Goethe Institute Virtual Work Experience

 Apparently, I do requests now 😊.

I was asked to blog about the virtual work experience that the Goethe Institute offer, as one of my Year 12 students took part and got a lot out of it.

Last year, one of my Year 12 students signed up to the Work Experience that the Goethe Institute offer. Sadly, as with most things over the last year and a half, if couldn't have in real life, so it became a virtual event. This was in the form of making a podcast. Students were put into groups to work together on a podcast, learning how to make it and then creating questions for an interview with someone who worked with languages, finally completing the interview and then the podcast was published on the Goethe Institute website.

Here is the link to the podcast page (my student did the Deutsch und Sport interview with Nik Brumsack)

Podcast page

It seems that this was a really valuable experience for my students and she has said that she thoroughly recommends for other students. It is fabulous that the Goethe Institute has been able to still create the opportunity to complete work experience despite the difficult circumstances in which we have all found ourselves in recent times.

You can find information about the virtual work experience here:

Virtual work experience information

Students can register their interest for the next academic year 's projects here:

Register interest

International Week

A year ago, I had a crazy idea of having an International Week. Originally, it was planned for the start of March. However, with lockdown we decided to postpone until the week of 21st June which meant that everyone was in school and the weather was good, should we want to do something outside.

I don't know what I originally imagined...assemblies, lots of flags, a quiz or two and a wine and cheese evening for parents. In reality some of them happened, so didn't and some couldn't happen. This was the first time we'd done this so it was probably lower key that I imagined it being but it's definitely something we can build on and, fingers crossed, next year we will be able to invite parents into school for some activity as well.

The most important thing to remember when planning whole school events is that "Teamwork makes the dream work" and most certainly we could not have run the week without all members of the MFL department pitching in a working together. Each of us took and activity and organised that and this meant that the jobs didn't seem as huge.

So, what did we do?

Staff

Each room was allocated a country and our Year 12 prefects created signs for each one (some are below). Staff were encouraged to greet students in the language of that country and even do a starter about something that linked their subject to that country. It was wonderful hearing a range of different languages ringing out across the school as the week went on. 

    

   

Assembly and Form Time

Naturally, any event needs a whole school assembly (hooray!). I didn't want to focus solely on languages, as this was "international" rather than languages but inevitably there was a strong language focus. I thought it would be a nice idea to make a video (less for me to do) of pupils saying "hello, how are you?" in various languages. I had intended to use different groups of my classes to say the words however, when I was telling one of my classes about it, a student said "I speak Persian, I can say that" and this started me on a voyage of discovery into the wide variety of languages that our students speak. In the end, we had 14 different languages from Lower Prep singing "Hallo Felix, Hallo Franzi" from the Goethe Institute primary scheme of work, through Hindi, Urdu, Thai, Russian, BSL, Spanish and Japanese (with lots in between) to even SLT saying "goodbye" in French and German. I even managed to persuade one of my Y7 form group to assist with editing the video! I talked a little about how communication and language is essential for international relations, and finished with Ton Christ est juif. 

          

Students then went off to form time for an international quiz, which included rounds on "hello" in different languages, fun with flags, foreign songs in the UK charts (which went down very well, especially the Macarena), foreign art and architecture and where in the world. We give prizes to the winning team in each form group. 

   

Quizzes

We had 2 treasure hunt quizzes. One based on French and German-speaking football players and the other based on French and German-speaking musicians and actors. Students seemed to really enjoy themselves quizzing around the school, finding out about a range of celebrities for other countries.

                                                     

Display

We have also had form groups contribute to a display. All students have drawn round their hands, written a greeting in a foreign language and decorated. Now, my task is to turn all 200+ hands into something creative!

All in all, I think the week has been a success. We have started small(ish) and something on which to base things in the future. Next year, I would like to be able to invite parents into school to view the art project that our Y7s did earlier in the year and also the see the Superheroes project that Y8s did, combined with something other creative ideas we have in store for next year. 

