Linked Up Update

In my last post I talked in particular about the Linked Up project that I had been involved in. There have been a number of projects running around the country dealing with a wealth of strategies, phases and topics.

If you are looking for inspiration, or for something different then look no further than the Linked Up projects that are curently up on the website. There have been so many running up and down the country that I sure many more resources will be uploaded in the coming weeks and months. They can all be viewed here on the Linked Up Award Scheme page of the Links into Languages website.

Linked Up Resources now available online

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have been working on a project funded by the Linked Up scheme developing resources designed to encourage independent thinking amongst KS4 pupils, in particular. The project, lead by Zahida Hammond, ran between networks of teachers in the Northeast and in the Middlesbrough and Stockton Networks we worked on the topic of the environment, in particular using Yannick Noah's Aux Arbres Citoyens as a starting point.

The project has now come to its end and the final results, including resources, learning plans and evaulations (including one by Helen Butterfield!) are also available. These are particularly helpful, if like me, you have an idea that you'd like to do some Thinking Skills activities but don't really know where to start! They can be used as stand alone activities within the topic of the environment, or over a series of lessons. Personally, had I not been doing this for the project I would have mingled the activities in with more "traditional" activities, however the pupils got a lot out of the project and were able to produce some fantastic French...and eventually they will be ready to do their Controlled Assessments on it as well, if we don't have anymore snow disruptions...

The project, together with all resources can be found on the Linked Up pages of the Links into Languages website here. You will have to be logged in with your Links into Languages account to download.

MFL Show and Tell

On Saturday I was lucky to be able to attend the third MFL Show and Tell which was held at The Radclyffe School in Oldham and hosted by Isabelle Jones.

About 40 people had signed up on the Wiki to attend and it was really great to see so many MFLers there, keen to share ideas and learn from one another.

I decided to have a go a presenting and spoke about my eTwinning experiences. You can see the presenation here below.

Show and Tell eTwinning

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

There were so many fantastic ideas to take away and use straight away my head is still buzzing. Just some of the things I'm planning to have a go at in the near future are:

• Getting my very own Mug of Misery, as demonstrated by Dominic McGladdery, to randomly choose names in a low-tech fashion.


• Making games for my school blog using Zondle and Studystack - ideas that were share with us by Kath Holton


• Getting pupils to create their own Minibooks, as demonstrated by Clare Seccombe.


• Using Kagan co-operative learning techniques for getting pupils talking, as shown by Marie O'Sullivan...I'm planning to use the Rally Robin idea tomorrow!

There was loads of other fabulous ideas that I listening to and I'm sure I've missed loads of inspriring stuff...I'll blog more about things as I try them!

Thank you to Isabelle Jones for organising and hosting such a wonderful day and to Dominic McGladdery for driving!

For some more detailed blogposts about the whole day you can read more on Dominic's blog and Isabelle's blog.

Hello MYLO!

About a year ago I was asked whether I would be interested in becoming a MYLO Ambassador. I was intrigued, having heard about the new My Languages Online website that would be a free online resource for language learners so, naturally I agreed, always keen to use technology with pupils to motivate and engage them.

From Easter through to the summer holidays I trialled the website with my Year 8 top set French class and also a lower ability Spanish class. I have to say that they absolutely loved using it. They really liked the points aspect of the activities both for the sense of achievement of amassing points and also from the competition point of view of scoring points against their fellow classmates and also...against others schools!

I was therefore extremely pleased to hear today that the MYLO site is now finally out of the trial phase and live. You don't need to register to use it, however if you do, you can set up school groups and class groups and they can compete against one another. Maybe just the ticket for those who have go the competitive bug after the Language Olympics!

Visit the site here: http://mylo.dcsf.gov.uk/ to create an account or just have a play around and think about how you could use it!

Think German

As a German specialist I often feel dismayed when I see and hear my first foreign language being sidelined in favour of other languages.

