The Langwitch Chronicles

European eTwinning Conference Berlin 2012

I had a wonderful time at the European eTwinning Conference in Berlin this weekend.

When I received the invitation to Berlin 2012 I was overjoyed, as Berlin is my most favourite place ever, so I awaited the conference with great excitement. As ever, eTwinning did not disappoint.The theme of the conference was “eTwinning Teams” focusing on the importance of working with others both near and far to have successful collaborations.

Inspirational speeches and workshops, combined with great company of old friends and new  meant that conference will stay in my memory for a long time.  I particularly enjoyed being able to exercise my linguistic skills, listening to speeches in French, German and Spanish and also going to a workshop in German on the role of SLT in international projects which I truly enjoyed.

I really enjoyed Anne Looney’s Keynote Speech which was fun and interactive with a serious message at the same time. The eTwinning Prizes provided much needed inspiration for me, leaving me with many ideas for future projects.  Saturday was filled with workshops giving me ideas on how to involve more people in my school in eTwinning and how to overcome obstacles that could be in the way of getting more people involved, getting SLT on board with international projects in terms of support and involvement and finally a nice workshop where various eTwinning shared their experiences and projects.  This was really nice to see the what other people across Europe were doing in terms of eTwinning.

Other highlights of the weekend included a coach tour of Berlin with the most brilliant tour guide, who was as hilariously funny as he was knowledgeable, as visit to the Irish Pub in the Europa Center, a visit to the Havana Salsa club and of course to top it all off arriving at Berlin Schoenefeld Airport just after Jedward!

All in all a great time was had by everyone.  Thank you, eTwinning.

ps I’m even starting to learn how to use Flickr after all this time!

For a more detailed look at the speeches and workshops, along with links to resources you can read the UK eTwinning NSS blog about the conference here

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A bear named Michel…or Michael, maybe!

Michael der Reisende

Some of you may remember Michel le Voyageur who had many adventures around Europe though an eTwinning project last year. He was French and had a wiki that was updated as he travelled round Europe. Upon arrival back home in Billingham, he sat in my classroom and was admired by all who gazed upon him.

I feared that Michael was getting bored by February as my classroom isn’t always the most stimulating place to be all day everyday, as the worksheets come out

One day, my lovely Year 10s gave me an idea. Some of them were heading to Iceland on a Science trip at half term. They asked whether Michel could accompany them. He did and had a great time going to glaciers, causing trouble and even gaining a companion in the shape of a (cuddly) puffin! Upon his return from Iceland, Michel seemed restless and told me he needed a change so, I kindly obliged.

He has had a (small) name change and is now known as Michael der Reisende and he has a blog.  This blog, however is not written by me, it is written by members of my Y8 German class.  Each week, one of them will take Michael home and blog about what he has done.  I hope that this will help improve their writing skills and also keep them interested in German.  It also gives them the opportunity to have a real audience for their writing in German – normally only I get to see it…and SLT when they do work scrutiny.

Posterous is brilliant for class blogging, as you can set up the account so that anyone can email a post in and you just have to approve it.  No logging in,  no passwords to forget, just an email address to send to. The class seem really interested in the project and he has already had one blog post written, with many comments.  I’m looking forward to reading about what else he does.

What’s also nice is that he seems to be gaining a network of other cuddly travellers along the way as well.

Do you have a mascot that blogs in a foreign language or goes home with pupils? If so let me know and I’ll share with Y8, they would love to see what other classes are doing.

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Lingo Bingo

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I always presume that activities I do to practise vocabulary are old hat and everyone already knows about them. Therefore I often don’t tell people about activities I do, or don’t expain them.

Lingo Bingo is one such activity. I know that many people do play this game in their classrooms already (because otherwise how would I know about it), however I also know many others have never heard of it before or struggled to understand my garbled tweets trying to fit an explanation in to 140 characters on Twitter the other day. I’m also pretty sure that it could be use in subjects other than Languages.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know how to play it here it is:

1. Give out plain paper – it doesn’t have to be plain.
2. Pupils split the paper in half and draw a 6 / 8 / 9 square grid on each piece of paper – I’m thinking of making a ready made grid and sticking it in the back of pupils books or even laminating it, in order to save paper.
3. Number each box (1-6, 1-8, 1-9 depending on number of squares) on each grid but make sure there is still enough space to write in the squares.
4. Now put one of the grids to one side so that you are just working with 1 grid.
5. On the grid you are working with write 6 / 8 / 9 phrases – 1 in each box. I do it in TL but could also be in English, depending on skills you want to practise. This week I worked with connectives other than et and mais and opinions other than A mon avis.
6. Tear / cut up that grid so that you have 6 /8 / 9 little cards with individual phrases / words on them now.

