Facing the currently unknown

Practical Pedagogies conference, Toulouse- Doing things differently in languages

It was an absolute honour to be invited to present at the International School in Toulouse this weekend as part of the Practical Pedagogies conference. After 3 years of hard work there are a huge number of ideas that I could have shared in terms of methods we have implemented to try to stimulate, challenge and encourage curiosity in language learning. We're a long, long way from having cracked things, but hopefully we're on the right path- it's definitely an interesting one!

With huge thanks for all of those people who came along to my session, I really enjoyed the conversations we all had. If you want to try any of these things get in touch and I'll try to help as much as I can. 

 

Doing things differently- Practical Pedagogies conference, Toulouse from Route39MFL

Language World 2015- Doing it differently, building engagement

Language World is a real highlight of the annual calendar for me. Yes the range of sessions are always great. But more than that it's an amazing opportunity to catch up with colleagues and friends from across the country to discover their ideas and successes.

This year I was asked to present about our efforts at Route 39 Academy to develop a language provision with genuine real-world meaning and which is far more student-driven than anything I've been involved in before. I confess (and I confessed before the session) that I felt really, really nervous presenting this year as the work shown in the slides has been well and truly produced at the cost of, well, definitely sweat and at times verging on tears (mainly of exhaustion). 

The main threads really are:

- students need to be engaged by the real-world content

- students need to know how to take responsibility for their own learning and how to develop their own progress

- students need to develop their skills, both of decoding new language and then starting to piece it together in a creative, risk-taking way (it was great to hear the emphasis put on these by all of the presenters talking about the new GCSE)

We're a long, long way from where we'd like to be still (does anyone else find that no matter how many jobs you get done there are always a thousand more that you can think of which need doing!). However, we're absolutely delighted to have appointed a fantastic new teacher to join us in teaching Spanish (both in and out of the classroom) next year, Luke Webb, and can't wait to make the most of his skills and ideas!

 

Newton Abbot conference- 13th February 2015

Doing things differently... PE in Spanish

Howdy y'all. Sorry it's been a while since I've blogged, been a bit busy...

Anyway, with term having finished last Friday my thoughts are now turning to the course that I will be running for the next 3 weeks in Exeter, supporting PE teachers who will be coming over from Madrid to prepare for bilingual teaching. This follows on from the course I ran with a great PE teacher from South Devon, Sophie Steer, last year, and then my inspirational colleague David Fawcett over in Madrid in February, March and April. The main emphasis of the course is not compromising on high quality PE teaching despite the inevitable difficulties of students and teachers operating in a second, non-native language. In fact, we want to improve the quality of teaching in both facets- language and sport.

During the weekend in March I sent my Principal an e-mail asking whether she would be interested in exploring the possibilities of adopting the techniques overselves at Route 39. We are constantly on the hunt for ways to add real purpose for learning how to communicate in Spanish- this fits perfectly for many of our students. 

However, to really make it excel and fit with our student-lead perspective, we will really need to think incredibly carefully about how we plan and how we give students the linguistic capabilities to interact, challenge and provide feedback for each other in the second language. Below are a few ideas- but I'd love to hear yours, please!!

• FLIP-style videos, in the Target Language, to be watched for Independent Study (due to our extended school hours students don't have homework but have assigned periods during the day to work on tasks). They then complete a Google Doc about the key points / language so that I can gauge their linguistic progress and understanding. These will be shared on a wiki.
• Sport Ed roles- students all have cards detailing, in the Target Language, their roles and responsabilities for sessions within their assigned group. At first these will probably include key phrases / items of vocabulary in TL + English to support interaction without having to be taught specifics
• Independent Study tasks will also intermittently include key verb learning tasks. For exmple, the very first week of study will include a task to learn a number of key verbs (depending on the level of the group), including Quiero (I want), Tengo que (I have to), Voy a (I am going to) and Acabo de (I have just)- all of which can be followed by an infinitive to allow for more spontaneous target language use as we rack up our infinitives.
• Laminated feedback charts which can be used by student monitors during sessions which will stay the same and so build familiarisation over time.
• An end goal- we are in the process of finalising details of a tie-up with a school in Madrid whose teachers I have worked with before. This will lead to the swapping of materials and "how-to" guides (both by students and staff) and will culminate in an exchange, including fixtures. During those fixtures in Spain students will be shown the Spanish card for speaking in English, leading to a 2 minute sin-bin.

