Autumn celebrations culture and language learning

Over the next couple of weeks in primary school you will be busy getting ready with children to celebrate harvest time and Autumn. We celebrate Autumn in our SOW and it's a great way to practise simple familiar and useful language.

Here is my first of two blogs on ways to in corporate Autumn in to your language teaching this half term.

Here are some simple ideas for all staff to practise basic and familiar target language:

• It's a great way to practise numbers and colours using cut out card leaves (with numbers and colours)as stepping stones  and adding an element of elimination to the game. Place the lots of cut out leaves on the floor/ around the room (with numbers and colours on them in the target language) and ask the children to walk around the room standing on the leaves. When you call a number or a colour of they are stood on or next to a leaf with that number or colour written on it, then they are out! 

• It's a great way to practise sounds in numbers and colours in the target language.You need leaves cut out of white card . On one side is written a key sound from the target language word for the object  or symbol on the reverse of the card.Divide you class into teams.Stick all the leaves sound side up to the board or flip chart. Can the children take turns in teams to guess the object (e.g colour/ number ) on the reverse of the card.Turn the card over and if the team  guesses correctly, then the team wins  the leaf.The team with the most leaves at the end of the activity has won the "harvest".With early learners stick to one theme e.g. just colours but with more advanced learners create your leaves using two or three very familiar themes - e.g. days, months , numbers. You will need to give teams thinking and reflection time before you start the game so that they can try and recall independently the language they are going to need to focus upon.

• Practise simple actions and commands associated with harvest time e.g  picking ,smelling, looking for ,tasting, eating fruits and vegetables . Create actions and play simple games such as Simon says or last farmer standing - where children freeze frame in a chosen action of their own and if you say that action the children in that particular freeze frame must sit down. Who will be the last farmer standing? 

• Create piles of card leaves with maximum of 10 cards in each pile.Give a pile to each table. On some of the leaves there are letters that are in a random order but when re-assembled in a specific order form a word that is familiar to the children. Ask the tables to create a similar challenge of letters that make up a word pile of leaves for another table.With more advanced learners make this a full sentence challenge with whole words on leaves or even more challenging with words that have been split in to two and written on separate leave and are part of the sentence,

PE games in French and Spanish

Yesterday evening with a group of coordinators and SLT who are looking for simple ways to develop staff confidence in primary language teaching and learning we took a look at a couple of simple PE games. 

Traffic light colours and numbers 
We watched a clip of local children playing a very simple French traffic light game in the playground where colours prompted physical activities. Red meant stop, orange meant walk and vert meant the children had to run. when the teacher called jaune ,the children jumped in start shapes counting up to ten and then when she called bleu they jumped in star shapes all the way down to zero. These were Year 2 children and they were having fun!

Very easy to facilitate and the teacher and the children were revisiting colours and numbers.The light bulb independent moment here must be to then allow the children to create their own rules with the colours and Lightbulb mocreate their own warm up games in groups. These activities will work well across KS2 too!

Reaction times!Ball!

Our children and teachers love this game!It's a five minute sitting down at the desk activity or a five minute running and seeking/retrieving activity in PE or a pair activity sitting cross legged in the hall at the end or start of a PE lesson.

We call it ball because initially it can be played with a ball . Teachers could then add other items/ objects/ a choice of the same items but in different colours or sizes.

Place the "ball" (any object) in between a pair of students or place the ball/item in one of the corners of the room etc.

Students must respond to teacher instruction by touching what is called out. 

When teacher shouts BALL, the first student that grabs the ball is the winner

Make it a simple reaction game with the words to the song of heads ,shoulders ,knees and toes- first to touch "head" when the teacher or a child calls a body part from the song!

Light bulb moment! Make it an  ongoing team challenge and ask the children to make the descriptions of items ever more challenging e.g have three balls all the same colour but different sizes or three pictures of an animal but with a slight;y different feature e.g blue eyes/brown eye/ green eyes.

North East South West-

This is a game we are sure you already play with the children in PE.

Label each wall of the hall North, East, South and West in the target language.

Generate a warm up activity ,where the children standing on the spot stretch toward each compass point as it is called and hold each stretch for a number of counted seconds (in the target language of course!)

Now it's a speed challenge!

When teacher calls out wall label e.g. ‘North’, students must run to the wall without being last to arrive.

(The labels can be changed to whatever your learning focus is - so they could be clothes items/ foods/ days of the week/ months of the year/ a group of nouns on one corner/ verbs in anther and adjectives and adverbs in the other corners)

Progress the game by incorporating rules such as ‘freeze’ where if "freeze" is shouted, pupils must freeze immediately. 

