#eTconf15 - 10 steps to effective communication in eTwinning projects

Last week I attended the eTwinning Conference in Brussels (#eTconf15). It was a fantastic event, I met amazing people, saw inspiring keynotes and participated in fantastic workshops.I learnt a lot and now I am ready to use my new skills and spread the passion!

We were spoilt with the amount of available workshops, click on the programme to see how difficult it was to choose! There was one I definitely wanted to see : 10 steps to effective communication in eTwinning projects run by Irene Pateraki and Paraskevi Belogia. 

I tweeted the whole workshop presentation, here on my blog I will briefly list the 10 steps the Irene and Paraskevi suggest:

1, The pupils need to be confident with the technology they use throughout the project. This includes getting to know Twinspace.

2, Create Twinspace accounts for your pupils, and encourage them to participate on this platform and interact with other pupils. (I am struggling with this as I am a visiting teacher and I haven't got enough time and computers to give everybody the chance but there must be a way around it and I won't give up!)

3, Respect each other online, because the online world is like the real world!

4, Plan ice breaking activities so that the children can get to know each other and build better relationships.

5, Use the Twinspace communication tools: Twinmail, Discussion Forums and the Teacher Bulletin.

6, Add regular live elements (games, quizzes, chats).

7, Integrate collaborative activities into your project (team work, group work).

8, Engage the pupils in active learning: plan fun and creative activities.

9, Provide feedback, because good feedback is where learning happens.

10, Use the right ICT tools! Some examples:

• schedule an online meeting in Meetinfyre or Doodle
• use Twiddla for brainstorming or creating a logo for your project
• use Voxopop for discussing and debating ideas
• find each other on Zeemap
• watch a video together on Watch2gether
• play and learn in Kahoot
• evaluate in TodaysMeet
• more: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/etwinningcommunication

If you want to see the slides, check my tweets (@Erzsiculshaw) or search for #eTconf15 on Twitter.

Next blog post coming soon: tablets in eTwinning projects!

Now off to do some exercise after all those Belgian waffles:-)

eTwinning- basic guide for beginners

A week ago Janet Lloyd invited me to talk about eTwinning to language teacher colleagues in Warrington. (Read her blog post about this event called "Making Links Abroad".) I talked about projects we are working on and then I showed some screenshots of the etwinning website, just to make the registration easy. I have decided to copy the slides here on my blog because on Twitter or in the Languages in Primary Schools (LiPS) Facebook group there are always teachers interested in setting up partnership, finding pen pals or starting projects. I would like to show you that it is easy to become an eTwinner teacher!:-)

Here are my simple instructions:

Go to the etwinning website! You will see this:

Click on "Register now" in the right corner!

You will have to fill in a few of these pages, it won't take more than ten minutes, I promise! Have your head teacher's or school's email address handy, you will need it, the head will get a confirmation of your registration.

Create a profile!

You will find this option in the menu bar.

This will take you about 20 minutes, you can write as much or as little as you want to. Other teachers will see this page and can leave a comment for you. You can do the same if you find an eTwinner whose project you are interested in! Here is my profile:

Look for partners!

Go to the "Find etwinners" tab on the menu and you will get this page: 

You can do a search (subject, age, country, etc) or click on the forum you are interested in on the right hand side.After clicking on the forum, you will find lots of teachers looking for partners, look!You can reply to one if you are interested or click on "create message" and start your own thread!

Once you find a partner, you will have to register your project and you can start exchanging photos, videos, documents on Twinspace, which is eTwinning's secure platform. More about this next time!

                            Happy Easter, happy eTwinning!

Easter ideas (2)

Hello! I haven't written any posts for more than a month- the longest break since I started blogging 14 months ago.... The reason is that I am covering Spanish 2 days a week, so with my other 3 jobs I am teaching 4.5 days a week, about 700 pupils in 25 different classrooms! While I am doing very well in the classrooms, I am too tired to actually write about the activities...but it is Easter holidays now and I can catch up with blogging:-)

Here I come with the Easter activities:

Haribos- adjective agreement and Easter vocabulary

I found these in Home Bargains last week, only 60p a bag, and the contents are enough for 2 classes!We practised adjective agreement with the bigger ones (KS2) and learnt Easter vocab with KS1. It was a big success! I made the children promise that once they swallowed the haribo, they would always have to remember that the adjectives come after the nouns in Spanish.

