The CLIL session (Content and Language Integrated Learning) on the 23rd May will be our third network meeting this academic year and with kind thanks to Liz Black, AST from the Stokesley area, will be a FREE event.

The event will largely focus on real-life example of work that will hopefully inspire you and other colleagues in your schools to join together in a cross-curricular manner.  I have invited staff from other departments in the school to also come along to get some ideas for potential future projects.

Here is the programme for the 21st:

16:00 – 16:30
Refreshments and chance to mix with colleagues.

There will be some Spanish style tapas kindly conjured up by the food technology department, if you could donate in the region of £1 towards the cost of this, it would be muchly appreciated.

16:30 – 16:35
Welcome by Issac Greaves Ormesby School, Middlesbrough.

16:35 – 16:45
Issac Greaves: Introduction to CLIL
Spanish, Art and ICT project

16:45 – 17:25
Liz Black:  CLIL throughout the curriculum with specific focus on Art/Drama/Music

17:25– 17:50
Issac Greaves: Student confidence and CLIL
Results of a small-scale enquiry combining French and Badminton

17:50– 18:00
Resources show and tell.  Please bring copies of any resources you are happy to share, and spend a minute or two describing them.

Event to be hosted at

Ormesby School,
Tothill Avenue,
Netherfields,
Middlesbrough,
TS3 ORH

Map for directions 

tel. 01642 452191
fax. 01642 446472

Contact Issac at allmiddlesbrough@gmail.com  or leave a message for more information.  Please feel free to comment below with any questions or to confirm that you will be attending.  Look forward to seeing/hearing from you!

Activity

Students each have a small piece of paper/card like the one above with a phrase in the target language and it’s translation underneath.  Students mill around the room, when they ‘bump’ into someone student A will say their phrase in Spanish and student B has to translate (quiz), the same happens with student B’s card (quiz) if both students translate each other’s card correctly they trade, hence the quiz-quiz-trade.  To add an element of competition, ask the students to count the amount of times they exchanged and give a prize/raffle ticket/house point to the winner.

Equipment

• A set of cards set out like the one shown above.  If you click the image above you will be able to take my full copy of ‘la hora’.  I have used paper and it is enough to be used several times.

Extension activities

• Once the students have had a good practise, you could get them practising the same question and answers without support and do role plays in front of the class.

A good activity because…

• It can be used throughout the key stages, and is particularly useful as an independent speaking activity.
• You can use it to drill paragraphs, phrases or single words.
• You can differentiate by having different coloured card/paper so all students know which level they have achieved.
• Students like competition and it keeps them busy.  Just remind them not to stop after they have done it once.
• It could be used as a plenary at any stage of the lesson to assess what has been learnt up until that point.
• You can join in and drill specific pronunciation errors that have frequently occurred.
• Every class I have done this speaking activity with have enjoyed it and participated fully.

First thing that was mentioned was that there is Teacher Agency (formerly TDA) funding for SEN training, up to £3000.  I have only found information on funding for the training of HLTA’s, half of the costs of courses with a ceiling of £2,000 which is found here if you want to refer anyone to the page with the information.  Applications for this particular funding close on the 17th May 2012.

• SEN students have a triad of impairment consisting of struggling social interaction, inflexibility and social communication.
• When teaching students with SEN, there is no need for too many words, use simple structures to begin with with.
• SEN students still need to make progress so continuous, repetitive low level activity does not take the students out of their comfort zone and therefore they aren’t making the progress that they should.
• Where possible, stick with cognates in the first instance so that it does not seem so scary to them.
• When having presented the vocabulary, present again but requiring simple ‘oui/non’ responses to say what the item of vocabulary is, or use whiteboards.
• If doing Sports for example, display two pictures of two sports when asking students to repeat the correct sport of the two, always finish with the actual sport so that it is the last one that they hear.
• To make this more difficult when the students are more confident, always expect them to state the first sport mentioned.
• Then ask, what is the sport? Seems slower but leaving less students behind rather than going straight in at level 4.
• J’aime and je n’aime pas on the board, say a sentence and students have to go across and match the sport to the opinion by pinning up the flash card or picture card.
• When leaning colours, use coloured cones, music plays – students near mentioned colour are out when the music stops and teacher has said a colour.
• Point to something of that colour, containing the mentioned colour to visually demonstrate with something other than a flashcard or .ppt slide.
• Boys can’t learn a modern language without dismantling a biro and getting ink all over their hands (how true is this!) Get some large nuts and bolts from the ELC and give one to the main offender whilst they have to pay attention.  However, I am sure other students could be jealous at this point and all start dismantling pens?
• Speaking activities – ask the person to your left/right/behind/front, once you have asked 3/4 people, get up and ask someone else to stop people just ticking each others sheets when free to roam the classroom, this could be a good strategy for all classes from my experience!
• When learning parts of the body – first aid/CPR – what is actually going to be relevant, possibly 4/5 words from the whole list of body parts, don’t give the student a whole list of words as they could be intimidated straight away.
• Use inflatable alien to label body parts, using a post-it.  Then if a mistake is made it can easily be lifted and placed elseswhere unlike if given a worksheet, the error is permenantly recorded…
• Voice changer to be ‘the alien’ practise saying the words found one here…
• Inflatable hammer/axe to bring in concept of ‘j’ai mal’ practise hitting students/hitting each other then student gets to say where they hurt.
• Help students to visualise bar charts (where they may result from a survey) using lego bricks where each colour could be a different answer.  For colourblind students, could use different shaped bricks to represent the different categories.

