Shoes filled with language and with treats!

Some of us are beginning to get organised for December and thinking of ways to link language learning,culture and celebrations.
Every year we celebrate with our young language learners- Saint Nicholas Day.
Children in Europe hope to receive a stocking or a shoe filled with treats from Saint Nicholas for their good behaviour.
Let's move this in to the world of language learning.
Let's reflect on our learning this term ands let's look at how we are developing our skills of language learning too!
(In fact this could make a great AfL tool or even a summative assessment task).
The activities below will take two lessons or the shoe can be  produced as a ten minute follow up activity at the end of a couple of lessons over the next couple of weeks and then you will need one lesson for the actual language learning activities.  

What to do?

• Take the simple shoe template. I have just pinned a template for a Saint Nicholas shoe here on my Janet's language learning pinterest board
• Give all the children  a template and ask them to create their own Saint Nicholas shoes.They can decorate the shoes with target languae items and pictures or cartoon characters,symbols and flags to represent facts andfestivals you may have already considered with them this Autumn term. that throughput the term.
• Once the shoes are ready and have the children's names written on the soles - as  a target language sentence  (maybe with more advanced learners they can tell you ore about themselves - where they live, what they like etc).
• Now you need to select the type of activity to suit the age and stage of the children.

Key Stage One 

• Practise numbers.Then give the children number cards and ask the children to help you select the correct number card and put in in their own shoes.
• Can they take the numbers out of the shoe after the activity and tell a partner the numbers.
• Can they put all the numbers back in their shoes in a pile from lowest to highest and count them in and say them as they put them in the pile.
• Ask the children to place them on a window ledge- ready to receive a treat or reward in the shoes from Saint Nicholas!

Year Three /beginners

(Practising pronunciation,broadening vocabulary, reading out loud, using a bilingual dictionary)

• Practise using  bilingual dictionaries with the children.think about foods and presents and colours of Christmas time. 
• As a class invedstigate the letter strings and sounds of the new words and dicuss patterns and sound links.Say the words out loud.Ask for volunteers to read aloud independently the words.
• Now give the children 10 blank pieces of card.Ask the children to spurce for themselves, write out and decorate the ten cards.then ask them to place them in alphabetical order in their shoes.
• Ask the choldren to share their shoes with a partner.Can the partner identify the item from  the picture , can they try to apply sound and letter string rules to read out loud the words in the target language.
• Ask the children to put the words back in their shoes again - in alphabetical order and then place them on a window ledge- ready to receive a treat or reward in the shoes from Saint Nicholas!  

Year 4 and Year 5 (Moving On)

(Practising pronunciation,broadening vocabulary, reading out loud, using a bilingual dictionary, exploring basic grammar, speaking and writing in full sentences)

• Practise with the children how they can express a like or a dislike and the question and answer they can give for a like or a dislike.
• Perhaps some of your older or more advanced learners (Year 5) children can express an opinion too and add an additional clause.
• Investigate as a class using bilingual dictionaries key nouns that we associate with Christmas e.g presents, food, types of food such as sprouts(!!)  , carols, Christmas tree. Christmas decorations, cards,shops , family.discuss the sound spelling links and alos the gender of the nouns and whether theses are singular or plural.
• Ask the children to use bilingual dictionaries to write in draft  four sentences about Christmas - two "love" and two "like" and maybe one "dislike"  sentences.Ask them to think carefully about how they write the nouns and the plural form if necessary of the nouns too.They can add an opinion clause too if they are able to.
• Now ask them to write these sentences out in best on strips of paper and to decorate the reverse side of the strips of paper.The children must  fold up the strips in to conertinas, each fold is after a single word and place these  in their shoes.
• Ask a partner to trake out the concertyian- read aloud the words as they unfold the concertinas and then to say the sentence a second time without reading the paper and mime the meaning of the sentence.
• Ask the children to put the folded concertina strips back in their shoes again and then place them on a window ledge- ready to receive a treat or reward in the shoes from Saint Nicholas!