I have therefore been very pleased recently to find out about the Think German website. It's all about raising the profile of German and promoting the learning of German to both adults and children. Even better I am loving the adverts on Real Radio promoting the website stating "Think German, you already speak it!"

In an era where times are hard for us Modern Linguists - particularly we Germanists - it's nice to know that people are promoting languages!

If you haven't aready visited the Think German website, you really should! It's packed full of information about learning German, online German links, quizzes, competitions and ideas for teachers. I've just ordered a the free magazine from UK-German Connection that I'd never come across beforeand hope to be able use it for authentic texts, helping my pupils gain an insight into German youth culture and much, much more! They also have a Facebook page so that you can keep up with what's going on, why not "like" their page and join in.

Go on..."Think German...you already speak it!"

Spicing up your Y7 Scheme of Work

Well hello there! Long time no see ....!!!

I have had a manic half term and may have time to blog about it over the half term break.

Until then I hope this will interest some.

Today I am doing a short presentation about Spicing up Y7 Schemes of Work. There are lots of hyperlinks to other things so will try to upload them all either to here or will find somewhere else to share them.

All of the documents referred to, together with many other resources are now available here on my new Wiki!

Hope you find this useful...

Spicing up your y7 sow

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

The end of an era

Yesterday was the end of an important chapter in my life.

Eight years ago, whilst looking for a teaching job with less hours, it was suggested to me that, maybe instead of reducing my hours I should apply to be Head of German/2nd in Area at Ian Ramsey C of E School in Stockton. "OK", I thought...after all it was much closer to home and the school I attended where I gained my passion for Languages. I applied and was successful so started in the following January.

I've certainly had my ups and downs and highs and lows over the last 71/2 years. I went from 2nd in Area to 2 days a week for 2 years after Dan was born and enjoyed that, although I found sharing all of my classes very difficult and when a full-time member of the department was promoted elsewhere I offered to return to work full-time. After some to-ing and fro-ing it was agreed that I would and was thrown in at the deep end  with a difficult timetable and finding out (by accidenet) the day before term started I was to inherit a Year 8 Tutor Group. However, having got over the initial hurdles I achieved and "outstanding" in our OfSted Inspection and began blogging and Tweeting.

Since then my career has gone from strength to strength with, with me having the opportunity to speak at various locations on a range of topics becoming a Links into Languages trainer this year. At work I compiled our (succesfull) International School Award portfolio last year and have set up many international projects and even had the opportunity to teach ICT this year (heehee). Over the last 3 years I also became very fond of my surprise Tutor Group!

Earlier this year I applied for and was appointed to a new post which begins in September, so yesterday ended 8 years of my life...in fact more like 14 years if we include the 5 years I spend there as a pupils and the 5 years that my sister spent there too (she's 2 years younger than me). I was very sad to leave yesterday as I have made some great friends who I will be friends with for many years to come, I was given loads of support and guidance by some very special people who I feel very priviledged to have worked with and I got to work with some fantastic pupils-mainly from my Tutor Group.

So, whilst I look forward with anticipation and excitement to the challenges of my new post as Head of Languages at St. Michael's RC School in Billingham I also want to say thank you to all those who made my time at Ian Ramsey such an unforgettable experience.

Busy Weekend

It's been a while since I've been so busy over one weekend. However this weekend I shall be speaking in 3 different venues between Friday and Monday evening plus I am even going out with my husband!!

Tomorrow I am at the Northeast Regional ATLAS Conference at the Radisson Hotel in Durham. Myself and 7 of my best Year 10 eTwinners are talking about our school's eTwinning activities

Tomorrow evening the Links into Languages Northeast Secondary Residential begins at Redworth Hall and I am to give a presentation on International Online Collaboration.

On Monday I am in Birmingham at my old stomping ground of Aston University for a Links into Languages West Midlands ICT event where I am speaking about eTwinning.

I will share all presentations next week...although 2 have the possibilitiy of being very, very similar...!

