Dom's MFL Page

Phonics

2012-02-12T07:12:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to an event at Newcastle University all about phonics.

It was an excellent opportunity to meet some new and old friends and listen to the excellent Suzi Bewell who is a major expert on these things.

I won't go into all the details here as she tells it better on her blog. Suzi has also written a guide to using phonics which you can download from here.

There are many resources on phonics on Suzi's "do once and share" wiki which are amazing.

Here are links to a couple more of Suzi's phonics presentations:

Creativity and (French) Phonics

You say mince and I say mince

Other people have produced some excellent phonics resources, too:

Rachel Hawkes's website has a list of web based phonics resources

Alice Ayel's blog has some good phonics links.

Clare Seccombe's Phonics in KS2 and KS3

Helena Butterfield has produced a French phonics resource based on Jolly Phonics.
She has also produced a German pronunciation guide, too.

There is also a very good German phonics resource produced by JacquiT (Sadly, I don't know who she is. If anyone knows please tell me so I can give her the credit she is due.)

There is also this German pronunciation guide clip on Youtube

National Curriculum Levels -Writing

2012-02-05T03:10:00.000-08:00

One of the things Ofsted likes to ask children during inspections is "What level are you working at?" and the inevitable follow up question, "What do you need to do to reach your target level?"

To get a level 5, for example children are told they must use 2 tenses. So, is "Je joue au tennis et hier soir j'ai joué au tennis." a level 5 sentence? No. I don't think so, either.

So last term the department came up with a list of criteria we would use for judging our students' extended writing. A list which we could use and also which students could use as a checklist for self and peer assessment.

So here it is:

LEVEL 3

Minimum 25 words / 4 sentences

3 verbs (or 2 verbs +2 forms e.g. je, il, nous, etc)

Adjectives and agreement.

Simple linking

Qualifier

LEVEL 4

Minimum 40 words / 7 sentences

5 verbs (including different form e.g. je, il, nous, etc)

Variety of opinions /adjectives with agreement

Linking

Variety of qualifiers

LEVEL 5

Approximately 75 words / 10 sentences

7 verbs

Two tenses (minimum 3 verbs per tense and different forms)

Range of adjectives / opinions (including opinion phrases)

Appropriate linking

Range of qualifiers

LEVEL 6

Around 100 words / 10 sentences

7 verbs

Three tenses (minimum 3 verbs per tense and different forms)

Range of adjectives / opinions (including opinion phrases)

Appropriate linking (at least 5 different ones)

Range of time phrases and structures

Range of qualifiers

30000 visits.

2012-01-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning this blog received its 30000th visitor. I don't know who it was but I'm very grateful.

When I started this blog in March 2009 I had no idea that anyone would want to read anything that I had to say and I'm still not convinced that they do.

My original idea was to review online resources which I had tried with my classes. Then my posts became more reflective and people started to take interest in my ideas.

The most popular post I have written is "Effective Feedback for Students" which still gets 20 or so hits each week (and is my personal favourite) but I get a lot of visitors who end up here after googling the word "coffee", too.

Anyway, whoever you are and however you got here, I just wanted to say, "Thank you."

Mitt Romney - la verité!

2012-01-13T10:32:00.000-08:00

I've just read this article on the BBC news website. It concerns American Republican Presidential Frontrunner, Mitt Romney and the fact that one of his opponents, Newt Gingrich, has criticised him for SPEAKING FRENCH.

So what did he say that was so offensive to the ears of his fellow republicans?

Did he call for independence for Quebec?

No.

Did he say that France should no longer be a part of the Eurozone Bailout?

No.

Did he suggest that French colonialism in Africa was a good thing?

No.

He said, and I'm quoting here, "Je m'appelle Mitt."

What kind of people would see it as a disadvantage that the Head of State of the most powerful country in the world might be able to speak a foreign language?

Here is the video:

The subjunctivator.

2012-01-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

I thought I'd start 2012 by sharing a great online tool which my 6th formers have used.

It's called the Subjunctivator. It comes from www.about.com's French guide, Laura K Lawless.

The Subjunctivator consists of a drop down box with a long list of phrases in French, you select a phrase by clicking on it and wait. A new window opens with the correct answer (either subjunctive or indicative) and at least one sample sentence using the phrase in French.

For 6th form lessons it's ideal for revision and independent learning, as a starter or just to look up phrases which they aren't too sure about.

The end of another busy year.

2011-12-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

It's the end of another busy year and I'd like to thank you all for visiting my blog.

Have a great time over the festive season and I hope you all have a happy

and successful 2012.

Picture courtesy of http://www.free-animations.co.uk

Another random name selector.

2011-12-21T03:31:00.000-08:00

I have come across quite a few random name selecting tools now. This is one I discovered a few months ago and was reminded of it via twitter last week.

This one comes from primaryschoolict.com. It works very much like the classtools fruit machine. It has a different layout, a bright yelllow background, it allows you to paste class lists into it but one of its best features is also its worst feature.

This version reads the students' names as they are picked. It is so cool. I used this only once in class and it unfortunately mispronounced the students names. It's fine if you have students called Tom, Anne or Billy but it struggles with any exotic sounding names. This could be a big problem in some of my classes. My year 12 would think it hilarious but I can see that some of my year 8 students would not like it at all.

The main advantage of this name/question picker is that you can embed it into a blog or website.

I've had to resize it to fit here, but you can get the general idea. I've included the names of the current Oldham Athletic squad to show you how its "voice" has some very interesting pronunciation.

Random.org

2011-12-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

Whilst randomly looking for random things to add to my "All things Random" collection I came across www.random.org.

It is a website dedicated to generating true (as opposed to pseudo) random numbers. The service is provided by Trinity College, Dublin and is the brain child of Dr Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics.

The site offers a range of free and paid services which allow the user to play games, shuffle playing cards, roll up to 16 dice, generate strings, pick random dates, and even pick lottery numbers.

One of my favourite things is the random number generator, which can be downloaded from the site, customised and tested here:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The numbers generated by this widget come from RANDOM.ORG's true random number generator.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

You enter a minimum number and a maximum number and click Generate. It's great for picking random students and it's a nice change from lolly sticks.

Using mobile phones responsibly and safely in schools.

2011-12-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

Recently, I came across this article. It was produced in Austria by handywissen.at where almost everyone owns a mobile phone. I was going to post a link and then found that it had been uploaded to slideshare.

Using the mobile_phone_in_school

View more documents from Pedro De

It makes very interesting reading and has been written specifically for teachers giving advice and tips on how to deal with mobile devices in schools. It contains exercises which encourage students to learn how to use their mobile phones in a safe and responsible way.

It is definitely worth reading.

A list of Christmas resources.

2011-11-30T09:53:00.001-08:00

Yes, Christmas has come early.

Your one stop shop for some decent (mostly French) resources to keep your classes quiet for the next 2 weeks or so.

Let's start with MFL Sunderland. Lots of good stuff here in lots of languages.

Clare Seccombe's site has an amazing Christmas card idea in 3 languages.

Some resources from TES in French, Spanish and Italian.

Some culture from the BBC languages site in French, Spanish, and German.

Linguascope has some good Christmas resources (but you need to subscribe)

Lots of stuff on joyeux-noel.com

Stuff to do and print off at perenoel.com

Teteamodeler has some Christmas projects including recipes.

Ashcombe school in Surrey has a page of Christmas activities.

Primary.resources.co.uk has a page of resources which could be used for KS3, too.

mflresources has a page of Christmas activities.

Linternaute.com has a selection of Christmas e-cards you could send to your friends.

Millthorpe school has some resources and carols oon its blog here.

Hertfordshire Grid for Learning has lots of Christmas links here.

Steve Smith's amazing frenchteacher.net site also has a list of Christmas vocabulary here.

There you go. It'll take you more than 2 weeks to get through all those.

Have fun!

All things random.

2011-11-29T12:57:00.001-08:00

Apparently, I never posted this, my MFLSAT3 presentation on ways of harnessing all things random and unleashing them on to unsuspecting pupils, who are then made to think.

Enjoy.

All things random.

View more presentations from Dominic McGladdery

French Grammar Revision Mind Maps.

2011-11-27T05:06:00.000-08:00

This morning on twitter both Lauren Crawley and Alex Bellars posted a link to a flickr page created by Marion Charreau.

The page contains grammar points in French in the form of mindmaps. They have been created by Marion Charreau and Thomas Zannoni and can be found here.

There are some for tenses and other grammar points, and would be ideal for revision for GCSE and A level students.

Here is an example of the one on negation:

Sadly, the images are copyrighted and therefore cannot be downloaded from flickr. You could, I suppose, show them to students on the IWB and get them to make their own versions. After all mind maps are very personal revision tools.

Update on Rory's Story Cubes.

2011-11-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

Today, I finally got around to using my Rory's Story Cubes with my year 12 French class. I bought them recently and blogged about my excitement here.

I used them at the beginning of the lesson as a warm up exercise to get the students speaking.

Today there were only 9 students in my lesson so I made 3 groups and gave each group 3 cubes each to play with.

We played three games.

In the first game the students had to roll one dice and say a sentence in French relating to the picture. For example, if the picture was the apple, the student could have said "J'adore les pommes mais je n'aime pas les bananes"

In the second game the students had to throw the 3 cubes. They had to pick up a dice quickly and come up with a sentence relating to the image. This left less of a choice for the other 2 students who would have been left with pictures which made them think much more.

At times, I allowed them to make connections with the pictures when they didn't know the vocabulary. One student was left with the "L" plate image and said, "Je voudrais une voiture."

In the 3rd game we played they rolled the 3 cubes and had to make a sentence using as many of the pictures as possible. For example: one student rolled the pyramid, the tent and the book. His sentence could have been: "L'année dernière j'ai fait du camping en Égypte et j'ai acheté un livre."

Fairly basic, I admit, but the students had very little thinking time.

For a first attempt it was quite a success and I shall be using them again soon and, as time goes on, I shall introducing more cubes to increase the challenge.

Independent learning and the 4 "B"s.

2011-11-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

Trying to get students to learn independently can be a bit tricky. Many children are taught lots of good stuff but not how to find things out for themselves. In many schools there is a culture of "do this, learn this, and you will pass the exam".

I've been trying to get away from this and train some of my groups to embrace the 4 Bs. So far, I'm having some success with some of my classes, and in particular, one of my year 7 classes.

The 4 Bs of course are:

Brain.

Students ask themselves: Have we done this before? When did we do this? What do I know about this?

Book.

Students use their resources to look up facts, words and/or grammar points they don't know.

Buddy.

Students ask the person nearest to them on their table for help and/or advice. If that person is unable to help, then they should ask up to 2 more others. If 4 people in the group don't know, it's probably a safe bet that none of the class knows. (All my students sit in mixed ability groups of 4-6 on clusters of tables around the room.)

Boss.

If the first 3 steps are unsuccessful then they can ask me (the boss). I will advise them where to find the information or explain to them why they are not quite getting it.

So far this has been working well and the students have taken to it well. Rather than teaching lists of vocabulary I have been setting them tasks to create their own.

In an ideal world I would do this with all my students and all other subject teachers would do it, too.

But, for now, I think I'll try to get it right with a few groups and then see how it goes. I'll report back later.

Obviously, I have more faith in this than in learning Icelandic in my sleep.

Rory's Story Cubes and spontaneous speaking.

2011-11-12T07:21:00.000-08:00

This week I bought a set of Rory's Story Cubes. It is a story generating game. It contains of a set of 9 dice-sized cubes (19mm) with different images on them. They cost around £7. The box is sturdy and quite small and will easily fit in my jacket pocket.

To play, you simply throw the dice and invent a story based the 9 pictures you see. There are over 10 million possible combinations of images so even someone like me should not get bored with it.

I thought that they would be great for Languages as starter activities and vocabulary building exercises, particularly with my older and more able students. They need not use all nine dice, but a small group could play with two or three of them. They would be ideal for revising tenses, too.

If I included model answers and grade descriptors I could get my GCSE students to use them to improve their speaking and writing skills, too.

There is also a second set of cubes available, called "Actions", which contain pictures of different sports and activities. These would be ideal for my KS3 students for practising hobbies, opinions, tenses, etc

If I had both sets I could mix the two and get my students to produce some really good sentences.

Spontaneous speaking opportunities and fun at the same time.

Only Connect and MFL.

2011-11-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

Only Connect is a BBC Four quiz programme (we don't do "shows" in the UK, we do" programmes"!) where two teams have to find connections between apparently unconnected things. The game isn't just about knowledge but also, to quote the BBC, "patience and lateral thinking".

So, a TV programme with no prizes where teams (with captains who always seem to lisp!) have to answer questions using thinking skills. I thought I was the only person who watched it, but after a quick google, I discovered that it gets a weekly audience of 700000 viewers.

I mentioned on twitter this evening that I was watching it on iplayer and I've now discovered that many of my twitter friends watch it, too.

