ICT in MFL

I've made an ICT in MFL display which I hope to put up for next year. All of these are on TES if you'd like to use them in your own departments. Can you think of any important ones I've missed?

GCSE Resources

 

Kahoot

Kahoot is one of my all-time favourite teaching websites and is a great plenary activity.

Kahoot is a free website which allows you to make your own quiz which the students can play using their own devices (smartphones, laptops, iPads can all be used).

 

 Once you have created and launched your quiz, some instructions will appear on the screen. Students are invited to visit kahoot.it where they are asked to input the pin number and their nickname. Be careful with this one as the student names appear on the main screen, and I’ve had a couple of inappropriate ones in the past! This shouldn’t be a problem though as I received this email from Kahoot not so long ago…

‘Following on from last week's rich text editor release, we have a new update for you - you can now instantly "kick" inappropriate nicknames from the 'lobby' screen.’

As soon as all of the students have joined the game (their names will have appeared on the screen) you can click Play. It will then display the questions on the screen, as well as 4 possible answers which are colour-coded and have a symbol. The students will be able to see the colours and symbols on their device and are asked to select the correct one. Kahoot allows you to set time limits for each question and students can get more points the quicker they answer. After each question, the number of students who have chosen each option is displayed on the teacher's screen, along with the correct answer and a leader board of scores so far. 

 

 

Here are a couple of tutorials which might explain it a bit better:

Kahoot

YouTube Tutorial

And another blog by Miss McLachlan which you may find useful:

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Dannielle

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. 

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.”

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’