I have to say, this was not everything from the session, just that in which I found the most relevant and useful to me at the time.  The only limitations for me is that I teach my lower abilities in their own classrooms as they belong to a primary model which is exempt from the National Curriculum.  To employ every idea that John had would be difficult, however, the certainly provided me with lots of inspiration and different ways to approach my SEN classes.

Please leave a comment and share any ideas that you use with your SEN classes that have been successful…

The session on improving memory with Wendy Adeniji was extremely useful and in fact made me think a little bit more about what I was doing in the classroom and gave me ideas on ways in which I could improve student techniques for memorising words.  The post is largely in note form, but hope it proves to be of some use.

• In languages students not only have to memorise the meaning of words, but also the sounds and the spellings.
• Give the students isolated memorisation lessons. We cant presume that students know how to memorise 3-4 weeks into Yeat 7.
• GIve the students a VAK questionnaire to figure out how they learn best and so that you also have an idea of how students work best.
• Students all need a visual memory as that is how they are going to be tested regardless of their learning style
• Give the students a list of words they have to learn for homework, let them have 10 minutes to practise, test and then ask how they came up with their strategy within that ten minutes.
• Ask students to come up with their own link-word images which can be drawn.  This adds humour and the students enjoy it.  An example for a cow in Spanish (vaca) could be a funny image of a cow with a vacuum cleaner.
• Highlight the three ways of memorisation to the students. Spelling/Meaning both waysMemorise the pronunciation sufficiently.
• Students need to know that they have to be tested before they can say they have learned something – not sufficient to read for thirty minutes and say they have learned it.  In the case of their learning,  students need to test themselves at home.
• Learning needs to be little and often, give the students a sheet with 4 columns – they copy the vocab into the first column then learn and test by reproducing in the other columns but RAG rating (Red/Amber/Green) their own progress as they go.  They could even RAG rate each word to highlight their difficulties.  By the time the students get to the final column they should be all green and if not, they could turn over and have another go.
• Don’t underestimate the power of music and learning words – adding them to a song etc including verb lists

One of the most interesting things I got from the session was the way in which interventions for spelling tests were organised at Wendy’s school.  If a student failed to meet the set amount of words for their test (number set by ability) they would have to do a lunchtime test resit, if they failed this also, they would have an after-school memorisation intervention.

I am quite keen on this model, however, being a one-man-band at the moment, although this is soon to change.  It has not been possible for me to arrange such a specific intervention.  However, students are kept back at the end of the lesson if they don’t get their 8/12 and 6/12 for the lower ability sets.  I like the idea of a more organised intervention and will look at implementing this for the following year when we have extra staff.

I do have the handout scanned from this session ImprovingMemoryWALW2012, feel free to contact me if you want more information and please comment below if you have any ideas on any techniques you use to help aid student memory throughout the key stages.

I have been meaning to write about Class Dojo, the online behaviour management software, for a while, but really wanted to make sure that I had the substance that makes (at least) mildly interesting reading.  When I was last prepared to write @dominic_mcg had pipped me to the post, so if you are simply curious about how it works, here is his blog post on Class Dojo.   For now, I’m just going to explain the effect it has had one one of my worse behaved classes and how it could be put to other ‘behavioural’ uses in the classroom.

This particular Y7 class of mine have been like a bunch of jack in the boxes, out of their seats, verbally abusing each other, shouting out, not staying on task or paying attention whatsoever.  I have to add here that I don’t have one other class like them and i teach most of KS3 in my school.

I used Class Dojo with them for the third time with them this week, for some reason it wasn’t loading on to my iPad (could have been a network error as I hadn’t used it at school for almost three weeks) so I used it on the board.  I think it may be worth noting here that the ICT technicians at my school had to create a Firefox style web application for me to be able to run Class Dojo as it would not fully work through Windows, or possibly the version we had, which I didn’t check (apologies).

