Memrise

I haven’t written a blogpost in a while now so I felt it was about time I got back to it! I’ve been very busy uploading vocabulary to Memrise to try and make revision as fun as possible for my Year 11s. I also got engaged a few weeks ago! I'm very excited but does this mean morganmfl will have to change to warrenmfl?

ANYWAY...

If you’re a fan of Quizlet, I can guarantee you’ll love Memrise...

Why?

• The leaderboards mean there is an element of competition as students can track each other’s progress.
• You too can monitor your students’ progress – I asked my students to use the same username and password as their school login, to make things easier. Sometimes I’ll give prizes (sweets or house points) to the top students that week to motivate them even more.
• It’s flexible as it allows you to input your own vocabulary or use others which have already been added by other people.
• It tests you on the same vocabulary repeatedly so that it stays in your long term memory.
• It looks attractive and is simple to navigate.
• It’s free!

How does it work?

Each vocabulary item is a seed which needs to be planted (learnt), then watered regularly (revised) in order for it to grow into a flower (stay in the long term memory).
It introduces 2 vocabulary items at a time then tests you on them by allowing you to choose the translation from one of the 4, 6 or 8 options. Some exercises also require you to type in the spelling of the translated word.
By prompting you to water your plants repeatedly, it means that the vocabulary is more likely to stay in your long term memory.

What do I have to do?

First create your account

I have made 3 accounts for KS3 Spanish, KS4 Spanish and KS3 French so that my students can just find me and any courses on my page will be relevant to them.

Then input your vocabulary

Adding vocabulary is also very simple. Just click Create (top of the homepage), then choose a name and the correct language. Then you can type the vocabulary in the boxes and even add sound files if you like. Or if you click Advanced at the top right, then Bulk add items, it allows you to input all the vocabulary at once – just make sure you select the correct options for Word Delimiter and Line Delimiter. You will also need to go to Details, click Status and select Public before it can be used by your students. You can also have different sections by selecting Add Level (bottom right)

Now share it with your students

You could just tell them your username – they just need to type in: www.memrise.com/user/ followed by your username

Or you could convert the URLs into QR codes which the students can access by scanning them with their smart phones.

Here is an example of one I made for my Year 11 Spanish group. All of the vocabulary here has been taken from the AQA Revision Guide. And I've done different sections for foundation and higher.

If you'd like to share this with your students feel free - just click here. 

Maths Karate

Last week I went on an MFL NQT course (although technically I’m not an NQT anymore – received my certificate on Friday, yay!) in Winchester run by Liz Lord. We learnt a lot about the transition between KS2 and KS3 and we were given some great new ideas for MFL activities. I love days like this as I find that, occasionally, I get stuck in a bit of a teaching rut where I seem to do the same sorts of activities over and over. So it’s nice to come away with some fresh ideas and inspiration.

One of the best ideas I took away from the day was Maths Karate. I tried it with my low set Y7s on Tuesday as a starter activity and they loved it. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them that enthusiastic about anything…

You say a number in the target language and hold up the right amount of fingers.  Then say either:

-‘plus’ (and make arms into a plus sign)

-‘moins’ or ‘menos’ (and hold your forearm in front of you horizontally)

-‘fois’ or ‘veces’ (and make an x shape with your arms)

-‘divisé par’ or ‘dividido por’ (and hold your arm in front of you horizontally and punch above and below).

Then say another number and say egal (and put both forearms in front of you on top of each other).

When we did this activity on the NQT day Liz got us to repeat the word and the action after each one, before saying the answer and holding up the correct number of fingers. She then asked us to do this in pairs.

4 Pictures 1 Word

Ever used the 4 Pictures 1 Word app? The aim of the game is to guess the word from the scrambled letters by looking at the picture clues.

I made a French and Spanish version of this a while ago (although it is just a PowerPoint, not an app) and had completely forgotten about it until I used it with my Y9s today.

I've uploaded these PowerPoints to my TES account if you'd like to give them a try! Let me know how you find them.