Watcht this space...

Remote Teaching

I suspect there may be a number of posts around on this and that this won't be the only post I write on this topic.

So, we are living in unprecedented times and as a result need to help our pupils to continue to learn but more importantly need to make sure our pupils are OK, providing them with support where and when needed. This brings new challenges and requires us to think and work in different ways.

Initial observations, no matter what platform you use, it's important to have consistency so the pupils don't get mixed up. 

We use Google Classroom, which I find really easy to use both in terms of setting work and getting it back in and marked...as long as it's done within an assignment. I'm finding shared / attached in emails harder to keep track of. Any hints welcome (I use assignments but some pupils are still sharing/attaching instead). 

I'm trying to encourage pupils to put thumbs up in the stream to show that they have read posts so that I don't feel I'm just talking into the void! This is working well. I've also started to share a meme a day in German with my KS4 and KS5 classes. I thought it would annoy them, having me sending them daft things each day at random times, however when I suggested scaling back on them they said please don't, we look forward to them. So now I have friends and even my daughter sourcing new memes for  me! If one positive comes of it this, hopefully it will mean pupils will have had some fun learning German.

We have been encouraged to use Google Meets for some live teaching and I've jumped on board with this too. I personally don't think a full lesson would be appropriate, so I've been doing about 15 minutes with classes to introduce or talk through work, it also gives pupils the opportunity to ask questions about the work. This has worked well with KS3. KS5 I did some speaking with as well last week which was also good. I've been a little more adventurous with y10 and y11 with Quizlets Live, which have been brilliant and hilarious in equal measure. They just get so excited! I also tried a scavenger hunt with y11; a slide with 10 items in German to find in their homes and bring back to show me. That was totally hilarious and they really enjoyed it. To be fair I just want to do some fun things with y11 in particular as my heart breaks for them with the sad ending they've had to their schooling and I don't want them to feel cut off and abandoned. Fun ideas for after Easter (2 weeks) welcome, same for y13....thinking of a project on how Germany has handled COVID-19 for them (great fun)

Positives from this experience for me are....

Google Classroom: since starting my new job I wanted to get back to using it properly. This has forcesd me to do that

Quizlet: similar to above, I used to use it loads and now will continued to develop its use

I've remembered about Learning Apps, which is a lovely site for creating activities to practise language, for matching to sorting and beyond.
I've also started to create very professional (cough) grammar videos for my pupils, so am anticipating making my millions as a YouTuber now.

Plus, how many amazing resources will I have ready made for next year!!

The most important thing for me is to see this as a learning experience, there is no right or wrong in this situation, we just have to make the best of whatever we do. 

All I want is for my pupils to know that I'm still there for them, even if not in the classroom and also that they know I worry about them, when I email asking them if they're OK, I'm not bothered about the work (shhhh don't tell them that!), I just want to know that they're OK. 

Making a comeback

I can't believe it's 4 years nearly since I last blogged!
Maybe this down time could be the ideal place to start. I may blog about teaching remotely, German meme of the day or even just a load of nonsense (plus ça change....)

In the days, weeks and years since I last blogged I have had an interesting journey. I worked as a supply teacher for a year which gave me a fascinating insight to how schools treat cover staff...even if they know them. I worked for a large  MAT which I hated and now I am contentedly working in the job of my dreams as Head of MFL at a local private school.

This could be the start of a new blogging journey....

New Beginnings

As you can see, I've been absent for sometime.
It's been a difficult few months which I'm going to try not to dwell on.

September is a great opportunity for new beginnings and that's just what this September is about. It's starting with me looking to supply teaching nitially, trying to get fit and maybe even getting a dog (although the final one still needs confirming by "him in doors")

Anyway the good news  (or bad, depending on how you look at it) is that I will hopefully have more time for blogging and will have time and possibilities for trying out new ideas and sharing them.

