The June Event, The University of Westminster, Saturday 15th June

I had a great day at The June event today! As promised here is a copy of my slides complete with links...

Music to my ears The June Event from Isabelle Jones

Music to my ears handout The June Event from Isabelle Jones

MFL Show and Tell, St John's York University, 1st June 2013

I had a great day at the MFL Show and Tell organised by Suzi Bewell. As always, more work is needed on my part to compile a summary of all the wonderful findings I made today...

Please find below a copy of the slides I used for the main Show and Tell and my "Genius Bar" session.

Jazzing up revisions from Isabelle Jones

There is a World out There-Intercultural Understanding in Languages lessons from Isabelle Jones

The June Event, 15th June 2013 at The University of Westminster, London

The June Event is a conference and exhibition for language teachers organised by the London Branch of ALL and Linguascope. The theme for the 2013 edition is "Keeping it real", focussing on the practical use of language in the real world.

Confirmed speakers so far include:
- Steven Fawkes (Twitter: @StevenFawkes): "New wheels? Innovations in language; progress in language learning"
- Rachel Hawkes (Twitter: @RachelHawkes60): "Joined up! Integrating skills and blurring the boundaries in language learning"
- Isabelle Jones (Twitter: @icpjones): "Music to my ears - Motivation, Creativity and Cultural Awareness through Music in the Languages classroom"
- Frédérique Lane (Twitter: @flane01): "TEEP activities to increase students' engagement in MFL"
- Alex Blagona (Twitter: @blagona): "Bring an ICT idea, and come away with 10 more"
- Liz Black: "Bringing Languages to Life"

The June Event is supported by: Network for Languages, London • European Schoolbooks • Vocab Express

Follow us @thejunevent and tweet about the event using the #thejunevent hashtag. You can also refer to the June Event page for up-to-date information.

The June Event will take place at:

The University of Westminster
309 Regent Street
London
W1B 2UW

Click here to view a map.

How to get here

Travelling by tube:
Take the Central, Victoria or Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus (200m)

Travelling by bus:
Take the C2, 12 18, 22 or 453 bus to Regent Street, or take the 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 23, 25, 73, 94, 98, 113, 137, 149, 159, 189, 390, 453 or N207 bus to Oxford Street.

Car Parking:
The nearest car park is in Cavendish Square. The address is: Q-park Oxford Street car park, Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PN. Follow this link for more information.

See you there !

Motivating Students in the Languages classroom: Language is Music

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lambertwm/4648945403

Over the past few months I have been looking at different ways to use music to engage my students with French and Spanish language learning.

I started on the premise that music is a powerful mood-modifier and even I was amazed at some of the students’ responses…

Why music? I have always had this idea that if music is a language, conversely, language is music-and languages represent a range of music with different pitches and rhythms.

I have used music in a wide range of ways to grab students’ attention, sneakily modify their moods and get them engaged with the language and its related culture.

Just music-no words

It is up to the students to come up with words! The music is then used as a brainstorming tool.

Music associated with key parts of the lesson

Great to minimise instruction time and reinforce routines

Music as a link into a new topic

Students listen and/or watch and figure out what the new topic is. The clues can be in the lyrics or in the video. I have a French and Spanish playlist on Youtube (isabellejones)

Just music and words

I have used karaoke versions of music video for students to concentrate more on the words and to reinforce the learning of specific structures.

Made-up songs

I have used songs with a clear or repetitive structure as a stimulus to get students to write their own made-up song/ rap/ poem. Playfulness with words is the beginning of serious language manipulation.

 

Singing pronunciation

Go off-piste and slow down-sing to the students and help them remember the pronunciation of longer/ trickier words to a tune.

Parallel texts, translations  and cover songs

If the song studied has a cover version in English, compare the two versions and get the students to spot the differences as they are listening. Is it a straight translation? Why isn’t it a straight translation? Any important differences in meanings?

Students’ responses were varied but largely positive. Although I am passionate about using music in languages lessons, I do understand that some people will not respond to it. What I have tried to do is to use music in such a way that it cannot just be associated with a specific type of listening, speaking, reading or writing activities. Music is a very versatile tool and using it as a way to reinforce patterns or routines or as a mood-modifier is just as powerful.

