High tech, low tech, let's get them talking

Further to my earlier post about encouraging speaking, there has been a lot of talk on Twitter about @dominic_mcg's Mug of Misery to pull pupils' names out in order to answer a question on the board. Despite my prowess as a near-professional shopper, I failed to find a mug that I liked. However I did stumble upon the following: LA MALETA MANDONA (The Bossy Suitcase)


The plastic pots contain lollypop sticks with the names of pupils in the various classes I teach. I intend to use them in conjunction with the fruit machine from http://classtools.net generating oral questions or with images in a powerpoint. Let's see how the Maleta Mandona is welcomed to Grosvenor.

WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER...

Our SMT rightly believes that the some of best training comes from within, and so today we had another staff day where peers talked to groups about what is going on inside their classrooms. Why am I blogging about it? Well, the notetaking session from our Psychology teacher tied in so perfectly with all that had been said at #ililc at Southampton in terms of independent learning, teaching and honing the skills so that the content falls into place. Stephen talked about building risk-taking and creativity in KS3 so that it happens more naturally on up the school. He gave us a series of useful frameworks and handouts, but the thing that stuck with me most was his statement that pupils are most creative when they are emotionally engaged. To do this, we need to enthuse the pupils, act as Devil's advocate at times, and push them to want to learn more.
Time to bring these ideas into the classroom...

#ililc Inspiration in a hashtag

The ability to bottle the ambience from the weekend's ICT Links into Languages conference in Southampton could have made someone a large amount of money. To say that delegates were left enthused and inspired is an understatement.

It was such a pleasure to meet some of the MFL Twitterati for the first time, and it felt like meeting old friends for many of the others. It is the curse of the Northern Irish to constantly feel inadequate, but who could fail to be humbled in the presence of the demi-gods that are Joe Dale and Rachel Hawkes? Their keynote speeches were the perfect bookends to an excellent conference.

There were several noteworthy things about the weekend. Firstly, all the delegates seemed to be singing from the same hymnsheet. Aside from Joe and Rachel, Wendy Adeniji had so many excellent ideas on how to turn language teaching and topics on their head, Clare Seccombe made me want to pass her the contents of my netbook, as well as giving us loads of excellent sites to check out, Dale Hardy's G&T talk was truely thought-provoking and from Chris Harte came the superb 'Languages:Reboot' (yes, I know this post is all superlatives, but what can you do?!) which left us ready to throw out the textbooks and the SOWs, and embrace all that is postive about spontaneous language and pupil independence. Oh, and then there was the Show and Tell, the socialising and all the injokes that have left other non-attending Twitterati a little bemused.

On a personal note, I owe Joe Dale a debt of gratitude, for without his coaxing, reassuring and general cheerleading, I would not have presented, and would have missed out on the opportunity. Yes, despite the stress and the lack of sleep worrying, it was worth it. Though note to self, 'footery' is a Norn Irish word that has no meaning for anyone not from the wee isle, and no matter how slowly I think I am speaking, there will still be those who will fail to understand me.

Returning home from such a weekend can bring you down to earth with a bump, but the power of Twitter is such that #ililc must surely still be trending. People have been tweeting lessons they have taught using ideas from the conference, as well as tweeting and teasing online acquaintances who are now considered friends.

Stealing @charte's idea from his blogpost, a whole lotta MFL Twitterati love to the following: @bootleian @chrisfullerisms @charte @bellaale @blagona @lwelsh @lisibo @icpjones @suzibewell @joedale @froggyval @reesiepie @smaguire777 @sghani @wendadeniji @mariefrance @JulietDPark @purer_ethics @kath52 @mrshampson @estherhardman and those I have missed. I only wish I wasn't a plane ride away...

INTEGRATING ICT INTO AN MFL DEPARTMENT

View more presentations from Amanda Salt.

LET'S TALK

AS Spanish pupils worked in pairs to practise speaking on a variety of topics. One pupil spoke for a minute whilst the other assessed them, using the bingo card. With thanks to Rachel Hawkes for the bingo card idea and the person on the MFL Resources forum for the original plenary squares powerpoint

Let's talk

View more presentations from Amanda">http://www.slideshare.net/asalt518">Amanda Salt.