Routes Live - Routes into Language Teaching

Last Friday, I was asked to take part in a Routes into Languages live webinar about Routes into Languages, along with wit Dr. Elizabeth Anderson, Director of Routes into Languages North East, René Kogelbauer, Acting Head of the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences and Director of the North Leadership Centre and President of ALL and Karl Reid, a current trainee teacher. 
It was a fantastic experience, not least because I was able to use Google Hangouts from the computer in my classroom and all of the technology worked!
Here is a link to the webinar, I hope that it proves useful to prospective MFL teachers.

Routes Live - Routes into language teaching

Promoting Independent Learning in MFL

A few months ago I was contacted by Eva Lamb about running a session during the ALL Yorkshire winter series on independent learning. On Thursday therefore, I headed down the A1 and M1 to Sheffield to do my session.

Over the course of 90 minutes I covered a range of activities that I use with my classes in the hope of getting them to be more independent language learning. Below is a copy of the presentation and also I have linked below that to posts that I've written in the past on this blog that describe how they work. Whilst all of my examples are MFL specific, most of these activities can be adapted to any subject area.

Promoting independent learning in mfl all from Helena Butterfield

Quiz Quiz Trade  description
Read Clare Seccombe's guide to using Tarsia here
Follow me description
Show down description
Infinite scrabble description
Download a template for infinite scrabble here
Lingo bingo description
Haiku blog post

Fan n pick 
You can quite easily use your QQT cards for this activity.
You will need:
- cards
- your "manage mat" (it helps keep the pupils focused) Download my French / German versions here
-  groups of 3 or 4

How it works:
Person 1 fans out the cards, face down
Person 2 picks a card and reads / shows it to person 3 (just the question or the English / TL phrase to translate) and passes the card to person 4.
Person 3 answers the question, with coaching and praise from person 4.
When complete the card is returned to the pack, manage mat is moved round to next person and this time Person 2 does the fanning.
The best way to work out how this works it to try it as it all becomes clear then.
I've also tried this with open ended questions for speaking practice and where I used that, person 4 gave WWW/EBI feedback and praise.  This also worked really well.

Jot write
You will need lots of small bits of scrap paper for this activity.

Give each group a collection of paper / post its / scrap paper

Give pupils a topic or theme

Pupils all write their words at the same time AND say the words out loud and place their pieces of paper in the centre. The key is they all work at the same time, individually but by saying their words out loud they ensure that no one repeats the words and you get a variety in the centre to work from.

From this they could then categorise the words / peer assess – proof read / find the odd ones out / find meanings / create sentences / etc…

It you wanted to add an element of competition (not strictly cooperative learning, I know) you could give out achievement points for most words / the groups with words that no one else came up with  / etc...

Rally Robin (Talking Tennis) 

Ask a question, give 5-7 seconds thinking time, pupils take it in turns to give their answers

Round Robin 

Same as above but in a group of 4

In both of the above pupils have their go either by turn taking or by allocating time – use a timer on your board  and give 10/20/30 to talk– you could do this for speaking practice / spontaneous talk

All write round robin 

The same as above but what each person says, the whole group write down at the same time, so they have a record, probably in the back of their book…

I hope that I've covered everything here and that you find it useful.

How about a Haiku?

I can't believe it's so long since I last blogged!! Maybe I should try it more regularly, or maybe once in a blue moon is just enough for everybody!

Anyway, in one of my few moments of creativity this term, I came upon an idea which turned out to be a winner.

I discovered that it was National Poetry day earlier in October and decided to mark the occasion with my Y10 and 11 classes by writing Haikus. A Haiku is a 3 line poem that has 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line and 5 in the last line (or atleast, that's what Google told me). Obviously, with the serious business of Controlled Assessments to learn off by heart to ensure GCSE grades are on or above target, we couldn't spend a whole lesson on this, neither do I think a whole lesson needs to be spent on this. However it did work really well as a starter.

