Active Learning - Infinite Scrabble

Here's another one I've just recently started using again and I really like it for Key Stage 4.

This one is really simple and takes next to no preparation, another reason that I love it!

Give out a grid like the one above to pairs or trios of pupils, depending on how they're sat. The grid should be empty apart from random number in some of the squares, just like the one above. Pupils play against each other in a scrabble-like game.

Allocate a topic (this week mine have been descriptions and holidays-not at the same time, combined with connectives/opinions) and it works like this; pupil 1 starts in the middle of the square by writing a word in the TL, pupil 2 then writes another word that has to connect in some way to the first word and so on. Points are scored when a word goes through one of the squares with a number in it and that square can earn points every time a word goes through it.  You can make is as easy or hard as you want by allowing words horizontally, vertically, diagonally and sometimes backwards. I then had double point scores for letters that had accents on. The games could have lasted the whole lesson, if I'd allowed it!

I didn't know how competitive my pupils could get!

My next task is to work out how it can be less wasteful on paper, maybe laminate grids and use mini whiteboard pens...

Little update on how I'm using Infinite Scrabble to ensure more engagement (although there's already lots there!). I give rewards not only to the winner in each pair / trio and have also started to reward the highest scoring team a reward as well, so not only are they playing against each other but also against the others in the class. Who know that there could be scores of over 100! I also no longer need to explain, just hand out and the buzz starts straights away.

Active Learning - Quiz, Quiz, Trade

Since I'm on a roll, I thought I'd put together another little Active Learning post on one of my favourites.

As ever, I though "everyone" knew about Quiz, Quiz, Trade (a lovely activity taken from Kagan Structures) and I was late to jump on the band wagon. So, last Tuesday during our Active Learning INSET I mentioned it and actually found myself explaining how it works at several tables .  Anyway, I thought I'd explain it here too...it's a good way to avoid real work.

Give each child in the class a card with the TL at the top and English meaning at the bottom. Ideally, each child should have a different phrase which can prove quite difficult in a big class, I know.

Pupils stand up hand up pair up and work their partner, asking them to tell them what the TL phrase means.  If one partner can't do it, the other partner should support and coach them to help them. Once done, the other partner does the same and then they swap the cards and put their hands back up to move on to work with someone else.  This means that pupils work with a wide variety of language and also reinforce their language learning skills, whilst listening to, reading, and speaking in the TL.

For extension more able pupils could be asked to say the phrase in the TL rather than English and even...particularly if you're struggling to find enough phrases with a big class...give out a few blank cards for more able pupils to make up their own. You could also have differentiated cards of different colours and ask pupils to work with people who have the same coloured cards as them.

Instead of "stand up hand up pair up" you could play music and ask them to pair up with the nearest person when the music stops, or even have and inside and outside circle, the inside circle moves and stops when told to, then works with the person opposite them. This would work particularly well if you want to avoid certain pairings ;)

I have it on good authority that Quiz, Quiz, Trade can work in just about any subject area which is always good news.

A bear named Michel...or Michael, maybe!

Some of you may remember Michel le Voyageur who had many adventures around Europe though an eTwinning project last year. He was French and had a wiki that was updated as he travelled round Europe. Upon arrival back home in Billingham, he sat in my classroom and was admired by all who gazed upon him.

I feared that Michael was getting bored by February as my classroom isn't always the most stimulating place to be all day everyday, as the worksheets come out :)

One day, my lovely Year 10s gave me an idea. Some of them were heading to Iceland on a Science trip at half term. They asked whether Michel could accompany them. He did and had a great time going to glaciers, causing trouble and even gaining a companion in the shape of a (cuddly) puffin! Upon his return from Iceland, Michel seemed restless and told me he needed a change so, I kindly obliged.

He has had a (small) name change and is now known as Michael der Reisende and he has a blog.  This blog, however is not written by me, it is written by members of my Y8 German class.  Each week, one of them will take Michael home and blog about what he has done.  I hope that this will help improve their writing skills and also keep them interested in German.  It also gives them the opportunity to have a real audience for their writing in German - normally only I get to see it...and SLT when they do work scrutiny.

Posterous is brilliant for class blogging, as you can set up the account so that anyone can email a post in and you just have to approve it.  No logging in,  no passwords to forget, just an email address to send to. The class seem really interested in the project and he has already had one blog post written, with many comments.  I'm looking forward to reading about what else he does.

What's also nice is that he seems to be gaining a network of other cuddly travellers along the way as well.

