@spanishsam has collected together Wordle word cloud ideas for MFL in this post:

Share/Save

An online MFL meeting to discuss the following:

1. Post election Languages update
2. How are the MYLO trials going?
3. Reflections on The Linguascope Conference
4. Have you heard about the ICT Links into Languages Conference?
5. Hard to Teach Teachers TV Programme – Secondary Modern Foreign Languages Using ICT
6. MFL Show and Tell developments – Devon, Nottingham, London and beyond!
7. European Day of Languages – How’s your planning going?
8. A.O.B

Attendees already confirmed:

1. Joe Dale, Independent ICT/MFL Consultant Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom
2. Dominic McGladdery , 2nd in MFL, English Martyrs School, Hartlepool.
3. José Picardo Head of MFL at Nottingham High School (@josepicardo ) (be nice to me, it’s my birthday!)
4. Alejandra Puerto , NQT.
5. Rosemary Hicks , Head of MFL Northfield School (MHA) Billingham.
6. James Padvis, Foxford School, Coventry
7. Valerie McIntyre, Wells Blue School,
8. Alice Ayel, Thuringia International School, Weimar, Germany
9. Helena Butterfield , International Co-ordinator, Ian Ramsey C of E School, Stockton (@langwitch – might be late s)
10. Isabelle Jones, Head of Languages, The Radclyffe School, Oldham, @icpjones My Languages: http://isabellejones.blogspot.com
11. Teresa MacKinnon @tmack63 Language Centre University of Warwick
12. Clare Seccombe @valleseco Sunderland LA Primary Languages bod
13. Samantha Lunn @spanishsam Head of MFL, Arnold School, Blackpool, LanguagesResources.co.uk

Share/Save

http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm

Share/Save

Technology in Modern Foreign Languages – A Practitioner’s Perspective

Share/Save

By using the local London area, the students were keen to spot our school/landmarks/shops etc that they were familiar with and even argue about how to get where and best.  This also let students consolidate shops/places having only the English on screen as it won’t say “supermarché” on shop signs, which would be a giveaway had we gone directly to France.  Admittedly, going to France would add an excellent cultural element and this could be developed in future lessons.

Using screendumps from Streetview of a nearby shopping street gave a chance to practise the prepositions of place in a more engaging and familiar context: Utilisez les prépositions de lieu pour décrire les images: e.g. la pharmacie est à côté de la banque

View Larger Map

In another activity, the newly added Google Maps functionality of viewing Streetview and the traditional aerial map view simultaneously came in very useful.  I pretended I was a tourist standing in front of the school and students had to give me directions - Excusez-moi, pour aller à la bibliothèque s’il vous plaît?.  I then followed their instructions accurately in real time on Streetview and Google Maps to check if I would end up where I’m meant to.  The map view allowed phrases like “deuxième rue à gauche” to be produced while the streetview allowed prepositions to be exploited (et c’est au coin, à côté de la pharmacie) This forced students to flesh out their directions and be much more precise with prepositions etc.

View Larger Map

Simon Howells has taken the use of Google Maps a step further, intergating it into an ICT based project.  See his excellent video below and finished product for details and ideas.

Share/Save

Share/Save

Share/Save

With this in mind, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that free tickets are available for the Languages Show 2009 in London’s Olympia on the 30th Oct – 1st Nov.  Simply register for free via their website and print out your tickets.

The show is ” For language learners,l anguage teachers, linguists and everyone who loves language”and features seminars,  exhibitors, intensive and taster language courses and much more besides.  It is sure to be a valuable and inspirational event for anyone with a passion for, or working with language.

Another useful organisation for language teachers, and a sponsor of The Language Show, is ALL – The Assossciation for Language Learning.  Check out their program for lots of interesting and useful events.

Share/Save

My Postgraduate Certificate in Education with the London Institute of Education (IOE) finally kicked off this week with a series of induction lectures and tutorial groups.  Lots of information, lots of housekeeping and lots of educational acronyms (FSM, QCA, DCFS, SEN etc. to name but a few) to get your head around, but more excitingly, lots of knowledgeable and inspiring professors, tutors and fellow students.

The Institute seems by all accounts a rich and diverse forum for learning, discussion and leading research.  The old saying “those who can do, those who can’t teach”, seems to be put firmly to rest given the qualifications and backgrounds of the other training teachers I have met.  With the credit crunch driving people to look for better job security in the public sector, PGCE courses are heavily over subscribed.  This has led to increased competition for places and consequently bumped up the qualification and quality of the intake.

