Extracurricular activities: Let's take languages outside the classroom!

The MFL motto and ethos at my school is Let's take languages outside the classroom. This is our brand and it is visible in a big banner when you enter the MFL department corridor.  You cannot escape it! We teach a life skill to take it outside the classroom, not just to pass an exam, and we must provide opportunities for  such skill to get tested in real life situations outside the classroom. I believe that the learning that takes place in the classroom is the practice, the weekly training for the real football match: real situations to put the language into practice!

It also deeply worries me that in the current climate where trips and gatherings are not possible for the near future, this aim can easily be neglected. That would be a big mistake! We need to rethink the shape of these real life linguistic situations so they still take place, although with a different format. 

How to take languages outside the classroom?

Exchanges

These are core to our MFL philosophy and we are lucky than when these have been scrapped from some schools because of safety issues, at the end of the day students stay with unknown families away from the teacher's constant vigilance, our school has protected these trips.

How have we overcome the safety questions surrounding exchanges? 

In normal circumstances, how to guarantee the safety of students when they stay with a host family during a school trip can be a big issue for schools, which has resulted in an alarming decrease of language exchanges across the country. 

In my school, we have resolved this issue with the introduction of a Host Family Trust Form. Families from both sides fill in this form, stating information about their household: address, family members, all telephone numbers, siblings, age of siblings, whether their guests will be sharing a room, if that is the case with whom etc.. This information is confidential and is passed to the relevant families privately. It is regarded as an informal contract between families in different countries who commit themselves to look after each other's children during the exchange.

Click here for a copy of this form. On top of that the Heads from both schools vow for their families and their good intentions.

Elements of a successful and stress-free exchange

From a student's point of view it is always nerve-racking to stay with someone they hardly know, or even worse, someone they will know, for the first time, on their arrival  day in Spain, Germany or France!  My experience is that this can result in unpleasant/ homesick situations from part of the guests and it can ruin an exchange. Somehow, homesickness is infectious! Elements to consider to avoid this situation:

1. The key of a successful exchange is to create situations where partners have had the opportunity to get to know each other prior travelling. We do this by creating learning, collaborative opportunities in the classroom. eTwinning projects linked to the MFL curriculum, as explained in my previous blog, are a fantastic opportunity for this! An Erasmus project will take your exchange to the next dimension!

2. Use the technology at your disposal for real, periodical class communication before travelling. This could be part of homework tasks.

3. Use public holidays to communicate with partners via the creation of video messages. Xmas is a perfect opportunity for this!

4. Create a purpose for the visit: an outcome, something tangible that students will have to produce by the end of the exchange. This should be strongly linked to the collaborative tasks/ project initiated by both schools before travelling. In our last Spanish exchange, British students had to complete a workbook which included interviews to the host family and the creation of an online diary in conjunction with their Spanish partners via Padlet. Paired students had to do this together, creating opportunities for them to interact in the evenings. Some times partners are shy, especially the guest so these tasks create an opportunity for the students to get to know each other better face to face. This particularly works well if students have been in frequent contact from day 1 and have been working on a project together prior to the visit.

Example of Spanish exchange activity booklet

5. Have the right balance of school based and outdoor activities when the exchange takes place. Having excursions every day can be exhausting when students have to practise their linguistic skills all day long. Similarly, just following hosts throughout their school for the whole exchange and relying on host families to do the entertaining, can be extremely awkward and frustrating for a teenager! I try to plan a good selection of in-school and out-of-school activities.

Example of an exchange itinerary of activities

6. Use social media while you are in your host country. Opening a Twitter account or using Sway on Microsoft  it is a great way to keep parents informed at all times and it helps not only to raise the profile of your exchange but also to keep anxiety levels down from the parents' point of view which help towards a smooth exchange trip! 

Twitter account for our 2019 Spanish and French exchanges: @united_an

7. Make a big fuss of your visitors at school: organise a school disco, a dinner party, a cream tea party, a Spanish tapas party or a Valentine's French party or why not? taking part in a carnival!

Currently exchanges are simply not possible but what they represent and the collaborative inner element in them can still occur thanks to technology: eTwinning projects. Virtual trips created by partners could be an easy project to embark on, using Sway as shown above! 