Encouraging Independent Learners

A few months ago I wrote about an exciting project that I'm involved in through the LinkedUp funding scheme. The was idea to develop a substantial resource based around use of digital video and thinking skills to help teachers of MFL to encourage their pupils to become more independent at KS4/KS5. Interestingly for me, we are working on Yannick Noah's "Aux Arbres Citoyens" which covers the topic of environment. I find this interesting on 2 levels, firstly I think the environment can be a difficult topic to teach as there are lots of complicated structures to learn to use and pupils themselves are not always sure about what environmental issues there are (or maybe that's just the one's I have taught in recent years) and secondly, although French and German are equal "strengths" (or weaknesses, whichever you prefer) of mine I feel a lot more confident covering this kind of topic in German so it is fantastic for my French!!

Since beginning to work on the project with the other members of the Networks in Stockton and Middlesbrough, I have noticed a real change in my teaching approach not only when working on this particular topic but also in all areas of my teaching from Year 7 to Year 10 (I have no Y11 this year). I always thought that I was pretty good at encouraging my pupils to become independent learners  but I now feel I have moved up a gear. I have become much more aware of the kind of activities I set my pupils and readily come up with activities aimed at developing independent learning and using Higher Order Thinking Skills. These kinds of activities seem to come much more naturally to me now and, although they do take a little more preparation I'm finding it really worthwhile. I even don't mind cutting up the little bits of paper for those kinaesthetic activities so much anymore (I usually end up getting in a right muddle with bits missing / to many bits in one envelope...I know, I'm hopeless!) I am currently a big fan of Mysteries, Inference Squares, Living Graphs, Venn Diagrams, Sorting and Quiz Quiz Trade activities however, my big favourite of the moment is creating a domino-type activity but as a jigsaw instead so that the pupils find out the meanings of words and phrases buy matching meanings and they know they've got them right because they all fit together to make a shape connected with the topic we are learning about. I have to admit that this is not the quickest or easiest resource to make but my classes really enjoy the activity and they learn a lot better than if I just gave them a list of words to copy out!

A while ago there was a discussion on the TES MFL Forum about Bloom's Taxonomy and MFL and how they were difficult to do in MFL teaching. Chris Harte wrote this blogpost at the time in response to the discussion, pointing out how we can and do use Higher Order Thinking Skills in MFL all the time. I have to agree with him and I think benefits to our pupils are temendous. Too often we, as MFL teachers feel we must "spoon feed" our classes for fear of our results suffering, however,  if done well out pupils can do just as well learning through more independent activities, with the added benefit of our learners being able to communicate effectively, without needing their teacher stood next to them all the time (I for one can't afford to go on holiday with all of my pupils!!).

Things to consider when setting pupils independent activities:

• Who are they working with?


• How is your classroom organised? (I like groups but if you prefer rows  or a horseshoe, maybe you will have to think about pupil movement within the lesson so that they can work together)


• How big are the groups going to be? ( I like 3 but no more than 4 otherwise I always end up with someone in the group taking a backseat)


• What kind of noise level do you expect from your pupils? (This kind of activity is bound to be noiser than individual work but if you are noise-sensitive like me, maybe you will want to talk to your pupils about noise-level expectations!)


• Are your pupils used to this kind of activity?(When I first began doing this, my pupils kept asking me whether they had the right answer, when with many of these activities there is no right or wrong answer-my pupils didn't like this at first, as they were so used to there being only one possible answer!)


• Finally, pupils need practice at independent activities. To begin with they might not be used to working in groups and may think it's actually gossip time. As with anything, training, practise and perseverence they will benefit from this!

Happy 5th Birthday eTwinning

This week marks the 5th Anniversary of eTwinning.

For those of you who haven't heard of eTwinning, it is the European Commission’s partner-finding and online collaboration tool. Schools and colleges (working with pupils and students between the ages of 3 and 20) can register their details, create a profile, search for partners and engage in online partnerships - all free of charge. Teachers and their students can form short or long term partnerships and collaborate on a whole range of curriculum based projects in any subject area using a variety of exciting and innovative ICT tools.

