I think langauge workshops are a great way to motivate and enthuse pupils and are great fun for teachers too!!! The idea is to spend half a day (up till lunch time) on each workshop and obviously time restraints are an issue!! These are some of the workshops that I want to try out in the future:
Languages Enterprise
This one I already have underway(ish) and hopefully it will take place one day in the Easter to May half term for GT students in year 8. The idea is that it is a Dragon's Den/Apprentice style day, where the pupils work in groups to invent a food product. They must come up with the packanging, and advert/poster and a pitch all in the target language, which they will then present to a small audience of guests. I am really looking forward to this!
Other ideas are a rap workshop, a graffiti workdhop, an fashion workshop, an art workshop and a history workshop. All of these would be designed for pupils of different abilities to motivate, enthuse and to inroduce them to the more exciting elements of the culture of the country that they are studying :)
Monday 14 February 2011
My new ideas
I have compiled a list of the ideas that I would like to try out in my classroom. All, I am sure, have probably been tried before!! And who knows which ones will work and which will fail? But you never know until you try :)
-Language Labs
My HoD and I are going to look at some in action. I think they are a really nice idea, and bring something to MFL that can set it apart from other subjects. Especially if used as a KS4 privellege.
-Chat facilities
I wonder whether MSN, Facebook, Twitter and blogging can be brought into MFL teaching. Social networking is such a big hit with students and is bound to 'up' the profile of a subject. Being communication tools, there can be many ways to bring these chat facilities into languages. Unfortunately, security is always going to be an issue with such technologies and this is something that needs to be taken into consideration before using them in the classroom.
-Mobile phones
I think these could be much more effective, much cheaper and much more useful than senteo pods. With sites like pollanywhere.com they have the same function and there are many other interactive communication games that a teacher can lead. I want to look more into this.
-Avatars
Because a lot of early language learning is about describing yourself, your surroundings and things that are personal to you, I think that avatars could be the perfect way to engage younger KS3 pupils. I imagine that the majority of year sevens would be eager to get their hands on a self-created virtual character for whom they could create their own world to be described in the target language!! I would have LOVED that when I was at school!!
-Graffiti vocab logs
For lower ability pupils who are just turned off by the idea of recording vocab in the conventional 'vocab book' way, this is sure to get them more engaged and be more useful to them as a visual tool when they come to revise for assessments. Also, there are so many great sites that allow to produce graffiti for free :)
-Recording music
Ipods have many uses in the classroom but one great one that could help massively with pronunciation practise is the ability to record music. Pupils could record themselves rapping or singing songs by TL artists. Not only will this help students with the pronunciation, it will also give them a great insight into the culture of the country that they are studying.
-Media
I am very keen for getting KS4 students to provide some resources for KS3 students. The first thing I want to get them doing is making an online magazine (termly or half termly?????) with stuff in it that younger students will actually be interested in E.g. football, maybe some rap lyrics, etc etc. Another idea is for KS4 to film themselves giving grammar explanations as podcasts and put them on our VLE for the younger students to access when they are doing their homework.
-Video Conferencing
Students seem to really suffer from 'exchange fear' these days. Whatever happend to the excitement of staying with a different family for a week?! I reckon some video conferencing with foreign schools, and maybe even local schools, would really helpful.
And last but not least...
-ICT project learning
I want to trial moving away from the traditional text book log and giving my pupils projects to be completed online. Bit like blog. Could be interesting... but need to get round the problem of some pupils not having computer access at home... perhaps they could have their own paper log in a folder.
-Language Labs
My HoD and I are going to look at some in action. I think they are a really nice idea, and bring something to MFL that can set it apart from other subjects. Especially if used as a KS4 privellege.
-Chat facilities
I wonder whether MSN, Facebook, Twitter and blogging can be brought into MFL teaching. Social networking is such a big hit with students and is bound to 'up' the profile of a subject. Being communication tools, there can be many ways to bring these chat facilities into languages. Unfortunately, security is always going to be an issue with such technologies and this is something that needs to be taken into consideration before using them in the classroom.
-Mobile phones
I think these could be much more effective, much cheaper and much more useful than senteo pods. With sites like pollanywhere.com they have the same function and there are many other interactive communication games that a teacher can lead. I want to look more into this.
-Avatars
Because a lot of early language learning is about describing yourself, your surroundings and things that are personal to you, I think that avatars could be the perfect way to engage younger KS3 pupils. I imagine that the majority of year sevens would be eager to get their hands on a self-created virtual character for whom they could create their own world to be described in the target language!! I would have LOVED that when I was at school!!
-Graffiti vocab logs
For lower ability pupils who are just turned off by the idea of recording vocab in the conventional 'vocab book' way, this is sure to get them more engaged and be more useful to them as a visual tool when they come to revise for assessments. Also, there are so many great sites that allow to produce graffiti for free :)
-Recording music
Ipods have many uses in the classroom but one great one that could help massively with pronunciation practise is the ability to record music. Pupils could record themselves rapping or singing songs by TL artists. Not only will this help students with the pronunciation, it will also give them a great insight into the culture of the country that they are studying.
-Media
I am very keen for getting KS4 students to provide some resources for KS3 students. The first thing I want to get them doing is making an online magazine (termly or half termly?????) with stuff in it that younger students will actually be interested in E.g. football, maybe some rap lyrics, etc etc. Another idea is for KS4 to film themselves giving grammar explanations as podcasts and put them on our VLE for the younger students to access when they are doing their homework.
-Video Conferencing
Students seem to really suffer from 'exchange fear' these days. Whatever happend to the excitement of staying with a different family for a week?! I reckon some video conferencing with foreign schools, and maybe even local schools, would really helpful.
And last but not least...
-ICT project learning
I want to trial moving away from the traditional text book log and giving my pupils projects to be completed online. Bit like blog. Could be interesting... but need to get round the problem of some pupils not having computer access at home... perhaps they could have their own paper log in a folder.
Sunday 13 February 2011
A new project
I have been asked to take part in a project to help boost numbers for KS4 MFL. I am working with the Head of New Technologies at the school and so far I have come up with a few plans to get me going. The idea is to use ICT and new technologies to motivate and enthuse students of French and German - this blog will serve as a log of all the new ides that I try...
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