Year 6 (Advanced)

(Practising pronunciation,broadening vocabulary, reading out loud, using a bilingual dictionary, exploring basic grammar, writing in full sentences, describing people,places and objects)

• Take a look at the verb "to be" in the target languge 
• Look at singular and plural nouns associated with Christmas 
• Model and disucss the use of thrid person singular "is" and third person plural "are" with singular and plural nouns.
• Play a game ,where you ask the children to decide if they should use "is" or "are" as you mime and slowly write up on the white board one of the nouns you have shared.
• Now ask the children on their tables to  brainstorm  key  Christmas nouns  in English and then look for and check spelling  of these in the target language in a bilingual dictionary. 
• Can the table now brainstorm and look up adjectives (atleast two per noun) to describe the items e.g mouldy sprouts or colourful presents etc.
• Give each child a set of five cards.On the front they need to write in the target language  a full sentence using part of the verb "to be" and the correct third person singular or plural form plus the noun  they have selected and the adjective or adjectrives they want to use to describe the item.The children must try to agree the adjective with the noun! On the reverse they need to decorate the card with the item they are describing so that it looks like the description they have chosen.You can differentiate the task by suggesting to sokme children they use the language the table already brainstormed, to others they must use this as a platform but add new adjectives and  to others they should try to create atleast two independent brand new sentences with their own sourced language from the bilingual dictionary.
• Ask the children to put the cards back in their shoes and then place them on a window ledge- ready to receive a treat or reward in the shoes from Saint Nicholas! 

 

Superhero language skills,messages and an AfL postbox

With Year 3,some of our network using our SOW will be looking at "superheroes" and how to introduce ourselves as "superheroes".
Joanne Hornby did some fabulous work on this last year in Spanish with her beginner language leaners. 
Not long ago I put together People Pillar Portrait Poems as an opportunity to describe superheores etc
Look what I found yesterday in Dunelm Mill- whilst actually looking for new pillows!

 It gave me an idea! Why not create Superhero AfL boxes! A really simple idea but could be very effective and an idea that could run through the year. 


Superhero communication powers

• Discuss superhero "powers " with the class
• Talk about how some superheroes can have super powers of communication 
• Suggest that the language learning taking place in your class is allowing your young learners to develop the superhero power of communication.Some of your class may already have these super powers! (Think about your learners working with EAL)
• Talk about the powers of memory , recognition , listening and reading comprehension, pronunciation, writing in a target language.

• Share with the class your super hero powers' box.This is a blank box and it needs decorating.It needs a postbox opening on it and a lid that can lift off - or you can use one like the box I found in Dunelm Mill!  The children are going to help you decorate the box.They need to take one of the superhero communication powers and make a symbol for this super power.All they need to do is to glue their symbol to the box!

Creating the AfL superhero ,message strips 

• Create with the class superhero pictures - small drawn pictures of the face or figure of their favourite superheroes -one per child with their favourite superhero on the photo and a target language greeting written in a speech bubble next to the character.
• They need to add the target language name phrase for themselves under the picture.You could let the  children to add a superhero surname too e.g je m'appelle Madie Smith Catwoman"

• Collect in  the drawings. Glue each drawing to the left hand side of A4 paper.One picture below another. You will now have a left hand side list of pictures.
• Now you can now keep these sheets to  create superhero message strips when needed.One per child when you want the children to think about which "super powers of communication that they are getting better at and which super power they feel they still need to improve.
• Each child is given a strip of paper with their own picture and phrase on it.They are going bto write their message back to you on this strip of paper and post it in the super power box.
• Discuss with the children what types of language super powers you are developing with the class at the moment - remembering(memory), saying  accurately (pronunciation),reading carefully (recognising),etc
• Can the children on their individual strips of paper write a super power message to you about what a language learning skill(super power) they think they are developing well and a language learning skill (super power) from your list that they want to get better at.
• All they have to do is date the strip of paper and post it in your super hero box when they have finished.
• You can look at the strips of paper as a class and ask a child to share what helps them have a  "good" super power in a skill or you can look at the strips away from the class and see what your next steps as the teacher should be.
• The super power message strips can be glued in individual record books at a later date too as an informal skills progress record  

Autumn word sorts and game

It's just a pile of Autumn leaves- or is it? In this pile are many messages both spoken and written.Let's explore!

Take a variety of Autumn leaves and create explorations of sentence structure and creative comparisons! Here is the first blog post... the rest are to follow!

My Autumn leaves pile



Each leaf shape represents a structure within a sentence that our primary language learners are exploring as they develop their ability to speak and write sentences in the target language.

Take a look at what I mean:

My "noun" leaf

My verb leaf:

My adjective leaf:

and for the learners that are now moving on in their ability to form target language sentences here are:

my conjunction and intensifier leaves 

  

 Now let's go on our first  Autumn Exploration!

