Facing the currently unknown

Vida Latina- think differently

I didn’t really know what to expect at Aston University on Saturday for the joint ALL and Links into Languages day Vida Latina. I’d been asked to present on the theme of how my travels around South America would influence the way I approached material when I finally manage to return to the classroom. Now this was asking me to reflect on something that is intensely personal, both the lessons learnt from experiences during our 3 months away but also upon how I want to re-embrace classroom education. What I ultimately found, yet again, was that by sharing with others I was yet again inspired by those around me. My session really was just a simple outpouring of reinterpretations, most definitely not of any groundbreaking nature. But if they got anyone thinking then hopefully I did my job!

I admit that John Connor’s chosen topic of Eva Perón wouldn’t necessarily have been one which would have drawn me to attend if it had been a larger, open choice conference. And yet so many of his words and overall tone resonated hugely. One of the issues that I have always found in our exam-theme-obsessed world is how to focus on what John described as the “language of speculation and contemplation”. This argumentative tone which forms the basis of our everyday interactions in our own mother tongue but which so rarely appear in the scenario-driven world of the “traditional” MFL classroom. To again quote John, he stated that he was looking to promote “meanings that matter, disputational language” through the promotion of a language toolkit as soon as pupils enter in year 7 in the form of a core list of phrases. My personal favourite was undoubtedly “en tus sueños”- in your dreams.

Download Spanish Toolkit

This key emphasis on transferrable phrases has been the subject of great work out there over the last few years, but here it was being delivered to me just at a time when I needed it- so thank you, John. One last comment really hit home as well, when discussing an interview with a pupil a few years ago about his approach to the cognitive level required in language lessons. “It’s hard, but it’s not challenging.” Says it all, really.

The only other session I managed to take in (unfortunately I had to leave early in order to return to Devon ready for the Bideford half marathon on Sunday) was the as-ever ideas-zinging of Liz Hitchcock of the British Council and Lisa Stevens of... well, Whitehouse Common Primary School, A.L.L., Apple and pretty much everywhere, really. In my previous school international links were a major weakness with obstacles thrown in my path every time I attempted to champion their importance. A nice link with somewhere in Patagonia would go down rather well, I think...

One Man, One Toy

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

 

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

¡Vida Latina!

 
I've been asked to present on Saturday March 6th at what I think could turn out to be a really, really interesting day. So often, at least in my teaching, I've tended to focus on Spain and neglect much of what goes on in the broader Hispanic world. Surprise surprise my travels have changed all of that!

And so Vida Latina at Aston University has popped up at exactly the right moment to share some of my thoughts and ideas. But the day as a whole promises to be a real celebration of Latin America, including dancing sessions and food samplings alongside sessions from Shirley Kliment-Temple, John Connors, Liz Hitchcock from the British Council and the ever-inspirational Lisa Stevens. So please, please download the flyer below and sign up! I look forward to hopefully being able to catch up with some of you (assuming someone's reading this!!) on the day.

Hasta pronto

 Download VIDA LATINA FLYER[1]

Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail- the diaries

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Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail, with thanks to our Flip HD!

 

It's a joy to finally be able to publish this video, but I originally wouldn't have published it on this blog if it hadn't been for the help that I've received in getting it to this stage. As I blogged recently, the Flip HD records in MP4, which my poorly Acer laptop and old-fashioned Moviemaker couldn't cope with.

 

Now I was understandably reluctant to convert the videos- part of the point of taking the Flip HD and not the original Flip with us was to ensure the quality was as good as it could be. So having failed with the Flip's own software and with Moviemaker I tried editing with AVS, again, unfortunately, a failure.

 

Zamzar's conversion methods usually result in a good-quality end product, but alas this time it added poor quality sound to the already jolting video footage.

 

And it's at this point that I have to thank those wonderful twitterers, @joedale, @eyebeams and @teachernz. @eyebeams' recommendation of editing in .............. worked to a certain extent, but still left the video footage too jumpy to edit reliably and accurately. Ultimately it was a combination of @teachernz and my wife's new Windows 7 laptop which came up trumps. Downloading the new version of MovieMaker, which contains an HD formatting option, finally produced a platform from which I could work, hurrah. So even though my skills are limited, the footage mostly speaks for itself and the Flip is back in my good books.

 

So when it comes to a Personal Learning Network, hey, I admit when I was wrong- so thank you, twitter. But more about that anon!