Sawadee-ka from Bangkok, Thailand! My name is Torie Leinbach and I teach 8th grade Language Arts and Social Studies at Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok. My students are Quad Blogging with Ms. Turner's students this year. Originally from the USA, I have traveled to more than 50 countries around the world, and definitely have a love of different cultures and languages - even if I only pick up a few words here and there. The teenagers I teach shame me with their fluency in several different languages; all are English-literate and most speak Thai. Some of my students also speak languages such as Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, Tagalog, Hindi, and others. In the course of a normal school day, most students take classes in English, Thai, and one of the other languages offered at our school: Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, and French. Like Mandarin, Thai relies on using different tones in the language, so the same "word" actually can have five or six different meanings depending on how it is pronounced. As a native English spaker, my ear is not trained to pick up on these tones, and I frequently make an absolute fool of myself when attempting to speak the language. But I am not deterred. Another challenge with Thai is that the script is unique and does not rely on Roman letters, so I cannot read it to reinforce the learning. The Thai alphabet uses more than 40 different symbols. The upside is that the language has very simple rules for verb tenses (there are none) and pronouns, of which there are very few. These latter characteristics are challenging for the Thai students when writing in English because English is comprised of so many different grammatical rules. Thanks for allowing me to contribute to your blog, I support your ongoing efforts to learn more about languages and the world!
Thanks to Mrs Ferguson, Assistant Head Teacher, who has written a guest blog post about the Year 9 trip to Lille in December to the Christmas Markets:
“Stowmarket High School took a coach load of predominantly Y9 students to visit the Christmas market in Lille, France.
The very early start and late arrival home on the same day was well worth the effort because Lille, in northern France, turned out to be a great place to do some Christmas shopping.
The 83 wooden chalets of the Christmas market offered Christmas decorations and festive food, as well as arts and crafts. A ferris wheel turned on the main square, and was transformed into a winter wonderland, dominated by an 18-metre high Christmas tree.
Stowmarket High students took the time available to them to spend their Euros and some were so successful in doing so that they had to ask teachers for a loan!
Lots of family gifts were bought including flavoured teas, chocolates, christmas tree decorations and hot roast chestnuts from the vendors on the streets.
Shop windows competed to be the most original, and the 3900 shops in the city offer something for every taste and every budget.
Christmas Markets in France are known as ‘marchés de Noel’.
Mike Dade of Year 11 has written this guest blog post about the first session of the Northgate G&T scheme that he attended back in December.
In December, Shelby and I attended a intial twilight session at Northgate High School to hear an introductory talk from the Head of Languages, Mr Blagona. He spoke to us about what we would be doing on the Gifted and Talented scheme and outlined the tasks we would be doing in the course. We learnt that we would be producing something that would be used by Year 12 students across many schools as a helpful Language Resource. There was about 40 of us from all the Schools in Suffolk and it was a privilage to be chosen by the School to apply and then to have our application accepted by Northgate.
After the talk, which last about 20 mins, we split off into groups depending on which language we were doing. The languages on offer were French, German and Spanish. Shelby and I were both doing the French course and we went to the Language Centre and then into the French room. From that we split up into further groups depending on what 'vehicle' we wanted to produce and what topic we would do it on.
Shelby and I both decided to go into the Cyber Bullying group and with the other members in our group we decided we are going to make a soap opera about cyber bullying. We then exchanged names and email addresses and have been communicating ideas.
On the next meet up day, February 4th, we are going to write the script, first in English, then into French and on the second day, March 10th, we are going to film the soap opera. Another group are doing a magazine which will include a film report about our soap opera.
The initial evening was helpful in gathering ideas and discussing plans and further ideas have been discussed since then. I look forward to the next time we meet up to finish the project.
Mike Dade.
A team of Gifted & Talented Year 10 linguists have recently started teacher training.
They are being taught - during their lunch times! - how to prepare, resource and deliver French lessons, just as if they were graduate trainee teachers.
They will go into local primary and middle schools three times over the spring and summer terms to teach pupils.
Lessons will have an Olympic theme and students will team-teach in small groups.
The aim to to give them a solid understanding of the French language. They will also acquire valuable experience in public speaking, confidence, communication and organisational skills.
Students and parents will be invited to a Celebration Ceremony at the end of the summer term in recognition of teir achievements.
