¡Vámonos!

¡Vámonos! is moving!

2010-04-08T21:32:00.003+01:00

This is the final post to appear on ¡Vámonos! 1.0 as I have a new website – lisibo.co.uk

I like Blogger for many reasons, not least that it’s free and it was my first blog, and http://lisibo.blogspot.com will always be special.

However, the time has come to have my own domain and take another step up the ‘web ladder’.

Hopefully you, my loyal readers will soon get used to the less vibrant surroundings over at ¡Vámonos! version 2.0 and new readers will appreciate the mellow pinky lilac tones!

Click here to enter the brave new world of http://lisibo.co.uk

Wallwisher

2010-04-07T22:15:00.003+01:00

Just realised that I hadn't blogged the Wallwisher made by Year 5 just before Language World.

It was the first time I'd used this online tool - which allows you to 'stick' Post-it notes on a virtual wall - with this group, and it was done as a sort of 'Mexican wave' type exercise.

Five pupils got out a laptop and I showed them what to do. They posted their notes then passed on their laptop - and expertise - to the next person. By the end of the lesson, everyone had posted their version of the poem extract from La Primavera by Antonio Machado, and also tried and mastered a new tool.

You'll have to move the notes around to read them all; there are so many!

Language World 2010 - Liz Black

2010-04-06T18:16:00.004+01:00

Embedding languages was also the theme of the last session I attended at Language World.

In Unlocking potential Liz Black talked about a project, or as she prefers to call them ‘series of work in context’ inspired by Le Grand Parc - Puy de fou, a demonstration of community problem solving - in an area of poverty but with lots of land, the community got together to solve it by building a theme park. All the materials she used can be downloaded from Liz’s school website - www.stokesleyschool.com

Her school has a cross curricular day each Wednesday duirng which departments work together, and this project covered history, drama, literacy, French, PSHE, enterprise and finances and more. She shared some brilliant ideas including using Latin roots to provoke pupils to think of words in English with those roots, and gladiator drama to encourage reluctant boys to speak French.

Feedback from staff and pupils was very positive with one child saying ‘I like it when teachers work together’.

I have to say that the website itself for Puy de Fou is absolutely beautiful to look at, with lots of things to click and see. Certainly makes you want to go there !

Language World 2010 - Claire Dodd

2010-04-06T15:56:00.007+01:00

I made friends with Claire on Facebook just before Language World - what a great decision that was! She's as mad and lively as me!

Her session was on Embedding Languages in the Curriculum and gave plenty of ideas for doing just that!

Highlights including dancing to www.genkigerman.com (just tried it out again with Isaac - a big hit!) and learning a song in Italian about food! It went to the tune of La Cucharacha and I think the words were

macaroni, ravioli

pizza pasta e ragu

trapitini e (missed that word)

panna e tiramisu

Then Claire asked me if I'd contribute some French / Spanish which I happily did! I shared www.UptoTen.com and the duck song - Peux-tu marcher comme un canard? and then demonstrated the 'animal symphony' activity I used to link Spanish, music and literacy. Materials and instructions to replicate it can be found here.

Molto bene Claire!

Language World 2010 - Cynthia Martin

2010-04-05T22:47:00.006+01:00

The Keynote on Saturday morning at Language World was delivered by Cynthia Martin, President of ALL this year, and was report on research that she and others have carried out into Primary languages. Rather than try to write it all down, I took lots of pictures of the slides and made a movie. And here are a few comments that I hope will shed light on the slides.

The researchers took 40 schools who they felt would be representative of the country. Al were early adopters of PLL so the study was looking at oracy and literacy, and the potential problems facing them as they worked towards the four year entitlement. On the whole, staff were found to be positive and committed but acknowledged concerns.

General finding were that there was an increasing focus on phoneme/grapheme links but that this had not yet made a big effect by 2008-9 and that verb useage in writing was poorer than in spoken activities, but that comprehension was very good. Most pupils enjoyed their lessons and the vast majority of them were looking forward to further learning at secondary school, listing their least favourite thing as 'going over the same things over and over'.

