alice’s posterous

What do I remember from school? a song by Sting we learnt in my English class,  a trip to Verdun during my history class. This trip made me understand the word "war" as well as this book our enthusiastic History teacher made use read A l'Ouest rien de nouveau by Erich Maria Remarque. Apart from that, I don't remember much. Why? maybe because lessons were boring. We never took an active part in our learning, most of our lessons were about listening to the teacher's monotonous voice and to take notes. I have found that since I have a PLN, Google reader, Twitter and Friendfeed I have learnt so much more than I did during all the time I spent at school!
Maybe because now I can explore and discover new things, whereas before I was just a passive learner. And maybe that's why many students are not involved in lessons.

This video I found on Shelly Terrell's blog shows what learning should be about: FUN!

This week, in Spanish, we worked on a conversation between a mum and his son about his new girlfriend. The mum wants to know about his son's new girlfriend and keeps asking him how she looks like (description vocabulary: hair, eyes, size...). And of course, the son doesn't want to say much to her mum. This conversation can be found on Gente Joven 1, a great Spanish textbook I mentioned in an earlier post.

First students listened to the conversation and answered questions about it. Then I gave them some key phrases and expressions from the conversation. Some key expressions applied to the mum "A ver, ¡cuentame!" "¿Como es?", "¿Es guapa?"..., others applied to the son "¡Pero mama!", "si, es muy, muy guapa", "Es morena, alta y delgada"...
Students worked in pairs and had to say the phrases with the correct pronunciation and gestures. I let them repeat and repeat the phrases to really get into their roles and pretend they were Spanish people (very loud and with lots of gestures!). Despite the fact the task was quite repetitive, the students really enjoyed repeating the phrases with the correct pronunciation.

Finally, once they got into their roles, I asked students to prepare their own conversations using some of the phrases they repeated as well I using their own. I told them they were going to be recorded and marked on their pronunciation, fluency and the correct use of feminine and masculine words. Students really got engaged and worked hard to prepare and rehearse their presentations.

The following lesson, I recorded students' conversations. Whilst, they were being recorded the other groups would mark them on pronunciation, fluency and the correct use of feminine and masculine words. At the end of each recording, we would discuss the performance. I noticed students would always remain positive in their comments but would also be sharp on incorrect sentences
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I was extremely pleased with students' performances and I could really see they enjoyed doing the task. I posted their recordings on the school blog and I have asked them to post some comments.

What about you? have you experienced a fun and engaging speaking task?

I am not a big fan of textbooks and was thinking of creating my own exercises this year since my new school has very few resources but I found a brillant textbook called Gente Joven in the school library.

Good points about this textbook:

• Everything is in Spanish, there is no English explanation or translation. For me, it is very important to immerse pupils in the target language. This is how toddlers learn how to speak.
  
• The exercises are fun, engaging and challenging. For example, we were describing how people look like and there was an exercise about a casting for a TV serie. Pupils had to say why they would choose this boy or this girl. So not only, they had to say basic sentences describing people, thay also had to give their opinions using "creo que el chico puede ser ... porque...".
  
• The teacher's book is full of great ideas to get students involved with group and independent work. The collaborative listening activity which I posted earlier on this week is based on the teacher's book.
  
• There are also tasks to assess students such as creating the school website in Spanish or recording a radio show for a speaking assignment, along with sheets to mark pupils and to let them reflect on how they performed (again all in Spanish).
  

I also went on the publishing website "Difusión" and found a list of useful resources for free. So only, you have to register to access them.

What about you? do you use a very good textbook or create your own resources?

I found this fab quote today:

"A few of my keener students have asked me to give them with advice and hints to help them keep their Spanish going over the summer, in anticipation of next academic year. Earlier today, over at http://www.asisehace.net/blog, I provided them with a list of websites containing audio and video resources that will help them keep their Spanish ticking over and, who knows? They might even learn one or two new things. The list is copied below:..."
from http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1187
You should read the whole article.

What about you? Do you have a list of fun and engaging resources to learn a language?

Last week, I was outraged when I read some comments on a TES forum about Twitter. Obviously, they were comments made by people who have no idea of what Twitter is about but still they have the need to criticize it.

When my brother (@chewie33 on Twitter) told me about Twitter last summer, I thought "what's the point in writing what you're having for breakfast?!". I didn't know much about social networking. I had just registered on Facebook and I quite liked it because I was getting in touch with old friends I had lost contact with. But that was all and I thought Twitter was completely pointless. Nevertheless, I carried on and started sharing more useful information in relation with my job and other areas of interest to me. I also started blogging on Posterous and then I started to meet new interesting people.

For me Twitter is as @langwitches describes it in her fantastic post about a traditional Argentinean Asado (BBQ) and Social Networking in the 21st century. It is like having a conversation with lots of different people at a party. Yesterday, I was having a leaving do at my house with a big barbecue and my friends and family and it was like being on Twitter and having different conversations about different topics. At times, I would be quiet and listening, at other times, I would be participating, I would leave a conversation and follow another one. Sometimes, the conversation would be pointless (i.e. about what we're having for breakfast! because we are humans), sometimes it would be meaningful.

