So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Two Events

What a week, but it was worth it.

Well last week was one of my more busy ones. My S3's took part in the Institut Francais' Rencontres Theatrales on Wednesday. Of course I was worried about how they would perform, but once again they were awesome. It was quite a shared learning experience because I'm not exactly a drama teacher but I had ideas about what I wanted to see on stage. Some of my actors however perform regularly and were able to contribute some excellent ideas about how to stage our little masterpiece, so I am really quite pleased to say I learned a lot from them as well.
If you just happen to be curious about their play ("La jeune fille, le chef et la grenouille: une Cendrillon africaine") you can see it on the departmental blog, along with a slideshow of some pictures I took of the whole event. At a later date I will be posting podcasts of the other acts as well.

Next on Thursday I took part in Joe Dale's Flashmeeting. It was an hour of sharing practice and just decent conversation between hardworking teachers. Check out Joe's post rather than me going on about it...no pint in reinventing the wheel.
It was great to see and here from folk whose names I have come across on the web and it was even better to find out more about their work.

Now I've only got to worry about Communicate 07.

An interview with Joe Dale

My first interview...other than for a job.

Last Saturday I was interviewed via Skype, by Joe Dale. Joe Lives at the other end of the UK on the Isle of Wight. He teaches languages at Nodehill Middle School  and is a bit of a Guru where the use of ICT in language teaching is concerned.
We spoke for about an hour in all, which he edited down to about 40 mins worth of me talking about what I've been up to in the last year or so. At first I found the idea quite daunting but Joe was a kindly interviewer.
Rather than go over everything we discussed here I think it is better to direct you to Joe's post which contains the interview as he has done an amazing job of putting together notes from the interview including links which cropped up in conversation.
Thanks Joe, you did a great job. I wish I had smiled in the photo.
If you do happen to have a listen, the screaming in the background is my 2 year old daughter, Aïcha, wanting to watch her Dora the Explorer DVD for the millionth time...it teaches her some Spanish (well thats my excuse)

Download interview_with_adam_sutcliffe1.mp3

Podcasting in the snow

Not Literally of course.

Classes decimated by snow today. Collapsed 3 S2 German classes into one today...great teacher pupil ratio. In one period in groups of 5 they manged to produce a radio show including news, weather and sport. One group even had time to record their show. Its sometimes amazing waht our students can produce when they put their mind to it.

I suspect they wouldn't have done half as much if we'd asked them to write a letter to an imaginary penfriend.

The shows will apppear on Rate My Mates and those lucky people who got to go sledging today will have to rate them in an AiFL stylee. Hopefully we will get to finish the recordings tomorrow.

I have officially classified that as a good lesson..thanks Mrs K and Judith.