Mark Pentleton

As we reach the end of 2010 I thought it only right to have a think back through an extremely busy year and make some notes for posterity!
Radio Lingua
Four years ago, in an attempt to keep my language teaching roots alive while focusing on other things working with the East Ayrshire education team, I decided [...]

Today I’ve been in Gateshead working with a group of MFL teachers on sourcing and creating podcasts in the MFL classroom. I covered various things in my workshops, and below you can find the links to the resources I’ve pointed out.
First of all, I run the Radio Lingua Network of language-learning podcasts, and our educational [...]

It’s a couple of weeks since I was in Cheltenham with enthusiastic teachers from up and down the country at the Apple Teacher Institute. As one of the ADEs I was leading workshops on podcasting and using iPod Touches (and iPads!) in the classroom, but one of my first duties at the conference was to [...]

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I’m really pleased with an article which appeared in yesterday’s Times Educational Supplement about the work I’ve been doing in a North Ayrshire primary school, written by Douglas Blane. Pupils in Glebe Primary have been using our One Minute Mandarin lessons to learn Mandarin Chinese and then I ran an animation workshop with them during [...]

I’ve just finished working on a series of podcasts for Gavinburn Primary in West Dunbartonshire. They’re doing some fantastic work with Games Based Learning and the p3 and p4 pupils are currently doing a major project on the Winter Olympics. The project is a brilliant example of interdisciplinary learning with the pupils looking at the [...]

This afternoon I’m running three workshops at the Apple Leadership Conference at the Cumberland which is running alongside BETT and involves educationalists from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. I’ve been asked to focus on creating resources for the languages classroom, and I’ve created a video version of my presentation. There are a few blips [...]

This past week I've had the privilege of spending six days in Strasbourg in the company of a fantastic group of young people from schools in East Dunbartonshire. The students were taking part in a Euroscola activity, a day of debate and discussion organised by the European Parliament. Throughout the day the students were mixing [...]

Bon vespre. Aquesta nit estic molt cansat i no puc escriure molt. També no tinc diccionari ni llibre de verbs aixi que aquest és el meu primer missatge en catalá del meu cap! (head?) ja no treballo al meu ordenador i escric aquest bloc del meu iPhone.
Bé ja és molt tarde aixi que us [...]

Taking a break from el català, I’ve spent the day working with 玲玲, Líng Líng, our Mandarin developer. We’re currently working on a number of projects, and the first of these – a short course in Mandarin (no prizes for guessing the name of that particular course!) – will be launched along with our Catalan [...]

Una resposta per a na Lisa
Bon vespre, jo sóc en Mark, i com na Lisa jo també estic intentant de millorar el meu català. Sóc també professor, o sigui sóc antic professor de castellà i francès i ara tinc la meva pròpia companyia que produeix materials per a l’ensenyament de les llengües. Visc a Escocia [...]

Malauradament no tinc temps suficient per a escriure aquest bloc cada dia. No obstant això, no vull dir que no estic pensant cada dia al català! Per exemple, el diumenge vaig escoltar alguns podcasts en català; ahir vaig parlar amb la Lisa Stevens que també està intentant de millorar el seu català (o més ben [...]

Abans de tot, ja cal donar les gràcies a Ana per la seva ajuda amb el meu post d’ahir. Gràcies també per la gravació qu’em vas enviar per a ajudar-me amb la meva pronunciació.
Avui només he fet una mica de català: no he tingut molt temp perquè ahir celebràvem l’aniversari del meu fill i avui [...]

Em dic Mark. Visc en Escòcia i sóc director d’una companyia que ofereix materials per a la gent que vol aprendre altres idiomes. Sóc antic professor d’idiomes i parlo castellà, francès, italià, i una mica d’alemany, i de noruec. M’agrada aprendre altres idiomes perquè m’agrada comunicar amb altra gent. Per això, vull aprendre el català: [...]

So, it’s time to announce my little personal challenge for the next four weeks! On Friday 26 September I’ll be doing a presentation at Podcamp Barcelona … in Catalan. I’ll be announcing exactly what I’m going to be presenting about soon, but I’ve decided to use this as an opportunity to challenge myself to see [...]

I started my ‘big trip‘ a week past on Thursday when I flew from Glasgow to Keflavík in Iceland. Arriving late at night it was great to be picked up by a member of staff from the Northern Lights Inn at the airport. Joining me in the minibus were two elderly gentlemen who were planning [...]