@bonjour_miss commented that it might be an idea to adapt some of the games for students to use in class. I've had a think and come up with some ideas:

1) The connections round

The students are given up to 4 clues and have to decide on the link between the clues. They are shown each clue separately and earn 5 points if they guess the connection after one clue, 3 point after 2 clues, 2 points after 1, and 1 point for guessing after receiving all 4 clues.

It could be something like this:

Clue 1	Clue 2	Clue 3	Clue 4
aller	tomber	partir	entrer

Obviously, the answer would be that each of the verbs takes être as its auxiliary verb.

2) In this round, students have to guess what the 4th word is. Scoring is on a similar basis.

It might look like this:

Clue 1	Clue 2	Clue 3	Answer
chat	chien	oiseau

The clues are all animals kept as pets. Each clue has one more letter than the preceding clue, so the answer would have to be a pet with seven letters. In this case, it could be "hamster", "serpent" or any pet with 7 letters in its name.

3) The 3rd round is the connecting wall. It consists of a 4 X 4 grid containing 4 sets groups of 4 words with some connection.

It could look like this and can be made easier or harder depending on the ability of the group:

un	chaise	grand	chat
super	deux	table	crayon
stylo	nul	trousse	cinq
trois	chien	petit	tortue

To solve the grid the students have to identify the 4 groups and explain what the connections are. In this grid we have: 4 numbers, 4 masculine nouns, 4 feminine nouns and 4 adjectives.

4) The final round is the missing vowels round. Teams are given a category, for example numbers, and are shown words with the vowels removed.

For example:

VNGTHT

would be "vingt-huit".

It would take quite a while to set up the questions but they could be used on many occasions and you needn't do all the activities in one go.

I haven't tried any of these, but it looks like it might be fun.

Thanks for the idea, Trina.

wordbyletter.com

2011-11-06T12:35:00.000-08:00

I discovered wordbyletter.com a while ago.

It's a wordfinder site which allows the user to do a number of cool things. These include entering a prefix or suffix and receive a list of words with those details. It's ideal for helping with crosswords, finding rhymes, etc.

You can also enter definitions and find words beginning with a specific letter or words with an exact number of letters.

It's great.

But the best thing about this site is that it is available in French and Spanish, too.

I found this useful when looking for words to practise phonics with my students earlier in the year and when I was doing rhyming poetry with my very able year 9 group.

I recommend you investigate and play.

The problems of sharing text books (another mobile phone rant).

2011-11-05T03:23:00.003-07:00

At my school, languages is becoming more popular at GCSE. This is a good thing, many of you would say.

This is mainly because of Ebacc, students are cajoled into, by which I mean almost forced into, studying a language to improve their chances of getting into university.

Unfortunately, more students means that my year10 class have to share text books. This causes major logistical problems when setting homework exercises.

It means photocopying the exercises, many of which are in colour and don't copy that well or, as is usually the case, rewriting the questions, putting them on the whiteboard and getting the students to copy them into their homework diaries.

This week, one of my students had an epiphany. "Why can't we just use our mobiles to take a photo of the questions?"

I replied, "You can if you like. I think it's a great idea."

Sadly, the reaction of the students was, "Oh, but what if someone comes in and sees us?"

Would that be:

What if someone comes in and sees us using our initiative?

What if someone comes in and sees us using technology to save time?

What if someone comes in and sees us taking control of our own learning?

We are supposed to be educating students to use their initiative, become self-learners and survive in a digital world, yet we stifle their creativity and excellent ideas at the same time.

We risk turning our lovely, inquisitive young chimps into ants.

It's the educational equivalent of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

Whatever you do, please don't fall asleep.

Hallowe'en resources.

2011-10-28T07:21:00.001-07:00

It's that time of the year again. The shops are full of Christmas Trees, there are adverts for toys everywhere, there are Christmas lights in every town centre. The clues are all there.

Yes, it's almost Hallowe'en.

Even my dog has entered into the spirit of things with an amazing costume!

Here are some resources and links to MFL hallowe'en-y type things:

French:

A few years ago Jo Rhys-Jones put together this page on the Talkabout PrimaryLanguages site. It contains some excellent links.

A TES vocabulary resource here

Lanternfish has some hallowe'en worksheets here

Some links here from canadacyberschool

A lesson from MFLSunderland "potion magique"

German:

A TES German resource here (based on Clare Seccombe's potion magique)

Another TES resource, this one for KS1 German and another one for KS4

From german.about.com a halloween graveyard project.

Germanculture.com's information in English about how Hallowe'en is celebrated on Germany.

Some information on Martinstag from german-way.com.

Spanish:

Hallowe'en is not a big deal in Spain, but there are still resources available.

This one from TES La noche de brujas

Some lanternfish Spanish worksheets

In Mexico dia de los muertos is celebrated at this time. Here are some links to resources:

TES resource

Some really good stuff from casadejoanna.com

Excellent lesson plans and resources from Mommy Maestra

Lots of links and information from mexconnect.com

There are also some good ICT Hallowe'en resources on Linguascope if your school has a subscription to it.

I'm a chimp.

2011-10-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I taught a full day in school, went on a twilight management course from 4:30 'til 6:30 and then spent the rest of the evening until 9:30 or so at Cramlington Learning Village at the Teachmeet.

When I mentioned this, one of my colleagues said, "Why would you want to do that? You are completely mad. "

This could well be true. There is every likelihood that I am, if not completely mad, definitely a bit mad.

Although, I'm not sure that I am mad because I love my job and I'm keen to improve the way I teach.

Yesterday I read José Picardo's blog Chimps and Ants: The politics of innovation and, on reflection, I realised that, because of the way I look at and complete my work, I am a chimp.

I am a chimp, not an ant.

Don't laugh.

The very fact that you are reading this proves that you are most likely a chimp, too.

The majority of my colleagues at the exam factory are ants. They don't realise and they can't help it.

Shame, really.

Tintin (Bande annonce VF)

2011-10-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am a huge Tintin fan. This looked really good, so I thought I'd post it here.

Cramlington LV Teachmeet.

2011-10-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday evening I attended Cramlington Learning Village's Teachmeet. It's the first time I've been to a Teachmeet as an enthusiastic lurker rather than a speaker, as I generally have discovered the next big thing or have something to share. And I like the sound of my own voice. A lot.

Sadly, due to a middle management course, I arrived late and missed a couple of the early presentations but, what I did see was very good.

There were a number of good ideas presented, but these are the presentations which stuck in my mind (by which I mean I'm going to steal their ideas):

Mathematician, Rachel Futo showed us different ways of using the game Connect 4. She uses grids and counters to assess prior knowledge, revise, stretch and support learners, for pairwork, for peer assessment and as a tool for A4L.

Geographer John Sayers was amazing. He shared 3 ideas: The personal learning chair (which some of you'll be pleased to know can be used with QRCodes), mission explore, and concertina form information. You can read more about John's ideas at his blog which is excellent.

Fellow linguist, Chris Harte, showed us the difference between Feedback and Assessment For Learning. You can find his presentation on slideshare.

Polymath, genius, and all round good egg, Steve Bunce, rounded off the evening with a presentation entitled, Reality hits you hard, Bro (alcohol and singing). Steve told us about the songify app and showed how it can be used with an i-pad by getting audience members to record text and then used songify to create a song. I can see how great it would be if we could use it in school for MFL lessons.

Portable WiFi hotspot

2011-10-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

I currently find myself staying in a house with no internet connection. (Yes, they do still exist!)

I used to have an internet dongle for such situations but it proved very expensive.

What, then, can I do? Not use the internet for a few days?

Well, I have my netbook and my HTC Wildfire android phone and I have an app called Portable WiFi Hotspot which I downloaded for free from Android Market.

This app turns my phone into a wireless router and by activating it and the wireless connection on my netbook I have an instant and safe internet connection. It is password protected and, I haven't done this, but you can add more than one user if you need to.

Luckily, my mobile contract includes 3GB per month internet usage.

It is more practical than using the internet on my phone and for some strange reason seems to be quicker, too.

It is great for using internet at school for accessing sites like twitter and any bit.ly addresses which my employers have seen fit to block.

It is ideal in an emergency situation and if you don't have it or something similar, I recommend you download it. For the less fortunate among you, there is also a version available for iphone and blackberry.

No excuse not to use mobiles in schools.

2011-10-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you cast your mind back a couple of years, you'll remember I wrote a guest post for José Picardo's box of tricks site which even ended up as an e-book.

The post was all about how I had used, and intended to use, mobile phones in class with my students. The opening paragraph was about how the Stewart Enquiry or Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones had advised UK schools in 2001 about the dangers of children under 16 using mobile phones.

Now new research from the Institute of Cancer and Epidemiology in Denmark, reported here by the BBC news website, has found that users of mobile phones are at no greater risk of developing brain cancer than anyone else.

So school leaders, apart from the bullying, abuse and theft issues (I'm still working on these), you really have no excuse to continue to ban phones in schools.

redkid.net 's image generators.

2011-10-16T14:09:00.001-07:00

Ipad or My pad? 10 reasons why paper is better.

2011-10-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

My friends and colleagues know me as a bit of a technology fan and most of you know that I've blogged about mobile phones a lot.

Over the last 2 or 3 years I have attended a lot of Teachmeets and Show and Tells and one of the things I've been interested in is the use of technology by the presenters and the attendees.

A couple of years ago almost all attendees at these unconferences had a laptop. At the next one, laptops had given way to netbooks. Then netbooks vanished and smart phones ruled. Then it seemed that anything made by Apple was de rigueur.

Technology is not always best. Recently I've been taking notes using this:

and this:

So, why do I think my pad is better than an I-pad?

1) It was a lot cheaper. Less than £2 in Wilkinson's sale.

2) It doesn't need a battery or recharging.

3) If I drop it onto a hard, or for that matter soft, floor it won't smash into a million pieces and I won't cry.

4) I won't get upset when Wilkinson's start selling a more up to date version with a rust resistant spiral bound centre.

5) It doesn't need a WiFi connection.

6) Nobody will want to steal it.

7) Each time I write something, it is automatically saved.

8) It won't break down. Ever.

9) If I meet someone without one I can tear out some sheets and share with them.

10) If I spill tea or coffee on it, not only will it still work, it will look funkier and smell nicer. (Or should that be look nicer and smell funkier?)

So, there you have it. 10 reasons (and I could think of dozens more) why my pad beats I pad any day.

Reall languages - update

2011-10-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

I have blogged about Reall Languages before but now it is even better. The brainchild of Chris Reall, the site has been updated and is now even more user friendly.

It has a collection of games and activities to help learners of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Latin. The games can be played at home by students and can be used on an interactive whiteboard in school, too.

Here is an example of one of the games:

Ben (sort of...) speaks German.

2011-10-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

Clip from the BBC's comedy show "Outnumbered". It made me laugh and makes a lot of sense, too (if you're German). Enjoy.

Teach Meet Tees11

2011-10-08T06:09:00.000-07:00

This week I attended the first Teachmeet Tees. It was organised by Steve Bunce and Simon Finch and the venue was the ARC in Stockton. It was reasonably well attended, but it wasn't the quantity of attendees but the quality which really impressed me.

I got to meet some old friends and some new ones but the most important thing was I actually learned new things.

I think teachmeets can be great for linguists as you get to see what teachers of other subjects are doing and I love the informal atmosphere. Very often you can find a use for an idea, a piece of software, or a website that is ideal for use in languages lessons that was not intended to be used in MFL lessons at all.

The presenters were:

Martin Waller who told us about his Growing Greener Together project. This is a whole school approach to creative learning through gardening, cooking, conservation, enterprise and using digital technology.

Pete Fox. Pete showed us some excellent resources for improving numeracy across the curriculum. One of which was tutpup which allow users to play lots of maths games but also compete with other children from across the world.

Alasdair Douglas told us about an amazing year 7 project at his school which was based on the Angry Birds games. The pupils designed, created and played their own versions of the game using skills they had learned in science, maths, geography, technology, etc. He tells it a lot better than I do, perhaps because he was one of the instigators and facilitators.

Mark Clarkson showed us his "image of the week" idea. This is where he uses photos to engage students in tutor time to get the to think and speak about the world around us. The pictures come from boston.com where there are galleries of news related photos from around the world.

Simon Finch showed us the history of his dealings with the apple corporation from buying his first mac to reviewing for mac user magazine in the early days and everything since and also showed us how to make mini books and gave us a few dozen reasons on how we could use them creatively in our classrooms. Simon also took dozens of photos of the event which can be found on his flickr page.

Lynda Dixon shared her love of writing implements in her "Stationery or stationary?" presentation which (as well as looking like a plug for all things Apple-y) also included a video of José Picardo's ideas on how people currently use technology in their everyday lives.

Helena Butterfield showed us all about e-twinning with schools around the world and the adventures of Michel, the teddy bear traveller, who has visited schools in many different countries as a result of a recent e-twinning project.

Fiona Joyce showed us the amazing world of Storybird an amazing site for collaborative storytelling. Fiona has even set up a storybird wiki for teachers of languages to share storybirds they have made. If you haven't seen her wiki yet, you should visit and be inspired.