Do you have a mascot that blogs in a foreign language or goes home with pupils? If so let me know and I'll share with Y8, they would love to see what other classes are doing.

Lingo Bingo

I always presume that activities I do to practice vocabulary are old hat and everyone already knows about them. Therefore I often don't tell people about activities I do, or don't expain them.

Lingo Bingo is one such activity. I know that many people do play this game in their classrooms already (because otherwise how would I know about it), however I also know many others have never heard of it before or struggled to understand my garbled tweets trying to fit an explanation in to 140 characters on Twitter the other day. I'm also pretty sure that it could be use in subjects other than Languages.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know how to play it here it is:

1. Give out plain paper - it doesn't have to be plain.


2. Pupils split the paper in half and draw a 6 / 8 / 9 square grid on each piece of paper - I'm thinking of making a ready made grid and sticking it in the back of pupils books or even laminating it, in order to save paper.


3. Number each box (1-6, 1-8, 1-9 depending on number of squares) on each grid but make sure there is still enough space to write in the squares.


4. Now put one of the grids to one side so that you are just working with 1 grid.


5. On the grid you are working with write 6 / 8 / 9 phrases - 1 in each box. I do it in TL but could also be in English, depending on skills you want to practise. This week I worked with connectives other than et and mais and opinions other than A mon avis.


6. Tear / cut up that grid so that you have 6 /8 / 9 little cards with individual phrases / words on them now.

With me so far?

Good ;-)

Now pupils work in pairs 1 partner will say a number (in the TL of course) and the other partner asks "Comment dit-on ....en anglais" (or similar). If they get it right they can place that card onto the corresponding number on their grid. The aim is to get 3 or even more touching squares for a full house. They can then swap and then move round the classroom playing other class memebers ad inifinitum...

The nice thing about this activity is that pupils get to experience a wide range of vocabulary and structures, including ones they wouldn't never have thought of using before. In addition, they can differentiate for one another. Allowing use of books if they feel their partner needs support or removing and hiding books, if they are feeling very mean! They get very competitive and are much stricter than I am! They can even switch and ask for the TL phrases as extension.

Of course at the end of the lesson you're left with lots of little bits of paper so don't forget to remind them to put them into the recycling as they leave...

Nummerwang!

You can tell it's getting near to the end of term, as I'm using more and more videos to keep me going! Yesterday whilst teaching my Y9 afterschool German class numbers I remembered Mitchell and Webb's Nummerwang.

Not that much to do with numbers really but good German and a nice bit of fun for 5 pm on a Friday!

Let's see if it works this time (4th time lucky!)

Maybe the link will work since the video won't embed :(

Nummerwang!

Top Tools for Digital Creativity in MFL: St. Robert of Newminster, Washington

Today I was very lucky to attend a CPD session that was run by the Catholic Partnership South for the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. Co-ordinated by Sara Crawshaw, the Catholic Partnership runs CPD sessions, enrichment activities and a whole host of other things for staff and pupils who work or attend Catholic School in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. This particular event was for Heads of MFL and MFL teachers from the region.

In the morning we focussed on Ofsted and improving teaching of MFL, with a particular emphasis on independence. Sarah Brough and Sarah Sharpe both from County Durham LA inspired us with great ideas that work to help improve our pupils' indepence, particularly at KS4.

In the afternoon I was invited to run a "short" session on digital creativity in MFL. Below you can find my presentation that gives a whistle-stop tour of my current favourites in no particular order. I've also added links  mentioned in the presentation below that incase you can't access them from the slideshow. I know some people asked about having the powerpoint available to show their departments. You can do this either by downloading from the Slideshare site or it you're not sure about doing that follow this link to  be able to download the file from my Langwitch Language Resources Wiki.

Last night in preparation for the presentation, I asked MFLers on Twitter what their favourite Web 2.0 tools for MFL were and they posted their responses on a linoit, which you can view here (I'm unable to embed it, unfortunately but there is also an image of it at the top of this post). Favourite Web 2.0 Tools for MFL

I hope everyone found the session useful and many more find it useful viewing here.

