Bringing languages to life: teaching tips, tech and ideas

Isabelle Jones, head of languages, The Radclyffe College, Oldham

I have cherished using the track to carry languages to existence in my language classroom. Music motion pictures are a high-quality way of introducing students to French-speaking nations’ lifestyles and developing speakme/writing tasks. For this unique assignment, I used French rap and endorsed groups of college students to write down approximately chosen common issues. We used mind maps to discover the hyperlinks among thoughts, the sounds of the key phrases, and the ‘tion‘ and ‘isme‘ phrases.

Students used online rhyming dictionaries and wrote their wrap around the main rhymes with the aid of a dictionary and a valid record with a beat. The textual content was then uploaded to a textual content-to-speech software http://text-to-speech.Imtranslator.internet/ to allow students to guide their pronunciation independently.

teaching

A few college students needed extra assistance. I recorded myself saying their text using Audacity for them to train listening, studying, and announcing the textual content on their own. They may then strive to mention the text, record themselves, and decide if they are equipped to perform it. The overall performance was recorded into a PowerPoint presentation with pictures and phrases in French and English. It was shared with the staff and other instructions, and its miles are still used in college to sell languages.

Cherry Bailey, head of present-day languages, The Mount School, York

It’s not possible to expect what languages students will need in their destiny; we can be positive that they may need language abilities, so on the Mount, we delivered a language attention path in year 9. All pupils study both French and German from year 7. Additionally, Latin from year eight, and the direction pursuits to help them build on this, benefit an extra understanding of how language works and the connections between distinctive languages. We take a look at body language and gestures (inclusive of how this varies across cultures),

How infants learn to talk, language patterns, language own family trees, and use the expertise won to decode unknown but associated languages to the ones studied in Faculty, which include Dutch, Swedish, Italian, and Spanish. We also consider accents and dialects and the way these have come approximately. Pupils have taster training in Russian and Chinese and learn how a range of non-European languages work. On the stop of the 12 months pupils have not bested a greater understanding of the languages they’re already reading, however must sense greater assured approximately tackling other languages within the future, need to they need or need to.

READ MORE :

Gemma Fordyce, director of modern languages, King John Faculty, Benfleet, Essex
As a big, successful MFL branch, which has seen a huge increase over the past couple of years, we constantly strive to update our coaching to maintain tempo with the pursuits and skills required by our college students. We have attempted out a couple of the latest thoughts during the last 12 months that have been particularly successful with Litera-creativity. This is wherein older pupils make ebooks for younger novices. Some use current applications, such as college students creating an image tale and then uploading the phrases. Different college students have been growing their inventive abilties and, in reality, portraying or drawing a story that can be scanned and uploaded to some other free web page, including developing an ebook that can be shared with younger newbies inside the School and community.

Instructor Community

Be a part of the Parent Instructor Community. Join the Guardian trainer network. Be part of the Dad or Mum instructor community for lesson resources, comments, and process opportunities, directly in your inbox. Another concept we’ve used is Practi-creativity. Doing the Overseas Language Leader award in the summer encouraged agencies of older pupils to take younger college students and tour number one faculty out of the MFL study room. Some went into the meal rooms, others onto the soccer pitch to research soccer abilties through Spanish.

With Digi-creativity, students were inspired to make short and easy films on diverse subjects, writing the script in one lesson and filming and editing them the next. For example, the film Our School was sent to accomplice schools, and Occurring a Date, starring Barbie and Ken, bolstered modal verbs. Reasons to study MFL by key stage four instructions were used as promotional material for key stage 3.

Sooner or later, with Antique School Creativity, we get back to using props! We like our prop packing containers. Old hats, wigs, comedy glasses—anything that inspires the scholars to forget their inhibitions and communicate French or Spanish with confidence stays a mystery. Why 15-year-old antique boys always snatch the Cinderella get-dress also remains a mystery.

Joe Dale, independent language representative

On 20 October this 12 months, I gave a talk on the Language Display Live on using iPads to beautify language studying. I started the use of QR codes and the free app and internet site Display Me to assist students in revising a grammar factor remotely.

A week before the occasion, I found through Twitter a friend of mine and language university co-ordinator Alex Blagona at Northgate High Faculty in Ipswich was using QR codes in the exercise books of his students to link to a YouTube clip from Warlingham MFL dept on forming the precise annoying in French. The scholars had already created their personalized grammar clarification highlighted in distinctive colored inks. By including a digital and animated model, they may access the QR code by scanning it, facilitating impartial learning.

Taking this concept to any other level, I recommended that he create screencasts of similar grammar points used, the unfastened app Show Me on the iPad, and publish the clip on the host website, after which create a QR code linking to it, which he could stick in his college students exercising books, as before. Within mins, they produced this video revising Ce, Cet, Cette, and Ces in French and became wowed with future opportunities.

Alison Neasom, senior lead practitioner for network and humanities, Wildern School, Hampshire
Developing the latest technologies has enabled Wildern Faculty to deliver our international trade program to digital life! Conferences are held three times a year for venture building and performances in the real world and are more suitable by email and Facebook touch among contributors in Madrid, Dresden, and Southampton. These expand teamwork and permit thoughts and ideas to be aired and shared.

Over the following years, participating colleges may create a musical primarily based on Article 12 of the Unicef Rights of the Child. This musical will be completed in all three nations and then posted. Initial art classes with an artist in Nova Scotia were through Skype;; video diaries were created, song and songs recorded. We can be trialling Google + as this offers the choice for multi-screening, allowing all colleges to learn choreography and songs simultaneously. During the last few years consciousness of the capability of recent technologies has been realized, and familiarity elevated.