Step One 

• Can the children help you collect words: nouns or adjectives or verbs linked to Autumn and colours or animals associated with Autumn, going for an Autumn walk or harvesting fruit and vegetables?
• Can the children make the decision as to whether the word they have thought of, remembered or accessed in the bilingual dictionary is a noun, adjective or verb?
• Ask the children to write out clearly on pieces of paper or card their favourite Autumn words that they have remembred or investigated.
• Attach the leaf symbols too the top of the class board.Now ask the children to help you place the nouns under the noun leaf on the white board, the adjectves under the adjective leaf and the verbs under the  verb leaf.

Step Two 

• Collect together the cards or write out the words onto cardsthat the class has found -you could ask the children to do this for you.
• Place the written word cards in a pile on the floor or the table. 
• Play a sorting game .
• Can the children help you sort the nouns, adjectives and verbs in to three piles?
• Now you are ready as a class to play the Autumn Word Game (see below)

A Possible Step Three

With more advanced learners you coud take the activity one step further and add conjunctions and adverbs too!

The Autumn Word table game 

• Children to play the game as a table game.
• Object of the game to win as many Autumn words as possible.
• Ask tables of  four to six children to write out as many of the words as the class has collected on to cards.Give the children a time limit for this.
• Now give each table a set of Autumn leaves.Each group needs two of each of the noun, adjective , verb autumn leaf cards. 
• Ask the children to put all the written Autumn word cards face up on the table in a jumbled up order - so not categorised as nouns etc.
• Autumn leaves cards face down in a pile on the table.
• Set a time limit for the game!
• Each player takes it in turns to select an autumn leaf card and then to select a written word card that matches the leaf e.g a noun, adjective or verb.As the game progresses a player may not be able to find a noun or an adjective or a verb written card and will have to pass on his or her go.
• With more advanced learners challenge the children to see if they can create an Autumn sentence with one of the nouns,verbs and adjectives that they have collected.... 

Chocolate Bar Chats

Thanks to Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings I have been thinking about chocolate a lot today .Sylvie is hoping to create a language learning unit on chocolate in KS2 Primary Languages.....
This got me thinking about why not make the chocolate bar work for the language learner? !!

Here are my ideas for "chocolate bar chats"!

Create simple card chocolate bar shapes.
Here my shape is 3 x 3
Each  chocolate bar  is in its own wrappper.A piece of wrapping paper with a title on it or a re-usable envelope with a title on it - this is the theme  of the chocolate bar chat e.g. clothes/ food/ party/ etc
Each square in the block contains a word.
Each word needs to be able to be used in the  questions and answers determined by the title on the wrapping of the chocolate bar.
This is an opportunity for teacher AfL too - just how do different children use the key word prompts in their sentence construction etc?


Working with a partner can the children hold a "chocolate bar chat" based upon the wrapper theme and using up all the chunks of chocolate  in the chocolate bar questions and answers  to hold their own chocolate bar chat.
I would suggest that you have a maximum of four types of chocolate bars so that children in the class can be working on the same "chocolate bar" and the same words in the squares, but each convesation will be unique to  each pair of children

Show the four different wrappers to the class.
Ask the children to perform their chocolate bar chats for the class!
Can the class spot  which wrapper the chocolate bar has come from (i.e the theme)?
Can the class spot the the similarites and differences between the conversations?

Delighted that Sylvie loves the blog post and here are Sylvie's chocolate bars that she made following the instructions of the blog post.What a star!

Striding out a sentence

With our young language learners who are now in their second year or beyond of learning a language in KS2 we will be encouraging them all to try to form sentences- both spoken and written- in the target language this year.

These will range from simple noun, verb,adjective sentences  (KS2 second year of language learning)  to sentences using adverbs and maybe prepositions or that use conjunctions to create more complex sentences (KS2 fourth year of language learning). 

Here is a game that can be repeated and it is also a way to measure progress informally- take stock at the beginning of the year and repeat later in the year and see how much improvement there is over the year.

• You need a space and a straight walk way.
• You need a picture or prompt stimulus- with a familiar context and content

When you first play the game , invite a volunteer to stride along the line and make up their own sentence to reach the picture or prompt.Each stride is a part of the sentences

e.g.- take a very simple sentence and picture : the dog is black" 

First stride : "The"

Second stride: " dog"

Third stride: "is"

Fourth stride: "black" 

Can the volunteer complete the four strides independently or does the volunteer need to ask for help?

If he/she needs help then a signpost is needed! The signpost is a second child who can show the first child the word or help the child to create the verb correctly etc, so that the first child can keep on striding to the picture or prompt.

