Another GMTV Diet on the horizon

Last year I blogged about the GMTV Bikini Diet that I followed for 6 weeks with great results (I lost just over a stone). Well, during my daytime TV viewing due to my my coughing fits this week, I discovered another diet is underway.  The "Get Motivated" campaign is being fronted by Mr. Motivator  - yes, he's on Twitter -  (who'd have thought it, I believed he was doing something other than motivating!) and again has recipes to follow.  So, I've decided to have another go (as I've regained some of the weight lost last year) and see how I go.  I won't update that regularly about it for fear of boring you but I will keep you informed of any success I have.

Peanut butter toastied for me for breakfast in the morning!...

Spanish Mike is back

I was really pleased to notice last week that Spanish Mike, of "One Semester of Spanish, Spanish Love Song" fame is back with a new Spanish video.  Called "Second Semester of Spanish, Spanish Love Song" and featuring a special guest, it lives up to the standards of the first song very well.  I'm hoping to nake my Spanish classes laugh with it in the coming week (it will give them something other than my lack of Spanish to laugh at!!!)

Here it is...



ps. Please note the lack of "odd" exclamation marks in this post!!!!!!!!!

eTwinning workshop at Stockton CLC

[caption id="attachment_191" align="alignleft" width="79" caption="eTwinning"][/caption]

Today, I was privileged to be invited to our local CLC to speak to Stockton's GTP (Graduate Trainee Programme) trainee teachers about our school's eTwinning experiences.  It was nice to work with Jenny Compton of the British Council and Val Brooks, Deputy of the Stockton CLC and fellow eTwinning Ambassador as well as to meet some of the new talent coming through from our local LEA Graduate Trainee Programme.

I promised that I'd upload my presentation onto this blog for the participants to look at in more detail at their own leisure and thought it would also be good to put down some of the areas that I ellaborated more on, as I spoke.

I covered how I got involved in eTwinning initially, as a part-time teacher to give me some focus and how now it has become an integral part of my teaching life.  I think it's important to stress, particularly for Secondary teachers who don't seem as widely involved in eTwinning across the UK as they are in the rest of Europe, that it is quite easy to mould your eTwinning projects into the curriculum without it being onerous and without it impacting negatively on exam results.  Infact, I firmly believe that eTwinning can enhance exam results as well as enhancing enjoyments of subjects.  It is also something that is ideal when thinking about ways of delivering the new KS3 curriculum and it can be cross-curricular and be something where pupils really can try out their creativity and love of the internet and all things computer-based.

I think that the presentation probably speaks for itself.  There are links to our highly successful prject from last year, Je blogue, tu blogues...let's blog! as well as various projects that our pupils did whilst involved in the project.  In addition there are links to one of our current projects that involved no MFL at all "How green is your world?" .

I think it's really important to remember that, whilst ideal for the MFL teacher as a way of stimulating real contact with native speakers of a similar age, eTwinning can be used in many creative ways using English as the means of communication (just about everyone wants to got their pupils practising English if at all possible).   One of our most successful international projects is one with a school in the Netherlands that covers Victorian England and the First World War through our History department and doesn't involve the use of Languages at all.   Also, a little idea I have in my head for cross-curricular links...to work with a department in school on a project from that curriculum area but work in French or German or Spanish (maybe with schools from across Europe, whose language learning is on the same level as our pupils).  That's just my sneaky way of getting pupils to use the language they learn without even knowing that their doing it!

Here is the presentation...

Ian Ramsey’s eTwinning Experience

View more presentations from Langwitch.

I have also add this presentation to my Langwitch Wiki  and you can find it here.

Has my teaching gone viral?

I just had to share this event that happened in the penultimate snowy lesson of last half term.

In a previous post, I wrote about the BBC Learning Zone Broadband Class Clips that are available at Primary and Secondary level for just about every subject.  Back in November time, I used a particularly corny clip where a boy spoke about how he helped at home and then there was a wonderfully awful song and dance, with my top Year 9 German set (who gave the exact reaction that I'd expected!).  Well, one of the girls in my lesson came and asked my where she could find the clip so she could watch it again - and of course, I had to explain that, since educational videos are evil, nasty things, they can't be viewed by individual pupils just by teachers - but then she told me how after the lesson in November she had found it at home and had sent it to her friends to watch, who all found it hilarious as well!  So that means not only did she watch the GERMAN video again but also many of her friends who weren't in my German class ALSO watched the GERMAN video too! So there we have GERMAN reaching the pupils in their own time, them enjoying it AND doing it volutarily.  Who would have thought it, pupils doing something relating to MFL in their own time and of their own free will...and proabably without even realising it. 

For me, it's the way forward, I love the idea that my pupils want to seek out the language that they learn at school and enjoy it just for fun.  After all, isn't enjoyment the reason we speak different languages?  I refer you once again to the magnificent quote from the last post about Prague!

Annual eTwinning Conference, Prague

I was really fortunate to be invited to attend the Annual eTwinning Conference last weekend.  The event took place in Prague and it was really amazing to be involved.

I began my journey with eTwinning nearly 2 yrs ago, in a search for a French school so that we could set up an exchange.  Once I made my first advert for a school I was hooked and found it very hard not to accept every offer of a project that I came across.  However, one of the projects I set up with a French school was highly successful and even got into the short-list for the European eTwinning Prize (though not to the finals) and that was how I ended up, last Friday heading to Prague rather than taking part in our usual LEA-wide CPD Day that was taking place.