 

However, I want to know more and learn more- so if you have any thoughts at all, please share, chip in or advise!!

 

 

European Day of Languages iPad project- a call for hubs across England

After Language World at the weekend I've had a few enquiries for more details about the European Day of Languages project that we've run for 2 out of the last 3 years down in Exeter. This year we would love the event to run in various hubs across England, all working on the same project to add further competition and motivation to students. So here are some details...

Aim of the day: To inspire, to have fun and to show that languages DO have a genuine purpose, all whilst allowing students to be creative with language. The only request is that teachers be as hands-off as possible!

Target group: Year 9 grade C / D borderline students. We have not yet confirmed whether we will stick just to French or allow a variety of languages this year. Teams work in groups of 6. Each team has 2 iPads. In order to avoid it becoming unmanageable we restricted the number of teams to 10 in Exeter this year.

Format of the day:

9am: welcome and brief to students. Please look through the slides below to see the brief. At this point students will complete an initial attitudes Google Doc form.

1pm students present their pitch in their teams. All videos must be completed and submitted before this deadline.

After the pitches the Google Doc of attitudes is repeated.

Prizes (small) will be awarded on the day for the best pitches (a balance of effort and quality) by the teachers in the room.

The overall first prize will be awarded to the team whose video receives the most views during the course of 7 days after the event- thus ensuring that students have to return to school and their community and publicise their work, thus really building the profile of the event.

Technical requirements: 

• a venue- if possible in a local football club to emphasise the real world elements of the project.
• iPads- sufficient for 2 per team. Ideally provided by a coordinating school. We will provide all of the necessary materials through an iTunes U course (except photos of your local area which you will have to provide).

Ideally we need to try to keep costs at an absolute minimum- this is not run for profit but because it works. Unfortunately funds are needed (invariably) for venues and prizes, unless appropriate organisations come forward who are keen to sponsor! 

If you are interested in getting involved please contact me on Chrisfullerinspain@hotmail.com or @chrisfullerisms or my co-organiser Kelda Richards on @elkel99

 

European Day of Languages iPad event- wow what a day!

I'm a very proud individual this evening. Today has been languages in action. Not high-flying linguists, but 11 teams of 6 x year 9 students. Not your A* kind of student, either, but the kind of student who would consider themselves, on the whole, to be fairly low-achieving. Lots of future D-C borderline cases.

But today they were linguists. And boy did they feel proud when they completed their 2 challenges!

OK, a bit of background so you can understand my exhausted whitterings...

The event was run at the real St James' Park- Exeter City FC's football ground. Each team was provided with 2 iPads to work on, loaded with apps and photos from around the city.

They were then given the following briefing:

• They were to create a 2 minute video to convince a French striker to sign for Exeter on a free transfer instead of opting for Leyton Orient or York. The stiker was a 26 year old with 3 small children (aged 7, 5 and 2). In French.
• They also had to create a 3 minute "pitch" to deliver in front of the other students this afternoon- ideally without notes. Obviously, in French. (See where we were going there, language teachers...?)

Students were spoken to about HOW to construct a brief presentation and then how to deliver it, really focusing on strategies that we wanted them to be able to take forward into their GCSE studies and preparation for the dreaded Controlled Assessments. Well, this event, on the whole, was designed to show them that languages can be dynamic and creative, as well as being truly real world. How much more real world can you get- the day included an opening video from a close friend of mine, Dave Stowell, a commentator for MUTV, on why learn a language. Gotta love him- and the teams sure did! (see my other post this evening about the wonder that is Mr Stowell). We also had a camera pop in from ITV (off to watch us on the Westcountry news in a mo!), again reinorcing the message that what they were doing was innovative and, more pressingly, really quite important.

