Learn French Italian or Spanish on Twitter

Starting today a daily twitter lesson with link to minipodcast for pronunciation.

Follow @learnfrench @learnitalian @learnspanish from your twitter account, twitter.com

Minipodcast here for French, Italian, Spanish

Timeline

I used a neat online tool called timeglider to create this timeline. http://timeglider.com with free registration
You can make more important events bigger. Great for history lessons!
Click on an event for more information and weblink.
Related events are colour coded
Drag the green slider down to 25 years for a better view.
Click on the spanner to view full screen.

Online Reading List

Documents, reports etc Download .pdf if available. Don't print - they are long!
CFE MODERN LANGUAGES OUTCOMES 2007
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence/outcomes/languages/modernforeignlanguages/index.asp

Citzens of a Multilingual World (aka the Mulgrew) Report 2000
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/education/rati-00.asp rationale
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/education/cmwr-00.asp recommendations
2005 progress report: http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/hmiecoaml.html

5-14 Guidelines
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/guidelines/modernlanguages/index.asp

HMIE
http://www.hmie.gov.uk/Publications.aspx

• Developing the four capacities through modern languages: focusing on successful learners in primary schools. 22/8/2008 .pdf
• Modern Languages - A portrait of current practice in Scottish schools 06/02/2007 .pdf

Standards and Quality: Primary and Secondary Schools 1994-1998: in Modern Languages 01/01/2002

Paris widget photos

Wordle update

Erin's wordle

It is now possible to embed wordles in blogs and wikis. I had such a job before pasting in screen grabs! Have made some changes to the wiki

If anyone else still has the URL of their wordle please email me it as the search feature in the gallery is no longer available.

Another new feature is the ability to link words together. If you type in a tilde ~ between words they won't be treated separately eg un~chat or un~poisson~rouge

Promenons-nous dans les bois

Just found this lovely karaoke version with vocab games http://www.jeuchanteenclasse.com/

Nasal vowels downloads

The 4 sets of nasal vowels rockets are avaiable to download from Sparklebox share zone

Get different sizes by printing 4 9 12 16 to a sheet. Print some blank ones on to card to add to as a new word crops up.

PGP session 2

Starter

We got into French mode by looking at a clip from BBC learning zone

It was no 1033 on greetings.

Vocabulary presentation and practice

I demoed some techniques for presenting new voc with flashcard picture and wordcards

We looked at MES English and Tools for educators for generating resources like flashcards and dominoes

21st Century vocab learning with quizlet. Pupils can make their own to practise. My set on French colours here  My other quizlets here

Literacy links with L1

We talked about what skills in L1 would help L2 learning

I think the most important one is the ability to give synoyms and express yourself in other words, to work out what an expression really means eg he had a new jumper on = he wore a new jumper.

Knowing parts of speech is really useful too. We had a look at Grammar Ninja on the web. It can be downloaded and customised with your own sentences in French or German or Spanish. 

Dictionary and reading skills

prediction, clues, context, similarities with English or Latin/Greek words, general knowledge of Mythology la méduse - jellyfish, le renard Reynard the Fox (Aesop's tales, I think)

Finally a challenging reading task on African animal factfiles. This idea is shamelessly stolen from Lynne's blog

In fact most of my ideas are sparked off by my PLN (personal learning network) on Twitter and others such as Talkabout Primary MFL. "Sharing is caring!" Get yourself connected!

I've enjoyed these brief sessions with you and wish you well in your placement and for the future.

Please email me if you have any French related queries or want to share anything  you have seen or done! Or leave a comment.

Bonne continuation!

PGP video

We looked at an American site for the alphabet and explaining about gender. It's a bit "weird" but interesting!

The link is http://studio4learning.tv/foreign-language/french/

You can also find excerpts of it on youtube.

For next session I asked you to read over the first part of the handout I gave out in the tutorials on vocabulary presentation. I  will bring spare copies to Monday's lecture.

PGP session 1 continued. Numbers

We looked at teaching numbers
Start with a few at a time, building up, first lots of listening before repeating. Lots of guessing, minding reading, lip reading.  All this is explained in the methodology handout.

