Learning Languages Newsletter July 2013
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Transcript of Learning Languages Newsletter July 2013
NEWSLETTER
Vol-3 | 31 July 2013
Teaching Asian
Languages
Charlie Thompson
shares her story on
teaching Chinese at St
Kentigern College.
Read more here
Fourth German
PASCH school in NZ
Ashburton College has
become the fourth
German PASCH school
in New Zealand
Read more here
International Lan-
guages Week
Celebrate Internation-
al Languages Week
with music.
Read more here
Salamanca Scholar-
ship Programme
14 NZ language teach-
ers gained a scholar-
ship in Spain
Read more here
PD for teachers
Gordon Gallup reflects
on his TPDL experi-
ence
Read more here
Have you see thought about different
approaches to teaching Asian
languages? If not, have a look here at
a recent article in the Education
Gazette where teachers share their
experiences and practices.
We would also like to share a story
with you.
Charlie Thompson is a trained primary
school teacher with a high level of
Chinese. She is so enthusiastic and passionate that she recently
began teaching Chinese in a secondary setting at St Kentigern
College in Auckland.
“I was really keen to share my language skills but I really didn’t
know anything about teaching languages. I am fascinated
to understand more about second language acquisition and think
that the in-school support programme will be hugely beneficial to
my teaching practice.
Chinese is three and a half times more difficult to learn than any
other language, there is so much for students to get their heads
around (tones, pronunciation, characters, pinyin etc). However,
it is a fascinating language and so rewarding to learn - the
challenge is making it fun and accessible to students without
letting it get overwhelming.
Teaching Asian Languages
I am not a native speaker and so it is really important to ensure
that the students are getting a variety of external input of the
spoken language other than just me! Such as from DVDs, CDs
and using native Chinese speakers in the class.
The complex sounds and form of writing (characters) also make
it fun to learn - the students seem to be able to latch on to the
tones and pronunciation far faster than adults do.
Through teaching Chinese I am reconnecting with my own
language learning journey - it is really exciting to be using and
building on my own language skills! I think the fact that I am
not a native speaker of the language, gives me an insight into
how to make the language more accessible for students. I can
share my own experiences as a learner, I show them that it is
okay to make mistakes (regularly!) and I hope that I am able to
pass on my passion and knowledge about the country and
China’s vast history and culture.”
Have you had similar experiences teaching Asian languages? We
would like to hear your story. Contact us at [email protected].
In her TED talk, ShaoLan Hsueh
walks us through one simple
lesson on Chinese characters.
Learn to read Chinese with ease
here.
Ashburton College becomes German Partnerschule
German Ambassador Dr. Anne-Marie Schleich and Prime Minister
John Key signed a Memorandum of Understanding at Ashburton
College inaugurating the school as the fourth German PASCH
school in New Zealand.
PASCH stands for “Schools: Partners for the Future” and
comprises a network of 1,500 schools with German language
programmes. The goal is to interest students in modern Germany
and to create long-term relationships and networks between
teaching staff and German society.
Head of Languages at Ashburton
College, Ken Pow, said the official
ceremony was a great success with
students and teachers. The
German Ambassador extended a
warm welcome to Ashburton
College and complimented college
principal Grant McMillan and
German teacher Ken Pow on their
work and continued focus on
excellence in the teaching and
learning of the German language.
This year, Germany and New
Zealand are commemorating the
60th Anniversary of Diplomatic
Relations and John Key highlighted
Germany’s role as the leading
economic “powerhouse” of Europe
and the benefits this global
exchange programme will have for
Ashburton College.
Are you and your school interested
in providing German language
programmes or would you like to
increase your network to
Germany? Then contact the
German National Advisor, Heike
Papenthin, at [email protected].
MUSIC FOR INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGES WEEK —
18 to 24 August 2013
International Languages Week is a time for celebration and a well
established event in New Zealand’s schools. Music is a great way to
engage students with another language. Here are some ideas and
suggestions on how to use music for language teaching.
Beijing Opera (Jīngjù) is one of the most classical styles of Chinese mu-
sic. And a wide range of information about its role in Chinese culture
and its historical importance as well as a description and photos of the
performing roles (Shēng, Dàn, Jìng, Chǒu) are available on Wikipedia.