Top tools for Digital Creativity in MFL

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

Websites that were mentioned:

For word clouds

• Wordle: http://wordle.net


• Image chef: http://imagechef.com


• Tagxedo: http://tagxedo.com

For making language walls

• Wallwisher: http://wallwisher.com


• Linoit: http://linoit.com

Voice recordings and collaboration

• Voicethread: http://voicethread.com


• Voki: http://voki.com


• Xtranormal: http://xtranormal.com

Cartoon makers

• Toondoo: http://toondoo.com


• Go animate: http://goanimate.com and http://domo.goanimate.com

Story telling

• Storybird: http://storybird.com


• For MFL Storybirds: http://mfl-storybirds.wikispaces.com

I'll add more when I remember them. If there are anythat I've missed please let me know and I will add them.

If you'd like some examples of how I have used some of these tools, please feel free to look around my school blogs and wikis:

Langwitch (blog that I ran at my last school)

Langwitch @ St. Michael's

Langwitch Wiki

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!"

Songsmith

Whilst at the MFL Show and Tell, Joe Dale told us about Songsmith (I'd read his blogpost about it before but I'm an Auditory / Kinaesthetic learner...) and was filled with possibilities and ideas. I couldn't wait to find the opportunity to use it. Fortunately that opportunity showed itself soon than I'd imagined.

My Year 8 German class had been making "Haben" raps the week before and hadn't got very far with them at all so I felt that the injection of Songsmith would be really beneficial.

As Songsmith is on my laptop and downloading anything onto a school computer is difficult as I don't have administrator rights (and rightly so!) I decided we'd have a carousel-type activity. I split the class into groups of 3 and set up my laptop with a microphone in my office, gave a quick tutorial and we were away!

After they were recorded I popped them onto the Levelator and made podcasts out of them. They can all be found on my Langwitch school blog but I really liked this one best from "RP, BW, BS":

RP, BW, BS

Langwitch Radio

Phonics, slidecasting and podcasting

Over the last year I feel like I've neglected the things that started on me on this journey that has revived my enthusiasm for teaching MFL - namely my school blog Langwitch and podcasting. However, over the last week I have begun to revive them, slowly but surely.
Through the wonders of Twitter I have come to know Suzie Bewell, SSAT Lead Practitioner for MFL from All Saints Language College in York. She has worked a lot with her pupils teaching phonics to improve pronunciation and has seem great improvements. With this in mind I trawled Amazon over the summer holidays and found a Jolly Phoniques manuel which was more or less identical to the kind of thing my 4 year old son was doing last year at Nursery (he's very bright, you know-he's now writing essays!)
Once I'd got over the initial shock of being back at work I decided to embark upon teaching my Jolly Phoniques. As I teach French and German (yes, I know and Spanish and ICT...) I felt it important to do justice to both languages, so I set to work on the German as well as the French. For my German, I took as my inspiration a resource that I found on Suzie's Wiki Do Once and Share and adapted it for my needs and for my French I used the Manuel Jolly Phonique all the way. The pupils so far have received it well - particularly my Year 10 class, whose pronunciation, to be quite honest was dreadful! We do lots of chanting with actions and spend lots of time going over actions when we get to tricky words that need a reminder of how to pronounce them and it seems to be working well.
Next is where the blog revival comes in! (Just incase you were wondering!)
I got to thinking how I could help my pupils even more with their pronunciation and began to wonder about making a slidecast, using the PowerPoint I'd used in class, together with the classes chanting. Never having done a slidecast before, I was nervous. However, I went onto Slideshare and just followed the instructions. I uploaded the PowerPoint, uploaded the mp3 soundfile (which I mangaged to improve the quality of, after they were initially too quiet, using the Levelator, as recommended by Joe Dale) and syncronised it all, just as I was told. I think the results are great - and if I can do it, anyone can!
Next I decided that my pupils could also do with even more practice so I create (re-vamped) 2 podcasts - one for French (Radio Langwitch) and one for German (Langwitch Radio), to avoid confusion - so that they can download their chants and pretend to be cool listening to music when they're really practicing their French and German! Of course everything is now on my school blog for my pupils to use and enjoy with the whole family.

Les Jolly Phoniques

Les Jolly Phoniques

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

And Phonik!

Phonik

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

Cologne again

Wow, I can't believe it's a year since I wrote my last entry about our Cologne visit! Where has the time gone?

Anyway, last Thursday evening came around and I once again found myself waiting at school for a coach to arrive with 39 Year 7s and another 3 staff. Things hadn't really changed, we were more or less the same "team" as last year, except we had out fab GTP accompanying us this time, so we all know what to expect! I was rather apprehensive about the trip, as this time we decided to book everything ourselves, rather than go through a specialist travel company (thus saving ourselves hundreds of pounds!), but of course, me being me, I worried that something would go wrong with my booking system.

