Tag » internationalism « @ The Langwitch Chronicles

Busy Weekend

Posted on July 8th, 2010 Langwitch View Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve been so busy over one weekend. However this weekend I shall be speaking in 3 different venues between Friday and Monday evening plus I am even going out with my husband!!

Tomorrow I am at the Northeast Regional ATLAS Conference at the Radisson Hotel in Durham. Myself and 7 of my best Year 10 eTwinners are talking about our school’s eTwinning activities

Tomorrow evening the Links into Languages Northeast Secondary Residential begins at Redworth Hall and I am to give a presentation on International Online Collaboration.

On Monday I am in Birmingham at my old stomping ground of Aston University for a Links into Languages West Midlands ICT event where I am speaking about eTwinning.

I will share all presentations next week…although 2 have the possibilitiy of being very, very similar…!

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Happy 5th Birthday eTwinning

Posted on May 5th, 2010 Langwitch View Comments

This week marks the 5th Anniversary of eTwinning.

For those of you who haven’t heard of eTwinning, it is the European Commission’s partner-finding and online collaboration tool. Schools and colleges (working with pupils and students between the ages of 3 and 20) can register their details, create a profile, search for partners and engage in online partnerships – all free of charge. Teachers and their students can form short or long term partnerships and collaborate on a whole range of curriculum based projects in any subject area using a variety of exciting and innovative ICT tools.

Photograph courtesy of Tony Barraclough Photography

I became involved with eTwinning 3 years ago when looking for a French partner school. I was inundated with schools wanting to set up projects with my school and we set up many successful projects. Since then I haven’t really looked back and run 1 or 2 projects every year, not just in MFL but also through PSHE with my lovely tutor group. In additions, it was our eTwinning work that really created the backbone of our International School Award last year.

Today is when schools are celebrating the 5th Year of eTwinning and to mark the occasion, thousands of schools around Europe had some kind of European

Photograph courtesy of Tony Barracough Photography

Celebration. Many school planted blue and yellow flowers but, always wanting to be different, we decided to have a “balloon release” with a birthday cake! After all of the environmental safety checks had taken place to make sure our balloons were eco-friendly we were good to go on Friday at midday. We released our balloons (blue and yellow of course), with a tag on them asking people who found them to email us to let us know where they found them. It was very effective and the balloons looked very happy bobbing away in the wind. I’m sure the hail storm 10 mins later helped them on their way no end!

Oh and the cake…it was delicious.

You can find our what other school have been doing to celebrate here.

Happy 5th Birthday, eTwinning!

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Online International Collaboration

Posted on April 2nd, 2010 Langwitch View Comments

The second CPD session that I ran for Links into Languages was about Online International Collaboration. Here is the presentation I gave for that session…

International Collaboration

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

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The French Exchange Finally Happened

Posted on February 16th, 2010 Langwitch View Comments

Took this at the NRM and thought it was funny!

Many moons ago (so it seems)…well, 3 years, just when I was starting on this adventure into new technologies and discovering the possibilities for MFL teachers, such as myself, in terms of getting pupils using language for real, I was asked by my then Head of Area to find a French school in order to establish a link for exchanges. We already had an extremely successful link with Meppen in Germany and an equally successful link with Cheste in Spain but French was most certainly the poor relation in terms of links and opportunities for exchanges.

I had just discovered eTwinning via Joe Dale‘s marvellous blog and decided to find out what all of the fuss was about. Having registered with eTwinning, I quickly found a partner and established a project with a view to setting up an exchange the following year. The project “Je blogue, tu blogues…let’s blog!” was very successful with pupils from both schools develping frienships and helping one another with their language learning. However unfortunately for many reasons the link didn’t develop into an exchange and the hunt was on again.

One of my colleagues in the MFL Department had a link with a teacher in Caussade near Toulouse. I contacted her and things looked positive. We worked together on an eTwinning project (in English only, this time, as there were several schools involved) and my class exchanged letters every half-term or so with a class from her school and set things in motion for an exchange.

There were hurdles to overcome, as with any new link. The biggest hurdle being that our partner school wanted to bring 27 pupils!!! This was unheard of in Ian Ramsey history of exchanges…we are normally over joyed if we get to 20 (as I think most schools would be). Nevertheless, we persevered and, with a plan to house some pupils in a local hotel got plans underway. I was over-joyed when I managed to persuade the final 2 pupils to host French people, meaning that no-one was to stay in a hotel!