With me so far?

Good

Now pupils work in pairs 1 partner will say a number (in the TL of course) and the other partner asks “Comment dit-on ….en anglais” (or similar). If they get it right they can place that card onto the corresponding number on their grid. The aim is to get 3 or even more touching squares for a full house. They can then swap and then move round the classroom playing other class memebers ad inifinitum…

The nice thing about this activity is that pupils get to experience a wide range of vocabulary and structures, including ones they wouldn’t never have thought of using before. In addition, they can differentiate for one another. Allowing use of books if they feel their partner needs support or removing and hiding books, if they are feeling very mean! They get very competitive and are much stricter than I am! They can even switch and ask for the TL phrases as extension.

Of course at the end of the lesson you’re left with lots of little bits of paper so don’t forget to remind them to put them into the recycling as they leave…

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Presenting Vocabulary

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’m always on the look out for new ways to introduce new vocabulary, as I find standing at the front presenting it to a class, with them repeating it extremely tedious and such hard work. Therefore, when I saw Chris Fuller ask about interesting ways to introduce vocabulary earlier this week, I followed the replies with interest.

Firstly, I was glad to see that many ideas that were suggested were things that I already do – nice to be reassured that you’re not rubbish by seeing other teachers, who are fantastic using them!

Secondly, I was reminded of some things I that I have done in the past and forgotten about.

Thirdly there were some new ideas that I’d never even thought of.

One of those ideas was a vocabulary treasure hunt, suggested by @germanprof. At first I thought it would take ages to organise and could lead to chaos. However, as Friday last lesson with 33 Year 9s approached the idea suddenly became more appealing. We’re doing directions at the moment. Stimulating, I know (personally, I blame the Head of Department) and, having covered the “basics” earlier in the week, I wanted to extend their knowledge. As we all know standing up and presenting stuff to a (large) class last thing on a Friday is never an easy task so I was thinking of getting them to match up new vocab with the tried  and tested line drawing. Having done that last week, and the week before…and the week before I thought they might be a little sick of that by now and my mind was drawn to the treasure hunt idea that someone had suggested to Chris Fuller earlier in the week. At the end of the day it is still the matching up vocabulary idea but a bit more engaging and active.

I gave the pupils 13 new phrases in English on a worksheet. Then I stuck round the room the corresponding French meanings. Most had at least 1 word they already know in it or cognates. (With the exception of allez jusqu’au pont and allez aux feux). Pupils were then given time to work their way around the room, matching the meanings. Cue chaos, so I thought. I have to admit I worried that all 33 would try crowding round the same phrase to find it’s meaning. (I did tell them not to do this!).

The result was amazing. All were engaged (except for when they had to go to the phrases stuck on the window where they got a little distracted by the football match on the astro-turf) and all did it much more quickly than I anticipated. I was particularly impressed with those who split into teams and arranged to split the task to be more efficient.

By the end of the lesson all had acquired and used successfully the new vocabulary plus they hadn’t had me constantly nagging at them to be quiet and listen to me.

I suppose there is sometimes a worry that pupils won’t know how to say new vocabulary presented like this, however with the current push to focus on spelling pattern, phonics etc…, I don’t see this as too much of an issue. After the treasure hunt we did check that pupils had the correct meaning and I asked pupils to say in French what they had found and there were very few pronunciation problems, as they already know how to pronounce those tricky sounds.

Other activities I like for presenting vocab are quiz,quiz, trade and running dictations. However I am always on the look out for new and interesting ways to present vocabulary so I await the results of Chris‘ research with great anticipation.

All of this also reminds me of how amazing Twitter is because I would never had moved away from my PowerPoint flashcards had it not been for the amazingness and wonderfulness of the #mfltwitterati and Dawn who suggested the treasure hunt…and several other ideas I’m going to in the coming weeks!