After giving them their topic (descriptions for Y10 and holidays for Y11....guess our current CA topics are!) and reminding them what a Haiku was, the mini whiteboards came out and they began work. I can honestly say that I have rarely seen them work so hard! You could feel the cogs turning as they counted syllables while trying to get it all to make sense. They joy when they had finished their Haiku....that quickly turned to despair when I'd point out "don't forget, you say the "e" in German" and they had to try a different way of getting in their 5 syllables...

Needless to say, when they all did manage to get their Haiku completed, they were very proud of what they achieved and were keen for me to Tweet them on our school MFL account, which naturally I did.

Here is a link to our Twitter account, you'll be able to find all of the Y10 Haiku on descriptions (you won't have to scroll down far to find them).

@stmichaelsmfl

More iPad ideas

I've finally got round to using the iPads properly again this week.
Until this week, I'd used them for Y11s to prepare for mock exams and other odds and ends.

Firstly, I used Popplet with Y8 to help them remember what hobbies and pastimes they already knew before beginning a unit of work on last weekend.  I thought it would be nicer (and quicker) than getting them to do it on paper, and so it was.  We used the app to create mind maps based around our key verbs of spielen / machen / gehen and then they could add other verbs they knew, time phrases and opinions.  It meant that pupils could work at their own pace and add as much or as little as they could.  There were some fantastic example and I was really delighted at the work that was done.  The only downside was that it was a little fiddly getting the Popples (?) sent to me at the end of the day and I actually ended up having to go round and do that later...but these are the little hurdles I'm happy to overcome as we all learn how best to use the iPads.

The second big thing I used iPads for this week, as a carousel activity with with Y11.  I had a range of activities planned for Y11 to do, consolidating the topic of Home Life which we are revisiting at the moment. The two activities I used were QR code based. Activity 1 involved using quizlet flashcards to consolidate their vocab.  This was great as all pupils were able to work at their own pace - as it was a carousel, there were enough iPads for one each - and it was great to hear the small cheers as they got all of the questions correct!
There was also a different QR code / iPad activity at a different table, where pupils were able to practice their listening skills on the This is Language site, to which we have a subscription. Rather than set a particular video as a task, I created a QR code from the link and pupils went on to that to practice listening about what they do to help at home.  Again, the personalisation was great, as pupils could listen as many times as they needed in order to finish all of their tasks.

Who knows what we'll do next week...

More iPad fun this week

I have always been very clear in my head that technology should be used to do what you couldn't do on paper and therefore avoid using the iPads just for the sake of saying I've used them. This week, therefore, I tried something that I could have done with worksheets but that had an extra layer added due to the use of the iPads. 

I went for the "old fashioned" ... or maybe "new-fangled" translation exercise with Y11. This was an idea suggested by @missmclachlan the previous week, as something that she had tried and worked.

I created 4 sentences to translate, each converted to a QR code. One set of QR codes had French to translate into English and the other set of QR codes had English to translate to French.  As my classroom is set out in groups of 4, to facilitate cooperative learning (and to make the room seem a bit bigger), one pair in each group had the French set and the other had the English set. They were told not to let the pair opposite see their work (and they didn't!). When they finished, they swapped QR Codes and self marked the translations, to sighs it "I don't believe it, they had the answers all the time". I was then able to differentiate the activity as well, quite easily by creating some easier texts to translate.  However, because all of the work was in QR codes there was no issue with pupils feeling put out because they had been allocated an easier task, or pupils trying to avoid challenge by going for the easier choice.

We finished off, with a "Lino" to show what French they had learnt during the lesson, which it what the QR code at the tope of this piece links to.

 I will definitely repeat this activity with other classes, but for the coming week, I think it's going to be webquest quizzes about Christmas in other countries...

iPads week 2

Not much to report on the iPads front this week. 

I have continued to love Socrative...pupils are very competitive about getting the first answer in and knowing whether it's correct, they also love the voting on the answers aspect, so I am definitely continuing with that. This week we had a focus on questioning and looked at hands up/ no hands up etc...Socrative gets round the whole thing by ensuring EVERYONE answers the question and there can't be an opt out and sit back.