Great opportunity here for AfL

You could ask the rest of the class ot think what thewy would say and to write this on mini whiteboards to show at the end when their classmate has completed his or her "striding sentence". 

To take this further,make it a timed challenge! 

You need a stop watch or timer.

How quickly can a child complete an accurate striding sentence

Revisiting language.Observation Game -Watching,Reading,Speaking

This activity works well with a video clip linked to culture or festivals – so a party, an event , a festival, a journey through the target language country, a visit to a famous place or town in the target language country.

At the start of the year it is a great activity to use with moving on learners to revisit familiar language and take a tour around the taret language country or set the scene for the academic year's learning with a cultural focus.

So select your video clip stimulus material!

Watch the clip carefully and select the key words (nouns,adjectives, verbs will all work well here!)

It's a game that I have played lots of times with all age groups of learners.Works well with adult learmers too.

You can revisit know language, practise new language or investigate unknown language using a bilingual dictionary first ..... 

Game One

Give each child five word cards. Each word is a noun of an object, place, person or building they will see in the video.

 Ask the children to watch the video clip and pick up a specific word card and wave it when they think they have seen one of the five words they have in front of them.

Ask the children to then share their order of the written words cards with a partner, by saying them in the order they have placed them and as they observed them appear on the video clip

Game Two

Working in pairs give them all the noun cards. The object of the game is to place the nouns face down in a pile when they see that object. Each partner should be holding 9 cards or have 9 cards face upwards on the table so that they can see the words. When they see one of their objects  , they place the correct word card in a growing pile of cards.

After they have watched the whole video clip, they should compare the words in their pile with those of   another pair. They must carefully pick up the pile. Turn it face up and take it in turns to read the noun at the top of the pile. Once read they should put this word at the bottom of the pile. Do both pairs have the cards in the same order?

Report back

Can the pairs now create a tourist information report using the phrase  e.g. “ A Paris il y a + nouns” in their pile , in the order they saw the places and objects etc.

Volunteer pairs to say their “Tourist information report” to the class.

Touch Base AfL Game

Start of the new academic year and what can the children remember from last year? 
A great and easy game to play to revisit core language that you want the children to be able to use throughout this next academic year!

The game allows you the chance to do some AfL aswell.
You can observe and see if children react correctly and you can also collect in their scores and see how well each child listened and responded to key language.

You need a "buzzer" card (just a circle of coloured paper) - one between two children. Make sure that is equi-distant between the two children.

The game is simple.
You can play this with so many elements of language:

• basic language- numbers/ colours/days of the week/ months of the year 
• questions to find out about someone
• spotting verbs
• spotting adjectives
• spotting nouns

How to play Touch Base!

One child is "the player" and the other child is "the counter".

The counter must observe and count how many times the child who is the player touches the buzzer card.

Ask the player to listen to key language that you say.They are listening for specific language content (e.g. numbers or nouns or adjectives).

Say several items- the children need to touch their buzzer card when they hear key language that is within the category you have asked them to listen for.

Ask the "counters" to let you now how many times their partner touched the buzzer.All they have to do is jot the number down on a piece of paper  with the name of their partner and the buzzer game they took part in.You could just opt for a show of hands from the counters when you call out the number of times that the player might have pressed their buzzers.how many hands go up on the correct amount you are expecting?

Now ask the children to swap roles and play a new but similar the game  of "Touch Base"

With learners who are moving on or are advanced primary learners, you can make this a game where they have to identify the nouns or the adjectrives or the verbs in  spoken list.  

Revisiting numbers and physical listening and responding.

Every year you think that all the children have "got" those numbers ....and then at the beginning of the year you realise that ssome of the children really haven't "got" those numbers yet!!
Here is a physical and  novel ways to revisit and practise the numbers and keep everyone engaged and interested, no matter if you are still practising one to ten or counting up in tens or even three digit numbers!

Firstly children need to be standing in a clear space- away from chairs and tables and with sufficient space inbetween each child.The hall or the playground woud be an ideal space.


Physical Warm Up with Numbers (Listening and responding activity) 

• Everyone stands up .
• Tell the class that the number they represent standing up is a specific number e.g "eleven".You decide the number and this  number can be changed as you go along.
• Ask the class to stand very still and listen...
• If they hear a number higher than "eleven" (if that's the number you have chosen as the standing up straight number) they must reach to the sky with their arms and hands.
• If they hear a number lower than "eleven" they need to touch their toes.
• Start with one number and say it slowly 
• Speed up the numbers- who can keep up?
• Say a sequence of numbers (mixture of numbers,higher and lower than eleven ) which children can deminstarte a correct pattern of movements.
• Ask for a volunteer to lead the activity.
• Play the game as "the slowest to react is out"!  