A number of ICT tools have supported my use of music in the classroom:

I really like Amara, which can be used to subtitle videos. The only issue is that subtitling a music video is extremely challenging for non-natives and there is a lot of typing involved. An alternative activity would be to use background music and subtitle a short video in the style of old-fashioned silent movies. The choice of background music could reflect the characters’ feelings or the ups and downs of the story.

Freeplay music is a great site with free music to match moods (select by key words/ instrument/ style of music).

If you want to keep it simpler go for ibeat, free beats you can use to practise new vocabulary and key words-great to focus on pronunciation.

A good rhyming dictionary-online or as a mobile app- is essential to support the writing activities and it will also help students memorise the correct pronunciation of the new words if they are learnt in rhyming clusters.

Finding the words of up-to-date songs can be tricky but I found that using mobile apps like Lyrics + saved me a lot of time: find the sound, get the lyrics, copy and paste into a word document and use for cloze exercises and more…

Downloading YouTube videos was also of use, particularly as online tools like Amara do not really work well directly with You Tube. Using Keepvid.com  or the mobile app iboltdownloader were the easiest way to do this.

 

Last but not least, how do you keep up to date with the music of the different Target Language countries?  I found a great mobile app called MusicTube to do just that. You can visit the top 20 songs for a range of countries and each song is linked to a corresponding YouTube video. As the lists are updated regularly, this is a fantastic up-to-the-minute resource ready to be used in the classroom…         

More resources can be found here

Language World 2013: Music to my ears

As promised, please find below a copy of the slides and reference sheet for my session on using music in the languages classroom:

Music to my ears slideshare from Isabelle Jones

Music to my ears handout from Isabelle Jones

Language World 2013: Nottingham Conference Centre, 22-23 March 2013

 

Language World is the annual language conference organised by ALL, the Association for Language Learning, the association that represents all foreign languages teacher in the UK.

 

Language World is really two days of top-class training and professional development for language teachers. I might be biased as I am running a workshop on the second day of the conference but Language World does have a unique atmosphere. The camaraderie and amazing choice of workshops and talks will leave you feeling energised professionally until at least the next conference-that's a promise!  

 

This year the theme is Imagine…

Imagine how we could improve language learning; how we could get our young learners speaking and writing independently in another language; how we could bring creativity and excitement into the languages classroom; how we could get better results faster.

Imagine finding out everything you need to know about the changes coming with the new curriculum - at one time, in one place.

With a new curriculum on the horizon, in which languages will be statutory for the first time at KS2; where how we teach at KS3 will be very much in the hands of teachers; with a revised EBac performance measure and changes to GCSE and A level, there has never been a more vital time to get up-to-date and ready for a very different new future for languages in our schools.

At Language World you will find:

· Dedicated primary and secondary strands with over 12 major talks and 28 workshops across the two days

· All the latest updates on what’s happening in policy and practice

· National experts explaining the big issues

· Inspirational plenary sessions

· The opportunity to exchange views and meet up with colleagues from across the country

· A major free exhibition of language teaching resources

Who should attend:

· Primary subject leaders

· Secondary heads of department

· Established classroom teachers

· NQTs

· Trainees

Cost: From £100 a day for teachers, and just £40 a day for trainee teachers and NQTs. There are also a number of free places for trainee teachers and NQTs-just contact ALL for more information. 

Language World 2013:

· Click here for the LW2013 programme.

· Click here for delegate prices.

· Click here to download a booking form.

And if you would like ALL to take your registration over the phone and do the paperwork for you, just call their office on 0116 229 7600.

Phone lines stay open until 5.30 pm, so pick up the phone at the end of the school day and help will still be available.

 

If you are there on the Saturday, I am running "Music to My Ears", a session on

Developing Motivation and Cultural Awareness through Music in the Languages classroom

See you there!

ICT and Languages Conference, Southampton University, 9-10 February 2013

Yet another great day at #ililc3. As promised, here is a copy of the materials I used in my sessions:

Effective visuals for language learning from Isabelle Jones

Visuals ililc3 handout from Isabelle Jones

Musical revisions from Isabelle Jones

Dare to share keynote from Isabelle Jones

The recorded livestream for both Joe Dale's Saturday and my Sunday keynote can be viewed at https://www.languagessoutheast.ac.uk/live