Sabine Little – Lost Wor(l)ds

Teachers’ strategies for teaching multilingual pupils – Andrea Morrisroe

Categories: Blog. Tags: dissertation, EAL, multilingualism, research and strategies. Topics: English, Literacy and MFL.

This summer I undertook a dissertation as part of a Master’s in Education, specialising in Early Childhood Education. As an Early Years class teacher in primary education for many years, I have always had an interest in language acquisition. This interest developed further as increasing numbers of children were starting school with little or no English. Over time my school developed a policy towards EAL which ensured that effective strategies for supporting pupils with EAL were embedded and the use of home language was encouraged and celebrated.

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Lost Wor(l)ds and COP26

Categories: Blog. Tags: activism, calendar, COP26, diary and environment. Topics: Art & Design, Computing, English, Geography, Literacy, MFL, Music and Science.

From October 31st to November 12th, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Glasgow. To celebrate COP26, we have put together a “Calendar of Events”: for each day of COP26, we are focusing on one specific activity. Some are aimed simply at valuing and appreciating nature, while others are more directly linked to activism and driving change at local level.

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Leafy hedgehogs

Categories: Activities. Tags: outdoors. Topics: Art & Design, Literacy and MFL.

For COP26, we put together a calendar of activity ideas, including the creation of leafy hedgehogs. Here, we offer for downloading a simple leafy hedgehog template with space for children to write the word ‘hedgehog’ in another language, and well as three different templates to encourage people to check their bonfires for hedgehogs, this helping and protecting our spiky friends. Each poster has space to include the message in a language other than English, and we would love to see your results!

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Autumn Scavenger Hunt

Categories: Activities. Tags: autumn, outdoors, scavenger hunt and trees. Topics: Art & Design, English, MFL and Science.

Our multilingual scavenger hunts have been one of the most favourite activities, and this autumn version completes the set. With lots of opportunities to explore the outdoors, this is the perfect activity to get children to use all their languages to explore nature around them.

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100 Feathers and multilingual stories – Minshan Zhang

Categories: Blog. Tags: 100 feathers, research and story writing.

I wanted to research what happened when a space was provided to the students for their use of home language or other language resources that they have, in particular, I am interested in the language use in story writing activity. In order to explore the affordances of multilingual story writing activity, I came up with two research questions: what themes do children identify in their stories? To what extent do students apply their full linguistic repertoire in the multilingual story writing activity? To address those questions, stories written by pupils at primary schools in Sheffield were collected and analysed.

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Sellincourt Primary “Feature School”

Categories: Blog. Tags: feature school, language day, minibeasts, multilingualism and picture poem. Topics: Art & Design, English, Literacy, MFL, Music and Science.

Sellincourt Primary School is located in London and its student population reflects the incredible diversity without our capital city. We know that acknowledging and incorporating pupils’ home languages into their formal learning has positive effects not just on language development and learning in general, but also on important aspects of well-being such as integration and belonging. We were delighted to see how Sellincourt Primary utilised Lost Wor(l)ds activities to celebrate the diversity amongst their pupils. The X form entry school dedicated an entire day in June, to celebrating the connection between language, cultural identity and nature with ‘International Languages Day’.

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A butterfly, superimposed with the word butterfly in multiple languages, and the rhythm notation for these words.

(Minibeast) Speech Song

Categories: Activities. Tags: Music, performance and poetry. Topics: Art & Design, English, Literacy, MFL and Music.

A perfect activity for music lessons, planning performances, showcasing multilingual talent. While the resources are based on minibeasts, once children have grasped the concept, any topic can be used. Children bring in their home languages to explore the rhythm of language – would you clap “grasshopper” different from “butterfly”? How do long and short syllables […]

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100 Feathers

Categories: Activities. Tags: contribute, exhibition, migration, migration matters festival, refugees and asylum seekrs, research, stories and story writing. Topics: English and Literacy.

The “100 Feathers” activity is designed to encourage children to think about people’s stories, by writing a story themselves. We are hoping to collect 100 stories from children, for the 100 feathers flying through the world. This activity is part of Refugee Week and the Migration Matters Festival.

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30 Days Wild – Multilingual

Categories: Activities. Tags: 30 Days Wild, outdoor education and wildlife trusts. Topics: Art & Design, English, Geography, Literacy, MFL, Music and Science.

Every year in June, The Wildlife Trusts run the 30 Days Wild challenge – a challenge to do an activity linked to nature, every day, for the whole month. When we recently met up with our local Wildlife Trust (Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust), we suggested the idea of putting together a multilingual version of 30 Days Wild, suitable both for children growing up multilingual, and for those learning another language at school.

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Translating and Creating Poetry

Categories: Activities. Tags: Chinese, culture, poetry and translation. Topics: English, Literacy and MFL.

