Films from a record 58 countries have been submitted for consideration for the foreign language Oscar, with Iraq, Costa Rica and Fiji among the entries. Read the BBC news article for more information. If you’re interested in film, check out the Cinema and media section of the MFLE, where you can find out more about National Schools Film Week in Scotland, and suitable media for teachers and learners of modern languages.
Hove Park School in East Sussex has won the TES/HSBC prize of International School of the Year. The school, which is a member of ALL, has won £5,000 for its work, which includes links to eleven countries across every continent. Read the full story on the TES website.
Find out how to organize your life abroad, how to turn “culture shock” into an enriching experience and get some useful phrases and activities for key vocational sectors in French, Spanish, German and Italian. Read more on this at BBC Languages for Work
In addition, this is an area being addressed inside MFLE itself. Go to our main section on the website called “Careers with Languages” for more information.
As well as the above information, do feel free to add any comments or views you might have in relation to using languages for work.
How worthwhile and all-encompassing John’s kids’ poetry work has been at Sandaig Primary this past week. Pupils aged 6-10 celebrated National Poetry Day by writing 150 verses of poetry online in a couple of hours. They also did a poets’ podcast of some of the verses from the classes. Well done, kids.
This is an English-language based project but the exact same processes could be used to great effect in Modern Languages, giving our students a voice from their classrooms. Imagine this: you need to get that talk on your hobbies right – because several thousand people are going to hear it on the podcast.
The MFLE Guide to Podcasting is coming soon. And it contains only two steps! If you want to see how to get blogging in your classroom go to our Think It. Blog It guide in Creative Teaching.
East Lothian Council has provided a blogging tool for its teachers on its Exc-el website. Ollie Bray from Dunbar High School blogs on Geography teaching and running a department for the first time; Don Ledingham’s Weblog is covering A Year in the Life of the Head of Education; Angus MacRury is writing a Headteacher’s Weblog from Innerwick Primary School and Paul Raffaelli, Acting Headteacher at Dunbar Grammar School, is carrying on his predecessor’s weblog on the school website.
Meanwhile, John Johnstone is blogging and recording podcasts from Sandaig Primary School in Glasgow.
Quick reminder for those involved in eTwinning programmes, and if you’re not it’s not too late to sign up… If you don’t know about eTwinning it is explained in the MFLE Links Abroad section and in the current mflePodcast, with excerpts from the SETT Learning Festival seminar on eTwinning (full seminar available here).
The first annual European eTwinning Awards will take place in Austria on 13 January 2006, and as a school with a registered eTwinning partnership, you are warmly invited to put your project forward.
Deadline for applications is November 10, 2005 The awards are designed to celebrate and recognise schools who have been involved in innovative projects during this first year of the eTwinning scheme.
Applications are invited in the following categories: School collaboration – how has eTwinning enabled you to work effectively with a school or schools elsewhere in Europe? Pedagogical innovation – for projects which have transformed teaching and learning Digital resources – for eTwinning projects that have developed outcomes: teaching materials, training resources, presentations, etc.
For each category there will be a winning and a runner-up partnership, in each of the following pupil age ranges: 5-12 year-olds and 13-19 year-olds.
You apply through the eTwinning portal: http://www.etwinning.net/ww/en/pub/etwinning/prizes.htm. Here you will find full details including eligibility/judging criteria. Judging will take place at a national and Europe-wide level.
The first prize is a special “eTwinning campusâ€, bringing together teachers and pupils from the winning partnerships, as well as attendance at the prize-winning ceremony which will take place in Linz, Austria, between 13 – 15 January 2006. Runners-up will receive a place at the winners’ conference and also get to attend an eTwinning development workshop in Europe in 2006.
There’s nothing to stop you applying. It could be a great way of raising the profile of your school and the great work you’re doing in the scheme, and help develop further eTwinning activity.
Remember the deadline is 10 November!
Listen to the first podcast from the MFLE, recorded at the seminar on eTwinning given by Susan Linklater (British Council), and George Glass (HT, Cauldeen Primary School) on the 21 September 2005 at SETT, the Learning Festival. This edition contains French music.
You can subscribe to the MFLE podcast by right-clicking on the orange XML box in the right-hand column of this page (or Ctrl-click if you’re a Mac user) and copying the shortcut into your podcast software.
George Reid was present in Paris showcasing Scotland’s approach to e-democracy last week. Libération featured an article and interview with him (De l’e-pétition au vote par l’Internet) and the Scottish Parliament is always there for non-francophones (Holyrood’s commitment to e-democracy showcased)
Like every other newspaper in France today, Libération is not in the stands because of a national strike in schools, factories, distribution…
Well, the topic of La Grève had to come up at some point this year, didn’t it?
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