 Tricky sounds sorting

A few weeks ago Clare Seccombe tweeted a link to me with fantastic vocabulary learning ideas: 

http://talesfromaspanishteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/vocab-stations.html?m=1. 

I got inspired to make a sound sorting activity for the children to practise "j", "ll", "v", "z" and "r". The Easter Egg Smarties were not for eating, jut to play with in little groups.

 Nazareños

A quick crafty activity at the end of the lesson, the template is here.

Monas de Pascua

I made these last year in my oven, but I wasn't teaching full time and my daughter had long afternoon naps... This year I just went into ASDA and got mini donuts ( about £1 per class). They decorated the donuts with icing and they had to use their best Spanish pronunciation when saying the colours. Again, this was an end of the lesson activity and took about 10-15 minutes.

eTwinning project: Easter card exchange

I am a big fan of working with other teachers, and very lucky to have found excellent colleagues like Carmen from Sunderland.

We have worked together before (Christmas singing, Valentine's card exchange), this time we decided to write Easter cards to each other. The Burscough children made a spring dictionary (a good chance to revisit  dictionary skills and get the glitter jars out;-) and we got beautiful cards with the date on, that is what they have been practising in Sunderland. We had a look at how they used the preposition "de" and circled this word on our cards. And most importantly, we enjoyed the Easter chocolate egg in the middle!

eTwinning - tools for collaboration ( #eTconf14, Rome)

At the end of November I was invited to participate in the eTwinning annual conference in Rome (#eTconf14). It was an amazing experience, I learnt a lot, met wonderful people, came home really inspired and decided to share my experiences on my blog.This post is about a workshop called Collaborative Activities: the key to successful eTwinning projects.

The whole point of the workshop was that instead of just presenting ideas, slides and presentations, the teams should collaborate in the projects and produce something together using different tools.We all had iPads/laptops and had fun testing these websites.

You can introduce yourself using Padlet. We all said a few words about ourselves, and my UK partner Vivienne and I even linked a photo of  some conference dessert with our introduction. (Right at the beginning of the workshop, the presenters said that you had to be careful with projects including UK teachers, because they are always on holiday...:-) We clarified this little misunderstanding by pointing out that we only had 6 weeks in the summer, and longer breaks during the school year.)

You can find a name for your group in Easypolls, the participants can vote for the best one.

You can design a logo together using Draw It Live.

You can write a poem together using TitanPad, it was good fun to read it together.

  AnswerGarden  is a good tool for evaluating the project, not just at the end, but during the project, as well.

 "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress but working together is success."  (quote from the workshop description)
Thank you Paraskevi Belogia and Irene Pateraki!

Christmas ideas (1)

This week I am sharing my Christmas ideas, hope you will enjoy them!

My Christmas activities start with the Spanish Lottery. The draw is on the 22nd of December, and it is a really interesting "show" on the television, because children SING the numbers! We play lottery or bingo, and the pupils can sing the numbers, they love it!

We learn to say "Feliz Navidad" by playing the hot/cold hiding game. A pupil hides a gift in the classroom while a volunteer detective is out, and when this comes back, everybody has to say "Feliz Navidad" whispering when the detective is far and they get louder and louder as he/she is getting closer.

I really surprise the children with the next "celebration", they never guess that the Spanish celebrate something similar to our "April Fool's Day" on the 28th of December. It is actually the Día de los Santos Inocentes, but people play tricks on each other like we do in April. We play "Trick the teacher" or "Trick your classmate". I point to colours, numbers, flashcards, etc. and say their names. If I am right, they have to repeat it, if I am wrong, they have to stay in SILENCE. The two teams (teacher against class or pupil against class) get points and the winners get stickers. Say the words quickly for extra challenge!