The full report can be downloaded from the DCSF website, all 170 pages of it! Or you can go for the 7 page summary ;o)

I found the session really interesting - and encouraging too. Wonder what the findings would be a year or two on?

La Semana Santa se acerca

2010-04-01T19:47:00.000+01:00

Creativity talks!

2010-03-27T21:52:00.009Z

Rachel Hawkes is an absolute genius who I’m certain rarely sleeps or else has her own TARDIS as she can’t possibly have the hours in the day to teach and do all the things she does!

Her ‘Major talk’ was all about speaking - the most undeveloped but most important skill in terms of motivation as our perception of being good at languages hangs on our ability to speak.

If you want to experience the presentation, you will no doubt soon see it on Rachel’s blog, but some key points were-

Key strategies -

sound-written pattern

building a framework for spontaneous talk

providing opps for planned and unplanned talk

focusing on key structures

providing a range of stimulus materials to respond to

using tech to enhance interactions

Teaching phonics is very important - the first thing that happens in year 7 at Comberton. The phonics aare linked to a gesture and once learned, the pupils are given words to pronounce - it could be people’s names or shopping lists.

Other ideas for geting pupils talking were

using a Morph clip and asking What are they saying? Can you give Morph and Chas some words? Or to give pupils the words and ask them to put them in order.
an iPhone clip that practiced ‘Puedo.......’ and could be used to reinforce ‘¿se puede....?
the Obama reggaeton rap
posing a question eg ¿Tienes hermanos o hermanas? and stipulating ‘tu respuesta debe tener 7 palabras‘ then ¿Cómo puedes contestar con más de 10 palabras
Odd one out connecting triangles
pilla al intruso ; and, one of my favourites,
what isn’t going to happen??? What didn’t happen?

All the clips Rachel used are bookmarked in her account there - RachelHawkes60.

Raising global awareness in a second language.

2010-03-27T21:39:00.005Z

The first session I attended was Helen L. Walker presenting Raising global awareness in a second language and speaking from her experience as an early years teacher in the immersion programme in Canada.Helen asserted that we still tend to live within our own cultural bubble despite the immediacy of internet etc, and that global awareness, that is, an understanding and appreciation of other cultures, is something on which we still need to work. She talke dof how we can do this using books, experiences and contcts as well as global focus weeks such as thos edetailed on the SWgfl.

Whilst living in an English speaking part of Canada (Calgary), Helen taught a class under the immersion programme of pupils aged 5 who had no or very little French. they began their journey using the topic L’Afrique, and applying an enquiry based method of learning. They looked at elephants, had an Africa day and did lots of art activities. Questions were posed and the children looked for the answers with teacher help where needed.

One such question was ‘Does it rain in Africa?’ to which the children immediately answered ‘no’. Reading What the animals were waiting for, a book about the rains in Africa, challenged this view and shaped their understanding of what it might be like to live in Africa.

Another book Beatrice’s Goat had wide reaching effects on the pupils.

Beatrice lives in Uganda and wants to go to school but has no uniform as she can’t afford it. Then she’s sent a goat from a charity. The pupils empathised with Beatrice - and wanted to send a goat to her. Helen explained that Beatrice now had a goat, but that perhaps they could buy a goat for another child. The class discussed how to raise money to send the goat, and settled on creating items to auction off including the journal of Françoise the class teddy bear, booklets made in computer time in french about numbers, colours, animals and Africa. On an art trip they made a quilt with each child contributing a square - this too was auctioned . All in all, they raised sufficient money to buy a barn full of animals. Not only had they raised funds but also the awareness; the pupils were so proud of themselves and had a great joy in giving.

Helen offered a list of some of the resources she used, and of sites that were useful for this type of thing, and others shared ideas from their classes including a boys’ school where the pupils raised money by doing the staff’s ironing!

