image chef

Make a greeting like this on http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/

European Day of Languages Ideas

If you are thinking of some ideas to celebrate EDL (26 September) here are some I have come across.

Use Wallwisher to creat a message board like this one
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/EurDayLangs

And here is a list from teachers
http://edl2009ideas.wikispaces.com/

learn French, Italian Spanish on Twitter

Starting today a daily twitter lesson with link to minipodcast for pronunciation.

Follow @learnfrench @learnitalian @learnspanish from your twitter account, twitter.com

Minipodcast here for French, Italian, Spanish

Just in time for the holidays - maybe too late for the Mexican honeymoon tho'!

Bonnes vacances!

papers

I have just posted the uncollected papers and certificates to your schools first class. Look out for them!

Bonnes vacances!

Graduation photo

I've just been in France for a week so didn't get a chance to post this sooner. I'll get the papers and marks to those who couldn't attend next week.

Thanks to South Ayrshire QIO Lynn Crossan for attending and presenting the certificates.

There seems to be a possibility of South Ayrshire continuing with Module 2 next year. Watch this space!

Wednesday

I have booked the Treehouse in the Sandgate for Wednesday at 5.30. I have counted Scott and Gill in along with quite a few from Module 2. I have to confirm numbers that afternoon. Please remind me on Wednesday to do that!

Wed 10th June

Quite a few of you have emailed to say you can't post comments. Can't find a reason for this. Anyway it looks like we will move on from the prizegiving to the Treehouse along with some of the Module 2 teachers. Expect we will be there by about 5.30. It would be good to know approximate numbers. Email me if you can't get comments to work!
Looking forward to seeing you again!

Results

I am pleased to tell you that you have all passed! Marks range from B2 - A
Very well done!

I am planning to return your work on Wednesday 10th June at 4 pm on campus and move on to somewhere for a bar meal - suggestions in comments please!

Paris widget

Public holiday Monday

For those of you still to hand in assignments please note that the campus will be closed on Monday. I will be in on Tuesday afternoon.

Microteaching

We had a lovely range of topics and activities. Rosslyn can be seen playing Kim's game with velcroed classroom objects. She also had pencil cases and contents for each group member. Jennifer found Mr Potato Head colouring in for listen and do body parts. Scott had a red bag of animals for talking practice. Lots of great ideas! Well done!

Micro Teaching success criteria

I think I gave you this already but here's a reminder anyway!

Task: teach a few words/phrases, give lots of practise, decode words cards, pupils use new language in an activity. 

Success criteria:
use a good amount of French in interactions
confident use of French, good pronunciation, accurate grammar
task explained in simple terms accompanied by gestures and demonstration,
good interaction with class
words spelt correctly on word cards / worksheet
attractive resources, colourful, big enough to be seen, unambiguous

Checklist:
o learning intentions
o explain the task in simple terms
o with gestures and demonstration
o check comprehension
o gender help
o use praise
o give feedback, correct poor pronunciation
o brisk pace, variation
o “realistic” context
o not too much repetition rather use guessing games
o attractive flashcards or other props
o worksheets, if any, attractively word processed and accurate
o when showing word cards, be sure to discuss pronunciation, make connections to words they know with similar spelling and links to English, (this done in English)
o skills: how will we remember what this means (this done in English)
o interaction with class – use of mini whiteboards or other props, cue cards,
o pupils engaged perhaps in paired speaking or acting as teacher
o at end some AiFL feedback

Paper by Dan Tierney

This paper Where are we going with primay foreign languages, from 2005 by Dan Tierney and Lore Gallastegi of Strathclyde is good for essay!

Curriculum for Excellence news

Newly published today: Principles and Practice and updated Experiences and Outcomes for Modern LanguagesClick here

Useful for the assignment!

poisson d'avril

Poisson d'Avril

View more presentations from Alice Ayel.

Twitter as a tool for teachers

Networking tool twitter is great for teachers!

9 reasons to use twitter in education from Laura Walker, a languages teacher.