Incorporate mini –forfeits for the losing pupil e.g. Name 5 colours in French

Spanish words to help you ....

North	Norte
East	Este
South	Sur
West	Oeste
Freeze	Quietos

French words to help you......

North	Nord
East	Est
South	Sud
West	Ouest
Freeze	Gèle

Light bulb moment would be to ask the children to take turns in being the teacher from the initial warm up to the playing of the different games. Children could also decide what language to put in each corner of the room.

Red light/ green light

Again we think this will be a game you already play with your classes.However here we have added a target language touch!

Students line up, touching one wall in the hall or room.

Aim is to get to the opposite side of the hall and back first

When teacher shouts ‘green light’ they can go, when teacher shouts ‘red light’ they must stop

If pupils fail to stop, or move when red light is called they must return to the start.

The teacher chooses the method of travel for pupils for example ‘come back to the start hopping’, skipping, jumping , swimming , sliding,

Spanish words to help you ....

Red light	Luz roja
Green light	Luz verde
Stop	Para
Return to the start	Vuelve a la salida
Hopping	Saltando a pata coja
Skipping	Saltando a la cuerda
Jumping	Saltando
Swimming	Nadando
sliding	Deslizando

French words to help you ......

Red light	Feu rouge
Green light	Feu vert
Stop	Arrêtez
Return to the start	Retourne au départ
Hopping	En sautant à cloche pied
Skipping	En sautillant
Jumping	En sautant
Swimming	En nageant
sliding	En glissant

Light bulb moment! Ring the changes and give the children three different types of movements they need to make to get back to their starting position or change the movement command mid activity or add the word "Freeze"! Let children take the role of teacher and call the actions etc.

Role Tag Game

2 players selected  as ‘the person’

The ‘the person “’ players have a list of skills cards

If a pupil gets tagged by the ‘the person" they are provided with a task to complete to free themselves.

Tasks could be ask a question , tell me your name  or an activity such as :count to 10 , greet me ,

The tagged pupil has to move to the side and complete the task before they are free to move on.

You could add children who are the ‘referees’, and stand at the side of the hall and decide whether the children who are tagged have completed the task 

You will need task cards.

Light bulb moment will be to ask the children to create their own task cards and decide what spoken target language challenges they want to ask other classmates to do before they are freed. 

  

Abstract art and beginners target language learning.

Sometimes the simplest things inspire! Take  a look at this simple but wonderful book that I have just bought  myself ! I love "Art" and particularly abstract art. 

Simple ideas that many of us already consider and ways that many of us already plan for and use to generate additional language learning.These ideas work just as well where the class teacher delivers the language learning or where the class teacher engages with the languages teacher, be it a visiting teacher or a PPA swap.In these instances there is definitely the scope to add five and ten minute "class teacher ownership " learning opportunities.Why not go cross curricular?

So how do the book at the top of this blog and the article about time allocation link together? Well this book is just one example of how we can create effective cross curricular links with language learning ,.... (and possibly use authentic target language literature as well)

Take a look inside! Go to Amazon.co.uk here

30 cercles

 and get a taste for this very simple book which could be used in target language learning for five minute additional activities to 

• practise numbers, (Maths)

• colours, size, (Maths)

• commands like "find","touch","draw" (classroom communication skills)

• explore famous Art and artists. (Art)

For example why not google the paintings mentioned here

Vassily Kandinsky cercles concentriques 1913 (concentric circles)

Kasimir Malevitch cercle noir vers 1923 (black circles)

I am certain that primary minds are now buzzing... why not create your own abstract art books with colours or squares or lines?????

Mondrian comes to mine and Kandinsky once again....

Nouns, definite and indefinite articles and colour card magic tricks

This last week @EWoodruffe and I have been busy training groups of staff at individual school CPD sessions. We worked in one school where the children in Year 4 to Year 6 are moving on in their language learning and the staff were keen to find ways to support their growing inquisitiveness about the grammar of the French language.

As part of the CPD we looked at nouns and how to practise knowledge ,recognition and application of definite and indefinite articles. Here are the games, step by step. You will be able to revisit these games over and over again as the children learn more language and hopefully this will increase the children’s growing confidence in how to use articles before nouns.

All you need  for the games in French are six coloured paper squares to represent le ,la ,un,une, les and des. (If you apply these games to other languages then you will need n amount of different coloured cards to represent the amount of definite and indefinite articles you are practising in that specific target language)

You can reduce the number of coloured cards and still play the games if you r focus is just on definitie and indefinite singular articles or definite and indefinite plural articles.