The week itself arrived and we had an action-packed programme, hightlights included a visit to Durham, the Angel of the North and the Metro Centre, a whole group trip to York and the National Railway Museum, project work at Teesside CLC and a visit to meet the Mayor of Stockton. The funny thing was, I got stick all week for organising the visit to Mayor and in fact our French friends loved it – telling me to definintely keep in on the programme for the future! As part of their CLC project, pupils started to work on a wiki as a diary of their week, to which I will add their presentations and leaflets about the history of the railways and York tourist leaflets as soon as I can. You can see what has been done so far here (still needs a bit of work!).

What of the future? Well things look very rosy. In 3 weeks time our pupils will return to France. Again, a record of 21 pupils (some of whom were so enthused by the whole event that they asked if they could come eventhough they didn’t take part in the home-leg!). In addition we will carry this through to another eTwinning Project specifically aimed at improving Speaking and Writing Skills for GCSEs.

Sadly I’m unable to go on the return leg – I’ve been off gallavanting around Europe too often already this year, so am indebted to my colleagues, Fiona and Julie for taking the return trip and for their invaluable support during the exchange week itself.

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Leo the Lion visits Ian Ramsey

Posted on November 15th, 2009 Langwitch View Comments

Over the last few weeks, Ian Ramsey had a guest who came to visit from Germany. Leo, the Bavarian Lion, came to stay with us on his tour round the world.

Whilst he was staying at Ian Ramsey, Leo took part in many exciting activities. He took part in a science experiment. Next, he went off to the LRC to check some books out and pose for a photo with William Shakespeare. He then ran over to North Site (in the rain) had his photograph taken with the amazing sculpures that some Y9s created last year.

Back in South Site, Leo went to work on Reception in the Office, taking some phone calls. In addition to all of these activities at school, Leo came home with me at half term and went Halloweening. Naturally, Leo also observed the minute’s silence on Remembrance Day at 11.00am and even managed to get himself a poppy.

I think Leo had a great time at Ian Ramsey-he particularly enjoyed playing “Past Tense Pass the Parcel” with 8vD3 on Monday last week!

He now heads of to Brazil to experience life there. You can follow his further adventures on his blog by following this link: Leo’s Blog

You can see a selection of his photographs below.

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing items in a set called Leo the Lion. Make your own badge here.

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International School Award

Posted on October 21st, 2009 Langwitch View Comments

Back in January, it was suggested to me that I went to the ISA briefing meeting in London “as I was involved in a lot of the projects in it so would be good for me to know what to put in”. A month later, no longer an innocentl by-stander in our bid to gain the Full International School Award, I was launched into compiling the whole portfolio.

For those who don’t know, in order to gain the Full ISA you need to complete an Action Plan in September/October of all of your international, curricular-based projects that are taking place within that school year. This is then (hopefull) approved by the “ISA people” and then you spend the academic year gathering evidence of your 7 (minimum) “Key Activities”, which includes things like evaluations from pupils, staff and parents of events, photographs, samples of pupil work. All of this gets put together in a (very large) file and is then dispatched to the British Council in time for the deadline date, some time around the end of the school year. Simples…?

Or maybe not! It took over my life, the file went everywhere with me, I had evaluation forms coming out of my ears and chasing those evaluation forms, well…

However, in Ocotber I learnt that the hard work had paid off and we had been successful in our bid to be awarded the Full ISA – hurrah!!!

Alistair Armstrong receiving our ISA from George Alagia

The Award Ceremony took place in London on Friday 16th October and was presented by George Alagia and you can see our award being presented on the left. Those of you who know me will know that I have dramatically changed over the last few months…unfortunately I was ill in bed and couldn’t attend the ceremony, so one of our Assistant Heads went in my place.

What I didn’t realise was that, alongside the certificate we received, we are also the proud owners of an ISA flag which is now flying on one of the school flagpoles and a beautiful crysal. I could take a picture of the crystal today but not the flag as it was dull and raining all day.

Our ISA Crystal

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Holidays and High Hopes

Posted on September 9th, 2009 Langwitch View Comments

The Zen Fountain in Les Rosiers-sur-Loire

Where did the holidays go? It seems like no time at all since the summer holidays were approaching too slowly and now they’re over.