As a postscript to this, I overhead a conversation today about an article saying that by teaching ICU, we are producing racist pupils as we are presenting a ‘stock view’ of countries. This rang bells as I had had a similar experience in Liverpool at the PLS where someone had been challenged for portraying a very narrow view of life in Martinique. Good point i guess. How can we make sure we’re not reinforcing unhelpful stereotypes?

Language World 2010

2010-03-27T21:36:00.002Z

I’ve had the privilege over the last two days to be in York - a beautiful city - for the annual ALL conference Language World.

Between dodging goose poo and trying to work out which bridge to cross, blowing bubbles and answering burning questions about the attractiveness of back hair and the point of mixed peel, we’ve been treated to many thought provoking and practical sessions on language teaching and learning. I’ll try and blog a few over the next few days.

Good to see friends, especially ones who have up until now been virtual, and make new ones. Already looking forward to next year!

Language World 2010

2010-03-23T14:56:00.001Z

Lisibo Voki has a message for you!

Click here to comment on this Voki.
Get a Voki now!

For more details, here's the link to download a programme and application form.

Come to Language World exhibition.

2010-03-23T14:36:00.002Z

Come to the Language World Exhibition!

University of York

Friday 26 and Saturday 27 March 2010

· It’s free, it’s big, it’s full of the best in languages resources – from books to IT solutions, from national support agencies to courses abroad. There’s something for every language teacher!

· The Language World exhibition is open on Friday 26 March from 09.00 until 18.00 and on Saturday 27 March from 09.00 until 14.00. You’ll find it in Exhibition Centre, University of York and there’s parking close by. Call us if you need further details (0116 229 7454).

· On Friday evening at 5pm we’d like to invite you ALL to join us in the Exhibition to celebrate ALL’s 20^thbirthday this year – with a glass of fizz and a birthday cake!

Special offers for all visitors to the Language World exhibition from:

BBC Active: BBC Active is offering 30% off all orders placed at Language World.

CME Books Europe: 10% discount off all products purchased / orders placed at the conference. PLUS Free prize draw to win Mandarin textbook and work book of your choice from ‘Chinese Made Easy for Kids’, ‘Chinese Made Easy’ or ‘Easy Steps to Chinese’ series OR Set of “Celebrating Chinese Festival Series”.

ConnectED Education FREE PRIZE DRAW. Tell us how you would use CONNECTED BROADCAST in your school, college or university for a chance to win a FREE Broadcast for your establishment.

European Schoolbooks Ltd: European Schoolbooks Ltd is offering a 15% discount on all orders taken during the Language World Conference.

EuroTalk: Any EuroTalk title on an unlimited school network for £99 (from £220) Stand 46

Heinemann: Heinemann will be giving away some very special STUDIO mouse mats, a must for every language teacher and pupil so make sure you visit our stand to claim yours!

Hodder Education: Hodder Education is offering 25% discount on all Languages resources and 50 % off dictionaries.

Language Networks for Excellence: Special 15% discount on all orders placed through the ALL Language World show by quoting a discount code valid up until 01 June 2010.

Lexus Ltd: Lexus is offering half price for all books bought during the Show.

Links into Languages: Sign up to the Links into Languages mailing list to be entered into a prize draw for a free place on a Links Core Course of your choice and get your supply cover for this course paid. Return your mailing list card to the Links into Languages Stand (30) at Language World to be in with a chance to win!

Sanako UK Ltd: Sanako will provide a single user license of its popular Media Assistant Solo free of charge to all delegates who register at stand 50. This can be used for creating digital exercises and recording oral assessments.

See the ALL website for the full list of exhibitors

Donde viven los monstruos

2010-03-21T08:03:00.000Z

Another find today on Youtube.

Where the wild things are in Spanish! So useful as pupils know the story already so don't need to be hung up on meaning of every word.

Just proves something that Mark Reid from BFI showed us last week at the Primary Language Show - the context is key, and in film, it's the interplay between image, sound, dialogue, context and a bit of imagination that makes it!