I also experimented with more personalised learning for y11.  Those who had finished the extended writing task they had been set were given an iPad and worked on the Duolingo app. Those who got that far, absolutely loved it and have gone home to download the a app at home, in order to continue with it at home.

In the coming week, I will try using them to help y10 learn for their first Controlled Assessments...

iPads and Languages

Back in September, I learned that I had been extremely fortunate because my bid for iPads for the MFL department had been successful. After several hiccups, the much talked about tablets finally arrive in my room on Wednesday.

I was very concerned, that this useful technology would turn up in my room and would just be left unused, thus making it all a huge waste of time and money.  In order to combat that, this week I have spent time with every class I teaching doing "something" with the iPads. Nothing flash, just making sure that each class uses them, is familiar with expectations and protocols surrounding their use and seeing that I'm not afraid for it all to go horribly wrong!

I was lucky, as on Wednesday I had my two year 11 classes. This meant I could start with classes who I know well, who I know are sensible and who I  knew would react positively should I choose to do things that didn't work. I am happy to report that things went very well! 

So, keeping it simple so far what have I used the iPads for?

Consolidating, reinforcing and learning new language with the superb Languages Online.  This has been redesigned recently, making it very easy to use with tablets.  This was great, as normally I'd go into an ICT suite to use this website. The added bonus was, that pupils had their exercises books easily accessible and could make note of new language in their books. They were much more proactive with this, than when I do that kind of activity in an ICT suite. An added bonus was, that "languages" is a tricky word to type (for me!), so to avoid the "mine hasn't gone to the right place" situation, I created a QR code with the link, and pupils accessed the site thought that. Simples!

I also got my y11s using Sock Puppets to talk about what they eat and sports they do (Healthy Living!). They spoke and listened to loads of French.  Much more than had it been a "normal" lesson.

My y8 class used the iPads for a plenary on Linoit.  Much nicer than paper post its, as that Lino is now on the MLF blog for them to revisit!

Finally Socrative. Just fab! I started off creating quizzes from scratch and find it all a bit clunky at first (learning is clunky at first, until your used to it) but after a few goes, it's become like second nature.  I particularly like that pupils can vote on responses, which means they are peer assessing all the time.

I wonder what next week will bring ...

Somethings I am very keen to ensure are...

iPads don't just become and "add on", they become a natural part of a lesson

iPads don't become a hindrance to learn. They need to be used for real learning and not just for the sake of it.

I also think that for them to be successful I have be not afraid to make mistakes, also be prepared to learn from my classes (they've already taught me a lot this week), have faith in my students and trust them to do what is asked of them....but then, don't we do that everyday as teachers, no. After what we are doing in our teaching?

I shall report back more iPad adventures in a few weeks...

Routes into languages Student Ambassadors Training

Once again, I was asked to speaking at the Routes into Languages Ambassador Training at UCL yesterday. Routes into Languages is a fantastic project that aims to raise languages awareness in schools and promote the continued study of languages at all levels.  Each year students of languages at a variety of universities around the country work as ambassadors, going into schools and running workshops for schools in their region.  This event is to give those ambassadors the training they need in order to be succesful.

The day is split into two sections, the first where all of the students are talked to about their role and where people who are involved in careers that use languages talk about their experiences and how they got into their relevant fields, then an afternoon of workshops to equip students to go out and really motivate pupils into wanting to continue with their languages study.

I took part in the first section of the day, by talking about how I became a teacher of languages and what was involved in training to become a teacher and what life is like as a teacher. I left the talk wanting to become an interpreter or translator as Gloria Vessey and John Evans filled my head full of their fascinating experiences of working with languages but I hope that some of the students left having a better idea of what life as a teacher is all about. It's always easy to promote teaching, as it's such a rewarding job with no day ever the same. I love it and, as I said to the students yesterday, I wouldn't want to do anything else really (despite what I wrote earlier!)

