A sentence is a device for taking a thought for a walk

Now here is a great thought!
I received this "thought"today via  a tweet from @MartinShovel many thanks too!It's actually a example of what the cartoon is trying to explain!

What a marvellous staring point to develop writing with young language learners.

this cartoon and the ideas behind the cartoon  link really well  with  early investigations of sentence structure.These blog posts help us in my opinion to get the young language learners to the point where they can  take their thoughts for a walk as well constructed sentences.

To construct a good sentence we need to develop free writing with accurate punctuation mind the gap and get writing .

We can also practise and consider how we convey,receive and write  messages via the activities based upon smoke signal messages writing for purpose smoke signals.

We can investigate the different levels upon which we build sentences through physical activities based upon the split personality of a sentence  

Let's take our thoughts for a walk then!

• Start with free writing of sentences based on a class focus e.g likes/ dislikes/questions we want to ask other people/statements about ourselves.Just ask you children on rough paper or mini-whiteboards to create their own sentences of a focused thought!
• Let's put these into a frame or structured sentence. Remind them of punctuation and grammatical structure .
• Let's move the thoughts jotted on  paper or mini-whiteboards that we have been working on and create  spoken utterances that convey the meaning of our thoughts .
• Let's look at the split personality of a sentence and with a group of classmates convey the physical performance of the punctuation, the structure , the pronunciation and the meaning of our sentences. 
•  Let's share our sentences with the class by performing them for the class and therefore taking our thoughts for a walk!
• Now let's capture our thoughts as correctly written sentences that can be passed on to a partner who can understand what we have written and create a cartoon or drawing of the meaning of our written sentence.

Triangular Time Machines

Yesterday at subject coordinators' training we briefly discussed where we feel may get to with primary languages and the children's knowledge of grammar and verbs.
In Year 6 some colleagues feel that they will be at the point with Year 6 next year where they can explore the idea of time and tenses in the target language.
This will be a limited exploration but a stepping stone forwards in the children's communication skills.
I think it's important that whilst in primary school the children can explore structure through physical and drama base activities .
This is a physical activity.

It's a simple technique to help us with tense exploration.

I have based it upon the verb to play and sports , as most sports are cognates that  we practise and therefore the children can clearly identify the change in structure to the verb as how it's used in different tenses. We are focusing upon past (perfect), present and near future. 
The children will need to be aware of simple present tense verbs , so I envisage this occurring after the Sports focus in Year 6 Spring 1.
The children will be able to talk abut playing games in the present tense.

You need a skipping rope , the three tense phrases written on separate cards plus a cardboard triangular 3D shape that looks like the description below.

• Cut out a door on one face/side of the pyramid and on the inside write the past tense phrase for "I played football"
• On a second face/side write the present tense phrase for "I play football"
• On the third face/side glue  a concertina piece of card that when pulled out says "I am going to play football" using the near future tense.

Can the children talk with you about time that is past , present and future?Can they help you in English to create some simple past , present an near future phrases and statements? Write them on paper and fold these up and put them inside your pyramid.   
Explain to the class that you are going to explore time with the use of the pyramid. 
Place a skipping rope or string on the floor .

• Look at the present tense statement you have written on one face of the pyramid and  read this with your class. 
• Open the door on the triangular 3D shape and look at the past tense phrase and read it with your class. 
• Open up the concertina card and read the phrase with your class. 
• Ask a child to hold the 3D shape and explain it's your time machine.The door leads to the past ,the message on the face is the present and the the concertina card moves out toward the future.
• Place your skipping rope as present tense line on the floor.
• Can your class help you to decide if the line on the floor is the present tense,where would each phrase be put?
• The present tense is on the line. the past tense is at the back of the line nearer the children and the near future tense is moving in front of the line toward you.

Invite three volunteers to hold up three written cards with the three different tense phrases on them and to stand in a correct position on,behind or in front of the line.Can they all do the same action that mimes kicking a ball? 
Talk with the children about how the actions are the same ,it's the time when it happens that has changed.
Try it out with a new sports phrase e.g I play tennis.

Write up for the children the three phrases and look for a pattern - same structure in the past or in the near future or in the present, we just change the sports.
Now change the sports - try it with golf, cricket , rugby, netball, basketball 

Now make it physical. 

• Ask the children to get into groups of three and to form triangular shapes so that shoulders are touching and they are facing outwards. Each of them must decide if they represent the present ,past or near future of an action.
• If the child represent the present then s/he stands firm and does the action for the sport 
• If s/he represents  the future then just like the concertina piece of paper the action needs to take them away from the triangle
• If  s/he represents the past then the action needs to make them move backwards in to  the body of the  triangle.
• Can they create three of these verb time pyramids for themselves with three sport?.
• Each time the children should swap the tense they represent and must perform the appropriate action and say the appropriate tense statement.

Ask the children to create their own pyramid or triangular time machines with a door for the past , a picture on one side for the present and a concertina card for the future - like your original model.

Network progress 2013 2014

Well yesterday was the last of three Subject Coordinators CPD afternoon sessions this academic year for Janet Lloyd Network.51 local primary schools have participated in  these sessions and we have run each session  twice so that the groups were half that size and colleagues who signed up at the start of the year could make one of the two sessions. We have shared our findings and discussions and the materials we have considered via our subject coordinator pages on the JLN website with all our colleagues . 