Me gusta el jugo de naranja

2010-03-20T17:06:00.003Z

I've been looking for resources about healthy lifestyles and food today, and came across this song on my travels around Youtube.

Very catchy and good for practising opinions about food - me gusta(n) / no me gusta(n)

Ojo - it's South American so uses the phrase 'el jugo de naranja' for orange juice instead of the Spanish 'el zumo de naranja'.

Another useful video on the same theme, and with the same 'quirk' is the one below. This time it's a rap that could easily be adapted to include other items of food, or other vocabulary too.

Waving the flag - official song of FIFA World Cup 2010 - Bandera ondeanado

2010-03-16T16:48:00.002Z

I loved the official song of the FIFA World Cup 2010 when i heard it for the first time today. And now I've found this bi-lingual version too with K'Naan, the original artist, singing with David Bisbal.

The lyrics are below!

Waving Flag de K´naan y David Bisbal
Give me freedom
Give me fire
give me reason
Take me higher
see the champions
take the field now
youll be fighters
make us feel proud
En las calles muchas manos
levantadas, celebrando
una fiesta sin descanzo
los paises como hermanos
Canta y une tu voz
grita fuerte que te escuche el sol
el partido ya va a comenzar
todos juntos vamos a ganar
Unidos!
Seremos grandes,
seremos fuertes
somos un pueblo
bandera de libertad
que viene y que va (x3)
when i get older
i will be stronger
theyll call me freedom
just like a wavin flag
Now wave your flag (x3)
ohhh ohhh ohhh ohhh
Danos vida
danos fuego
que nos lleve a lo alto
campeones o vencidos
pero unidos a internarlos
In the streets
are exalted people
as we lose our inhibitions
celebretion is around us
every nation all around us
Singing forever young, singins
songs underneath the sun
lets rejoice to the beatuful game
and together at the end of day
Seremos grandes,
seremos fuertes
somos un pueblo
bandera de la libertad
que viene y que va (x3)
when i get older
i will be stronger
theyll call me freedom
just like a wavin flag
Now wave your flag (x3)
ohhh ohhh ohhh ohhh
Unidos!
Seremos grandes,
seremos fuertes
somos un pueblo
bandera de la libertad
when i get older
i will be stronger
theyll call me freedom
just like a wavin flag
Now wave your flag (x3)
ohhh ohhh ohhh ohhh
And everybody
will be singing

The Youtube page also explains -

El español David Bisbal y el somalí K´Naan interpretan la versión latina del tema Waving Flag, elegido para la Copa del Mundo FIFA Sudáfrica 2010.
La canción fue estrenada ayer, como parte de las celebraciones rumbo al Mundial.
"La música y el futbol unen al mundo, y a través de esta canción queremos contagiar el sentimiento de alegría que nos provoca este evento mundialista", explicó el artista español, al referirse a la canción inspirada en costumbres africanas referentes a la fiesta, y que aborda temas como el amor, la unión y el optimismo.
El tema presenta pasajes en español e ingles y un video en el que se pueden ver las pocas habilidades futbolistas de Bisbal, quien lucha sin éxito dominar un balón.
La canción de la Copa del Mundo, Waving flag, fue compuesta por el rapero Knaan Mogasishu, quien nació en Somalia aunque es ciudadano canadiense.
La canción es el tercer single de su álbum Troubador y meses atrás fue elegida por la organización del Mundial como su himno oficial.

What can eTwinning do for you? - PLS2010

2010-03-16T08:19:00.002Z

My second presentation at the Primary Language Show this year was entitled

What can eTwinning do for you?

This was an extended version of last week's presentation, offering ideas of how eTwinning and addressing the International Dimension fits into the Key Stage 2 Framework and meets objectives for all years.

Below is the Slidecast of the presentation.

And also a video of me explaining why eTwinning is so good for the PLL classroom.

If you want to find out more about the project we did at Whitehouse Common, check out this previous post

what can eTwinning do for you?

View more presentations from Lisa Stevens.

