Opportunity to take part in French research project

Dear teachers,

As a PhD student whose research focuses on multilingualism in the United Kingdom, I find Mother Tongue Other Tongue a really interesting project to follow!

I am keen to find out how pupils from different language backgrounds view their language(s) and how Mother Tongue Other Tongue experience can have a positive impact on their perceptions of languages.

 

I would like to visit participating classes in order to observe the dynamics of the groups whilst working on their poems and interview a few pupils about their experience with Mother Tongue Other Tongue.

To see this project happen, I need your participation… This would mean letting me come into your class a couple of times between now and Christmas.

 If you are interested in my project or would like to know more about it, please don’t hesitate to contact me for further details!

I look forward to hearing from you!

Malika Pedley

malika.pedley@live.fr

HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY DAY!!!

 

I hope you have all had a great day and got the chance to enjoy some poetry today.
It's been a busy week for MTOT......

On Saturday, we had the second teachers' poetry workshop with Juliette Lee and the group produced work in English and French.

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of visiting the children at St Maria Goretti Primary School in Glasgow and watching them perform a fantastic assembly sharing their celebrations for European Day of Languages (I even had a croissant and brioche in the staffroom thanks to the lovely Mrs Barrett!)

Today, I spoke with two teachers keen for their classes to take part, one of the entries being in French Braille - wow!
 
Also many thanks to Georgi at the Scottish Poetry Library, who has had an extremely busy week but still found the time to send me some inspirational poetry to share with you:

One is a BSL/Shetlandic/English poem film that Kyra Pollitt made while she was one of their Artists in Residence http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/connect/blog/signed .  I personally love the performance in this and think that the signing and non-verbal speak louder than words. 

The other is very apt as Scotland are playing Poland today at football. Their current Poem of the Moment quotes from the Scots translation of a Polish poem for children called 'Pstryk’ (‘Switch’)http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/.  After this week, the complete poem in Scots and Polish will still be available on the site at: http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/pstryk

Finally, tomorrow holds the penultimate teachers' workshop in Edinburgh - I look forward to meeting some of you there. What a busy and exciting week, I'll feedback after our final workshop in Inverness next Wednesday. In the meantime, happy national poetry day and happy half-term.

Angela

 

MTOT HAS GONE NATIONAL!!!
After our very successful pilot in the Glasgow area last year, we are rolling MTOT nationally so that children and young people from P1 - S6 can participate and express their creativity through languages.
We've also been busy finding new partners to support the competition:
Georgi from the Scottish Poetry library has been sending us lots of poems in a variety of languages (these will be posted in our Resources pages of the SCILT website and here on the blog).
Juliette Lee, poet and creative writer, is leading the teachers' workshops and inspiring teachers to give poetry a go in Mother Tongue and/or Other Tongue in their classes.

This year, we are running four free poetry workshops for teachers  - the first of which took place in Glasgow at the University of Strathclyde on 19th September.  Teachers from primary and secondary sectors participated and went home enthused and full of ideas to take back to the classroom.

 

Tomorrow (Sat 3rd Oct) will see the next of the workshops being held at Dundee University. The next will be held at the Open University in Edinburgh on Friday 9th October (13.30 - 16.30) - there are a few places left and you can still register by completing the MTOT workshop registration form on the SCILT website.

For more information about MTOT and to register your school to take part in the competition visit the MTOT 2015-16 page of our website. But hurry, the deadline is Friday 9th October!
http://its-ewds1.ds.strath.ac.uk/scilt/MTOT201516/tabid/5255/Default.aspx

 

SEE YOU ON  THURSDAY 8TH OCTOBER FOR A NATIONAL POETRY DAY BLOG - DO GET IN TOUCH AND LET US KNOW HOW YOU'RE CELEBRATING THE EVENT.

THERE IS A WEALTH OF RESOURCES TO BE FOUND AT THE SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY WEBSITE

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/connect/national-poetry-day