Steve Bunce also presented in collaboration with Simon and urged us to look at his Kindles and play on his Xbox kinect.

Helen Daykin, representing sponsor I am learning, provided the most amazing cupcakes, too.

My presentation "10 ways to use mobile phones in your classroom" included a phone poll to gauge how great it would be for the attendees to use mobiles in their own classrooms. I made it with the free version of smspoll. it seemed to go down OK despite my terrible cold and sounding like the offspring of Mariella Frostrup and Joe Pasquale.

Here are the results of the online mobile phone poll:

Agreeing with Gove? Surely not?

2011-10-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, Michael Gove MP is the UK government's Secretary of State for Education.

He has more cunning plans than Baldrick and, usually, they are just as ridiculous, but today, I find myself agreeing with him.

It was this article in this morning's Guardian which made me stop and think.

My first thought was, "Who are you, and what have you done with Michael Gove?"

I continued reading.

This quote really floored me:

"Just as some people have taken a perverse pride in not understanding mathematics, so we have taken a perverse pride in the fact that we do not speak foreign languages, and we just need to speak louder in English. It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning."

Teaching languages from the age of five?

In all primary schools?

Is it really going to happen?

I doubt it .

We'll just have to wait and see.

MFL Show and Tell Plus

2011-09-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Saturday 24th September was the 4th MFLSAT+, an informal modern languages unconference were anyone who wanted could stand at the front of the auditorium (or appear at the various Genius bars) at Cramlington Learning Village and share ideas, resources, enthusiasm and passion with linguists from all over the UK.

Thanks go to Chris Harte (and Fabienne) for organising the whole event, the sponsors (without whom..) and everyone from the experienced practitioners to the trainee teachers who came and spoke and, more importantly, listened.

As usual, I saw some old friends I've met before (including one very old friend, Lynn), some old friends I've ever met in person and met new ones, and was in awe of all the presenters.

I learned lots about new (to me) resources and stole some ideas which I have already started to put into practice.

But enough about me.

I wrote pages and pages of notes (some of which I can just about read!) but lots of people who were there have already blogged about MFLSAT Plus and there was even a flashmeet so you can watch it all, if you have a few hours to spare.

So rather than bore you with my own fuddled recollections (or steal their thunder) I shall just give you the links to Clare Seccombe's blog and Amanda Salt's blog, not because I'm lazy, but because they are amazing, have better memories and I couldn't have put it better if I'd tried.

I am really looking forward to the next one.

European day of languages 2011.

2011-09-15T14:12:00.001-07:00

It's that time of the year again. Monday 26th September 2011 is European Day of Languages. Not a day to celebrate European languages, but a day in which ALL languages are celebrated.

To help you all celebrate here is a list of pages chock full of ideas:

This is the link to the wiki I created in 2009. Please join and add your ideas or just borrow the ideas already there.

Here is the CILT European Day of Languages page.

EDoL resources on TES website.

Some EDoL videos on youtube.

That should keep you busy.

Enjoy.

La Coupe du Monde de Rugby à XV

2011-09-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some links to rugby world cup related sites, pages and authentic resources in French:

The Official site - everything you could possibly need or want to know (also available in Spanish).
Supporter les bleus! - iphone app - keep up to date with the French team.
BBC Ma France rugby activities and links - has some really good rugby terminology games.
Site of the French rugby federation - lots of match information.
A scoopit page dedicated to the tournament curated by Guillaume Marin, a French ICT teacher and rugby fan. Follow him on twitter here.
La tribu du XV a site by Société Générale - contains information and videos of the 15 children (parrains) they have chosen to help support the French team during the competition. SG has made tv commercials throughout the summer using the children to show their support for Les Bleus.
A nice flipchart from promethean planet.
A worksheet from TES Resources.
Dedicated rugby pages from French newspaper Le Monde

Since writing this post I have discovered more links and resources:

This link on TES is to a brilliant worksheet from Lauren Crawley
The rest of the links come from linternaute.com a French online magazine.
Le haka, un rituel à faire frémir les adversaires.
Les règles du rugby.
Les emblèmes des équipes de rugby.
Pourquoi le ballon de rugby est-il ovale ?
Les 12 stades de la Coupe du Monde de rugby en Nouvelle-Zélande.

Learning Mandarin is NOT the solution!

2011-08-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

Recently published A level and GCSE results have shown that the number of students studying languages has fallen by a significant amount. The government, is trying to resolve the problem (it thinks) by introducing Ebacc, forcing reluctant students to study a language.

Relevance has always been an issue in the language learning debate and many students either don't see the relevance, don't want to put in the effort or simply prefer other subjects. Given the choice, many year 8 and 9 students I have encountered would drop languages in favour of more PE, ICT, Technology, Drama, etc. and I probably would have done, too.

This is not because they don't like languages, but because they would prefer to do something else. Analogy: I love drinking coffee but give me the choice between cup of coffee and a cold beer on a hot summer's day and the beer would win every time.

So, what is the solution?

Make language learning "fun"?

Make it more relevant?

Force students to study MFL?

I don't know.

But I do know that teaching Mandarin in our schools is definitely NOT the solution.

Subliminal language learning - The results of the experiment.

2011-08-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

You may remember, although there is no reason why you should, this post from last year where I set out to prove that I could learn a language from scratch without doing any work at all.

The language in question was Icelandic. The way I was going to learn it was through a "subliminal CD" which cost me $3.99 including shipping and taxis (sic) and was "developed by Medical doctors and PhDs in psychology", but sadly not in icelandic.

The plan was to listen to the CD regularly in the car and on my mp3 player. I gave myself exactly one year to do it and I, and the occasional unwitting passenger, have been "subliminally learning Icelandic" religiously for exactly 12 months.

The idea behind this was that if I ever met an Icelander I would be able to converse with them fluently in their own language and they would be really surprised, but not as surprised as I would be.

You will both be pleased to know that the experiment has now come to an end.

Some people said it could not be done.

They were right.

It was a huge failure.

I can categorically testify that it is impossible to to learn a language subliminally or, as we say in Icelandic:

það er ekki komið í staðinn fyrir vinnu*.

*there's no substitute for hard work.

Digital Dialects - language games for European Day of Languages

2011-08-15T03:48:00.000-07:00

Another shameless plug. This time it's for the Digital Dialects website. The site has interactive language games in 60 different languages from Afrikaans to Zazaki.

To play the games you will need Flash Player. The games are very good for practising basic vocabulary and mainly consist of matching vocabulary games. For some languages there are activities for more advanced students, too.

There are no audio files for most games, so they can be used primarily to improve reading skills rather than as a main teaching tool.

It is very user friendly and, unlike some similar sites, tells the user when they have made a mistake and shows them where they went wrong.

Languages, such as Greek, Hindi, Mongolian, Japanese, etc which use different writing systems have activities mainly in their own alphabets.

This site would be ideal for learning and practising common phrases in different languages for the European Day of Languages on 26th September.

For more ideas on activities for European Day of Languages you can look at (or even join) the EDL Ideas wiki.

Contrepèterie or Word play in French.

2011-08-07T06:08:00.001-07:00

The English language lends itself to manipulation of words and phrases to create amusement. Word play and double-entendre have been the driving force behind the nudge-wink style of comedy favoured by many successful British comedians over the years.

Take, for example, Kenny Everett's character Cupid Stunt. An excellent example of a spoonerism if ever there was one. (Originally, the character was to be called Mary Hinge but the BBC wouldn't allow it!)

I was listening to a radio programme about the use of spoonerisms and it suddenly struck me that they must exist in other languages, too. A quick wikipedia search told me that spoonerisms are used internationally in many different languages.

In French, this is called contrepèterie and is extremely popular. The French are immensely proud of this and, in fact, the satirical newspaper le canard enchaîné has a column solely devoted to contrepèterie.

As in English, contrepèterie usually is a quite innocent phrase but contains more than a hint of indecency if letters or syllables were manipulated and enough thought was given to it.

François Rabelais used contrepèteries in 1532 in Pantagruel "la femme folle à la messe"

Just south of Paris, in Bourg-La-Reine there is a bookshop called le verger des muses.

The are many famous contrepèteries.

Here are some of them for you to think about:

Les filles aiment le tennis en pension.
J'aime vachement votre frangin.
Elle prend la chose en riant.
L'auberge du chat qui rit.

So, the next time you speak with a French person, listen very carefully.

He may, or may not, be a shining wit.

Reall Languages

2011-08-06T07:25:00.001-07:00

Another recommendation. This time it's for REALL-LANGUAGES. A fantastic website for practising vocabulary in French, German, Italian, Russian, Swedish , Latin and English. It also contains exercises in other subjects, too.

There is a link to this site on my department's wiki but I had forgotten about it until I saw a link to it from Steve Smith on twitter.

The exercises are in the form of interactive games and students from beginner to GCSE standard will find them a great way to revise and practise vocabulary.

It's completely free to use and all you need is an internet connection and java.

Sur le pont d'Avignon?

2011-08-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

I was taught this song at primary school. We drew pictures of people dancing on a bridge. In crayon. Probably.

Before un kilo de chansons came along, this was the song that every student of French learned.

Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond

However, I found out today that it is, historically, wrong. You probably knew this already and are saying to yourselves "Isn't he stupid? Didn't he even know that?"

Today, as I was leaving Oldham to drive home I was accosted by my mother's neighbour. He had just, that second, arrived back from a holiday in the South of France and, as there was nobody else around, proceeded to recount his holiday adventures to me. (I could hear a collective sigh of relief from all the other neighbours!)

Anyway, he explained that the song was originally entitled "Sous le pont d'Avignon" because in medieval times, under the arches of the bridge on the Ile de la Barthelasse, there were all kinds of nefarious entertainments going on, including dancing. And dancing on the bridge was forbidden.

I checked this information and he is correct. So, now we all know. Thanks, Neil.

Learning German with Henning Wehn

2011-07-29T05:30:00.001-07:00

The BBC German Languages site contains some excellent resources for learners of German. Self-proclaimed German comedy ambassador, and stand up comedian, Henning Wehn presents a series of hilarious and educational clips entitled "What so funny about German?"

The videos each last 3 or so minutes and the series includes advice on learning the German alphabet, word order, using genders, and finishes with advice on telling jokes in German.

I have embedded two of the clips below.

In the first, False friends, Henning explains that sometimes words sound the same in German and English but have totally different meanings.

In the second clip, Pseudo-anglicisms, Henning shows us that sometimes German takes English words and gives them a completely different meaning.

Do you know what Smoking, Evergreen and Bodybag mean in English? Watch and find out.

Lost in translation.

2011-07-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

Translation has always been a tricky business. It isn't just a matter of changing words in one language to another and we can all quote examples of poor, but hilarious, translations from and into English. We can tell immediately if something has been translated by a student using google translate. In short, translation is only as good as the translator.

I read an article today from abc news about Pixar's new film (I refuse to use the word "movie") Cars 2. It has been released around the world and dubbed into 44 different languages and that is where Pixar's problems begin. One character in particular, Mater, proved extremely difficult:

"Mater's kind of a redneck, but that means nothing to anyone overseas because they don't have that particular vocal culture," says Rick Dempsey, senior vice president of Disney Character Voices. "So we had to figure out what region of Germany, for example, has more of an uneducated population without being offensive."

Good luck with that one, Rick.

This article got me thinking about the word "redneck" and how it would translate into other languages. In French, according to wordreference.com the word is "péquenaud". However, if you translate it back into English it gives the meaning as "hillbilly", "yokel" or "country bumpkin". All of these translations mean something completely different in English with differing degrees of offensiveness .

I'm sure that CBS would not have had such a hit in 1962 with a programme called "The Beverly Rednecks" or that the film "Deliverance" would not have been the success it was had Adge Cutler and the Wurzels been cast instead of Bill McKinney and Herbert Coward as the "mountain men".

I think that what I'm trying to say is that translation without intercultural understanding is pointless and if I didn't teach both I would be doing my students a huge disservice.

Learn French in One Word

2011-07-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

I love this video. It is from Michelle Chmielewki's youtube channel.

What more can I say?

CILT Cymru – Using peer assessment to improve writing skills

2011-06-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

I was contacted a few weeks ago by Kristina Hedges from CILT CYMRU asking if I would allow them to put a link to a blogpost I wrote in November 2009 about effective feedback in one of their training modules. I was surprised and flattered (I still can't believe anyone reads this stuff!) and said "Yes" immediately. Kristina contacted me again last week to tell me that the module was on their website and give me the link.

The link was to one of CILT's training modules on Assessment for Learning entitled Barry Comprehensive - Using peer assessment to improve writing skills.

It is an excellent module and includes discussion points, activities to discuss before and after watching a video clip and some follow up activities (which is where the link to my blog can be found). I really like the module and think it would be useful to discuss and trial some of its ideas with my departmental colleagues.