Audaciously using Voices to make Voki - PLS2010

2010-03-15T20:33:00.006Z

I was privileged to be asked to speak at the Primary Language Show once more this year. Having presented last year on El Carnaval de los Animales and You and Youtube, this year I had two new topics on which to speak.

The first of my presentations was entitled

Audaciously using Voices to make Voki!

During the session I aimed to explain how Audacity, Voki and Voicethread work, and how they can be used to enhance learning in the Primary Language Classroom. I gave examples from my classroom, made a Voki there and then and also drew ideas from others including Esther Mercier and Royds School.

Below is a Slidecast of my presentation, and here's a link to further resources to help you - a guide to making Voki, embedding on a Wiki and notes on all 3 tools - and others - including tutorials!

Hope you find them of use.

Audaciously Use Voices to make Voki

View more presentations from Lisa Stevens.

Vida Latina - Cross curricular ideas for the Primary Classroom

2010-03-14T20:01:00.001Z

Here's my second presentation from Vida Latina, offering ideas for making Spanish cross curricular. Included are ideas from my classroom and also links to other cross curricular ideas such as Mira Miró and Jumping through hoops.

I sadly forgot to press record on my iRiver so there's no audio this time I'm afraid. However, if you'd like to ask questions, please feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try and reply.

Cross curricular ideas for the Primary Language Clasroom

View more presentations from Lisa Stevens.

Vida Latina - What can eTwinning do for you? Experiences from WCPS

2010-03-14T18:45:00.000Z

Here comes the first of my presentations from Vida Latina last week at Aston University. The conference was organised jointly by Links into Languages and the ALL Spanish Committee, and focussed on Latin America.

AS part of the day, we had a session on International links - a double act between Liz Hitchcock of the British Council and me.

After Liz had talked about the Global Gateway and ePals, I shared some experiences of how we have gone about links with other schools at Whitehouse Common.

Here's my presentation as a Slidecast.

What can eTwinning do for you? Experiences from WCPS

View more presentations from Lisa Stevens.

La araña pequeñita

2010-03-14T17:12:00.003Z

Here's a Voki I made yesterday in my session at the Primary Language Show, using a song I'd recorded for a non-Spanish speaker to use with her class.

Sadly no spider avatar on Voki, but I did manage some rain.....

Click here to comment on this Voki.
Get a Voki now!

Coming soon....

2010-03-13T16:02:00.004Z

I'm really aware that I have a backlog of posts awaiting publication.

Over the next few days, I'll be uploading presentations from

Education Show

Vida Latina

Primary Language Show

...and also reporting back from other sessions!

The audio may take a little longer though....

It's great to be busy - sorry if you feel I'm neglecting you!!

Dans ma trousse..

2010-03-09T12:26:00.004Z

Another example of the wonder of animation from Oscar Stringer.

This clearly shows how animation can be used in the primary classroom to present and rehearse vocabulary as well as make 'pop videos'

Find out more on Oscar's blog.

And if you're going to the Primary Languages Show in Liverpool next Friday, you can catch Oscar sharing more ideas and examples of animating in the PLL classroom.

Tango!

2010-03-07T19:38:00.002Z

Still not had time to do that 'proper blog post' as I've spent the afternoon editing video of the tango demonstration and workshop we had yesterday at Vida Latina.

Below are the two demonstrations by Loyd and Sandra from TangoInBrum. Did you know that tango is all improvised? I didn't!

You'll also find a Slideshare I found tango.

And our efforts are at the bottom.

Enjoy.

Argentina Y El Tango

View more presentations from Universidad Católica Argentina.

Vida Latina - photos

2010-03-06T22:09:00.002Z

A proper blog post will follow tomorrow, but here are the photos from today!

ICT in PLL - Dotcom centre at Hillcrest

2010-03-04T17:41:00.004Z

All a bit topsy turvy I guess, reporting on a course I ran on Tuesday after a presentation I did today but heigh ho!

Tuesday saw me heading across the city - or actually around it on the M6 lead by my motorway crazy SatNav- to Hillcrest School where I was delivering a day of training for Primary Language teachers on ICT in the Primary Language Classroom.

