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  

Going back, to get to the future!

Strange title I know - "going back,to get to the future" but this is a possible learning opportunity with Year 6 during this final Summer half term !

I am very excited about the work some of my colleagues will be undertaking this half term with their Year 6 language learners! 

Some of my local colleagues have decided this half term to work with their Year 6 classes to explore other target languages - 

• to excite and enthuse  Year 6 learners with a new language 
• to see how language learning skills  are transferable and can help access a new language
• to help our young language learners realise that they are now ready for secondary school and KS3 language learning and maybe a new language challenge!
• to encourage our young learners as they leave primary to see that they are at the start of a very exciting language learning journey not necessarily stuck in one foreign language!

Take a look at this message from our Janet Lloyd Network Facebook page from @Deprezprez on 31 May this year !

Looking forward to starting to teach Spanish to my Year 6s at Burtonwood CP and Locking Stumps CP this half-term after many years learning French!! Will be a great challenge for them and interest after the SATs come down!

In my opinion learning a language involves risk taking and involves the transfer of both prior learning and skills.

We all need to be able to make mistakes and feel that we can try again and certainly be able to overcome the feeling that if it's not perfect use of language then there is no communication! 

Primary language learners need to be able to take risks, make mistakes,have another go and try to improve!

The experiment is a sort of "blast from the past" for myself really!
In  1995 I began working as a primary languages teacher with Year 6 children in a local primary school.The children were in a feeder school to a language college where half the children would learn French and half the children would learn German in KS3 Y7. I decided to teach half a term of French followed by half a term of German througout the school academic year.The same content and activities were used in both  half terms but in alternate languages.So many of the children thought German was more fun and that it was easier and at first as a Germanist I was very excited about this .I had obviously created lots of "German" language  enthusiasts...then I realised what was actually happening.The young language learners were relaxed during the second half term as we re-applied skills and participated in  very similar activities from the first half term.  In my opinion they were relaxed and learned effectively because they had already practised the language learning skills in French!

Let's go back to when I started teaching in 1985... maybe a similar thing was happening there too? 
Our "top sets" learned a second foreign language and were called the "accelerated language learning group" because they started their second foreign language in their third year at high school.
"Mmm?"I ask myself as I look back , maybe other children could have achieved this too? Should we have identified more clearly the skills that we were practising with all our language learners? Just a thought!

And if we go right back in to my past..... why am I a Germanist? Well,I learned French as my first foreign language alongside Latin and then two years later- German. I thought I was better at German- but was I? 
Maybe I  applied skills effectively that I had already practised in French and this helped me to access German more quickly (memory,recall, listening,speaking, reading aloud confidently,using a bilingual dctionary etc)?  This was probably on reflection proven at University ,but I didn't realise this at the time.It was expected that we studied Dutch or Swedish for two years whilst studying German and within those two years we  reached A Level standard in the language. I love drama and reading texts such as  Miss Julie by Strindberg in Swedish was a delight and that has always stayed with me! Did I realise at the time that I was using transferable skills?

It seems to me that skills help make you more confident to try to communicate in another language.In the last couple of years I have had to begin to understand and communicate at a limited level in Spanish and I find my understanding of the transferable language learning skills so useful and so powerful! 

And why do I believe that this is for more then just the "linguistically" able?Well the truth is that I am a "trained" not "true" linguist!
Yes I love languages and exploring languages and helping others to do the same! 
My first love is being able to communicate and be creative with language and text! 
On reflection I have become very adept at transfering skills and analysing language and looking for grammatical and structural patterns.

So this half term is maybe less of a great experiment and more of a great celebration! 

The Year 6 learners are about to start the next stage in their great  language learning adventure. We hope our activities this half term will help our young learners see the links between languages and how the mystery of language learning, isn't really an unsolvable mystery and that language learning skills and tools are transferable life long powerful assets!

The experiment does demand that the children trust us,are confident and excited about exploring a new language/culture and  want to see how the practise of language learning skills during their primary career can be used to access language a new language.