[caption id="attachment_439" align="alignleft" width="205" caption="Photograph courtesy of Tony Barraclough Photography"][/caption]

I became involved with eTwinning 3 years ago when looking for a French partner school. I was inundated with schools wanting to set up projects with my school and we set up many successful projects. Since then I haven't really looked back and run 1 or 2 projects every year, not just in MFL but also through PSHE with my lovely tutor group. In additions, it was our eTwinning work that really created the backbone of our International School Award last year.

Today is when schools are celebrating the 5th Year of eTwinning and to mark the occasion, thousands of schools around Europe had some kind of European

[caption id="attachment_440" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photograph courtesy of Tony Barracough Photography"][/caption]

Celebration. Many school planted blue and yellow flowers but, always wanting to be different, we decided to have a "balloon release" with a birthday cake! After all of the environmental safety checks had taken place to make sure our balloons were eco-friendly we were good to go on Friday at midday. We released our balloons (blue and yellow of course), with a tag on them asking people who found them to email us to let us know where they found them. It was very effective and the balloons looked very happy bobbing away in the wind. I'm sure the hail storm 10 mins later helped them on their way no end!

Oh and the cake...it was delicious.

You can find our what other school have been doing to celebrate here.

Happy 5th Birthday, eTwinning!

Race for Life

It has become a bit of tradition for me (and Alice) now to do the Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research UK. This year is no different so I've just signed up. We would like to raise as much money as possible, obviously. If you would like to sponsor us you can do so by following this link or by clicking on the widget in the sidebar.
Thank you in advance for supporting the work of Cancer Research UK. :o)

The Wall of Language

The Wall of Language is a website that has been created by Nick Mair and Nick Friend with support of the Association for Language Learning and CILT for you to email prospective MPs questions about Language Learning. The website states

"Our aim is to make all political parties include a statement about the importance of languages in their manifesto."

It's easy to take part, just go to the website and follow the instructions on the Home Page. There are plenty of letters that have already been written that you can use and there's even a link for you to find out who your Parliamentary Candidates are.

This is a great opportunity to see what importance our prospective MPs place on Languages, with falling numbers at KS4 and so few University students opting to take a Language degree.

I've written to the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates for my constituency, however unfortunately I couldn't contact the Independent and UKIP candidates as they appeared to have no contact details. If someone could help me with that I would be very grateful :o)

TeachMeetNE10

I was really pleased to read a tweet from Chris Harte that there is to be another TeachMeet in Newcastle on Thursday 29th April. This will be the third Northeastern TeachMeet and I'm really looking forward to being inspired again by some fantastic teachers from the local area and to meeting up with like minded teachers and old and new friends.

There is a change of venue for this TeachMeet - The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers - it's near Central Station so should be pretty easy for people to get to.

If you've never been to a TeachMeet before, this is an ideal opportunity to come along and find out what all the fuss is about. For more information and to sign up here: TeachMeetNE10

Online International Collaboration

The second CPD session that I ran for Links into Languages was about Online International Collaboration. Here is the presentation I gave for that session...

International Collaboration

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

(My) Top Ten Tools for Digital Creativity in MFL

On the 23rd and 30th March Routes into Languages ran 2 International Festivals for Northeast schools at the Universities of Newcastle and Teesside. Alongside these 2 events, Links into Languages offered CPD for teachers who had accompanied pupils and asked me of I could run 2 sessions.

The first of these sessions was about online tools that we as MFL teachers can use to encourage creativity in our pupils and that we can use in our teaching to spice up our lessons. Below is the presentation I gave with my personal top 10 favourites. One day I'll get as prefessional as Joe Dale and Lisa Stevens and take lots of photographs as well, altough that would involve remembering to take the photos in the first place!

Please feel free to contribute with other tools that you like to use...