It was a really good day from my point of view with lovely food - bacon sandwiches for coffee break! - a great venue and marvellous enthusiastic delegates. And the added bonus of a visit to the Lingua centre at lunchtime.

To save on paper and also because I think online notes are more useful - click the link rather than type it in makes more sense to me - I made a wiki for the day on which all the notes, presentations and some of the outcomes are posted. I think that's the way to go - what do you think?

Top tips for absorbing language learning - Education Show

2010-03-04T17:28:00.004Z

I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at the Education Show today. I volunteered myself, admittedly, but I hardly thought they'd say yes! I'd attended a previous seminar there and had been rather unimpressed and thought 'I could do better!' - so I put my money where my mouth is - and hope I succeeded.

Below is my presentation which will shortly become a Slidecast once I've managed to find the time to download and edit the audio.

Comments and queries welcome :o)

Top tips for absorbing language learning

View more presentations from Lisa Stevens.

PS Thanks to @StephenDoBe for the simultaneous tweeting, and to my all the Twittermates who tweeted multilingual greetings to my audience!

Lingua@Hillcrest

2010-03-02T21:45:00.002Z

I did a day of ICT in PLL training today at Hillcrest School and Sixth Form Centre. More of that in another post..

However, at lunchtime, we were able to visit Lingua, the language centre at Hillcrest. Similar to the Europa Centre, Lingua offers schools the opportunity to visit their shopping street which transports itself between France, Germany and Spain on a regular basis. groups can visit for a half day or whole day, taking part in activities for half the time and then venturing into the street to buy items - virtually, or in the case of souvenirs, actually!

Below are pictures I took today of the street - it's currently in Germany!

Have a look at the Lingua website for more details!

Story Making, and Higher Order Thinking Skills

2010-03-01T20:14:00.004Z

Just received an exciting email from Kathy Wickstead, National Subject Lead for Languages.

She writes -

ALL (Association of Language Learners) is co-hosting a FREE workshop at the International Learning and Research Centre, South Gloucestershire, which will bring together teachers in key stages 2 and 3 to look at two inspirational approaches to language learning, Story Making and using Higher Order Thinking Skills. The workshop will show how these approaches engage pupils and can help to develop a smooth transition between key stages. Using actions and a 'story map', the story-making initiative takes pupils step by step from listening to participation, to story-telling and creating their own stories. It raises confidence in speaking and enables pupils to internalise key language patterns.

Date: Wednesday 17th March
Time: 9.30 - 12.30 (refreshments from 9.00)
Venue: The International Learning and Research Centre, South Gloucestershire
The Centre is located on the outskirts of Bristol, a taxi-ride from Bristol Temple Meads or Bristol Parkway stations.

See http://www.all- nsc.org.uk/ nsc/?q=node/ 116 for further information.

A great opportunity - sadly I have a meeting and should be teaching anyway so I'll be unable to go. But if anyone does go, please be sure to share!!

Primary Languages, Literacy and EAL.

2010-02-28T15:26:00.005Z

Last Wednesday I took part in a day for Language Coaches in Birmingham. The afternoon session was given over to looking at links between Primary Language Learning, EAL and literacy, and we were fortunate to have Joe Brown from CILT to address us.

I did try to blog as I went along but kept getting distracted from writing by getting involved in the talk so, when I looked back at the pictures I'd taken, I decided to reflect back by making a slideshow in Keynote.

Understanding English, communication and primary languages

View more presentations from lisibo.

At the end, it seems a minute of audio has disappeared - probably because I hit a button prematurely! - in which I was saying that Joe told us about a number of research projects going on, looking at PLL and literacy.

storytelling
the language of Maths
APP writing
motivation
talk for writing
Training the Trainers Module 9

All sounds very exciting and I await the results with anticipation. You can catch Joe speaking at PLS in Liverpool in two weeks time!

