A you can see from the few photos below, on Saturday I was fortunate enough to make the trek up from Devon to London in order to attend the A.L.L. London event, followed by the Association's A.G.M..
A.L.L. give language teachers a fantastic opportunity to meet and share ideas, concerns and experiences with each other, and the London branch really do it par excellence. I was fortunate enough to attend a session on Alternative Accreditations hosted by the ever-interesting Nick Mair (which also gave me an opportunity to meet one of my Google-Readered bloggers, Leanne Simmonds). Seeing as how we've started languages here aged 3, I was really interested in finding out whether any real work had gone into the assessment of MFL under the new entitlement. By the time my Year 1s reach Year 6, their level will be fantastic, so how do you show them how well they're doing? The session looked, amongst others, at Asset Languages, which along with the Language Ladder look like the best bet for future use. But are they right for the primary setting? We'll see- all ideas welcome!!
The second session was hosted by Leslie Walsh, a typically energetic and idea-packed session from her, presented under pressurised circumstances- having Stephane Derone watching can't be easy!! I sawg seen Leslie at the Isle of Wight conference which really got me kickstarted along this road, on a day when my head was already packed with ideas, so this session really made far more of an impact, in particular some great IWB ideas.
THe A.G.M. revealed that the Association is in very promising health. With a forthcoming move of Headquarters to the University of Leicester putting the main office in a position of greater prestige, and with Routledge recently having taken over publishing of the journals, the future looks bright. Routledge's publishing deal, in particular, should provide a huge boost, both in terms of increased diffusion and quality, an aspect which editor Richard Littlejohns has worked very hard at.
Linda Parker also announced the very exicting news that A.L.L. will be playing an active role in the DfES secondary curriculum review for languages, placing the Association at the heart of developments- exactly where it belongs as one of the most active subject associations in the land.
All in all, a fascinating day, with huge thanks to Helen Myers in particular for a typically well organised day! My only apology is that it's taken so long to blog about it- I lost my notebook and it's only just turned up!!!
And then came the AGM. I've never been to one before, for anything, so I was really interested in what it would be. Basically, A.L.L. is going through a very positive phase. Having been heavily involved in the Dearing review consultation process,