Lingua@Com

Planned to Unplanned Talk

Planned To Unplanned

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Planned --> Unplanned Talk

Planned To Unplanned

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Core Language KS3

Core Language Fr Gm Sp

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Trying out Joe's advice

In response to my uploading difficultes with the previous post on digital recording, Joe Dale suggested that I use www.scribd.com and embed the documents then into the blog.  I won't say it was plain sailing but after several wrong turns (and helpful advice along the way from Joe!) I think I might have managed it below. 

OlympusDigitalVoiceRecorder Instructions

EasiSpeakMic Instructions

Audacity Instructions

I know they might be a little small to read as I've embedded them, but click on and you can easily download the pdfs!
Thanks for this suggestion Joe!

Rachel

Developing talk routines in the classroom

No time to explain this post in detail!  Just wanting to upload some ideas for developing spontaneous talk in the classroom. Very relevant to expectations in new GCSE oral but also fully in keeping with developing teaching at KS3 in line with the new KS3 framework and the new secondary curriculum.   Download Developing talking routines_Spanish  There are a lot of additional speaking resources on our Linked Up project wiki

Best wishes

Rachel

Recording orals for the new GCSE

 

I know that many of us are needing to consider how best to record digitally the oral assessments within the new GCSE and decide what additional equipment to buy.  I spent some (considerable!) time on looking at different models and ways to record some time ago and we have been using them with lots of classes at KS3 and KS4 for classroom use.  Recently a colleague conducted the first orals in our department and put them through their paces.  I tweaked the instructions that I'd put together for students in the light of her experiences to make them appropriate for the rest of the teachers in our department, who are just about to do orals.  I know that there are a zillion possible devices that do this job and do it well, but from our experience in the department I can recommend these 3 devices/methods.
1.  Audacity plus external USB mic

 +

Audacity is free software that you download simply and easily.  You will also need an extra piece of software called the LAME encoder that you also download.  There are some very clear instructions for Audacity all over the web and Joe Dale's blog has the answers to most things Audacity, especially if you want to do more with it than just record an oral.  But, if all you want to do is download it, record oral exams, then save the files as MP3, here are some Download Audacity_instructionsthat I put together with only this minimum detail.
To record the oral you would use a computer with Audacity installed plus an external USB microphone.  We use a

Logitech USB Desktop Microphone available from Amazon, price currently £17.65. 

2.  Olympus Digital Recorder (

WS-321M Digital Voice Recorder)

This recorder is available from Amazon (currently costs

£56.47) and uses AAA batteries.  It is good quality sound and records up to 17 hours MP3.  It is very easy to use and pulls apart to give you a USB input.  Olympus make lots of different digital recorders ranging from about £20 to £200+.  I am sure that you could go lower spec than this one and still have good enough quality (I do know someone who has a £30 ish Olympus and says it's perfectly good enough) but this is one model that we have in the department and it works well. I have put the instructions below as I can't upload again all of a sudden!

Using the Olympus Digital RecorderRecording
1. On the left-hand side of the device the lower switch should always be pushed down (towards ‘voice’).2. To turn the device on, push the upper switch down (away from ‘hold’).3. To start recording press ‘REC’ (on the right-hand side of the device). 4. Press ‘STOP’ to stop (!). You can listen to your recording using ‘PLAY’. 5. The sound quality of this playback is not as good as it will be when transferred to a computer.6. If you forget to turn it off (to ‘hold’) then it automatically turns off after a couple of minutes. To turn it back on you need to flick it to ‘hold’ and then down again.Changing the battery:1. Ensure the ‘hold’ button is pushed up.2. Gently slide the cover on the bottom of the device across. The battery will fall out. There is a picture on the back of the device to show which way up the new battery should go.
Transferring files to a computer
1. Ensure the ‘hold’ button is pushed up.
2. Hold the device over a surface (it is easy to drop it). 3. Hold down the ‘release’ button (on the back of the device) and pull the two ends (top and bottom) apart. Plug the top part into the USB socket of your computer.
4. Voice recordings are stored in the folder: DSS_FLDA
5. The device holds approx 17 hours of voice recordings.
6. When reassembling the device carefully ensure the grooves are aligned.