"Stepping Stones" and a first lesson back!

Time to get back to learning and to build on prior learning and move on forwards.

Here is a simple context that can help all our learners no matter how much or how little they have already learnt in the target language.Take a look at the picture above .....

Ask the children to look at the picture and to see the stepping stones in the picture.

Should we as a class find out how securely we can stand on the first three stepping stones 

Stepping Stones.

Stepping Stone One:

Reflect on what we already know - our numbers,our colours, our greetings....

• Think of a rhyme, a song or a game we can create,use or do which will allow us as a class to practise the language we already know.(Great way for a new class teacher to find out the strengths and knowledge of a class from the previous language learning)

Now we are standing securely on our first stepping stone.....

Stepping Stone Two:

Recall and remember an authentic song or rhyme that we learnt last year.

• Can we still sing it or say it? Are there actions to go with it?
• How does it feel to be able to remember the song or rhyme from last year and to still be able to join in with the rest of the class and perform it?
• Can the class teach the teacher the song or rhyme and its actions?

Now we are standing securely on our second stepping stone.......

Stepping Stone Three:  

Recall and  remember the questions and answers we can use about ourselves and to find out about others.

• What can we say about ourselves? How can we help each other to remember the answers?
• What questions can we ask about others?How can we help each other to remember the questions? 

Now we are standing securely on our third stepping stone.......

Stepping Stone Four:

Take a look at the picture at the top of the blog post again.

Take a look at the picture with the children - the stepping stones are about to turn a corner.

Let's use the fourth stepping stone to lay down the ground rules so that we can move securely from stepping stone to stepping stone and off in to the distance!

Let's ask ourselves:

• Why was the game or the song or the rhyme enjoyable and how did this help us to remember language?
• Why do we like learning authentic songs and rhymes?
• How do actions help us?
• Why do we like being able to ask and answer questions about ourselves?

Stepping Stone Five:

Now we are ready to step off and move in to unknown territory and our final stepping stone needs to be something new..... over to you and your class! 

Full circle spinners

End of the year!.
Time to collate what we can now say and the growing bank of questions and answers .
Each half term we have extended what we can say, based on the contexts and content we have been considering. 

For example our Year 3 children have already  explored how to ask  a name, ask about feelings , ask an age, ask where someone lives, ask about favouirte animals, ask about fruit or animal likes and dislikes...... .

This is  an activity for the children to make,to play in pairs and to take home and play again over the Summer so that they keep practising these key new spoken questions and answers .

• Give each child a circular piece of card.Ask them to divide the circle in to six equal segments that match on both sides of the card.
• Ask them to colour each segment a particular colour and to make it match on the other side of the circle too! 
• Explain that this is one way to aid memory - to have a visual prompt ....

• They need to pierce a small hole in the centre of the circle - large enough to push a small pencil through.This will create the spinning mechanism and  action.
• Now they need to discuss with you the questions and answers you have practised over the year.Ask them to brainstorm with a partner first. 
• Collate the information they give you on the whiteboard.

Gather our questions and answers

• Can the children select their six favourite new questions and answers or the ones they think are most useful or the ones they are proud that they can remember and use!
• They must write the questions on one side of the spinner and the answer to each question on the other side of the spinner of the identical coloured segment. 
• Now they are ready to try out the game......

Let's spin!

• Try it out alone! Ask the children to push their pencil through the central hole in the spinner and make sure  that the questions are face up.
• Each individual child spins their own spinner.
• Can they say the question the spinner lands on and can they also say the answer they have written? Ask the children to turn over their spinners to check the answer they have just spoken.
• Thye can play this as an idivudual activity several times.
• Now give the spinner to a partner - who spins the spinner and must try to read out loud the question the spinner lands on.
• Can the partner (to whom the spinner belongs) say the answer to the question that is written on the other side of the spinner and matches the question in the correct coloured segment?
• The two children now work with the other partner's spinner and change their roles in the activity.

Storing memories until next year!

We are getting toward the end of another academic year and its time to ask the children to reflect on their learning this year.
It's almost the Summer holdiays and time to go off perhaps to the beach .Beach huts are places to keep equipment safe until the next time you visit the beach .... and this made me think about asking the children to store language they have enjoyed this year safely ,until we come back off holiday.