Routes into Languages: The Language Leaders Award

This association runs many great competitions and awards involving languages: Spelling Bee, Film and Eurovision competitions are some of their hot activities, to mention a few! My favourite one is the Language Leaders Award.  We run this programme for the whole MFL department for Y10 students. Students need to apply to take part in the programme and the best applications, not necessarily the best linguists, will get selected. 

As language leaders Y10 students are responsible for running some language activities around the school, such as our MFL lunches, explained below. In order to qualify for the award, students need to prepare and deliver two MFL lessons to our Junior School students.

The experience is great and it really helps to raise the profile of languages in the community. The students in the programme commit themselves to attending a weekly Language Leader meeting/workshop during lunch time where they are instructed in the art of teaching a language, in preparation for their lessons to younger learners. 

This activity, in itself, is very powerful, as it allows students to reflect on their own language learning experience and how they are learning  their second language in the first place! Younger students also love being taught by Senior School pupils. This activity would be great to carry out in feeder schools with Y6s!

Documentation to run your own Language Leaders Award

Such an activity will not be affected in the current COVID situation and it would be a great extracurricular activity. 

MFL lunches

We introduced this activity two years ago and we will be hosting more of these throughout this year! So, another COVID safe activity to carry out and organise. 

Basically, our Language Leaders (Y10) run a periodical MFL lunch where we get a table booked in our dinning hall and serve Spanish/French/German food. Selected students get invited to these and the only condition to enjoy the wonderful delights of European food is to speak the target language while they have lunch.

Debating competitions

A local school organises an annual MFL competition for any school in the area for Y10, 11, 12 and 13! Students are given a motion to prepare, well in advance, and will compete against other students in the area. This is a great G&T activity for our most able students. Sadly, I suspect such competition may not take place this year, but it can be organised within our school!  

Why don't you run your own debating competition in school or cluster of schools? 

MFL magazine

This is something we plan to start this year for the first time and completely safe to do! Again, it will be our Language Leaders in Y10 with the help of A Level students who will be responsible for the creation of a MFL magazine with school news in French, German and Spanish and of course interviews! We will publish  just a magazine to start with aiming to create three numbers per year. 

Onatti productions.

Onatti tours around the UK with Spanish, French and German plays.  They are worth every penny and students love them. You get a booklet with the vocabulary which will be used in the play, which allows teachers to cover this during lesson time, putting languages into context and taking them outside the classroom! During lock-down, Onatti has produced some lovely lock-down films in French, German and Spanish which are also, fantastic resources for real linguistic exposure. Have a look in the website above.

Language International week

This is a classic in my school now! At King's Ely, we are lucky to have an International school site with students from all around the world: China, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Italy, France, Spain or South Corea just to mention a few! The MFL department in conjunction with King's Ely International organises an annual International week with a wide range of activities aiming to raise the profile of languages and celebrate diversity, global dimension and tolerance in all our students. The activities take place during break, lunch and after school and include things like:

Cooking sessions: make dumplings, French pancakes, a Spanish paella or Austrian Tafelspitz

Traditional dancing sessions, where our International students showcase traditional dances and/ or songs, this year we want to create an evening International Cabaret, raising money for a chosen charity.

A especial international assembly run by the students

Screening of international films

MFL school debating competition

International photo booth, run by students, where photos with different flags and prompts are taken celebrating diversity.

Language Day for Y9 students, run by our International students. It consists of language workshops where our international students teach a little bit of their language and elements of its culture to all Y9 students, who are off timetable for the event. After these workshops, Y9 students are treated to a mini international concert, again, performed and run by our international students. In the past we have had workshops on Italian, Hindi, Japanese, Russian and even Afrikan! Teachers, outside the MFL department, are also invited to run a workshop: in the past we have had PE lessons in Afrikan conducted by a South-African teacher!

Ideally, we try to get Onatti into school during our International Week, which is the icing on the cake! Although, this is not always possible. I appreciate very few schools have an International School side, most schools have students from different international backgrounds and this is an opportunity for those students to feel proud of their heritage and raise the profile of languages! Another COVID free activity is social distance measures are put into place accordingly.

The Stephen Splender Prize

This is a great, poetry, translation competition open to the whole of the UK at all levels. Translation is a great skill and students tend to love it, believe it or not!  Running a workshop/ club for students on translation is a great asset which can lead to the Stephen Splender Prize entry. There are lots of information in their website about the competition and how to incorporate translation in the MFL classroom. 

