10/06/23
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to another successful ‘June Event’!
Here’s the final programme ALL-June-2023-at-the-Institut-Français-programme on the day V2, and below is an album on our Flickr account to give you a flavour of the event.
Those who attended this paid event have been sent a private, password protected, link to a page from which they can download presentations.
Thanks to Romain Devaux who arranged for the Institut français to host us in their bright and classy surroundings. You cannot fail to be impressed when you walk into that spacious entrance hall with its welcoming reception staff, majestic flight of stairs, passing the Rodin sculpture in your way to the cinema, library or salons, and the downstairs Atelier was pronounced as ‘perfect’ by Miriam who likes leading activities in a space where you can mingle!
Thanks to all the lovely people who attended. Helen calls them ‘The Saturday Keenies’ – the ones who get up early on a Saturday morning because they are so committed to their job. And on this Saturday, resisting the chance to be out in beautiful weather made them even more special! We were especially pleased to welcome our friend Nigel Saint, all the way from Leeds, who is organising an event to bring HE and secondary teachers together and Caroline Conlon, who is part of the NCLE team.
Thanks to the committee for rolling up their sleeves and doing whatever was needed to cart boxes in and out, meet and greet, register, serve refreshments, and generally check all is OK. They often do not get to see all of the sessions, but they are happy to facilitate the event for others. Special thanks to our newest committee members, Mary Heath and Antonio da Silva. Mary was commended by David Blow (ALL Language Fellow) for ‘intelligent management of refreshments’ (transporting water from another area needed careful planning!) – and Antonio kept Twitter informed as to our proceedings with some great pics.
ALL Corporate members brought colour and a buzz to the event with their stands. We know that this benefits companies and attendees: providers like to meet teachers to finds out what heir needs are. Teachers like to meet providers to see what is on offer, and, of course, to collect any freebies! Thank you to Angela Murphy who coordinated this support:
- AQA
- Consejería de Educación
- Eduqas
- Goethe Institute
- Institut français
- Pearson Edexcel
- Thisislanguage
- LanguageNut
- Voyager Travel
And thank you also to Crista Hazell who looks after us and organises goodies from the ALL office, including past copies of the unique ALL magazine ‘Languages Today, ‘To do’ pads and pens!
The sessions
We always say that the principal reason for holding these events is to give a chance for ALL members to meet face to face in their language home. But naturally, it is an extra incentive to come and listen to speakers talking about topics which interest you. …..
Plenary
…. and our plenary speaker, Steven Fawkes is always interesting, whatever the topic! This year we asked him to talk about a topic which is close to the heart of many of our members: Decolonising the curriculum. HIs presentation was, as always, superbly crafted, bringing in the voices of other people who each contributed their own take on the topic, and punctuating this with personal reflections on experience, and a range of interesting, interactive, information-gap based activities which could be replicated in the classroom and allow learners to grow in their understanding of language and culture.
Primary session:
Our primary committee members had prepared a great session! Miriam Paridjanian led a warm-up activity, Darnelle Constant-Shepherd then introduced an activity to promote language awareness, sharing the message that all languages are valuable and that this is part of decolonising. Amy Lennon and Ellie Chettle-Cully then shared their own practice and there was a chance at the end for people to ask questions or share their own ideas. Overall, the aim was to demonstrate activities which could be replicated in other settings. We also advertised and promoted the launch meeting of the Primary decolonising the curriculum Special Interest Group.
Secondary session
- GCSE 2024 Up-date
Although not all of the new GCSE specifications had been accredited by Ofqual by the time our event took place, Helen Myers had enough information to present a useful, up-dated and impartial comparison, based on documentation and additional insight from meetings with the exam board representatives. We were delighted that Adam Lamb accepted our invitation to follow up his January presentation by telling us more about how he was preparing for the new GCSE, with specific examples relating to phonics and CPD planning.
- Countries and Cultures in the Curriculum and the Classroom
Nathalie Blondeau always brims with ideas which she uses in her own work as a Harris Federation Languages consultant, but which she also so generously shares with others. She prepared a presentation which covered both decolonisation and the EDI agenda, striving to make the curriculum more inclusive and to make resources as diverse as possible. She shared resources, lessons and schemes of work including story books for Y7,8,9 which follow diverse families. One of our most recent ALL London committee recruits, Ali Koubaa, talked to us about how he uses these resources in his school in Orpington, and, frankly, the interactions an d activities he described, showing what an impact these experiences had on his pupils, brought tears to your eyes.
We very much look forward to seeing you at future events!
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY. All details on our website https://all-london.org.uk/all-events/ and ALL’s website: https://www.all-languages.org.uk/events/
| June 28th 2023 8-9 pm on Zoom | A TiLT Webinar with Christos Sotiropoulos – Teaching Ideas with Tik Tok |
| June 15th 2023 8-9 pm on Zoom | A TiLT Webinar with Maureen Gassert Lamb: Making AI Work |
| 10th-12th November 2023 | The Language Show. Virtual event brought through the support of Linguascope. https://languageshowlive.co.uk/ |
| Saturday January 13th 2024
10 – 1 |
ALL LONDON JANUARY EVENT, BFI Southbank |
| Friday 8th–Saturday 9th March 2024: | Language World. Please save the date! Venue tbc. |