In the afternoon workshops, I ran a session on IT tools that the Student Ambassadors might like to use with pupils for whom they run workshops.  All materials can be found on the wiki that I created here. It was really interesting to find out which tools the students thought would be useful for them and also see their suggestions of how they could use them for themselves.  They all contributed to the Lino that is linked to here.

If you have the opportunity, I strongly recommend that you get involved with your local Routes into Languages Ambassadors.  I know I'm going to be speaking to my SLT about getting some to come into school to promote uptake of Languages as KS4 around options time, as although our uptake is fairly healthy, you can never have too many linguists...

ps... Also you may get lucky and get some fabby post it notes like the ones at the start of this post...

pps...I also got some tasty Christmas cake muffins and an iPad cover from the lovely Heather McGuinness, who I hope has recovered from her rodent-related incident!

Co-operative Learning: Showdown

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of co-operative learning structures and one of my favourites is Quiz Quiz Trade, which I blogged about here and use it regularly for vocabulary building, review and drilling, but I have also been trialling other structures this year and one I hit upon recently has gone down a storm since trying it.
Showdown is a team activity which has pupils working together, learning from and teaching one another. This is how it works:
Each team member has a mini whiteboard and pen, one of the team is the "Showdown Captain" who is identified by a little name label(fear not this role changes on each round!).
The captain chooses a question from a set of cards. I chose the vey uninspiring "translate a sentence into French".
Once chosen, all team members write their own answers on their MWB, without showing their team.
When all are done, the captain says "showdown", then all show their answers and they must discuss them to reach a consensus.
When they are happy they all agree, the Showdown Captain, leads the team in a "unique" team celebration.
Captain hands the role over to the next person to their left and all is repeated.

I let them refer to books but it depends on how you want to use it, the class, etc...
Also, as I'm trying to cut down on paper used, rather then drawing "card" I put 12 phrases on the board and give dice, the captain rolled the dice instead of drawing the card. It still worked as well as drawing a card.

UK eTwinning Conference 2013

As an eTwinning Ambassador, I was delighted to be able to attend this year's eTwinning Conference at the NCTL in Nottingham at the weekend, after having missed last year due to work commitments. As ever, the whole event filled me with enthusiasm and inspired me to get going with more eTwinning projects in the coming academic year.

I think, it's fair to say that, in a time when the teaching profession is criticised daily in the media for being "enemies of promise" and failing pupils no matter what it does, it's not easy to remain positive about a job that I love.  This is why an event such as the UK eTwinning Conference is so fantastic, as you never meet a negative eTwinner. They are always so full of energy and new ideas that you cannot fail to be uplifted.  This was certainly true of this weekend.  Not only were the workshops (which I'll come to later) inspirational but also the opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new ones to share ideas and experience is invaluable.

The British Council and eTwinning always manage to put together a programme for these events that gives opportunity for collective reflection and also for personal (professional) growth and this weekend was no different.  The conference was started with a Key Note speech from Aileen Monaghan, and HMI for Education Scotland. She spoke about "Transformative change in learning and links with international education". It was truly awesome to hear an HMI praise teachers and talk about how our work is crucial in moving pupils forward. She also highlighted a project from a workshop that I attended, showcasing how eTwinning had worked together with HMIs to move a school from a very difficult place where staff were unhappy and children weren't getting the most out of their education to transforming the learning and the school.  I have to say that I ended up wishing that I worked in Scotland, where people seem very sensible indeed!
 
My first workshop was run by David Mitchell and was on the theme of Quadblogging. This is something that I have been interested in for a while and have often thought about getting involved. David spoke about how blogging had increased pupil achievement with his Year 6 class over the course of a year and also about how he came up with the idea of Quadblogging.  The idea is fantastic. 4 classes with 4 different blogs who visit and comment on those blogs in a cycle each month.  That is way too simplistic a description of it and would suggest that if you don't yet know about Quadblogging, you can read about it at Quadblogging.net. I have signed up and hope to get my new Tutor Group Quadblogging in September.

