COMBATTING END OF TERM-ITIS

The school year in Northern Ireland ends at the end of June so our internal summer exams are long over and reports written and checked. SMT rightly tell us to keep the pupils working until the end of the year. The problem is that there are so many different trips out and activities going on with different groups of pupils that it can be hard to find activities to do that are both fun and meaningful to engage tired and oft excited pupils who are counting down the days to the long summer break. To add to this, I have picked up two classes from a colleague who has gone on maternity leave whom I have never taught before, so I am trying to learn their names too. So what to do?

Form 2 have been learning about sports and pastimes so they are off to make short video clips of themselves talking about what they like to do in their free time. I am then intending to make a Talking Wall like the one Kelda Richards tweeted and blogged about, inspiring many of the #mfltwitterati to think about how we can do the same. I am also pricing Talking Postcards to add another facet to the Talking Wall. Said wall name prompted much discussion on Twitter in terms of how to translate it into Spanish. Any ideas? La pared que habla or La pared hablante seem most popular..

 Form 3 have been learning about the Olympics so I decided to let them work on a project whereby the groups are preparing videos promoting our school Grosvenor Grammar as a possible venue for the 2020 Olympics. They have been very focused, with some off recording clips round the school including teachers saying Me gusta plus their favourite sport, whilst others were creating the logo and slogan, as well as pulling the clips together. Some are using Movie Maker and Photo Story, some have stuck to Powerpoint whilst others have favoured Animoto as there is now a facility to incorporate video clips. The projects are due in this Tuesday, and I will upload the finished videos to our http://spanishingrosvenormoblog.posterous.com/ and our wiki as well as playing them on the plasma screens in school.

 Form 4 produced scripts on their work experience last week. Some have chosen to record them using Audacity and upload them to our class page on Edmodo. Others have elected to record them on their phone and then email them to our blog by Tuesday. I tried to use both Vocaroo and Lingt Language but we had temporary connection issues due to the school network so I will try again in the new academic year with these two promising sites. The whole school focus for the next academic year is oracy which ties in perfectly with our departmental decision to concentrate on speaking confidence using the likes of the Group Talk strategy by Greg Horton. These projects dovetail perfectly with this. Speaking the language with confidence is what all pupils yearn to do and what can knock their confidence most so the more activities like this we do, the more they will see Spanish in action.

#LW2011 Isabelle Jones Olympic values & intercultural understanding

Isabelle talked about how we can use the fast-approaching Olympics to infuse our language teaching with the Olympic values and SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning)
Olympic values
o Respect – accepting people’s differences, preserve human dignity
o Excellence – always try your best. Encourage language learners to be more resilient
o Friendship – getting to know other people, other cultures
o Inspiration – looking at others to find out who you really are
o Determination – not giving up
o Equality – accepting inter-dependency
o Courage
Check out the official site http://www.olympic.org As Isabelle pointed out, there are loads of cognates in the values, which is good for getting pupils to talk about complex things in the TL

http://getset.london2012.com/
• The Know your values quiz could be adapted
• Fact file – teacher or pupils could design quizzes
• Picture story – match the values with the pictures
• Match the sound to the picture, we could get them to write the sport in the TL
• Soundtrack game – pupils take on the commentator’s role
• Image bank
• Posters available in Spanish
• Link with cooking around the world website http://letsgetcooking.org.uk/CookingAroundtheWorld

Other ideas
• Isabelle was keen to stress that we should teach the values with creativity and challenge ourselves. We are going to do an Olympic unit and I am keen to hear what others are doing
• Look at the Olympic symbols, talk about symbolism of the rings
• Motto “Plus vite, plus haut, plus fort” - use this to teach comparatives
• Design motto and poster for favourite sport.
• Describe mascots, then design own
• Numbers, countries, colours, foods, exercises
• Differences: names, handwriting, food, clothes, houses, school, music, traditions
• The Intercultural Understanding Toolkit• http://www.guiainfantil.com/servicios/nombres/indice.htm for Spanish names
• Use the song “Tout le monde il est beau” by Zazie
• Whilst you point out differences, show them the similarities “We have more in common than what divides us”
• Do a handwriting lesson (preferably with the squared paper)
• Give them a list of food, get them to google image them
• Clothes – match the national costume to the name of the country
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/national-costumes-world (numbers at end)
• Pictures of contrasting houses
• Gulliveria website about Spanish festivals• http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/resources/item/748-step-into-her-trainers
• http://taggalaxy.de
• UNICEF respect RRS scheme Right respecting scheme

Thanks to Isabelle who came up with this plethora of great ideas with regards to the Olympics, I look forward to integrating them into my teaching next year. Isabelle has loads of great ideas on her blog