http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org Janet Carruthers MFL blog containing ideas and innovations in modern foreign languages Sat, 06 Oct 2007 07:45:15 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The great news is that my Head of Department and colleagues have "bought in" to the idea of the French blog and we're all working on ideas. The lastest and most urgent project is podcasting for the Y11s so that they can practise for their orals. Hopefully they'll be up ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/10/06/more-good-news-blogging-and-podcasting-at-my-new-school/ This was my weekend's pet project (apart from going to Chinese yesterday). Not yet viewed by colleagues, let alone students, but hopefully it will flourish - even if in an altered form. Will keep you posted! Susan Kambalu (see link on right hand side) has written a ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/09/23/embryo-blog-francais-for-my-new-school/ Well, I've just gone back to my fantastic Chinese classes at City Lit which run every Saturday afternoon. Having not studied Chinese for a year it was a relief to discover that I have not forgotten everything (just a lot!). It also made me reflect on the pupils' perspective again. ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/09/23/from-the-other-side-of-the-classroom-learning-chinese/ This blog has been a bit quiet lately because I haven't been in school, but I thought it was worth drawing attention to Susan's latest comment about blogging. Note that when the pupils weren't obliged to submit their email address to comment, some abused the system! Lately, with colleagues from ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/06/30/more-on-blogging-with-pupils-etc/ I had wondered how to go about familiarising students with blogs and how to use them, but having attended an RE lesson last Friday at my old placement school I was given lots of good ideas. For Susan's account of her lesson, go to the Transformation Teachers link on ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/06/11/introducing-blogging-to-pupils/ Many thanks to our group today, especially Michelle. As a result of her ideas see SPANISH link on right hand side underneath Blogroll - espanol-extra. (Also I found a reliable Spanish dictionary site which you'll see). Thanks for reminding me how fantastic You Tube can be. ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/06/05/resources-sharing/ Thanks to Ana for telling me about this site for free music downloads. I've downloaded some nice stuff (Bananarama amongst others!) ... as far as I can tell, though, the choice isn't massive. I was looking for French/Spanish speaking artists but haven't found those yet. I could ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/06/04/free-music/ There is an event at the Italian Cultural Institute on the morning of Saturday 16 June which promises to be interesting. I've signed up - anyone else going? Also I see an October event at the Lycée Français which looks worth putting in the diaries. http://www.all-languages.org.uk/events.asp http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/06/01/association-of-language-learning-events/ In the throes of writing my final assignment I am interested to try out http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main to help me plan it. This is a free mindmapping programme which could be of use in our classrooms. I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks to Susan of Transformation Teachers ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/05/30/mindmapping-for-essay-writing/ We had a wonderful Year 8 lesson yesterday where a small group went round school with two video cameras, taking footage of school buildings, classroom, uniform etc and commenting in Spanish. I have spent most of today splicing it all together with Windows Moviemaker, but of course what I'd ... http://mflpgce2006.learnerblogs.org/2007/05/19/spanish-film-making/