BARCA 2013

We are rapidly approaching the school trip to Barcelona. We will be moblogging this trip using a mobile to post photos and comments on a daily basis

“Play is the highest form of research.”~ Albert Einstein

Having tapped in to the genius idea of Jenga thanks to @elvisrunner I am now going to try out two ideas by her sister, @valleseco, both based on TV game shows.
Firstly, there is Pointless. For those who haven't seen it, the aim of the game is to score least points by providing the least common answer.  I am going to get the pupils to play in pairs with mini whiteboards. They will read the question, write their answer and then award the points according to my answers on the slide. If their answer isn't on the board, they will score the maximum 100. This isn't ideal but I can't see any other way round it.

Secondly, we are going to play Blankety Blank. In order to involve more of the class, I am going to have two teams of 3, with the others all being panelists. The pupils in the two teams will view the slide and write down their answer at the same time as the panelists. They will then score a point for each panellist who has the same answer. The winning team will go through to the Supermatch game. They will choose 3 panelists to write down the answer at the same time as them. They win if one of the panelists has the same answer as them. I will let you know how it goes.

Jenga explained in detail

I've had a few queries so here goes..
I numbered the Jenga sets in  their own plastic box with 1-6 in different colours on the box lid. I then numbered the Jenga blocks 1-48 with a felt tip the same colour as the box lid. eg Set 1 had 1 written in red on the lid and all the blocks were numbered 1-48 in red.
Pupils take it in turns to remove a block using one hand only and answer the question of the number on the block. They then place the block on top of the Jenga tower before play passes to the next person in the group. If they can't answer it, they need to remove another block. If they knock the tower over, have a forfeit ready like everyone else in the group gets a sticker or they have to sing a song...
Hope this helps..

Towers of knowledge

Just to feedback on the Jenga activity. Each of the 6 groups got a plastic box with the numbered Jenga blocks and a laminated sheet with 48 questions or tasks to do. These varied from speaking for 30 seconds on a given topic or answering a question, translation into Spanish or English or listing items of vocabulary on a given topic.
The pupils relished the challenge although one group was rebuked for messing about, and it was great to hear loads of Spanish on a wide variety of topics at this stage of the year.

#ILILC3 Show and Tell in practice 1

There were some little gems buried in the hilarity of the ICT links into languages Show and Tell evening. Here is one of them I am going to put into practice this week.
@elvisrunner talked about using Jenga in her classroom so I jumped onto eBay and bought six minisets at £3 each. I am going to number the blocks (in different colours so I can keep track of the sets) and them make a series of sheets to go with them. I reckon I'll cover basic questions right up to A2 plus do some that are topics, names of famous people etc. The idea is that when they push the block out, they check the number on the sheet and answer the question, talk for 1 minute on the topic, list 10 things you can buy in that shop, list 10 colours, etc. I need to think of a suitable 'punishment' if the tower block topples!

GIVING A NEW TWIST TO THE CURRICULUM

This is the second time I have heard Emma Bains (@bains_1 on Twitter) talking and she is so inspirational. She started with KS3 talking about speaking. For her first lesson, pupils have to process a lesson in Dutch on the seed, filling in the missing line. The pupils as a rule rise to the challenge so Emma then questioned if they are able to do this, why are we teaching pencil case items?  With Year 7 some of the topics include UNICEF and Angels and Demons. The latter is actually about school but brings in behaviour with rights and responsibilities. There are still lots of ways to teach gender, nouns, plurals, etc.

Key points and ideas Emma talked about include:

• Pupils like getting up and moving round. 
• Give them longer texts with loads of cognates 
• Being able to give opinions enables them 
• Get them to highlight the words they know. Let them realise that they don't need to know everything to understand text/gist 
• 2nd lesson - same text. Change key verbs to green. They copy verbs, replace the content 
• Even with new topics, you can still teach vocabulary etc 
• Cluedo - add opinions at the start of the slide.Teacher picks person, item and place then they guess.   "Que yo sepa" makes it excellent to teach the subjunctive 
• UNICEF tenemos el derecho a + noun Choose cognates Work through masc, fem, etc Tenemos la responsabilidad de + verb Watch video and pupils tick off list as they hear words Tienes el derecho a video 
• Listening material is generally hard to find 
• Advertising topic: Fernando Torres. What do you expect this video to advertise? Questions in advance - eg how many times will we see it? Listening box to make notes rather than questions. Vanessa Burns suggested using Pinterest to get resources. What makes a good advert etc? Anuncios which sounds different to what pupils expect. 
• Get pupils to use Audioboo and Vocaroo to record themselves. They can get texts out of Spanish magazines (check the back for nudity!) 
• Give them questions with answers to be found on  texts stuck up round the room 
• Fashion Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine per cent inspiration The Factory Game (online) gives them10 mins to make hats, you then buy the acceptable ones off them. Then they need to buy products. 
• Trip to Barcelona activity - Show the pupils a slide "Contents of my handbag" with taxi receipts, metro etc. They need to tell you what you did for your day according to the tickets etc You can strategically place times on it.

I came home inspired and after seeing an exchange between Emma and @pelado on Twitter last week, I have made a first attempt at rejigging our KS3 SOW. I'll let you know how it goes...

A LEVEL SPANISH IMMERSION

OK, listen up,for I am going to say this only once. If you teach A level languages, you need to do an immersion. You will get as much out of it as your pupils. We have just had a brilliant two days despite the massive setback of snow and powercuts meaning that we couldn't do our usual residential at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra. We hastily made the decision to run it in school, given that the rest of the school had only a halfday left so we would have more or less full run of the facilities. We just had the Subway lunches and Chinese dinner delivered to school instead of Cultra!
We did a vast range of activities over the two days, including a treasure hunt round the school, Mentiroso game, a quiz, lots of song blankfills, Grupos Atados (where they had to wrap a present and write a card, tied to each other's wrists in groups of 5 or 6), a Guarida del Dragón activity based on Dragon's Den and of course, a DVD to finish the first night. This year we watched Volver.
Over the course of the two days, the staff delivered their same workshop four times, to a different group each time. I focused on Las Redes Sociales, using a visual jokes powerpoint from the #mfltwitterati Dropbox, as well as Tarsia to match definitions of social networking to the phrases or words and a series of questions to finish off.
 

Las redes sociales from Amanda Salt

All the staff had whistles which were used when we heard English. The perpetrator then had to sing in Spanish as 'punishment'.

Whilst there is no doubt that we put a vast amount of work into this immersion every year, it is worth its weight in gold both in terms of the pupils' spoken Spanish and also the rapport you build with the pupils and staff who participate. The buzz I feel tonight is hopefully being echoed around Greater Belfast as I type. Ánimo, you can do it too!