Several delegates, inlcuding Lisa Stevens, were blogging on the conference blog throughout the weekend, so I'm not going to go into too much detail about workshops etc..., as I think that they are very well written about there.  I thought that I might just write about some of the highlights for me.

One of the main things I was looking forward to was the Key Note Speech given by Dr. Edward de Bono.  I must say that he didn't disappoint.  His presentation style was unique, using a webcam to project the writing he was doing throughout his speech he spoke about how we can learn and teach creative thinking.  I found this most inspiring and it certainly gave me some ideas as to how I can harness my creativity and how I can help my pupils to be more creative with their language work. 

There were plenty of other activities aimed at helping us develop our creativity and also think about how we can "spread the word" about eTwinning in our local areas and further afield.

Another major highlight for me was a coach tour of Prague.  Unfortunately is was at night but even so, it was amazing to be visiting such a beautiful city.  The Czech CSS had provided coaches for all 400+ delegates and guides to give us a  comprehensive description of their beautiful capital city.  It was a very pleasant experience, made even more pleasant to have the opportunity to leave our coach and walk into the Old Town.  Only three of us from my coach took up the opportunity to brave the cold of the night but I was pleased we did.

I also came away with a fantastic moto; "What we learn without joy, we forget without regret".  I have forgotten (with regret) the name of the lady who said this but may of us thought how apt that was!

I had a really great time at the conference, not least because I got know and spend time with some really lovely people of differing nationalities and backgrounds.  Thank you, eTwinning for inviting me!

I took very few photos, so here's a short video I made in Moviemaker with thanks to Smetana for the appropriate backing music...

 

You may have noticed...I've moved

You may have notice that I've moved!  But, why?  I hear you ask in amazement!

Firstly, I'm easily bored and I'd been with Blogger for over a year so felt it was time for a change.

Secondly, it makes accessing my blog easier from educational establishments.  Now there's no "blogspot" in the URL , I don't need to get it unblocked at work (Yes, I've checked).

Finally to give myself a bit of an identity.  Recently I met someone, who only after we'd met and I'd sent them an email did they realise that I'm Langwitch (as well as Helena Butterfield).  I know I could have done this via other means but, hey!

I have to admit that once I'd decided to take the plunge, I was terrified.  I know nothing about hosts, of downloading stuff, or any technical languages.  However, as an adventurous kind of gal, I decided I'd go for it anyway and after a day fo terror yesterday and almost throwing my laptop out of the window, I go there at about 10.30 pm yesterday evening.

How did I do it?  Well, I'm not really sure.  I sorted out a host and got a "quick install" of Wordpress through the host (????) and then the fun started.  Of course I dislike the original theme so that was the first thing to sort out.  Oh dear!  I had to get into all kinds of stuff I didn't understand and at one point ended up with a blog that was just full of code!  I have no idea how, but anyway I managed to fix it (technical wizard that I am).  I also had a very steep and quick learning curve, discovering something called FTP Clients...my husband had to come to my rescue over that one eventually (well, actually, he told me to watch the video tutorial...and surprise, surprise it worked!).

Anyway, here we are!  I've contact as many people as I think are interested to let them know of my change of address (including a very brave email to Cilt to ask them to change their link to this blog) and have also left my Blogger blog active with a post linking here. 

So there we are.  I think this blog looks pretty cool and quite professional as well-I particularly like the "About" bit (Though think it's a bit self-indulgent of me to have written anything!).  What do you think?  I'd love to have som honest opinions and hints about blogging with Wordpress.

7 things you may or may not know about me!

I love a challenge (:o$) and earlier this week, Lisa Stevens gave me a huge one by tagging me in this meme. Curiously I was also tagged for a "25 random things about me" thingie on Facebook this week too and I found that rather easier than this to do! Anyway, if you've read that, then you may find that I'm repeating myself is some place, but really I'm not interesting to enough to have over 30 things that are random or that people might not know about me! So here we go:

1. 
   
   I always start with this one, I'm deaf in my right ear after having had meningitis 3 years ago. At least that's the worst thing that happened as a result of that.


2. 
   
   I'm a control freak and hate not being in charge of things. I really dislike that fact that at work I'm always at the mercy of other people's decisions.


3. 
   
   I have absolutely no will power at all, which is why just about every diet I try fails.


4. 
   
   I find it really hard to say "no" and therefore end up taking far too much on and rushing to get things finished.


5. 
   
   My favourite colour is wine red (hmmm, curious that!)


6. 
   
   I hate doing the housework and would have a cleaner if my husband would let me! (I even thought of getting a secret one but he'd probably figure it out when the house was clean and tidiy for a change!)


7. 
   
   It really, really, really frustrates me that most of the kids I teach see no value in the subject that I teach. I can't understand that people don't see the importance of being able to communicate with others and that learning a language can add so much value to one's life. There are so many things in my life that I could not have done and so many people I would not know, if I couldn't speak French and German (oh and a little bit of Spanish!).

OK, so now I need to tag some people...maybe they've been tagged before, maybe they haven't. So here goes, Amanda Salt, José Picardo, Marie-France Perkins, Isabelle Jones,