This activity gives pupils an opportunity to think about the act of translation, focusing on language as well as meaning. They are supported through translating a 1,300 year-old poem by Li Bai, a famous Chinese poet. The poem, “Quiet Night Thoughts”, uses a simile and simple language to explore the feeling of loneliness when being away from home.

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In search of…language portraits in schools

Categories: Blog. Tags: language portraits, research and wanted.

In today’s blog post, Kexin, one of 11 Masters students undertaking research around the Lost Wor(l)ds project, introduces the Language Portrait Activity and explains why she is hoping to work with a primary school that has used the Language Portrait Activity. If you can help Kexin by facilitating her research (which would mean running the activity in your school and facilitating access to online interviews with children, which can take place outside school hours), please get in touch at lostworlds@sheffield.ac.uk.

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A woodland shown from a small animal's perspective

Shinrin-yoku – the art of forest bathing for mental health

Categories: Blog. Tags: animals, creature feature, forest, home learning idea, mental health, outdoors and walking.

If you go out in the woods today, you’re in for…an opportunity to recharge your mental batteries, to find some peace (yes, probably even if you do go with kids). And in Japanese, there is a word for it – shinrin-yoku (森林浴), literally “forest bath”, the concept of consciously emerging yourself in the woods (some of us might have to turn to parks rather than forests, but that’s okay). This blog posts suggests a way to support children through a mindful visit to the woods.

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Language Portraits

Categories: Activities. Tags: display, induction, language portrait and meeting new pupils.

Essentially, a language portrait is a tried and tested way to encourage children to talk about their different languages, and how they form a part of their identity. The premise is simple – you choose one colour for each language you consider part of your identity, and colour in the outline of a person, in any way you want. Language Portraits are a great way to create a classroom display, and make multilingualism visible.

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Spring Scavenger Hunt

Categories: Activities. Tags: scavenger hunt. Topics: Computing, English, Literacy and Science.

Our Winter Scavenger Hunt has been our most downloaded activity so far, so we hope that our spring version will be equally useful. With lots of opportunities to identify plants and birds, this is the perfect activity to get children outdoors, and use all their languages to explore nature around them.

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Nature Egg / Star Hunt

Categories: Activities. Tags: festivities. Topics: Art & Design, English, Literacy, MFL and Science.

Teach children to enjoy nature without disturbing it, while also enabling them to explore colours in nature and in their home languages. Although timed for Easter, we are sharing two sets of worksheets – one with eggs and one with stars, to ensure the activity is suitable all year round. Children cut out the shape and use the hole as a frame to go on a colour hunt in nature, with space to write colours in home languages, and, if they can, to name some of the items they find in nature.

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Lost Wor(l)ds and Secondary School

Categories: Blog. Tags: International Day of Multilingualism and secondary school. Topics: English, Geography, Literacy, MFL, Music and Science.

Today in the International Day of Multilingualism – the perfect day to address a question we have been hearing a lot from teachers: is Lost Wor(l)ds just for primary? Are there ways to integrate multilingualism into secondary school? The answer to the first question is a resounding “no”, and the answer to the second question is a resounding “yes”!! This blog post gives some ideas on how to adapt Lost Wor(l)ds activities for secondary school.

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A multilingual school allotment/garden

Categories: Activities. Tags: allotment, food, garden, gardening and planting. Topics: Art & Design, Literacy, MFL and Science.

The school garden is a prime space to make multilingualism visible, get children interested in nature, healthy eating, and conservation, and to bring creativity to the learning environment. The premise is simple – encourage children to help label the plants, drawing on their language skills. This activity is so straightforward that we have not included a lesson plan as such, but below are some ideas, suitable for different age ranges and materials, for creating suitable labels – please make your own judgment regarding suitability for the children in your care. We would love to see yours, to add them to the photo gallery below!

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Wor(l)d Views: Malgorzata Blicharska

Categories: Blog. Tags: Wor(l)d Views.

Our second Wor(l)d Views interview introduces the work and languages of Malgorzata Blicharska, who was born in Poland and works as a senior lecturer in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development at Uppsala University in Sweden.

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Covid-19 from a complementary school’s perspective

Categories: Blog. Tags: complementary schools, Covid-19, heritage language schools, multilingual library, online classes and Romanian.

Over the past weeks and months, media has been full of concerns regarding learning, set-ups in schools, home-education, etc. But what has lockdown been like for complementary schools? With schools returning to classroom teaching this week, Alina Badescu, from the Romanian School in Manchester, gives us insights into the impact of the pandemic on learning and teaching at her school.

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Putting the World into World Book Day

Categories: Blog. Tags: award certificate, Ideas for the Classroom, multilingual library, Multilingual reading, parental engagement and World Book Day. Topics: Literacy and MFL.

Concrete ideas on how to make multilingual reading visible in school – this World Book Day and beyond. Includes downloadable award certificate for multilingual readers.

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