MFL teacher? Be my guest!

Over the festive season, José Picardo invited MFL teachers to contribute guest posts to his wonderful blog Box of Tricks on the theme of technology in Modern Foreign Languages. The posts from Alex Blagona, Suzi Bewell, Samantha Lunn, Mary Cooch, Saira Ghani, Lisa Stevens, Marie-France Perkins, Dominic McGladdery, Helena Butterfield, Simon Howells, Isabelle Jones and Amanda Salt have all been fantastic and based principally on classroom practice.

Some of the authors have also guested on Ken Royal's blog The Educators' Royal Treatment and the links to these posts are also included below. Check them out if you are interested in kick starting the new term with some inspirational examples of good practice in the MFL classroom and look too at Isabelle's personal reflections on the benefits of blogging which are a must read!

• Collaborate, facilitate, educate
• Using videoconferencing to motivate language learners
• The Power of RSS for 21st century educators
• Simple but effective
• German: OFF the curriculum but ON the VLE
• A word or two about Wordle
• Using technology to enhance learning in the MFL classroom
• Mrs Perkins’s journey into the WWW
• Mobile phones in the MFL classroom
• Tools to get pupils talking
• Google Maps in the MFL classroom
• Supporting assessment for learning
• Looking back and moving forward
• Playing with Pixetell: Giving Students Feedback
• Flipping Our Approach to Teaching and Learning
• Bringing Languages Alive Using Online Videos

Go on! Be my guest!

Comments

[Isabelle Jones]

Dear Joe
Thanks for the mention! I have been trying to promote this too as this has been such a great compilation of blog posts. Hopefully this will encourage more people to blog in the New Year...
Isabelle
http://isabellejones.blogspot.com

[Joe Dale]

You're welcome Isabelle!

What has impressed me by these posts is not only the inspirational practice, but also the way in which contributors have written about how blogging has helped them develop personally and professionally. Being part of a supportive network has clearly boosted their confidence and given them the impetus to experiment which is wonderful to read and encouraging for the future health of language teaching in this country.

Colleagues have always been willing to share their ideas on and offline, but what is happening now in the MFL blogosphere seems to be different and more revolutionary, building on what has gone on before.

At the start of this new decade, I think it is vital we continue to add to the great work that has been achieved so far and encourage other language professionals to start blogging and twittering themselves.

This is one way in which we will move forwards as a profession and give more pupils the sorts of exciting learning opportunities they will find engaging and motivating.

Thank you as always for your considerable contribution in this process ;)

Joe

[Lee]

Hi Joe,

Firstly sorry for hijacking, this blog. It is not my intention to annoy, but as a researcher you must try many ways to find stories! My name is Lee Kitchen and I am an Assistant producer, with a television production company in Manchester, called Libra Television.

I came across this blog while conducting research for a MFL programme I am making for Teachers TV. Basically I am currently trying to find a school that has some really interesting initiatives going on around MFL and I thought you or someone on this blog might be able to help? If you or anyone reading this is interested please send me an email to [email protected] asap.

Please don't reply here as I might not be able to check this as often as Ii would like and time is of the essence. I look forward to hearing from anyone interested.

Regards

Lee

[Joe Dale]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for your comment. You have mail!