When we set off in October it was very much led by myself as we began to unpick the new DfE POS but over the second and certainly the third sessions it’s been wonderful to observe and listen to the teachers’ discussions and opinions and to hear what they have done or are doing back in school. One colleague and one school has learned from another school but we have kept a steady keel and a clear focus and view by working together and breaking down the steps we have taken.It’s also important to understand that the network schools teach different languages – French (in the main), Spanish and a few teach German. One or two have considered Mandarin particularly later in UKS2.

Our main focus has been the new DfE POS from September 2014, but the benefits have been extended networking , building working relationships and sharing of ways forward. Yesterday we welcomed two new coordinators on board and it was the support I observed other colleagues offering these two new coordinators that not only made me smile but made me feel confident that this is a supportive way to work. 

The CPD sessions have been some of the most enjoyable training sessions I have been involved in. Why? Well I think there are a few reasons. I think one very large reason is that we see it as “our” network and we enjoy new members joining us too. Here are some of the other important reasons why I think it works: 

• Our network has schools within it that have worked with together alongside myself for at least 11 years and we have experience to draw upon from earlier language learning.
• Our network never stopped .It was established back in 2001 when I was a local AST – it’s just grown.
• Our network also has new network members who have joined us recently or are still joining us and they bring different approaches and new horizons and views of primary languages.
• Our network members share and appreciate each others’ opinions and ideas.
• Not everything is “rocket science” ,much is down to earth and practical approaches to the weekly ways to deliver effective primary language learning.
• Colleagues ask and challenge and don’t just accept.
•  The sessions have focused on the mechanics of developing language learning in individual schools
• All the colleagues are keen to plan for, look for and demonstrate progress.

All of the 90 networks have subject coordinators and each subject coordinator has or becomes committed to the development of primary foreign language learning in their school. Why shouldn’t they? 

For each of them it becomes a role in which they can have very positive impact and in which role they can develop activities and learning programmes that the children in their school enjoy and benefit from. This is probably one of the greatest joys from my viewpoint- watching individual s grow and watching often quite scared individuals take on the challenge of establishing primary languages in their school and amongst their staff. What they all do and want to do is find solutions that work. 

Our subject coordinators are a diverse group too:

• Degree level secondary trained linguists who became primary class teachers
• Degree level linguists who are PGCE primary trained
• Primary QTS teachers who have a language specialism or an A Level in a language
• Primary QTS who have an interest in languages
• Literacy coordinators with a responsibility for communication skills in school
• Primary teachers who have spent several years working or travelling abroad and learned their language whilst abroad.
• Primary teachers who struggled at school to learn a language and want t make a difference to their young learners’ experience of languages
• Teaching assistants who have developed a very special role as the person in charge of language learning in their school- some of these people have degrees in a language or two, have learned a language all their lives or have a passion for a language

The diverse nature of the network and the colleagues I work with, is what helps us thrive. Each person and every school has the right to be within the network. The network is built around primary language learning and the native speakers who work with us adapt their understanding of how they learned English or taught English so that they can work with us and provide creative primary approaches to language learning. As Emilie @EWoodruffe often says to me  in her tweets #ilovemyjob.

Who are the native speakers in our network? Well in general they are our support and link to the real language and the real culture. This has definitely made a difference for us all. When we don’t know or we want to learn more we have Emilie, Stephanie, José, Ana and Barbara who we can turn to. In the network 31 schools work with associate language  teachers every week ( either native or fluent language deliverers)and this works best when it suits the school and the staff embrace the language learning too!

And so to next week It’s our conference – the afternoon tea is important- always has been , but the meeting up as one very large group of people is far more important. This year the network has been able to invite Clare Seccombe and Julie Prince to speak so we can take on board new ideas for phonology , communication and literacy skills. As always there is a local speaker. Last year it was two subject coordinators who had good practice to share and Ana and her subject coordinator who shared their trip to Malaga with 12 year 6 children. This year it’s Emilie and her down to earth but effective work with speaking and APPS.

It seems to me that the driver of our progress is based upon effective and appropriate networking.Thank you to everyone of the colleagues who works within the network!

Purposeful progress in Spanish

I have recently been keeping a record of the progress our children in the network have been making in their knowledge of the target language .I have also documented the visit all the Year 6  children from  Latchford CE made to Malaga in April this year . You can read about this here Building purposeful links with a school abroad. You read in this blog the positive impact that the Year 6 class teacher feels the visit and the preparations during the year have had upon all her class.

José is the school's Spanish Language Assistant and he has worked with the children for the last two years and has accompanied the last two Year 6 classes to Malaga- his home city.I asked him to  pop down in an email for me the progress he saw in all the children whilst they were in Malaga and now they have returned to Warrington.This is what José has noticed :

I have seen that Year 6 have improved a lot in their pronunciation.They want to say things correctly .They feel more confident now when they speaking and can say phrases that are really sueful to them and that they just remember from when they were in Spain. 
They also made  huge progress with simple things like when they have to order food, not just only in a restaurant, but even in the "kiosk" or shops and when they didn't know all the words they needed. They can all ask for the price, the numbers of items they want to etc. 
They were capable of giving their opinions when they liked, didn't like something for example a game , a book , a pop group when they were with their Spanish friends.
Now they are very keen to build  proper Spanish sentences and they really want to learn more Spanish.
And now they are ready to meet their Spanish friends back here in Warrington and to spend another week with them speaking Spanish and English.