Whilst browsing the CILT CYMRU site I came across another of their training modules, this time on skills based learning. This module shows how Blackwood Comprehensive has tried to raise student motivation and achievement by using interactive starters and games. Like the other module this comes with discussion points, activities and ideas for moving on.

I was impressed by both modules, they have given me a lot to think about and made me think about lots of different ways in which I can try to improve my own practice in the future.

Insomnia or How to have fun with a Random Letter Generator.

2011-06-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, when I couldn't get to sleep I invented a new game using my digital alarm clock. Here's how it works: look at the time on the clock -

in this case 03:50, turn the numbers upside down so that they read O S E O and then try to think of as many words as you can which contain that sequence of letters .eg OStEOporosis.

So how can I use this amazing idea in the classroom?

Well, David Reed Associate Professor of Computer Science at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska has created a Random Letter Sequence Generator.

It is ideal for improving word power of MFL students. It allows you to choose the length of each random letter sequence and lets you choose which letters to randomise

For beginners you could choose to have 2 random letters and more for more able students. depending which language you are choosing, you can remove the less common letters. For example, if I were to be doing this task in French I would probably remove the letter K from the list before I started.

It is one of those games which students of all abilities could use and is easy to differentiate.

I haven't used it with my groups yet as I only discovered the generator very late last night. I imagine it will be really good and urge you to try it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Desert islands discs - getting the sixth form speaking.

2011-06-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

Sadly, it's very rare now that I find myself in a pub with my old friends Dave, Dave and Steven. Usually, towards the end of the evening when we have discussed the important issues of how badly Oldham Athletic are getting on, how rugby league is not what it used to be and what ever happened to Melvyn Hayes (and, more importantly, is he related to Geoffrey from Rainbow?) we always end up talking about our own "Desert Island Discs".

Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio programme in which a famous person chooses 8 gramophone records they would take with them should they ever be stranded on a desert island. The guest's life is then reviewed through their choice of records.

The idea is a very simple one and can be adapted for use in the classroom.

These are my rules:

For homework each student chooses 3 songs and prepares some notes.

In class they tell their partner which songs they have chosen and the reasons why.

The partner then asks questions to elicit further information and makes notes. This could be something like "Why do you like this song?" or "Where were you (or How old were you) the first time you heard this song?"

The pair then change roles.

Each student then gives a short summary to the group.

It is an interesting and fun way to get students speaking, taking notes and presenting to others and they seem to enjoy it.

Maslow, Motivation, and Me.

2011-05-16T04:47:00.000-07:00

Last year at Teachmeet North East, Darren Mead recommended I read a book by Geoff Petty, Evidence-based Teaching. I did and it is very good.

In the book there is a chapter on motivation and using Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I'd come across Maslow before, as I have a degree in Languages and Business Management, and I was surprised at myself that I'd never linked Maslow with teaching before.

Since reading this, I have made a conscious effort to try to motivate my students following Maslow's theory.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs looks like this:
So, how do I use this model to motivate students?

Physiological and Safety Needs.
These seem obvious but students will not be motivated in a cold classroom and if the surroundings are not conducive to learning, students will not be motivated to learn.

Love Needs.
To give students a sense of belonging I do different things. I learn the students' names and greet them as they enter the room. I (occasionally) smile. I give merits and stamps for effort and participation, and display students' work in my classroom.

Esteem Needs.

In order to improve students' self esteem I make sure that all students in my class are treated with respect. I give opportunities for students to learn independently and use self and peer assessments, too. Another way to do this is to use students' work as a model for others to learn.

Self Actualisation Needs.

This is all about personal growth and achieving potential. How do I do this? By providing opportunities for students to express themselves, problem solving activities, using evaluation and discussing ideas, devising activities which are fun. In order to get to this top level of Maslow's hierarchy, the conditions of each earlier level must be achieved. Students who feel they are not respected will not take an active part in lessons.

Personally, I find that this has helped my planning and classroom management and I would urge others to follow this even if they use it only as a kind of checklist.

The best laid plans....

2011-05-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

Every good teacher, and even some bad ones, will always have a back up plan.

You never know what disaster may ruin even the best planned lesson.

This week I had a major disaster.

You can see from the picture that the Mug of Misery has befallen a major accident...

So, in true Blue Peter style I have a replacement already lined up.

The MoM is dead. Long live the MoM.

Brits refuse to learn foreign languages.

2011-04-20T03:49:00.000-07:00

My heart sank as I read this article from the Daily Mail this morning.

I'm not a regular reader of the Daily Mail, honest. I have set up a google newsfeed for anything relating to modern languages.

Apparently, the average British tourist knows fewer than 10 phrases of the language of the country they visit.

It isn't this which bothers me, though. It is the fact that this ignorance is worn as a badge of pride. Only in Britain can ignorance be a status symbol - something to be proud of.

Luckily for us, the Daily Mail has printed some useful phrases for us all to impress the locals when we travel abroad (Obviously, I have left in all their mistakes and I love the fact that readers are told how to ask the time in French but would have no idea how to translate the reply):

FRENCH

Hello (Bonjour)
Goodbye (Au revoir)
Yes (Oui)
Thank you (Merci)
My name is... (Je m'appelle...)
Do you speak English? (Parlez-vous Anglais?)
Good evening (Bon soir)
Wine (Vin)
What time is it? (Quelle heure est-il?)

SPANISH

Hello (Hola)
Yes (Si)
Thank you (Gracias)
Goodbye (Adios)
Good morning (Buenas dias)
Good evening (Buenos noches)

GERMAN

Hello (Guten tag)
Yes (Ja)
Thank you (Danke)
Goodbye (Auf weidersehen)
Good morning (Guten morgen)
My name is (Ich heisse)
Good evening (Guten abend)

ITALIAN

Hello (Salve)
Goodbye (Arrivederci)
Yes (Si)

Enjoy the holidays!

Subliminal language learning - an update.

2011-04-19T03:37:00.001-07:00

I'm now two thirds into my "learn Icelandic subliminally" project. I'm afraid to say that it does not seem to be working.

I shall not give up hope, though. I still have until August to become totally fluent. Four more months of listening to the worst kind classical music should help me become totally fluent.

I can't wait.

Perhaps if it was working I'd have put it this way...

Ég er nú að tveir þriðju inn minn "learn Icelandic subliminally" verkefninu. Ég er hræddur um að segja að það virðist ekki vera að vinna.

Ég mun ekki gefa upp von, þó. Ég hef enn fyrr en í ágúst til að verða algjörlega altalandi. Fjóra mánuði að hlusta á versta klassískri tónlist ætti að hjálpa mér að verða algjörlega altalandi.

Ég get ekki beðið.

Takk Google Translate!

Cultural differences - a student's-eye view.

2011-04-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

Four weeks ago, a colleague and I took a party of 18 A level students (aged 16-18) from Hartlepool, in the north east of England, to Paris for 4 days of sightseeing and French speaking.

The trip was a great success and every single one of them improved their French, trying it out on the unsuspecting locals who did their best to misunderstand and then sell them things they did want for prices they didn't want to pay.

Many of these students hadn't been to France before and now they were being immersed in Parisian culture for 4 whole days.

So, what cultural differences did they notice in the culture capital of the world? (My students' comments are in italics)

La bise - a perfectly normal greeting between French friends - the most alien thing in the world to kids from my school. (Look at them 2 women!)

Se serrer la main - they couldn't get over the fact that everyone did this on meeting people in the street or on the metro. (Why are they doing that?)

Fumer - apparently this is still a pretty cool thing to do if you're French. (Don't they know it's bad for them?)

Le café - everyone drinking coffee (Black coffee? Eeuurgh!) and hundreds of small pavement cafés all over the city.

People begging in the streets - something you don't see much in Hartlepool. You have to go to the bustling metropolis that is Middlesbrough for that.

Dogs - almost everyone appeared to have a dog and didn't seem to want to clean up after it. (Student: Sir, where's all this mess coming from? Me: Dogs, I hope!)

Food - Paris the world's capital of fine food (I hate this, I thought French food was supposed to be good. McDonald's doesn't even sell McFlurrys!)

French drivers - the French are famous for their bad driving skills and it seems that pedestrian crossings are just street art. Of course if you're English, in your late teens, and used to traffic driving on the left, crossing the road in many countries can be dangerous.

There you have it, all the differences between France and the UK as summed up by my students.

PS: In reality, the most French thing that happened was when I took them to the market at Saint Denis. We arranged to meet the students in the square at an agreed time. Some of them were late back, so as we were waiting, one of the stall holders came to chat to me. He asked what we were protesting against, how many more students were expected and where were we marching to.

Banning mobile telephones.

2011-04-04T13:29:00.001-07:00

Today the UK's coalition government announced that schools will be given greater powers to deal with unruly students. This will include extending powers to search students for banned items such as illegal drugs, alcohol and mobile telephones. There is a very good article on the BBC News website about this.

Like many teachers, I am always looking for ways to improve teaching and learning and using mobile phones is one of my favourite ways of increasing participation and motivation among my students. So, I was more than a little disappointed to read that the government is thinking of banning them.

This evening I wrote the following letter to the Education Secretary, Michael Gove:

Dear sir,

I was very disappointed to read in the media today of the coalition government's plan to ban pupils from using mobile telephones in schools from September this year.

I understand that, in the hands of some unruly students, a mobile telephone could be a major distraction and a way to disrupt and prevent learning. However, I feel that a total ban on mobile telephones is not only a short-sighted measure but would cause more harm than good in the long term.

As a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages the use of mobile telephones in my classroom over recent years has increased participation, improved creativity and encouraged independent learning among my students.

To you, the tabloid press and the general public, a mobile telephone, it seems, is a weapon of mischief. To me, it is so many other things.

In my classroom a mobile telephone is:

the way to access the most up to date foreign language dictionaries.
a homework diary.
a tool for downloading and creating podcasts and educational video files.
a voice recorder to aid pronunciation and revision.
a video recorder to record dialogues for peer and self assessment.
a tool for sending answers to an interactive whiteboard.
a revision aid.
an excellent way to show independent learning.

I urge you to reconsider this proposal and think about the consequences such a decision will have on teaching and learning in our schools.

Your sincerely,

Dominic McGladdery

Are 100 words enough?

2011-03-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the current England football manager and Postman Pat's stunt double, Fabio Capello, whose name literally translates into English as "fabulous hair", (I may have just made that up!) has claimed that he needs only a vocabulary of 100 words to manage his squad of players.

There has been a number of complaints in the British press that, because of this, he can not be taking the job seriously. If he were he would have taken time to learn our wonderful language.

Now, I feel that I must defend Mr Capello. To me he is a bit of a hero.

His name gets me out of some tricky situations with some of my more difficult students.

Student: Why do we have to learn a language when everyone speaks English?

Me: Fabio Capello doesn't.

I wonder how many of our tabloid journalists know 100 words of Italian? Anyway, Capello did not say that he didn't need to learn English, but that he needed only 100 words to manage his squad. This is not the same thing. He is a football manager. He gives instructions. He is not a professor of nuclear physics, nor is he directing the Royal Shakespeare Company. The mischievous side of me wonders how many of the current England squad know more than 100 words in English. ?

This got me thinking: Do I use more than 100 words when giving instructions to students in my class? Honestly, I don't think I do. I use the same phrases over and over. It doesn't mean that my students aren't learning or that I'm not doing my job properly, does it?

Some more resources...

2011-03-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

Here is another post linking to some very good resources.

This time it's the Sutton Academy.

These resources are mainly online games and activities for individual students to practise key vocabulary and links to other useful sites, too.

They range from the basics in Keystage 2 to A level standard at Keystage 5 and are in 4 different languages: French, German, Spanish and Russian.

I was particularly interested in the French A level resources and noticed that they are following the same course as my students. There are some topics they haven't got around to yet but all of the AS level French topics appear to be there.

Although I will not have time to use the site in class, I shall be recommending that my year12 students, in particular, use this site for revision purposes.

French listening resources.

2011-03-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

When I started blogging a couple of years ago, my intention was that my blog would be a sort of online catalogue/review of the best resources and web content available to improve teaching of MFL.

The Panda Pops version of what Joe Dale does, if you will. The Home Bargains (cheap and cheerful) equivalent of his John Lewis like blog.

Unfortunately, this page has become more a place for the rantings of a grumpy old man than for sharing good practice and ideas.

Today is different. I am going back to basics and getting all serious and recommending a very good resource.

It's the free language tutorials from ielanguages.com.

In particular, the French listening resource podcasts.

They are completely free to download as mp3 files and etremely useful for anyone studying French, especially as exam season is almost upon us. I recommend them to my year 11 French class and to you.

Go on.

Try them.

Remote controlled assessments.

2011-03-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

In the olden days, in times of yore, when I was a child, we did exams called "O Levels" and we had to learn stuff and revise for them. They were hard.

In French, we had to write a story in the past historic tense (!) and we didn't get to prepare our writing and speaking work in advance.

There was even a dictation paper!

