Planning Idea's Off the Cuff!

Learn to Count to 20 in Thai from myles webb on Vimeo.

Currently we have two students from Thailand in our classroom for two weeks, who are departing on Thursday.  They've been learning more English while at the same time teaching our own students some Thai.  This video is focussing on teaching our students to speak Thai and also there is some bonus footage of the students showing a skill that they learnt, using Rakau sticks!

This is a natural progression.   We had two students who were placed with us for two weeks.  Our students had to interact with them, which we did, and we also took the opportunity to produce some material that related to their stay.  It allowed our students to interact with them successfully, allowed our students to produce material that I believe had an interest to others, and allowed the students to have meaning through their work.    Was it the best produced video ever? No! Were the students the most confident, no not really, but did they achieve something with what occurred.   Yes.  I have always said that by FAR the most popular thing that students in my classrooms have authored has been the "Learn to Speak [Samoan]" series of lessons.  Its something that I am sure must exist somewhere else in some format produced by educators but I haven't seen it.   Perhaps I'm missing something but I would love to see 'Learn to Speak Spanish' or 'Learn to Speak French' (actually I have seen a rip off of my idea by someone who told me that yes that's exactly what they are doing I couldn't believe the awful quality of it to be honest).    I don't understand why educators don't take the plunge and do it.  It would a) be easy to produce and straightforward b) it would bring in an audience not only as part of school work but a wider educational audience [google searches] c) the kids would get a huge thrill out of it as it would empower them by involving their culture!