Ramona+Vinga

= **My Profile: Bonjour, my name is Ramona. I teach French at Keysborough Primary School. My school has around 550 students and I am the only French teacher in the school, teaching from Prep to Year 6. Our students have one 50 min French session/week. We recently moved to our new modern school where I have my French classroom.** = = **Action Research Project Planner:** = Which area/s of your practice would you like to improve? 2011 How can we design a good quality French program using 21st century technology? Analyse a range of teaching resources and methods available and then implement some of those in our teaching practice. 2012 Assesment processes-diverse techniques of formative and summative assessment. || Timeline for 2011 School visit at Keysborough PS. Discussed AIM Method. We are planning to discuss different ways of use of a range of ICT resources. 2Simple French LOTE Film Making- use of flip camera in the French program. IPads in LOTE- Apps and ways to use them in order to improve students' engagement and outcomes. Budget for Resource Grant- I am planning to spend the budget on an Ipad, an IV adaptor that allows the connection of the IPad to the Interactive Whiteboard and a range of apps.
 * = ** Stage 1 ANALYSE ** =
 * = ** Stage 2 - PLAN ** =
 * = ** Stage 2 - PLAN ** =

MLTAV Conference 11 May- Catherine to attend. Professional Formation organised by Alliance Francaise, DEECD and French Embassy- Ramona to attend. 29 June- meeting to share ideas and resources from the above PDs. Use of IPads in French teaching. || What did you do? Catherine visited me and shadowed me for a day and observed the use of the AIM Method. I showed her a range of resources I use including 2Simple French, flip cameras, Ipod touches and the texbook Comete. I also showed Catherine a few activities that I created using the Smartboard software. I spent the grant and started using the IPad in my program. 2012 -9 March we met and started the discussion about assessment. 21,22,23 June I attended the Alliance Francaise, DEECD and French Embassy PD for French Teachers. 29 June visited Catherine and shared information and resources from the PDs we attended. I forwarded to Catherine resources about the Francophonie, the Global Simulation, use of games in teaching French, use of French Adds, films and songs. We discussed the different IPad apps I found useful for teaching French such as Talking Tom; busuu.com, Des chiffres, BookBox French, French Gender, French Train, Learn French, Lingu Pingu, Flashcards, FR Lite 24/7, Flashcards, French Flashcards, French Essentials Accela Study, Puppet Pals, ITunes U, French Dictionary Pro, Mad Pad, Creative Book Builder, Explain Everything, Comic Life, Animation HD, I Movie. Catherine could use in her classes a set of IPads available in her school but she needs to ask the ICT Team to install the apps she wants to use. I suggested that the best thing she could do is to buy an IPad for her program and trial all the apps first and then decide what she wants installed. I also suggested her to get the AV adaptor that connects the IPad to a projector, that would be extremely useful. I also use an IDoc that enables the connection of 5 headphoes into an IPad or IPod Touch. || What did you notice? I use the IPad and a set of 4 IPod touches in group activities but I also have them as an extension/reward for the early finishers. The students are always enjoying using them and they are engaged and chalenge each other to complete the activities. They also enjoy descovering new ways of using the IPods and IPad and sharing them with the others and with me. The biggest impact I notices is in one of my ADHD diagnosed students who was previously disengaged and disruptive in French. Now he is always on task, aiming for that 5 minutes reward with the IPad. That had such a big impact on the learning of the entire grade, as previously that student was very disruptive. Every year I do a French film project with my Year 6 students. They work in groups to develop a script first and later they make a film. Most groups are using the flip-cameras to film. Then I take the films and I process them using Windows Movie Maker. This year one group in each Grade 6 used the IPad to film and then they edited their own film using IMovie. That saved me so much time as I usually spend about 2 hours of my own time to process each movie and every year I have 12 film groups. My school recently purchased 5 IPads that are now available for purchase. It would be great to be able to borrow them in the future for the film projects. I noticed that the students are becoming more confident and independent in using their French since they started using the IPods and IPad. I can see that they are slowly shifting from asking support from me to helping and teaching each other. || What would you do the same/differently in the future? I really appreciated the opportunity of being involved in this mentoring project as I had to reflect on my own practice as I was sharing my experiences with Catherine. Another valuable experience was meeting everyone involved in this project, especially Elise and Tamsin, the other French pair as we had the opportunity to network and exchange ideas with them as well. There was another enthusiastic teacher who's name I can't remember, but she had a fantastic approach of teaching French based on the model of Literacy Group Rotations and she inspired me to trial a similar model in the future. Being the only language teacher in my school, I always work in isolation within my own school and appreciate any opportunity to share ideas with other language teachers.
 * == ** Stage 3 – ACT ** ==
 * == ** Stage 3 – ACT ** ==
 * == ** Stage 4 - OBSERVE ** ==
 * == ** Stage 4 - OBSERVE ** ==
 * == ** Stage 5 - REFLECT ** ==
 * == ** Stage 5 - REFLECT ** ==

I think that visiting each other at school was a very valuable way to share and give each other ideas and feed-back. Catherine had the big task of starting and implementing a whole school Primary and Secondary French program and it was brilliat to see her develop a wide range of resources and activities over the two year period. I think the discussions we had helped her make a long term plan and I can see that she has great ideas to where her program will go in the future. The mentoring project allowed Catherine to discover a range of options and over the two years she was able to prioritize and implement the first big steps. The grant helped her introduce 2Simple French straight away. In the meantime I spent my grant on an IPad and adaptors and apps and I had the time to experiment and share with Catherine what I found useful as the use of the IPads is the next step in her program. I really enjoyed the mentoring project as it allowed me to grow as a teacher. I am sure that Catherine and I will extend our professional relationship beyond this project. ||