Find teachers with your interests here twitter4teachers

Follow me at twitter.com/kaymcmeekin! Keep in touch!

Audio files

I have started to upload old audio files to Podomatic. So far I've done the French sound system that I have mentioned before from my French Early Years Course, 2002. Listen here There is a six second pause before I get going!

lundi 23 mars

We started with chain questions and had a look at an American video on gender and articles. It is a bit weird but think it is a good explanation. 

It mentions some clues to gender eg 

Nouns that end in  -ette -ée -tion -ie ière -ance -ence -ure are feminine.

Nouns that end in -eau and most consonants are usually masculine.

This is far from foolproof! Best just to learn the article with the noun.

We had fun with food rhymes and made up a little ditty in French in groups. I didn't note down what you had written. Post your song in comments!

Additional food vocab: miam miam = yum yum and berk or beurk = yuck

We did some more work on nasal vowels. 

For the last half hour we discussed the use of blogs. Notes for this on mlpscpd.blogspot.com

blackboard

blackboard  is the university site. 

you should now be able to log on

try your banner id starts with B00 followed by @uws.ac.uk  as your user name

your password should be your Date of Birth as 6 digit number

or if that doesn't work uws followed by your DOB

On it there are links to docs and papers but I think I have given you most of these already so don't panic if you can't get in.

links to docs Click onMLPS module information

Next week - writing!

Assessment

We will do the writing on 30 March. Write prepared piece from memory. Dictionary use is permitted. This will only take 15 minutes.
Micro Teaching
half come one day and the other half the other day
Monday 20 April: Suzanne, Eleanor, Gavin, Jillian, Gill, Germaine, Fiona, Lynn
Monday 27 April: Rosslyn, Scott, Diane, Louise, Jodie, Jennifer, Lorna, Lesley Ann
(have swapped Jillian with Scott, since Monday)
Written assignment is due 1 May. I'll get anonymous cover papers and you can post in or deliver.
I have added Micro Teaching Success Criteria to the Assessment Folder in My Teaching Files
Rosslyn, we can make alternative arrangements for you if necessary.

Pâques - Easter

Here are some Easter things here in case you need it soon.

Joyeuses Pâques - Happy Easter!

Nice wee poem- Cétait Pâques

Song le petit lapin de Pâques

En allant chercher mon pain

Make a bunny card here

lundi 16 mars

It was lovely to see Rosslyn again!

We started with some more work on nasal vowels.  I found some interesting notes on teaching French phonics from a presentation at this month's primary languages show in Liverpool by Jo Rhys Jones from Cornwall and Lynne Erler form Oxford University. This is where I got the sacks posters which I modified and have uploaded to My Teaching Files.

Working in pairs teachers were asked to fill in examples of each sound from known words, ideally short, monosyllabic words like bon, vin, brun, dent. 

We explored rhymes with a French set of word cards to find rhymes 

and the well known rhyme

à Paris, à Paris sur mon petit cheval gris (H/O) and activboard file

Lynne Erler's 

We also discussed time scale for assignments which I will post separately!

Dans mon pays d'Espagne

This traditional song has it all, repetition (sing every line twice), actions and a great follow-up activity. Flashcards of the vocabulary held up by pupils would help with the order

Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé 2x
Il y a un soleil, comme ça 2x (make a circle)

Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé 2x
Il y a des montagnes, comme ça 2x (make pointy mountains)
Et un soleil, comme ça.

Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé 2x
Il y a la mer, comme ça 2x (make waves)
Et des montagnes, comme ça 2x
Et un soleil, comme ça

Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé 2x
Il y a des danseuses, comme ça 2x (hands in position -1 arm up other down)
Et y a la mer, comme ça 2x
Et des montagnes, comme ça 2x
Et un soleil, comme ça

Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé 2x
Il y a des taureaux, comme ça 2x (make horns)
Et des danseuses, comme ça 2x
Et y a la mer, comme ça 2x
Et des montagnes, comme ça 2x
Et un soleil, comme ça

Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé 2x
Il y a du bon vin, comme ça 2x (drink wine)
Et des taureaux, comme ça 2x
Et des danseuses, comme ça 2x
Et y a la mer comme ça 2x
Et des montagnes, comme ça 2x
Et un soleil, comme ça

Dans mon pays d’Espagne,
Olé !