Skills? Well ....here are a few for starters!

• listening and responding in a new language
• looking and listening for similarities between languages to aid comprehension, 
• knowing how to listen to and practise the sounds of the new language
• accessing bilingual dictionaries to find the words to aid comprehesnion and comminication
• trying to accurately copy the sound and the spelling of new language

It also demands that the teacher is confident enough in some cases to say "I am the facilitator" not the expert- let's explore this new language together.Let's consider the skills and tools we have been developing and let's step out in to a new language and see if we can communicate at a simple level in this language". Life skills I think that could be invaluable to all concerned! 

Who knows what language someone may need to understand or speak during the course of their own lifetimes!

Different ways to get started with new content and add interest and challenge

A colleague has just contacted me to ask for ways that we might engage young learners when introducing new content.....

Here are some of my initial thoughts, 

Engaging with our senses

• Make the activity touchy feely - what's in the bag/ magic sack/ under the blanket / cloth etc?
• Add an element of sensory challenge - don't look! Just smell or taste - what could it be?
• Hearing the item before seeing it- does it rattle,squeak,clatter  etcetra?

Be detectives! 

• Solve the scenario - what collection/ group/ family / situation might all the new items you are introducing belong to (e.g a weather report/ a zoo/ a jungle/ a restaurant etc).Give them pictures of possible scenarios from which to pick (e.g a zoo and a jungle or a cafe and a restaurant)
• What's the link- in which order should the new items be ordered? Introduce the items in a specific order - can the class spot the link
• Ask the class to watch and practise carefully the new items and then on tables set up their own "solve the link" problems for the rest of the class.Let the class create link problems for the rest of the class to solve e.g.  one table can pout three of the items in size order - can the rest of the class spot the link and place the other items in to the size order so that the link is completed.Or another group might put some of the items in alphabetical order - can the rest of the class spot and solve the link
• Conceal all the items under a sheet- so that it looks like a landscape.Introduce the items as a word and a picture , Can volunteers come to the front and spot the items from  its shape under the blanket?
• Introduce more than one of an item ... maybe specific colours. Can they help you count up the items?
• Play hide and seek with the items ....just where is that new item?Who can find it first- maybe the pictures are blu-tacked around the room or are wrapped up and need to be unwrapped.Maybe volunteers are holding the possible items or pictures you want to share.
• Finding the matching parts.Cut your pictures in half and share one half of the picture - now who is holding or where is the matching half to complete the picture of the food,animal,clothes item etc

Learn together

• Don't just share the words, ask the children to work in groups to initially find possible words that we might need if we want to talk about animals, clothes , foods etc.Take feedback and see which of the words they have found match the words you want to share in the lesson.Make a list of the other words for additional language later in the focus.
• Listen to the words first on sound files and ask the children to spot the written word on a flip chart or on cards in front of them.Can they help you to decide how to say the words by listening carefully to the sound files?
• Reveal a new word or phrase in the target language and ask the children to share in English any fascinating facts they may know about the item - e.g weather (hurricanes/ storms/droughts etc) or animals ( speed of animals/ largest and smallest /habitats etc).Add some fascinating facts of your own- to break up the repetitiveness of practising new words and to add a new dimension to the learning

Set up a challenge!

• Be first to spot the longest word
• Be first to spot the shortest word
• Be first to remember all the words that start with a vowel
• Be first to spot the words with two syllables
• Be first to spot all the  masculine words / all the feminine words/ all the plural words
• Be first to remember all the phrases using the same verb

Make a noise!

Make learning the sound of the words and the phrases fascinating

• Give words and phrases a beat or a rhythm .Ask the children to identify the words/ phrases just by their beat or rhythm.Make it a pair activity
• Make the words silent - just repeated in silence in your head
• Add radio control - loud or quiet responses
• Silly voices
• Put the new words in to a nonsense rhyme and add to the rhyme as you add new language.
• Create an English story interspersed appropriately with the new phrases  and words and  ask the children to see if they can retell the story to each other.