Each child will need their own sets of these coloured squares too.  

We are making the assumption here that the children already know a series of nouns within a context such as animals. The children also already are aware that in French there are two singular definite articles and a plural definite article and they have had exposure to the indefinite articles too . You can play the games below and go through the steps just to practise definite articles in the singular and plural or to practise the change between definite and indefinite singular articles . It's a mix and match opportunity to practise a grammatical structure :the use of definite articles "the " and indefinite articles "a/some " with nouns in the target language.

Step One

Discuss clearly with the class the noun magic trick the class have become aware of- whether this is different words for" THE"/ how to change "THE to A" in the target language or plural words for "THE and SOME" we have become aware of ….

Reveal an empty table on the flip chart.This table below has four rows and three columns…. because we are looking at the big picture and assuming that the children are ready to practise changing between singular and plural definite and indefinite articles .But why are there four rows?

Well all will be revealed!

First we ask the class to go on a noun class hunt .In this instance we are looking for animal nouns and for three specific animal picture cards concealed on the room . You can  pretend to be explorers with language hunting binoculars and look carefully around the classroom for cards that have been concealed e.g.

“Cherchez le serpent/la souris/les poissons” 

Place the animal pictures in the second row of the table and then remove and replace the cards when you have collected them all with the correct definite article when the class are confident to tell the teacher  the noun  with the correct definite article.

Remember we were playing these games as part of staff CPD and the great thing is to have Emilie our native speaker teacher supporting too. The teachers  loved hearing how Emilie is teaching her own little boy to speak French and always says the noun with the definite article in French when they meet new nouns together.This came about from a question by a teacher about “Well how do children in France learn if it’s le or la?” Thanks Emilie – it’s great to have native  hands on knowledge like that! We thought you may also like to know this and share with your children too.

So in the second row write the definite articles in French after removing the pictures of nouns (le serpent/la souris/les poissons)

le	la	les

In the fourth row place the indefinite articles after  discussing  how you are now looking  “a snake/a mouse/some horses”.

Go on your animal hunt   using our imaginary binoculars…talk about how this time  you aren't  specifically looking for a specific snake etc. 

As we  are no longer looking for a very speicifc snake etc one of the teachers on CPD suggested that we should therefore have more than one picture card of “le serpent” etc so that children could make a random choice not an exact definite choice. Good idea!

Once again place your pictures on the chart,but this time in the third row. 

Remove the pictures and replace the pictures with the correct written indefinite articles 

le	la	les
un	une	des

So why have we got additional rows?

Well now we need to add our magic trick colour coded guide! Take a look!

le	la	les
un	une	des

The colour blocks represent the article below them, green is le , blue is la etc …..

Step Two

Practice your magic trick by checking that if “the teacher” holds up a coloured piece of card the children can respond  by calling out the correct definite or indefinite article

Step Three

Look at a list of known nouns (e.g here our focus has been animals in French) with definite articles, written as a list for the children. 

Call a colour  and the children have to select a noun that they can use to say the correct definite/indefinite article with that noun

e.g. If “blue “ is called in the target language , then the response from children must be a feminine noun ( noun preceded by “la”) but if brown is called in the target language then the children’s response must be a noun in the  plural with the indefinite plural article “ a plural noun of the animal preceded by “des”

Step Four 

Make this a pair game 

Call a colour pair game. Simply ask the children to practise as a game "step three" but this time in pairs.

Step Five  

Show a colour, say a colour and can a child give you a full sentence with a correct article and noun?

Step Six  

Make this a pair or group game 

Simply play step five as a pair or group game .

Step Seven

Ask the children to order their coloured paper squares in any order they wish and to challenge a partner to say animals with the correct definite/ indefinite article in the order that has been arranged with the coloured squares for them by their partner.

Step Eight

Ask the children to play last article standing.

They just select a coloured square and stand up holding the square clearly in front of them. The teacher selects one of his/her coloured cards from a bag and says a noun which has a corresponding definite or indefinite article before it .

If the children are holding the coloured square that corresponds to the definite /indefinite article that the teacher has used,they must sit down. Who will be the last children standing?

Step Nine

Play the game above as a table game.

Make this a pair or group game 

Teachers at the CPD session felt that over time they could confidently grow n their own competent use of definite and indefinite articles by playing and practising the games and steps with their classes- not necessarily all the steps at one time or all the definite and indefinite articles singular and plural at one time.

We felt that over and over again we can come back to these simple games and play some or all of them to reinforce children and teacher knowledge of definite and indefinite articles with nouns. 

Hope you find these steps and simple games useful too!

