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issue 14 july 2011 welcome welcome to what is probably the final edition of the mfl sunderland primary newsletter you will be aware by now that some of the key personnel in sunderland s primary languages team myself included have been made redundant i would like to take this opportunity to thank the core members of the primary languages steering group for their work this year ruth moreland and carole beeston from st aidan s have worked tirelessly on the french scheme of work and along with language college manager janet mayes an invaluable member of the team have been instrumental in organising our conferences the steering group would be nowhere without its primary practitioners janet holyoak newbottle primary and caoimhe nichomhrai castletown primary we are also very grateful for the sterling work put in by sam ward from st anthony s and none of what we have achieved would have been possible without chris campbell some of our achievements · the french scheme of work for ks2 y6 units coming soon · upskilling training · upskilling podcasts · primary languages conferences · la-funded french language assistants further information about all of these can be found on mfl sunderland previous editions of the newsletter can be found on the mfl sunderland website at www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland/primarynewsletters.htm in this issue news intercultural understanding what s good on the web transition a free resource sports news on 23rd may the following statement was made by the schools minister nick gibb david mowat to ask the secretary of state for education what steps he plans to take to improve the teaching of modern foreign languages in primary schools and if he will make a statement [56488 mr gibb in advance of decisions following the review of the national curriculum on which subjects will be statutory we strongly encourage primary schools to continue teaching languages and building on the good progress already made we will also be funding the provision of specific language support services for primary schools from the autumn of 2011 the learning of a modern foreign language in ks2 remains an entitlement all primary schools have received funding for mfl as part of the direct schools grant intercultural understanding the 2010 ofsted report modern languages achievement and challenge 2007­2010 said that primary schools should ensure intercultural understanding is built into work where it does not yet feature prominently you will find intercultural resources in previous issues of the newsletter see web address above and on the intercultural understanding podcasts www.sunderlandschools.org/mflsunderland/resources-pr-frpodcasts.htm

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what s good on the web la chanson des squelettes is an animated song which is great for practising the time and the eu sound you can do all the actions and have fun acting it out you ll find the song on youtube at http tinyurl.com/6jvpbr7 another song you might like to try is the spanish song la bamba the resources are available from sing up http tinyurl.com/666bcab if you are looking for some ideas on how to incorporate singing into your lessons check out this webinar http bit.ly/l1xnwr it s an online cpd session organised by all london and delivered by john connor find out more about all the association for language learning here http www.all-languages.org.uk chez merlin is a website for french children but which can also be useful for us particularly for intercultural understanding the facile easy level has some games to help children to learn the names and locations of european countries and their flags the mountains rivers and towns in france go to http tinyurl.com/649jsfd there is also a neat little activity for discovering the names of animals in french find it at http tinyurl.com/6gwpr6e the bbc primary languages site has some basic french materials with a pronunciation guide many of the same topic areas are available for spanish as well http www.bbc.co.uk/schools primarylanguages/french i ve recently found some useful french alphabet songs the first one http comptine.free.fr/comptine/la_chanson_de_l alphabet.html is the one that will sound most familiar to us as english speakers the second one http comptine.free.fr/comptine/alphabet.html is a real ear-worm and great fun to sing along to the last one is from canada and is beautifully animated http www.csdraveurs.qc.ca/musique/choralies2002/abcd_chant.htm i have just discovered pilote languages a website from kent county council it s good for basic intercultural information about france and spain and might be good for children to use for research purposes or a webquest http www.pilotelanguages.com if you are doing a topic on holidays you might find these french packing lists useful http www.petitestetes.com/parents-enfants/sorties/vacances/bagages/bagages-1.htm ofsted want ks2 and ks3 learners to have access to more text-level work these short spanish poems will give you a way to do that http www.menudospeques.net/recursos-infantiles/poesias my favourite website for french poems for children is still momes.net http www.momes.net comptines/comptines-chansons.html in primary languages we re always looking for opportunities for cross-curricular learning for some cross-curricular maths have a go at this euro game http www.teachingmoney.co.uk/eurosite/games/changeeuro.html where you have to work out amounts of change if you d like something that looks at global currencies you could try this currency quiz http www.pitara.com/activities quiz/online.asp?qname=currencies if like me you re always looking for new ideas to use in your language lessons you ll find this list of games from primary languages.org useful http www.primarylanguages.org.uk teaching_and_learning/active_learning/games/communicative_games.aspx last month s el día e was a celebration of the spanish language spanishspeaking celebrities were asked to nominate their favourite spanish word and then visitors to http www.eldiae.es/palabras-mas-votadas voted for their favourite if you follow this link you ll find the winning words this would make a good dictionaryuse exercise can students find out what these words mean what is their favourite spanish word what is their favourite english word miscositas.com has some useful free resources for french spanish italian and mandarin you can download among other things a 59-page booklet of target-language posters to display in your classroom you ll find them here http www.miscositas.com/materials.html#french

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transition transition arrangements to secondary schools the joint responsibility of both phases were generally underdeveloped secondary schools should consider as a matter of urgency the implications of recent developments in primary languages for their curriculum in year 7 and how they build on students prior attainment ofsted modern languages achievement and challenge 2007-2010 recent educational developments such as the ebacc mean that it is more important than ever for us to strive for successful continuity and progression in mfl from ks2 to ks3 and beyond it is also important to ensure that the hard work put in by ks2 teachers is not ignored or overlooked in ks3 these issues and more were addressed in our transition conference on 28th june at monkwearmouth school you will find all the materials from the conference and more on mfl sunderland at www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland/transition.htm some comments from delegates thanks really sparked me to do something new thank you for some good ideas and information if only the primaries i need to work with had been here a lot of information in a very short time lots of things to consider your free resource in preparation for london 2012 this issue s free resource is a writing activity in french on a sporting theme reading and writing in the foreign language were identified in the recent modern languages ofsted report as being a weakness in ks2 and this activity sets out to show you that it s not as difficult as you might think to do some writing in another language often writing in another language is all about adapting a model first of all the children look at the example j adore le tennis i love tennis and consult the writing frame at the bottom of the sheet to see how the sentence was put together then they use the writing frame to fill in the gaps on the next two sentences and to write the whole sentence for the remaining five there is a blank bubble for children to provide their own answers about the sports that they love this might involve their using a bilingual dictionary to find the name of more sports they will also need to find out from the dictionary whether these new sports are masculine and so use le or feminine and so use la this exercise can lead you into some intercultural work on an olympic theme you could for example find out about athletes from other countries the languages they speak the currency they spend and their countries flags you could choose one country for a more in-depth study which would be a good way-in to some geography newsletter produced by clare seccombe ©mfl sunderland 2011 july 2011 http www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland

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je m appelle j adore le tennis j adore j adore et toi basket foot karaté rugby ski tennis volley natation ©mfl sunderland 2011 cs http www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland le j adore la

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teacher copy je m appelle j adore le tennis j adore le ski j adore le basket j adore le karaté j adore le foot j adore le rugby j adore le volley j adore la natation et toi basket foot karaté rugby ski tennis volley natation ©mfl sunderland 2011 cs http www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland le j adore blank for pupil s own response la

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