3.  Easispeak microphone & digital voice recorder

  We also use these in the department. You order them on the web from EasiSpeak and they record in either MP3 or WAV formats and are also easy to use.  For the recent orals, (as they were the first!), we used Audacity + external Logitech mic but used an Easispeak mic as a backup so we 'double-recorded' as a back-up, just in case anything went wrong.  They cost £25 but are cheaper if bought in bulk.  As I suddenly can't upload for some reason (again!) here are the instructions.

Using the EasiSpeakdigital microphone
Recording
•Switch on by sliding ON-OFF switch until the Status LED lights orange–this means it is on standby
•If the orangelight is flashingthis means you are ready to record in MP3 mode (this is what you want)
•if the orangelight is constantthis means you are ready to record in WAV mode (NB: Press the * ‘snowflake’ button to change the mode from WAV to MP3)
•Press and release the red record button and the Status LED lights red to show that it is recording
•Speak (for at least 2 seconds)
•When finished the recording, press the red record button again. Status LED lights orange
•Press the green play button to hear your recording. The Status LED lights greenwhile recording plays.It can be useful to blue tack the bottom of the micand fix it upright on the desk top.Transferring files to a computer
•Take the black cap off the bottom of the microphone to find the USB
•Plug it into your computer
•Your recordings are saved automatically into the folder called MIC_REC
•It is important to rename these recordings and save them to your place on the school network and back them up too.

  I hope this is useful.  Rachel

Making the case and selling languages

It may be that in the majority of schools, as in mine, the time is coming for Year 9 to choose their options and that we will be wanting (even more than we usually do!) to make the case for continuing to study languages at KS4 to students and parents.  You might find this material useful - written in PowerPoint but designed also to be enlarged on photocopier to produce colour A3 posters. 




Most or quotes were taken from a House of Lords debate in December 2009, a link to which I was sent on mflresources, which if you don't know is a brilliant forum that every language teacher would benefit from joining.  Download the slides from my 'making the case' presentation here: Download Britain needs foreign language skills 2009

Hope it might be useful,

Rachel

Business Enterprise and Languages Project - Y9

This project is designed to raise the profile of applied language learning in a business context.  The context, as our first foreign language at KS3 is Spanish, is the recent news of the merger between

Iberia

and BA.  Over a 2-3 week period, students (in groups of 3-4) in morning tutor group time (20 minutes per day) are designing a new logo for the merged company and a 1-minute radio sound bite giving the advantages of the merger and launching the new company (in Spanish and English).  The PowerPoint assembly that launched the project (and has some useful language and information for tutors at the end) together with other is here:  
Download Y9_InternationalEnterpriseChallenge_Assembly
Download WillieWalsh_merger
Download BA and Iberia agree merger deal
Following the assessment of the best group from each tutor group (we have 11 of these!) there will be a regional Business Enterprise Languages Day on Friday 10 March where the winners from other local schools will come together for a regional competition, which will be judged in the afternoon of that day.  On that day the challenge can be done in French, German or Spanish.  This means that schools that do a similar 'in-school' challenge but in French or German, not Spanish can bring their winners.  As a final stage, there are plans for a European stage of the competition, as some of our Comenius school partners are holding their own versions of the competition.  This will be late in the summer term, date TBC.  Even if the regional and/or European stages of the event are too much to consider, I recommend the ‘in-school’ stage of the competition as it is done in tutor time and will not affect your planned languages lessons – ideal!
Rachel

CLIL wiki - resources and ideas

Over Christmas I managed to finish something I feel like I started years ago now; a module of work (6 lessons) for Spanish Year 7 on rap music.  It is designed to follow on, as well as transfer skills and knowledge, from a rap module students do in Music at KS3.  Although there's a lot of flexibility in the music curriculum at KS3, I think quite a lot of schools include rap in their SOW in Year 7. 

I've uploaded the SOW for the module and all the resources for each lesson onto the Clil Wiki, which has some excellent resources in the Resource Bank that are well worth downloading!  These music resources are on the Music page of the resource bank.

Feedback and ideas welcome as always, especially if you either try any of these out, even as  one-off lessons OR if you already have something that's working well combining languages with another subject or using the content of another subject in teaching languages, it would be great if you would upload to the Clil Wiki.

Best wishes
Rachel