Top 10 Tools

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

There's a world outside my classroom...blogs and wikis in MFL

When I was asked to run a workshop as a Links into Languages trainer it was the beginning of December and one song kept being played on the radio. I wonder if you can guess what it was by the title of this post?
Anyway, putting that to one side, March 18th came round rather more quickly than I had intended and all of a sudden I had my first ever workshop to run after school. Me being me, I didn't advertise the event particularly well but nevertheless I had 5 willing participants all keen to learn about using and creating blogs and wikis.
The presentation is below with many links to useful MFL blogs and wikis. In addition I will add the links below the presentation later in the week but felt it important to get the presentation on here like I promised. I apololgise if I have missed out your blog or wiki, please tell me if I have any glaring omissions or you would like to have your blog or wiki linked to in this post as well.

Theres A World Outside My Classroom

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

Post script

Here's a fantastic blog that's been brought to my attention by Steve Smith. It's the blog that he uses with his pupils and really shows how a teacher-pupil should work. It's great! Blogalpha RGS You can of course also visit Steve's blog French Teacher which I've now added to my blogroll and his fab website Frenchteacher.net from the French teachers at Ripon Grammar School.

Déjeuner du matin

Yesterday we had a borough-wide CPD Day. I was lucky enough to be able to choose what I wanted to do, rather than have a day of workshops thrust upon me, so I chose to go to our local CLC for a day of creativity on Apples.

We were given the task of making a film, using iMovie and we had to include a flashback. So, we got into groups of 4 - we were 3 linguists and an ICT teacher (unfortunately for the ICT teacher!). We quickly decided to go all French and arty, planning to use Déjeuner du matin by Jacques Prévert. The final result can be seen below and we were all very pleased with the outcome. We would have liked to have added some piano music in the background for that true arty feel but, unfortunately we ran out of time!

I'm now buzzing with ideas as to how I can use what I learnt with my pupils - just need the time to be able to do it...

The French Exchange Finally Happened

[caption id="attachment_395" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Took this at the NRM and thought it was funny!"][/caption]

Many moons ago (so it seems)...well, 3 years, just when I was starting on this adventure into new technologies and discovering the possibilities for MFL teachers, such as myself, in terms of getting pupils using language for real, I was asked by my then Head of Area to find a French school in order to establish a link for exchanges. We already had an extremely successful link with Meppen in Germany and an equally successful link with Cheste in Spain but French was most certainly the poor relation in terms of links and opportunities for exchanges.

I had just discovered eTwinning via Joe Dale's marvellous blog and decided to find out what all of the fuss was about. Having registered with eTwinning, I quickly found a partner and established a project with a view to setting up an exchange the following year. The project "Je blogue, tu blogues...let's blog!" was very successful with pupils from both schools develping frienships and helping one another with their language learning. However unfortunately for many reasons the link didn't develop into an exchange and the hunt was on again.

One of my colleagues in the MFL Department had a link with a teacher in Caussade near Toulouse. I contacted her and things looked positive. We worked together on an eTwinning project (in English only, this time, as there were several schools involved) and my class exchanged letters every half-term or so with a class from her school and set things in motion for an exchange.

There were hurdles to overcome, as with any new link. The biggest hurdle being that our partner school wanted to bring 27 pupils!!! This was unheard of in Ian Ramsey history of exchanges...we are normally over joyed if we get to 20 (as I think most schools would be). Nevertheless, we persevered and, with a plan to house some pupils in a local hotel got plans underway. I was over-joyed when I managed to persuade the final 2 pupils to host French people, meaning that no-one was to stay in a hotel!

The week itself arrived and we had an action-packed programme, hightlights included a visit to Durham, the Angel of the North and the Metro Centre, a whole group trip to York and the National Railway Museum, project work at Teesside CLC and a visit to meet the Mayor of Stockton. The funny thing was, I got stick all week for organising the visit to Mayor and in fact our French friends loved it - telling me to definintely keep in on the programme for the future! As part of their CLC project, pupils started to work on a wiki as a diary of their week, to which I will add their presentations and leaflets about the history of the railways and York tourist leaflets as soon as I can. You can see what has been done so far here (still needs a bit of work!).