Nowadays, in the world of glorious technicolor, mobile phones, long trousers, HD and 3D, students of modern languages GCSEs get the title of their assignment, a couple of weeks to prepare using dictionaries, textbooks, the internet, etc. (but mainly google translate) and then all they have to do is remember it with the help of a sheet containing 30 key words of their choice. And, because they produce the assessment under exam conditions - they can't be accused of cheating.

They don't have to learn anything.

So, what is the point of teaching them anything?

Using mobile phones in school.

2011-03-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

Almost a year ago I changed jobs. My "new" school doesn't allow mobile phones (yet) but I am working on a presentation to argue a case for allowing them in school.

At my previous school when I used mobile phones with my students, they really enjoyed the activities and seemed to be much better motivated.

Today I read an excellent blog post by Gemma Dobson, a languages teacher in Devon, who has been using mobile phones with her Year 8 class. She appears to be doing some excellent work with the students and getting them really motivated.

Last week I mentioned the possibility of using phones in class to some of my own students and they seemed genuinely enthusiastic. That is, until one of my brighter students said, "That would be great and, if we got bored, we could text our friends."

Aaaarrghhh!

Final exams or continuous assessment?

2011-03-05T02:43:00.000-08:00

The coalition government in the UK wants to ditch continuous assessment and go back to the old system of sitting examinations in the final year of compulsory schooling.

The reasoning behind this is that the government thinks students should not be able to keep retaking modules or submitting endless pieces of continued assessment in order to achieve the best grades in their GCSE exams. Students should have one chance at the exam and that is it.

Many people would agree with this after all, the whole point of exams is that some people get good grades and others fail, isn't it?

Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned (in an article written by himself) that Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education passed his driving test on his SEVENTH attempt.

Photo www.labour-uncut.co.uk

Options, league tables and English Baccalaureate.

2011-02-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again.

Options time for year 9 students.

Or as I like to think of it: Trying to make my subject look much better than it really is, in order to get students who I don't want in my class, and who don't want to be in my class, to join my class.

This year it's a little different from previous years because we now have the English Baccalaureate.

Over the past few years schools in England and Wales have been placed into league tables based on the number of students who achieve 5 GCSE A-C passes (including English and maths).

The higher you are in the league tables, the better your school is, right?

Wrong.

For some years now schools have been misleading parents and students into choosing subjects which are "worth" 2 or even 4 GCSE grades in order that the school moves up the league table.

So, rather than do history or Spanish, students have been persuaded to opt for alternative qualifications which have made schools look amazingly better than they really are.

A school near me improved its 5 GCSE A-C pass rate from 42% to over 80% in one year just by introducing these alternative subjects.

I have no problem with students taking ICT or child care or pottery (people will always need MoMs) or even health and social care (whatever that is) but shouldn't all subjects be worth 1 GCSE?

The coalition government in the UK has introduced the English Baccalaureate on which it is now rating schools in the league tables. It also wants universities to accept the Ebacc as a minimum entry requirement for university. As far as I am aware, no university has subscribed to this, yet.

Am I fan of the Ebacc? No, not really.

I do have an idea, though.

It's going to be controversial.

Why not have a system where all subjects are worth exactly the same and students are impartially advised to choose a variety of subjects in which they can achieve and which will enable them to have a well-rounded education?

The Mug of Misery (Increasing student participation)

2011-02-05T06:22:00.001-08:00

Would you like your students to focus more in class?

Would you like a way to make your students participate more in lessons?

Would you like your students to be better motivated?

Would you like a random name picker which doesn't need an interactive whiteboard or internet connection?

The answer is right in front of you. It's in your hand. It has coffee in it.

This is the Mug of Misery.

Affectionately known as MoM.

It is amazing.

It is not magic, nor does it have any special powers.

To be honest, it wasn't even chosen because of it's wonderful image of the Eiffel Tower.

It was chosen because it was the only clean mug in my classroom cupboard.

I have mentioned it before and preached about it's greatness at the most recent TeachMeetNorthEast and at MFLSAT in Oldham last year and I felt that it deserved a blogpost all of its own.

So, how does it work?

It contains medical tongue depressors (or if you prefer ice lolly or popsicle sticks) on which the name of each student in the group is written.

In my classroom there is a "no hands rule".

Each time I ask a question rather than the usual 2 or 3 students responding immediately, I give the class thinking time and then I choose a stick at random from the MoM. The chosen student then answers (or tries to answer) the question and his/her stick goes back into the MoM for the next question.

The fact that the stick goes back into the MoM means that a student cannot sit back thinking that they have had their question and they can now relax and do nothing. On the contrary, they could be called upon at any time to answer another question and so need to keep listening and learning.

Since I started using the MoM I have had a good response from students of all ages and abilities. It does take a bit of time to write the names on the sticks, but once it is done you need never do it again. Apart from that and the odd splinter I have had no problems.

Other teachers I know have adopted the MoM system and are finding it works well for them and their students, too.

If you use a MoM in your class or you are going to try it out, I'd love to hear from you. If you send me a picture of your MoM I'll add it to this post for all the world to see.

Guest MoMs

This MoM belongs to Annalise Adam a modern languages teacher in Southampton, UK. Annalise's students think the MoM is a great idea, too.

The second "Guest MoM" belongs to Kirsty Chapman. Kirsty teaches French and German in a secondary school in Kent.

The Tintin and Snowy MoM belongs to Fiona Joyce. She teaches French, German, Spanish and Latin in Stockton in the north east of England. Fiona also has a cool lolly stick box bedecked with Daleks (no Amy Pond, though) Fiona is the creator and curator of the amazing mfl storybirds wiki.

This MoM belongs to Helena Butterfield. She teaches in Teesside, in the north east of England and is an expert on e-twinning. Helena recently started a new job as Head of MFL.

The "cookies" mug of misery belongs to Isabelle Rodriguez who teaches in Poole in Dorset. Her students "love to hate" her MoM, apparently. Isabelle has an amazing blog with lots of French A Level links.

Fuzzwich - an animation tool.

2011-01-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I saw link from Alex Bellars on Twitter to an amazing little animation made by Lisa Stevens using Fuzzwich to advertise the ililc show and tell.

I watched the clip and decided to investigate.

I'd never even heard of Fuzzwich until today but, hey, how difficult could it be?

So I have created my own, entitled "Can we use it in MFL?"

Enjoy.

I'm not one to complain but....

2011-01-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

I'm a huge fan of the television programme "Judge Judy". There, I've said it and I don't care who knows. But, recently on the show, there has been an increase in the number of people saying "aks" instead of "ask"and this really is irritating me.

It shouldn't.

Languages change and, I have it on good authority, that this isn't just American slang, but has been used in the south western counties of England for centuries.

It still hurts my ears, though.

Even worse than this is the use of the word "sikth" instead of "sixth" on the BBC of all places.

And when the word "footballer" is replaced with "footbler" it really makes my blood boil.

Proper scrabble, piracy, sausage rolls, storytelling, hats and lolly sticks.

2010-12-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Last night I attended the latest TeachMeet North East.

The venue was the Tyneside Cinema, in Newcastle.

Once again it was thanks to Chris Harte (and his team) who put in a huge amount of effort organising and securing sponsorship so that the whole thing could take place.

Around fifty education professionals attended and were treated to some free wine, excellent sandwiches and some truly amazing presentations (and me doing a shortened version of the "lolly sticks" thing from MFLSAT)

All of the presenters were very good, but for me the highlights of the evening were:

Peter Dine's retelling of a recent Ofsted experience
Charlotte Bailey and David Gray's inside outside circles
Simon Finch's "sex and drugs and sausage rolls" (a serious learning conversation about e-safety and naked hindu dancers)
Amy Dickinson's use of De Bono's thinking hats in peer assessment (De Bono once claimed the solution to the Arab-Isaeli conflict was Marmite)
Darren Mead and Fergus Hegarty's metacognitive wrappers and proper piratical scrabble
Steve Bunce's twelve digital storytelling tools (including the Wagneriser)

You can find other accounts of the evening on Darren Mead's blog and Mark Clarkson's blog (and here) and Simon Finch has kindly published photos of the evening here.

It was a fantastic evening. I caught up with some old friends, met some new ones, and took away some excellent ideas which I can try out in my own teaching.

Huge thanks again to everyone involved - I loved it.

Cold weather, controlled assessments and chaos.

2010-12-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

Last week my year 11 students were supposed to sit a written piece of Controlled Assessment as a part of their GCSE French exam.

Unfortunately, my school had to be closed due to the inclement weather and so we had to postpone the assessment.

As a conscientious practitioner (I've never been called that before, not even by myself!) and the fact that I had been left in charge of the department for the week, I contacted Edexcel, the exam board to ask for official clarification as to whether we could "postpone" an assessment, or if we had to give the students a different title.

Here is the email I sent to them:

My year 11 students have prepared for a written controlled assessment which they were to complete at school tomorrow. The school has been closed due to the poor weather. Will we be able to complete the assessment when the school reopens next week, or will we have to do another piece of assessment?

I was impressed to receive a reply almost immediately but not sure what to make of the answer.

Thank you for getting in touch. As far as I am aware, this is a 'first' for the new controlled assessment, and is not a scenario which has been legislated for. My understanding is that Edexcel would take a lenient view in this situation because the circumstances are beyond your control. However, I will pass your question on to the Edexcel office and ask them to confirm with you if their understanding is any different.
I hope this is helpful.
All good wishes,
Richard Marsden
Chair of Examiners, GCSE French

Links Manchester Conference

2010-11-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday morning I found myself in the north west of England again. It's becoming a habit.

This time I attended a Links into Languages / i-languages conference at the Chancellors Hotel in Manchester. The speakers were Juliet Park and Wendy Adeniji.

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear Juliet speak as I had signed up for the sessions "Thinking through MFL" and "Free ICT Tools for MFL" both of which were led by Wendy.

The main aims of the sessions were to get teachers:

to motivate and encourage learners
to develop linguistic progression
to develop language skills
to use innovative ideas in their work

To improve our students' speaking and listening skills we were advised to use authentic songs (rather than the ones which come with the textbook) and shown where we might find them.

Here's one:

We were also shown an examples of Vokis and a speaking frame to improve students participation.

To improve pupils' speaking skills we were encouraged to think more about context. What do pupils want to talk about? What do they want to read about? Would a French person really ask them what is in their pencil case? To raise pupils' interest, Wendy suggested that we should take a look at MYLO, too.

Another idea was that we compare and contrast aspects of life over the years to increase Cultural Understanding. The example we were shown was two clips of fashion shows, one from 1960 and one from 2010.

Next, we were shown some ideas to improve memorisation skills of our students. We were pointed in the direction of ilanguages website and its free resources section.

The next part of the course was "Thinking through MFL". This included the purpose of thinking skill strategies, the shape of a thinking skills lesson, and some ideas for thinking skills activities. These include: odd one out exercises, categorisation, living graphs, mysteries, diamond nine (an example of which you can find here on teachers.tv), reading images(some good pictures here), and memory maps. All the information on thinking skills can be found here at Clare Seccombe's MFLSunderland website.

Then came the break. Coffee, biscuits and networking. Which is code for chatting about shopping with people you know while Dom sits in the sunshine, relaxing. A tip I've learned from my dogs. I managed to persuade a lady called Ros to sign up to twitter. At least, I thought I had, she hasn't signed up yet. D'oh.

The second session was my favourite - Free ICT Tools for MFL.

In this session we learned all about avatars. We can create these using voki and xtranormal. There is an example of a voki I created just on the right of this page. Wendy also showed us how to save them to publisher so that they can be put onto a VLE or school website.

Wordclouds came next. We were shown how to use wordle and tagxedo. Paticularly good with song lyrics. (I shall try this.)

We were shown how to use Audacity to record students work and how to edit and add effects to the recordings. We were also directed to places where we could buy inexpensive recording equipment: CPC and Easispeak are 2 examples. To record and send files online, we were shown vocaroo and mailvu (which I haven't yet had a chance to look at).

To develop students' writing we were shown glogster and storybird. For some terrific examples of MFL storybirds you really should go to Fiona Joyce's excellent storybird wiki.

The final thing we were shown zamzar is a usueful tool for any educator. It is mainly used by teachers to download and save youtube videos for use in schools where youtube is blocked. I've since found out that zamzar can be used to convert other types of files, too.

I think I've covered everything that I learned and I hope you can find a use for some of the resources mentioned. It was a very well prepared and delivered course and if you get a chance to here either Juliet or Wendy speak, I recommend that you go and listen and learn.

MFLSAT3 - Everything you need to know.

2010-11-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the 3rd Modern Languages Show and Tell.

This time it was extra extra special as it was in my hometown, Oldham. That didn't stop me getting lost on the way there, though. My passengers really enjoyed the guided tour of Chadderton and they saw the blue plaque marking Terry Hall's birthplace three times. (Terry Hall the ventriloquist, not Terry Hall, the lead singer of the Specials)

The day was organised by the wonderful Isabelle Jones ably assisted by her department at Radclyffe School and was sponsored by Mary Glasgow Publications, Links into Languages and ALL.