The British Film Institute workshops 

The BFI runs  lovely film workshops for all key stages and main languages!  Another great way to take languages outside the classroom! I firmly believe in the power of film when learning a language! Having Netflix, Amazon Prime or just Youtube open a huge opportunity to exploit cinema in the classroom and the BFI has helped me tremendously to develop teaching techniques and materials which incorporate the use of films.  

They run workshops for French, German, Spanish and Mandarin and to KS3/KS4/KS5 level. It is a lovely day out for students and another opportunity to take the languages outside the classroom. I do not take full sets but a selection of students who have worked particularly well throughout a term. I have also run these as a gifted and talented activity.

Given the current climate, the BFI will be launching a blended learning programme instead of its usual face to face study days. Have a look at their website for more information.

 MFL Drama Competitions

Both, The North London Collegiate School and The King Alfred School organise Spanish and French Drama competitions, respectively, for Y11-Y13 students. Students perform up to 10 minutes sketches or short plays in the target language. This is a great opportunity for students who are good a drama to shine in a language!  

Feedback from parents and students alike is fantastic each year. It does require a lot of time to prepare students for these plays so it represents a lovely, periodical, language extra-curricular activity: MFL Drama club. It is a fantastic project for a language assistant to coordinate too. Please, contact both schools for information on the these annual competitions, which this year maybe on the format of short videos. Again technology to the rescue!

 

Where possible, if there is a professional play in French, German, Spanish in London we make it a ALevel MFL outing. These are great! We are lucky enough to be one hour by train from King's Cross in London, so we can do this! Although big cities like Manchester also offer excellent opportunities for international theatre. 

Advertise your programme!

I use Vistaprint to make cheap professional A2 posters advertising our annual MFL extracurricular programme, which is placed around the school. It makes a difference and it emphasises our logo and unique, selling point: taking languages outside the classroom.

Teaching languages is intrinsically linked to teaching culture and preparing our students for their BIG Football Match (real communication in another language)! The more football matches they take part in, the more real practice they will get and the more motivated our learners will become. A rich extracurricular MFL programme allows that to happen: playing the football match of languages until they come face to face with the World Cup!

The power of culture: project based learning in MFL

Two of the criticisms I see on social media about the use of Sentence Builders, is that students just learn chunks of language, without being taught how to manipulate these in preparation for a GCSE exam (parrot effect) and the fact that there is not culture incorporated into the lessons leading to a loss of motivation and disengagement from learners. This last assumption also estates that activities are narrow minded and do not lead to creative project based learning.

On a previous post I explained how Grammar and language manipulation was key for students to become spontaneous and autonomous. The difference in this approach is when the necessary explicit grammatical rules are tackled: after routinalisation of Sentence Builders, not in isolation with single vocabulary items.

On this post I will show how culture and project based learning can also be incorporated in lessons using this methodology. The key is that students need to be trained fully, via Sentence Builders, on how to tackle a creative project involving culture if we do not want them to resort to Google Translate! Let's face it, with the little curriculum time dedicated to MFL, the learning process is slow and students, especially at KS3, do not have proficiency required to carry out creative projects which rely on sophisticated use of language, unless we explicitly teach it!  In fact this ability does not occur naturally until the end of KS4 and throughout KS5 for the most able learners. 

Does this mean we cannot use culture and project based learning in MFL? Of course not! The beauty of learning a language is learning about the culture and project based learning is perfect for this. The key is how we plan and structured this task. 

This is our structure for cultural and project based learning in Spanish:

Year 7 

At the end of term 1, under the topic of family and descriptions we do teach a module on Picasso and Miró. We teach students more sophisticated vocab such as figura estrellada or the present tense continuous to describe what is happening in an image. Students use this new Sentence Builders to describe real Picasso and Miró pictures. They do this, first in writing, and secondly orally, using Flipgrid, Thinglink or Onenote to insert audio on a particular picture. Finally, students, in conjunction with the art department, will create their own Miró/Picasso drawing which they describe orally and in writing using the previous apps. QR codes are finally created on their outcomes, which we display in our talking wall. This module also allows teachers to introduce Spanish art to students.