Getting language learning right in school,is a delight!

I am currently undertaking a routine series of observations of the language assistants and teachers who work alongside me in our primary schools  delivering primary language learning on a weekly basis.It is such a rewarding and pleasurable opportunity to see what is really taking place in schools.

Today I was with my colleague Janet W and her Year 5  French beginners in a local St Helens' school.Two days ago I was with Ana in a Warrington school,observing Spanish .

This series of blogs is an additional support mechanism for these colleagues,as they can't be in each others classroom and as a team  we meet once per half term for a twilight CPD,So you can hopefully see that these blogs (with a cup of tea and a biscuit back at home) offer them an insight in to each others classrooms and schools. 

A little bit of background knowledge to set the scene
If you have followed my blog posts you probably already know that I work alongside a group of really committed and enthusiastic teachers and that we work very week of the school year in 37 schools to support the delivery of French ,Spanish and German. Part of my role is to guide and support the teachers and the schools as the project in their individual settings develops.

My observations below are about what I saw and experienced in a local school today and the Year 5 French lesson.The whole school ethos to language learning and the attitude and progress of the children in the class sprang pout immediately!This is our first year of working with the school. Today I felt like the "cat who got the cream" as the learning was a delight to experience !

Why was it a delight?

The actual lesson is probably a lesson you can all recognise.It was a well planned and paced lesson ,started with a new greetings song which contained lots of familar basic  language.Interestingly the children began to join in straight away and had no problem with singing and reading the words from the screen accurately.The class enjoyed practising questions and answers about themselves and this led to practising a less familiar question and answer (about age).Today the class wre introduced to the aliens- just like Ana's year 4  yesterday The Year 5  children today  are having a combination of year 3 and 4 learning to accelerate their content knowledge but keep the skills level of early learners.The introduction of the alien pictures is always great fun and there are opportunities to look for cognates and semi cognates plus grammatical links between nouns languages.The pair games to practise the new nouns and the new  question "Qui est-ce?" are  rounded off with a simple plenary to check the children have internalised key language.

So what made this lesson so "delightful" was the whole school positive attitude and focus upon learning to communicate in another language.It makes the learning of a language an integral, regular part of the children's learning and the school day.Therefore the participation and concentration and success is in my opinion very high.

Here are some of the factors I observed today that contribute to how I think the school is "getting language learning right".

• The school has a history of interest in international links,with an established and thriving link with China.As you walk through the school there is evidence in displays of links with China,children's work and information for parents.  
• SLT are committed to making language learning and communication an integral part of the school learning curriculum.They plan alongside us for progress and to make sure that it's primary language learning that suits all their learners needs.
• The children have previously learned some German and the school is committed to a quality language learning experience for all KS2 in French
• The school has set up effective liaison between the school language coordinator and the language deliverer (Janet W).
• Teachers and TAs are present and take an active part in the lesson, supporting Janet W, learning new language alongside the children and supporting children where necessary.The teacher and  TA participated in the pair work games  and sang the greetings song and prompted children to recall key responses to personal information questions and answers etc.
• The teacher and TA saw and made links between the new focus the children started today on the "family and family trees" with their Science project- (growing up).
• Janet W is an excellent deliverer of the target language and although she has only just started to work as part of our team ,she has been delivering primary languages as a teaching assistant in a local school.She has an understanding of pace,rapport with staff and children, using the primary classroom space and the understanding of working in a primary language learning context.
• There were natural pauses and opportunities for assessment for learning and a final plenary check of learning that had taken place.
• Children loved the alien family and delighted in creating "alien voices" for the characters as they learned the members of the family.One pair really enjoyed changing the game to make "Darlek voices" too.
• All the children loved the pair activities -guessing games, based on the question "Qui est- ce?" with the aliens."Ooh it's like Cluedo!" was one enthusiastic comment
• All the children participated well in the pair game and I saw the reaction from the children that you see when the children like the resource they are using, (colour laminated pictures of the aliens) holding them like precious playing cards.
• A link  was made  between local primary schools as it was explained that the grandma and grandad alien were created by Barrowhall CP Year 4 in Warrington .Now Parish CE Year 5  want to create additional family members and this got them thinking even as they walked out to the classroom.The teachers cleverly  popped it on the agenda for circle time too- so French language will be used later in the week and new words will be looked for!
• And the aliens ?Well this is the first of several appearances throughout the next couple of years of language learning. We have used these characters for several years now and they never fail to delight the children (and the teachers)! Today I saw what an engaging focus this  is for primary UKS2 children.Yes it's the family, yes we are learning words but this is la famille extra-terrestre ! Wow and just how did the children engage with the fact this was an extra terrestrial family! 

