Facing the currently unknown

More than words- languages in the world of work

I was recently invited to present at an event in Plymouth at Devonport High School for Girls. For once this wasn't me talking about pedagogy or methodology but about the actual end point that languages can take you to in the real world- how do languages contribute to getting a job? What can you really do with them?

I've told so many of the students that I've taught that languages are useful. That they help you get a job. But do they? When I'd agreed to do the presentation it suddenly struck me that I needed some actual information, not just me waffling. So I tweeted and I used Facebook and wondered what would turn up...

The Prezi below was what I used on the day before we launched into an exciting day of "language journalism". The year 8s I was presenting to were working in groups to translate Target Language articles in a variety of languages and collate them into a newspaper, using their own devices and a Language Lab. The groups then also had to prepare a "live" news report, including a foreign language interview from the scene. Alas, as so often happens, technology scuppered some of our plans (the USB ports on the computer we were using decided to malfunction), the students created some great pieces- and did some great ad-libbing as well!

My main focus was that languages are a vital transferrable skill in a world where few people stay in the same career throughout their working lives. What do you have to offer to a potential employer? Which could a business do more rapidly, train you to speak a language or to operate in their business environment? A real no brainer there. But what surprised me from the responses I received to my social media messages was how varied the careers are of my friends, in many cases people I've studied with at school or university. Many of them would not consider themselves fluent, yet have got ahead in their chosen fields as a result of being able to offer language skills.  A powerful motivator, as clearly demonstrated by the impressive statements in the evaluation document below. Journalists, lawyers, accountants, marketing agents, engineers, Human Resources, translators and diplomats. People whose job titles I don't understand but whose jobs look amazing (and terrifying in equal measures!). Generally people who have used their languages- and not just to be a language teacher!

Download Students comments on evaluations 

 

Developing the technology

I'll talk about Twitter and blogs in a later post, but for now I just want to reflect on a few bits of technology that I started to use / work into Schemes of Work over the last few months. Really this is just me being a bit selfish because I think I need to get a few things clear in my own head!

Mobiles

As in most schools the students were obsessed with their phones. At every possible moment they had them out. In fact they invariably tried using them even when they shouldn't be out. I've long believed that just banning phones in an educational environment isn't necessarily the way forward as our social environment changes, but that education needs to happen on all levels. The school's business studies department had begun to take a lead in their use- and fortuitously they were in the same building as me.

So, a few ways that I used them...

• recording me explaining grammar points
• Recording themselves and then sharing the recordings for peer assessment
• using as stop watches to play "Just a Minute" (a game which they absolutely loved, ideal to get them talking and extending sentences, especially when integrated from an early stage)
• creating QR codes to enhance display materials they'd created
• using QR codes to enhance wall reading activities. This was something I dabbled with when building year 9s up to a CA task on festivals. I wanted them to choose a festival to then research and write about. (Download Festivals discovery lesson   Download Festivals wall readings    Download Las fiestas de España vocab hunt     Download Las fiestas de España vocab hunt diff )
• creating QR code displays to link to sites such as www.marca.com, www.20minutos.es, www.radiolingua.com (for Coffee Break Spanish), www.los40.com (for the top 40 songs from Spain). I wanted them to be able to access things immediately, for example whilst dawdling at berak time. (I'd share these cards but I lost them when my external hard drive died and I lost about 3 weeks of unbacked-up work. Yes, I sulked.)
• video / audio recording to create material for end of unit projects (I'll come on to those)

Voicethread

I love Voicethread, I just think it's so effective, so I built sharing materials on it into a few of the Schemes to encourage creative writing and peer assessment

Wallwisher

Simply put, this was for short, sharp end of lesson reflection tasks and homeworks

End of unit projects

I wanted there to be opportunities for creativity and self-expression at the end of each unit rather than just assessments (yes, there were some of those as well). So at the end of each unit I incorporated a technology based project for 2 or 3 lessons to focus on either writing or speaking.

For those projects I used:

www.toondoo.com

www.domo.goanimate.com

www.storybird.com

However, I felt that I was missing something. What other sites would lend themselves to a 2 or 3 lesson project but be simple and easy to use  for non-technologically confident teachers?

Issues I found: 

working on netbooks:

1) great to a certain point but major issues with saving projects.

2) limited opportunities for working collaboratively on a small screen / controls

3) difficulties in trying to create podcasts in a short period of time without access to shared drives to store project files- especially pertient when one partner was absent.

student attitudes:

1) many of the students felt originally that using the netbooks meant games- because that's what they used them for primarily across the school. As such at first there were real behavioural issues when fairly thought-provoking tasks were set.

2) if it's not on a piece of paper it's not a real assessment. Strangely this was especially true at the lower end of the scale.

