coucoucircus.org - Bienvenue This site gives you access to the theme tunes and lyrics of hundreds of French TV programmes, in particular a lot of children's cartoon series.
Flash Video Big Books This is a great site for anyone interested in using story telling as a key component of their courses. Some free stuff but the books you have to buy are pretty cheap and excellent quality. Highly recommended.
Wordle - Create word clouds This is a fantastic little site for anyone wanting to be creative with Language. It creates key word diagrams on any topic in an arty way. It is a great way to introduce a topic or allow kids to create a keyword list to help them prepare for a speaking test
One of the nice things about writing a blog is that every now and again you can indulge yourself and simply express a personal view. This post has relevance I think to the contemporary culture that our pupils inhabit and to the kind of lessons we might create for them.
Hopefully it might encourage teachers across the curriculum to think about how to include a 'community' song or chant as a normal part of their lessons.
I came across this video of a wonderful choir called Perpetuum Jazzile so first, sit back and enjoy this before reading any further! All language is a communal experience - singing together proves it.
Before I saw this video I had been looking at Eric Whitacre's virtual choir beautifully singing 'Sleep'. I was treated to the obligatory ad which in this case was promoting a new album by the X-Factor runner up 'Cher'.
The juxtaposition of all that X-Factor promotes, sometimes agressive vaunting of the individual vocal star, set against Perpetuum Jazzile's ability to blend a range of voices into a very clever performance was telling.
Whilst like anyone else, I love a good Diva, for singing, solo effort isn't the norm. The name X-Factor should be a clue, it's the unsusual X-ception not the rule. For 99% of the rest of the world, enjoying singing is something that everyone can do as part of a group.
I have an ok singing voice. Actually to be more precise, it's ok if I ask it to perform solo. It's actually much better when I sing with others. Solo, and I have to pretend that it is something it isn't, that it has a wide range which it hasn't.
It's actually very good in the baritone range but pretty rubbish in the tenor range. However the only way I am ever going to understand this and appreciate my particular contribution is to sing with others.
I think we need a cultural counter-balance to the 'Diva' factor for our children. If they grow up thinking that singing is all about 'solo' brilliance and performance then they will never benefit from the amazing satisfaction that can come from singing with others. Understanding that sharing your individual voice in harmony with many others within your particular range is a deeply satisfying experience is a vital lesson we need to pass on to our children.
I believe that singing together is an essential part of living together as communities. It has been one of the glues that have bonded tribes since the dawn of time. Sharing a common song has always been a mark of identity. It is something personally I feel we need to recover far more widely in western society.
In September I'm talking at a Modern Languages Show and Tell at Cramlington Learning Village just north of Newcastle. I decided that I wanted to talk more about the whole concept of building class cohesion and identity through songs and chants.
My own limited experience of trying some of these ideas out have deeply impressed me with the response from the children and the positive atmosphere they help establish in lessons. The title of my talk is "The Singing Tribe - MFL class cohesion" so if you want to know a bit more maybe I will see you there.
The format is a little like a Teachmeet but this is for the whole day so the talks might last from 3 minutes to longer than the Teachmeet 7 minutes. You get to hear fantastic talks from some top people working in modern languages in the UK for FREE!
As an added incentive, the host for the day is Chris Harte and I understand that this will be his swan song as he is about to leave the UK for Australia. If you have never heard Chris speak, this will possibly be a last chance for a while. Get there if you can, I highly recommend it. Click here to find out more.
A quick plug for this event organised by the excellent Jan Lewandowski. There is an impressive line-up of speakers and I highly recommend it. See you there!