Seeing progress in action!

I want to call this blog post - "you can always learn more!"

It's a post about progress and observations in the primary classroom from a school visit yesterday.

I am certain that many  of you who read this do achieve similar success in classes across the country.I think it's so important to create a written record of your successes to help others.
Firstly the record can celebrate what is taking place. 
Secondly it's a tool by which to share practitioners and learners progress.
Thirdly it is hopefully a fair record of what school are achieving across year groups and across the school academic year in primary language learning.

A little bit of background knowledge to set the scene
If you have followed my blog posts you probably already know that I work alongside a group of really committed and enthusiastic teachers and that we work every academic week of the school year in 37 schools to support the delivery of French ,Spanish and German. Part of my role is to guide and support the teachers and the schools as the project in their individual settings develops.

Yesterday was one of those wonderful days when I went in to a school, to observe a practitioner delivering language learning and to support the school to see how best to support staff and children with their language learning.
Below is an honest account of what was observed - simple language learning content and context that became one of those rare magical moments !Less about the teacher and more about the progress of the language learners


Ana is one of our Spanish native speaker QTS practitioners. She has worked alongside me now for four years and has worked in this specific school for just over two years. Her relationship with children,staff and SLT is excellent. Ana works with a core programme of learning across KS1 and KS2 and is happy to change or adapt learning to suit school needs and special events.
The core programme is in line with the network JLN SOW ,which means staff and especially the language coordinator can access the core language,activities and  resources and develop simple assessment opportunities with Ana.Ana has provided sound files for our SOW ,which help staff to listen again to those core words and structures too. Ana shares medium term planning for all year groups from YR to Y6 with the coordinator and staff.......

............but didn't I say you can always learn more ? !

Yesterday the observations made,were about the balance of the four skills in accordance with the new DfE POS and also about what progress young learners in the school are really making.
The Head and I observed two lessons.In both lessons the class teachers and TAs are always present and encouraged to participate.The school is still working toward what this participation will eventually look like and how the school, Ana and the staff can support different groups of learners.It's a case of positive SLT supported and staff implemented "work in progress".Spanish is now becoming an integral part of the learning curriculum across KS1 and KS2.

A lesson of two halves with Year 4!

Now here is an interesting thing! 
With Y4/5 mixed age class Ana was looking at the family and creating descriptions using familiar language of a new family- our alien family. She was concentrating also on our New Year's resolution to encourage children to apply rules of pronunciation to new language, applying knowledge of prior learning and to look for those semi- cognates and cognates.You may have read the blog post Look! Think! Read The children are in their second year of language learning and it was in the second half of the lesson,after we asked Ana to deliver everything in the target language- instructions , questions to the children and the speaking card game  to "describe people" (a DfE learning objective!) that the lesson came to life! 
Why? Well the children, it seemed to us, became really keen to engage with the learning through Spanish.It was great to see them all sat on the edge of their seats, listening for clues in the language Ana was using,with Ana carefully selecting the key language she used and actions to support what the children had to do e.g "Para" ,"Movea".......With not a word of English spoken the class wanted more!! 
What is important to remember here is that the children work every week with Ana, know her well and are used to her speaking Spanish with her - and she knows what they know too! 