Maybe des guitares instead of du bon vin

Make up one for dans mon pays d’Ecosse or another country.  Could be a competition, le facteur X!

Ecosse

la mer

des montagnes

de la pluie (rain, noun)

le monstre du Loch Ness

des châteaux

du haggis

de l'Irn Bru

des moutons

des vaches poilues (hairy cows, fpl for Highland cows)

Comic Relief

Former colleague Mark Pentleton who runs the very successful languages podcasts Radio Lingua Network has produced a tongue in cheek course in Scottish for Comic Relief. For £3 donation all of which goes to Comic Relief you can download 3 lessons, plus you get a 25% discount off your next purchase.

Full details here

Pass the word.

lundi 10 mars

We talked about starters and plenaries. (H/O)

Played a video of some shops from youtube to get us in the French mood

We also played a Flash  game of COUNTDOWN which was originally a French TV game called des chiffres et des lettres! The numbers game works well

un grand et cinq petits 

vous avez 30 secondes

Do the solution in French too.

Letters game more suited to English but worked too

une consonne, une voyelle, encore une consonne etc

I've uploaded the folder to the Shared work file. Enjoy!

Did a lot of work on nasal vowels using minicards and the talktime postcards

Here's my dustbin game made up in minutes on classtools.net

http://classtools.net/my/dustbin44428_french_nasal_vowels_.htm

Click here for full screen version

Listening practice

If you would like to tune your ear, try BBC Ma France 

There are lots of videos and you can turn both  the  French and English subtitles on and off.

For next time be able to tell me what you are planning to do (roughly) in your micro teaching which will be after Easter.

lundi 2 mars

Merci à Scott et à tous pour vos présentations!

Paris - interactive onion map

Picture quiz - but only 7 questions. Click here to open in a new window

Song Aux Champs Elysées by Joe Dassin

has an easy chorus
aux Champs-Elysées
aux Champs-Elysées
au soleil, sous la pluie

à midi ou à minuit

il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs Elysées (there's everything you want on the Champs Elysees

Here are links to 2 versions on youtube

singing and photos of Paris

karaoke version words, singing and pictures

more later

Coffee

Apologies from Claire who forget to order catering! Keep your receipts and bring them next week and I will refund you.

History of MLPS in Scotland -timeline

I have been using Timeglider for the first time. This is a work in progress!

It is easier to see in a new window. Drag the green slider to 25 years.

lundi 23 février

We started with revamped chain questions done in groups. The updated sheets are now in my teaching files. Printed them on to different coloured card and cut out unevenly jigsaw-style so that when finished could be reassembled to check the order.  Of course you can change the questions to suit your purpose but seems a good revision exercise (to do as a warm up) and excellent practice of reading and question forms.

We had more presentations from Lynn, Gavin, Gill and Jillian. Very entertaining! Remaining ones next week.

This is the page that gives tips on deciphering French voc eg chameau, ch is c and eau is el, so camel!

Discussed whether to teach un/une or le/la first and decided it depended on the voc and the followup activity. I will have a think about how to practise correspondence le and un, la and une

We had a listen to the Le La song . The video wouldn't work through websweeper though!

We went on briefly to Paris homework. Think I need to develop this more so bring your notes again next week.

Finished off with carte d'identité - sheet, also in my teaching files as a doc

Scott has promised to do the register next week. Merci

Will focus on pronunciation next week. I think I gave you a stapled handout of sounds way back? Can you read over and bring along. If not, let me know in comments!

Bonne semaine!

