Souffler - a breath of fresh air

MFL transition - some thoughts

This isn't a 'materials' post. I have nothing to give away on this apart from a few thoughts about the fraught topic of how to ensure a smooth transition from Primary MF learning to Secondary.

 First, as someone who has taught in both, a word to my secondary colleagues. Run with the gift you have been given. Celebrate it. Use it. Be glad of it. Be challenged by it but don't succumb to the temptation to become cynical about it. Moaning about having to cope with so many pupils with a strong motivation to learn languages should be publicly damned to be as silly as it sounds.

There are some fantastic MFL primary practitioners out there. In many cases they are passing on pupils who are primed and switched onto the international dimension. Even where pupils come from schools where staff have struggled to rise to the challenge of delivering a language entitlement, progress will have been made. In the language of sales, you are inheriting far more pupils 'pre-sold' on the value of your subject than was ever the case before.

Second, and this is I think perhaps the most important point to make, don't get hung up on trying to dovetail your curriculum in with the various different levels of attainment primary pupils will have reached. At the moment, until we have seen a whole cohort of primary pupils through from early years to year 6 on a full FL entitlement, trying to square this circle, whilst it rightly demands our attention, it should not dominate it. 

My main concern at this stage is that transition work should focus on the emotional aspects of that journey for primary pupils into secondary MFL departments and not simply try to 'plot' levels and attainment. It matters far less that you have a curriculum that neatly continues from where they left off, than that you know how to value and capitalise on all that is positive in the attitudes that they bring.

Look at it from the pupils' perspective. Which of these do you imagine they think as they contemplate that move up?

• I hope in this school, I can progress to level 5 by the end of year 7
• I hope I learn the perfect tense soon
• I hope my FL teachers will be as nice as Miss X Y Z
• I hope we still get to talk/write to children in foreign schools
• I hope we still get to sing songs
• I hope I will be with or find some friends
• I hope we still get to go on the computers to learn
• I hope that I will get a chance to show some of the topics I already know
• I hope we only do new topics that are a lot harder than the work we have done so far

Now I am not arguing against teaching of grammar or with the need to present them with work that stretches them. I'm just saying that most if not all of their pre-occupations at this stage are 'emotional' and relate to how 'comfortable' 'successful' 'happy' 'confident' they will be and how 'encouraging' 'supportive' 'creative' 'funny' 'kind' their new teachers are going to be.

For me, the most successful transition models involve projects that bring pupils into contact with pupils, staff with staff, to celebrate the languages they are studying and promote these emotional bonds.

During this month I am going to look at 2 areas in the country that are using music as a possible transition MFL model. 

One is at Guildford County school where Caroline Gale, the Head of music there has organised a Eurovision style FL singing event for all their feeder primaries. Caroline has built a strong tradition of singing across the curriculum at Guildford and the FL department, I suspect is a happy beneficiary from this.

The other is in Durham where the primary MFL advisor, Sarah Sharpe is organising a similar event for all of Durham's primary schools. In September, Durham secondary schools are likely to inherit a cohort of pupils who expect language learning to be fun and inspirational. 

These sort of events are growing. The best schools at KS3 will be alert to the level of performance and enthusiasm generated at KS2 and will know how to build upon it.

A final thought. There is a creative spark prevalent in much Primary MFL that can so easily be snuffed out under the artificial strictures of the need to meet 'attainment levels'. I profoundly hope that secondary colleagues will accommodate this and welcome it. It has the power and potential to truly motivate pupils. 

MFL singing KS2/KS3 - Sing Up translations part 2

Three more French translations of Sing Up songs will be uploaded to www.souffler.co.uk soon. There are some previews of them below.

If you haven't subscribed for free yet, click on this link. You will be sent a site update when they are posted. If you are already subscribed go to the link you will have bookmarked from the email acknowledgement.

They will be downloadable as zip files and each file contains a) the performance track b) a backing track c) slowed down versions of the performance and backing tracks d) a Smartboard Notebook file with embedded 'song clips' for each section of the song to allow for easy rehearsal e) a pdf copy of the lyrics for class print outs

This music has been provided by the composers to the Sing Up website. If you think you can use it, please visit the Sing Up website as a quid pro quo and retain all the copyright marks and artist links on these materials.

1) Accros Chocos  

 

2) Dingo (French version of There was a man who had a dog ..)

3) A French version of the song on the Sing Up website "A B-U-G"

  
 

Using audio editing software to help exploit songs in language lessons

This is a post about how to use a popular sound editor to break up song tracks into learnable chunks. 