Situated in Bloomsbury, the IOE finds itself  surrounded by iconic places like The British Museum, The British Library and The Wellcome Trust.  In all, a very inspiring place to be – steeped in history and tradition, yet looking to the future through learning, research, events, talks and discussions.  Indeed, this evening, with every intention of going to the library, I found myself in the audience of a conversation between the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and The Times editor James Harding about Dawkin’s new book The Greatest Show on Earth.  I never imagined that ticket touts would loiter around outside such events, but I’m glad one did this evening.

Being part of the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) cohort means we have been looking a lot at the decline in uptake of foreign languages at GCSE level, the introduction of compulsory MFL primary learning and reasons for learning languages more generally.  We also had a brief new language learning experience, for me it was a crash course in Russian (да, Зто дом!).  In time, I hope to write a more detailed post on the merits and reasons for learning a language(s).  These past days lectures and discussions have  given me a lot of food for thought on the issue so it may take time to digest.  However, I already find glib, commonly chorused statements such as “It is useful for future employment” being challenged and light being shed on language learning issues that I had never considered before.  As said though, another time, another post…

Image generated by wordle.net

One generic PGCE task we were set to work on was “What constitutes a good teacher?”.  Despite having taught for 2 years and having worked as a Classroom Assistant for another year, I realise I have never deliberately reflected upon this question.  The importance and benefits gained from conscious reflection are becoming more apparent and I look forward to linking some theory with things I might do automatically as a way of analysing and improving my teaching.

You can find some of my thoughts on what constitutes a good teacher as a PDF here: Public_Good_Teacher_09_IOE

Share/Save

La Jetée - a work of genius

With a bit of time to go before I get started on teacher training and edublogging proper, I’ve decided to post a bit of an aside which is nevertheless is still somewhat related to languages and learning.

So, why Beyond the Pier as a blog name? A somewhat convoluted story involving World War III, a personal love of French and photography, Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys ,  the joys of translation and not finding the domain name I really wanted.

While studying French at university I happened across La Jetée while looking for some films to watch as an easy and painless way to improve my French.  In a nutshell, it is the story of time travel in Paris  in the aftermath of apocalyptic World War III.  Survivors carry out time travel experiments as a way to try and save the human race.  Sound vaguely familiar?  That’s probably because Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys subsequent film was based upon Chris Marker’s 1962 short film.  I fell in love with the film and after seeing it had a few moments of genuinely stunned silence.  What captivated me, besides the intelligent and thought provoking storyline, was the format: a 28 minutes long, dialogue free, narrated photomontage of exquisite black and white stills.

In one scene a man travels back in time and walks with his girlfriend in a park and the narrator tells:

“They walk. They look at the trunk of a redwood tree covered with historical dates. She pronounces an English name he doesn’t understand. As in a dream, he shows her a point beyond the tree, hears himself say, “This is where I come from …”"

“Ils marchent.  Ils s’arrêtent devant une coupe de séquoia couverte de dates historiques. Elle prononce un nom étranger qu’il ne comprend pas. Comme en rêve, il lui montre un point en dehors de l’arbre. Il s’entend dire : « Je viens de là »”

This is essentially where the name Beyond the Pier comes from.  I loved the idea of the man pointing to somewhere beyond the tree, as yet ungrown, the future, and the man delivering his private in-joke “This is where I come from”.  So this blog should have been called Beyond the Tree but alas, somebody had already nabbed the domain name.  Settling for second best I chose Beyond the Pier given that the film revolves around an event on a pier at Paris Orly airport which is where the film’s title comes from.  In short, it is a reference to the future, the use of technology and communication, all of which I feel suit the aim of this blog, albeit in a rather obscure fashion.

Subtitling of films and translations are something I find extremely interesting and this film opened the door for me to this world.  Why a redwood tree when sequoia exists in English?  Why “They look at the trunk” rendered as “they stop in front of”.  Is a pier or jetty something you would have an an airport?  Where is the water?!  This kind of micro-translation, that takes contextual and cultural nuances into account, is an excellent linguistic exercise and something I hope to take advantage of during my teaching.  More generally, watching foreign language films with subtitles gives an extra support as a language learner and it can help you by

• immersing you in the target learning language.
• exposing you to new vocabulary and phrases.
• reinforcing those words you already know.
• helping you to take more fully on board words you slightly recognise but have not yet assimilated into the vocabulary you use by way of textual confirmation
• helping you get a sense of the linguistic rhythm and pronunciation of native speakers
• exposing you to the foreign culture and history.
• letting you do all this while watching an (hopefully) interesting film.

I intend a future post on some interesting/odd translations from films and TV, if you have any suggestions or material just leave a comment.  If you have come this far in this post you deserve a reward and here it is.  In my mind one of the greatest and most unique films of all time here on Youtube, in its entirety, completely free.  No excuses!

Share/Save