Heads and Tails

This is a game called Heads and Tails. I can't remember who I got it from but thank you whoever you are! It’s a nice kinaesthetic activity and is a good one for KS3 (or below). You give them sentences and they have to decide whether they are true or false. If they think the sentence is true they put their hands on their heads. If they think the sentence is false they put their hands on their bums (or hips if you prefer).

You could also show them a word and an image. If they think the word and image match, they put their hands on their heads, and if not, they put their hands on their bums.

Let me know if you can think of any other variations of this or any similar activities.

Jigsaw Reading

I think this one is called Jigsaw Reading.

 

In pairs students are given the same text but with different words missing from each. Person A reads their text out loud to Person B while they fill in the blanks on their sheet. Then Person B does the same while Person A fills in the blanks on their sheet. So they get to practise their reading, listening, speaking and writing skills! 

It can even be differentiated as the lower ability students could be provided with the missing words and would just have to put them in the correct gaps. Students could also try to guess the missing words before their partner has read out the text.

Twitter

Twitter.

Mostly used for finding out what Harry Styles had for breakfast this morning or which celebrities have had a Twitter war this week. 

But aside from that it is proving to be an invaluable tool for many teachers across the world…

If I share an idea or a resource at a department meeting, it is shared with 4 MFL teachers. However if I share it on my Twitter account it is instantly shared with over 400 people, pretty much all of these are teachers and mostly teachers of MFL. If I share a tweet with the hashtag #mfltwitterati it is shared with thousands of other MFL teachers. With the ‘retweet’ button, it could potentially be shared with even more.

Thanks to @joedale who set up the MFL twitterati a few years ago, I have been inspired by and learnt so much from people like @missmclachlan with her flipped learning, @amandasalt with her vast knowledge of useful iPad apps, @kazWd and her superb skills corner, @spsmith45 and his incredible resources website and @elvisrunner with her fantastic blog. It has introduced me to so many new teaching ideas and resources and fantastic websites, such as Duolingo; as well as events such as Teach Meet and Languages Show Live. 

Twitter really can make such a big difference to teachers’ lives and I think this quote from @vallesco sums that up perfectly:

“I am the only language teacher in my school, and I am the only primary Spanish teacher, that I know of, in my local authority. Twitter has been a lifeline for me. It enables me to keep abreast of all the latest political developments (guess how I found about the new Curriculum news this morning?) and has revolutionised my teaching. It allows me to share things that I have been doing and discuss ideas with online colleagues. I have met some, but not all, of the #MFLTwitterati, but consider them all to be friends. You are never alone with the #MFLTwitterati, the world's best MFL department.”

Independent Learning Folders

In the past I often found that students would find it difficult to act on feedback without extra support from me. So I spent part of last Summer creating these ‘Independent Learning Folders’. 

The folders (one for French and one for Spanish) contain various laminated help sheets for things such as ‘Giving Opinions’, ‘Giving Extra Detail’ and ‘Time and Frequency Phrases’, as well as some which give clear instructions on how to form the different tenses. 

  

The QR Code links to a Slideshare on my pupil blog. 

These can all be found on TES.

One of the focuses at my school's recent Inset Day was literacy and we were asked to work together with our departments to design a literacy based learning mat to help our students. I shared this idea with my department who loved it and my HoD has said he wants this to be implemented throughout the department, with folders in every classroom (wow!). One of the teachers running the literacy session then shared my idea with the rest of the teaching staff. It felt really great to have my work appreciated by experienced members of staff, having just finished my NQT year not so long ago. As a friend recently pointed out to me, it doesn’t matter how old you are, adults need praise too sometimes.

QR Codes

What are they?

QR codes are like bar codes which you can scan with your smart phone.

How do I scan them?

Once you have downloaded the QR Code Scanner app (these are usually free), you scan the code and it displays the information on your smart phone. This could be anything from a website, to an image or a text.

How can I use them in the classroom?

Questions and/or answers, reading comprehensions, differentiated activities, websites, songs, links to homework...

How do I create them?

1. Click here
2. Select the correct option on the left 
3. Input the content which you want to be displayed 
4. Choose the colour of the QR code 
5. Click ‘Download QR Code’