Smartboard materials to teach a Miró and Picasso module

Powerpoint Sentence Builders on Miró shared by J Santos on our MFLtwitterati Padlet

Powerpoint Sentence Builders on Matisse shared by Ruth Hedley 

Year 8

Y8 traditionally take part in a eTwinning project with our partners schools in Spain and France. Our last project consisted in the collaborative creation of a touristic guide which included emblematic cities in the UK, Spain and France. Students prepared presentations, using Google Slides on different cities in the target language and would work collaborative, via Google Slides with students in all involved countries. The language was definitely more challenging here, but, still was studied via Sentence Builders during lessons prior the project. The beauty of this project, as you can see in the link below, is that we carried out many other activities involving real language exchange with our partners: real communication in the MFL classroom.

Rutas Molonas eTwinning project with Spain and France

eTwinning is a great tool run by the British Council which allows teachers to look for partners and/or register a project for which you get an online space/platform (your twinspace) making your project look super professional! See the example above. Most interestingly, projects get recognised by the BC with certificates (great CPD opportunity). There's also the possibility to be awarded a Quality Label for outstanding projects! Finally, from all the projects obtaining a Quality Label, 10 will get a National Prize, which is a great achievement and wonderful recognition for the MFL department and students alike!

How to plan a successful eTwinning project?

Keep it simple!  You can develop simple projects linked to your SoWs so that when a topic is covered, students have the opportunity to do something meaningful and creative with a real audience!  Describing each partners' schools, cities, families in the target language and create a collaborative ebook, via Thinglink or just Padlet, has proven very successful in the past.  These activities do not require a lot of planning and the impact is great! 

Another simple project I conducted was based on the creation of real listening and reading materials from both schools, ours in English and our partner school in Spanish, which we would exploit as authentic resources in the classroom. To plan this, we created resources on the topic covered by each partner school. It was great to receive videos from our partners talking about their family members, when doing this topic, which we could exploit as listening activities and followed up with videos my students' own Spanish videos!  So keep it simple! A pen-pal structure to your project is also a good idea so for Xmas, independently of the project, students would get/write Xmas cards, for example  I always pair (different nationality) students taking part in the project so that these do keep real communication throughout! If you do a project linked to a physical exchange, then, the whole project and the forged relationships take shape and it all becomes something really special. 

eTwinning also has project tool kits to get you inspired!

Year 9

Y9 students study the topic of Media during the second term so in the past we have carried out a project on the film Voces Inocentes. We dedicated around 5/6 weeks to do this in lesson time: after watching the film in two lessons, specific vocabulary to talk about the film was taught via SBs and throughout our normal range of activities. Students carried out translation activities leading to oral/written practice and a creative project where they needed to describe the film and write a review. We got inspiration from Rachel Hawkes' resources on the use of film for this one!

Smartboard Voces inocentes teaching materials

This year, we are changing the film to Coco. Watch this space for resources!

Less able pupils, instead of carrying out a specific film project, completed a booklet based on different Spanish short films. This was a success! 

Short Film Booklet 

In the summer term, Y9 students study the topic of healthy living and food. This is a brilliant opportunity for students to cook some Spanish food. 

This year, during lock down we run a Masterchef cooking competition on making Palmeritas. Students first learned specific Sentence Builders on giving cooking instructions and practised the vocabulary via a demonstration video filmed by me cooking Palmeritas. After some practice, students needed to cook their own Palmeritas while giving oral instructions and filming the process. Finally videos got shared on a Padlet and winners were chosen. 

The Language Challenge embedded in the curriculum

Single linguists in Year 9, dedicate a MFL lesson out of four, to complete the Language Challenge.  This is an award run by Routes into Languages which encourages students to research and learn about the culture of the language they study. Most of this independent research, guided by their teacher, will be done in English. Students need to complete a series of tasks which translate into points aiming to reach 100 points, when they get awarded the Language Challenge. In practice, single linguists dedicate 3 lessons to language learning and one lesson to research based culture learning. The benefits are great: independent, self-motivated students who take ownership for their learning and become more motivated to learn the language.

Year 10

Y10 students and some able Y9s also take part in our Erasmus language programmes every other year. Erasmus, despite requiring a lot of work via the application process, management of grants etc, is a fantastic way to promote languages and embed project based learning in the curriculum. Students work collaboratively with partners in La Reunion and Spain on a particular project using e-Twinning as our working platform. Erasmus also include mobilities, which in Erasmus jargon just means an exchange funded by the Erasmus grant! 

