New blog for my classes

As I said before, we are living big moments in England, languages are compulsory in primary schools! I only teach 1 lesson a week to each year group but I would like to reach out more:-)

 

Here is my action plan:

• 5 A DAY Spanish: where pupils have to sing a song or play game every day in school
• chocolate cake in the staffroom to celebrate Spanish:-)
• and today I have created a new blog in case the pupils want to show their families what we do in Spanish or sing the songs at home (they do that!). Here we go: http://lordsgatespanish.blogspot.co.uk/ . I am planning to add another one tomorrow for my second school. I will show pupils' work, as well. For now I have put the songs and the new words/expressions on the blog. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas! And you can leave a message for my pupils in the class blog, they would be made up if you could leave a comment:-)

Update 12/09/14: I have just created my other school's blog, it is here: http://bvspanish.blogspot.co.uk/

Have you had your 5 A DAY?

 

 

We are living big moments in England these days: languages are compulsory in primary schools from this school year! Schools can decide on the time allocation-  in my two schools I teach each year group once a week.

We are aiming for "substantial progress" by the end of Year 6, and I was wondering how to make the most of the input my single weekly lesson provides. Spacing out is so important when learning a language, the children could really benefit from more Spanish on the days when there is no lesson, so I have come up with the "Spanish 5 A DAY" idea.

It is practising Spanish for 5 minutes a day by singing a song or playing a game. It will be pupil led, I will pick the leader(s) every week. I know how busy class teachers are and I don't want to put extra burden on them by asking them to think of activities to do. They will "just" have to make sure they can fit in a song or a game in the day. I always have the new vocabulary on the display, they can take the flashcards off for a quick game of "Heads down thumbs up" or they can read the numbers while playing the "secret signal". I will leave a CD and YouTube videos on the class laptop in case the children want to sing a song. The leader(s) can wear a badge for a week and get a reward at the end.... which will have to be chocolate if I really want them to remember the 5 A DAY Spanish practice:-)

This is the poster I made for the classroom display:

You can find a lot of ideas on how to build in language activities in the school day on Clare Seccombe's blog:Time for Languages.

More about pupil participation in my lessons:

10-minute teachers

Spanish leaders

The cupboard - new game

Wish us good luck:-)!

The cupboard - a new game!

I am writing this post because I promised world fame to two of my Year 5 pupils.

 

If you read my blog regularly you know about the 10-minute teachers: they are volunteer pupils (kind of...) who have to teach a mini lesson every week on a topic they like most. They revise vocabulary with the class, play a game with them and make them sing a song. During this time I sit  with the other pupils and participate. I introduced this activity in two groups last year, and it turned out to be a success, a very anticipated part of the Spanish lesson.  But the approach was different in Year 5 and Year 6, and not because I set the rules differently...while in Year 6 the teachers revised previously learnt topics (animals, transport, family...etc.), in Year 5 the pupils insisted on creating new topics, like computers, wild animals, sweets...etc. They were very excited about finding words in the class dictionaries and inventing new games! I even had a pupil who included his mum in this activity, they made the list of words together, which made me so happy:-)

 

So here comes the new game, it is called THE CUPBOARD!! (There is a cupboard/small room in every room where I teach.)

Here are the rules:

1, two volunteers go in and they close the door (one would be enough but they insist somebody has to open/close the door:-),

2, while the class is quiet, the person inside says a sentence in Spanish including the new vocabulary (I insist on sentences, not just words),

3, the class has to guess what the sentence is,

4, the person who guesses the sentence can go in THE CUPBOARD, with a pupil of his/her choice.

 

The class is so quiet during this activity you could hear a pin drop and they all concentrate on the sentence. Because it is very hard to hear the sentence clearly from the classroom, they come up with rhyming words, similar words, the right words but without plural, etc... It really makes them think!

 

By the end of the school year, it became the most popular game leaving all time favourites like "the secret signal" and the "mystery voice" well behind.

 

 

If you have a cupboard/small room inside your classroom, try it! And don't forget to credit it to the Year 5 pupils in Burscough Village Primary School:-)

 

 

In my house this game is called "the wardrobe", the big favourite for "hide and seek".

Spanish leaders

Before I left for maternity leave a few years ago, a lovely colleague of mine had come up with an idea to continue Spanish in the school. She organised a small group of Y5 and Y6 pupils, planned games and activities and got them to visit all the classes of KS2 once a week! They worked on "old" topics, each week a different one. I made help sheets of all the topics we had covered (vocabulary and sentences), wrote down our favourite songs and created a list of the most popular games.

some of the help sheets 

 our favourite song book with CDs

When I went back to teach later that year, we decided to continue with the Spanish leaders and gave them a different job description: instead of doing "old" topics, they did a follow up activity the same week. I had to plan different games for each class and meet the leaders for 5 minutes every week to talk about the activitites. I left the CD on top of the Spanish cupboard in the hall and copied our  youtube songs on the teachers' laptops for easy access. I got the leaders Spain badges from ebay they could put on while they were working:-).

 these are from ebay

Last term we didn't have Spanish leaders but they are back from next week and I would like to try this idea in my other school too, so got  more badges from the Little Linguist stand at Language World 2014.

 these are from the Little Linguist

The advantages are obvious, the children get to use the language more than once a week and the class teachers who are not confident won't need to feel the pressure to speak, the leaders are great helping the pupils! As a visiting teacher I often feel frustrated that with 1 lesson a week and 30 children in the classroom we are not getting far, but using the more able ones to do an extra activity a few days later actually helps a lot.

I have blogged about the 10-minute teachers, the Spanish leaders, next time I will write about my Spanish helpers!

10-minute teachers

I give my job up for 10 minutes every Thursday:-). I am not retiring yet, I just sit down with the rest of the class and participate in the activities of  the "pupil teachers".
We only have one lesson per week and I find it a real challenge to make progress within our topic and go over previously learnt material. There is a Q&A time at the beginning of every single lesson when we mention lots of different vocabulary and structures ("Tengo un hermano y una hermana", "Hoy hace frío", "Me encanta el limón", etc...), but  I would like to spend more time on "old" topics and  I thought that Year 6 were big enough to help me review material we had introduced before.

This is how it works:
 

At the end of each class I choose 2 pupils, they will be the 10-minute teachers the following Thursday. They pick their favourite topic (so far we have had animals, transport, body parts, colours...) and they have to prepare a mini lesson with a lesson plan (don't look for AFL or differentiation, they don't know Ofsted:-).
 

 



I like seeing how seriously they take this job: they come into the classroom a bit early to practise what they will say and to write down some words on the whiteboard. I always have CDs and my memory stick with me so they can put on a song or a video. They can bring in props if they want to, a few weeks ago one girl brought all these soft toys from her home, I was soooo pleased:-)

 

 

And it made my day when a pupil teacher corrected somebody for not using the PLURAL in "Tengo dos gatos." What a great assessment opportunity for me as well!





Teachers don't work for free of course, they get their pay at the end of their lesson: a Spanish pencil or a notebook.

I have bought these pencils from The Language Stickers Company.

 

The idea of my 10-minute teachers occurred to me when I was reading about "plenary pals" in "Pimp Your Lesson!" by Isabella Wallace and Leah Kirkman. Fantastic reading and lots of great ideas!