January/February Mary Glasgow magazines
Developing literacy skills in a second language can be a challenging. It can be difficult to find high interest but comprehensible viewing, reading, and listening resources for novice level learners. The Mary Glasgow Plus site has been a real life-safer!
Click here to read the rest of the review!
Un grand merci to José Picardo, an amazing educator and Head of Modern Languages, from Nottingham High School, Nottingham, UK. José, who is a member of my Twitter Professional Learning Network (PLN), asked me if I would write a guest post for his extremely helpful Box of Tricks. Box of Tricks is a website aimed at providing educators with important information about technology and language learning.
In Resources: Keeping them real and keeping them together
, I explain how I use authentic resources and how I attempt to organize my resources. My entire follow up to this article can be read at my Francophile blog.
I was tagged by Isabelle Jones for the Passion Quilt meme first sent by Miguel Guhlin. This Passion Quilt meme aims to represent visually what we are most passionate about in Education.
Initially, I had planned to complete the assignment by the weekend, but the more I thought about it the more I realized I needed time to reflect…
I am passionate about teaching and learning languages because it allows me to gain the tools that allow me to examine the Francophone culture from beneath the waterline of the cultural iceberg.
This fall I took an Anti- Bias and Diversity online course offered the Anti-Defamation League. In the course, I learned about the cultural iceberg metaphor. Below is a definition from Mike Berg’s blog
When you first arrive in a foreign culture, you start at the tip of the iceberg. Above the waterline, which represents your level of cultural awareness, are the actions, thoughts, and words (observational behavior) of a culture. What you don’t see, however, until your water level lowers revealing more of the iceberg is the beliefs, values, and assumptions of a culture that motivates the observational behavior above the surface. Thus, the waterline is one of the reasons wars are fought and you cannot help but feel lost when exposed.
Being able to communicate with Francophones in their native language has allowed me to see the culture from beneath the waterline. I am fortunate to have close Francophone friends who have welcomed me as a guest into their homes and into their inner sanctums. It is this up close and personal observation of daily life in a francophone culture that propels me to search out ways for my students to be able to examine culture from up close as well.
The internet has allowed me to bring Francophone culture into my classroom in a way I would have never imagined. As a child, I watched a show called “The Big Blue Marble” and dreamed that I would be able to one day meet my pen pals from Sweden England Texas
What fuels my fire is when my students start making connections to the francophone word. When my students tell me of a new Francophone singer or they have turned their cell phone or IPod language into French. I smile because I know that they are starting to experience that hunger of knowledge… When my students finally become open to learn about the francophone culture, they come closer to getting beneath the water line of that cultural iceberg and their lives will be changed forever, as mine has.
I selected this picture because it represents the beneath the intimate beauty of a multi faceted culture. Relationships are an example of the beneath the water level of a culture while a wedding itself is one of the above the water level facets of the cultural iceberg. This photo represents both the visible and invisible aspects of a culture.
I am passionate about teaching; I am passionate about cultures; I am passionate about learning; I am passionate about life…
I would like to tag the following people to pass on this Passion Quilt…
Rules:
• Write a short post about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
• Post a picture from a source like Flickr CC or Flickr Creative Commons
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to Miguel Guhlin’s original blog entry.
Why are YOU passionate about teaching AND learning languages?
Technology Tips for Teachers Andrea Henderson and Amy Lenord HATFL Conference February 23, 2008
THE VISION…
Continuous Improvement Website- Cedar Rapids Community Schools.
Goal setting, mission statements, class meetings, data folders, and more. This is a GOLDMINE of information with many forms and templates that can be customized.
http://quality.cr.k12.ia.us/index_search.asp
National Certification- World Languages
http://www.nbpts.org/for_candidates/certificate_areas1?ID=16&x=29&y=8
Classroom Curriculum Connections: A Teacher's Handbook for Personal-Professional Growth professional development guide by Saskatchewan Learning encourages Collaborative Planning as a professional goal for all teachers to consider.
http://www.sasklearning.gov.sk.ca/docs/policy/curr_connections/index.html
STAYING CURRENT…
CASLS is a K-16 National Foreign Language Resource Center promoting international literacy by supporting communities of educators and by partnering with those communities to develop a comprehensive system of proficiency-based tools for lifelong language learning and teaching. Customizable newsletter once a week.
http://casls.uoregon.edu/index.php
The Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers (CASLT)- Newsletter once a month
http://www.caslt.org/index_en.ph
Teachers TV- Rich resource of instructional techniques in Great Britain
Edweek.org. Newsletter once a week.
Teacher Magazine. Newsletter once a week
ONLINE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Yahoo Newsgroups
AP Exchanges
MFL Resources. Very active group from the UK
http://www.mflresources.org.uk
KEEPING IT REAL AND THE CULTURAL ICEBERG…
* Yahoo, MSN, International Google are also excellent sources for “real world” information.
Sue Fenton- Madame Fifi Publications.
