Tag: languages

New Challenges for 2014

I’m excited to have accepted the position as Head of Languages at a new school for 2014 and beyond. I will be leaving St Paul’s with a heavy heart to take on this new role at William Clarke College. I’m sure there will be many rewards and challenges as I step up into a leadership position and I can’t wait to get started! I have grown immensely as a teacher at St Paul’s and have undertaken many and varied projects apart from teaching French. I feel I am ready to see what’s round the next bend in the road – I’m sure you will hear all about it here on the blog as I take on the journey!

 

A bend in the road.

Issues Facing Languages Teachers

I am in the process of writing my short TeachMeet Languages presentation and I want to get some input from other teachers before I get too far into writing it. I want to know what are the biggest problems or challenges facing languages educators in the classroom today. I have a few of my own ideas, but I’m sure there are more I haven’t thought about and I want to make my presentation not just about my personal experience! So far I have thought of: attracting students to language study through to the end of secondary schooling, the increasing emphasis on technology in the classroom, the ‘teacher centered-ness’ of language education, the rise of Google translate…

So, please add what you believe are the biggest issues facing us as languages teachers today, and perhaps offer a solution that’s worked for you.

FLIP Lessons

Wow! Another fast and furious TeachMeet took place last night at Shore nestled in the heart of North Sydney. It is unbelievable how fast a 7-minute pechakucha flies through. See below for my presentation on FLIP lessons in the languages classroom.

If you have the opportunity to attend or contribute to a TeachMeet, do it because it’s a night of fun, ideas, inspiration, conversation and support from an amazing bunch of educators.

UStream

Yay – success!

I managed to follow my plan to have Year 9 French write and create their own animations using Domo. See one here.

Despite some initial hiccups in actually getting the site unblocked (during the lesson) by the IT crowd, they worked quickly to produce the animations. I continue to be amazed at how these guys can be shown minimal instructions on using the tool and then have it up and running within minutes. This was a really engaging task that encouraged collaboration and creativity. It was also based on traditional methods in learning the vocab and structures and then applying them in written French. I am adding each of the animations to a wiki I’ve set up so that each student can view and comment on the work done by their peers.

Now, what’s next for this week? Year 8 are learning all about daily routines and reflexive verbs – they are going to create a ToonDoo. More to come on that…