The day was amazing and I learned a huge amount, not just from the speakers. The atmosphere was great and apart from being too short, the day could not have been better.

For those of you who missed it I shall give you a brief resumé of what happened:

(Wherever possible I've linked to the presenters' own blogs where you can see first hand what they have done)

First up was Marie-France Perkins.

She had some amazing ideas on how to find authentic resources on the internet.

Then came Marie O'Sullivan.

Marie had some great ideas including Rally Robin, Stand Up Hands Up Pair Up, and she introduced me to "The Hat". She has blogged about it here.

The third speaker, Chris Harte presented via skype. He showed us how to Understand Grammar using SOLO Taxonomy. A fascinating presentation which I now understand. His blog has more details.

Next we heard from Mary Cooch. She told us about her "No frontiers" moodle project with her school in Preston and a school in Spain. She blogs here and is an inspiration.

The next presenter was Esther Mercier who told us all about songsmith and gave us a practical demonstration by creating a song in minutes right before our eyes. She is also the brains behind atantot a fabulous website for language learners. (Fiona was so inspired by songsmith she went home and created her own alphabet rap)

After Esther came Kath Holton one of the most knowledgeable and modest practitioners I have had the pleasure to meet. She showed us how she uses her VLE to motivate her students to succeed by using tools such as edmodo, quizlet, voki, and zondle.

Next we heard all about Storybird from Fiona Joyce. We learned how to create class accounts to share storybirds with our students. Fiona is really passionate about Storybird and has compiled a wonderful wiki of them in different languages made by many fantastic teachers from around the world which is well worth a look.

Vanessa Parker, a languages teacher at the Radclyffe School then showed us some amazing ways to use powerpoint to motivate our students and to make lessons interesting, competitive and fun for them. she had some great ideas including a spotlight function. (The spotlight feature is explained here by Mark Purves, who was also at MFLSAT but sadly didn't present this time.)

The last presentation before lunch came from Helena Butterfield. She talked to us about the advantages of etwinning. There is a presentation on her blog all about etwinning type things.

First up after a very nice lunch was me. I presented on all things random. I showed how by writing students names on lolly sticks and picking them from the mug of misery we can keep students engaged, I showed the powerpoint download from fresherschools which can be adapted to become a random question picker and I used dice and virtual dice to show how to make students think more. (At least that's what I intended to do.)

Next came Joe Dale. He told us about how he had used and we could use wikis and widgets to work together. He told us about wallwisher, voicethread and coverit live to enhance learning and motivation in our classes. Joe's blog is amazing and I always find something new there each time I visit. It really is a gold mine of information.

After Joe we were treated to the shield and slippers of the amazing Alex Bellars. He showed us his duplo blocks to help with German word order, his voice recorder alarm clock Slabang from Ikea, and last, but not least, the grammar hammer. His blog can be found here.

Next was Clare Seccombe. Clare, internationally famous for her MFL Sunderland site showed us how she has taken the concept of the mini book one step further and used them in whole range of ways to motivate her primary pupils and get them to be creative with the language they are learning. She has already blogged about this here and you can find lots of things her pupils have done here.

The penultimate presentation was from Isabelle Jones. She gave us her top 7 iphone apps for MFL. Her presentation along with some other excellent posts and advice can be found on her blog here.

The final presentation was from Suzi Bewell. Suzi is an expert on all things to do with cultural understanding. Her presentation on global understanding with all the links she used can be found at her blog, here.

The day was absolutely amazing. I learned something new from each of the presenters. I would like to thank everyone who attended for making it so special and especially Isabelle and her team who put in so much hard work to make it happen.

One small step for a colleague, one giant leap for pupil motivation.

2010-11-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

Zooburst

2010-10-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered Zooburst.
It's a free tool which allows you to make pop up books.

It's another story telling tool with some useful features.

As I'm in the middle of a project to get my students to engage in spontaneous conversations in French, I thought I'd start with this. It's called "Que penses-tu?" and is supposed to get students talking:

Unfortunately some of the questions are not visible as I had to make the screen smaller to fit the blog.
To access the harder questions you have to click on "more".
Using zooburst is easy once you get used to it.
Unfortunately I accidentally deleted a lot of my earlier attempts.
Perhaps I should have read the instructions.

Talking flower.

2010-10-27T09:57:00.001-07:00

Here is a talking flower from fodey. I shall definitely be using this with my students in the next few months.

Mobile phones in the classroom........again.

2010-10-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

By now most of my friends and colleagues know my opinions on using mobile phones in the classroom. I've just read this article Cell phones in the Classroom. Bad idea, inevitable, or both? by Brad Moon.

It was tweeted to me by Clare and Alex and they got it from Peter.

(Sounds like a disease, I know.)

In the article, written in Canada, the writer tells us that the OSSTF is against allowing students to have mobile phones in school for the following reasons (the comments in italics are my childish attempts at humour):

1) they cause a distraction to students

(as do wasps and farts. Can we please ban those, too?)

2) there is a potential for student/teacher conflicts

(just like homework, shall we ban that, too?)

3) it may cause a socio-economic divide between students

(this has always existed. we can tell who are the rich kids and who are the poor kids without mobile phone inspections!)

4) they could be used to cheat during tests

(now you're just being silly. Even the most myopic of invigilators would notice a student using a telephone in a test, surely. Plus I can't even get a signal in my classroom unless I stand on a desk with one leg and both arms in the air!)

On a more serious note, mobile phones, or as I shall now refer to them, Personal Learning Devices (PLDs) are not going to go away. As educators we should be using them to their full potential in our classrooms.

If students placed their PLDs on the desk in front of them with their other equipment and in full sight of the teacher, the opportunities for abusing them would be almost non-existent.

Allowing students to use PLDs in schools may have teething troubles at the start, but in my experience the students who use them have been very sensible.

One final point and this is a fact: More students come to my classroom with a mobile phone than a pen.

****************************************************

PS I've just received a link from Isabelle which takes me to this article written by Ian Yorston, who sums up what I've been trying to say for the last two years in one sentence. I'm sure he won't mind me quoting him:

Schools don't need ICT. It's coming through our doors every day. We just need to adopt and adapt a little bit.

Talking Tom.

2010-09-25T14:35:00.001-07:00

I've just discovered Talking Tom. I have it on my android phone and it has been available for ipad and iphone,too, for a while.

It's free to download (via Android market or itunes) and there is a pro version with more features if you really want them.

All you have to do is talk into the phone and the cat repeats what you have said in a cartoon style voice.

The beauty of Talking Tom is that you can record the dialogue, save it, and either email it or post it to youtube.

It is similar to Voki and xtranormal and is quite like a cheap(er) version of crazytalk, too, and I'm a huge fan of all three of those.

I can see the kids I teach loving it. I just don't want to let them loose with my new phone.

What's the most difficult language?

2010-09-18T13:44:00.001-07:00

There are over 6000 languages spoken around the world but, according to my year 8 students, "English is the most difficult language to learn".

If that is the case, why do they find French and German so difficult?

They also think that all foreigners can speak fluent English, so it can't be that difficult, can it?

So what makes a language difficult?

I suppose it is all relative and depends on how you define "difficult".

If your first language was Ukrainian then learning Russian would be less of a trial than a mandarin speaker learning Russian.

Similarly, a native Swedish speaker would find learning Norwegian much easier than a native English speaker would.

As an English speaker and teacher of languages, I think the most difficult languages to learn would probably those which don't use "our" alphabet, have different grammatical rules and have few or no cognates. Examples of these would be Russian, Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic.

It also depends on how you define "learning".

Learning to write a language is much harder than learning to speak it.

I learned some Japanese a few years ago from a book and a CD. Even though I can remember a few basic phrases and numbers, I never learned to write it, except in Romaji.

Successful language learning can depend on how good your teacher is, too.

However, I've discovered that the most difficult language in the world has to be Sentinelese.

It really exists. It is spoken on North and South Sentinel Islands in the Bay of Bengal by about 200 people.

So why is it so difficult? Nobody knows.

What?

Mainly because going to the islands is illegal and anyone attempting to visit is killed by the locals.

And we complain about severe grading...

Are dying languages worth saving?

2010-09-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

The BBC news website featured this story today about a conference at Trinity College, Carmarthen at which ways of saving dying languages are to discussed. (Thanks to Clare for the link)

To be honest, I'm in two minds about this question.

Can we really stop languages from dying out?

A language is a living entity.

It evolves.

The English we speak today is not the English of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens or even Groucho.

Some languages become more popular, others less so.

Sometimes languages die.

Take latin. Nobody speaks latin anymore.

There are many great reasons to study latin but it must have died out for a reason.

It is a terrible shame when occasionally we hear that a language has died out but language is just a way of communicating.

Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

I'd love to know what you think.

Quantum ille canis est in fenestra?

The English Baccalaureat.

2010-08-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Over the last few years I've occasionally ranted about schools' management teams getting their most able students to drop languages and take vocational qualifications in order to boost their school's ratings in the league tables.

Before this year's general election, the Conservative Party hinted that, if elected, "GCSE equivalent" courses would no longer be counted in the league tables.

Yesterday, the UK government announced plans for a "new" qualification, the English Baccalaureat. Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education told Andrew Marr on his BBC television programme that he was worried by the decline in number of students taking GCSEs in Science and languages.

You can read about it here but the gist of it is that students who achieve good GCSE grades in English, Maths, a science, a modern language, and a humanity, will also be awarded the English Baccalaureat.

Will this stop our best students from dropping modern languages? Will school managers start to take languages seriously? Will British graduates once again be able to compete in the jobs market with their overseas counterparts?

I hope so.

Tattoo hand puppets.

2010-08-20T12:55:00.001-07:00

This afternoon we went shopping in Durham. My wife wanted candles in Lakeland. So while she took lids of jars, sniffed and either smiled or wrinkled her nose, I wandered around the store looking at all the cool gadgets you never realised you needed.

I was thoroughly impressed by the stainless steel cafetiere but it was temporary tattoo hand puppets which caught my eye.

I'm a huge fan of puppets as you probably know, and I think these are a great idea.

I wished I'd bought them and as soon as we got home I checked Lakeland's website and they aren't on there.

I googled them and found out that they are available in the US from thinkgeek and incrediblethings.com and, after a search lasting what seemed like hours, found that they can be bought in the UK from npw.co.uk and lazybone.co.uk.

Obviously, I couldn't use them with a whole class. It would be quite expensive but were I to do a small project or start a languages club they would be ideal.

Obviously, I'd need to do some research before I use them in school. How long do they last? Do they wash off? Would a child with allergies be able to use them? Are they messy? Etc, etc.

It seems like a really fun idea and if it gets pupils to take part in speaking in a different language then it will be worth it.

Subliminal language learning.

2010-08-17T04:38:00.000-07:00

In 1988 François Mitterrand was re-elected President of France.

So what? Well, for several days before the election a subliminal picture of him appeared in the title sequence of the news on one of the major French TV channels.

In a 1973 episode of Columbo "Double Exposure", the murderer, a research psychologist played by Robert Culp, uses subliminal messaging in a film to commit murder. Columbo uses the same technique to lure Culp's character to the scene of the murder and somehow (don't ask me, I was 4 years old) proves his guilt.

In 1974, a report commissioned for the United Nations concluded that "the cultural implications of subliminal indoctrination is a major threat to human rights throughout the world".

So if it's possible to threaten people's human rights, become President of France and catch a murderer, the question you must be asking yourself is:

Is it possible to learn a language subliminally?

Most experts on this say "no". They would though, because if it were possible, most of us would be out of a job.

RW Schmidt in "The role of consciousness in second language learning" (1990) OUP concludes that "subliminal language learning is impossible".

He's probably right, but I've never been one to let facts and research get in the way of a good idea and I'm always up for a challenge.

This is why I have added to my Icelandic resources with "Learn Icelandic fast and easy subliminal CD" (sic) which was "developed by Medical doctors and Phds in psychiatry and psychology".

What could possibly go wrong?

I'll be fluent before you can say "Eyjafjallajokull".

Talar þú íslensku?

2010-08-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was sent a link to this video by Hafdis Huld singing live in Reykjavik. I like her music. It's cool.

I watched the first 30 seconds or so. And then I watched them again. And again. And I realised I had no clue what she was saying.

So over the last few weeks I have been starting to learn Icelandic.

Some people I have told have been politely impressed, while others have given me the look which I translate as "Why?" I have even been asked when I am going to Iceland. The answer is, "I'm not, or at least I have no plans to go at the moment."

I'm learning Icelandic because I love a challenge. Especially one which involves learning a new language.

I bought the Talk Now Learn Icelandic beginners course to get me started. It's a lot of fun. It's a CD-Rom which contains enough phrases and basic words to get by and then lots of games to help to practise the new vocabulary.

Then I signed up to Icelandic Online. This is a free, online course from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Iceland. It has online lessons, video clips and exercises, a dictionary and grammar glossary. The first part of the course takes around 45 hours and covers roughly 900 learning objectives.

