Learner Evolution ~ Chris Harte

Highlight heaven... rainbow assessment.

 If there are two things I like they are simple and effective. Unfortunately, lots of things in life are neither simple nor effective. An example of this would be comment only marking. I am all for it, constructive detailed feedback to students which does not pigeon hole them into a 5/10 or worse a level 4c. However, despite rumours to the contrary, I am only human. Comment only feedback takes a long time and should be confined to one piece of marking per class per half term (in my opinion). So upcries from leadership and parents - but why are you not marking Joe's book every week (because most of his work is online - please join the 21st century...) how do you know he is completing his work? Well if you flick through Joe's book, you will see no red pen (not though some hippyish aversion to using aggressive red) but rather you will see highlighter - hopefully lots of it. A very simple and effective approach to marking an exercise book - highlight all bits of language which are correct/good and should be recycled. This take very little time and can be done when you are circulating around the class if you want to avoid taking marking home. So rather than having a red pen record of all of your mistakes and things you have done wrong, your exercise book becomes a rainbow like record of good language that should be recycled and reused.

How lovely....

Dear Reader,

thank you for nominating my blog for a place in the top 100 language and technology blogs! It is a real honour. To be honest, I selfishly blog because it really helps me to crystalize my ideas and then share them into the blogosphere. So if you like my blog, please click on the above button to vote for it! - Learner Evolution - Chris Harte

many thanks

Chris

I want to break free...

Date for the diary - 1st July 2010 - the North East languages conference "I want to break free!" The focus of the conference will be a focus on really effective classroom pedagogy; i.e. cutting out the crap as Michael Wardle so beautifully put it. But let us not worry about the future when we need to reflect on today!

The day was kicked off by our great leader; Dr Lid King, who very usefully gave us a contextualised overview of the shape of the languages offer to come - with primary languages being at the centre of the constellation. It was great to see that golden threads are being sown through the fabric from KS1 all of the way up to HE, giving some level of continuity for learners. I was particularly pleased to hear Lid talk about moving away from the tyranny of the topic and looking much more closely at how we really ensure deep learning in our languages classrooms.

The previous post has a link to my presentation on technology in the languages classroom, ensuring that there is none the less a true pedagogical purpose (cheers Daz). I thoroughly enjoyed giving the presentation to such an enthusiastic audience who I know will take away some of the things they have seen and implement them with vigour, passion and great success. Moreover I had the chance to see (in part as I was designated technician and had to leave the sessions to fix broken speakers and dodgy internet connections!) two excellent sessions. One from the team at St Bede's in Lanchester on a brilliant project using drama in French in Y7 and the other from my good friend Zahida Hammond on using thinking skills activities (living graph etc) in  conjunction with music clips from YouTube. Although I only managed to see a small part of each of these it really highlighted the diversity and quality of language work going on in the North East. There was excellent feedback from all of the other sessions too and I hope to be able to share some of the work of the other presenters with you soon!

The event was capped by an overview from the co-director of "Links into languages" on the planned CPD provision for languages teachers regionally. Remember this is your professional development, so do not forget to get in touch with Links and let them know what you want and more importantly what ypu need!

After a rousing French version of "Reach for the stars", the conference is over for another year. It was great to meet up with friendly faces I knew and new people I did not.

See you next year, and keep an eye here for the upcoming resources.

Reach for the stars!

Please find above the prezi from the Reach for the Stars languages conference based on use of technology in languages. All of the links work and to move from one section to the other, click on the big arrow in the bottom right hand corner!

Remember to join twitter and folow @charte and then look at who I am following -recommend @vallesco   @blagona    @langwitch     @josepicardo     @lisibo   - a good start!