All Blog Posts (411)

Inspired by the life of Neil Armstrong, this blog is a quick reminder of all the free KS2 resources out there that link Space and Languages. You can download…

The following comes straight from the DfE website

 In December 2011 the Department published…

Hello

I am new to this network and am so impressed by it I want to join in! I have just been appointed Head of MFL in my independent Prep School and one of my tasks over the Summer is to write a scheme of work for Years 3 and 4 for French, for 3 language specialists to use. I have been teaching languages for many years but had my first experience of teaching KS1 and 2 when I joined my current school 7 years ago. It was a steep learning curve and I tackled it on my own, but it's been a…

Hi all,

Thought this may be of use to someone:  www.linguafun.eu  is offering FREE access to their Olympic interactive activities and printable resources, in all 5 languages: French, Spanish, Italian, English and German; lots of fun activities to keep the children interested; both, my year 5 & 6 class love it.

Best wishes,

Matthew

Just watched  a short news report about the government's new proposed Curriculum to include compulsory  languages from the age of 7. Said pretty much what most of us have been saying for years but it could finally be here.

There's an article here…

Hi All



We're having a conference!



‘Raising The Game’ Joined-Up Languages Cross-Phase Conference 2012



Following the overwhelmingly positive feedback we had at our previous Joined-Up Languages conferences in 2010 and 2011, we are holding a similar event on Wednesday June 20th at the Wyboston Lakes Training Centre in Bedfordshire.



As before, this is a cross-phase conference with lots of excellent speakers who will inspire…

I know it isn't typically the done thing but we're offering our award-winning Olympics language teaching resources completely FREE.

The resources include fun, interactive PowerPoints (with all instances of the foreign language pre-recorded by a language native), a whole range of interactive games for the IWB or ICT suite, lesson plans, teacher support notes, differentiated worksheets and even an end of unit assessment.



As the Olympics are now almost upon us we would love…

This company offers reliable, funded courses in France and Spain via British Council, and is well worth investigating as one of the few remaining sources of money to support primary languages. People who've come back from these courses have recommended them to me highly. Website is here http://www.lfee.net/  

 The lovely Paul and Zoe at Primary Treasure Chest have just added some French translations of their free teacher resources especially for the Olympics. You can download them over at …

Odd title but I am sharing this in case it is of use to anyone else. Here in Hampshire we've been doing some more work on our 'End-of-year 6 Agreement' transition documents which I'll attach here. Copies are also stored on the website. However it has become apparent that some schools are not yet at this stage and…

V excited as I have a book coming out in April, with Lynn Erler. Lynn is the researcher at Oxford Uni who started the whole 'Phonics Revolution' in primary languages, with the research she did, especially into beginning learners' reading skills in French.

I joined forces with Lynn years ago when I read her research and developed some classroom activities for teaching phonics. The first was the Phoneme-Grapheme Running Game (devised back in 2004), closely followed by my 'Little Pots of…

I've been working with a Hackney primary school on the ideas for grammar I've been posting.  We've got clear progress from Years 1 and 2 to Years 3 and 4, and I've just posted here a note on the last lesson this term with a Years 1 and 2 class, which was very encouraging. My key idea is that if the main adjustments we have to make to our thinking are clear from the outset,…

For some time, I've been developing an approach to the very first lessons in new languages that is designed to anticipate and avoid failure by building the biggest adjustments that children need to make to their thinking into the initial lessons, and then practising. I've now uploaded the French and Spanish versions to my blog, www.johnbald.typepad.com, and am interested in comments. 

I'll be presenting a paper on grammar at the ALL conf…

 Ready to have a go at some poetry in your Language lessons? Here are some ideas and resources to set you off and celebrate World Poetry Day:…

Fasten your bug-belts for some exciting news!

Starting on Monday 12th every weekday on CBeebies at 09.35 and repeated at 13.35, The Lingo Show hits CBeebies!

You may have already discovered Lingo and his multi-lingual bug…

 Last weekend was the second ILILC (ICT Links Into Languages Conference) held at the University of Southampton, and the free 'Show and Tell' held on the Saturday night was hugely entertaining. One of the…

Hi all

 I have been using Picasso in my year 3-6 in Spanish. i have uploaded the resources onto my forum/wikispace if anyone wants to use them.  Can I upload them onto here easily?

http://sandwellteachinglanguages.wikispaces.com/

Helen

A few people have been asking me if I'm still "down under" so I thought I'd post what's happening. We have been in Brisbane, Queensland, for 3 years (and 5 days) but are now moving back to the UK...on Wednesday.

I'm looking forward to catching up with many of you at the Languages SE conference or the PLS. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the snow, though. It's 33 degrees here!