Learning a new language is really tricky. I have been very busy. I've picked up quite a lot of essential vocabulary and if I ever find out what Hafdis Huld was talking about, I'll be sure to let you know.

Hafðu það gott. Bless.

Being creative with Year 7.

2010-07-12T11:40:00.001-07:00

Today was my last lesson with my year 7 French groups. When they arrived, one of the children said, "All we've done today is watch DVDs. Can we do something different?"

We have been doing a mini project on endangered animals and we had been working on dialogues asking questions like "Que manges-tu?" "Où habites-tu?" and so on.

Their speaking work isn't brilliant and I've been trying to find ways of increasing their participation.

At MFL Show and Tell on Saturday, I was impressed with Lisa Stevens' ideas and energy and decided to use one of her ideas (I'll never match her energy).

Puppets, or more precisely, pencil puppets.

They practised their dialogues, pretending to be creatures and then we filmed them. Every single child in both classes took part in a dialogue, which I filmed on my fisher-price mobile phone and they loved it.

Big result!

Unfortunately, the sound quality of the clips is not good enough to post here, but here are pictures.

Piano stairs.

2010-07-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was MFL Show and Tell at Nottingham High School. It was a great day of fantastic presentations, amazing learning discussions and excellent coffee. You can watch the presentations here. I met some wonderful, inspiring linguists and learned lots of new things (most notably that comedian Miles Jupp was Archie the inventor in Balamory).

I talked about getting colleagues to make better use of ICT in order to attract more students to opt to study languages. Language learning at KS4 could be drastically reduced unless we make it more interesting to students, especially when languages have to compete with other subjects which offer 2 or 4 GCSE equivalent qualifications in the same amount of teaching time.

During my presentation I showed this clip to try to show that it could be done.

Becoming more attractive.

2010-06-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Before you start to get worried, this post is not about my impending visit to the plastic surgeon, but rather some thoughts on improving the way in which students at my school view modern languages.

I've recently started a new job in a much nicer, bigger school. The staff are friendly enough and the students are mostly keen and well behaved. The department is well managed and the students achieve well, right through to A level.

I'm really enjoying it.

This week, though, I discovered something which worried me. I found out that languages is the most unpopular subject in the school among the current Key Stage 3 students (11-14 years old).

You don't look surprised to hear this, but I was genuinely shocked. After all, Key Stage 3 students are the Key Stage 4 students of tomorrow. Without Key Stage 4 there won't be a department.

So, I have made it my mission to improve the way in which students view the subject and I'm also going to continue to try to get my departmental colleagues to do the same.

Using ICT is a no-no because the school system isn't up to the job. We still have IE6 and we aren't even able to install Flash (or download anything) onto the computers.

Most web2.0 tools are blocked and mobile phones are banned.

(Yes, I know. I wasn't going to mention phones again, was I? Did I tell you about the BBC? Oh, I did. Sorry.)

I don't want to worry you but you might want to sit down for this next statement. Ready? OK, here goes....a modern languages lesson in ICT usually involves students using Powerpoint or Word to redraft work.

We can't go on like this.

I already have some ideas for next term (thanks to Joanna Pickering et al) and I hope to pick up some advice from MFL Show and Tell next week.

I'll share my improvements with you as and when.

Watch this space. We might both learn something.

Vuvuzelas, Fluch oder Segen?

2010-06-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Loathe them or hate them, the vuvuzelas (or lepatata as they are called in Tswana) have been a huge part of the world cup so far.

The press here in Britain has complained that they ruin the atmosphere of the game and I put this down to a severe case of sour grapes as the over-paid, under-talented prima donnas in England shirts have not had the best start to the competition.

But then I started to wonder what the press in other countries thought about them. So after an hour or two trawling the world's press, it seems that a lot of countries don't like them either.

The Germans have even invented a new word to describe the effect of the vuvuzela, "Trötinus" a word made from the German words for "Hooter" (Tröte) and "tinitus" (Tinitus).

So here are some links to articles in various languages which you could use with your students and get them to discuss the attitudes in different countries.

French

German

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Spanish

Personally, I quite like the vuvuzela and thanks to those nice people at Marca in Spain for this vuvzela instruction manual.

Enjoy!

The MFL Twitterati World Cup Sweepstake

2010-06-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

As usual, someone had a great idea and I stole it.

This time it was the MFL Twitterati World Cup Sweepstake.

Clare's idea, hijacked by me.

Welcome to my world. I did apologise.

Apparently no-one in the world understands the concept of a sweepstake except the Brits so here is a quick run down of the rules:

Each player is drawn at random via classtools.net random name picker, then a team is picked randomly by the same method and assigned to that player.

The player who's team wins the world cup gets a MFL related prize which I shall buy in France next week.

Everyone else is a loser.

Here goes:

@javiera1974 gets ITALY

@gorsey gets AUSTRALIA

@simonhowells gets NETHERLANDS

@valleseco gets NEW ZEALAND

@jjpadvis gets URUGUAY

@mme_henderson gets PARAGUAY

@PreKlanguages gets PORTUGAL

@victoria35 gets CHILE

@joedale gets GHANA

@jowinchester gets SPAIN

@dominic_mcg gets HONDURAS

@wizenedcrone gets NORTH KOREA

@sghani gets ALGERIA

@bootleian gets SLOVENIA

@josepicardo gets DENMARK

@atantot gets SWITZERLAND

@Langwitch gets IVORY COAST

@ChrisFullerisms gets SOUTH KOREA

@zaragozalass gets ARGENTINA

@suzibewell gets FRANCE

@lisibo gets SERBIA

@amandasalt gets GREECE

@MissAmoros gets NIGERIA

@simcloughlin gets ENGLAND

@smaguire777 gets USA

@moodlefairy gets SOUTH AFRICA

@mrshampson gets SLOVAKIA

@spanishsam gets GERMANY

@blagona gets CAMEROON

@hicksie58 gets MEXICO

@Kath52 gets JAPAN

@lynnehorn gets BRAZIL

Good luck everyone.

I shall update the post on a regular basis.

If your team is on the left of the screen you are still in the competition.

If your team is on the right of the screen, you have been eliminated from the contest.

All comments will be moderated.

Thank you.

MFL Show and Tell 2010

2010-06-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

It's now almost 2 years since I dived into the world of twitter, blogging, flashmeets and becoming a wannabe-geek.

I still can't understand why my colleagues have a "why would I want to do that?" approach to the use of ICT for both personal and professional reasons, but the answer is, of course, that I'm turning into a geek and they are "normal".

Twitter is amazing for finding out about new stuff and sharing new ideas, advice, applications, and software you may come across but there is nothing like meeting people in the flesh and putting faces to the names you've been impressed by for the last 15 months or so.

That is why MFL Show and Tell is such a great idea. It is an opportunity for teachers of foreign languages (Primary and Secondary) to get together in the real world, chat and find out what is going on in the hectic, helter-skelter world of MFL education, to discover what other people are doing and to realise that, actually, you're doing OK yourself.

Following the success of last year's Show and Tell (thanks to James Padvis and Joe Dale) this year's event is being organised by José Picardo, and is kindly sponsored by Nottingham High School and Links into Languages East Midlands, so it will cost you nothing to attend and you might even learn something. If you can't attend you can follow all the shenanigans on twitter, here #mflsat

If you want to attend you must sign up to the wiki and turn up on the day.

How difficult could that be?

I hope to see many of you there and I promise I'll be on my best behaviour.

Truancy and Modern Languages.

2010-06-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

In February last year, former Education Secretary Estelle Morris admitted to the BBC that the scrapping of compulsory Modern Foreign Language (she calls it "French") was part of a plan to crackdown on truancy problems in English schools. Scrap MFL and children will want to go to school.

Did it work?

Well, no, of course it didn't.

Recent news reports tell us that truancy has got worse and has hit record levels.

According to teen issues website, students truant from school for the following reasons:

To escape bullying at school.

Because lessons are hard and it is easier to play truant.

Because the truant has no interest in school.

Exclusions.

Taking holidays.

Visiting health professionals.

Running errands.

Bad relationships with teachers or other instructors

No mention of languages lessons at all.

Funny, that.

Misreading the question.

2010-06-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

A few summers ago I remember reading in a Sunday supplement a special feature about Jack Douglas playing in a golf tournament in Mallorca. I thought it strange that the absurd star of the Carry On films should warrant 6 pages in an OK magazine style feature, he must be in his 80s if he's still alive* I thought, but carried on anyway thinking nothing more of it.

It was only when I came to the line about "his lovely wife, Catherine Zeta Jones", that I realised something was wrong. On carefully rereading the article, I learned that Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas were playing golf in Mallorca. D'oh!

"Get to the point" I hear you cry.

I've just finished marking my Year 7 students' exams and some of them have done really well. However, some of them would have done even better had they read the questions properly.

I'm not talking about the students who have trouble reading English, but the more able students who write ridiculous answers to very simple questions.

e.g. When does he play volleyball?

The answers I got were: Tennis, A laptop, because he likes it, it's his favourite sport, his sister, at the beach, etc....

The correct answer was "Saturday".

Can we teach students not to misread questions?

If so, how do we do it?

Here are some ideas to try:

read the questions slowly and, if it isn't an exam, read it out loud.
write down the question before answering it.
circle or highlight question words. (who, what, why, where, when, how?)
teach time management, misreading questions can be a sign of rushing.
teach students always to read comprehension texts before attempting the questions.
teach students to read through the questions and their answers at the end.

*Jack Douglas was still alive but passed away in December 2008 aged 81.

A level French and www.ados.fr

2010-05-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

In 4 weeks, or thereabouts, my A2 students will be sitting their final exams before going off to study for their degrees in Child Psychology and 3rd World Crop Rotation, or Camel Husbandry and Brass Bandsmanship at the University of Chadderton.

So, we have 4 weeks left to revise and try to get them the best grades possible.

I recently rediscovered this site ados.fr. If you don't know ados, it's a French site for young people which contains all elements of youth culture including news, music, books, films, celebrities and a forum for discussions.

The discussion which caught my eye this morning was "le port de la Burqa". This is one of the subtopics we studied for A2 French (under the role of women in society) and a hot topic of debate in France at the moment.

I liked it for a few reasons:

it's a genuine resource and not contrived, made up or cobbled together by a writer of textbooks.
it's portrays the real (sometimes extreme) views of real French people.
and most importantly, it contains some of the best French phrases for expressing views and opinions, which our students are expected to know for the exam.

Ados is a very useful site for finding authentic articles on many subjects. Its very nature means that it is constantly updated, unlike text books, and I'd recommend it to anyone planning for, or teaching, AS and A2 French.

The importance of learning the gender of nouns.

2010-05-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

This week I gave one of my classes their first French vocabulary test. (Don't gasp, I've only taught them for 3 lessons.)

One child asked me, "Do we have to get the "le" and "la" right?"

"Of course," I replied.

"That's not fair," said the crest-fallen child.

"Fair, schmair," I said, turning away, ending the conversation in the most mature and adult way I know.

***************************

But learning the gender of nouns is very important for students of foreign languages.

One reason for this is that French, Spanish and German have words whose meanings vary depending on their gender.

Here are some examples:

French:

le souris (archaic) = smile, la souris = mouse

le livre = book, la livre = pound

le tour = tour, la tour = tower

Spanish:

el mañana = future, la mañana = morning

el papa = pope, la papa = potato

el moral = blackberry bush, la moral = morality

German:

der Elf = elf, die Elf = team

der Leiter = manager, die Leiter = ladder

das Tor = gate, der Tor = fool

So, when that beautiful foreign stranger you've been practising your language skills on has a large mouse on her face as you explain why you don't agree with the potato's views on blackberry bushes, you're going to look a complete gate and you'll really wish you had learned the genders as well as the nouns.

What to do with Year 9...

2010-05-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

At this time of year UK based language teachers face a huge problem.

What do I do with my year 9? Most of them are not going to continue with languages next year and they have already decided that they are not going to do any more work.

One solution, particularly popular with boys, is to do a World Cup 2010 project. Clare Seccombe has produced a cornucopia of ideas, presentations, and, even better, resources, here.

But what do you do with students who are not interested in football?

How about teaching them to text in the Foreign Language.

Most English students will already be "textperts" in English, so why not teach them the basics in Spanish, German, or French? (Click the language for a list of abbreviations from about.com)

Give your students a list of the text abbreviations, put a message on the board and get them to come up with a creative response. When I did it last year it worked really well.

What do you make of this?

SLT,

TOQP ?

G1id2kdo

Je vé au 6né V1 avec moi

a tt

biz

Punishing the whole class for the stupidity of a few?

2010-04-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening was TMNE10 and like the 2 previous meets it was a great success and I learned a lot. It was nice to meet some "old faces" and finally meet some of my "virtual friends" most notably Chris Fuller and Fiona Joyce who I've been threatening to meet for a while now and who both impressed me with their knowledge, enthusiasm and their presentations.

