons during inspections.

Conclusion

I’m on my way I’m making it
I’ve got to make it show, yeah
So much larger than life
I’m gonna watch it growing

It has been a long, long road, but we have the destination in our sights.  We’re on our way, we’re making it.  Great things are happening, we’ve got to make it show, and we are making it show.  We need to continue along the same road, wearing the same very suitable shoes, with the same backpack full of our best tips and tricks, walking briskly, resolutely and confidently, watching the children’s learning and love of languages growing. 

We’re on our way!

Looking forward to #ililc5!

Looking forward to seeing lots of you there !  Not booked?  All the info is here.

Make it with mini-books

Here is my presentation about mini-books from ALL Language World today.  I've also embedded below the video using responses from the #MFLTwitterati and which I couldn't embed in the Slideshare as well as the audio.

Make it-with-minibooks-slideshare from Clare Seccombe

Blankety Blank!

The #ililc3 Show and Tell was another fantastic occasion with many and varied items for our learning and entertainment.

My love of BBC1's Pointless has been well-documented, and so it seemed only right and proper that my contribution should have a game-show theme - a short game of Blankety Blank.  If you are unfamiliar with Blankety Blank and its work, or need a refresher of the rules, here's how to play:

Main game

• 6 panellists, 2 players
• Show Player 1's question.  Panellists write their answer on their mini-whiteboard.
• Player 1 says their answer. 
• Ask each panellist to show their answer, and the player wins one point for each match.
• Repeat for second player.  The player with the most points goes on to Supermatch.

Supermatch

• Show the word.  
• The player chooses three panellists to give an answer, then chooses their answer from those three, or may choose to go with their own answer.
• Reveal audience answers to see how much they win.

If you would like to have a go yourself, you can download the PowerPoints that I used at the Show and Tell here and here.  Enjoy reading the questions that we didn't use, but I would recommend that you change them before unleashing them on a class!  If you click on the action button on the "Premier Jeu" screen, it will take you to the questions which will scroll through very quickly.  To stop them and therefore pick a question at random, just press S.  Press S to start the scrolling again.  To return to the Supermatch, click on the small action button at the bottom of the question screen.

Strictly speaking, a game of Blankety Blank will only use 8 people, so you may think it would not be suitable for a whole class.  But if you slightly change the rules it would be easy to get all the class involved.  Give each student or pair of students a mini-whiteboard and get all of them to write an answer for each question.  Then use a random name selector such as your Mug of Misery™ to select the six who are going to provide their answer for the contestant.  And of course there are plenty of topic areas that you can use for the questions.

Enjoy!

It all adds up to MFL

Here is my maths and MFL presentation from the ICT and Languages Conference in Southampton, with embedded audio for your listening pleasure.  All the resources I referred to are available on MFL Sunderland.

It all-adds-up-to-mfl from Clare Seccombe

Shape up with Tarsia

At the ICT and Languages Conference in Southampton this weekend I have presented a workshop on using Tarsia to make shape puzzles for use in the languages classroom.  You can read my previous posts about Tarsia here and here.

The PowerPoint that I used in Southampton would not be much use for telling you more about how to use Tarsia, so I have recorded a short video showing you the basics:

 

You can also download my Tarsia guide and my brand new Ideas for using Tarsia sheet. 

Here are the links to the animal puzzle that I made in the video:

French animal square puzzle
French animal puzzle table
French animal puzzle solution


You can also try out the countries and languages puzzle that people tried out on the day - it would be great for European Day of Languages:

Countries and languages hexagon puzzle 
Countries and languages table 
Countries and languages solution
Countries and languages puzzle shrunk (smaller pieces)

Some people have been asking if there is an easy way to cut out Tarsia puzzles.  Well unfortunately there isn't, but one way to lessen the load is to give the printed out puzzles to the students to cut out and then assemble.  I always wait until there is something good on TV before I cut out Tarsias, and it makes the time pass more quickly!  I also number each set so that when (not if) I find a puzzle piece on the floor I know which set it came from.  Some people were also asking where I got the grip-seal bags that I store the puzzles in - they are these ones.

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

Ecoutez Répétez

Last Sunday morning @Langwitch asked via Twitter if anyone had any ideas for choral repetition that weren't "Repeat if it's true".

I replied with a few suggestions, and @spsmith45 and @bellaale suggested that a blogpost would be useful.  So here it is.