More information on the Language Leader project:
The Language Leader project was devised by leading language teacher Rachel Hawkes and it is with her personal assistance, together with that of Sarah Schechter at Routes Into Language in Cambridge, that we are able to bring this project to Stowmarket. Rachel sets out below a little of the benefit to the older students to learn how to teach their subject:
What it does for young people - by Rachel Hawkes, Comberton Village College
The Language Leader Award develops student leadership skills and linguistic skills. Learners of all abilities gain a tremendous amount of satisfaction and confidence from sharing what they know with others. It is also known that we retain the knowledge that we teach actively to others far more effectively than that which we take on board in a more passive way.
Here is a summary of the principal gains of the Language Leader
Award programme:
• rewards their language learning
• gives them a purpose and context for their language skills
• develops their generic communication and leadership skills
• gives them a better understanding of themselves as learners
• gives a better understanding of the role of the teacher
• enhances their self-esteem and confidence
• improves their evaluative and analytical skills
• increases their personal attainment in a foreign language
More information can also be found on Rachel Hawkes' own website and the Routes into Languages wikispace.
....And they're off!
The Language Challenge for Year 9 has started and students now have until the end of the summer term to complete as many language-related tasks as possible from the Language Challenge booklet.
The actvities allow them to pursue in their own time their own interests, sports, hobbies and passions, and to integrate languages into these in some way.
It is particularly helpful for those who wish to continue to study a language to GCSE level, although it is also very beneficial to those students who want to keep up their language achievements even if they do not wish to study it beyond the end of Year 9.
There is also a blog for students and parents to find out more and to track their achievements: http://shslanguagechallenge.posterous.com
For more information, please contact Mrs Frankland (HF) or Ms Turner (TU) @stowmarkethigh.suffolk.sch.uk
Each Year the British Council selects 29 schools from across the country to take part in the Mock European Union Council meeting. This year Stowmarket High was very fortunate to be selected and Year 13 students Tom Leach and Callum Kennard together with teacher Ruth Everett travelled to the Foreign Office in London to take part in the programme.
Each school is allocated an EU Member State - Stowmarket was the Czech Republic - and students had to research and prepare for a mock debate and negotations about two current issues: whatthe EU should do about the Arab Spring and how the EU should compete with global emerging markets.
Whilst students did not have to deliver their speeches and negotations in another language, Callum very diligently learned his speech phonetically about the Arab Spring in German. It was then translated simultaneously into English by EU translators and interpreters to the other students and delegates present.
Tom and Callum were assissted by a representative from the Czech Embassy, who also attended the proceedings.
We are very fortunate to have a Youth Ambassador here in the school! Kate Oliver in Year 12 was selected by the British and German Embassies as one of the small band of teenagers this year to represent the UK.
As part of her role, she has to develop and run a community-based programme for young people to educate them about Germany and the German language. She is currently planning a roadshow to take to local primary and middle schools in Suffolk which will give young pupils a taste of German.
Well done to all of you who took part in the Language Perfect World Champs last week. I am particularly impressed with the variety of languages that you took upon yourselves to learn: Maori, Indonesian and Japanese - WOW! One of you earned enough points for an Excellence Certificate and you will find out in assembly who that person was. Don't worry though - the rest of you will not go away empty handed as there are participation certificates for everyone who took part too. Congratulations again and let's try again next year to win some prizes too. Ms Turner ~~~~~~~~~ Here are the final results for the Language Perfect World Championships 2011 Total questions answered globally: 36,297,004 Top countries: (competing for the overall prize of the Trevor and Rose Trophy: 1. Australia - 7,266,022 (19,314,151 questions) 2. New Zealand - 4,331,923 (10,362,924 questions) 3. England - 1,788,483 (5,035,911 questions) Here are your school's results: School name: Stowmarket High School Total Questions Answered: 5,834 Global Ranking: 438 Global Ranking by category: 146 (schools with 0-50 students) Competing students: 30 Questions answered in each language: German: 4068, French: 900, Indonesian: 499, Spanish: 107, Italian: 85, Russian: 66, Maori: 65, Japanese: 44 More statistics for students at your school: Excellence Certificates: 1 (500+ points) Bronze Medallists: 0 (1000+ points) Silver Medallists: 0 (2000+ points) Gold Medallists: 0 (3000+ points)
*****Updated link*****
You may have seen the posters.
You may even have heard the shouty man on the trailer.
Now, it's time to sign up and be part of the Language Championships 2011!
Sign up as quickly as possible by following the instructions on the student sign-up guide attached. There are only a few spaces left, so be quick!
If you get stuck, then see Ms Turner in B13 or send her an email (tu@stowmarkethigh.suffolk.sch.uk).
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