Facing the currently unknown

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!!

 

 

Route 39 Academy MFL

Well, I’m back in the game.

I’ve been asked to create a Spanish department in the Route 39 Academy, a free school which has been open since September just along the north Devon coast from where I live. The school is driven by a forward-thinking, Project Based Learning environment and the Head has given me a fantastic brief- innovate, push the students forward in a way that makes them think and in turn be creative themselves. Just my cup of tea.

As such, at the moment, given that I am starting on a very limited timetable from after half term as I serve out some of my existing consultancy commitments (I’ll still have 2 days a week working freelance), I’m in the process of creating an ideal world scenario in my head and then seeing how many of those elements I can incorporate in the department which will be growing in September. The students (all years 7 and 8) currently have a very mixed view towards the language learning experiences that they have had previously but are used to working in an independent, reflective way. They have had a large amount of input on the use of Learning Habits / BLP and so these are elements that I have to take into consideration.

 

 

Essentials

• Creative content- I’ll be opening up with a unit on Mexico (thanks @geoblogs for the discussions) designed to encourage students to reflect on “otherness” and through that to reflect a bit about themselves. The conceit is that they will be designing and describing a character who lives in Tijuana, just over the border from San Diego. The long and short of it is that they will have to decide where their future lies and whether they take the risk of crossing the border in search of a different life. This will be accompanied by a technology project to design the wall of crosses which represents those who’ve lost their lives, as well as creating a visual representation of the things that they will hold dear in the country that they choose.
• Phonics- will be at the core of everything. I’m also in the process (thanks @joedale) of putting together QR codes to add to Rachel Hawkes’ Phonics poster to make a classroom display (and a handout for their books) which will enable students to listen to the phonic sounds whenever they want / need them.
• A blog- I want the students to be creating and to be reflecting- for me, a blog is essential. It also presents the department in the right, outward-facing way and engages parents, who play a big role in the school’s DNA.
• Group Talk / arguing- within the first month I want students to be able to pause (pues, a ver, es decir, sabes) and argue (qué va, no estoy de acuerdo) and then justify (porque, ya que). That means, for me, setting up contentious positions where students are able to develop genuine opinions- again, looping back to the content.
• Flipping- in line with the school’s emphasis on PBL I like the concept of Flipping the classroom- giving the students the skills and knowledge in advance and then allowing them to examine and implement those elements in the lesson time where I can then support those who need additional help and enable those who are ready to fly. I think Wildern School in Southampton have been doing some great work on this front recently- see their http://www.fliplearningmfl.blogspot.co.uk/ for some fascinating ideas. Sam Broom’s also come up with some great grammar videos http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXD7mnOYRYNrK58Fszv5ZPw . I’ve created http://route39mfl.wikispaces.com/ to start compiling different materials and give students a go-to space for learning materials.
• Edmodo- this is a possibility, not a definite- I’m looking forward to going to a session at #ililc4 next week about it to make some final decisions- what I don’t want is to overload students from the start but I do want to provide them with a venue to discuss and share ideas, especially relevant for when they’re working on projects when they’re not in the same physical space as each other.
• Wespeke- as soon as possible I want to get students communicating for real- I think Wespeke can provide a fantastic tool to do this, communicating with real classes all over the world, easily and for free. Result.
• Twitter- again, I want to provide real world interaction. Not many of the students use Twitter yet, but I'm hoping that some of their parents do and so can use Twitter as a way of engaging with their children's learning. I also want to use it to provide opportunities to contact the rest of the world. So please follow @route39MFL 
• I've agreed to run a learning evening for parents a few weeks into my contract. Plenty of phonics, plenty of thought generating, probably a cheeky Wordle and the odd glass of wine, all while showing parents how they can support students at home. I'm really excited about this.

Encouraging creativity at UIMP, Santander

Last Thursday it was an absolute pleasure to spend a day in Santander, northern Spain at Universidad Internacional Menéndez-Pelayo. I had been invited to take part in a week's course about learning from recent advances in English education. All of the teachers are in some way involved in using English as part of their teaching, either as the central subject or to enhance their main subject, such as part of a psychology course. As such they were spared me presenting in Spanish... phew. My focus was on encouraging creativity and to demonstrate that it is possible to move away from "traditional" approaches and acceptances.