It proved fascinating watchign the teams generally faff for the first hour or so of their 3 hour preparation window. They strolled around the stands, ate crisps and didn't really work that efficiently. On the whole, anyway, I won't generalise TOO much. For the last hour boy oh boy did they graft. And with the help of a basic vocab support mat they generally came up with some really good efforts for their knowledge levels.

We gave a prize today to the team (St Peter's in Exeter) who proved the most persuasive this afternoon. But the main prize will not be awarded for another week...

The students have 1 week, until 12 midday next Wednesday (2nd October) to drive as much traffic as possible to their own videos on the blog www.europeandayoflanguages2013.wordpress.com. So please, please get behind them- the more views they achieve the more impact the project will have on their future motivation, demonstrating to them that languages really can have a purpose in their lives!

The teams also completed a pre-challenge and post-challenge Google Form to gauge attitudes towards languages. If I come up with any interesting stats from that when I manage to analyse them in the morning then I will of course share them with you! 

Boy oh boy what a fantastic day we had- it not only left me buzzing, but I had students come up to me from all over the room at the end of the day to thank me for an amazing experience- powerful words that made the work on the day and prior most definitely worthwhile. Today was a day that some of those kids will remember for a long, long time, and I sure am proud to have been part of it.

Thinking differently

Yesterday was another fun day out for Carlos and I. A 5am start allowed us to head up to High Wycombe and get to the home of everyone's favourite, www.languagesonline.org.uk more or less by the start of a Links into Languages event organsied at RGS Wycombe. I had planned on talking about games to support learning, similar to the presentation I gave a few weeks ago at Fernhill in Farnborough. However, a last minute e-mail lead me to radically alter things (ensuring I was NEVER going to finish on time, whoops!) and really go into the topic of thinking differently. This is something that seems to have really got under my skin recently, fanned by the words of wisdom of John Connor and Chris Harte, and seeking to add meaning and cognitive challenge to our pupils' learning. Anyway, I'll write more about that at some point very soon...

I've decided to embed both a slidecast, with audio, and a slideshow without the audio that you can just click through, thus not having to spend an hour listening to me drone on! I'm intrigued as to which version people find more useful!

With audio (slidecast)

Cross Curricular At RGS Wycombe For Slidecast

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Without audio

Cross Curricular At RGS Wycombe

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

For more about MYLO, the joint DCSF / CILT project, see www.hellomylo.com or a post I wrote about a month ago here.

Climate zones

Download Los dominios bioclimáticos- paises with map but mountains

Download Los grandes dominios bioclimáticos- for map with mountains

 

Development

Download Devpt factors cards

 

Pocket money (would really value any feedback on these, just knocked them up as a response to a line of thought I was having...)

Download Pocket money Bolivia

Download Pocket money (powerpoint to reinforce key verbs, looking at the conditional and basic imperfect subjunctives)

 

Goldilocks

Download Goldilocks Manual - Spanish

 

Buzz Lightyear grammar display- Spanish

Download The Infinitive timeline

Download Future timeline

Download Conditional timeline

Download Irreg future

Download Preterite tense timeline

Download Irreg preterites

Download Imperfect tense timeline

Download Perfect tense timeline

Download Pluperfect tense timeline

Download Timeline

Languages and sport- just for Torres

As many people know, I'm a huge Liverpool fan. I also love any excuse to use things that are going to make me smile, my pupils smile and enhance their learning in any way possible. And so it was quite appropriate timing that I checked my Google Reader account this morning to find a video on Lesley Welsh's blog, which I remember blogging about a goodly while ago on my old school blog- Fernando Torres' Nike advert.

The reason why the timing is so appropriate is that yesterday I was re-reading a fascinating booklet called "The Language of Sport, raising achievement in Languages using sport" (read it here). One of the things that really stood out for me was a project by Lymm High School in Warrington. They taught their year 7s all about handball, in PE but in Spanish. I could imagine this project looking at the impact of communication in sport, allowing them to reflect on its crucial role in sporting success. The opportunity to analyse what key vocab the pupils actually need would be fascinating, but would also provide transferrable phrases for use into the classroom. Even silly things like being able to complain at each other for not passing, congratulating each other and celebrating. Now THAT excites me.

So yes, I do look for any opportunity to get Nando involved in education- but in this case he really is speaking sense!