Extract from the attached flyer
"This year’s Joined-Up Languages Conference is taking place on June 29th at Lakeview School, Wixams, Bedford MK42 6BH. This is a cross-phase conference with lots of excellent speakers who will inspire teachers of languages in ALL phases. This year our talks and workshops include: o Keynote talk from Carmel O’Hagan, Head of Secondary Education at CILT. (The National Centre for Information on Languages Teaching) (All phases) o Joe Dale; a very well known national presenter for integrating all aspects of MFL and ICT (All phases) o Resources for the Olympic Games (KS2/3/4); Nick Nesbitt-Larking, Herts. LA. o Creativity and Innovation in KS3/4; Lara Townsend, Suffolk LA. o ‘Memorable Language learning with song and movement’; Carole Nicholl, The Language Factory (All phases) o ‘Progression in Reading and Writing – and STILL having fun’; Jan Lewandowski, Bedford Borough LA (KS2/3) o Ideas for joint working with partner schools abroad; Joan Dickie, Norfolk LA. (All phases) o International education/eTwinning; British Council (All phases)
I'm writing this post as a follow up to the previous post about Eric Whitacre's virtual choir. In that, I said that I have borrowed the concept behind all collective singing and am learning to apply it to language learning, that successful blending of many voices into one sound is incredibly powerful and emotionally rich.
This is my first attempt to try and explain what I mean.
First, and at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, our voices are designed to help us 'connect'. It might be obvious but sometimes what is so obvious can be hidden from us because it is right under our noses.
If our voice is the greatest tool we have to enable us to connect with others and we as language teachers are all about helping cultural strangers connect with each other by finding a new 'voice', a new tongue / langue, then why don't we explore how the use of a 'collective' grouping of disparate voices in the classroom into one voice can empower language learning?
In the UK, the pressure to measure every child's progress against a set of markers whilst laudible in intention, has had a very negative impact on a key aspect of learning: It edifies the 'individual' at the expense of 'community'.
Fine, we all have to stand or fall eventually based on the sum of our personal efforts. But the most effective vehicle for achieving the highest degree of personal growth is to be part of a supportive community. If this wasn't true there would be absolutely no need for schools in the first place.
Learning works best in the classroom if it is a collaborative, supportive, encouraging 'group' experience. That is where powerful learning takes place. We need each other. We function best in communities. We seek them out. We thrive on recognition from others, we understand who we truly are when we understand what value we bring to those who surround us. If education is about anything, it is about helping children to understand where their true value lies in relation to the people in their world, given their unique set of skills and abilities.
Since I have begun to adopt the Call / Response singing techniques I picked up from Sing Up training I have noticed a powerful enhancement of this collaborative atmosphere in my lessons. A couple of examples of exercises I do in my first lessons with new classes might illustrate this.
My first job as language teacher is not to teach children to speak but how to listen. Without that they will never make real progress. Adusting your voice to mimic what you hear from a model is fundemental to successful language learning. Fortunately this is absolutely true of singing as well.
So whilst my first lesson involves a lot of speaking, its actual focus is on how to listen. I begin with French vowel sounds. I show children pictures of Maori warriors and the New Zealand Rugby team and find out what they know about the Haka. We tease out why they do this, and the concept of sounding powerful as one eventually emerge as they prepare for 'battle'. (By the way, if you want boys instantly on your side, try all of this!)
I show them a video clip from Youtube of the New Zealand team doing their Haka and the Tongan rugby team responding with their own chant. We look at the role of the 'captain' calling, why the team respond as one voice and why that is so powerful. What are they trying to achieve?
I then set them a challenge: during this first lesson, all they they have to prove to me that as a class they can respond as one voice and one group action to what ever I say and do as the 'captain'. Can they do this?
To demonstrate this immediately I teach them 4 praise phrases we will learn regularly to say as a group chant to anyone who does something well.
Fantastique / Super / Excellent / Génial.
I teach the first 3 to begin with explaining that they are the same as English words but pronounced differently (cognates are a great way to teach phonics btw) and their task is to copy the word and the 3 part action I do to that word BUT they have to do this is one voice. After a couple of goes very quickly they get the idea.
Usually on 'excellent' I hear someone adding the 't'. Without picking anyone out, I explain that I heard something wrong at the end of the word, we do it again and ask them to identify what the difference is between the English and French way of saying it. The point is that they have to 'hear' it as a group and are corrected as a group.