Parts of the body puppets and puppeteers

As I am off and about at the moment supporting schools to find creative ways to deliver simple and primary focused language learning lessons, I am finding that schools want lessons where the children can explore language linked to their primary curriculum. 

Below are a sequence of activities I love.As a Primary Languages and Drama AST I often used these activities as a puppet workshop.Children really engage with the activities.

The core activities are to allow you to :
learn parts of the body and see how we can make a very primary lesson out of some straightforward language.On the way we will introduce to the children or reinforce for them the use of nouns, adverbs and a command or two .

The language you will need:

• parts of the body with their definite articles (le/la/les in French/ el/la/los/las in Spanish etc)
• two commands "move" and "touch" ( touchez/bougez in French and tocad/ moved in Spanish)
• two adverbs for fast and slow ( rapide/lentement in French and rapido / lentamente in Spanish)

You are going to need space for this activity. and this would work really well in the hall or on the field.

Step One 
Introduce Parts of the body as spoken language
Introduce maximum 8 parts of the body which the children will find easy to move or touch etc (so for example you will find it easer to touch rather than move your nose)

You can introduce these words by pointing,saying clearly with the definite article , asking the children to then point and repeat for themselves." 

Step Two 

• Reinforce the nouns and see the words

You can reinforce the key nouns using a song such as "Heads, Shoulders , Knees and Toes or in French "Jean petit danse" and in Spanish " Juan Dedo baila"
Draw a simple human outline on a large piece of paper and ask the children to help you to label the human outline with word cards of the nouns.
You could create the skeleton people  have described before in the blog post about the skeleton here.

Step Three

• Listening and responding to the nouns 

A great game for listening and responding is "Last Doctor Standing" . It's Stand Up Bingo to you and me. All the children must touch a part of their body for which you have learned the noun in the target language. Call a body part and any child touching that part must sr down. Start the activity again. Who will be left at the end of the game? 

Step Four.
Introduce the two commands - move and touch 
Ask the children to be an exact mirror copy of you as touch or move the body parts you have introduced. Add exaggerated movements. They  must mirror you exactly . Remember in a mirror everything must be in reverse.

Step Five

• Whole class challenges for individuals and for pairs

Hold mirror challenges "Mirror Mirror on the Wall who is the best of them all". Challenge children to come to the front and mirror your actions exactly. Score the children for their accuracy in what they say and do . who is "the best of them all"?
Set them a task  to challenge as many children in the class as they can in 5 minutes ,using the commands and parts of the body in a "Mirror Mirror  on the Wall , who is the best of them all" mini- competition. They have to complete two challenges per child before they move on to the next person and must speak only on the target language. 

Step Six

• Creative spoken language

Organise your class in pairs.In each pair there needs to be a puppet and a puppeteer. Their  bodies become the puppets and their words the strings that move the puppets.
Try the activity with commands and body parts.
The puppeteer needs to stand behind the puppet and pretend to pull strings this will allow children to know whether it's the left or right leg/arm etc that they should move, unless you feel that you can add left and right to the body part information (if the children are moving on in  their target language learning from beginners' stage) .
Can the puppeteers make their puppets move with their spoken "string" commands .
Swap roles and try the activity again.

Step Seven 

• Add adverbs !Make it more dynamic! 

Introduce the two adverbs for fast and slow . Add them to the commands the children can already say.
Have a trial and see if it works - so ask the children to do what you say e.g move the arm quickly / move the eyes slowly etc
Now send your pairs back to try out adding this new dynamic to the activity.

Adding Challenge
Additional challenges for more able language learners ....with your moving on and advanced learners add extra adverbs and look at how you say "your arm/your leg/ your eyes...) Can the children try to remember to use these new adverbs and to use "your" accurately with the body parts.?

Sometimes we should also think out of the box - so maybe when you feel confident with the steps below you could add an extra dimension by asking the puppets and their puppeteers to move like footballers/dancers etcetra  

Five commands and so much impact in a beginners target language lesson

Five little words....

Five commands , but you can have so much impact with beginners listening,speaking,reading and writing!

We can encourage young target language learners to be involved in dynamic and engaging activities right from the word go!

Today at a start up staff meeting we focused on 5 very physical imperatives:

jump

run

walk

dance 

move 

The aims were to try out beginners listening, speaking , reading and writing activities using these 5 little words. We wanted to  see how much impact you can have over all four skills and language learning strategies and skill with just five words in a target language.We found that we had a full lesson of activities , practising and reinforcing skills of learning a language that a non- specialist could deliver and develop creatively.You then have 5 commands ready for links with primary PE and dance using the target language commands.

Maybe once you have tried the activities below you could move on to "

Powerhouse machine imperatives

  drama and grammar activity described in this blog post!

Listen and respond

• Introduce each of the commands as a physical activity - jumping on the spot, running the spot, marching , disco dancing, wiggling slowly up and down on the spot
• Ask the children to do each of these actions for a specific amount of time and before you start the activity to check their pulse , after three actions done for a specific time, 30 seconds each, to check their pulse and at the end of the activity to check their pulse. What's  the difference and why?
• Play a game of Simon says as a whole class game with the movements.
• Play a game of class puppets . Call an action and the children must do that action and change actions as quickly as they can ,when they hear you say another action.