Our last Erasmus project,United in diversity,  based on heritage and festivals in Spain, La Reunion and the UK involved 78 students working collaboratively and was such a huge success!  Students worked in multinational teams throughout a year, which allowed them to develop real relationships!  They even participated, as part of our project into the Spanish carnival (those were the times!). Linguistically, all students improved massively and culturally the project was a blast! We even won a National Prize for our etwinning/Erasmus platform.

United in Diversity: an erasmus project

Viva el Carnaval! footage

Forging relationships!

Feedback from parents on our Erasmus project

Teaching via Sentence Builders and teaching culture via project based learning are not incompatible, rather they complement each other. The MFL teacher must teach experiences not just the language!

How Digital Tools can support Sentence Builders!

I love technology!  Not just for the sake of it but because I believe (based on my own experience) that it can enhance the teaching and most important, the learning experience of my students. 

I love blended learning and I think that digital resources can be crucial in retrieval practice, which is key for languages! If students are not continuously exposed to the language (our Sentence Builders), they will simple forget them! Similarly, digital tools help, along with cultural input, to make lessons memorable!  These are just some of my favourite platforms!

TaskMagic- Textivate

I have written extensively how these can be used at all different stages of the teaching/learning process according to the MARS EARS model: especially in the Model/ Awareness and Structured Production stages. Please see previous posts to see how I introduce/drill language using these tools.

Quizlet and Memrise

These are essential in making students independent and help them learn our SBs! Most students are used to using technology on their mobiles and, although the Repeating, Covering, Testing traditional learning method still has a place for many students, creating courses online linked to my Sentence Builders have proved to be a huge success!  I use Memrise for KS3, they love the competition points system, and Quizlet for KS4.

These are my Quizlet courses linked to my Sentence Builders (downdable from the Resources Page on this blog). 

All courses are shared with students via Firefly, our school digital platform and via Onenote. Students complete the courses for homework (learning tasks) and they get tested on them in lessons, formally or as a whole lesson activity. I think it is vital we give students learning tasks as homework! Let's face it, if we do not explicitly say they have to learn the vocab, most learners would not do it!

Wheel of names 

I love this simple app!  You can create roulette type of exercises for retrieval practice, again, based on our Sentence Builders.  Its use is ideal in the first two stages of learning but it can also be used in the last stage (Spontaneous stage) where students create a sentence from a given prompt. This technique, can be used up to KS5, very successfully. 

This is an example of a Wheel of names activity based on SB from the topic of Technology (Y10)  The activity can be done orally (testing after the Quizlet learning task) or in written with mini whiteboards. Able classes can be asked to extend the sentences with something that makes sense or/and using a different tense!  I can spend a whole lesson doing just Wheel of names activities! If you add and element of game (points system) you have a winner! 

Most nicely, you can have two or even three wheels opened on your screen! which means you can practise very long sentences! It would look like this: (Wheel 1 is about Sentences with IR and wheel 2 about reasons why)

Flippity

Fantastic app which I discovered thanks to Joe Dale. Similar use to Wheel of names but many more uses! Vincent Everett has many examples of how he uses the Randomizer tool with Sentence Builders, like the above example, without having to split your screen! Mike Elliott also has a great example of how to use the Randomizer in conjunction with Flipgrid! Below is Mike's video on how to do this to practise pronunciation with students on a given set of SBs. Once you create your activity, you just share the link with your students!

LearningApps

This must be my absolutely favourite app! which I have used for a few years now and has proved so handy during lock-down. It allows you to create many exercises based on the Sentence Builders that you are working on during lesson time. 

It also develops independence in learners and just adds a fun element to a conventional worksheet! It helps to make your lessons Memorable!

I particularly like the Freetext input activities, which allows me to create translation activities but also listening and dictation! Great for modelling the language! Example below: 

As in the case of Flippity, once you have your activity you just share it with your students! I do this via our class Onenote. 

Genially

This is the coolest app I discovered during lock-down thanks to Carmen Quirós. It is a presentation app but very engaging and interactive! I love the templates it provides to create info-graphics, board games and escape rooms!  You can get very creative with these Escape Rooms! 

Marie Allirot and Julia Morris have shared many impressive escape rooms using Genially, check them here.  However, using the templates as they are, is also highly innovative and engaging.  