Your students are going to love the colourful costumes and the mime,
dance and acrobatics involved can help students interpret the meaning
of the words used in the vocal performance.
For beginners, teachers could introduce the very basic information of
Beijing Opera, including words like “京剧 (Jīngjù)”, ”北京(Beǐjīng)”, “戏剧
(xìjù)”, “脸谱(liǎnpǔ)”, ”女(nǚ)”, “男(nán)”, “生(shēng)”, ”旦(dàn)”, ”净
(jìng)”, ”丑(chǒu)”, then students could do face or mask painting or play
games, such as matching photos of opera roles to their Chinese names.
For an intermediate and advanced level, the language part could include
more complicated words, like “老生Lǎoshēng”, “小生xiǎoshēng”, “武生
wǔshēng”, “青衣qīngyī”, ”花旦huādàn”, ”lǎodàn老旦”, “dāomǎdàn刀马旦”,
“shuǐxiù水袖”, ”shuǎi甩”, ”zhē 遮”, etc ; the hands-on activities could in-
clude imitating some basic but typical Beijing Opera performer’s actions,
such as “shuǎi shuǐxiù 甩水袖” and “zhēliǎn遮脸”, which “Qīngyī青衣” uses
to express her feelings. Other activities like on/off a horse, open/close a
door, up/down stairs could also be fun.
Karaoke is a great tool to use in lan-
guage classes. Students can watch
the video clip and discuss the con-
tent, title and how the characters are
depicted. Or they can observe lyrics
and choose words and phrases they
recognise and guess the meaning of others.
Karaoke can develop students’ listening skills and improve pronunciation
as students sing along. The story line and general meaning of the clip
can be discussed, by identifying clues given through pictures, sounds
and words. A class discussion can help students pick parts of the clips
that are relevant to their own lives and the people around them.
Objectives of using Karaoke in French classes:
It places students in an active situation in front of images and sounds
The music and lyrics are kept in their original and authentic form
The intercultural value of songs is very high. They are authentic and
can make people from other cultures think and compare with their
own life;
Room should be left for students to give their own ideas and impres-
sions about what they heard and understood before a song is ana-
lysed.
For great examples of adequate music, lyrics and worksheets have a
look at [1]
As you know “Karaoke” is a Japanese word, which literally means empty
(“kara”) and orchestra (“oke”) which is “empty track”. Karaoke video
clips are a great classroom resource for Japanese learners, especially
The song can provide a resource for iCLT and language form.
The music exposes students to the musicality of the French language
Karaoke permits visual and oral input and encourages spontaneous
output simultaneously.
Songs tell stories and allow students to express emotions in French
Students learn to use their voice to express themselves in French
A song encourages co-operative approaches to learning a language.
The other day, during a school visit, I
came across the outstanding German
writing skills of one particular student
in Year 13.
Noticing the amazing level on which
she was able to express herself, I could not help but wonder if she had
lived in Germany. Asking her, she said, “No, but I would like to,“ and
went on to explain that she had become hooked on German because of
the German boy group “Tokio Hotel“.
The story of this girl shows what a powerful and sustainable tool music
can be in arousing or increasing learners‘ interest and motivation. Why
not give it a try, even though we, as teachers, know that it is impossible
to meet every student´s taste.
When using songs in the foreign language classroom teachers could con-
sider:
Songs should not be chosen for idiomatic or grammatical ends alone
but are a wonderful resource to appeal to the learners’ emotional side
– songs are not an exercise tool;
for beginners of Hiragana scripts, as the lyrics are displayed in changing
colour as the tune goes on.
The popular „new Japanese folk song “ 「翼をください」“ “tsubasa wo
kudasai” was released in 1971 and almost every Japanese can sing it
[2]. Nowadays Japanese pop music is named as “J-pop”, which often
comes with pop dances, so students might enjoy to dance to the tunes.
One of the popular singers now is:
キャリーパミュパミュ “kyari pamyu pamyu” [3].
Also popular are “ani-son”: songs for Japanese TV animations which nor-
mally are very upbeat. Tunes for Miyazaki Hayao’s film are also stu-
dents’ favourite, such as “Gake no ueno Ponyo” [4]. For younger learn-
ers use「童謡」”douyou” songs such as “Inu no Omawarisan” [5].