(This post has taken over 24 hours to be published. Note to self -

Blogger doesn't like my videos, Youtube don't like 17 minute clips, Slideshare is very temperamental and thank heavens for Garageband!)

Imagiers on Youtube

2010-02-27T21:12:00.004Z

I subscribed to the channel belonging to Imagiers a while ago.

Originally, I saw the traditional songs below -

Today I saw that there was new series - Les comptines de Gros nez. This is a series of 63 French rhymes / songs 'sung' by a cartoon blue man with a big red nose. For example -

Alternatively, you could use Les comptines de la souris -

Also on Imagiers are many vocabulary videos like the one below -

There are thousands of videos on the channel - some are more advanced grammar and so on, others are simpler vocabulary presentations. And some are not French at all - eg there are several clips about Helsinki!

I'm a WebFox!

2010-02-27T13:42:00.011Z

Yesterday I took a Web Behaviour Test as part of BBC's The Virtual Revolution - investigating how 20 years of the web has changed our lives.

I was asked questions about my Internet useage, how much time I spent online and doing what, how much 'multi tasking' I did and my response to a number of statements.

Would I be a bear, an elephant, an octopus, a hedgehog, a fox, an elk, a leopard or an ostrich?

My result is below - not a bad appraisal. Why not take the test and see which animal you are!

If you like to know what this quiz is hoping to achieve, check out what the scientists say.

Lyrics training

2010-02-27T11:33:00.005Z

Not one for Primary language learners perhaps, but nonetheless a find, I think!

Via my Googlereader I read a post on Lifehacker about Lyric Training and thought - 'what fun!'

As Lifehacker says

Lyrics Training is a really fun approach to helping you pick up a foreign language. Choose a YouTube-hosted music video and select one of three mastery levels; Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert. As the video begins to play, the song's lyrics appear underneath with several words missing. Your job is to fill in the missing words as they're sung.
If you get stumped, the video stops playing until you can come up with the word, but don't take too long because the app keeps track of the time it takes you to fill in the blanks. Click the "Give Up!" button to see the words that elude you.

Videos are available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Dutch, and are rated easy medium and hard. You can then choose easy medium or hard tasks. Having said that, I chose easy and an easy task - and it was quite tricky as you have to type as you hear. I think if I listened to the song first I might have had a better chance. There is help - you can rewind the last line with the back space and use the tab to skip words you really can't get! At the end you're given a score based on how many words you successfully filled in and the time it took you in comparison to the actual length of the song. This is how I got on with Himno de la corazon

Good fun! Practises your

listening skills and also your spelling as it won't accept the wrong spelling, letter by letter!

Have a go and see how you do!

Technology in Modern Foreign Languages - A practitioner's perspective

2010-02-24T21:25:00.001Z

Technology in Modern Foreign Languages - A practitioner's perspective is a post by José Picardo in which he announces the online publication of a series of blog posts that originally appeared on his blog Box of Tricks over December/January, written by a wide variety of language practitioners about their experiences of and advice for using technology in the MFL classroom.

If you didn't read the original posts, they're well worth a read (even the one I wrote!) - and now they're downloadable in one go.

Veo veo

2010-02-19T20:47:00.004Z

At the ELL Local Support Group (LSG) last week, we were talking about short activities that needed minimal preparation and could be used for the 'little and often' model.

One of the activities discussed was I spy...

In Spanish there is a lovely little rhyme that goes with the game - check out the East Riding site for sound files, instructions and words. A good game for playing with kids who have a wider vocabulary, but also for discrete groups of words eg food, sports, colours. You could change it to 'tengo tengo' (I have..) and play with items in a bag even.

Veo veo I see, I see,

¿Qué ves? What do you see?

Una cosita. A thing

Y ¿qué cosita es? And what thing is it?

Empieza con la ……. It begins with ………

¿Qué será? ¿Qué será? ¿Qué será? What can it be? (x 3)

I also came across this catchy sung version of the rhyme - here I've chosen the kiddies version rather than the tropical island and bikinis! Lyrics below.