I have created my own escape rooms, again, to practise in a different way those precious SBs so they are great for the structure production stage of learning. What I love about Genially, is that you can embed activities from LearningApps (or any other app) into your slides, making these activities part of the challenges to escape the room! This is Retrieval Practice and Gamification on the use of SBs at their best! 

Example of a Genially Escape Room for SBs practice

Example of a Genially Escape Room for oral spontaneous practice

Another cool use of Genially, is their board games templates!  These are just ace and students love them to practise their Sentence Builders or discussing KS5 topics!

Example of a Genially Boardgame

Mentimeter

Mentimeter allows you to create interactive presentations by letting your audience (your students) interact with you! I used it to test SBs too (2nd stage of learning) but also to get spontaneous responses from the students from a prompt. The teacher carries out the presentation with questions and students will get a code which they introduce in their own devices. Students answer those questions using their devices.  

All answers will appear on the screen! Great for collaboration, sharing good answers among students and quick feedback for the teacher (how many mistakes are there?/ checking for understanding). This tool proved great during lock-down too! See example below:

Padlet

This app is great to practise oral and writing collaborative work. I use it in the last stage of the learning process (spontaneous, extensive production) although it can also be used for Controlled Production. I love it because it is a collaborative space for students and they can learn from each other. It is eye-catching and again, it makes the learning more memorable than just using a classic worksheet!  

Another use for a Padlet is to share videos that students make! and for collaboration with partner schools.  This is our Erasmus journey, using Padlet, below.  I also use Padlet for revision schedules for my Y11 students. They love it!  This is an example. 

Flipgrid

This is a great app for oral practice. I create a group for each of my classes and then threads on whatever I want them to give a presentation on. I use this at the last stage of the learning cycle: Spontaneity and free output from students!

Whiteboard.fi

This app presents a great solution to the current climate. It offers a digital mini whiteboard. You just need to create a class and share a code with your students. Pupils from their own device will join your class with a board which will be displayed in the big screen, that way you can see each other answers, to say translations, verbs etc.. and everyone can see each other answers too on the the big screen/projector. Great to check for understanding, pinpoint areas of weaknesses, establish grammar discussions etc.. you name it! The big screen will look something like this:

Quizizz

This is a Quiz app but with a twist! It allows you to create different quizzes in different formats. Also, as part of your quiz input you can include listening (up to 10 seconds) which it makes it perfect for testing our SBs from a listening point of view! My favourite Quiz: Open-ended! so I can include dictations, translations, oral questions, you name it! Again, something very similar to Flippity, LearningApps but on a different formal so it is not boring from the students' point of view! The way I use it is not so much as a testing device but as Solo Practice mode. This way, I promote independence in my students.

Jane Basnett offers a fantastic overview on how Quizizz can be used for retrieval practice here.

 

Other digital resource I love with ready to use activities are:

The language gym extremely good for SBs practice and VERB TRAINER!!! the students love the competition element!  This is Gianfranco Conti's app! 

This is language great for listening videos! Again, my students can be come addicted to this.

Languagenut this offers listening, reading online activities

Lyric Gaps  to practise languages with pop songs.

Exampro AQA past paper questions to be created on specific themes, papers etc..

Linguascope good for younger learners 

To get a better flavour of these tools and others check my webinar below. As always, many thanks to TILT for conducting these free webinars!

For more TILT Webinar videos, which offer an amazing FREE CPD, check Joe Dale's Youtube channel here. 

Bitmojis: spice up your lessons!

After being inspired by the wonderful Language Show and Joe Dale’s webinar on the use of Bitmojis, I have decided to revamp this old post.

I started using Bitmojis more and more during lockdown. I had used them before to create scratch cards. I got the idea from a lovely person from Face Book but I cannot remember her name, apologies!  This is the template.  The only thing needed is to print out the template, cut the cards and stick a scratch sticker, bought in Amazon for around £3 on top of the prize statement.  My students, even the most reluctant, die for these cards! I give them around for good answers, behaviour etc..  

During lockdown I maximised their use and by doing so also my students' positive response to their learning. 

The first thing I recommend doing is to upload the Bitmoji extension on your google bar as an add-on. That way you can just click on the Bitmoji symbol (second on the left in green), look for the bitmoji you want and copy and paste the image onto any document.

For the technicalities of creating a Bitmoji, watch Joe Dale’s webinar. 