This is the end product created to teach pupils how to present their families in French based upon the Simpsons characters.

 

In this video I have used Wavepad from NCH software. I know many use Audacity but I find some of the controls on Wavepad to be easier to use, especially pitch and speed change, and I like the 'copy to new file' function which I use all the time to create new sound files from originals. 

NCH will of course want you to buy the 'masters' version (which does look really good) but the free version is more than adequate to achieve what I am going to show you here. There are 6 separate videos as the single file was rather large.

1. Intro to the software

2. Clipping the musical intro to use as a backing for class warm-ups

3. Clipping parts of the song to learn parts of the song

4. Using the speed change controls to slow song clips down

5. How to speed the song clips back up

6. Pupils can practise their own recordings against the singing model

I will posting more free songs that have been edited in this way via my other site

www.souffler.co.uk

Links between singing leading and language teaching

Just returned from a National Sing Up conference on male singing leadership which was brilliant, quite inspirational speakers and nice as a linguist to attend something notionally unconnected with languages but with so much relevance. One of the main themes will be instantly recognisable to linguists anyway, how to interest boys in singing (languages) and do we need more male singing role models in schools?

By the end of the conference, having seen outstanding examples of male and female leaders, the feeling was that what was needed was better teachers, regardless of sex.

There were also good pointers to motivation relevant to languages. Advice from singing leaders that boys need short-term goals and have to understand the purpose of what they are doing. Having some kind of performance outcome that can be quickly realised and that they can be successful at is crucial.

The familiar model of 

i) presentation (kept uncomplicated and brief - just enough modeling to allow pupils to copy) 

ii) practice, feedback, refinement : practice, feedback, refinement : practice, feedback, refinement : 

iii) performance 

iv) success : validation : motivation

is very relevant to all we do as linguists

I am going to post many more ideas on how to introduce songs effectively in MFL lessons in the weeks to come.

MFL singing KS2/KS3 - Sing Up translations

Further to yesterday's post, I am uploading a zip file of songs translated into French from the Sing Up Website. For copyright reasons, I am asking people to register on my other site so that I can have some control over who this is going to. Once registered follow the link in the confirmation email. Registration is free. If you have already registered on the other site, use the link in your confirmation email.

Here's a screen shot of one file plus the backing track

 

MFL singing training

       

Hi everyone. Just posting something which I have found to be really useful. I have attended quite a few training sessions recently, all provided for free and by top class singing trainers from Sing Up. For anyone who doesn't know they have been working widely with all LEAs in Primary Ed to promote singing.

Their website has a lot of free materials at http://www.singup.org/ some of which are FL songs with full music to download, teaching tips etc. There is a lot of free info on how to lead singing, warm up exercises which are brilliant for every  teacher and info on training events taking place near you. Registration is also free.

I have translated some of the materials on the Sing Up site into French if you are interested in more FL content and am attaching a good warm up as a taster. 

Download BOOM CHICKA BOOM

You can find the English original here to learn how it goes. I would also suggest that you check out a lot of the songs in languages we don't teach in schools, (Hebrew, a lot of African chants etc) as they all help to lend weight to your argument that languages are important.

In my area, Derbyshire there seems to be a real 'singing' thing going on at the moment and having just given my first training session to MFL primary teachers here in Derby I can only say that becoming confident using songs in language teaching is a really fun way to become comfortable yourself with teaching a language, especially for the non-specialist. The feedback we had from that session indicated that there was a strong desire to learn how to make this work in  MFL classrooms.

I know from chatting to former colleagues at Secondary level too that although everyone understands the value of using songs to re-inforce learning, many of us lack confidence or knowledge of simple techniques to deliver them successfully. The songs covered at the training sessions are just as appropriate at secondary level, especially KS3.

The Sing Up site gives contact details for all the area coordinators in the UK. They will come out and give free INSET but their funding runs out next year in March. Get it while you can! Feedback from non-MFL specialists and non-musicians who turned up by mistake to one recent training was that it was the most fun INSET they had ever attended!

So if you have ever thought that you needed more singing support beyond sticking on a bit of FL music and kind of hoping your pupils would 'get it', book yourself some free training!

If you are in the Derby or Chesterfield areas, I'm attaching these flyers for info on free singing training coming up 

Download Voicebox Cafe dates leaflet 2010

Download Singing Cafe leaflet 2010 (2)

Download Big Sing Thing Derby flyer

If anyone would like to know more about this, or work I'm doing on a transition project for singing, MFL and drama, you can contact me at

[email protected]