Saying simple words and phrases

• Ask the children to say and perform the movements, making the commands sound just like their actions.
• Split the class in to groups of four and play team simon says - each child taking responsibility for a 60 second game.
• Allow each child in the group to be a group puppeteer.The other three children must listen to the their commands and do what they say , changing from one action to another action as quickly as they can and as soon as they hear the new command.

Reading familiar command words

.

• Lay large command word cards out on the floor as if they are stepping stones across the floor.You will need 5 of each word card ,laid out in a random order. 
• Invite a group of five children at a time to stand at one end of the stepping stones. Invite the line of children to step across the cards from one side of the hall or room to the other.
• As they step on a particular card they must read the action command and perform the action command.They move from one card to the next when you tell them to do so.
• Repeat the activity with a second group
• Play the game as a small group game 

Writing our favourite familiar command words.

• With beginner learners we need now to practise writing. The teachers loved this activity today and I am certain that children will do too.Display the command cards at the front of the room . 
• Ask the children to select their favourite command and action. 
• Can they write the letters of the word in the style of the action they performed e.g jumpy letters, wiggly letters in a vertical top to bottom line, dancing letters etc.
• Can they share their large in the air command writing with the class? 

Add three simple adverbs and try the activities all over again!

Add challenge and also revisit with a twist by adding adverbs that slow down or speed up the actions e.g. 

move slowly 

dance quickly 

jump fast

run slowly 

walk quickly 

.

Full circle progress together

I don't think you become a teacher without wanting to share and watch and support people of all ages develop. Teaching languages is in my opinion a joy!

Watching colleagues and schools rise to the challenge of primary foreign languages,succeed and breed success is probably one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. 

I think there are quite a few colleagues out there who would agree with these sentiments. 

Getting ready for our conference next week and reflecting on what we are achieving as a diverse group of schools and individuals , Kate's email popped in to my account and this came to mind....full circle  support and making progress together. 

Meet Kate ! 

I met Kate as she changed career. She had a degree in languages and the ability to speak fluent French and Spanish. Kate decided to become a primary school teacher and her background in English and Drama helped too in making this decision.
At the time I was the languages consultant for Warrington LA , but our paths had crossed before as she had attended the same High School where  had taught French and German, from where I took groups of A Level language students out to the local cluster schools to develop drama and primary language workshops .Like myself Kate had always loved Drama and made the natural links between languages and performance.She wanted to train as a primary teacher with a languages specialism  - but wanted to be sure first .
So for one year in 2006 -7 Kate worked for the Language Assistant Programme in 5 different primary schools in Warrington with myself .To this day I remember her skeleton rap with Year 5 in French and we still use Kate's culture and counting power point! A year later she trained to be a primary school teacher.

Since then our paths have crossed at local support group meetings and at our local conferences. Kate found a job in a school where language had a good profile and an excellent MFL Coordinator Mel Cowap(also with a primary languages specialism PGCE as her training). 

Now meet Mel! 

Mel  encourages staff to participate,has set up a meaningful programme of study filled with wonderful ideas and resources and goes out of her way to find  ways of linking language learning across the curriculum.Just before Kate joined the school I accompanied  a group of Primary Heads to Dijon on a Headteacher to Headteacher link ,set up by the British Council .The school established a link with a primary school and have really pursued this link- important if you want to keep it alive.In the first year they did a playground to playground comparison for example. 
A year ago I sat down with Mel to discuss the visit from French primary children from Dijon to the Warrington Primary school. She had set up a treasure hunt round school for all the Year 5 and 6 French and English children and was in the process of going through letters of application from the Year 6 children to be guides and buddies for the day for the group of visiting Dijon children.  Mel has been on maternity leave this year and Kate has overseen the languages. I love the joined up thinking and the strategic approach to developing languages.Indeed this is a school where all those years ago (between 1998 and 2002) I  took sixth formers to develop hands on drama and languages workshops in French and German!

So now we have come full circle. Kate has a little boy and works part time. She also works with ourselves once again as well ,one afternoon a week. Mel is back at work and will be at our conference with Kate next week! Their passion is most definitely primary languages but they are first and foremost primary classroom practitioners at Broomfields CP School.  



At the weekend I sent out an email to ask my associate colleagues to consider areas of progression in primary language learning . You can read about this here.
Kate's response was about her own Year 4 class  at Broomfields CP that she works with all year round as a primary class teacher job share. She delivers their French language learning too. When I read what she wrote I decided that this was a message for my blog. The children are making progress with the class teacher that they trust.The progress is in place and Mel( the coordinator at the school) has put in to place a system of learning that guides this. Kate has implemented and encouraged the progress this year and the children in her own class are making very good progress.Remember that the progress they make is based around singing , games, drama, story, creative work across all four skills and as e can read the children are making simple progress in their understanding of grammar and their knowledge of France via their link with Dijon!

This is what she says: 

In terms of progress my year 4 class has increased their ability to listen for specific sounds and words, write simple words and phrases on whiteboards, in air writing, in greetings cards and a through writing a letter to a pen friend. Their speaking confidence has grown in terms of transactional language (asking and answering questions) which we use as much as possible throughout the course of the lessons and in terms of picking up new words and phrases.  When meeting new vocabulary and matching the words with their definitions,the children will automatically look for cognates and near cognates and will readily use these technical terms to describe their strategy. 