Chris Harte has done a very detailed, comprehensive and excellent report on TMNE10 on his blog with links about the meet here so I'm going to write about something else.

On the day I gave my presentation extolling the virtues, and giving examples, of using mobile phones in my classroom, including an interactive text poll, a teaching union, the NASUWT, called for a crackdown on mobile phones in schools after it claimed that mobile technology was, in part, responsible for an incident in which a teacher was charged with the attempted murder of a student. (You can read the whole story here)

This type of nonsense makes my blood boil. I can understand that with some classes allowing students to have a mobile phone in class is not a good idea. By the same token, for some of the more challenging and unruly students I have met over the years, giving them a ruler or even a pencil is not a good idea.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that banning something because of a few isolated incidents has a negative, knock-on effect on the learning and enjoyment of the more cooperative and trustworthy students. Why should everyone suffer for the poor behaviour of a minority?

Anyway, here's my presentation:

Using mobile phones in the mfl classroom

TeachMeetNE10

2010-04-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

It's back.

TeachMeetNE10 will take place on 29th April 2010 at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Newcastle, at 7pm.

There will be the chance to hear and give 7 minute micropresentations, 2 minute nanopresentations, take part in learning conversations, or just chat.

This is an excellent opportunity for educators from all types of schools, and other educational establishments to meet and share ideas and experiences in a relaxed atmosphere.

I have attended the previous TeachMeetNE meetings last year, met lots of interesting and amazing practitioners and can thoroughly recommend the experience.

For more information or to sign up, present, or lurk, click here.

Fun with Imagechef

2010-04-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

I've been a fan of Imagechef for a while now.

It's a great way to motivate students into being creative and having fun with language.

We've used it to describe food,

to make word mosaics,

and to make greetings cards

I like this application because there are so many different uses for it, it is so easy to use and I encourage everyone to have a look and try it out.

Unfortunately, I showed my wife how to use it, yesterday, and she appears to have gone over to the darkside, using it for her own entertainment rather than work.

The end of an era (Part 2)

2010-04-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I left my school for the last time. I'd been there exactly 11 years and, for my own personal sanity, I needed to leave before I was considered a "lifer".

Both the school and I benefited from the experience (me being there, not leaving) and I'm quite sure that it was a positive experience for the majority of students I have taught over that time (apart from not being able to spell "monsieur", obviously).

Over the last eleven years I have evolved from "chalk'n'talk" teaching to being the most, or quite possibly that be only, web2.0 proficient teacher in the school.

It's a shame that the pupils who have been using Xtranormal, wordle, goanimate, imagechef, smspoll, storybird, crazytalk, etc, etc. probably won't get the opportunity again.

On the plus side, I can't wait to start at my new school and try out these applications, and more, with some new students. Watch this space, I shall report back.

MFL Flashmeet 6

2010-03-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the 6th MFL Flashmeet. It took place via the internet in my kitchen and other people's houses, hotels and, in one case, a bathroom.

The flashmeet experience is amazing. As I've said before it is the best kind of CPD and everyone takes part, or lurks, because they want to. It was great to see some twitter friends and put names and voices to faces (and avatars).

As with previous Flashmeets, interested MFL tech heads from weird and wonderful far away places such as Texas and Philadelphia,USA, Australia, New Zealand and Hartlepool all got together to discuss and share their ideas, links and experiences.

The agenda contained 6 main items:

Ideas to help with the last few lessons before pupils go on study leave for their exams
Ideas to keep Y9 on task after Options have been decided: small projects, resources that could be used etc... (World Cup project?)
Reflections on MYLO ambassadors meeting and subsequent blog posts
What were your highlights of Language World 2010? Were you there or did you follow virtually?
Thoughts about the José Picardo's eBook A Practitioners' Perspective - Should we make an audiobook version? (We agreed that we should)
So who's coming to MFL Show and Tell 2010 at Nottingham High School?

and was chaired by Helena Butterfield, who did an excellent job, particularly, when speakers went off at tangents and started to talk about other things. The other things being, alternative qualifications, what's the best kind of microphone and me recounting my recent input with the BBC. (Yes, I know, I won't mention it again!)

The meeting itself has been recorded and can be watched by clicking here.

The next one, will hopefully be on June 29th at 20:30BST when I'm looking forward to discussing plans for MFL Show and Tell 2010 at Nottingham High School. I hope to see you all there.

The end of an era. (Part 1)

2010-03-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my year 11 GCSE students did their speaking exam in French.

It was the last time I'll probably speak to some of them as I'm starting a new job after the Easter break.

It was also the last time I'll use cassette tapes to record speaking exams.

In fact, it was probably the last time I'll use cassette tapes, ever.

I realised when I was setting up for the exam that the last time I had used the tape recorder was for last year's speaking exams.

What are we going to do with all those Coombers?

An interesting week.

2010-03-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

This week has been a very good one.

On Monday I had a phone call from a BBC producer. They are making a documentary for BBC2 and wanted to talk to me about some teaching and learning techniques I have used, particularly my use of mobile phones.

Monday was also the day my blog received its 5000th visit. Woohoo!

On Thursday I helped out Clare Seccombe by giving a 15 minute presentation at an event she ran at the Stadium of Light, Sunderland, after one of the speakers let her down. The event was called: Making the Most of the World Cup. Her stuff was great.

My stuff, "The World Cup in my Classroom", was hastily prepared, but well received and involved a guest appearance by a virtual, bouncing kangaroo called Roo (see below).

Thursday was also very special because it was my blog's first birthday. It certainly doesn't seem like a year since I started and I'm really surprised that I've kept it going for so long.
I still can't believe that anyone reads it. Thanks for reading, by the way.

Blockages

2010-03-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Recently, at my school, there was an incident of cyber-bullying. As far as I'm aware it happened out of school hours and involved 2 young ladies, one sending unpleasant messages to the other.

However, it turns out that some students have been allowed to use Facebook and other social networking sites in school by some staff.

Because of this the people at the top have decided that all students will have no access to the internet for the foreseeable future. All sites, including the school's own website are blocked.

This means that my yr 7 students can't use wordle to create wordclouds to help them learn and revise the vocabulary for describing people.

My yr8 students can't use xtranormal to create movies based on some conversations they have been devising.

My yr9 students had to use Word to redraft their descriptions of their home-town rather than goanimate or toondoo.

Year 11 couldn't download the xtranormals they made to help learn their presentations or use Ashcombe School, MFLSunderland, wordreference or my own wiki to help with their revision and my yr13 class can't use google to look for information to help with their choice of cultural topics for the A2 French exam.

But there is some good news. The two girls are friends again.

CSI: The Experience Web Adventure

2010-03-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

As one of 15,000 daily readers of Richard Byrne's Free Technology For Teachers blog, I often find out about some excellent applications. Not all of Richard's recommendations are relevant to Modern Languages but every couple of days there is something there which catches my eye.

One such eye-catching application was the CSI: The Experience Web Adventures game from Rice University's forensics department which is really interesting and which I recommended to a colleague who teaches science.

It's an online forensic science game designed for children which gives an insight into how an investigator would process a crime scene. There are 3 levels from beginner to expert.

Anybody can play the game online as a guest but you would need to register with the site if you want to be able to save your progress in the game.

On closer inspection I found that it can also be played in German and in Spanish.

If you are planning a cross-curricular science-MFL project, this could be ideal for improving students' motivation. If not, it may be worth showing it to your students as a bit of extra-curricular languages fun.

The light at the end of the tunnel...

2010-03-06T07:52:00.000-08:00

In four weeks I shall be leaving my current teaching post to start another in a much larger school. I'll be sad to leave after 11 years but I am really looking forward to a challenge of a very different type in my new school.

My colleagues think that I should be winding down and having an easy time, but unfortunately I still have a mountain of work to do. The most pressing task of all is speaking exams.

Usually, I would wait until May before conducting GCSE speaking exams but this year will have to do them before the end of March.

Due to the organisation of school events this term I have only one more lesson with my GCSE students before the exam and have spent the last few lessons desperately trying to prepare them so that they can get the best possible results.

Since the beginning of term I have been tearing my hair out in desperation at my students' lack of motivation and effort and at the very laid back and often arrogant attitude they have to homework and revision.

That is until yesterday. Yesterday reality kicked in. Yesterday they started to work.

They wanted to answer questions. They started to ask questions. "Would it be better to say this?" "Can I say this in French?" "Is this wrong because..."

It was unbelievable. I felt my efforts were being rewarded at last.

Finally, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel....

...and I don't think it's a train.

Wordle #savewordle

2010-02-28T04:49:00.000-08:00

Wordle is one of my favourite web 2.0 resources.

Wordle is one of my students' favourite resources.

They love it. It helps them learn, it motivates, and it lets them be creative. From the least able beginners in languages to the experts in my 6th form class, all of them have used it with a degree of success.

You can find some of their work on this blog and if you were to visit my classroom you would see one wall dedicated to students' Wordles comprising vocab lists, notes for presentations, grammar points, irregular verbs...I could go on all day.

And it is free to use.

And it isn't just my students who love it. It is students from all over the world in all subjects.

If you google "wordle" you'll find hundreds of thousands of pages singing the praises of the application, its uses in education, and its creator Jonathan Feinberg.

So imagine my sadness when I checked my tweets this morning to find that the site is no longer live and that when I went to check, I found this message left by Jonathan Feinberg:

wordle.net is Down Until Further Notice

I am seeking pro bono legal advice, to evaluate
a trademark claim against my use of the word "Wordle" for this
web site. If you're an intellectual property lawyer, with expertise
in trademark law, and you wish to offer professional
advice on this matter, please contact me.

So if you know such a lawyer, or are one yourself, please get in touch with Mr Feinberg at your earliest convenience.

Oh, and one final thought, if the educators on twitter spent as much time trying to help Mr Feinberg as they did trying to find another, similar (but obviously not quite as good) tool they can use for free with their students, the problem would be solved in no time at all.

I really hope that it is.

Options Evening - or - What's your subject worth?

2010-02-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

This Wednesday is Options Evening.

Options Evening is the time of year when non-compulsory subjects in school compete with each other to try to get the Year 9 (14 year old) students (and their parents) to choose to study their subject for the next two years. This also has massive implications on departmental budgets and, quite possibly, staffing levels.

Over the last few years attracting students has become harder for the Languages Department due to the way options groups are set up and the increasing popularity of non-exam subjects which, it is claimed, are "worth" 2 or even 4 GCSEs.

So, what is a qualification in a modern foreign language worth?

Well, imagine you are a 14 year old boy.....(Horrible, isn't it?)

You can choose to study French, for which you will have to learn vocabulary and grammar, do homework regularly, revise and then sit exams and at the end of the course, if you have worked hard over 2 years, you will get a good GCSE grade.

Or...

You can choose to study a subject for which you must produce a portfolio of work and at the end of the course you get the equivalent of 4 GCSEs. If you haven't achieved the required grade you can go away do it again and keep resubmitting until you achieve your target.

Which would you choose? (If you say "French" you are not 14, you are lying, or you are French.)

When will schools and parents realise that it isn't the number of qualifications but the quality of education the students receive which matters?

SMS in the MFL classroom (or MfL in MFL)

2010-01-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

I have written 2 posts recently about using mobile telephones in the classroom. One on this blog and one for José Picardo's box of tricks site.

In the boxoftricks post I outlined my plans for using mobiles in different ways this term.

This week I finally took the plunge and planned an activity to which my Year 11 students (16years old) could text their answers.

The lesson I chose to do this was also observed by the LA MFL inspector. So, no pressure there, then.

I planned a range of activities which the students could complete using their mobile phones.

Firstly, they wrote and practised dialogues in French, which they then filmed (although the more self-conscious students used their voice recorders instead. The cowards!)

Secondly, they sent their work to my laptop by bluetooth which we played back in order to do some peer assessment.

Thirdly, I created an exercise using SMSpoll.net to which the students sent their answers via SMS. When I was setting up the exercise I chose the option allowing students only one vote per telephone. Their answers then appeared in a graph on my interactive whiteboard.

You can see the results here:

Was it successful? I hear you cry.

Well, yes, of course it was. In some ways. (The correct answer was 1783, chosen by only 20% of the students. They were so keen to send off their texts, they didn't read the questions properly!)

The inspector was impressed by my use of technology: "Mobiles for Learning" he called it. Perhaps that is what MFL really stands for?

The students loved it and asked if they could do it every lesson.

I like smspoll it's good, but not perfect.

Obviously, the brains behind smspoll didn't intend for it to be an MFL classroom application but with a few tweaks it could be.

Firstly, you can only offer multiple choice questions.

Secondly, as far as I can make out, it will not allow you to use foreign language accents and characters. It was quite difficult for me to find answers for the task which didn't have "é" in them. It does let you enter them, but they appear as a blank space in the results.

Thirdly, the students are charged each time they send a text, unless (like all students in this particular class!) they have a contract which gives them unlimited texts.

Having said that, I shall definitely use it again.

And while I'm in a technological mood, I think I'll take a look at polleverywhere, too.

Watch this space.