You need number figures/flashcards/number fan to hold up.
Ways of practising
Use number fans or mini whiteboards. You say a number, they hold up number fan or fingers or write on whiteboard
In pairs - pupils write randomly the numbers on a sheet and take turns to point and say. Do the same with the written word. Match the word to the number

Written Word - when showing the written word, spend time discussing the spelling, decoding, ask what letters are silent,  what other words have you seen wit this combination ofletters eg eu of deux also in bleu. How will you remember this word?
Dice simply throw a dice and say the number. Snakes and ladders activities where you count aloud are good too.
Songs
Referred to Early Learning centre French is Fun CD comptons jusqu'à 10 - lets count up to 10 £5 in store
It also has a traditional comptine: 1,2 3 nous irons au bois
Counting
round the class - BUZZ say buzz instead of multiples of 7 and numbers containing 7 (or whatever number)
11 All stand. In turn say 1 2 or 3 numbers Aim is not to say 11. Whoever is 11 has to sit down and start again at 1. Can be tactical. You know who your friends are!
Instead of just chanting 1 - 100, play hide the thimble. Instead of saying hot and cold class chants numbers getting louder and faster for warm and slower and quieter for cold.
Think of a number. Class guess. You say higher or lower (plus / moins) until they work it out.

Use real opportunities for counting in class - how many for lunch, etc
classroom language
On va compter jusqu’à 20! we’re going to count to 20
on va compter la classe we’re going to count the class
tous ensemble (avec moi) all together (with me)
répétez après moi repeat after me
Comptons let’s count
Compte / Comptez count (to one child)/count (plural)
Combien? How many?

Blagues

Created using Glogster. Can add sound and video, too! Education account suitable for pupil use. And it's all free!

Curriculum for Excellence news

Newly published today: Principles and Practice and updated Experiences and Outcomes for Modern Languages
Click here

PGP session 1

Learning numbers in French (for beginners) or Chinese/Russian etc challenge.
Aim was to put you in the place of a beginner. I suggested Chinese and Russian since the writing system would be no help! Many did other languages including Punjabi, Gaelic, Polish.
Strategies you used to acquire this language

• your own personal trainer - eg parent, son or daughter, friend or pupil at school. Excellent for feedback, correction of your mistakes. Loved the Chinese pupil teaching the teacher!. Another student reported the school they had been in had an international week and pupils with different language backgrounds taught some phrases to the others. Value and celebrate the languages the pupils bring with them.
  
• books - very few used a book
  
• youtube - you can find a native speaker to teach you and you can see their mouth. no text; and
  
• internet generally - good for audio and notes. You can play the sound as often as you like. The computer doesn't get fed up with you! But no correction of your mistakes.
  
• Notes - many came with notes, with phonetic spelling 
  

Conclusions 

• It is hard to learn strange foreign words 
  
• Remembering them subsequently is even harder. 
  
• It helps if you can associate the sound with something else eg Chinese 30 sounds a bit like sandshoe. 
  
• Don't attempt too many at once

We looked at the website hello-world which has some attractive interactive help in several languages.

Poisson d'avril!

Poisson d'Avril

View more presentations from Alice Ayel.

Gender Issues

Gender issues

Anecdotal
seen as feminine subject
parental attitudes -subject for girls
role models - few male MFL teachers
boys like challenges, tasks, rules to follow
boys like sport, facts, ICT

boys like German more than French

Need to find evidence to support or refute some of these "facts"

Amanda Salt 2009, Belfast
"One of the great success stories of my year has to be the boy who showed an open dislike for Spanish last year yet has sent me the last two homeworks (created on Goanimate) early, and is visibly more relaxed in class."
http://amandasalt.blogspot.com/2009/03/creating-buzz.html

Mica 2009 on Comic Life
I am not sure if anyone of you has come across this software but it is great for MFL. This creates pages like a typical comic. I have used this to complete ER verbs and reflexive verbs unit. Pupils used cameras to take picture of their daily routine and added speech bubbles to their story. This really engaged some of my boys.