They will then look out for words already known or which can be worked out, paying attention to any faux amis (false friends) which, as language detectives, they need to be suspicious of! Then, lastly they will use process of elimination. 

At this stage, the children are aware of grammatical rules such as there being more than one word for 'the' in French and that the adjective usually comes after the noun.  

In Year 4 we have also increased our cultural understanding by looking at the city of Dijon, where we have a link primary school and how it compares and contrasts with our own home town. The children have used bilingual dictionaries to look up nouns and adjectives. 

The next steps for these learners will be to revisit and review some key phrases and vocabulary at the start of Year 5 then to move on to new content areas of language.  They are going to listen to more complex words and phrases and have the opportunity to read longer phrases and texts in French.  They will also work on speaking more at length, expressing opinions and will practise short presentations to perform in front of the class. To add to their knowledge of grammar, the children will meet regular (and some irregular) verbs.

And what does this progress look like in practise in the classroom as teaching and learning?

Here is a report from our Network News from February 2014. The school had a primary BEd ITT with primary languages as her focus.She spoke some Italian too and the teacher and the student  linked her knowledge of Italian with French and also German and spent a day at the end of the half term celebrating the languages of the Winter  Olympic Games. Once again it's about team work, sharing and networking. 

Here is the brief report ..

"Co-ordinated by class teacher and MFL teacher Kate Percival and BEd student Jenny Pimlott, the three Year 4 classes at Broomfields took part in a rotation of activities, experiencing German, Italian and French!  

On the first day of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Year 4 were shown videos of what kinds of sports to expect to see and learnt their names in German whilst adding actions, going on to play Simon Says (Max sagt...!) and a splat game against an opponent. They then looked at the kind of useful and non-useful clothing you would take with you to the games and played Quiz Quiz swap with the words in Italian and the pictures of the items.  The children also solved a mystery in French about which sport Marie wished to see in Sochi and each child wrote a sentence in French on their own Olympic gold medal to take home as a souvenir of their day.  They finished by enjoying singing and dancing to J'aime skiier...'.' skiing song! 

It's a long time since 1998 when a foreign languages teacher with her group of sixth formers went into local cluster primary schools for the first time.

It's been for a long time that I have had the honour of working with the Head, Mel and Kate from the school.

It's a long time since Kate first asked could she join the language assistants ' team.

Strikes me it's all about support ,networking and sharing!

What has continued all the time is the support:

• support I received from line managers to go out and trial primary languages and drama,
• support the primary heads gave me with the drama project,
• support I received when I became a languages consultant
• support that Kate received as she went in to local primary schools to be a language assistants 
• support of Mel for Kate and Kate for Mel 
• support for a training teacher, to see and feel what primary languages can really look like 
• support of a network and the individual links schools and teachers can make with each other 

Simple songs and first step language skills

How many familiar refrains can you hum? (frère Jacques, London’s Burning, Nice One Cyril, Here we go gathering nuts in May)

How many familiar refrains can the children hum and remember from songs in KS1 and links to traditional songs?

Let’s build on these simple refrains  to support initial language acquisition of transactional language ( e.g questions and answers in the first and second person singular , numbers and a key question ,colours and a key question etc.

Why? Well a traditional refrain means we don't have to worry about the tune - just the words and we can use the familiar refrains to focus on syllables  , repetition and  putting song (the words ) into memory and then recalling the words when we need them in a different context.I think                                             lots of us already realise this and use these methods!

Here's one way of developing this approach:

• Introduce key simple phrases and add actions in the target language that generate a dialogue e.g greetings, feelings, a farewell
• The actions can reinforce the number of syllables in the word (e.g. hallo in German is two syllables- so we would shake a hand twice)   or the type of sound we have to produce (we need to roll our “r” in French words such as “merci” so let’s use or hand to roll up from the bottom of the throat to remind us to try and roll that “r”) or maybe it’s a question – so let’s use our famous question mark(thanks Amanda Ziebeck one of wonderful former associate language teachers) with a flick at the end when we need our intonation to go up at the end .
• Try this and see how it works. Draw a question mark in the air as you say “Comment ça va?” and add a flick upwards  on the last word….your intonation will automatically rise!
• Discuss with the children why you have added the actions you have – can they think of their own too to help them remember the words or accurately reproduce the sounds?

• Create a song to a familiar refrain of the phrases you have been practising with the children. Ask the children to listen to your song and just do the actions as they hear the words.
• Set the children the task now of putting these phrases to new music- to a new familiar refrain and listen and watch what they come up with.
• Alternatively before you sing or play your own song, ask the children to invent their songs and then see how many of their songs are very similar to your own.

Simple effective fun! and works every time!  A re-usable teaching and learning tool that involves listening , repetition, responding to spoken language ,rhythm and use of sound patterns and a little bit of  creativity! 

A year in a network

Our annual conference is next week 17 June and it will be our 11^th conference …since 2011 as Janet Lloyd Network and before as Warrington LA. 

We have grown and developed together. There are mini –groups within our community: the “Upskillers, the Spanish teachers, the Co-ordinators, the supportive SLT, the links abroad schools, the whole staff training and trainers, the JLN associate language teachers, the bloggers and tweeters (!!), the transition groups  and the children. 

Janet Lloyd Network

Have you considered the impact of your commitment and hard work?

