MTOT Entries

Entries have been arriving thick and fast in our inboxes here at SCILT. It is fantastic to see the hard-work and enthusiasm of your pupils in a multitude of languages being creative in such a wide variety of themes from football to holidays, memories of family to recent terrorist events in Paris.

Just a reminder that the closing date for entries is 18th December.  All the information and documentation you need to enter pupils' work can be found in the Teacher's Pack within the RESOURCES tab on out MTOT page.
http://www.scilt.org.uk/MTOT201516/tabid/5255/Default.aspx

The maximum is a total of 10 entries per school across whichever age categories you wish to put forward, and please remember to send us the relevant entry forms and permission slips (either scanned by email or by post) to accompany each entry.
Please send entries via email (or you can send via post  if you are sending a disc or memory stick with video entries due to large file size) to:

angela.de-britos@strath.ac.uk
or
SCILT@strath.ac.uk
or
SCILT
Lord Hope Building
Room LH232, Level 2
141 St James Road
John Anderson Campus
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow G4 0LT

10 Fun Poetry Ideas!

 

Whilst prepping for the Language Show Live (11th & 12th March 2016 @ SECC, Glasgow http://www.languageshowlive.co.uk/) I came across a presentation from the London event by Suzi Bewell, MFL lecturer at University of York, which featured some simple, fun poetry ideas I thought you might like:

1. Poem-a-week

Aim to include at least one poem (song / rhyme) into your existing planning framework.

 

2. Use ICT

(such as www.storybird.com * ) to help to engage reluctant writers in languages

http://mfl-storybirds.wikispaces.com/   (collection of Storybirds ready to use)

 

3. One image many words

Choose one piece of artwork and let their imaginations go wild!

4. Start simple

Acrostic poems and calligrams are a great starting point. Once learners confidence grows, move onto Haikus and other more advanced types of poetry.

 

5. Poetry Slam!

Turn it into a competition and have learners ‘perform’ their poems in front of an audience. This could be peers in class, in a year group assembly or even to parents.

6. Create a classroom poetry anthology

Learners of all abilities could contribute to an annual languages poetry anthology. The final version could be printed / published and held in the school library and / or the web.

 

7. Poetry quilt

Create a colourful paper quilt wall display of pupils’ poems and art work (based on Barefoot Billion project.

8. Podcast Poetry

Encourage creative speaking as well as writing using tools such as Sonocent Audio Notetaker and Periscope.

 

9. Poet-tree

Hang pupils’ work off the branches of a tree like you would Christmas ornaments.

 

10. Longform poetry

With older or more advanced learners, delve into sonnets, limericks, ballads and odes.

 

Also, don't forget there is a wealth of poems, rhymes and songs in hundreds of languages at www.mamalisa.com

Happy St Andrew's Day!

With St Andrew's Day approaching on Monday 30th, I thought it would be fitting to post some links to a wealth of poetry written in Scots language that would work well with children.

From the Scottish Poetry Library website, simply click on hyperlink below to find a collection of Scots poems for children:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/tags/scots-recitals-children

Or for a more traditional flavour of Scots poetry from Burns you can see his complete works at: http://www.robertburns.org/works/  and you will also find some of the vocabulary translated into English, French, German and Spanish.


Or if you want to explore rhyme in Scots, why not watch and listen to The Gruffalo in Scots?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2qmm9o77NU

With just over three weeks until the deadline for MTOT entries, we hope your pupils are enjoying being creative with language.  Remember to send written entries as scanned documents or performances as video clips to us by 18th December. Any queries, just drop me a line:
angela.de-britos@strath.ac.uk

                                     

MTOT at St Rose of Lima PS, Glasgow

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of working with EAL teachers Claire Stevenson and Kirsten Barrett and observing the lasts of their poetry sessions. Children used talk for writing to create word/phrase banks for Halloween senses poems in English and in their Mother Tongue languages.
From the smell of 'rotting zombie flesh' in Polish to the sound of 'skeleton bones rattling' in Malayalam the children had fantastic ideas, many of them working in pairs to support literacy and translation skills in their home languages.
I cannot wait to read and hear their work!

 

 

 

Also, below is an extract from an excellent free resource by www.teachitprimary.co.uk which I received via an email. It has some short, simple ideas for creating poetry in an interdisciplinary way - why not give it a go in Mother Tongue or Other Tongue?

	Historical riddle The kenning is an Anglo-Saxon form of riddle poetry, but this fun activity would be fantastic with any History topic!  Give each child a historical artefact, and challenge them to describe it with a list of evocative two-word phrases.  For example, a battle-axe becomes a ‘skull-splitter’ and a ‘widow-maker’.  For an interactive display, put the finished kennings in the middle of the board with pictures of the artefacts around them. Can the children solve the riddles and match the poem to the artefact?
	Rhymes tables We know that rhymes aid memory, and certainly all kids love the silly mnemonic ‘I ate and I ate till I was sick on the floor. 8 times 8 is 64’.  Challenge children to make up and memorise their own rhyming couplets for the times tables they are learning.  You could finish up with a poetry slam, where the children perform their mathematical poems to another class!
	Paint with words Children sketch or trace the outline of a famous artwork, and then fill the shapes with words and phrases inspired by the painting.  Encourage them to experiment with figurative language, explaining that writers use metaphors and similes to help create vivid images in the reader’s mind – just like artists create images out of paint! For a striking effect, have the children write the words using coloured pens to match the original artwork.
	Summing-up science   At the end of a science topic, choose five key words and challenge children to write a poem including all of them.  For example, a poem about the Earth, Moon and Sun might have to include the words ‘gravity’, ‘orbit’, ‘sphere’, ‘axis’ and ‘solar’.  Give bonus points for the use of additional scientific vocabulary!
	Pop poetry  Play the class a pop song by one of their favourite artists.  Ask them to work in small groups to rewrite the lyrics about something they enjoy – whether that’s reading or rugby, go-karting or guinea pigs. The rhythm and rhyme must fit the original tune. Once they have finished writing, each group sings their new Pop Poem to the class!