Australia
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:K9rKigKw8PoJ:education.qld.gov.au/curriculum/area/lote/docs/boys-lote.doc+boys+primary+languages&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari
Languages are boring. Boys, in their own opinion, are less prepared to be bored than girls. Many of the boys talked nostalgically about their experience in primary school when languages had been more interactive and task-based, where they did things with the language rather than just ‘copy from the board or read out of the textbook'.

Concentration span (twice as long for girls Kruse 1992)

Jones and Coffey, Modern Foreign Languages 5-11 (course book)
ch 6pp95-96
use variety of methods

LOW, JOHNSTONE CONNACHER Evaluation of the Visiting Specialist
lower achieving boys tend to do better in German (than French) p28

Other possible sources in books
Clark, A. (1998) Gender on the agenda Factors motivating boys and girls in MFLs London: CILT
Doublier, M, Green, S. and Haworth, S. (1998) On est fou du foot/Football crazy London: CILT
Harris, V. (1992) Fair enough? (PF14) Equal opportunities and modern languages London: CILT
Jones, B. and Jones, G. (with Helen Demetriou, Peter Downes and Jean Rudduck) (2001) Boys’ performance in modern foreign languages. Listening to learners.London: CILT
Jones, B. and Swarbrick, A. (2005) It makes you think! Creating engagement, offering challenges (NPF4) London: CILT
Jones, B. (2005) Boosting boys’ motivation in MFL London: CILT

English government site:

http://www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/research/themes/gender/

Thanks o today's researchers

If you have any more references or points please add them in comments!

Interactive exercises on clothes

quia matching from Mairi

here are some from elsewhere

Babbie

hello world

clothesline fun

Best sites for language help (updated)

ULTRALINGUA Dictionary and much more eg conjugation - all tenses of verb; numbers- type figures, converts to words; grammar
Wordreference Dictionary with lots of examples and a forum

pronunciation with audio files
database of  sound files, French here but other languages too 

BBC courses, eg Ma France
BBC learningzone clips

typing accents
or here
LTS charts here

Primary languages

Talkabout Primary - English based network

Primary Languages - English based, training for primary MFL, now incorporates NACELL, video clips

RadioLingua Network (based in Ayr) award winning language learning podcasts to download for free or listen online. (small charge for additional notes, if you want them) eg Coffee Break French and Spanish, Walk Talk and Learn French,  School Run French for primary pupils, One Minute Polish, Russian and lots more.

French about - vast American site - excellent resource on French language and culture

the MFLE - part of ltscotland. Lots of resources and a discussion forum

SCILT the Scottish Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, based at Jordanhill. They publish the Scottish Languages Review  and
Scilt wiki

My delicious links tagged and frequently added to

Audio files

I have started to upload old audio files to Podomatic. So far I've done the French sound system that I have mentioned before from my French Early Years Course, 2002. Listen here There is a six second pause before I get going!

Clothes

For the next 2 weeks we will be exploring ways of teaching clothes in French. We will revisit skills in presentation, look at resources  and try to move beyond the topic based approach.

Capture pupils' imagination with nice resources. 

These Sparklebox resources - dress the children, bear and pig habille les enfants, le nounours et le cochon are very colouful and beautifully drawn.

If you have a supply of doll's clothes or baby clothes or dressing up clothes, that is so much better than flashcards!

Pegs and a length of clothes line (or skipping ropes) can be put to good use.

You need to teach the content and practise it, then you can progress to a challenge.

gender: American videos studio 4 learning

parts of speech Grammar Ninja, good for whiteboard. Can be downloaded and customised.

revision of possessive adjectives fits in well here 

adjectives - colours, beautiful etc  suit the topic too

Songs

promenons-nous dans le bois click

washing machine song on CD3 Français français track 09

HW online exercises 

millionaire

classtools eg dustbin game

jeopardy 

multiple choice quiz

penalty shoot out

blockbusters

quizlet vocab

tools for educators - bingo, dominoes

Comic relief - learn Scottish

Former colleague Mark Pentleton who runs the very successful languages podcasts Radio Lingua Network has produced a tongue in cheek course in Scottish for Comic Relief. For £3 donation all of which goes to Comic Relief you can download 3 lessons, plus you get a 25% discount off your next purchase.

Full details here