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.