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



Creative Bag of Tricks #6.2 - Short forms

 Reinforce the imperfect and conditional tenses with "Chinese portraits"

Un portrait chinois

A Chinese Portrait (portrait chinois) is a metaphorical description of yourself through a comparison with animals, objects, places, people, characters, foods... the list goes on!

The portrait is based on the imperfect/conditional formula: “If I were a(n) X, I would be….” e.g.    If I were a writer, I would be Charles Dickens             If I were a plant, I would be a cactus

Ø     Using the target language teachers could brainstorm categories and/or possible items within those categories Ø    Teachers could provide a template such as the one below to support learners Ø     Using completed poems, learners could take part in a guessing game where anonymous poems are read at random and the object is to listen and guess the writer of the poem.

Portrait chinois template

The Other Tongue competition

Supplementary guidelines and information for Other Tongue entries

• Teachers may issue appropriate support materials to help learners write their poems just as they normally would in writing activities.

• It is acceptable for a similar approach to be used in a number of poems entered by the same centre, but efforts should be made to ensure poems represent learners' own work.

• It is acceptable to use approaches that draw from published materials like novels, poems, films, adverts, leaflets, newspapers, etc. provided that poems produced represent learners' own work.

• Very restricted approaches may disadvantage learners in terms of originality. 

• Teachers should encourage learners to aim for accuracy in terms of spelling, grammar, syntax, etc.

• Judges will be mindful of the fact that poems may play with language or use non-standard structures for effect. However, where it is obvious that there are errors and/or these detract from the overall effect, judges may take this into consideration.

• Learners are invited to provide a brief summary of their poem in English. This is not compulsory but it may assist the judging process to know more information about the poem/poet. This should require no more than a few sentences. The competition does not prescribe the content of these summaries but some examples may be;

• The learners reasons for choosing to write about a particular subject

• Their general feelings about the poem or the experience of writing a poem in another language

• The thinking behind their choice of words and/or use of figurative language

• Details of any materials they have drawn upon and what they thought of these

Creative Bag of Tricks #6.1 - Short forms

A supportive structure helps learners to enjoy writing cinquains.

Short poetry forms are particularly appealing to learners because of their length, use of repetition and easy to follow structures. In this post, we look at cinquains.

Cinquains

Traditionally, cinquains are one stanza poems of a specified number of lines, syllables and stresses. 

This version has been adapted so that instead of syllables and stresses, the number and classification of words in each line is specified. 

Here is a suggested structure for a cinquain poem. However, the rules can be tweaked to suit your learners! (Click image to enlarge)

• Verbs may be written in their infinitive form
• A cinquain organiser like this one might be useful
• Examples of cinquains in French
• Examples of cinquains in Spanish
• Example of cinquain in German

Creative Bag of Tricks #5 - Cut-ups

What do David Bowie, T.S. Eliot and Julio Cortazar all have in common? They all used methods known as "cut-ups" to write their own poems and songs!

"Cut-ups" are a range of techniques involving cutting up and rearranging texts, or borrowing from other texts, in order to create a new text such as a poem or song. In this post, we suggest three creative writing activities inspired by cut-ups, suitable for a range of learners and stages. 

Mother Tongue Other Tongue at King's Park primary school

Primary 7 pupils at King's Park primary school, Glasgow, have kicked off their activities for the Mother Tongue Other Tongue competition with an afternoon of Scottish Book Trust Live Literature  poetry workshops. The aims of the afternoon were to build confidence, to stimulate enjoyment in reading and writing poetry and to support learners in finding and developing their own poetic voices in whichever languages they speak.

"See me, ah ken when tae tell folk tae back aff!"

In "See Me", a workshop led by poets Jill Bennet and Elizabeth Cordiner, learners were encouraged to use their knowledge of Scots to write poems about the kinds of things that drive their hopes, fears and desires. They then had the opportunity to consider, and thus extend, their understanding of poetic features such as rhythm and word choice by integrating their work successfully into a whole class poem.

Learners writing "See Me" poems about what makes them tick

Taking notes in "Windows"

In Ken Cockburn's workshop, learners were encouraged to use familiar phrases from their mother tongue languages to take part in an oral game in which they created a rhythmic, whole-class spoken poem. The poet then gave a reading of the German poem, Das Fenster (The Window) by Sarah Kirsch, in German and in English, leading to a discussion about cognates and false friends. Taking the theme of windows as a basis for their own poems, learners started by making notes about the kinds of objects and activities they might observe from a window. Using a template, they began to write their own poems comparing and contrasting life observed through several different windows.

We were very grateful to the eager volunteers from each group who read their work aloud to a captive audience of their classmates, teachers and poets. Feedback from learners in both workshops was very positive. On the whole, they enjoyed having the opportunity to read, write and talk about poetry and languages. 

The class is treated to a poetry reading