I like the idea of beach huts ,because they are bright colourful and can act as "piggy bank visuals" to show how we need to collect,collate,categorise and  store prior learning and our new knowledge this year.Also a great opportunity for AfL for both the child and yourself!  

All you need are boxes with rooves, coloured in bright primary colours.The rooves need to be detachable, so you can lift off the roof of a hut and put written cards inside.Each beach hut needs a sign "nouns" or "adjectives " or "verbs" etc. 

The DFE POS asks us to encourage children to "broaden their vocabulary" and I think it is really important that we help our young learners to understand how you store this vocabulary, ready for use another time.
So here is the idea!

• Ask each child needs a rectangular piece of card with which to create a postcard.Once finished they will post this card in one of the class beach huts.
• On one side of the card the children need to write the address. (Does the card need to be sent to the nouns or adjectives or verbs hut etc?).This means that their postcard will be stored in the correct beach hut if you have more than one category of hut.
• Instead of a stamp the children should draw their own face and add their name (this means you can see who has written the card and also hand back out next year to the correct child)
• Where you normally write a message on a postcard,the children need to write down key language they have learnt and like the look or sound of this year.They need to make sure that the words are written on the correct postcard- are the words nouns, adjective,verbs etc?
• Each postcard needs visual symbols on the other side- drawn by the children to represent the words they have selected and want to store and have written down in their message section.
• 
  

With our Year 3 learners we have been focusing very much on nouns.... so let's have our own "noun beach huts" postcard collection.
With our Year 4 learners we have been focusing on nouns and adjectives - so let's have own beach huts postcard collections - one for nouns and one for adjectives.
With our Year 5 and 6 learners we have focused on nouns, verbs and adjectives plus we may have considered prepositions and conjunctions too. We are going to need several beach hut postcard collections.

• Now post the cards in the correct beach huts
• Take time to bring out cards and ask the sender to try to tell the class the words they have put on their postcard and what type of words these are.
• Take time to look at the pictures too.
• Finally discuss how we use our memories to store language and challenge the children to try to remember some of their written messages on the postcards right through until the start of school in September!  
• Maybe you will be able to hand the cards back out at the start of the year and see if the children can still recognise and understand the words on their postcards

Keeping a creative spoken record of progress in primary languages

It is so important to keep our tracking of progress "primary" and creative and the teachers who work with me in our network are doing just that! How are we finding ways to track our progress in the spoken language?

Last year Emilie @EWoodruffe took up my challenge to her to try out some APPS with our young learners.

With the wonderful Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings from Kent she set up a spoken class to class swap of family raps.
They used Autorap .
You can listen in here to two of her year 4 children describing the family and facial descriptions.
Emilie heard the children read out loud their written texts before they were recorded and so was able to track pronunciation and intonation etcetra. 

family rap 

She then went on to try out Yakit for Kids with her own take on a fashion show.Simple, effective and we realised that we had a way of capturing children's spoken language and use of grammar ( adjectives after nouns etc)

fashion show yakit for kids clip

fashion show yakit for kids

You can find out more  about all these ideas here in Emilie's presentation  at our JLN annual conference 2013.

Using technology to advance creative learning in our network schools 

Recently we have received from one of network school teachers - Lynsey McHugh, clips  of her children performing their creative Puppetpals dialogues based on personal information conversation.Here she can keep evidence and a track of how well the children are engaging in conversation. You can ee more of Lynsey's Puppetpals clips on our Facebook page  Janet Lloyd Network Facebook

And recently we have realised how easy it is to track progress through songs.We have run a carnival song competition which has allowed our Year 3 beginner learners the chance to show off their pronunciation and intonation.

This year.2015, we have used Yakit for Kids to record and keep evidence of use of simple sentences - noun,verb,adjectives with Year 4 designing monsters,thanks to Ana by the way!

And to once again thanks to Ana and her year 5 children we have a record of our children in 2015 ,talking about clothes they have designed - using adjectival agreement and placement  

Making progress with listening.Activities using all four skills.

This year we have been focusing on how we make progress in language learning with our children and how we can track this and record this.
Here is a simple activity which can be used with all four skills...... to see how children are progressing.
In our JLN SOW we offer teachers sound files and podcasts to support themselves with upskilling in the target language, but we find that teachers can use these too to develop their own listening activities .The podcasts are great for children moving on from word level! 
Emilie Woodruffe @EWoodruffe   amd Ana Lavado Garcia @AnaLavadoGarcia have worked alongside me to create podcasts and sound file for every half term from Year 3 to Year 6- so we have lots of listening texts to work with .These ideas are therefore replicable with other podcasts. Simple too!