Getting on board with primary language learning! A whole staff learning experience

Getting on board with primary languages can seem really challenging and especially when you want everyone on the staff in individual schools through staff CPD  to practise simple language, know where to find sound files to support and to try out some transferable activities using simple language.


Short Activities to help teachers and children
The short activities which can help to build staff confidence and also engage young learners are based around greetings and feelings , using simple greetings and personal information, colours and colour games, numbers 1-10 and games.

Start up activities that can become the route to favourite 5 minute activities 
Remember these are start up activities and they will also help teachers to develop favourite activities that can be played for five minutes when teachers have time outside of the language learning allotted time. Revisiting core language helps everyone!

We understand that there is so much more that school will want to do with language learning but here is a starting point for all your staff.

Start Up Show and Tell
If your school is starting up language learning altogether then plan for a whole school "Show and Tell" with each class taking responsibility for an element. This will work because the whole school in the first half term will be focusing on similar language content maybe with different age appropriate approaches e.g:

Year 3: a greetings song 
Year 4:colours and a song to a familiar refrain
Year 5: numbers and a game for the whole school
Year 6: simple dialogues  in the target language

Record the individual elements and share these on your VLE and create a display called "Start Up!" where you can share with the wider community what your KS2 and teachers children have just started to learn!

When you are ready then investigate more .....have a look here 

Displaying what we can do Getting started rocket mobiles

Practising commands Five little commands and so much more
Simple songs and listening skills simple songs and activities 
Games with numbers Fantasy football teams
Building dialogues Totem pole sticks as a dialogue tool

Colour and drama and creative games colour mimes and word association
Listening with colours and numbers Listening sticks
Practising nouns with guessing games Open and reveal four corners

Moving on together
So how can you move on together and share good practice? 
Well maybe a SOW may be required that demonstrates progression over time and stages of learning .If you are a network school then you may already be accessing the SOW and if so make sure that all your staff can access the podcasts, sound files and the key word charts to support them with new language.
As a staff set off together and develop a sustainable and supportive learning continuum.Maybe the ideas here will suit your school too Ready Steady Go  

Creating sequences of learning
Be aspirational and look toward making sure all four skills are practised and that the children learn with the staff about the basic grammar or the language.Be creative and keep the primary in the learning. 
Have a look at ideas colleagues have shared on Network News and the ways Emilie takes the simple lessons and makes something  achievable and creative bonjour madame blogspot- easily transferable to German and Spanish or any target language too!
When you are ready as a school then consider sequences such as these here using all four skills and an authentic rhyme .

Getting on board with grammar and learning tools
You may find the blog post about bilingual dictionaries  really useful too. 
You may find the blog post about nouns, definite and indefinite article games  really useful too. 

Numbers and activities to get all staff on board

Getting on board with primary languages can seem really challenging and especially when you want everyone on the staff to grow in confidence. This week Emilie, Ana and I are out and about ,delivering staff CPD to every member of staff within a school,practising language and encouraging staff to try out some transferable activities using simple language.

Remember these are start up activities and they will also become favourite activities that can be played for five minutes when teachers have time outside of the language learning allotted time.

Below are some short activities which can help to build staff confidence and also engage young learners using target language numbers.

Numbers

We love this song and its clip as a way of practising numbers.

It exists in French,Spanish and German. 

• You can sing it in correct order 1-10 and in reverse order 10-1 . 
• You can pause and ask the children the next number
• You can ask children only to sing odd numbers or even numbers 
• You can use the four clips on European Languages Day to look for similarities and differences in the sound of numbers 1-10 in five languages and include English of course!
• You can play a game of Lotto (Bingo) or a version of the circle maths game "elevenses" but if the teacher doesn't know eleven in the target language then why not make it "nineses" and just play to nine. You don't want to have to say the number nine or you are out!

Now the class and the teacher can 

• count items, 
• perform a number song for assembly ,
• link numbers and colours (have a look here at colours and ways to practise simple colours)- where a colour is called and the children have to remember which number they have seen in the colour, 
• play Splat with two teams and numbers. 

Dame Tartine

This week at our conference we had the opportunity to consider ways to develop phonics activities in target languages that help children understand the reading code of the new language. We consider the use of song, phonics in a target language,ways to record creatively written work, use of APPS and we briefly considered simple drama activities .
Let's bring these all together and celebrate their use linking this to an authentic text in the target language!
I have chosen for this example the comptine "Dame Tartine" ,as it's nearly the end of the school year and has a feel of a celebration cake!
We will be focusing on one verse only but here are two video clips with subtitles that can help your class to read and practise and sing along with the comptine.