On the 31st of December, the Spanish eat 12 grapes at midnight. Every time the clock strikes, they have to eat a grape, for 12 seconds. I take in grapes to school  and we play the secret signal (rules are here). When we see the pupil making a secret signal, we move on to the next number, or grape. You can get somebody to actually eat the grapes in front of the class!If you live near an Instituto Cervantes, you could borrow the Manolito Gafotas movie and watch the family celebrating New Year's Eve. We also thought about what we wanted to have in the new year and made these grapes with our wishes on. I got this idea from the Janet Lloyd Network Facebook page, follow it for great tips, songs, games, etc.

On the 5th of January, there is a street parade with the Three Kings (los Reyes Magos). They throw sweets for the children to catch, and this year we will have a sweets fight! This is an idea I have stolen from Twitter, Eleanor Abrahams (@elvisrunner) has a great blog, and she shared her snowball fight idea earlier this year here. I will use coloured paper for this activity and write a different question on each one. We have played snowball, Tomatina and pumpkin fights in the past and it is such a good game/writing activity, do read Eleanor's blog for the rules. 

On the 6th of January, the Three Kings bring gifts to the children, who put milk, biscuits and water out to feed the kings and the camels. We made these boots last year, the idea is from the Fun for Elementary Spanish Teachers Facebook page, join the group for good discussions and great ideas!

We always sing "Feliz Navidad".....

But this year we are facing a real challenge.... Carmen, a Spanish teacher (and blogger:-)  from Sunderland sent us songs we will sing together with her pupils in December using Skype. This is part of a sharing project we are doing together on the eTwinning website. Every class is learning a different song now, and so far we are doing really well! See her fantastic blog for more details!

If you want to find penpals and send Christmas cards or exchange videos, join the eTwinning website, go to the "Find eTwinners" menu, and browse the topics or open one! We will send our cards soon, this year I will give my pupils Christmas cards I bought at the January sales, because we won't have much lesson time to decorate them, they will just write messages inside.

If you want to take turrón in to show your pupils (or eat some:-), you can buy them in TK Max. They are not cheap though, usually around £3.50 for a small box. I got some on my Spanish trip 2 weeks ago... wonder if they will last till Christmas:-)

Or you could bake a Roscón de Reyes, just find a simple recipe on the internet, make the roscón and let the pupils decorate it with icing or Christmas decorations (good practice of colours/shapes/following instructions/expressing opinions). Baking is not as hard as it sounds, my oven is more reliable than my printer and the cake will make a great display if you are not allowed to eat food in the classroom.

Bookmark/ puppet with lolly sticks: I made this one the other day, I used milk carton to cut out the head of the snowman.

I will look for more crafty ideas on www.lightbulblanguages.co.uk, I saw a Nativity Scene there I would like to print out and make with my pupils. Just go on the Christmas menu and you will see loads of links!

Well, that is all for today... and a picture of Saint Nicholas for my French teacher friends-) He comes to Hungary, too!

Autumn ideas

I have young children and many times my teaching ideas come from playing with them:-)

Leaves from the park:

We like collecting leaves in the park, we put them in big dictionaries for a few days and then we can make monsters with them.

These are my Year 4’s leaf monsters, they are learning body parts at the moment.

 

Y6 are sending the leaf bunting to Spain, it will look really good on our partner school’s classroom display. We have written a few sentences about ourselves under the leaf people.

 

Nuts about numbers:

Before we eat the hazelnuts from my garden, I am taking them to school to play with. We are learning big numbers in Year 5, they have a laminated placemat with the numbers 1-100 in Spanish and they have to challenge each other to say the nut number in Spanish and check if the answer is correct.

 

Bonkers about conkers:

One of my children’s favourite book character is Kippkopp, the conker boy.On rainy Sunday afternoons we do crafty activities at home, last week we made some conker people. I will use some of these to revisit hair/eye colours and today we have made some comic book pages with them in Year 3/4.

 

 I wonder what I will be teaching when my own two kids grow up and won’t play with me any more...

