alice’s posterous

As I mentioned in my previous post, we celebrated the European Day of Languages at my school with a little competition I found on the mflresources forum. The students really seemed to enjoy guessing the different languages spoken by the staff and all the staff contributed which made the day successful. You can view the competition sheets adapted from the ones on the mflresources forum below.

In the lower school, each class had planned a little activity based on languages and presented it during an assembly. One class sang "Frere Jacques" in French, another class read a poem in Japanese, another one sang a song in Zulu, another class said "my name is..." in different languages. It was great to see the whole school involved to celebrate languages.

What about you? Was your EDL a success?

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As the European Day of Languages is fast approaching (it is celebrated on the 26th of September, but since it falls Saturday, we will celebrate it in school on Friday), I thought I would write a post about it.

As mentioned on the website :
"The general objectives of the European Day of Languages are:

1. Alerting the public to the importance of language learning and diversifying the range of languages learnt in order to increase plurilingualism and intercultural understanding;

2. Promoting the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe, which must be preserved and fostered;

3. Encouraging lifelong language learning in and out of school, whether for study purposes, for professional needs, for purposes of mobility or for pleasure and exchanges."

This year, I am planning to organise a little competition I found on the mflresources forum. During the day, pupils have to spot which language members of staff are using. This is agreed in advance, and staff members simply 'drop' some language other than English into the lesson or in the corridor. Pupils who can identify the languages win a prize and the teacher who made the best effort to speak a different language also wins a prize. Some teachers have already agreed to speak Chinese (Cantonese), Hindi, Vietnamese, Japanese, Irish! I will tell you how it went on Friday (hopefully, very well!).

Otherwise, you can join a Facebook group to share ideas and a great wiki created by @dominic_mcg to share experiences and good practice with even links to resources from the seven previous EDLs!

What are you planning to do on EDL?

Yesterday I read this fascinating post from Shelly Terrell ( @ShellTerrell on Twitter) about cooperation versus competition.

Shelly Terrell explains her journey at an English camp for German speaking children and how she "decided to try Alfie Kohn’s idea to make the classroom more cooperative versus competitive." I had never thought about competition that way as I have always been brought up in a competitive environment. I think being French, the French Education system is maybe one of the most competitive system in place! However surely if students learn how to cooperate instead of competing, they will improve better?

One thing that intrigued me even more is that Shelly used cooperative games to make children work together. For example, she played the musical chairs in a completely different way. Now if you think about it, musical chairs is a prime example of a game the does more to exclude children rather than involve them. This popular game often becomes a pushing battle for the few remaining competitors while the other children are left as bored spectators. Well... Not if you play musical chairs where when the music stops everyone needs to find a seat. The goal is ensure everyone has a place! As the game continues you remove an additional chair after each round. With a smaller amount of chairs available, children will find the need to work together and cooperate in order to find room for everyone. This may mean sitting on laps and sharing chairs. In this version no one is eliminated or asked to wait!

After reading this post, having a more cooperative learning environment in my classroom is something I am willing to explore next year.So thank you Shelly for your inspiration!

Have a look at other cooperative games ideas, I think they are really interesting and could be applied in MFL teaching, especially the "Name Ball" game.

 

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And you? Have you tried cooperative learning before?