All was well until we arrived at Folkstone at about 3.00am for our Shuttle...to discover that our booking was for the ferry! So we trundled off to Dover...to discover that no-one from the coach company had confirmed the booking so it had been cancelled!! ("Miss" started to worry-no surprises there then!). No problem though, we finally made it onto the Pride of Dover just as the sun was rising over the Eastern Docks, and beautiful it was too! I did worry a little that this wasn't on  the risk assessment, however at times, one just has to do what's best for the kids and that was one of those times!

Finally, after 18 hrs, we made it Cologne and headed to the Cathedral. Now, I'm very lucky, in that my balance problems caused by me deafness in one ear, do not allow me to climb the cathedral tower (shame), so  had to have a coffee instead! 11 Euros for TWO coffees I nearly fell over!!!!!!

The rest of the trip went off without a hitch. Boat trip on the Rhine, visit to the (very warm) Chocolate Museum (don't they have air conditioning) and even a stop in the Pandora Shop to by a commemorative bead - unfortunately they didn't have one of the cathedral :o(

It was a great trip made even better by the wonderful staff who, again, agreed to gave up their weekend to come with me and make the trip possible. It just wouldn't be the same trip without them. It's so great when you go on a trip and are able to get on so well with the other people there and enjoy the experience for yourself as well as for the children. Thank you one and all (specially Claire who ran the Race for Life in Darlington on Sunday after no sleep...oh no, she was the one who did sleep!)

Das Hokey Kokey

I have a tendancy to watch too many comedy shows on Dave or GOLD or even on the BBC.  Most of the programmes are (kindly) chosen for me by my husband (if I'm REALLY lucky, he even lets me watch the cricket - and not just England losing either...Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) and he, in return, allows me to watch the occasional CSI episode.

Yesterday, as a Mothers' Day treat he picked out a Bill Bailey live show that he'd so thoughfully Sky+ ed for a special occasion (yes, we "live the dream" in our house) and I discovered a treasure!

Now I'm sure that many people have seen this before but I'm a bit slow on the uptake with these things and found it hilarious. It's Bill Bailey doing Kraftwerk doing the Hokey Kokey all in German, of course.  I think is ideal for parts of the body (if not a bit basic really) but it's good to be daft from time to time and have a bit of a laugh.  Logo 2 Unit 3 "Topfit" is where it could fit in for me, how about you?

Dinner for One

I didn't blog much about Christmas this year so I decided I'd add this little post about a German New Year tradition instead.
Each year on New Year's Eve (Silvester) in Germany there is a rather odd (in my opinion) of showing a very old English film called "Dinner for One". It's about an old lady, Miss Sophie, who, each year on her birthday, invites all of her friends for dinner. James, the butler, is to serve them and do the same as he does every year..."the same procedure as last year?". The sad thing is though, as Miss Sophie has got older her friends have all died off. James, not wanting to upset his mistress pretends that they are all still there (she's a bit batty, so doesn't realise) and as the evening wears on he drinks more and more as he must eat and drink all of the guests' meals. All of this has "hilarious" consquences...anyway have a watch and see how it ends up...

Wie hilfst du im Haushalt with Learning Zone Broadband Class Clips

As a keen member of the MFL Resources group, which is a "must join" for all MFL teachers, I regularly find several extremely useful tips and resources to use with my classes. The other day whilst checking some of the back posts, I came across a message from Helen Meyers who is Assistant Head at the Ashcomb School in Surrey, linking to the BBC Learning Zone's Broadband Class Clips. They're available for Primary and Secondary levels and for most subject areas. I was really pleased to find something a bit different that I could use in the classroom. What I particularly like is that next to the video, you get a brief synopsis of the clip (most of which last 3-5 mins) plus key language so that you know which class would be most suited for their use. I also like the ideas given for use (always helpful when lacking motivation!) .

Wanting to try it out straight away I thought about classes and topics that I was doing and came across this clip about household tasks.

It was ideal to introduce the topic of jobs around the home to my top set, without doing a Powerpoint or using some of my great drawings etc...

I showed the clip (pointing out how naff it was with the hair and the dancing and music etc, etc....) and class had to note down the new vocabulary that appears on the screen, adding the English. I also warned them about the song and asked them to just note down the family members and pets (just for an extra bit of listening, really)

It has to be said that they really liked it...specially the dancing for some reason! It was great for them to able to hear real German spoken whilst also getting the new words at a slower pace.

I will definitely be using these Broadband Class Clips again.

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