It was this second half of the lesson that was most remarkable as every child was engaged ,some supported by teacher and TA  but all the children were trying to understand what Ana was saying....and the teachers were too!

The Head and I wanted to take this further so ....



A Year 3 lesson to remember!
The Head and I followed Ana to her next class and asked her this time to speak only Spanish from the beginning to the end of the lesson.These were Y3 children who have two years language learning with Ana, behind them. 
Ana wanted to teach the class how to read and write names of animals, some familiar spoken language and some unfamiliar language in preparation for the work on animals they see and find around them.
She asked the children to  put on their Spanish brains and to travel with her in their heads to Spain.From this moment on she explained everything in Spanish.They were Spanish children in a Spanish classroom with a Spanish teacher for the duration of the lesson.

We observed normal routine warm up language- questions and answers  about the date, month, what day was it yesterday or would it be tomorrow,personal information, favourite months, days , weather on the day , etc etc! 
When she asked the children where they lived,she reminded them that they now lived in Spain( all explained in the target language) and my favourite response had to be "Vivo en Real Madrid" !! 
Although most of the children wanted to live in Malaga, Barcelona or Sevilla- all places that Ana will have talked with them about when for example she talks about her home city Sevilla , or Gaudi and colours and Barcelona and Malaga because we have link schools in the city! 

Then  something magical happened..... one of those "goose pimples" teaching and learning moments which you want to keep forever !

Ana asked the children about their favourite animals and The children were able to tell Ana about the sea creatures they liked -pulpo, tiberon etcetra, without prompting ,from their Y2 language learning focus and recalled  farm animals from their Old Macdonald work in Y1 !! 
All the children were busy thinking about what they could say and remember....




From this point onwards we observed the clearly identifiable progress these young learners are making in language learning.
Ana asked children to come to the front and share how they thought these favourite animal words were written .Hands up all around the classroom! "Casi" said Ana as children added too many consonants or forgot that a "h" sound could be a"j" in Spanish! They weren't put off - the whole class wanted to help sort out the spelling! "Pez" was interesting and the child writing self corrected himself .It's not "th" it's "z" he said "because it's like diez"! Definitely a WOW moment!

Ana introduced new animal pictures and asked the children if they already knew the word for the animal and was it un or una....? Could they write the word if they already knew it? And the new animal words - well could they listen, repeat and then decide from prior learning of numbers , colours, etc how to spell for example "caballo" ( amarillo link) , conejo, pajaro (rojo/ jueves link) etcetra.

The children were applying prior learning to new language and making sound -spelling links and confidently coming to the front to volunteer the written word.Meantime the class teacher and TA were observing and  identifying the confidence of hesitant writers, happy to share their clear and exact writing in a different language and the way that the more able learners were being stretched by challenge of the target language.

These young language learners are inquisitive,keen to learn the language and confident that they can succeed.The thoughtful class practise of the pronunciation of "v" for "vaca" ,the additional information offered about the animals e.g.the impromptu spoken language from some of the children with the colour of the animals in the pictures and trying to describe this in a sentence and the links the children could make with their own experiences e.g raton- oh that's like "ratoncito Perez" said one pupil.(Her Spanish friend told her about this story, she added).

   
And Ana - well Ana was thriving on the engagement of the children and as an experienced primary classroom teacher and practitioner, using only target language, was being guided by the children and drawing the children further in to their application of language learning skills.

This was a lesson not to forget and needed to be recorded.
Progress of 7 year olds with some prior learning in Spanish across listening ,speaking , reading ,writing, culture and grammar.
Thank you so much Ana for a remarkable snapshot! 

What have we learned? 
Well  there is always room for improvement - perhaps more talking partner opportunities  and use of mini whiteboards ...... but truthfully it was the impact of the learning through the target language and the way the children naturally made those sound -spelling links, recalled language with ease and began to want to engage in sentence level activities outside the learning context that have caused Ana,the Head and I to stop and think!