Excellent resources for maximizing oral communication. Sample titles-
Over 1,000 Conversation Starters for Any Language Course —A BEST-SELLER
Power Talk
You Played a Song. Now What?
Move Your Students to a World City
http://www.madamefifi.com/pages/learning-language-products.htm
L’Internaute Magazine- French online magazine for everyday life. This is my home page and I couldn’t start my day without it!
MCM.net- Everything about contemporary French music!
Dailymotion
Great source of videos to show your students
This is an example of a playlist I created for the theme of personal relationships
http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x5egp_Texane08_relations-personelles
Cultural Iceberg Metaphor
Mike Berg’s Blog
When you first arrive in a foreign culture, you start at the tip of the iceberg. Above the waterline, which represents your level of cultural awareness, are the actions, thoughts, and words (observational behavior) of a culture. What you don’t see, however, until your water level lowers revealing more of the iceberg is the beliefs, values, and assumptions of a culture that motivates the observational behavior above the surface. Thus, the waterline is one of the reasons wars are fought and you can’t help but feel lost when exposed.
http://mberg.buildafrica.org/2005/06/25/cultural-icebergs/
Cultural Iceberg- One page representation
www.hsp.org/files/culturaliceberg2.pdf
Cultural Iceberg- Multi page reference created to use in ESL classes
www.babinlearn.com/pdf%20files/Cinderella/Ice%20Berg%20Culture%20Organizer.pdf
TECHNOLOGY GUIDANCE
Integrating ICT in MFL Classroom- This should be your starting point for how to integrate technology into your classroom. There are extensive podcasts, slide shows, etc. Joe Dale has done an amazing job harnessing useful resources. His blog is what inspired me to create my own. Furthermore, his students at the Nodehill School
http://www.joedale.typepad.com/
http://nodehillfrench.podomatic.com/
Podcasts Foreign Language. Podcasts are a great way to bring language into your classroom. Buying an IPod (I have the third generation Nano which has video capacity) allows you to listen and view on the go. You can also hook your IPod to the TV with a special cord.
ITunes download – You can search for podcasts in the ITunes store.
http://wwwapplecomipod.com/iTunes/
Using Podcasts to Teach Languages
Joe Dale has imbedding a You Tube Video of using podcasts for language learning
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2008/02/using-podcasts.html
Podcast directories
http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/link_31.htm
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/language/
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/45.cfm?s=45&m=1720&p=1083,index
Zoomerang
Creating online surveys with analysis of the results. The free version allows you to see the results for only 10 days. 10 days are enough for my purposes.
http://info.zoomerang.com/?CMP=KNC-Gbd2Zoom
SHARPENING THE SAW…
Ikeepbookmarks - My personal bookmarks. I have collected hundreds of sites useful to me. I can access my bookmarks from any computer and this has been a life saver for me!
http://www.iKeepBookmarks.com/Andrea_Henderson
Les Chevaliers du Château des Champions- My personal blog page. It is a work in progress!
http://mmehenderson.typepad.com/
Creative Lee- Organizational tips for creative (aka right brained) thinkers.
http://www.creativelee.com/HTML/home.htm
Motivation to move- Motivational forum and podcasts for all areas of life- Real motivation for your real life!
http://www.motivationtomove.com/
Carole Fredericks Foundation
The Foundation provides teachers with authentic French language materials and easy to use, classroom tested lesson plans and related methodologies that engage students, teach French language skills and promote the study of francophone cultures. Carole was an African American singer who was most famous by her recordings in France
http://www.carolefredericksfoundation.org/
Voix de l'Espoir- Que Serai- Je Demain?
* Although this video was created after Carole's death, her distinctive voice is ever present in the song. There is a brief clip of Carole in this video.
A larger than life figure with a generous spirit, Carole was a performer who threw herself into her live performances body and soul. She liked nothing more than getting involved in fund-raising tours with singers and musician friends. Indeed, Carole was a regular at charity concerts organized by Restos du Cœur and Les Enfoirés. On March 8th (2001)... she brought the house down at “Voix de l’Espoir [Voices of Hope]” concert organized on International Women’s Day. Taking the stage at Club Med World in Paris with a host of other female singers including Princess Erika, Jocelyne Beroard, Rokia Traoré and Lââm, Carole helped to raise much needed funds for the construction of a Pan-African children’s hospital in Dakar [Senegal, West Africa].”
- Pierre Rene-Worms for rfi.fr
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf8qy_les-voix-de-lespoir-que-seraije_music
Support documents from the HATFL Conference.
Download hatfl_resource_list.doc A copy of this document in Word form.These files may take a while to load!
Download support_pages_hatfl1.doc
Amy Lenord's Mission Download amys_biomission.doc Additional Resources COMIC STRIP CODE: COLLAGR http://images.collagr.com/1000/1/f19eb3d1-c419-49ea-940a-c9c28dc84b70_embed.jpg GLOGSTER – ONLINE POSTER created by Amy Lenord http://alenord.glogster.com/glog-718/