Modern Languages Blog

The Scottish CILT annual conference will deal with two themes: a final look at motivation and consideration of the implications for modern languages of A Curriculum for Excellence.

The programme for the day is likely to include the following:

• A summary of Scottish CILT’s work on motivation

• Motivating boys, a presentation by Barry Jones

• An introduction to the main issues in A Curriculum for Excellence

• Opportunities and threats for modern languages in A Curriculum for Excellence

• Headteachers’ views on A Curriculum for Excellence and modern languages

• Workshops to discuss key issues and learning and teaching.

This day will be an opportunity to consider what impact A Curriculum for Excellence will have on modern languages. The SCILT 2006-2007 outreach conferences will continue the theme.

How do I apply?

Fill in this Scottish CILT application form and send it to the following address:

Mandy Reeman-Clark, Scottish CILT, Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA

Tel:  01786 466294   Fax:  01786 466291  Email:  amanda.reemanclark@stir.ac.uk

Accommodation

There will be a reception and dinner and the option to stay overnight on Friday 2 June, the day before the conference. Please let Scottish CILT know if you would like to attend the reception and dinner, and if you wish them to arrange accommodation for you. The accommodation that Scottish CILT can provide is in student residences, in single rooms with en suite facilities, with breakfast included. Full costs are listed on the application form. Scottish CILT can also advise on neighbouring hotels and bed and breakfast establishments, but cannot make bookings at these establishments.

English firms need to get up to speed on the languages and mores of their trading partners, writes Mike Nicks in this article for the Times Online.

Language expert David Graddol warns in a study published recently by the British Council that monolingual English graduates face “a bleak economic future” as multilingual workers from other countries prove more attractive to global organisations. “Monolinguals can’t move round the European headquarters of multinational companies and pick up the kind of experience on their CVs that will get them into senior management positions,” he told The Sunday Times.

Read the full article here.

Exposing your child to a second – or even more – language is a wonderful gift to give them, writes Annalisa Barbieri in the Education Guardian. But how to do it? She mentions among other resources the BBC’s Muzzy language course for young children.

On edu.blogs today, Ewan McIntosh discusses today’s Herald article concerning languages and new technologies and what has caused him to post an answer to the article. Here’s an example from the post:

Most ‘typical’ modern languages lessons do not, these days, revolve around teacher and textbook. Some do, but most typical lessons are taught by vibrant teachers with a passion for learning and engaging their pupils, using interactive whiteboards, some using digital video, some already getting kids to create digital audio.

Visit edu.blogs to read more. The transcript of the Herald article can be read on the PiE (Partners in Excellence) blog.

SQA announce that they will shortly be appointing a Development Officer who will have specific responsibility for the development of this qualification. Higher Urdu will be available to all their centres from academic session 2007-08 with the first certification taking place in August 2008.

This marks an important stage in the development of their qualifications in minority languages – candidates who undertook Standard Grade Urdu have previously had no alternative progression route to follow. They will publish a development timeline for Higher Urdu in due course, indicating the main development stages leading up to implementation in August 2007. Read more on the SQA website.

Apple Macintosh launched their first home computer with spotlights and Also Sprach Zarathustra booming across the theatre. Across the screen of the tiny little beige box Macintosh Class scrolled a message written in the curliest and, at the time, most elegant typeface known to mankind: Zapf Chancery. For this in the world of PCs, exchange Zapf Chancery for any over-ornate, over-the-top font – preferably verging on the illegible, too. For the past 20 years educators have been amongst many PowerPoint sinners, using what they consider ‘wacky’, ‘fun’ or ‘clear’ fonts to make their bullet-pointed, overcrowded PowerPoint slides more accessible. How wrong could we have been?

In the 21st century more presentations in the business world are evolving around seven steps, eight evolutions or ten tips. There is one overriding reason for these talks going down well. If you are bored listening to the person you can see for yourself that there are only n more steps to go before the end – and a break. So could this work in the classroom?

Imagine what students think when you are going through your ‘concise’ explanation of the imperfect tense. Miss one stage of this and your days writing in the imperfect tense are numbered. If, however, the presentation was staged in numbered sequence with the proviso that each bit forms part of the explanation, the chances are you will get more attention for that little bit longer, allowing precious minutes to explain where the -ais comes from.

OK, if you’re reading this it’s because you realise that PowerPoint can be a useful tool in making things clearer. If you’ve made it this far in the top ten tips it’s because you enjoy having that support. But PowerPoint and Support don’t need to go together. You could use many a visual to back up what you’re saying. Here are some suggestions:

a. Use a website
Using the web is always a bit risky if the worse case scenario happens: there is no internet connection for your presentation. However, web pages can be saved to disk in advance, creating an ‘off-line’ version in a jiffy. You can print them as PDFs, too, leaving the webpage sitting somewhere on your hard disk for later use. Beware of text being too small on websites you use to illustrate your point, especially if you are expecting your audience to read something on the page. Consider using the Zoom feature of Macintosh OSX or the Magnification tool in the Accessibility menu of your PC. This will magnify whatever your mouse hovers above.

b. Use a weblog
Watching Peter Ford at the Communicate.06 conference was a revelation to me and several others. He had created a weblog with one, fairly typical ‘welcome’ message he had posted before. However, from the moment he saw and interacted with his audience he was able to choose posts from his administration window and publish them, using these posts and the hyperlinks in them (prepared in advance) to give tailored content to his audience. Three or four posts never made it into the cut and would probably not have been applicable to his audience.

This could work really well if students get turned off and need a change of focus or if they need more examples from somewhere on the web. The best thing is that the lesson structure is there for all to see after the lesson. Immediately. All the teacher has to do is ask the audience what they want to do more of and – ‘click!’ – the next part of the presentation is published. If comments are turned on to each post then students can provide homework under each element of the presentation or ask for further help on that particular area.

c. Use digital photographs
Does a picture tell a thousand words? Could it help explain something grammatical. How could an image reveal the future tense, for example? How could it show the difference between past and future tenses?