PGCE TALK

Today Grosvenor hosted a group of Modern Languages PGCE students as part of our link with Queen's University, Belfast. As well as my talk on an A-Z of ICT in Modern Languages and Julie's talk on Fun and Games in Modern Languages, the students had the opportunity to talk to some members of our languages department about the realities of teaching and teaching practice, as well as time in the computer lab checking out some of the web 2.0 tools mentioned in the earlier talk.
The feedback was very positive, but equally I feel that I got a lot out of the day. Firstly, upon delivering my talk, I was able to reflect on how much of the web 2.0 stuff is now second nature to me, although there were many tools that I haven't used for a while, and this has inspired me to revisit them. Also, the enthusiasm the students displayed in the hands-on session really was very pleasing; I hope that they get as much out of the websites and tools as I do.
Secondly, both my talk and Julie's reaffirmed just how strong and forward-thinking our department is. And yes, Iam blowing our own trumpet a little here, but it is a joy to work in a department that is so willing to run with new ideas and embrace change.
Lastly, the Q&A session hopefully proved useful to the students.I well remember the feeling as my first teaching practice approached, and it wasn't always a good feeling. The dread, nervous anticipation and excitement all jostled for supremacy. It is always a good thing to stop and take stock as a teacher, and today was a day that I value for allowing me to do just that.

MINI-WHITEBOARDS

Sometimes it's about the low-tech stuff as much as the whistles and bells of web 2.0 and its associated benefits. Our department are all great fans of mini-whiteboards, and use them for a variety of activities.

• Put the pupils into groups, each with a mini-whiteboard, then say a sentence in English. The first group to all write it out correctly gets the point. It will amaze you how long it takes them to all have the same thing written on their whiteboards
• Do the same activity on an individual basis - possibly better for A level pupils
• Practise verb conjugations, adjectival agreement, whatever grammar point you wish to reinforce
• For vocabulary practice, say the word in the TL and the pupils need to draw something which represents the word
• To practise numbers, call out a sum and the pupils write down the answer
• Use the mini-whiteboards in carousel activities for Hangman or Pictionary
• If you can afford it, invest in class sets of magnetic letters, and use them with magnetic mini-whiteboards - most of the games above can be played with the magnetic letters

In terms of practicalities, I would do the following:

• ensure that you have enough mini-whiteboards for at least one between two
• invest in a class set of whiteboard markers
• Get board erasers. A cheaper version is to cut up sponges or dishcloths.
• set ground rules, such as no writing messages to each other, or silly answers. Be firm the first few times, and they will soon learn that one moment's attention from the class is not worth doing exercises from a text book for the rest of the activity
• Have a box to store the boards in, and get pupils in the habit of collecting and returning them quickly and without fuss

Playing with magnetic letters, my classes and I have evolved a set of rules which work well for us:

• letters cannot be set out in alphabetical order or in groups of the same letter
• they can be set out according to colour (apparently this helps the brain?)
• First 3 individuals/groups to get the answer, win the point (points equal stars for the star chart in my classes)
• If you win one go, you sit out the next (so winners don't discourage others)

Investing in mini-whiteboards and magnetic letters was one of the best decisions I ever made, and an investment which will stand me in good stead for years to come.

TEACHING LITERATURE

Someone posted a query this evening on the MFL Resources forum about teaching literature at A level. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth:
I am really interested in this, as our ML dept seems to vary greatly in their approach. I tend to get the pupils to copy chapter notes into the book plus any of their own insight in advance, then spend the double period discussing the chapter in terms of why we have picked things out. I have a workbook of exercises they then do. I also give them a set of mindmap sheets, each with a topic the exam board has listed to cover, and they keep these updated with info as we meet in in the course of the novel, using colours for different types of info eg quotes.

None of this is wildly exciting, but I do do some activities such as Random Name Generator (RNG) where they need to talk or write for a minute about whatever topic/character the RNG throws up. You can also do activities such as cutting up a sheet with a lost of events and then placing said events into chronological order, or where you read a statement and they need to write the character it refers to on a mini whiteboard. With Como Agua Para Chocolate, I get the pupils to take a character each and do a MySpace page in Spanish, writing the blog as if they were the character. You can also do group work where one lies on the floor and others draw a body outline round them, then they write all the pertinent information on the shape for that character, quotes in one colour, adjectives in another, facts/events in another. Finally, tools such as Goanimate and Toondoo are useful for showing storylines and character development