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November 25, 2009

Creating calligrams

After having successfully learnt Gloria Fuertes' poem Mi escuela, mi escuela, I asked my students to copy the poem as a calligram. I had already read a very good post from Claire Seccombe about calligrams and I wanted to try it out with my students.

You can use calligrams for lots of different activities such as "displaying key words, introducing new vocabulary or including a glossary on a worksheet". For example you write the word "grand" in big letters and the word "petit" in small letters. This way students "visually" remember what the words mean.

It could also involve sentences and even a poem, as I did with my Spanish students. I asked them to be creative and think of a shape which reminded them of the poem. Lots of them thought of the peace and love symbol to represent it and others had great ideas too!
I then took photos of their calligrams and posted them on the school blog so they could all see their imaginative work :)

What about you? Have used calligrams in lessons? 

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Filed under  //   calligram   creative   imagination   motivate   poem   Spanish   students   teachers   writing  

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September 26, 2009

European Day of Languages outcome.

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?

(download)

(download)

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Filed under  //   assembly   competition   EDL   european   European Day of Languages   involve   languages   poem   song   staff   students   teachers  

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June 23, 2009

Join a wiki: Reading Resources 4 French Teachers!



I follow Cristy Vogel, High school French teacher on Twitter and she has set up this fantastic wiki to make our students read French books. The aim of the wiki is "to collaborate and find the sources you need to empower students to read in French".

There are already great contributions with videos, poems, articles and websites, as well as ideas to implement reading strategies in the classroom. I have added my little contribution today with resources related to the 20th century's writer, Jean Giono and his book L'homme qui plantait des arbres (The man who planted trees).

I do believe reading books in a another language and understanding the literature of another country helps you to better learn a language and understand the culture behind the language.

So if you:

  • need help with your plans for literature/reading in the classroom, click on the Discussion tab and start a thread with your question and/or comment.
  • have a link to a video, song, poem, article, website, etc. for a reading, click on the century for which you have something to share and get started today!
Thank you Cristy for setting up this brilliant wiki. Actually, it would be nice now, to have the same for Spanish!

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Filed under  //   books   collaborate   French   learning   literature   poem   read   reading   resources   share   song   strategies   students   teachers   teaching   video   wiki  

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