Bitmojis for PDF and video certificates 

I have created certificates to acknowledge excellent progress and effort during distance learning. To do this, I have used Canva.  Having the extension on my google bar, I just copied and paste my bitmoji into my Canva project. This is an example:

To accompany the above certificate, I also created simple videos, using Bitmojis and the IMovie trailer app on my iPhone. Students and parents particularly loved this! I also created one for my tutor group to wish them good luck during internal exams/ assessments in July. 

A video tutorial on how to do this video trailer can be found here, I can assure you it takes 10 minutes!  The only thing you will need, is a selection of saved bitmoji pictures in your phone/iPad/Mac to add to your trailer video.

Virtual Classrooms

Bitmoji Virtual Classrooms, through the use of Google Slides, became increasingly popular during lockdown! I, personally, did not need to use Google Slides, as I use  Onenote for my lessons. However, I created my own virtual classroom picture which I incorporated to all of my Onenote lessons to make them more engaging. I created mine, again, with Canva instead of Google Slides as I wanted it as a picture, without hyperlinks:

Here there's a video tutorial, there are many on Yutube, on how to do this step by step. 

Using Bitmojis to give feedback

I also used Bitmojis (on Onenote) to give feedback to my students and encourage them to continue working hard, that is, by giving Merits and Alphas according to my school reward protocol. Below there's an example from a Y9 pupil:

Using Bitmojis with Forms, virtual trips and Escape Rooms

Most excitingly, I use Bitmojis as listening activities embbeded as YouTube videos on Microsoft Forms or just in Onenote. In order to do this, I do the following:

1.  I used PhotoSpeak on my phone to make my Bitmoji talk (it moves the mouth when doing so): I just uploaded the Bitmoji I wanted into Photospeak as a photo, which I saved on my phone, added voice (my listening input) and saved it as MP4 video.

2. I uploaded the video into my Youtube channel.

3. I embedded the Youtube video, by copying and pasting the URL link, into my Form activity. I did this for extensive listening practice.

4. I created, using Forms, different tasks: filling in the gaps, questions/answers, transcription type of tasks, multiple choice etc.. I created many listenings/videos within the same Forms activities like this! 

You don't need to use Forms to practise listening this way, but just have the videos on Youtube and embed them into Onenote or link them into your Virtual Classroom.  Listening/ video activities can, then,  be personalised to suit different abilities (length, specific use of vocabulary and speed, depending on your students). This is a great way to model listening for students based on given sets of Sentence Builders for retrieval practice!

Example of Forms using Bitmoji for listening 

The Bitmojis can be used on Virtual trips! There are excellent examples in our MFL Padlet.

Finally, I used the Bitmojis for my own Escape Rooms using Genially, below there’s an example. Marie Allirot has many, many examples on how to use Genially to create Escape Rooms. Many of her examples can also be found on MFL Twitterati Padlet. 

Of course, students can also create them to practise speaking and give little presentations, using the method above or by using bitmojis with Flipgrid. In his webinar, Joe Dale actually explains very well how to do this! 

Overall, Bitmojis  make my lessons more engaging and, again, memorable! However, there is specific planning on their use as they are not just used for the sake of it! Check the Face Book group Bitmoji Craze for educators  for fab ideas on their use! It is addictive, be warned!This is the template.This is the template.

Blended learning: The use of Onenote and Screen Casting during lockdown and followup

Lock-down was a big shock for all of us, however, amid the chaos, I have found positivism and a great opportunity for the teaching  community to think outside the box and, for the first time, to seriously think about blended learning, that is, how to integrate conventional teaching techniques with IT tools to make the learning experience more memorable, stickier!

When I first found out about lock-down, my first question was whether to teach synchronously or asynchronously. Most teachers in my school chose the first format but I was not sure it would work for MFL, except for small groups such as Alevel students. I made the choice to teach using a mixture of both methods. I was lucky that our school had signed for Office 365 and we had Teams!