What wonderful times I had with my family. We went to France for two weeks and seemed to travel the full width of the country. Spending a week in the Loire Valley, 3 days in Disneyland Resort Paris (to give it it’s full name) and then 4 days in a tiny little village on the French/German border called Liederschiedt visiting a friend. It certainly was action packed a lots of fun. Best of all I and my family got to speak lots of French and I discovered that my 7 year old really is a budding linguist, able to work out the meaning of signs and words with far more ease than many pupils I teach. It was so amazing watching her use all of the clues that I tell my pupils to use, without me even having to tell her. Also fascinating was the friendship that developed between my two children (7 and 4) and my friend’s two (4 and 2 1/2). My children speak next to no German or French and Heike’s children speak mainly German and often French. Despite the language barrier all four children played really well together and there were tears shed upon our departure.

Naturally, we had our usual visit to Eastbourne to visit my sister and watch the airshow. We saw the Red Arrows an all of the days we attended the event and enjoyed many other thrilling displays.
After that work seemed inevitable and I began to contemplate the year ahead of me. Where am I going? What am I doing (and why)?
There are some exciting things happening this year – none less so than the fact that I am to teach ICT for 6hrs a fortnight to Y7, Y8 and Y9. In order to do this I am going to have to learn how do use some applications quite quickly. Can’t wait! In particular it will be interesting to see my job from the perspective of another subject area. How do they teach in ICT? Is it really different from teaching MFL? In addition ICT is taught in Tutor Groups throughout KS3, whereas MFL is taught in sets from Christmas of Y7, what will that be like? I already like teaching ICT before I’ve even had one class, as I already have all of the lessons and resources!
Added to that I have acquired a “new” job title, that of “International School Co-ordinator”. Basically it means I just continue doing what I’m doing already. Continuing with that theme, we will re-apply for a Comenius Grant, after failing to gain funding last year. I’m currently trying to organise a preparation visit for January which will be entertaining! Also we have an all new French exchange with a school in Caussade near Toulouse.
As far as my MFL teaching is concerned, I have to admit to feeling a little stale, so I want to focus on injecting some enthusiasm into things. Naturally I’ll continue to use ICT to motivate pupils and also lead some staff CPD within the department to encourage colleagues to follow suit. I’m also going to do some work on Phonics with my classes. After seeing Rachel Hawkes speak at Grasping the Nettle and being in touch with Suzi Bewell, I’ve bought a Jolly Phonics French book and a lovely Frieze and am going to spend time focusing on pronunciation with many of my pupils.
So not much then, in the year ahead. It should keep me out of trouble anyway!

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Eurovision – IRS Style

Posted on July 7th, 2009 Langwitch View Comments

Yesterday I had the dubious priviledge of being involved in the organisation of my first ever whole year group event.

I chose Year 8 as the unwilling victims of this activity and we labelled it “EUROVISION”. Now if truth be told it didn’t really end up anything like the real Eurovision, it was more of a day that involved Year 8 finding out “stuff” about Europe and the EU. They did Internet Research, Geography, Art, Music and Languages in a kind of carousel. As far as I can tell, initial responses from Year 8 were very favourable.

In Art, they set to work designing new flags for EU Nations and even for the EU itself (well the stars are a bit boring…) and I’ve seen some wonderful designs that really the capture the nature of Europe, bringing in flavours of many member countries.

Music involved comparing various European National Anthems and, in particular listening to two very different versions of Ode an die Freiheit, the traditional version and this one:

They were then charged with the task of creating their own EU Anthems on the keyboards. All of which was really enjoyed by many Year 8s.

Geography saw them learning the names of key European countries and doing some Independent Learning in groups, researching physical and economic geography of chosen countries. Pupils found it fascinating to learn that the UK is so small in comparison to many other countries. I think some were quite surprised at just how big some countries are.

For Languages they had two possible activities, one involving learning about the origins of European Languages, which went down really well with the pupils and the other involving Spanish and designers. Both activities were really well received by the Year 8s.

The ICT Research project was rather chaotic, being the first activity of the day and involving lots of shared computers. Oh, and of course the old “blocked” problems (which was curious, as I’d checked them on Friday!).

I made a little plenary activity at the end. The pupils had to watch the video below and list which countries they recognised as being represented. There are 14…go on, see how many you get!

www: pupils seemed to like it and most staff seemed positive by the end of the day.

ebi: better organisation of the first ICT activity and don’t put them all in to do that at once, don’t get so stressed, check websites again and again and again.

Will it happen again? I hope so! (I believe so, with the introduction of project weeks next year!)

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