Paris

les monuments de Paris

(notice how the noun is first and the name second)

la tour Eiffel

l'arc de Triomphe

la cathédrale de Notre Dame

le musée du Louvre

le (basilique du) Sacré Cœur

la place de la Concorde

l'avenue des Champs Elysées

Homework - Paris research

Find out the names of the main Paris sights in French and 1 or 2 interesting facts about them in English!

http://www.paris.org

If you have any Paris souvenirs or postcars bring them too.

CPD for your colleagues

Roselyne has asked me to do further CPD for South Ayrshire. There will be 4 free standing sessions on Thursday in March in St John's at 4- 6pm

5th  ICT for ML teachers

12th blogging - the why and the how

19th active learning

26th French pronunciation

They are on the online CPD. No charge.

Pass the word!

Madame Rouge

Madame Rouge is really huge
She loves to eat French bread.
That’s the way to remember
That rouge means red.

This is an example of a (mental) image helping us to remember a meaning. Rhyme and rhythm are also used.

lundi neuf février

Merci à Lynn d'avoir fait l'appel!

We had several of you showing your ideas on presenting new language.

 I always find this interesting!

Here are some general points which I hope are helpful and are not meant as criticism. 

• Visuals need to be big enough to be seen and be sure to move them from side to side so that all the class can see.

• Think of colour / gender coding

• When using word cards go over the pronunciation. Talk about how to remember meaning and what letter combinations they have seen before

• Give feedback so that class knows what the correct response was eg when saying wrong word keep going until you get to the right one then move on or when doing indiquez la bonne image raise the  correct one to confirm

• Make sure you have the correct gender and pronunciation of the key words you are teaching -

site with audio clips of French words (no meanings)

and French audio dictionary

We did a chain question game based on Richard Tallaron's. We think it would be better done in groups. I will work on that.

We did a dictionary skills exercise for which there was a handout.  Dr Who smartboard file and a Millionaire game I made up on superteachertools.com based on same choices.

We finished up with some creative writing based on the sans toi model (separate post)

Post your best lines in the comments of that post! Some were more romantic than others!

No class next week - mid term! Bonnes vacances! 

In 2 weeks time we'll hear the rest of the mini presentations and I'll post some other homework soon.

la Saint Valentin

poème d'amour

Le quatorze février, c est la Saint Valentin, la fête des amoureux. Pour fêter ce jour on va composer des poèmes d'amour selon cette rubrique -

Sans toi, je suis un jardin sans fleurs

Sans toi, je suis un lac sans eau

sans = without and it can be followed by a noun with no article eg sans fleurs

you could put comme = like after je suis but I think it sounds better without!

A vous maintenant - postez vos vers en cliquant sur Comments

plus d'infos sur cette fête ici

Joyeuse Saint Valentin!  - happy Valentine's day

je t'aime! - I love you!

lundi deux février

C'est déjà le mois de février et aujour'dhui il y a de la neige!

Today Diane took the register. Lynne could you do it next week?

We then discussed history of MLPS prompted by a ppt which I will shortly upload to My teaching files. You will also find articles in a folder called "papers"

I prepared a handout on activities for MLPS and we worked our way through that. This is a work in prgress and you can add to the lists roughly divided into Listening and Talking, Reading and Writing. In practice most cativities cover at least 2 of the skills.

We spent some time on Reading and Reading skills looking at these sites
www.africanimo.com and tried the activities suggested by Lynne Horn on her blog We may revisit this.
I also suggested the site journal des enfants and looked at the article on the Obama children
Here is their article on the recent plane crash into the Hudson river
All of these web pages are real, interesting, relevant and not contrived or condescending. They are of course challenging and pupils are not expected to understand everything but gain satisfaction from what thy can decipher. I think of it as a puzzle and like detective work.
A site to help you read foreign language pages is lingro. First you copy the url of the web page and then launch lingro, paste it in and select French- English.Click on any word you don't know and a dictionary pops up with suggestions. Brilliant! Here is what the lion page looks like in lingro

Another site I like but we couldn't get into yesterday is mon jt quotidien meaning my daily newsreel (jt- journal télévisé). This is a bit like newsround with several short video clips changed every weekday. This is a listening only exercise so is harder - good for you though! There are often quirky stories under the tab insolite
Here are a couple of interesting ones
the parrot
the car that crashed into a church roof

Homework
Prepare to teach the class 4 words of your choice using some of activities in flashcard presentation and today's handout. This is by way of preparation for the micro teaching.