My school also chose to respect our normal timetable, so students were expected to join our Teams lessons at the times we would have had our lesson anyway. Students joined via a link sent to them from Firefly, our school intranet and the method we use to set normal homework tasks. Once on Teams, I would have a 5 minute starter synchronously, which I allowed late arrivals to join in.  The starter would normally be a question and answer recap from our previous lesson (retrieval practice).  For this Starter, I would also use Mentimeter , Quizlet, Quizizz or Classroom Screen. I can also recommend using Spiral.ac! This would last 5/10 minutes. The rest of the time, students would work independently, on a well thought out and structured lesson plan using Onenote from Microsoft. Students and I were still on Teams so, if a question rose, they could asked me directly or they could use the chat.  At the same time, Onenote would allow me to check the work students were doing live and give live feedback verbally via Teams or in writing.

So, Onenote was key for my learning distance lessons!  The second element was Youtube and Loom.  What I did, was to screen cast my lessons in 20/30 minute videos, where I would do everything I would normally do in a lesson using the MARS EARS approach explained in previous posts. This means, showing a particularly Sentence Builder sheet and carry out over different Onenote lessons the activities I would normally carry out in face to face lessons: Repetition via TaskMagic/Textivate, Flippity activities, dictation activities, translation activities in writing and orally (Onenote allows you and students to insert audio). After I created my videos, I would upload them onto my Youtube channel ( this step is not necessary, as I can share my videos via a Loom URL, but I like using Youtube as videos get automatically embedded in my Onenote pages/lessons). Below there is an example of a lesson/Onenote page shared with my students using one of my videos:

My third element was the use of Bitmojis!  I used Bitmojis to engage with my students, to give merits to present listening, reading, writing work etc... see example above.

In order to give structure to my students, I created frames in my Onenote pages for them to insert the answers to the interactive videos: translations, dictations, oral input etc..

Onenote allows you to create virtual exercise books for each of your teaching groups. You create a Onenote for each of your sets and add the students to it. Students will then have an individual area in the Onenote only visible by you and them. You also have the Content Library, an area visible for everyone. I create my lessons in the Content Library: I recommend a page per a week’s worth of lessons. In the Content Library I also have different tabs: a grammar section, sentence builder section, mark scheme section etc.. Finally you also get a collaborative section, also visible for everyone, where students  can collaborate and see each other inputs:

I used to distribute my lessons or pages to my students at the beginning of the first lesson of the week, remember that each page has work for the whole week, so every student would have the lesson in their own area, watch my video, do the activities and these could  be corrected by me!

After a few lessons with videos, I would also embed or link other activities in their pages:

Quizizz activites, Quizlet learning courses, Flipgrid assignments, Genially escape rooms, Listening activities via Forms and use of Bitmoji, LearningApps, Deck Toys, Flippity activities, Wheel of Names, Padlet entries or just a writing frame! 

Onenote and Teams have proved invaluable during lockdown and the feedback from my students and parents has been extremely positive!  If a student could not join in a lesson live, they could always complete the work any other time! Synchronous lessons were also very slow with big classes so this approach allowed students to work at their own pace! 

What can be taken forward?

In my MFL department we are definitely planning to continue the use of Onenote as from September. We are not going to get rid of traditional exercise books but this is an excellent way to share IT tools easily with all students with a structure.  Onenote is great for oral practice too, as one of the examples above show, students can repeat after you (using a video), doing reading activities, practise Photocards or recording presentations which you can hear straight away and give instant feedback, orally too!  

We are going to to continue the use of videos (screencasting) for specific listening, oral modelling and homework tasks!  

Finally, if you are absent, your worksheets and any material, such as PPTs etc.. can be shared there for your students. The same works if a pupil is absent and needs to access the missing work.

Feedback is extremely easy to give and much quicker than in conventional exercise books, so when pressed for time, we intend to use Onenote for homework tasks, to which we can respond with specific oral or written (via a digital pen) feedback.

We are planning to work with two exercise books: one digital (a Onenote for each set which will be created in September) and one physical. Students will be required to work with both in lessons, meaning they will need to bring their laptops/ tablets to lessons. We are lucky we have a set of iPads in the department, so students can always access their exercise book even if they forget their own device.

In other words, the lock down has allowed me, and my department, to explore a wide range of IT tools. This skill cannot be wasted but used to enhance the learning experience of our students by making the learning memorable.  Remember the use of IT tools is not the outcome but the means to facilitate our outcome: language proficiency! 

For an insight on how Blended Learning can be incorporated into MFL lessons, listen to the following round table discussion among Joe Dale, Helen Myers, Janet Basnett and myself hosted by Rob Walden from Real World Education for the IFL Festival.