When I did my PGCE in secondary languages in 1994, the communicative method was all the rage and choral repetition was an integral part of it.  The idea was that by repeating the vocabulary the students would absorb almost by osmosis the sound-spelling rules for the language.  Well that didn't work.  They knew lots of words, but the sound-spelling rules were never made explicit and so they didn't transfer the knowledge to new language.  These days, thank goodness, the explicit teaching of phonics is a fundamental part of the process, and students have, therefore, the key with which to unlock the door of pronunciation.

Choral repetition is, however, just as important as before, especially for younger or beginner learners.  It is one of the teacher's roles to give the learners a good model of pronunciation, to give them the opportunity to practise making the sounds and to help them to learn the meanings of the words.  It is unfair to ask an individual to repeat a word by themselves when they have only just met it.  They are likely to be lacking in confidence and (especially with secondary students) embarrassed.  Repeating chorally as a whole class provides them with a safety net - nobody can hear them making mistakes.  

So here are some ideas for choral repetition.

In my classroom the choral repetition is always introduced with "Ecoutez répétez" or "Escuchad y repetid", after which the children know exactly what they will have to do.  Judging the right amount of repetition is an art.  You often need to do more than you would think.  If the children start to say the words with me rather than wait for me to say them first, I know that it is time to start moving on.

Visual stimuli for the repetition:

• flashcards (my personal preference as they are so versatile)
• images on a PowerPoint or IWB file
• use realia

Ideas for varying the repetition:

• repetition in silly voices  I dabble with the whisper, the squeak, the growl and the robot.
• repetition high and low  This works especially well with numbers, where you will end up saying the odd numbers in a high voice and the even numbers in a low voice.
• vary the speed and volume  Saying the word slowly really accentuates its sounds.
• practise each word with an action  Then you do the actions while the students say the words.
• music and rhythm  Some things stick better if you give them a little tune ("amarillo" and "plátanos" are good words to sing!) or if you repeat them to a rhythm.
• chef d'orchestre  One student leaves the room.  When they come back in, the whole class will start repeating the vocabulary.  One student, who you chose when the first student left the room, will give a signal to the rest of the class to tell them that they need to change to the next word or phrase.  The first student needs to work out who is giving the signal.  This is good for words or phrases that are difficult to find actions for and which you need to repeat lots of times to build confidence and embed them in the memory, such as questions.
• repeat the correct one  Hold up a flashcard and say "¿Es un gato o un perro?" (or appropriate vocabulary!)  The class repeats back the one that is correct.
• repetition in pairs  Practise the words as a whole class to build confidence.  Then give each pair a list of words or of the stimulus pictures and get them to say the words to each other.  If the speaker makes a mistake then they have to start again.  Up the challenge by timing each other! (Thanks to @pixiejojo for the idea.)
• Let the students complete the word  You say the first half of the word or phrase and the students complete it.  (Thanks to @trekkiep for the idea.)
• memorise  Create a grid on the board where you group the vocabulary according to gender, number etc..  It works well with weather in French (il+weather, il fait+weather, il y a+weather) and with things like places in town where you can group them as le, la and l'.  Repeat the words line by line, gradually removing one at a time so that you end up pointing to blank spaces.  (That's something my trusty OHP was particularly useful for.)  You'll then be able to point at a blank space on the board and have them say the right word.  Always looks good, this one, when you're pointing seemingly randomly at a board and a colleague comes in!

At the moment I am doing "Places in Town" with Y5 French and Y6 Spanish.  We have been working this week on sentences such as "A Sunderland il y a une poste et un marché, mais il n'y a pas de poissonnerie."  We repeated the first sentence lots of times, discussed what it all meant and then read it out loud together.  The children were then able to help me to piece together some more sentences using the same structure.  Living writing frames are also good for this.  Write each word or short phrase on a separate card, and make a line of students at the front holding the cards.  Repeat each card to build the sentence.  Continue repeating, gradually turning over one card at a time until you are repeating the sentence from a row of blank cards.  You can then start to change parts of the sentence by swapping certain cards and repeating again with the new word or phrase.

As a postscript, it appears that saying a word lots of times allows students to think of ways of helping them remember which is which.  One of my Y5s now remembers "une boulangerie" by thinking of "blue lingerie". Really.

#ililc2 - ICT and Languages Conference, February 2012

I returned last night from the ICT and Languages Conference which was held in Southampton this weekend.  Last year's conference set the bar really high, but in my opinion this year was even better.  I'll blog in more detail about the talks I went to and what I have taken away from them at a later date, but I thought I'd post my presentations now as people have been asking about them.


Firstly, from Saturday: I do and I remember - tricks of the primary trade and active learning techniques 

I do-and-i-understand

View more PowerPoint from Clare Seccombe


Here are the links to the resources that I used in the presentation:


Ferris Bueller "Boring Economics Teacher" clip - everything that active learning isn't!


