eLearning Laura

As any number of blog posts will tell you, iPads are great educational devices. They are also great fun to play with, but for now the majority of teachers across the UK haven’t been able to test-run iPads and associated apps in languages classrooms. The expertise  on what you actually do with them, week-in, week-out in [...]

As we have begun Year 11 with our second cohort of students who will negotiate the hopefully shortlived scenario of controlled assessment, we are now in the position to be able to learn from last year and reflect on how to get the best work out of our students. Controlled Assessment in MFL, most particularly [...]

It’s no secret with my students that I like it when they use digital media to make learning more interesting. Anything that helps grammar rules to stick is a good idea in my view, so I was really pleased when one of my Year 10 students made this video about the Perfect Tense in French. [...]

I love this video produced by one of our Year 10 boys here at Berkhamsted. He’s clearly put a lot of thought and effort into planning it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=637J02z-Rxo If you enjoyed that, you’ll love our Year 12 French student Alison’s animation about the film ‘Romuald et Juliette’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYdkEvV26BQ

I really enjoyed this TED talk from Patricia Kuhl about breakthrough scientific studies of how language is acquired by babies. The broad theories were one of the background reasons why the Labour government decided to develop foreign language teaching in primary schools, as younger children’s brains are more receptive to second language learning, especially before [...]

Am I late to the party on this? That’s the way it seems looking at blog posts and videos from nearly a year ago trumpeting the importance of the iPad as it arrived on the market. The pace of change is so fast in this field that you can blink and miss a major new [...]

I enjoyed a lovely moment today when one of my colleagues ushered me into his classroom, gesturing for me to be quiet. I walked in to find his class of Year 7 boys reading. Not doing an exercise. Not writing. Not talking. Just reading. In French. It was wonderful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about role models for staff lately, especially in the context of staff development. Sometimes it’s a lonely job being Head of Department, and it’s through the work of role models and support in school and beyond that I find guidance, benchmarks and a context for my own practice. I’m increasingly aware [...]

I’ve made three videos this week to show at our GCSE options evening on Tuesday. We asked our Year 10 students to tell us about why they chose Languages and what’s important about them. Here’s what they said:

It’s Year 9 options season.  The sleeves are rolled up and we’re out to win the hearts and minds of the unconvinced and unenthused over MFL to recruit as many of them as we can for our GCSE courses. This is only the second year for us that Languages have been optional and we are [...]