We then do the French Haka. They have to face me as their captain, half crouching, knees bent, hands on knees and looking fierce. I say the French vowel sounds in turn with a separate action for each: 'a' both hands pushed out in front, 'e' both hands pulled back into chest, 'i' both one hand moves up, the other down to define an 'i' shape, 'o' hands to the side with index finger of each hand drawing an 'o' circle in the air, 'u' the same index finger drawing a 'u' shape in the air.
You can pick out the French 'u' versus 'oo' sound at this point. One tip to teach this: get them to notice what they do with their jaw when saying the 'oo' sound (jaw drops down and forward) versus the 'u' sound (jaw is pulled back)
They then add consonants of their choosing and we re-do the Haka. I explain that there are 2 rude consonants that I hope they don't find so as not to embarrass me with predictable results and eventually 'p' and 'w' are added to the mix!
The point is that right from the word go, the children are learning this 'call-response' technique.
They are having to listen intently to copy me.
They are having to be aware of rhythm, timing and each other to speak with one voice.
They are learning that making these new sounds is comfortable as they can try them out as part of a group; this one voice that allows them the security of trying things out without making a fool of themselves. This is FUNDEMENTAL. If I have one regret in my years in secondary teaching is that I sprung far too early to requiring individuals to speak out loud on their own in front of a class. They should be able to practice everything as a group or in pairs before being required to produce on their own.
We then move onto a very simple group song on greetings which we sing unaccompanied. I use my hands to do pitch change gestures as I sing, they respond, again as one voice, and often copy my pitch gestures too.
When I ask them to tell me what some of the words mean in that song (bonjour, comment ça va etc) anyone who answers correctly selects one of the 4 praise phrases we have done. I say the phrase + 3 part action followed by the pupil's name + do a 3 part 'shimmy' to their name eg: Calvin would become
Everyone repeats the praise phrase and does the shimmy. This is a regular feature of early lessons. I vary it by eventually asking for volunteers to come to the front and lead the whole class in praising someone using a 3 part shimmy of their own invention. Often these are hilarious! Imagine what the child who leads the class feels like as they do this. Imagine what the child on the receiving end of the whole class saying well done in French feels like. This is very, very powerful and we do it in the first lesson.
Class chanting or singing to fantastic music builds a positive, supportive, collaborative community. Learn how to do it effectively and very quickly you will establish the kind of atmosphere conducive to real learning that previously it might have taken me a whole term or longer to achieve with all the attendant emotional wear and tear involved. Seriously colleagues, I believe these techniques can mean the difference between burning yourself out and being a relatively effortless but powerful teacher.
It has been the biggest accelerator to success in my own experience that I have ever encountered. What's more it is FUN! Enjoy.
(Please send a link to this article if it has helped you. If you would like me to come to your school or area in the UK to demonstrate these techniques, please leave your name, school and a contact email on this blog. It won't be published for anyone else to see as I have to allow publication of all comments.)
I had no idea when I began this journey that this kind of article would feature on this blog.
However I feel I have to share this as it has benefitted me greatly.
A week ago I posted this article in response to the fact that many excellent colleagues were having to face big changes in their professional, personal and financial lives because of the public sector cuts.
Whatever we feel about the political rights and wrongs of all of this, the fact is that many people involved directly or indirectly in supporting education now find themselves scratching around for direction. If you are anywhere near my age then this becomes very problematic.
I said in that article that I could foresee a time where many educational professionals would no longer be fully state employed. Part-time work could become the norm, working 2 or 3 days a week employed by the State and the rest of the time devoted to one's own business.
Like it or not, the movement of the times is towards individuals carving out a particular 'niche' for themselves, based around their special passion and talent, becoming mini-entrepreneurs and connecting with others who compliment their skills professionally to deliver a product or who need their services. (If you want to read an excellent book about this societal shift brought about largely through the rapid expansion of the internet and social media, read 'Become a Key person of Influence' by Daniel Priestley - sneak a preview on this video)
One gift that teachers hone every day is the gift of the gab. Have you ever considered learning how to make an income from public speaking?