Next steps?

• To allow staff time to shadow Ana and see this progress in different year groups and the links the children can make between prior learning and new learning.
• To begin to plan for Spanish learning which can support teachers and TAs with their own everyday learning skills observations of children
• To plan for as much use of the target language as is sensible and supportive for the young  learners
• To plan for staff CPD time to discuss what they have observed and what they think are the next achievable steps! 

Easter Egg Trail and beyond. (Moving on learners) Adapting an Epiphany idea !

In December ready for Epiphany I wrote the blog post "Pass the galette or the roscon de reyes", It has proved to be very popular and I have really enjoyed looking at people's ideas and ways of adapting the activity to suit their own learners.A delight!

You can read the original blog and ideas here galette or roscon de reyes

All these shared wonderful ideas made me think a bit more about ways to adapt the activity.You see I think it's important to revisit and reuse familiar activities to allow the children to explore the language in more details.

So here are my notes to self!

Easter time 

Let's create an Easter Egg trail with the same type of activities, in the shape of an Easter egg maybe or one of those wonderful "Easter egg" clocks I always wanted as a child.This is a circular clock with each small egg representing one of the numbers on the face of the clock (so twelve eggs in total).

The treasure hunt idea  would work wonderfully in German trying to look for the Osterhase or in French looking for the bells from Rome that fly the eggs in to the gardens!

Handing the activity over to the learners 

I do think it is so important that we remember that the actiivities are purposeful and about encouraging the learners to play the games and do the activities so that they either learn something new or consolidate prior learning. 

To this end I think that this would be a great activity to ask the children in UKS2 to engage in the making process equipped with the principles of the learning activities e.g. recognising and using sounds and letter strings and revisiting familiar language.

The UKS2 children can then make a gift galette/ rosocn de reyes/Easter egg trail etc for their younger LKS2 classes .Cutting, sticking and glueing- yes- but also thinking through links between phonemes and graphemes and remembering previous learned language!

Thanks to everyone who has made me think through the potential  of these ideas a little bit more!

And should you want to use ready made templates then thanks to Sue Cave,she has shared here phonics galette template in smart notebook on this page of Sharing Primary Languages

Look,think,link and read!

As we progress with our language learners and they become more competent in the target language we meet new challenges with the children.

One of these challenges is to revisit and address the need to make those important links between sounds we can identify and know in words.We need to remind our learners that are moving on to apply the strategies we have practised as games in our learning of the  phonics of the language as they reapply this knowledge independently in new word(and truthfully also in familiar words that we may not have seen for a while).In truth the strategy below will be very familiar to primary KS1 class teachers.

As I write this, I am thinking of all our learners not just the children that quickly pick up and understand the language as in my opinion we are trying to help as many young learners as possible learn the "tricks of our trade". In my opinion we need to make the stepping stone strategies explicit and give the children key prompts to be successful. Hence the challenge for the associate teachers after Christmas of holding "Look!Think!Link! "moments  with our young learners in KS2.

We are going to plan for and apply our "Look!Think!Link!" moments from the start of next term. I think this will become a prompt or a pause to say stop and think before you read out loud  for the children.

1. What can you see written down?
2. How many words?  
3. Which words have you seen before?

1. Can you break the words down in to letter groups that you know how to pronounce?
2. Can you think of a word you are confident in saying which contains the letter string you are not certain about? (Say this word silently in your head and listen for the sound pattern you need for the word(s) you can see in front of you)

1. Can you transfer the sound to the new word(s) and rehearse the word as a silent word in your head 
2. Now can you read it out loud clearly and more confidently? 

KS2 to KS3 language learning.Beginning to make sense of the many windows on this World

To be able to look for practical ways forward in how we build and disseminate the possible constructive and effective links between primary and secondary languages is both an exciting and also challenging opportunity.   