All the Barbapapa videos you could ever want (can't find the one I used!)


Months of the year dominoes


Months flashcards, with an explanation of the images


Human dominoes


First year of Spanish shape puzzle


Trash or treasure? (If you'd like the original Publisher document to edit to another language, please contact me)


¡Zas! vegetable card


¡Zas! fruit card


¡Zas! colours


¡Zas! Publisher template


Paf! colours


Le grand cerf (towards the bottom of the list)






And from Sunday: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - adapting a model for independent writing

Reduce Reuse Recycle #ililc2

View more PowerPoint from Clare Seccombe




Both sessions were audio-recorded, so when I receive copies of the recordings I'll embed the audio to give you a more complete version of the presentations and a better idea of how to use the resources.




Something that wasn't recorded - I HOPE - was my performance of Le Navet Enorme at Saturday evening's Show and Tell.  The script is resource 7.2 and here is the PowerPoint:

Navet Enorme

View more PowerPoint from Clare Seccombe

#MFLSAT+ at Cramlington

It's been a week of extremes for MFL teaching.  The Bishop of Bradford said that language teaching in this country is "deplorable".  And then today #MFLSAT+ happened.


#MFLSAT+ was the fourth MFL Show and Tell, following on from the previous ones in Coventry, Nottingham and Oldham.  It was invigorating, exciting, inspirational, exhilarating, challenging....  Don't believe me?  Then have a read of some of the tweets from the event.  If the esteemed Bishop of Bradford could hear about the language teaching that was described here, he would have to climb down pretty rapidly.


The event was well attended, with plenty of local support, which was good to see.  It made a nice change for me to only have to drive for 30 mins to get to a Show and Tell!  Admittedly Northumberland is a long way for some, and so for those who couldn't attend but would still like to find out what went on, here are the notes that I made.  You can also watch the video replay here.

Mark Purves

The Singing Tribe - MFL group dynamics

Mark showed us some warm-up exercises for the beginning of the lesson – warming up the voice, and also as children are copying what you do they are all focussed.

Use a backing track with a good beat to do this

Use rhythm, actions and tune for giving praise to individuals.

Samantha Lunn

Routines in the MFL Classroom

¿Puedo ser voluntario por favor?

¿Puedo cronometrar por favor?

¿Puedo pasar lista?

¿Puedo cronometrar?

¿Puedo ser voluntario por favor? – to the tune of Coming round the Mountain

One pupil calls the register, another times them with the stopwatch

Pupils then have to guess how many seconds the register took using an opinion phrase.

Then they express an opinion of the whole process  -“Fue + mal, super, bien” etc

Then porque fue + adj e.g. interesante

Expanding spontaneous language

Could build on this, for example "how long will the register take?"

Forfeits for people who speak English by mistake!

Using cognates, mimes and visuals to facilitate understanding


Read more about Sam's presentation on her blog.

Lynn Smith

Thinking Skills

Reading images – pretend you are a person and then say positive/negative sentences about them, say what they should do to be more healthy etc

Create a mindmap of what you have learned in the lesson

Draw round your hand – write how you’ve learned in palm, write what you’ve learned in fingers

Emma Bains
Small changes to the curriculum to improve motivation

Emma has been designing a new curriculum for KS3.

Creating own satnav using ppt and audacity

Language with purpose early in Y7

Complex language produced

Pupil assessment of the process

Fashion rather than clothes

Lots of opinion work with adjectives

1^st week of Spanish, mixed experience groups:
find cognates, use common sense, guess what things mean

Lesson 2 adapting the patterns

Cluedo can be adapted in lots of ways

Rights and responsibilities in Spanish Y7

Endangered species -  animals but in a different way.

“Soy un mamifero, vivo en Africa, soy amarillo” etc

20 statements for others to try to guess which animal it is.

Advertising – looking at videos – questions before start

“If the HT walked into the room during this, how would he know that you were learning?”

Simon McLoughlin

Audioboo

Audioboo.fm is an online application, and is also available as an app for Android / iphone.

Set up a free account

Record children speaking in class, can listen to the "boos" via the web interface straightaway.


Can embed "boos" in blogs

Children can listen at home and also reflect on how successful they were

(Put phone on airplane mode in class!!)

Alex Blagona

Getting students to 'mark' our lessons

“I thought this lesson was ….. because….”  Establishing dialogue with students

Teacher comments on the pupil comments – getting students to think about their learning and the usefulness of their comments to the teacher.

