Posted on Sep 2, 2010

Is it time to change History?

The issue of Modern Foreign Languages take up has hit the news almost daily since the GCSE results were published last Tuesday. The fact is that numbers are in decline with no sign of abatement. Regardless of whether you have strong feelings or not about the place of languages in secondary education, hardly anyone would argue [...]

Posted on Aug 25, 2010

The languages class divide

GCSE results were published yesterday. For the 23rd year running, the trend was an improving one, with more pupils getting better grades. It’s not all good news though. The statistics also confirm a continuing decline in take-up in foreign languages: the number of students taking a language has dropped by a third since the government made them optional [...]

Posted on Jul 14, 2010

The Language Ambassador Scheme

Two years ago I attended a presentation by the inspiring Rachel Hawkes that focused on the multiple unique selling points of languages. In her presentation she mentioned how she had set up a Student Leadership Award at her school and how it had been a magnificent success. As she put it, the results were so good [...]

Posted on Jul 14, 2010

Modern Foreign Languages – Show and Tell

Last Saturday 10th July, a bunch of motivated and committed language teachers met at Nottingham High School to share practice on the use of new technologies in the classroom. The Nottingham MFL Show and Tell was organised by my colleague Kerry Turner and me and was of comprised a morning session packed full of presentations [...]

Posted on Jun 24, 2010

Tell us your story, it’s a good cause.

Tell Us Your Story is a charitable campaign that is giving people the opportunity to recognise and reward others who have made a positive impact on their lives or in their community over the past year. Aviva, the insurance service provider, is looking for people who can tell a story about anyone who has gone [...]

Box of Tricks

  • Can you spot the difference? Picture based activities using Photoshop’s new features

    Photoshop is a very powerful image editing and creation tool, but I had always felt any half decent editing was beyond me, never mind the indistinguishable-from-magic results some people seem to be able to come up with. Masking, burning, dodging and lassoing sounded – and still do – like words taken right out of the [...]

  • MFL Show and Tell – CPD by teachers for teachers

    Last Saturday 10th July saw the first Modern Foreign Languages Show and Tell event at Nottingham High School, following a series of very successful Show and Tell sessions based on the inspired -and inspiring- TeachMeet model. The event attracted many language teachers and educators from all over the country who came to Nottingham to share good practice [...]

  • Web applications in History

    Kerry Turner has produced this fantastic 7 minute video for the School’s History Project TeachMeet.  In it she reflects on the use of web applications and ICT tools in her History lessons this year. Kerry happens to be a colleague at Nottingham High School – she’s a History Teacher as well as Head of ICT – and [...]

  • Hard to Teach – Secondary Modern Foreign Languages Using ICT

    Earlier this year, a camera crew from Teachers TV and the sadly soon to be defunct Becta came to Nottingham High School to film my classes in Years 9, 10 and 11 using web applications to help them practise their spoken foreign language skills. The result was premiered today on the Teachers TV website and [...]

  • Safe animations with Domo Nation

    Certain web applications allow students to be creative and have fun while learning a foreign language. It is of paramount importance to educators that these applications offer a safe and suitable environment in which students can learn without fear of being exposed to unsuitable content. Ever since I discovered Go!Animate, online animations have formed an [...]

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