You can look up the weekly top 10 Japanese songs on: [6]. Lyrics can be
found at [7]. And you can now also download some dictation worksheets
for Japanese songs from the resource section of the Japanese Adviser‘s
page [8].
I would like to introduce an instrument that was
born in Spain long ago and that is widely used by
the famous university tunas in Spain and South
America: la bandurria.
The bandurria is a plectrum chordophone, similar
to the cittern and the mandolin, primarily used in
Spanish folk music. Its origin is not very clear,
though there are several theories.
Prior to the 18th century, the bandurria had with a round back, similar
or related to the mandore. It had become a flat-backed instrument by
the 18th century, with five double courses of strings, tuned in fourths.
The original bandurrias of the Medieval period had three strings. During
the Renaissance they gained a fourth string. During the Baroque period
the bandurria had 10 strings (5 pairs). The modern bandurria has 12
strings (6 pairs).
There are different variations of bandurrias: Philippine bandurria, used
in many Philippine folkloric songs, South American bandurrias, especially
from Peru and Bolivia. In Portugal they have the Portuguese guitarra
which bears a close resemblance to the bandurria and for many people
it is very hard to say which one is which.
La bandurria is still a very popular instrument, specially amongst
tunas. A tuna is a group of university students in traditional dress, see
picture below, who play guitar, bandurria, lute and tambourine, and
sing serenades. The tradition originated in Spain and Portugal in the
13th century. Tunas are very popular in these two countries, as well as
in many other Latin American coutries.
To get more information about the different parts to be found in a
bandurria, you can visit the following web page [9].
There are many great activities that could be done in Spanish class
since la tuna performances are always very colourful and the music they
play is very attractive. Students love watching tunas and learning their
songs.
Scholarship Programme to Salamanca, Spain
Fourteen New Zealand teachers of Spanish had the wonderful
opportunity to participate in a pilot scholarship programme at the
University of Salamanca in Spain.
The programme was jointly developed by the University of
Salamanca, the Ministry of Education of Spain and ILEP.
Participants were divided according to their language proficiency
level and attended 40 hours of Spanish Language and Culture
classes. The group also participated in guided visits to historical
parts of Salamanca and its University, and visited the towns of
Segovia, La Granja and Ciudad Rodrigo. Accommodation was
provided in private homes, a true immersion experience for the
teachers from New Zealand.
It was a very positive learning experience for all despite the
diversity of the group. Even the participants with the lowest level
of Spanish frequently reported on how motivated they were to
attempt new activities with their classes and how much more
confident they had become to use more Spanish themselves in
their classroom. The teachers said:
“Learning occurs when given the opportunity to learn from mistakes
in real contexts.”
“Students who have less confidence with the language are much
more likely to use the language when working in pairs or even small
groups. I was in classes that were challenging for me. Every time
the lesson included student pair/group work, rather than being
teacher –centred, my stress levels decreased and my participation
levels increased both substantively.”
“Information gaps and outcomes are valuable. e.g. Giving directions
to someone is much more motivating to a partner when the final
destination is a surprise, otherwise it becomes more of an exercise
to practise the language simply for the sake of it.”
“Excursions were useful in many ways. It is important to learn
about what are important aspects of the culture of a country whose
language you are learning and teaching and all the visits and
excursions were greatly appreciated.”
Reflections on TPDL
Gordon Gallop has been teaching French and Spanish at
Baradene College for three years. This year he has added
Samoan to his teaching and learning ‘repertoire’. There is now
a class of 16 girls learning Samoan.
In 2012 Gordon took part in the Ministry of Education funded
Teacher Professional Development Languages programme. TPDL
was a wake-up call for Gordon and made him change and
improve his teaching practice dramatically. Firstly, TPDL made
him increase TL (target language) use. Even though he knew
about the importance of providing ‘comprehensible input +1’,
once he started using only TL, he was surprised to see how
much his students understood. Gordon realised that he had had
a preconceived idea that the students would not be able to
understand and that he would have to revert to English. Gordon
had also thought that it would be very difficult for him to speak
only in TL, and on the first day he ended up with a headache.
