You might like to finish the term by reading René Koglbauer’s letter to Mr Gibb, Minister of State at the Department for Education, and thinking about why and how the Welsh government are trying to reverse the decline in foreign language learning in Wales. Huw Lewis, Welsh Labour Co-operative politician, spoke about globalisation “continuing to transform our economy and industries”. “I want our young people to understand that a sound knowledge of another language can help them get ahead in life, in education and the competitive world,” he said. Let’s hope for a more optimistic future for our subject across all areas of Britain.

As I mentioned last week,  the discussions at the workshop about new DLL programme in London recently made me think. A starter activity, designed to consider metaphors that describe teachers particularly made me think!  Amongst the suggestions were; conductor, magician, gardener, and animal trainer! We talked around the idea of a teacher as a gardener quite a lot and about fertiliser (well, actually we used the verb düngen). On the train on the way home I was reflecting again on what kind of soil we need to help plants to grow and what conditions we need in our classrooms to enable good progress to be made.

As I left the railway station to drive home I saw thousands of foxgloves growing where trees had been felled. This is not an exaggeration, they were everywhere. The view was just stunning. I took several photos, but none of my photos could be compared to some that a man took who had also stopped his car as well. He had a much better camera and his photos were incredible. This made me think that with the constantly improving equipment we have in the classroom now what we can and could achieve with our pupils in the future.

As the summer break comes I wish you time to relax and enjoy what is around you and the people you enjoy being with and of course time to recharge your batteries.

Next post in September!