Saturday afternoon saw me going to Bob Harrison's workshop on Education's Digital Future.  It was mind blowing to think about where technology can take our pupils and how little (some) schools have prepared for this.  I was particularly interested in a quiz that Bob did with us about new technologies and to find out where pupils often sit with this in comparison to their teachers.  We need to make sure that we keep up with them otherwise schools will be left behind.

The eTwinning Awards, as ever were full of inspirational teachers being rewarded for their outstanding projects, giving me lots of food for thought in terms of projects for next year.

Sunday saw us in more workshops. In the one I went to run by John Warwick and Lesley Atkins I found more about the school and project that I mentioned earlier.  It was really fascinating to see how international education can transform a school and the learning within that school.  What a shame more people can't see the possibilities. It is essential that for international education within schools to be successful, it needs to be embedded in the curriculum otherwise when staff change, it dies.  eTwinning is so easy to do and to embed into the curriculum!

As the conference drew to a close, we were reminded of how important it is to make sure that our pupils are digitally educated by Connor Galvin of University College, Dublin and discussed the topic of who is responsible for our children's digital safety. There is no easy answer to this but we did decided (on our table) that digital safety was essential and should be a partnership between school and parents - however all too often parents don't know what "digital safety" means.

The conference closed and we all bid our sad farewells to one another, happy in the knowledge that we had not given up our weekends for nothing and fully enthused for the end of term!

Watch out for new eTwinning projects from me coming your way in 2013-14...including something involving Scratch (I hope)

You can find out more about eTwinning at http://etwinning.net and at eTwinning UK's blog.

Welcome back!

 
I've returned to Blogger after many years at helenabutterfield.net 
I thought it would be nice to be able to find my by my online name and thought I 'd return to to my roots at the same time.
So, here I am at www.langwitch.co.uk
I knew I'd get here one day :)

Motivation and Engagement through International Links #ililc3

My other presentation was on my favourite topic of International Links.  There was a strong focus on the benefits of eTwinning as I'm such a fan and an eTwinning Ambassador (also that is where I have most of my experience in working with schools across Europe). virtually.

Here is the presentation, also if you search for the eTwinning tag on this blog, you will find out lots more about eTwinning and how it can benefit your pupils and you as a teacher.  Enjoy...

International collaboration from Helena Butterfield

Using Google Apps for Education #ililc3

At the weekend I was extremely lucky to have been a speaker at the ICT and Languages conference 2013.  Having attended as a delegate last year, I bit the bullet and submitted proposals to present 2 sessions this year and was over the moon when my submissions were accepted.

Session 1 was my first talk of the day about GoogleApps for Education.We have this in our school and it's used extensively between staff for sharing information, good practice and general communication, and also it can be used with pupils.

Over the last year I have tried a variety of activities using Google Docs to help my pupils communicate and collaborate more easily and thought that others deserved to know how totally amazing it is.  We have a Google Edu account so we have greater security settings and we can share from outside of or to that account from elsewhere.  If you have a similar set up, you may not be able to see the presentations made by the delegates if you are logged into your school Google Apps account at the moment.

My presentation (made in Google Docs) is below, together with a link the wikipage where delegates could access presentation documents to collaborate on.  Please look at them - I found the innovative ways that their schools were using ICT fantastic and also gained lots of ideas from them...including mobile learning envy!!

Additional notes are below the presentation...

Firstly, here is the link to original google doc presentation

Now here is a copy of the presentation, as I had problems embedding the original presentation for some reason...

Google apps for pupil collaboration from Helena Butterfield

For the pupils, one of the best things about using Google Docs is that they don't have to keep saving their work. Once it's created a document is automatically saved every few minutes, no "Miss, I forgot to save my work" at the end of the lesson!

Diagnostic marking is also very easy via Google Doc as you can give general feedback through the "comments" at the top right of a document AND highlight individual words so that pupils can see where corrections can be made.  Furthermore through the threaded comments a dialogue can be established between teacher and pupil, as a document is edited.