I had used the iPad in  the two previous lessons and the students were responsive, there was definitely a marked behaviour improvement, however, when it was displayed on the board – I did not have the same class in front of me.  I was able to complete some of the best questioning that I had with any class, all but one hand every time was racing in the air, all students were hooked and desperate to see their positive points increase.  I was amazed at how long I was able to hold their attention given they are a low ability group with low confidence.  The students were putting their hands up to tell me things that I had not asked for, but were relevant (in most cases, some were just desperate for points) such as language patterns and so on.  It really worked a treat, and i was so proud of the students as well for behaving so well.

At the end of the lesson we had our ‘huddle’ around the board and examined the results in the pie chart format and the students were able to see for themselves which behaviours had let them down, it was mainly disruption/shouting out of which the majority of the points were associated to one student who was completely incapable of putting her hand up even though she had the right answers and wanted to participate.  The students knew they had done well instantly as they had scored 71% positiveness for the lesson which was their highest to date.

One thing that the person in charge of adding the points needs to ensure is that they keep as many students in the green as possible and be as positive as possible, as I mentioned in a previous blog about setting the behavioural standards in the classroom  if you are going to set the bar low for poor behaviour, then set it equally as low for rewarding good behaviour.  If the majority of students begin to see the red negative points on Class Dojo, they could easily just think. “Well I don’t care”.  This has not happened to me yet, but is something I am keeping a watchful eye on.

Class Dojo in the Future

As of September, when I receive my new class lists, I will be uploading all of my classes with the intention of using Class Dojo with all of my students.  The previous part of this blog looks at using the software for behaviour management, but focuses on poor behaviour and tackling that.  I plan to use Class Dojo as a way of rewarding other behaviour such as when a student speaks in the target language spontaneously they can be rewarded thus providing formative feedback on students participation.  By highlighting students who do not participate in this way allows for something to be put in place to further encourage those shyer students.

Otherwise Class Dojo is fantastic as a questioning tool to encourage all learners to participate.

I would love to hear how you are using Class Dojo.  Please post below!

Activity

Students each have a sheet in the format of the one pictured above.  Each student secretly chooses one of the phrases from inside of each of the bubbles (a pen mark will help).  Student A will read and guess the first word from inside the bubble.  If student A gets the word right, they can progress and attempt to guess the next one.  When student A chooses the wrong one, they must stop and it is partner B’s turn to do the same thing.  They must keep going like this until they have got all the way to the end of the document.  There is potential for three games of this so the students have a chance to select each of the options in the bubbles.  Good speaking, listening and memorisation activity.

Equipment

• Handout similar to one pictured above.

Extension activities

• Students could use the speaking grid as a writing frame to produce a written piece.
• Students could write their own ‘bubbles’ using similar vocabulary for other pairs in the class to play.

A good activity because…

• It can be used throughout the key stages, and is particularly useful as a different way to practise controlled assessment speaking paragraphs.
• Students like competition and it keeps them busy.  Just remind them not to stop after they have done it once.

Want more ideas like this?  Have a look at MFL Ideas Factory

Despite the silliness, there were real reasons for me making this video for my students…

The concept was not my own but an idea of something that @Simcloughlin tried on a larger scale with his primary school students last year, only he did a far much better job.  Probably goes to show how I ended up in Secondary with my somewhat limited believability and non-existent drama skills.  I don’t think I will be pulling the wool over my student’s eyes.

The truth is, I simply wanted to make contact with my students as I won’t be with them in that particular lesson.  First of all I genuinely wanted to congratulate them on doing so well in their last set of assessments, given they had only started Spanish in September and were getting levels 5/6 for reading with the AQA FCSE.  Secondly, as it was a cover lesson, and i only see them once a fortnight, I couldn’t risk the students doing nothing, which is more possible in a cover lesson with a non-specialist, when they need to be learning the vocabulary and structures for their next lesson.

I do aim to communicate with the students more in this way, maybe I’ll quit the drama, but those who know me , know that I am very dry and sarcastic and maybe that does make me doing such a video funny… or maybe not #epicfail.

Dare I say that this resource could probably result in the ‘stealin’ stones and breakin’ bones’ if not properly managed within the classroom, however, instead of the stealin’ of stones, there will be the stealin’ of cards.  Cards of all types, picture cards, opinion cards and text cards.  To this day I am referred to as ¡Tramposo! (cheat).  Read on to find out how this exciting resource, introduced to us during a Spanish resources session led by Kathleen who works at the time of this post at Gosforth School in Newcastle.  It is so great, I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged about it before until I posted it on mflideasfactory earlier today.