How many children learn a primary foreign language locally?

A few weeks ago I worked out that for example on an average Wednesday, 2,000 KS1 and KS2 children in our network learn a primary foreign language! 

A remarkable achievement ,which is very much all down to the network member schools and their commitment to primary language learning. 

We have schools that are enhancing learning, schools that are steadily developing their language learning and schools that are beginning or restarting their language learning. Each school contributes to the whole network and the subject coordinators are definitely key.There are now 90 of you in total!

This year we set up Network News to share within and outside the network, practical and creative approaches to a whole year’s language learning. 

Up to this point it was just the associate language teachers and myself who could watch the whole picture take shape every academic year.

Network News

Here is a just a taste of the activities and ideas the  network members have developed to engage their children in purposeful language learning  between September 2013-June 2014…. And I am certain we will do more yet this year and I am looking forward to all the wonderful ideas still to come ,based upon the World Cup, Tour de France  the Commonwealth Games, the beach, the circus, the puppet shows, Summer celebrations etc!

Thanks to all network members!

Subject Coordinators ' CPD

Throughout the year you have met in your mini-groups and kept in touch by email, Twitter and the website. The three Subject Coordinators’ CPD sessions have been hugely successful and informative with 52 schools attending the three sessions over the year.

Local support group twilights 

We have held our regular local support group twilight meetings, this year  about Playground 

Games ,Carnival and our own first Show Tell and Share

So what has happened this year?

September

Many of us celebrated European Languages Day by launching our learning aspirations revisiting simple language , making and flying kites and investigating international kite festivals such as Berck sur plage 

From KS1 to Year 6 you shared your kite displays!

Thanks to St Elphin's for the original idea !

St Margaret’s CE learned and sang the chorus of “Let’s go fly a kite” in French for a whole school performance!

Other schools held whole school celebration days and parents’ assemblies. 

Alderman Bolton for the second year running invited the parents in to school to try out some language learning.St Lewis' linked up with pupils from the local high school to set up a French market in the school hall and many of you had language investigation days ! 

October

Rainford CE held Spanish spooky goings on in their language lessons.Lots of you took your children on virtual autumn walks with our colour and sound poems and St Philips Year 5 produced a wonderful display of their own Autumn term poems  

Some of our schools  focused this year on developing  grammar with UKS2  and in October we worked on wizards potions with the verb to have….and the children created their own poems , like this one above from Cinnamon Brow CE.

November

Schools with links abroad were busy getting their Christmas gifts ready or developing learning projects via Skype.

St Oswald’s involved the whole community in gathering local documents, photos and evidence to share what the area they live in, looked like in a by- gone time and shared this with their Spanish link school for their "My home, your home" project.

We held our first of the three LSGs... and were filmed at Stockton Heath by the BBC!

December

The creative ways to celebrate Christmas in a target language that you all came up with,were amazing. You can read about them all here on Network News!

 St Bridget ‘s combined their Christmas carol fundraising  with their French language learning, St Ann’s CE Warrington held their annual whole school ”Bûche de Noël  with French instructions session. 

The KS1 children at Bruche CP and Evelyn Street put on their Spanish performances of  Goldilocks and the Three Bears. 

St Elphins created their own versions of the chocolate Spanish clapping game, changed to café au lait and we tried it out at our Associate Network Teacher Christmas party as a Saint Nicolas forfeit! 

So many of you made your own descriptions of Christmas famous characters too ......

January

Everyone loves the alien family and they arrived in Year 4 as usual during January. Cronton CE  on their first day back were treated to a Roscon de Reyes made by Mr Thomas , 

himself  

...and  many of us woke up one morning in January to find out we had been on BBC Breakfast News , filmed during one of our Autumn LSG CPD sessions! 

February

It’s carnival time! There were monsters and masks and fancy dress . 

Westbrook Old Hall and Plantation CP went to town on monster descriptions and grand monstre vert story, performance and  displays.

Birchwood CE created Arcimboldo fruit faces. 

Dallam created their own Spanish omelettes  as part of their Spanish healthy eating unit !

And Broomfields CP went on a virtual tour to the Winter Olympics practising their French and learning some Italian on the way! At the end of the virtual tour they received their own gold medals too!

March

Well it was World Book Day followed quickly by Mother’s Day. Emilie’s  Year 4 at Culcheth learned and performed rhymes about the family ,which they made in to raps using Autorap and shared these with a school in Kent!They loved appearing the local press too!

April

Throughout the year the HODs at University Academy and Birchwood High have been getting to grips with what transition means to them. In April we had a fabulous cluster meeting with the Birchwood cluster to plan for Summer Year 6 and to begin to move one more step forward with what language learning in Autumn Year 7 will look like.

We held our own Show ,Tell and Share in April at Stockton Heath and the simple ideas from eight different schools helped us all to build our own bank of ideas and activities! Thanks to everyone who took part – no matter how nervous you were, you were fantastic!

Easter to end of May

After Easter Latchford CE Year 6 who had  have spent the year getting ready for their trip to Malaga,went and had a great week with their partner school! It was a huge success and as I write the Year 6 from Malaga are here on their return visit.

Twiss Green with Miss Browne have been on a virtual trip to South America and linked their geography with their language learning….

This is just the tip of the iceberg ! 

You have shared and achieved so much this year!

And now we are in June …. And it’s conference time again!