I love this picture below.It makes such a statement!It tells me about building blocks and layers and colour and diversity and different shapes and sizes all coming together and all having windows on the world.I think this translates well as a a visual depiction of how we are trying to bring KS2 and KS3 together as windows of opportunity on the world of language learning

"Aren't there many windows on the same language learning World!"

As I write,I am in Germany- getting the "language buzz".Why? Well, German is my foreign language and I love the language with a passion.It's the reason that I continue to speak French and that I can try to access Spanish and generally love languages.It wasn't the first foreign language I learnt, but all those skills I continued to practise in French were so much more easily accessible when I was learning German.I  relaxed in to the second foreign language and my learning was accelerated.

Even now at 52,I am still learning the skills of communication and still enjoy puzzling out the structure of language.When you are in the actual country you are reminded how you don't always have to be absolutely accurate to be understood,how you can rephrase or say something again,how it's okay to make a mistake,how there are always new words or phrases to take on board and first and foremost how very important it is that you feel confident when communicating.

This year as part of our DfE funded Warrington Teaching Schools Alliance project I have the great opportunity to work with Jo Gierl. Jo has been a HOD in one of our local high schools for several years and now teaches German and French from KS3 to KS5.She has two young bi-lingual children and already on a personal level see the bigger picture of the value of language learning from an early age. 

We are very fortunate that Jo now works as an associate primary languages teacher within our network too - one afternoon a week in KS2.
Jo's first challenge was to start a blog diary of her observations this academic year(2104-2015) as she explores the language world of KS1 and KS2 and also as she disseminates her findings to her own department and then meets and shares with other local HODs and their colleagues..Jo's blog already has me hooked From Primary to Secondary.

What is so very real and refreshing about her observations are that she is looking at primary language learning as it really is happening - not on special occasions but  as it is really happening and planned for on that day in the week she visits the schools.Jo is able to look at the learning she has read about and heard me speak about for herself . She is seeing the different approaches to the same big picture in 3D....

To help Jo when she works with her KS3 colleagues it will be important that she can share concrete examples. so over the last couple of weeks Jo has observed French,Spanish and German primary language learning here in Warrington.
Here are some of Jo's observations so far that are beginning to colour in the bigger picture for her of what language skills Year 6 children can already use or are developing.

Two weeks ago she observed @joanne_hornby delivering Spanish in a local primary school. 

"Pupils knew how to use the bi-lingual dictionary, a skill we teach in Year 7 as many children have never come across them in previous years. 
Cross-curricular links and further dictionary skills were made via Roald Dahl’s book titles in Spanish and the children had to recognise words and use the dictionaries to find out the English book titles. Pictures of the Spanish books were shown and the children were commenting on how front covers differed in Spanish compared with their English counterparts."

The following day,she observed @EWoodruffe as she taught primary French.I love the fact that watching KS1 was a revelation to Jo in this blog but here are some very specific comments about what she saw in Year 6.

" This was a full-on lesson…their previous knowledge ensured a prompt start to greetings and general conversational questions. A physical warm up conducted in French, demonstrated by Emilie ensured they were all up and participating, followed by a game of tennis, whereby the questions were batted out and a speedy whole class response was expected in return! When it came to the introduction of school subjects, they knew of cognates, pronunciation rules, grammatical terminology and ways to decipher meanings".

This week Jo has observed German with our very own Barbara Foerster:

"They were asked to match likes and dislike questions with their answers and most pupils were aware of looking for correlating words and patterns in the language. Connectives “und” and “aber” were slipped in and pupils were extending sentences within minutes. Negation was looked at “nicht” and “keine” readily identified by pupils. My partner had a super accent, mimicking that of Barbara and was so confident speaking to me in German"

Jo is beginning to see the bigger picture.She has identified in the snippets of her observations that I have copied and pasted above -taken from her blogposts -that the Year 6 children,who we would describe as "moving on " learners(not beginners) have developed skills that can not be ignored in secondary language learning.