Bonne semaine!

vokis

Get a Voki now!

lundi 26 janvier

We went over the writing homework. It was of a high standard.

One grammar point that arose was how to express you have been doing something for a spell of time. English would be something like …

I've been married for 10 years

I've lived in Ayr since 1982

I've been teaching for 5 years

If in English it is "have been …  or have done … for a length of time or since with a date" then the construction in French is the Present tense of the verb not past tense as in English and preposition depuis

je suis marié(e) depuis dix ans

j'habite à Ayr depuis 1982

j'enseigne depuis 5 ans

Anyone else who wants their writing corrected please email or post in comments

We spoke about the problems of how to get pupils to write and what we should expect of them. We looked at the 5-14 guidelines and the new outcomes both of which are fairly vague. Writing is of course the end of a long process of the teaching via listening, talking and reading. We talked about support with word banks and had some suggestions for types of activities and context.

Finally and still to do with writing we went to www.voki.com to create a French speaking character. This involves typing French,  listening to the computer voice read it and eventually recording your own voice so writing, listening and talking!

Homework: to create a voki  that looks like you  with some of your personal information

Create an account (free)

You need an active email to confirm account. 

Create and email me your voki. 

Beware of typing names - the French voice simulator will have trouble eg to get it to read Kay I typed quai. Probably best to avoid names. Also it will only accept about 3-4 sentences. 

If you know how to record your voice on to the computer you could try that. It will let you record longer maybe 60 seconds.

You should also see if it is going to work in school websense etc.

We also had a look at www.toondoo.com

This allows you to create a 2 or 3 pane cartoon with speech bubbles. No sound but it is very colourful and motivating for writing!

Again you need to create an account (free) 

If this appeals to you, have a go!

Here are some examples created by B Eds displayed on a wiki

Amusez-vous bien!

Beauvais 14 March

I have just booked my place to Paris-Beauvais. At least 6 of Module 2 are keen. Feel free to book up as well.
It cost £29.50 The handling charge which was £10 on Saturday is now £9.50. The vagaries of Ryanair booking are a mystery!

le 19 janvier

Heureusement que le technicien informatique a réussi à réparer mon portable! Quel soulagement!

We started with the games made up by you. Well done for a nice variety of activities! Please email me kay.mcmeekin@uws.ac.uk any docs so that we can share them.
To create games easily this is the site I was trying to find yesterday http://toolsforeducators.com/
I've made bingo and dominoes using it! You need to print at the time or save as a pdf which you can't go back and edit.

Personal writing homework. Try and base your writing on what you know or have seen.
If you have trouble doing accents, copy and paste these!
é è ê à If you an email me your text before Monday I'll have them marked or if you are brave paste it in comments!

The Simpsons write about themselves here. Use these as an example! Think we may have done them before.

Here is a bit about me
Je m’appelle Kay McMeekin. J’ai cinquante-huit ans et je suis mariée avec David depuis 22 ans. Nous avons deux enfants - une fille qui s’appelle Laura et qui a 21 ans et un fils David qui a 20 ans. Mon mari est prof de langues à la retraite. Nos enfants sont tous les deux à la fac à Glasgow. Laura étudie l’archéologie et David étudie le génie civil. J’habite à Darvel qui se trouve à 35 km de Glasgow. Je vis avec mon mari et notre chien qui s’appelle Holly. Nos enfants vivent à Glasgow dans des appartements loués. Ils nous rendent visite de temps en temps. C’est tout pour le moment!


Listen to Laure! We'll have a go at making a voki next week!