However, for me the most powerful thing about Google Docs is that you can have groups of pupils working on the same document at the same time and it updates in realtime.  Therefore pupils on opposite sides of the classroom can collaborate...in fact pupils on different sides of the world can collaborate at the same time, without having to attach, download, upload (and forget to do all of that as well!!!)

My top tip; if pupils are creating a resource themselves, get them to create, give it atitle then share immediately to me (otherwise they forget to share!!)

We didn't get onto Google Forms as I had hope but suffice to say that they are brilliant for pupil voice and extremely versatile and easy to use!

Here is a link to the Wiki where the presentations can be found and I think you'll agree that the delegates did a wonderful job of collaborating - in fact I think that two of the groups didn't even physically speak about their presentation at all, it was all done via the comments (you'll have to sneak a look at the comments as well!)

Oh I almost forgot...I'd also set up a Google Spreadsheet for the delegates to suggest uses for Google Apps in their (or anyone else's classrooms) but we also didn't get round to the plenary (I hope Mr Wilshaw or anyone else from Ofsted doesn't see this!!!). There's a link on the wiki and now here as well. Please feel free to share your ideas.  Again, if you are a school Google Docs user, you may have to log out of that account in order to view or contribute.

What will 2013 bring for Langwitch?

I was going to do a reflective post on 2012 but figured with family deaths, pet deaths and an Ofsted that is best left forgotten, it would be better to look forward rather than back.

Professionally, 2013 is looking quite exciting already. Most importantly I am going to be speaking a ililc3 in February. This is a fantastic opportunity that I am really looking forward to.  If you are a linguist and have never been but are looking for excellent CPD which doesn't cost a fortune, I can't recommend it enough.  You can book by following the link here.  Looking at the people who are speaking and themes for the weekend it should be fantastic. I'm talking about using Google Apps for Education and International Links. So I better get on and use them / do some before February!

Secondly, we have our first ever French exchange taking place in March.  I am really looking forward to that happening, as it can only help move our pupils forward in their language learning.

I will also be very sad to see my tutor group leave this year, as they are in Y11...but at least it means we have the Prom to look forward to :)

On a personal level, cycling is going to be my thing this year, something which I'm really looking forward to, I am also aiming to give the 365 photos a go again. Let's hope it lasts for longer than last year's!

Happy New Year, I hope that 2013 is a successful year for you all.

Routes into Languages New Ambassadors' Training

Yesterday I felt extremely lucky to invited to take part in the Routes into Languages New Ambassadors' training even at UCL.  For those who don't know who Routes into Languages are, they are a fantastic organisation who work via various regional universities to promote languages is schools.  In particular they have Student Ambassadors who go into schools to promote languages or run workshops at their universities, all with the aim of increasing uptake at all levels of language learning.

After an early start with a 6.08 am train from Yarm (who knew that time existed on a Saturday) I arrived in a wet London and took part in my first activity for the day.  Alongside 4 other fellow linguists, I was part of an employability panel.  Each of us spoke about our passion for languages and where that has taken us in our careers.  I have to say I did feel a little uneasy as "just a teacher", following a business consultant who had loads of experience in lecturing and working all over the world using her languages and someone who worked as a translator with the European Commission and had worked as GCHQ and being followed by a journalist who worked for the BBC World Service.  However I managed to make them laugh and, I think, convince them that teaching wasn't full of lazy, good-for-nothings who are only in the job for the holidays, as some would have people believe and that actually teaching is a great profession to be in. So, I survived the employability panel (which, just for the record was 100% better than having a lesson observation!) and we moved to the afternoon session.

I ran a workshop on Social Media and ICT in MFL.  I wanted the session to be as interactive as possible so spoke for very little of it and created a wiki with all of the information for the session on it.  The wiki can be found here and you can find presentation and everything else from the afternoon there.

All in all, it was a fantastic day.  I met some brilliant people and it was nice to be in the company of so many people with such a passion for languages and all of the opportunities that they can open up for you.