3) lack of confidence in using the sites. However, with time this improved as students became familiar with the tools on offer.

 

Putting words into action

I had always said that I didn't want to be out of the classroom for any longer than two years. I talked in presentations at conferences about things I'd done and was passionate about- not just things that I'd thought about or heard about, so I was keen to get back in and not only see if I could still "do" it but also put into practice the theories that I'd developed, learning the lessons from the inspirational people that I've worked with over the last few years.

As such, in January I took up a new post near Southampton for a 7 month blast at seeing how much change I could help to bring about, primarily in a Spanish department but also by bringing new ideas into a language department overall. I've no idea how much impact I had, but I'd like to hope that I helped my students to learn and helped other teachers to learn too. Cos I sure know that I learnt a lot from those students and teachers and that the feedback I got was very positive.

I feel like I'd lost my passion a touch at first, but seeing some of the things that I'd thought long and hard about becoming reality helped rekindle it. What's next? Who knows. But before I step out into the big scary world again I'm going to try to write a few reflective posts and share some of the lessons I've learned, some of the materials I created and some of the thoughts I've got about what worked and what didn't. So hey, here goes... 

Moblogging from #ililc

Here we go, folks, my humble contribution to this weekend's festivities at University of Southampton. I'll endeavour to slidecast the presentation when I get hold of the audio, although I'm afraid I doubt that will be until next week now.

And so the point of my presentation really was to encourage people not to just assume that because we might be out on a trip, immersed in the target language culture and language, that we are maximising learning opportunities- for those on the trip or those back in the classroom. But see what you think and I'd love your opinions- and suggestions!

Moblogging - ILILC 2011

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Edutalk

David Noble is a fascinating man. And that fascinating man is working on what I see as a fascinating project- edutalk. Edutalk aims to bring together the voices of educators, telling one story at a time, every day of the year. Some of these may be in the form of presentations that David has recorded, but he's also encouraging people to get in touch and use one of the ways which edutalk have set up to add material to the site. This could be through a Gabcast account set up for the purpose, an audioboo from an iphone, ipadio or alternatively using Skype and the recording tool Pamela.

Given that the project is based around the use of mobile devices for recording I decided to give David a quick call to talk about my interest in integrating mobile phones into the classroom and beyond. So, as @joedale put it, I gabbed. I hope you find it interesting.

So now I've done my bit- so over to you, get involved!

EDUtalk #17

 

I've just come across this really interesting Teachers tv video. What I found particularly interesting was that many of the decisions are being taken by people who proudly claim that they've just learnt how to text. Are these really the people who are best positioned to weigh up the entirety of the issue?

Mobiles are here, and I can guarantee you that they're not going away at any time soon- and if they do then it'll only be because they've been replaced by a further step forward along the COMMUNICATION line. So let's educate and guide, rather than shutting our eyes and shoving our fingers in our ears! 

By the way, did anyone else like the mobile orchestra near the end? Genius?!

SSAT conference with Louise Crossley

Firstly, apologies for how many times I say the word "ok". Oops.

Secondly I don't seem to be able to count. All of the numberings on the slides seem to start at . Mmm.

Thirdly, Juliet, I am NOT a geek.

ICT- thinking outside the classroom box

SMS poll

Mmm, an interesting one for you here, especially following on from my post about using mobile phones to enhance learning. SMS poll is a free, UK based service which allows you to create online polls which can be completed by text vote OR by voting online for tose who don't have access to a mobile or whose callplan doesn't include free texts (as even most of the pay as you go plans do now, oddly).

To fully exploit the resource you can then download the results as a PowerPoint or excel spreadsheet or even embed them immediately into a blog. Sounds interesting to me- even though each quiz only as 1 question, you could ave a number of quizes open and then really exploit them in the follow-up lesson...

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How I use cell phones in Learning- Voicethread

Howdy everyone, apologies for the Americanism in the title of this post, but I wanted to bring to your attention the voicethread above, started by the fantastic Liz Kolb. If you haven't come across it before, her From Toy to tool blog I can't recommend it strongly enough. It's just a shame that so many of the tools she points out are only US based.

Anyway, you were spared my audio because for some reson it doesn't want to play, so I'm just in text form. Lucky you...

Audacity, but portable

It's always exciting to find fun new tools. So a big thank you to Creative ICT for putting me onto the existence of a portable version of Audacity. THink of the potential of having Audacity with you wherever you are- to work from any computer at all via a memory stick, external Hard Drive, even an iPod. School trips where, for example, the computer in a hostel doesn't have the magic piece of software to let pupils get podcasting on the go?

I'm excited. Sad, but true. So if you want to play around too, download it from here and then check out their other portable apps for even more fun and games.