Here’s to another successful academic year ! 

The progress we are making,an account from the teachers.

We are drawing toward the end of another busy year for our network .It’s time to review progress and see how our children are developing as young language learners. Of the 90 school within the network 32 of the schools are supported by either a visiting teacher or a language assistant teaching from our SOW . It seems pertinent to ask these colleagues what progress looks like to them in their schools across both key stages.

 I have the great pleasure of working with these enthusiastic, passionate and highly committed colleagues every academic week of the year.I asked some of my colleagues to write several sentences on progression they have seen this year ,all with a specific focus across three languages (French, German and Spanish

We meet on a very regular basis to discuss and practise language activities and as a unit of colleagues we have established a sharing and networking community....often pushing each other on!

What is very important here is that the progress described is a true simple reflection of what the children are demonstrating and achieving  at different learning stages.The comments are those of  practitioners who take ideas and put them in to primary practice.

We are certain that many of you will be able to say and identify very similar points.That’s reassuring isn’t it? 

What I identify as I read these comments is that we have gone past simple words and repetition and the learners are becoming interested young linguists,confident that they can listen, speak read and write and therefore communicate in another language! Hurrah! 

Key Stage One Learners: Spanish

Ana (Native Spanish speaker, QTS Primary with Early Years’ specialism). Here's her end of year report on the  specific noticeable progress she sees in KS1 this year. Ana teachers KS1 in 5 of the 6 schools where she also teachers KS2) . 

Greetings in Reception

In KS1 the main progress I can see is in the children, who  have learned Spanish for a couple of years- so Year 1 and 2 .

• They are confident.
• They link and use previous knowledge in new topics.
• Their minds are open and receptive, they enjoy and don’t feel shy to try.
• Some of my children in Reception after doing Spanish previously in nursery, can independently say their names, how they feel ,their favourite colour, the weather, days of the week, animals, numbers up to 20, body parts and follow a lesson where I mostly only speak Spanish.
• These children show how important is to start teaching a foreign language in early years as their little minds are more than ready! 

Year 3 Spanish Beginners 

Joanne (PGCE QTS Primary Teacher with a primary language specialism ,teaches both Spanish and French) Joanne considered  the specific  progress she has seen in her Spanish Year 3 beginner class .She teaches from Year 1 to Year 6 in a local school. This is her end of year report.

Year 3 Superheroes Autumn Display

The Year 3s are just a joy to teach and the progress they have made this year has been impressive.

In their first year of learning Spanish, “my little Language Detectives “have wholeheartedly thrown themselves into their Language learning and have had lots of fun trying out new sound patterns and words.  

They respond to mimes and gestures and they amaze me with the amount of vocabulary they retain and recall and the inquisitive questions they ask. ('If Spanish has an upside down question mark at the start of a question and an upside down exclamation mark at the start, does all punctuation go upside down?' I ran with a flurry to grab a handful of Spanish stories and books so we could put our Detective sombreros on and investigate.)

Silly songs are immensely popular with my Year 3s (particular the fruit song) and the children even ask me for links so they can practice the songs at home. They have been known to come in the following week with an accompanying full on dance routine!

Year 4 Moving on on German

Barbara Foerster ,Year 4 German (native speaker German , TA and language assistant) Barbara works in a local school as a class TA and also as the teacher of German across KS1 and KS2. Barbara’s focus is upon Year 4 children who are moving on from being “beginner” learners.

My current Year 4 class are really good at German. They are very interested in the language and pick up new phrases very easily. 
I am very pleased with the progress they have made over the last few months - moving from simple sentences, e.g. my name is ... I am feeling good, to more complex sentences and phrases, recalling already known language fairly easily.
They are now able to have a  simple conversation and tell the other person about themselves and also ask questions.

Some of the things they are able to say are: their favourite colour,( and what I really like is that using the same phrase for “my favourite” ... they can translate that knowledge to say other favourite things, e.g. favourite pop group, singer, football star or number), where they live, when their birthday is and how old they are.
My aim for next year is to make them become even more independent !

Progress across LKS2 and UKS2 

Catherine (PGCE QTS Primary teacher with a languages specialism).She teaches four schools, French in two schools and Spanish in two schools. I asked her to suggest one specific noticeable skill step forward in each year group from Year 3 to Year 6  in both languages. This is what she has identified:

Across Key Stage 2, I have seen children become more independent learners. 

• In Y3, children have progressed from repeating words and phrases to holding a conversation with questions and answers. 

• In Y4, I have seen children become able and confident to write simple sentences in the target language.

• In Y5, children are becoming confident in using bilingual dictionaries. 

• In Y6, children have progressed from being able to read sentences in the target language to reading full scripts in the language. 

In general, I have seen children become more engaged and proactive in their own language learning.

What does UKS2 look like this year?

Emilie (native speaker QTS Secondary and Primary French Teacher). She works in 6 schools and across both Key Stages. Emilie was asked to consider the type of progress she is seeing in UKS2 as a platform that can be built upon into Year 7.Here is her report on progress in Years 5/6:

• In Years 5 and 6 children are beginning to understand and read longer sentences/paragraphs made up of familiar language.
• They are producing in writing and speaking longer sentences using simple connectives.
• They have acquired language learning skills such as looking for cognates and strategies to work out new language (i.e using clues, context, etc.)
• They are familiar with a range of structures including talking about likes, dislikes and preferences.
• They are becoming more and more confident in speaking and have become very fluent in talking about themselves (name, age, where they live, etc.)