However now that he has strategies for how he can use TL all of
the time, he can do it easily.
In addition, Gordon was impressed by how much his students
‘picked up’ from so much exposure to the TL. Gordon found that
his students were “much more engaged in using TL themselves
for meaningful communication than they have been in previous
years, now that they are doing communicative tasks, and even
though they might be making some mistakes, the quality and
quantity of their TL has improved”.
Gordon found the pedagogy component of TPDL “a superb course”
which made him motivated about planning in general, and
specifically about planning tasks which are purposeful, meaningful
and motivating for students.
Gordon also expressed strong appreciation of the In-School
Support component of TPDL. “It’s great because through the
observations you can see your own progress and that of your
students. The progress standards help you to focus on what to do
next and it’s exciting to see your students (even beginning
learners) using multi-clause sentences and taking ownership of
their learning.”
Finally Gordon found that he is focussing more on meaningful
communication and that he draws students’ attention to
grammatical points incidentally and as students need to know this
for communication. He has found this approach has motivated
his students to speak more.
Advisory Support
National Advisers for Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish provide lan-guage specific support and can also offer advice about foreign language assistants and scholarship and immersion opportunities for each language.
National Coordinators for Learning Languages, Secondary Student Achievement Con-tract, focus on effective implementation of the New Zealand Curriculum and the NCEA realigned achievement standards as well as the development of literacy and language practices.
Northern & Central Regions please contact: Dee Edwards.
Southern & Central South Regions please contact: Jo Guthrie
NZALT The New Zealand Association of Language Teachers offers a nationwide net-work to support language teachers, including regional meetings, professional devel-opment, awards, newsletters, conferences and advocacy on key issues.
Professional Development Opportunities
TPDL (Teacher Professional Development Languages) is a Ministry of Education funded programme aimed at developing teacher language proficiency and second lan-guage teaching capabilities in order to improve student language learning out-comes. TPDL is available to beginners as well as language experts.
ILEP (International Languages Exchanges and Pathways) supports schools and teachers to implement the Learning Languages curriculum area, particularly at Years 7 and 8.
Language Immersion Awards are provided by the Ministry of Education for teachers of languages to undertake immersion experiences overseas. Further details are available at the AFS website.
Don't forget! Check out the Learning Languages Website for regular updates and more information.
ILEP Language Teacher Conference "Meeting the challenge: On-going professional development for languages teaching and learning in New Zealand" Get in quick and register here.
ShortFilmFest 2013 If you’re learning German and want to use your language creatively, make a short film (3-5 minutes maximum) with a creative interpretation of the topic „Beziehungen“. Read more here.
Networking Meeting with German National Adviser Heike Papenthin 7 August, 14 August, 21 August, 28 August Pick one date, or come to all sessions. More info here.
Learn how to dance while you practice your Spanish! Workshops for teachers of Spanish on 7 and 13 August, 2013 taught by a Span-ish professional dancer, organised by ILEP/Ministry of Education in collabora-tion with the Ministry of Education of Spain. More info here.
After school workshop: How to use Furoshiki! Learn how to use furoshiki for several items and will be able to demonstrate it to your students for International Language Week. More info here.
Date: Session 2 Thursday, 1 Aug 2013, Time: 16.30-17.30, Venue: ILEP meeting room E4 at Epsom, Gate 3, 74 Epsom Ave. (UOA Epsom Campus)
Chinese Calligraphy and Brush painting workshops in Auckland, on 15 and 22 August. More info here.
Student camp in Beijing, China – December 2013 The Office of Chinese Language Council-International (Hanban) is offering a great opportunity for New Zealand students of Chinese to attend a 14-day long camp in China in December 2013. For further information, please contact Yu Wang on 09 6238899 ext. 48613 or [email protected]
Target language role in TCFL classroom Chinese Workshop on 14 September in Christchurch: reflecting learning experi-ence and returning to the leaner’s seat. Read more here.
Upcoming Chinese immersion Camp for teachers of Chinese in AKL on 28/9-4/10. More information to follow soon, check ILEP.ac.nz for updates.
Coming Up ... Key Contacts and Links