Online Documents

Documents, reports etc Download the pdf, if available. Don't print - they are long!
CFE MODERN LANGUAGES OUTCOMES 2007
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence/outcomes/languages/modernforeignlanguages/index.asp

Citzens of a Multilingual World (aka the Mulgrew) Report 2000
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/education/rati-00.asp rationale
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/education/cmwr-00.asp recommendations
2005 progress report: http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/hmiecoaml.html

5-14 Guidelines 2000
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/guidelines/modernlanguages/index.asp

HMIE
http://www.hmie.gov.uk/Publications.aspx

• Developing the four capacities through modern languages: focusing on successful learners in primary schools. 22/8/2008 .pdf
• Modern Languages - A portrait of current practice in Scottish schools 06/02/2007 .pdf

Standards and Quality: Primary and Secondary Schools 1994-1998: in Modern Languages 01/01/2002

Day trip to Beauvais?

We talked about a day trip to Beauvais last week. I did it last year with a group of trainees in March

http://french07.blogspot.com/2008/03/visite-beauvais.html
Leave Prestwick on 6.40am and return at 11.20pm
Breakfast in Beauvais cafe, tour of market, walk round Beauvais, leisurely lunch, visit to cathedral, shopping, evening meal and back to airport.
It seemed Ryanair had a flight on Saturday 8 March for £11! but already the price has gone up. 

Alternative suggestion Saturday 14 March - price still at £20. The price offer ends on Sunday 18 January.

Post your thoughts in comments below

CD ROM

Rosslyn asked about the video clips we saw last time of the bossy teacher doing her stuff. 

This is from the government produced staff development CD ROM (3 CDs) which should be in all schools. 

Lundi 12 janvier

Today we looked at the assessment for the Module worth 20 credits. 

Part 1 personal writing in French 100 -150 words

Part 2 essay in English on background, history, rationale and current situation for MLPS

Part 3 short lessons presentation - micro teaching

All of this to be done around Easter. Essay could be later as long as I have time to mark it before the June diet.

We started to think about the rationale and history of MLPS in Scotland and identified the big questions

What do we teach? Who is best suited to teach ML in PS? What age/stage is the best to start learning a second language? Why is it mainly French? What about continuity into secondary? What about assessment? What is driving all this?

We didn't get the answers to all of this, by the way!

We discussed our experiences as learners of a language at primary (and secondary)

We started to find out about the government policies that dictate what we do in school.

The MLPS programme was launched with a Circular from the Secretary of State for Scotland in 1989.  A pilot programme of 6 cluster groups in the first year with secondary specialists demonstrating the teaching. Another 6 joined in the following year. The languages taught (French, German, Spanish, Italian) were decided in cluster groups with the proviso being the pupils could continue the same language in secondary. At this time there was no commercial material available. Meanwhile a training programme was being devised which was launched in 1993. This consisted of a 27 day course usually run from October - October for 1 day a week. This was directly funded by the government. Cover was provided to allow teachers out of school. The initial aim was to have 1 primary teacher per school trained who would go back to school and teach the ML. This programme ran for 10 years! Teachers learned by doing the activities; games, stories, craft. 

The original ML 5-14 guidelines were published in 1990 but were more for secondary. Advice to schools and topic frameworks went out to primary schools in 1997 to give more guidanc as to what to teach in primary.  Next big thing - The Citizens of a Multilingual World Report 2000 also know as the Mulgrew Report which still influences us today.

to be continued!

Hope to get you enrolled on the university blackboard site as soon as possible and will provide links to online documents and references and other papers

We spent some time on classroom objects and classroom commands. 

Homework for next week is to come up with a simple activity to teach/practise classroom objects and present it to the group. Do not spend hours on this! Keep it simple!

Bon  courage!

Feast of the Kings

La fête des rois is celebrated in French homes throughout January. There is an excellent post about it here

Pictures of the cake here 

le roi - the king

la reine - the queen

la galette - the cake

la fève - the bean

la couronne - the crown

Chanson

J'aime la galette

Savez-vous comment?

Quand elle est bien faite

Avec du beurre dedans

Tra la la la la la lère etc

I love the Kings' cake

Do you know why?

when it is well made

with butter inside tra la etc