What of the future? Well things look very rosy. In 3 weeks time our pupils will return to France. Again, a record of 21 pupils (some of whom were so enthused by the whole event that they asked if they could come eventhough they didn't take part in the home-leg!). In addition we will carry this through to another eTwinning Project specifically aimed at improving Speaking and Writing Skills for GCSEs.

Sadly I'm unable to go on the return leg - I've been off gallavanting around Europe too often already this year, so am indebted to my colleagues, Fiona and Julie for taking the return trip and for their invaluable support during the exchange week itself.

Enquiry based learning

[caption id="attachment_388" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net"][/caption]

As part of the preparation for the LinkedUp Project that we're working on, I was invited to take part in a training day at Bedlington High School in December.

In conjuction with Newcastle University, the school have been running a programme in KS3 to promote and develop independent learning and thinking skills, which will equipe their pupils with the tools that they need to do well not only in the classroom but also that they can transfer into their lives outside of school. As our 14-19 project is based around developing  independent learning and transferable skills this was a fantastic opportunity to see these kind of activities in action across the curriculum.

The project is based around Habits of Mind which are essential skills that pupils can transfer to use outside of the classroom, whilst also improving their languages skills. Many of the tools involved are Thinking Skills, with the "Tool Kit" including such activities as diamond ranking, odd one out, venn diagrams, 8 Qs and, my current favourite, inference squares. What I particulary liked was they way the plenaries centered around which "Habits of Mind" pupils used and how they used them.

We watched 3 lessons, Food Technology, Maths and PE all at different levels- an education in itself, as I don't think I've observed many lessons outside of my own subject area in the last 15 years. It was amazing to see how independent these pupils were. They were, not only able to work on their own far better than my own pupils but also able to articulate themselves so well! The confidence they had when speaking to adults was very impressive! Not only could they talk about the "Habits of Mind", but they could also express how they used them in lessons and outside of lessons, why they were important but also how they felt that they made a lot more progress using enquiry-based learning. One thing that did concern me was a comment from an MFL teacher about not being able to do it properly in Languages!

Feeling inspired and determinded to show you can use enquiry-based learning in MFL I returned to my school on a mission. As ever, I've started small, introducing the Habits of Mind to my classes. We've talked about the Habits of Mind and how they apply to Language Learning and in many lessons we have focussed on these through the lesson, with the plenary focussing on which Habits of Mind the pupils have used and, more importantly, HOW. It's been interesting to see that just about all pupils recognise the need to be persistent learners (something I've been very pleased to see!) and now I'd like to see them recognise some of the other skills they use on a daily basis - not only in MFL lessons but in all lesson.

For me, I want to develop this are as follows:

• Encourage pupils to discuss in groups how they use Habits of Mind


• Integrate "Habits of Mind" into more of my lessons


• Look at how I can combine the Habits of Mind with Learning to Learn


• Use Chris Harte's session on Debriefs, which he delivered at the lauch of our LinkedUp project , to help me taylor these strategies more towards MFL teaching - particularly in the Target Language aspect, to encourage more use of TL from my pupils.

I will keep you updated...

LinkedUp

At the end of September I was approached by Zahida Hammond to work with her on an application for one of the new LinkedUp grants that are being funded around the UK, to promote language learning. The idea was to continue to build on work that local 14-19 MFL Networks had begun last year, creating resources and activities for KS4 and KS5 that use new technologies and  develop pupils independence.

After much hard work from Zahida, we learnt in November that the application had been successful and now it's full steam ahead. We have 3 14-19 Networks working together on the project-Stockton, Middlesbrough and Whitley Bay with about 10 members across the network. We will all work on different aspects of the resources and they will all be shared together at the end. The idea is that we will use some technologies that will be new to some colleagues in the groups and also develop activities that encourage pupils to become independent language learners.

I'm very excited about this project and am looking forward to being able to use the resources created through the Networks and also to adapting the activities we create to being used in other topic areas and in other year groups too.