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed ideas to these presentations. I tried to attribute as much as I could remember to, but if I've missed anyone out then yell and I'll alter things! A huge thank you to José Antonio del Tejo for organising the event as well, it was great fun. And thanks for organising a La Oreja de Van Gogh gig for that night too!!

What can ICT do for us?

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

 

Creative Assessment

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Thinking about creativity

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Exeter PGCE- so what's next?

Apologies that it's taken a few days, but here are the materials from Friday's session in Exeter, I hope it was a useful one for you, even though you were all desperate to head off and celebrate your success at passing! The few games in the ppt at the bottom now have advice for use in the notes section under the slides. Many of the ideas are from Sara Sullivan (in Essex) and Neil Jones (www.mfljones.wordpress.com). There is also, I think, a huge ppt of ideas floating round on TES resources area. And if you ever need any help, feel free to get in touch.

So what's next?

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Download A few games

Creative ideas for post-16 languages

Creative post-16 MFL ide as

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

 

Download Innovative 6th form ideas (just in case you want to share it)

Howdy folks,

this is the powerpoint I based discussions on at Tomlinscote on Wednesday for a very interesting (well I would say that, wouldn't I!) session for Links into Languages. The ideas below were the ones added to my pink post-it learning wall- thanks for the contributions, one and all!

A big thank you as well to Alex Blagona, Nick Mair (blog, man, blog!!!) and Neil Jones for some fascinating discussions as to what constitutes creative MFL teaching.

Ideas

One pupil sits with their back to the screen

- The rest of the class then describe what is on the screen for them to guess

Create a pack of cards with 5 to 10 conjugated verbs in every tense pupils have learnt.

 - Students categorise into correct tenses into a timeline  

- Play snap with the cards- snap for same tense

Mini-whiteboard game: students answer questions by writing answers on the board then showing them quickly to win points

The post-it (rizla) game- pupils write a famous character on a post-it and stick it on a peer's forehead. They then have to ask questions to find out who they all are!

Running dictation- the twist!

- Before doing the dictation, answer a series of questions based on the text outside the room

- After completing the running dictation, translate into English / create a summary

- THEN translate back into Spanish (either the translation or the summary), without now being able to see the Spanish dictation text

- Peer assess

Allow the pupils to create topic booklets to use as teaching materials for the following year

Create a newspaper

- you provide the headlines, they provide an article to accompany it

Give each group (3 or 4 pupils) a list of about 12 words in TL

 - They then have 20 minutes to create a story to read out / act out to the rest of the class using all of these words

Isle of Wight exhaustion, 2007

Yesteday was an amazing experience for me, and for that I have to thank everyone who came to the Isle of Wight conference. It was a fairly inspiring day, with ideas flying around left, right and centre, with a room packed full of people with innovative, creative ideas to enhance all of our teaching.

I fully admit that I was realllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyy nervous before my sessions, and I hope they were interesting for everyone involved- but hey, all feedback is very much appreciated!

I've made the presentations available to download below, but if anyone would alos like me to put any other examples of things on the blog then feel free to add a comment and I'll put things up.

What I also really enjoy about days like yesterday is getting the opportunity to actually meet people who's work you really admire and who you've struck up contact with over the net. So thanks to all of those people, especially to Lisa and David- here's looking forward to the Euro 08 project getting moving!

Good luck with all the ideas as they start to become reality over the next few weeks!

Chris

Download its_a_bloggers_life.ppt

Download blogging_intro_presentation.ppt

Download how_to_use_a_blog.ppt

Download what_is_a_wiki.avi

Download what_is_a_mobile_slideshow_and_how_to_make_one.doc

Cheers jellycast

I hereby give great credit to jellycast, who have addressed a major fault in their service.

I've been using jellycast with my year 11s as they revise for their orals, recording pieces to put onto the wiki thanks to odeo. However, jellycast was unable to cope with having more than 10 series in existence- is there noone else out there producing more than 10 different things on the ENTIRETY of jellycast? Anyway, their very helpful help team have now introduced a far better navigational system, so thank you very much!

I'll let you know in the next few weeks how the wiki experiment's coming on... The pupils seem enthused, which as I'm sure you'll all agree when it comes to oral preparation, is something. HOwever, it really has got me thinking about just what you can do with wikis...