If you would like to find out more about the other suggestions that Chris Fuller has or have some interesting ways of introducing vocabulary that you would like to share, go to Chris’ newly created Google Doc on introducing new material without delivering from the front.

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TeachMeet Tees

I’m sure I should have blogged about this earlier, however…

On Thursday evening there is to be the first ever (I believe) TeachMeet Tees.

What is a TeachMeet? Well it’s an informal meeting of teachers, to learn from one another about classroom practice and have a natter and a drink.

It’s at Arc on Dovecot Street from 6pm-10pm.

Presenters are small in number but it’s quality that counts. Everyone has something to offer…even me, apparently! Be prepared to be active at some point during my 2 – 7min presentation…

Here’s the link to sign up: TeachMeet Tees

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Poor neglected blog…

It seems like ages since I last wrote a post here and I have to admit that this isn’t realy a post at all. It’s just say how neglected this blog is feeling at the moment.

Over the last year I haven’t really found that much to blog about at all apart from the odd thing here and there. I hope, now I’m settled into my new job a bit more that I will be able to find things to write about and update more regularly.

That’s it really…bit of a cheat I know!

See you soon…

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If ever there was a reason to do an eTwinning Project…

…then this is it!

Whenever I talk about eTwinning, one of the biggest things I mention is the fact that it gives pupils an audience for their work, aside from the excellent opportunity to collaborate with other pupils across Europe and find out about our European neighbours.Over the past few months this has really shown itself to be true.

One of my classes have had a bear called Michel that has travelled around Europe this year. A bit childish for Secondary School pupils, some may think (though not me and certainly not them) …however they have loved it.

At moments when I have been in the depths of despair (not really) one of the boys has asked how he’s doing and we’ve learned such a lot about Europe and schools around Europe. We’ve learned that older pupils like have bears visit them just as much as younger ones (in fact more, judging by the photos of Michel playing in a band!).

Anway, last week Michel returned to Billingham for the Summer and we used the opportunity to do some creative writing (yes, creative, writing). I believe the resulting work is fantastic (specially considering these pupils could scarcely build a sentence in French in September).

The activity also gave opportunity for pupils to address those other skills that are so important in everyday life; working as part of a team, being creative, reflecting on previous work, being a good self manager etc…, as each group had to assigne group leaders, collators and time keepers to make sure the task got completed to a high standard.

Why has the work been so successful? Well, because they’ve been so well taught all year…no but really it’s because they are interested in what they’re doing, it’s something real (we’ve had lots of boys cuddling teddies in the classroom recently) and also they know that someone other than me will read it!

Here’s Michel’s Wiki…have a look for yourselves:

Les aventured de Michel le Voyageur en Europe

I haven’t directed you to the exact page, I’ll let you have a look round. The technical college in Rominia with the older pupils is a must, as is his trip to Balamory Tobermory!

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Nummerwang!

You can tell it’s getting near to the end of term, as I’m using more and more videos to keep me going! Yesterday whilst teaching my Y9 afterschool German class numbers I remembered Mitchell and Webb’s Nummerwang.

Not that much to do with numbers really but good German and a nice bit of fun for 5 pm on a Friday!

Let’s see if it works this time (4th time lucky!)

Maybe the link will work since the video won’t embed

Nummerwang!

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L’histoire du poussin

Last night, as I was looking for inspiration to make the Perfect Tense with être more interesting, Kath Holton pointed me in the direction of L’histoire du poussin. It’s a lovely little story about the short life of a little chicken, using the MRS VAN DE TRAMP verbs.

My classes liked it today maybe yours will too…

L’histoire du poussin

As for the QR Code. QR Codes are cool, they’re what I do now!

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Podcasting at Trinity Catholic College

Today I had to enormous privilege to go to Trinity Catholic College in Middlesbrough to share some ideas on Podcasting.

Below is the presentation.

I’ve included some quotes  from my lovely Y10 French class who have been making Grammar Podcasts over the last year. It gave me the opportunity to experiment with Google Forms to get the survey done. I have to say that I really liked it and can see me having a look in more detail at using Google Forms for pupil voice surveys in the very near future!

I hope that you find the presentation useful in some way.

The second slide contained a little video that Joe Dale showed when I went to a Podcasting Workshop that he ran for Links into Languages last July. It’s describes very nicely what a podcasting is and can be seen here Podcasting in Plain English

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