Step One 
Select the podcast and text that contains the language content you have been focusing upon with the class.
I have selected podcast one from Year 3 for this example (it's all about Emilie in French or Ana in Spanish)

Give out a series of words from the podcast text you want to use- in a muddled up order.:

1. Can the children look at the words and decide what the listening text might be about?
2. Can they spot any key language they have been practising e.g,question words,months, numbers?
3. Can they put these to one side- you can now see who can identify these words individually.
4. Can they anticipate in which order they may hear the words?
5. Ask the children to listen to the text and put the words in the order from top to bottom in a vertical list as they hear them. 
6. Would they like to listen again and see if they are happy with the order they have generated ?
7. You can take photos of sample vertical lists of the children that you are following as progress pupils in the class  
8. Now can they discuss with a partner what they think the listening text is about?

Step Two

1. Can they now look at their list of words and gather facts about Emilie or Ana for example: 

Here is another opportunity to take photo samples of how the children can comprehend and link together sequences of words that belong together.

Step Three

1. Give out the words written out on a table that the children have been sorting.
2. Working in pairs can they create spoken sentences that use all of the words (Remember they have listened to a modeled text already).In this text they can create up to four or five  sentences  speaking as of they are ~Emilie in the first person singular- name/age/ birthday/ where Emilie lives/ feelings
3. Ask the children in pairs to write down their sentences .You can collect in  their work after the activities and keep samples as evidence of progress in writing from memory.
4. Ask for volunteer pairs to show and read out loud  their sentences for the class.Now you can listen for pronunciation and intonation  as they read aloud their sentences. 

Putting all our eggs in one basket! Making simple sentences

It's really important that we look for and keep evidence of children's progress in language learning and that the children have something tangible to share and revisit as they make progress.
At the end of the first half term this year I encouraged my associate teachers to gather in leaves with children's writing on them.The writing  was based on the language they had been practising during that half term.Leaves? Well it was Autumn time. At the start of the next half term term the leaves were re-distributed amongst the class - could the class read out loud and remember the meaning of the sentences that had been written? Here is the original blog article Writing and reviewing a half term's progress

At the end of the Easter term I think that we can use the idea of "putting all your eggs in one basket" (in a positive way) to look at the progress children have been making with  grammar in Year 4 writing simple sentences (noun /3rd person singular or plural verb/ adjective).

In Year 4 we have been making simple sentences to describe aliens and monsters. So if we have three different types of coloured card eggs in a basket (several eggs from each colour) each colour can represent either nouns (part/s of the face or body), adjectives (colour with correct agreement) or a present tense part of  the verb "to be" ( either " is" or "are").

• Can volunteers select three different coloured eggs and see if they can make a sensible sentences to create a spoken and written description of a part of the body - or is it impossible, because the verb or the adjective just doesn't fit correctly?
• Ask the class to write out  a maximum of three descriptive sentences on an egg shaped card.
• Collect them in and hand them out again at the beginning of next term .Can the children still read them?
• Bring out those different coloured eggs in the basket- can the children still make sensible sentences with the eggs?

APPs and links between KS2 and KS3: first achievable steps

I am not an expert with IT and would never suggest that I was, but I do love my ipad and the fun you can have with all sorts of APPs to use in language learning! So yesterday was exciting CPD opportunity for myself as well as others because yesterday Joe Dale visited us here in Warrington for a twilight linked to our DfE project Language Learning for everyone

We had 55 teachers in the room ,six high schools were represented plus we had primary WSTA SCITT students too.
There were teachers from St Helens,Halton,Knowsley,Warrington.Wigan ,St Helens and Cheshire who ranged from novices and beginners with ipads to more experienced ipad and APP users.It was fast and furious but there was plenty of food for thought and ideas, plus I think every teacher went away with next steps to try out in the world of APPs!

Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity,transition activities again spring to mind!

I have had an ipad for a year now and love it.I enjoy looking at the ways we can use the APPs often recommended on Twitter to create learning opportunities for the language learning primary school children we work with.
We have had great success with Yakit , Pic Collage and Sock Puppets plus colleagues have tried out Tellagami and Zondle. We also love a programme from www.smule.com (Autorap) to record children and create raps of their simple recordings.