Just ask @misstdunne how fun it is, she still has the bruises from our head-to-head back in the days of the PGCE.  We, okay, I was in stitches solely over trying to keep a straight face over the name of the game.  When I first did this on my long teaching practise, I did it with the topic of sports and with a class of Y9 of whom most were not continuing with Spanish post-ks3, quite a difficult mixed ability group.  However, we were all so engrossed in the lesson and the fun we were having, the regular class teacher had to come in and tell us that we were ten minutes into lunch, the kids never even batted an eyelid.

Equipment

• Set of picture cards related to topic
• Set of word cards to match the picture cards
• Set of opinion picture cards
• I have a set here Los Deportes sports topic in Spanish but picture cards can be used for any language.

• Distribute raffle tickets to the winning pairs after each round of games of ‘snatch’, bingo or pairs and do a draw at the end for a chew/lollipop.

Steven highlighted that OFSTED had commented on how students were reluctant to speak without having paper as a support, there was no spontaneity – or at least not enough.  One of the reasons offered was that there was too much content to cover in too little time.  I have been faced with this issue this year as my students have the equivalent of 1 x 50 minute lesson per week.  My focus has been so much on progress that I can see from first-hand experience how taking the time to create these spontaneous moments can be easily foregone.

Students need to gain confidence to drop their notes and realise that speaking is just as important as writing if not mores when it comes to real-life.  Speaking is a part of life and humanity need to be able to communicate in this way. On one of my teaching practises, I was working with an A grade Y11 student on her pronunciation for her final oral assessment.  The first thing I said to her was a polite ¿cómo estás?, this student had no idea what it meant.  At this point I thought it was strange that a Y11 A grade student never knew this.  Steven pointed out though that OFSTED were aware that students were getting better and better grades, yet couldn’t converse naturally in such a natural context.  Therefore good grades were not leading to competence in the language.

Steven pointed out that to achieve spontaneous TL use in the classroom, the students needed something to talk about.  This is where we teachers come in handy, and remember that the main point is the exchange in the TL and not necessarily how complex it is, only how natural it is therefore it could be something as simple as, “What did you do at the weekend”.  At least for KS4 students, they should be able to answer such a question with ease and it get’s them talking under what would be natural circumstances in the real hispanic world.  Although, Steven pointed out that recital and repetition was the dress rehearsal for spontaneity in the future and are not redundant activities.

For myself, I know that from now on I need to make a point of actually planning for TL in the classroom, clearly it is all well and good me knowing what I should be doing in the classroom, but as all critical incidents have it; I know I get distracted from that line of thought and sabotage it unintentionally as I plough on with the planned content.

As soon as I started my teaching practises I did lessons on TL in the classroom and gave the students ‘tick sheets’ equating to rewards for the more they spoke.  I am kicking myself a little now having overlooked it with my current cohort, but it was down to the lack of contact time.  One thing that I will start straight away with is revising asking people how they are and greetings responses  (all of my students were beginners this year) and make sure that all of my students are proficient there before moving on to other ‘everyday’ topics that we have covered in their limited contact time.

For September, I plan to use class dojo more.  I have been trialling it with a particularly challenging y7 class to condition their behaviour with some positive results (as they love gathering around the iPad at the end of the lesson to check how positive the class had been that lesson).  However, there is no saying that it can’t be used solely as a visual reward tool to reward students who use the TL spontaneously in lessons.

Useful because…

• …Students practise and drill new vocabulary in pairs, useful for students reluctant to participate in traditional drilling and core repetitions.
• …Teacher can facilitate and check pronunciation in pairs drilling only the common errors after assessment.

Equipment

• Vocab list in table format like this one (actual resource found under Holidays)

• Stopwatches/watches/student phone to time each other

Students have one vocabulary table like the one attached to the link above between the pair of them, when student A says, “Start” in the TL the stopwatch is started.  Student B then says the word in the TL followed by it’s meaning in English.  When they say, “Stop” in the TL the stopwatch is stopped.  Students to record their scores in a simple table in the back of their book.  Process is repeated and repeated until given time is over.

You could give a raffle ticket to the winning individual in each pair and do a prize draw for a chew or lollipop at the end of the lesson (and possibly after more activities where a winner could be announced).

Extension work: Numeracy/Literacy/ICT

• The students should have a reasonable amount of data after 5-10 minutes of practising like this and could therefore chart their progress on a line graph/bar chart using excel if available or by hand, work out mean, mode, median averages.
• Student’s could write sentences analysing their findings in the TL.