Thanks to Twitter, I have met a bunch of great people from all over the world and I have learnt so much from them. My teaching job has become so much fun and exciting because I am always keen to try out the new things I learn on Twitter. So please, stop criticizing and start giving Twitter a go!

And you? what do you compare Twitter with?

I have been watching OSS 117 Rio ne répond plus, the second movie about the famous French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (who shall be referred to as Hubert, to spare you the tedious length of his name) and I've found it as funny (even funnier) than the previous one OSS 117 Le Caire, un nid d'espions.

Hubert (played by great actor Jean Dujardin) is the anti-hero, a parody of the traditional espionage movie. He is the stereotype of the arrogant Frenchman, misogynistic, a chauvinist, filled with racial, colonial and cultural prejudices. The character is so grotesque and exaggerated, it is impossible not to laugh at his stupidity. And when we laugh, we can do it without feeling guilty because it is not the Arabs, Jews or Chinese that we are laughing at, but the outdated attitude of the old-school Frenchman.
Hubert is a mix of Austin Powers and James Bond, but in the French way with alcohol, women, and deranged dance moves. It is very politically incorrect but it works because it is French!

There was a time in France during the summer holidays when children would have a "cahier de vacances" which was an exercise book to revise the curriculum covered during the year and to start the new school year in September well prepared! I can clearly remember myself, my brother and sister and my cousins working on the dining table in the morning  in Arcachon so that we could then go to beach in the afternoon! We would often see some "poorer" children studying their "cahiers de vacances" on their beach towels being watched over by their sadistic parents or even grand-parents!



Well... Times have changed as this year the French government has realized it is the 21st century and is providing resources and exercises online for free (I forgot to mention that our parents had to pay for these "cahiers de vacances")! YES, believe it or not, they have created this online academy. You can access the resources either by subject or by level. I had a look at the exercises and they look fun and engaging although the explanations at the start are a bit tedious! There are lots of resources that might be useful for French teachers and also Spanish teachers.
If you are teaching French phonics to help your students improve their speaking skills, follow this link, there are lots of activities related to sounds. I played them with my 3 years old son and he enjoyed them.
If you cannot find the activities, make sure you scroll down the page and click on "Accéder aux activités".

What about you? did you have to carry on working during holidays when you were a child?

This idea came from Sherry Amorocho (@amor8 on twitter) and from her great post on her blog about students explaining a Spanish grammar point to each other and creating a little activity for their classmates to practice.

I thought this was enticing well with the buzz word going on at the moment in my school: PLTS (= Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills) which comprises six groups of skills:

• independent enquirers

• creative thinkers

• reflective learners

• team workers

• self-managers

• effective participants.

So I tried this activity with my year 7 groups (11-12 years old). The grammar point was about the French prepositions a / a l' / a la / au / aux / (= to/at) after être (= to be) or aller (= to go).

I skipped Sherry Amorocho's first step which is about students explaining to each other the concept because I was running out of time to include it in the lesson. So I explained the concept to them first, then did two little exercises to make sure most of the group grabbed the concept.

Finally we got to the interesting part of the lesson! I asked my students to get into groups of 2-3 and create a game to practice the concept. They then had to show their game to another group so that they could play. At the end of the lesson, the class had to choose the best game and why they thought it was good.

Of course, my lesson was far too long and the students only managed to create their games. But with only 2 hours a week to deliver French, I have to squeeze a lot in a single lesson to complete all the things we have to do as part of the curriculum!

The main thing is that my students liked creating a game. I made sure that everyone in the group had an assigned job: a low ability student who likes drawing would be assigned to design the game, whereas a top ability student would write the rules. All groups came up with very good games, students were all engaged. It is just a shame we didn't have time to really test the games but it is definitely something I will try again in the future.
Thank you Sherry for inspiring me!

Below you can see my PowerPoint lesson and pictures of two games made by the students.

And you? What kind of PLTS activities have you tried yet?

   

Click here to download:

Students_creating_a_grammar_ga.zip (4658 KB)

I am officially moving to Germany, Weimar in July to teach Spanish and French at Thuringia International School.
It is all very exciting but my German is quite basic and I have not spoken it since school years really!

So in order to refresh my German, I have found a great blog called GermanHeit (@GermanHeit on twitter). It is written by Babsi (@babsis on twitter) from Nuremberg, Germany and it is full of grammar tips and fun German media and comics. It also gives you an insight to German culture and food with key vocabulary to remember. I have suscribed to it on my Google reader and because each post is quite short, I only spend 5 minutes everyday learning or revising new German phrases and expressions.
I think it might also be useful for German teachers to show German comics or a short video clip to students.

Hope you like this blog as I do and enjoy today's comics :)