Informs marking, gives ideas of points to address next time

Personalises the experience for each child

Comments are good for showing to parents

Need to explain to students what constitutes a good and useful comment

Students can express problems privately

Gives teacher a very good idea of which level students are at, good for differentiation

Joe Dale

QR codes

QR codes video by Common Craft has just come out

Open URLs quickly

Link to audio or video files to play straightaway

Link to Google Form for students have to fill in information

There are some apps which will make QR of page you’re looking at on mobile device

QR Coder bookmarklet – whatever webpage you’re on, it’ll make a code for that page.  You put it in your bar on browser

Use in classroom:

QR treasure hunt

Qwikvotes – surveys etc

Kath Holton has made QR codes for Zondle games

“Make your classroom 4D” – QR codes of students' blogposts stuck in exercise books

SnipURL – can change link URL for your QR

Find out more on Joe's blog.

Suzi Bewell

Vocaroo

Free, and you don’t need to set up account

Record, click “send to a friend” to email the recording to someone

Receiver listens but can also save it as .wav file

Good for homeworks – individual speaking tasks

Opportunities for peer assessment

Pupils enjoy it – something a bit different and reaches the students who may not want to speak out in class

Avoids having to do it all in class – saves time. Instant.

Students can explain something for others, such as how to make tenses perhaps.

Mailvu.com – good for FLAs – videos with audio, can be sent to students for homework.

Also consider Voicethread, Ipadio.  Ipadio also provides an embeddable widget.


Read Suzi's blogpost about #mflsat.

Isabelle Jones

Music and art, creative partnerships

Isabelle gave her presentation via Skype!

Rap project for boys.  Girls reluctant to be involved as don’t identify readily with rap.  We heard a clip where the boys were rapping using simple language (their name, what pets they have etc)

Rene Koglbauer

Social Media and improving boys’ achievement

Emailing work to teacher – 1^st step  Teacher can comment easily, more personalised

Started to get a bit cumbersome with the number of emails

Looked for next step, pupils suggested Facebook

Created pages for classes in KS4 and KS5

Profiles in German

Alex Bellars

A trio of tools

Class Dojo – real time behaviour and rewards in class

Create a class group, select individual avatars for each one

Give awards to students as the lesson goes along, at the end of the class you can see who has what

Can PDF the resulting graphic and forward to colleagues, parents etc

Android app too

Lingro

Turns any webpage into a clickable resource

Students can access reading material which may be out of their reach ordinarily

Triptico

Fridge Magnets excellent for sentence manipulation work

Random group generator

Resource for putting things in order

“What’s the question” – bit like jeopardy where you give them the answers and they have to provide the question.  Can be done as a team game.




Thomas Snell
Language learning resources from Newcastle University

Thomas described the Linguacast and Universed projects at Newcastle University.


Schools can also book to use the facilities at the university, and this can be accessed via the Routes into Languages website.




Terri Dunne
Blockbusters

The scope of Blockbusters as an activity for the classroom is broader than we might think.  
For example, put a sport word in English on each square.  Starting at word level, students have to give the sport in the target language.  Then, using the same game, they have to give the sport with an opinion.
Another idea is using time phrases.  What tense do you have to use with it?  Give an example of a sentence that includes that time phrase.
It's good for plenaries, though you could easily use one slide for the whole lesson in lots of different ways.




Dominic McGladdery
10 ideas

1. Wallwisher
2. Fakebook on Classtools.net - make a fake Facebook page
3. Twister on Classtools.net - make a fake Twitter page
4. Random name generators.  PowerPoint one can also be adapted as random question generator for starters.
5. Random letter sequence generator - generate the letters, the student to find the longest word containing those letters wins.
6. Wikis
7. Blogs - everyone has something to say that other people haven't heard before.
8. Clea.nr for YouTube.  It gets rid of all the "stuff" on the YouTube page, but only works in Chrome and Firefox.
9. Puppets
10. Mug of Misery / Pot of Participation

Amanda Salt
Speak, eat, sleep Spanish - an immersion residential


Amanda takes 6th formers on an immersion residential where no English is spoken in the presence of teachers.
Activities such as Dragons Den and Which Teacher.


The videos that the students produce during the weekend are used to promote Spanish around the school.


Find out more on Amanda's blog.






And here is my presentation from the day, including audio:

Reading Books with KS1 and KS2

View another webinar from Clare Seccombe


All of these have been really useful ideas in the face of uncertain and unsettling times for MFL teachers at the moment.


In the words of Steven Fawkes - "Subvert creatively".  


In the words of Adam, when he was with The Ants - "Don't you ever, don't you ever, lower yourself, forgetting all your standards."


And in the words of the great Chris Harte - "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."