Our big challenge this year is to see how we can take the diverse and language rich learning of KS2 languages and support KS3. Jo and I hope to explore and look for the "real" links between KS2 and KS3 language learning in our own local settings and then to share our observations and  potential ways forward.
Yes we will need to ask children to learn the same or a different language at the start of KS3, but we need to plan for ways forward that mean children will be able to return to another coloured seat -if they have changed languages or select a completely new seat and try a new language challenge.The option to explore other languages too and move to the other coloured seats successfully needs to become the success story of KS3!  

Sounds of a language an important skill in language learning

On Friday last week I met with a small amount of ITT primary education students, who are also specialist linguists.We considered the way we introduce language and language learning skills to new young learners.
What was interesting immediately was that as we become more sophisticated language learners and more competent in a particular language we can easily lose sight of the importance of playing with sounds on a language. 
For example as a Germanist I can quite easily assume that everyone knows how to say "ei" and ie" in German.It's also easy to assume that learners should be able to break an unfamiliar German word down into its component parts and sound it out.But how can they do this if we don't practise the sounds of the language? 
New learners of a language, be they children or adults,need to practise the sounds of a language so that they grow in their confidence to move from the very familiar to less familiar!
(EYFS and KS1 colleagues are often the first at staff CPD to get and understand this message and to come up with games and activities that enable their colleagues to practise the sounds of a new language and to link this learning to communication and literacy skills in English). 

To support linguists to experience new sounds in an unfamiliar language we listened in the session to Swedish numbers 1-10. I asked  the students to practise the numbers so that they could join in with the activities in our number lesson all about growing sunflowers .
Here is a link on quizlet to the numbers 1-10 in Swedish.Have a listen! Listen carefully to the sounds you hear in numbers 2, 3,7 and 8. Can you replicate the sounds? Can you break the spoken number down into its component sounds?
Numbers 1 to 10 in Swedish

The listening and responding activities and the spoken activities we tried whilst trying to remember the sounds in the numbers raised lots of discussion .For example how some of us are visual learners and need to see the word and is this because we are older learners etc? How we needed time to take in the new sounds. How we need to draw pictures in our heads to link the sounds to words in our own language that are similar e.g. 7 in Swedish is "sju" and we could think of a "shoe" in English etc...One lovely idea we generated from the discussion of word association was to make a display of sunflower heads for 1-10 with children's drawing in each sunflower head that prompted us to think of the sound of the number word.

Here are some of the games to play with the children on a regular basis to practise the sounds of the language being learnt.

Crocodile Paths -listening and responding- can the children make a marching rhyme of their favourite sounds. Create stepping stone cards om the floor of the sounds - repeated several times so for instance if we are using 6 sounds then we can have 4 sets of each sound so that there are 24 stepping stones. Ask the class to march across the stepping stones and say/sing their marching rhyme.Call "crocodile" and the children must freeze. Pull a one of the sounds written on small cards out of a bag or a box and say the sound for the class. any children stood on that sound stepping stone must sit out ...as the "crocodile has caught them!

Magical potions- spoken activity.Can the children in groups create magical nonsensical words out of a sequence of target language sounds that the class know? Can they say their magical nonsensical words for the class and can the rest of the class jot down on whiteboards the component parts of these words?Ask the group to write up their nonsensical word and say it pointing to each component sound- did anyone in the class write it down correctly?

Sound nets,remembering and revisiting written sounds - collect new sounds as the written sound on cards and keep them in a pretend "butterfly net" in the classroom - as if they were precious butterflies- and have special sound times ,when we pull out cards from the net and look at the sound cards and try to remember the sound we must make.

Air writing- as simple as can be. Can the children make a running dictation of a sequence of sounds that you say - just writing them in the air  

A Class Word Invention- creative speaking and writing activity.
Why not invent a new class fruit, vegetable ,sweet or toy and then ask the class to use their sound potions to create a suitable name and share their ideas with the class as a written and a spoken word with the class? Do their sound word's reflect the type of fruit, toy , sweet that  the class has created