This Christmas we are using Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with both Yakit for Kids with younger children and Autorap with the older children  Most of my colleagues have to work with one Ipad in class their own and a VGA cable to connect to the main system and share via the screen in their classrooms. 

One of the main intentions of the CPD twilight was to bring primary and secondary teachers together at the same training event to meet and to consider links through technology between KS2 and KS3. 
So now I am putting on my KS3 hat and looking at the possible links between the APPs Joe shared with us and how we can create purposeful learning opportunities between Y6 and and KS3. Thanks to Joe for the answers to my questions during CPD about possible ways to do this.......

Google Drive 
Setting up a shared folder on Google Drive between KS2 and KS3 language teaching colleagues seems to me the first step! 
Teachers can see what children are doing and share good practice plus shared activities can be accessed from these folders.These can be across all 4 skills and look at grammar too! Words such as AfL,quality assurance, support,creativity, continuity , transition activities spring to mind!

 Yakit for Kids 
Joe showed us how to create the characters and then add voice recordings with this APP.I asked Joe if one person could create the characters and then if this was shared in Google Drive could another person add the voice recordings and I was delighted to hear the answer was yes!  Well there is potential here for a Year 6 challenge . 

• One Yakit for Kids clip with characters  (it takes about 5 minutes maximum to source and make) 
• Shared on Google Drive by a KS3 teacher,downloaded by the KS2 Y6 teacher for the Y6 children to add the voice recordings .
• What do they think the characters are saying? 
• I can see this being a termly challenge based on a theme or focus that is pertinent to Y7 term 1- revisiting personal information, talking about objects and describing them etc.
• There is limited time of 15 seconds but then Joe showed us a clever technique to stitch Yakit clips together so children who can or want to  say more can stitch together the identical clips but with continued question and answer dialogues! Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind!

I-nigma
Ever since I found out about QRs I have really liked them. I can see links between drama, music and QRs and performance ! In a primary language learning context I have suggested using QRs on display to share good language work with parents and carers or sending QRs home to parents to see the work they have done. 
A teacher  in the audience did ask the question yesterday about what happens if parents don't have the correct equipment to read the QR and Joe does know a way to do this but maybe you need to ask him this....
And yesterday I realised once again what an easy way this would be to:

•  set up question and answer treasure hunts for Y6 children 
• created by either language assistants in high school or older pupils.
• Simply create a set of recordings (either visual and spoken or just spoken), 
• load on Google Drive in a "treasure hunt" folder and share with Y6 teachers.
• Can the Y6 children piece the  QRs together so that they make sense and flow as one piece of information text or dialogue.......  Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind! 

Book Creator
I have tried out Book Creator as a class activity with one class at KS2. I would say that the children are more adept than myself at using this and enjoyed showing me how to add, insert , put in sound clips.
Joe showed us how to add sound clips though that become transparent icons on the pictures and again it occurred to me that this could be a Y7 - Y6 activity:

• Simply take photos of objects in a Y7 classroom and school.
• Ask your Y7 to record a description of some of the items in the pictures
• Conceal the sound files and then pop in to a book creator  template.
• Share via Google Drive with Y6 teachers and the children in Y6 can have a virtual tour of the high school in the target language.
• All the class needs to do is hover over each object and listen to what has been recorded. 
• It works the other way round too - allowing Y7 language teachers to meet the class of Y6 at a specific school in a specific year via a photograph.
• Simply take a photo of the class and ask each child to introduce themselves in the target language (personal information,likes,dislikes etc) Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind!

Book Creator can allow the children to share writing,to annotate work and to add pictures of events that have taken place or performances the class have taken part in- not necessarily one book per child,but one "special 2 book per class over the course of KS2 or throughout Y6 would enable KS3 teachers to look and see and be able to refer to prior learning activities and events with their new Y7 intake.

Using Book Creator KS3 colleagues could set up activities based on nouns, adjectives and verbs by simply sharing on Google Drive via the Book Creator APP.Accessed and used by the classes in Y6 as one off revisiting and practising activities and the results recorded in Book Creator and shared back to KS3 teachers via Google Drive.  Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind!

As with all CPD events, a health warning needs to be applied here.

• Small  and achievable steps are best .One simple trial project with a small and willing group of schools or with one link primary school.
• Careful and clearly planned activities and expectations
• Carefully selected APPs that all staff and children understand and can use
• Realistic time limits 
• Activities that can be achieved with one ipad in the room or with a class of children with access to ipads

But what a way to build transition links ... AfL, shared learning, quality assurance and support, continuity and creativity.