A view from the bridge between Year 6 and Year 7 

Jayne (Secondary and Primary French teacher) teaching French and Spanish in 6 different schools from KS1 to Year 6.Jayne has considered Year 6 children she teaches now and what they can do that she feels does now need to be acknowledged as they enter Year 7

• Year 6 can remember so much of what they have done before!
• They are keen to reapply knowledge and show what they can do.
• In Year 6 they are beginning to extend their knowledge of sentence structure and  are keen to know more about language and grammar and how to use this to communicate.
• Even in a new context it’s amazing what they can describe and how much new language they can add to their descriptions accurately.
• They want to plan, prepare and use dictionaries to find what they really want to say!

• In Year 7 maybe we should n’t hold the children back but let them explore language more independently and apply their language skills even if it’s in a new language rather than spending a long time re-explaining what they have done or what they can learn quite quickly .

So now we are ready to move on to next year and to enjoy working with our schools and young learners and to see where we get to next year ....??!

Circus ! An independent project for early target language learners

Summer time and all across Europe you will find  the circus is coming to town!
Last year I sat down with a local teacher to plan and consider how we could link the target language  learning of her Year 5 and 6 to the language and context of the circus and the culture of circuses at the seaside in France and Spain.Circus was the focus of the UKS2 children and the school was trying to encourage independent learning at the end of the school year, looking back at what they had learned throughout the year

We set out to be the facilitators of the Summer focus and give the children the time to explore the language skills and knowledge of the language they had acquired during the year.

The children were at the stage in language learning where they could understand ,say,read and write simple spoken and written sentences using nouns, verbs and adjectives in the present tense.

The important points were that we wanted to 

1. to allow the children the opportunity to explore the language of the circus by independent access to text be it written or spoken
2. to allow the children to create their own final product - an advertisement for a Summer circus in the target language in either spoken or written form.

• The task

The children were asked to work in groups of four - differentiated ability- and to include in their project:

1. A poster (dates, times, venue,cost,participants). 
2. A simple description of the circus  ( simple present tense description of a circus using there is/are and third person singular of the verb (to be and to have). 
3. A rhyme, song or poem about the circus ( simple "advertisement jingle" style poem/ song/rhyme describing the circus and giving simple opinions e.g it's good/fantastic/ fun etc).

The expectation was that the children would use their prior knowledge of language and the skills required to access key language to generate the three components mentioned above.

• Core language gathering 

We let the children explore the language of the circus through simple authentic text.In groups we asked the children to explore an authentic text (here a French book or a Spanish video) and to find the key words for acrobat, trapeze artists, magician , the circus clowns etc, giving them access to bi-lingual dictionaries to check the language.

We found a brilliant book about in French about the circus









And this great simple video clip in Spanish introducing the key nouns associated with the circus. We gave the children the hyper-link for the clip on their chrome books

• Let the children explore how to create their own circus posters 

Using posters of the circus coming to town we decided to ask the children to use these as information banks they could  access to find and see how to use  target language in their own posters. The important thing was that the children should access the posters to find out for themselves for example how to describe the action , how to write the date and times etc.

Care was taken to select posters that had sufficient examples of key information so that the children had a text from which they could find examples for their own posters.

• Generating your own advertisement jingle 

We understood that these would need to be simple as the children had limited language but we wanted also to consider how added a flavour of the circus to their advertisements 

We watched with them video clips  and asked them to discuss how they could make sure their jingles had a circus flavour. We added the hyper- links to their chrome books so they could watch again for inspiration!

Here is a Spanish example 

Here is a French example 

• Over to the groups 

Then it was over to the groups to create a package that sold their circus to the class!

We found that the children really enjoyed the feeling of independence when using the target language and having to think of ways of accessing and checking language.The children valued the material that each group.

The  project worked because the challenges were not beyond the limits of the language but the project allowed the Year 5 and 6 children to feel the responsibility we often bestow upon them in other subject areas to organise, access and generate their own materials and outcomes! 

A great end of year project !

Seaside special three: a sandcastle building poem and performance

Encourage the children to take an imaginative look at sandcastles !

The child who built this sandcastle on a Welsh beach at Easter most certainly had used their imagination ...and it captured mine as a I walked by.

You require  simple skeleton sentences (see below in French and Spanish).

Allow the children to determine the missing words in the gaps (quantity? colours? size) as they read the poem skeleton with you. 

Il y a .............pâtés

Il y a un…………..fossé

Il y a un  ........... pont

Il y a  ..............  tours

Il y a ……………drapeaux

Et voilà un château de sable fantastique!



Hay.........tartas de arena
Hay un foso
Hay un puente
Hay.........torres
Hay .........banderas
¡Y aquí está un fantástico castillo de arena!

Practise the poem with the class. 

Now send them a way in groups of four to create a visual performance of the spoken poem that builds  the sandcastle as they imagine it. 

For example you may have children making sand pies and counting etc, you may have children depicting the moat a water running past with their hands as the moving water, you may have children who pretend to ride on horse- back over the bridge etc. They can decide , the important element is that they are being creative with the target language in the way they use the language to design their castle in their imaginations and then generate a spoken performance of their group’s sandcastle for the class.