Last year at this time, I attended a 1 day seminar in London put on by an Australian lady, Joanna Martin. Her particular 'niche' is that she coaches people in any walk of life, not just in teaching, how to turn speaking in public on something about which they are passionate into a significant business.
I went to this as a very sceptical Brit, cynical faculties overloaded to the max and pretty resistant to the intitial flavour of the event. I knew however that I wanted to get up in front of people and share my passion for music and learning languages. So. I persisted.
Something happened on that day. I found myself in a room with complete strangers. At one point we had to share what it was that we wanted to get out of that day to someone else in 1 minute. Then we had to listen to what they said.
I found myself sharing my passionate belief that music and singing have the power to transform the way children learn languages. I had never expressed this to anyone in this way before. In one minute I had told a complete stranger what I was going to be doing probably for the rest of my working life.
I then listened to her explaining what she wanted to do. It was very powerful. You imagine being in a room where everyone is sharing their most heartfelt desire all concentrated into a one minute speech!
Since then 1 minute has become 2 minutes and then 7 minutes at various Teach Meets around the country.Those have directly led to being asked to run 1 hour workshops. Whole day events are within my sights, and all from a 1 minute speech!
Do you realise that if you want to find out what it feels to be a public speaker, education is the only profession that provides you with a free forum to get up and share your heart with wonderfully supportive colleagues and make a complete fool of yourself, yet improve your skills! Begin your speaking journey at a local Teachmeet. Here is a link to a google map of many, many excellent colleagues who have taken part in these already.
Amazing! We are so lucky to be in a professional environment like this which is collegiate and supportive! Take advantage of it!
One thing I know from those Teach Meet events, we are an incredibly creative profession. And everyone has their own spark of genius that they share at those events. You have something that others want to know about.
It might not even be part of teaching, it might be in another area of your life where you happily spend hours pursuing a particular interest.
Back to Joanna Martin. The reason I mention her is that she is speaking again in London on these dates, Friday May 6th (I'm going to this one) Saturday May 7th and Friday May 13th. The cost for the whole day is dirt cheap for this kind of quality training. Joanna has her own products to sell, training packages and DVDs etc but this really is a fun, interesting and no pressure event. You can take or leave anything that she offers. she doesn't ram anything down your throat.
What you will get however is a much clearer idea of what it is you could do : a much clearer idea of how to structure a successful business if you have never done this kind of thing before : the confidence to seriously think about putting something into practise that you might always have thought about but never quite believed you could do it and earn a significant amount of money from it.
If you would like to know more, follow this link here.
So if you, or anyone you know has been thrown up in the air by the public sector cuts and is unsure how the pieces of your life are going to land and fall into some sort of shape, I highly recommend this 1 day event. It certainly helped me to shape my personal, professional and financial future.
Good luck!
Here's the link again. Please pass it on to anyone else you know, not only educators, that you think might benefit.
This is a really important post for me. If you have benefitted from anything I have given away for free on this site please return the favour and take the time to complete the survey on this page.
Tweet it, blog it, email it, tell everyone! Use the 'Tell a Friend" button in the left-hand column.
Many Primary colleagues will know of Carole Nicoll.
Carol has produced the very successful series of songs, raps and short language sketches that she sells from her website, http://www.language-factory.co.uk
Her Français Français resource pack Won the CILT European Award for Languages in 2003.
She has since produced the Espanol Espanol, Deutsch Deutsch, Italiano Italiano and English English resource packs.
Carole has spoken at many regional training events, CILT national conferences, and presents to many EFL and ESOL institutions here and abroad.
If you don't know Carole's work, click on the image below and download some free resources from her site registration page.
I am really pleased to announce that recently Carole and I have agreed to co-operate on a number of projects that we believe will bring yet more fun and success to the wonderful work so many of our colleagues are doing.