 



European Day of Languages 2014

What a week....we had lots of fun celebrating the European Day of Languages! My blog post about our previous activities was very popular (click here), so I have decided to share what we did this year and you might be able to use some of the ideas next time.
Here is the list:
 

Food tasting:

I walked in Burscough Tesco and asked the community outreach worker (Jill) to donate some food for our international food tasting activity. I had done some research on the Tesco website before and these were the products I asked for:

Dates from Egypt- Arabic

Breadsticks- Italian

Spring rolls- Chinese

Tortilla crisps- Spanish

Poppadoms- Hindi

Pretzels- German

Croissants- French



And.... I bought snails from Amazon, for those who really wanted a different experience-an idea from the Facebook Primary Languages group. Most pupils had a go, even the head teacher came in to try some and the class teachers had a small bit as well:-)

 

 

 

 

Around the world in hot air balloons:

From the book "Languages take you further" the pupils had to learn to say "hello" in 3 different languages, write them down on post its, stick them on spoon or stick men and put them in hot air balloons. The pupils made the mini men, I made the hot air balloons. This idea was inspired here http://edlideas.wikispaces.com/ (by @dominic_mcg) (The Culshaw family are sick of eating yogurts by the way:-)

 

 

 

A balloon visit to another school

 After making our hot air balloons, we visited St. John's Primary School and we gave them to the pupils there:-) They made us some hand made cards and stickers. Mrs Murphy, the Spanish teacher in the school prepared a fantastic assembly with all kinds of activities: singing together, learning a German tongue twister, acting out/saying the numbers in Japanese, singing a song in 3 languages, reading a story in Spanish and telling us interesting facts about languages. It was such a lovely experience!

Etwinning project-postcard/song exchange

Three of my classes participated in this project: we made cards, wrote "Happy European Day of Languages!" on them and posted them to 18 schools around Europe. We are still receiving them and they look great on our display. Also, part of the project was to record/upload Frère Jacques in our own languages on the eTwinning website, it is fun to hear the song in Portuguese,Latvian, Polish, Spanish, etc... we will listen to all in the next few weeks:-)

 

 

 



 

 

 

Chinese/Spanish Skype with a class in Birmingham

This was absolutely amazing! Simone Haughey (a lovely teacher I know from Twitter) and I had agreed to do a short Skype session with our classes and sing a song to each other. The test call failed before the lesson but Simone messaged to say we should try it, and it worked!:-)) Now the whole world knows that I will hardly get an Oscar for Best Director as it took me ages to work out the camera on the iPad, and quite a while to realise that the screen is showing them and not us... we were all wearing the same uniform! Simone played the ukulele and sang "Twinkle, twinkle little star" in Chinese, and my pupils repeated the lines after her! She was great!  We sang the "Cómo te llamas?" song and taught them Me llamo, Hola +Adiós. 

Simone's blog is here: http://robinhoodpmfl.wordpress.com/.

My class teacher colleague wrote about this event on our school's website http://www.lordsgateschool.co.uk/year-3/.

 

A surprise video from Grangetown Primary School

After Simone's Skype call I thought that things couldn't get any better, but the same night I got a message on Twitter from Carmen, another Spanish teacher from Sunderland... she and her class made us a really nice video, check it out here:

http://spanishrv.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/hay-una-cosa-que-te-quiero-decir.html They knew that we were learning about expressing likes/dislikes, so in the video they showed us some really good words on big papers and sang us a song! I was in tears after reading the post, seriously! By the way, Carmen's blog is a gold mine for language teachers, I "steal" something from it every week:-)

 

Prizes

 

Stickers, books, passports.... all freebies: you can get them through the link from my previous EDoL post.

 

Some"I love languages" class displays

 Video clips

Frozen in 25 languages- it was a big hit!

 

 

Lego movie song (mulitlanguage)

 

It won't upload on my blog, but here is the link:

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4Y8gqgItAA



So that was our week of celebration.... But there is no time to rest, we are ready for the next big event: Columbus day in a few weeks' time:-)