Nackvision - animated handwriting generator

Create Yours @ NackVision

I just discovered this whilst searching for something else. I'm wondering how I can use this in school? Perhaps instead of linoit or wordle?

public.fr - le mag 100% actu people

About 4 years ago I discovered a website called ados.fr and blogged about it here.

It was the ideal resource for anyone teaching AS or A2 French (or any advanced level course anywhere) as it contained up to the minute "news" on celebrities, music, cinema, horoscopes, and many other subjects which make me, and most men I presume, shudder.

The reason for the post is that it has now been replaced by www.public.fr.

Public is a trashy (in my opinion, you might like it!!) French magazine in the style of Closer, Heat, and so on...

It is, primarily, aimed at women from 15-35 (and teachers of French!) and calls itself "le mag 100% actu people".

It contains a mine of information which you might find useful to keep up to date with many of the topics studied at AS and A2 level in the UK and Higher level in Scotland.

It is the ideal place to go for new vocabulary and also "news" about celebrities, music, films, reality TV, relationship advice, who is doing what to, and with, whom and pretty much anything else that I consider trivial but which your students might be interested in.

If you can't be bothered to read or search through the whole site you can follow Public on twitter, like it on facebook or download the app.

Sad, isn't it?

Schimpfwörter, gros mots, swear words...

There are some words I won't tolerate in my classroom.

The more proficient my students become at languages the more familiar they are with the vocabulary, the lazier they become.

I'm not going to put up with it any more.

So I've decided to ban certain words from my classroom.

My "swear words" include:

boring

good

nice

rubbish

very

....can you think of any others?

Alors, on danse? Motivating with music.

Each week I attempt to teach French to a class of year 9 students who have targets ranging from level 2a to 3a.

They have one lesson a week and their attendance is not fantastic.

Each lesson has to be planned as if it were a stand-alone lesson and, most of the time, they don't remember what they've done from one week to the next.

Until now.

The topic we're studying at the moment is Music.

Last week, I introduced them to some francophone artists and we "learned" how to give opinions and compare 2 songs in French.

The songs we compared were Game Over by Vitaa ft Maitre Gims and Adieu by Coeur de Pirate (which has some amazing exploding heads in the video!! To be honest, that's the only reason I chose it!!)

To my amazement they actually liked the lesson and this morning, one of the boys came to me and said, "Do you know this song?"

He'd written the title on his hand:

Surprisingly, I did know the song, (thanks to Helen Myers who has used it with her classes and has made resources too) and said I'd play it for them if they got on with the work I had planned.

They did so I did.

This is it: Alors on Danse by Stromae.




The others then decided they liked it and could I play it again.

 I ended up playing the whole album.

This has really surprised me as when I took over the group in January getting them to stay in their seats and keep their hands off each other was a real challenge.

Talking Tools - My #ililc4 workshop

If you've read any of this rubbish before, you could be forgiven for thinking that I'm not a great fan of the ipad.

This is not true, of course.

My issue with ipads is the ways in which they are used.

Dom's first rule of technology states:

If it can only be done with tech, then you may do it with tech.

My workshop at #ililc4 included a selection of fun tools and applications which will help students improve their speaking skills whilst having fun.

This is the presentation I used:

Talking tools from Dominic McGladdery

The penultimate slide is the one where I've listed all the tools I demonstrated.

Here is a selection of the work created by the delegates who were kind enough, and patient enough, to attend my workshop and I'm incredibly grateful to them for turning up and entering into the spirit of things.


Serena Dawson's Morfo


Annalise Adam's Tellagami

Fatima Khaled's movie

Glennis Pye's Yakit

Sadie McLachlan and Amanda Salt's Yakit

and Rachel Britt's blabberize



I hope you can find something in amongst these tools which you could use and if you have half as much fun as we did making them, you won't have wasted your time.

Enjoy!

Duolingo - language learning on the go

Every day I receive at least one email asking me if I can review a language based product on my blog.

Sometimes there is even a monetary incentive - but as well as the fact that I ain't no hollaback girl, I ain't no sell out, neither, my friends. 

So, if I'm going to recommend something it's because I use it and I think it's amazing.

At the last TeachMeetBlakes someone (I stilll don't know who) recommended Duolingo to me.

Duolingo is a totally free language learning app (with no ads!!!) which you can use to learn Spanish, French, German, Portugese or Italian. 

I'm using it to brush up on my Spanish as I shall be teaching it again (after 8 years!) in September.

It's great for students and adults alike and consists of short exercises in each of the 4 skills.

It covers the basics of greetings, food, etc but also has grammar sections in which you can practise lots of different tenses, conjunctions, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, object pronouns, etc, etc. 

One of the best things about Duolingo is that it gently "reminds" the user to practise every day. 

I'm recommending that all my students install this on their smartphones and tablets to help improve their language skills. 

It's good fun, educational and looks like a game. 

I'm impressed.

 

Making a difference by differentiating differently #ililc4

I had the privilege of attending, and presenting, at this year's #ililc4 conference at Southampton University this weekend.

There were so many amazing linguists there doing things that you might not always associate with teachers; sharing, encouraging, smiling, advising and most importantly supporting each other.

I did 2 sessions.

This is my presentation on differentiation:

Differentiation from Dominic McGladdery

My hands on session on Talking Tools will take slightly more prep as I'm going to include some of the clips created by the attendees. I'll also at some point blog about all the amazing things I saw. Watch this space.