We both passionately believe that once teachers understand clearly how to exploit the power of music, the power of rhythm, the power of song in their lessons, they will be equipped with a tool that can have a significant impact on both their enjoyment of the work they do and the progress of their students.
There is a skill to using this powerful resource effectively and at the moment it isn't explicitly taught. Pressing play and pause on the CD player is not enough!
We want to deliver a very high quality training package to support this. To help inform our thinking we really need your input.
For this reason I would be extemely grateful if you could complete the survey below and pass it on to your colleagues encouraging them to do the same.
I remember 2 years ago when I first formed this blog. My excitement when I had my first page views was matched by my surprise that anyone found it interesting! 41690 page views later and I thought I would summarise some of the main reasons why any teacher might want to maintain a blog site. These are not listed in order of importance, simply my own musings.
1) It is a great way of sifting through one's own thoughts and classroom practices. Having to explain what you are doing (hopefully!) to an audience helps you to clarify your ideas. Reflecting on what you do can help you focus more clearly on what is really useful and separate that from what is merely a bit of window dressing.
2) It has been a wonderful way of connecting to a host of creative and inspirational colleagues across the world and even outside of my personal subject discipline of being a language teacher. It would have cost me a fortune in time and money to make these links in any other way than via the internet. Simply put, it would never have happened.
For most of my professional life, I felt that I was pretty isolated in the classroom. I was rarely given feedback as to how well I was doing.
I was a saddo who looked forward to Ofsted inspections! They were the only occasions when I was given very positive feedback. Most of the rest of the time your efforts passed unnoticed, unrecognised, unless you fouled up when, of course, people took a keen interest and let you know it.
If I could change one thing in any school that I think would make the biggest difference to a school's success it would be to urge any SMT to devise a culture of encouraging, rewarding, praising the staff for the work they do. How ironic that schools whose sole purpose is to inspire pupils to grow and learn so often conspire to belittle and beat down the staff they rely on to achieve the former.
Writing a blog has catapulted me out of that very narrow world of my own classroom. I have received such encouragement from wonderful collegaues and had the chance to learn a lot from them in return. As I have freely volunteered resources and ideas that have taken me many hours of time and effort to produce, I have found that this has been reciprocated by what others have passed on to me.
It has been the vehicle through which I have built a very collegiate virtual staffroom of colleagues generous with their own time and resources.
3) It is a fantastic online CV. It provides any potential employer with an instant window onto all that you can do best. It lends you a great deal of credibility.
4) It is a useful online storage site. As well as everyone else being able to access my site, I have used it to retrieve and download my own resources!
5) It will be a useful point of reference now that I am being asked to offer training. I know many other MFL trainers use their blogs for this too and post the digest of what they have spoken about with links to all the resources needed. CPD is greatly enhanced by not having to take copious notes at a training session.
6) As with any diary, it enables you to reflect on your own journey over a period of time. It also provides me with a reminder of ideas I have had that I forget about in the whirl of surviving in the classroom. I'm reminded me of things that I know to be really useful but have allowed to lapse from my own teaching. At any time, I can dip into this bank of ideas that I know to work and retrieve them. If others also find them to be useful, great!
So, if you are wondering whether to start a blog or not, have a go!
I read a really great quote from Sir Isaac Newton who when praised about his own achievements humbly wrote "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"
Most of us do not consider ourselves to be 'giants' in our fields, more like 'pygmies'. We don't tend to feel we have any special talents, anything important to say, anything interesting to share. Yet even if I 'stand on the shoulders of pygmies' to paraphrase Sir Isaac, I am still going to be able to see further than I otherwise would.
What you have to share is important. It could be the one thing that changes another teacher's whole perspective, or simply provide a colleague with an idea that turns a good lesson into an outstanding one. Your experience counts! And the more ideas you share, you will find yourself growing from a pygmy into a giant.
What a humbling and satisfying experience it is to know that you have been the source of an idea that has helped lift and inspire someone else, helping them to see further!
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
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.
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
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