Here is the verse we will focus on....

Il était une dame Tartine,

Dans un beau palais de beurre frais.

La muraille était de praline,

Le parquet était de croquets.

La chambre à coucher

De crème de lait ,

Le lit de biscuits,

Les rideaux d’anis.

It's an amazing palace that's being described made from tasty sweets and cake ingredients.

Step One - let's practise the comptine (listening,reading,joining in and singing)

• Let's listen to the whole comptine.
• Now let's listen to the first verse again with the subtitles visible.
• Now let's join in and try to practise the first verse
• Now let's sing along.
• Play the first verse again and conceal the screen - how well can the children remember song?

Step Two:Phonics and phoneme-grapheme/letter string recognition

• Draw an outline of the bedroom(walls/floor/bed/curtains) described in this verse and give each table an outline.Give out the five ingredients as word cards to each table.Ask the tables to decide where they would put each ingredient from the rhyme. Ask the table to say the rhyme to each other and decide where their ingredients should be stuck with blu-tac on the outline.Share the tables decisions.
• Now take the children phoneme - grapheme/letter string shopping like Julie Prince demonstrated at the conference.Each table needs a bag with a grapheme or letter string of a sound contained in one or more of the ingredients.Take a look at the picture here.

Remember!

This really brings out the competitive element! More than one table may have a sound on their bag this is contained in the ingredient noun. The table that reacts quickest and loudest will win the ingredient!

Step Three:Word recognition/memory and listening-reading

• Can the children match the items in the rhyme to the ingredients.Give out to pairs the words for the items and the words for the ingredients .
• First they must say them and match them
• Then they must say them , match them and order them as they remember them in the comptine
• Play the comptine first verse again ....where they correct? Or do they need to reorder some of the components?

Step Four:Speaking for a creative purpose with drama and the use of Yakit APP   

• Now add a touch of drama and performance.Ask the children to imagine that they are museum curators. Can they take it in turns working with a partner to show visitors around an the very special bedroom of this "palace".Can they not only make it sound delicious but also look delicious too?
• The children could draw the "delicious" bedroom and create a Yakit voice over of the bedroom- just like Emilie showed us at the conference. Take a look here at Emilie's fashion show  Yakit to give you an idea how this could work

Step Five:Making a written record and writing creatively in the target language.

• Let's make a mini book record of the Dame Tartine.A glorious celebration cake shaped mini book with flaps for the door where "la dame Tartine " can be seen and a flap (upon which is written the description of the items from the comptine) .When you open the flap it reveals the bedroom with the floor, the walls, the bed and the curtains all decorated as calligrams with the words for the ingredients.
• Why not let the children create another bedroom in the palace with calligrams of different ingredients - you can decide how many of the ingredients must rhyme with the items depending on how challenging you want this to be.

Find out more about @vallesco's mini books here.

Using the template described in the blog above to create your own sequence of lessons 

One sequence of lessons leads to another and one of the great things about the colleagues mentioned in this blog is that we all inspire each other and challenge each other to try new ideas. Julie Prince has developed a sequence of lessons, inspired by this blog post on one of her favourite action rhymes trois petits chats. I love it! Hope you find it useful too!

Five commands and so much impact in a beginners target language lesson

Five little words....

Five commands , but you can have so much impact with beginners listening,speaking,reading and writing!

We can encourage young target language learners to be involved in dynamic and engaging activities right from the word go!

Today at a start up staff meeting we focused on 5 very physical imperatives:

jump

run

walk

dance 

move 

The aims were to try out beginners listening, speaking , reading and writing activities using these 5 little words. We wanted to  see how much impact you can have over all four skills and language learning strategies and skill with just five words in a target language.We found that we had a full lesson of activities , practising and reinforcing skills of learning a language that a non- specialist could deliver and develop creatively.You then have 5 commands ready for links with primary PE and dance using the target language commands.

Maybe once you have tried the activities below you could move on to "

Powerhouse machine imperatives

  drama and grammar activity described in this blog post!

Listen and respond

• Introduce each of the commands as a physical activity - jumping on the spot, running the spot, marching , disco dancing, wiggling slowly up and down on the spot
• Ask the children to do each of these actions for a specific amount of time and before you start the activity to check their pulse , after three actions done for a specific time, 30 seconds each, to check their pulse and at the end of the activity to check their pulse. What's  the difference and why?
• Play a game of Simon says as a whole class game with the movements.
• Play a game of class puppets . Call an action and the children must do that action and change actions as quickly as they can ,when they hear you say another action.

Saying simple words and phrases

• Ask the children to say and perform the movements, making the commands sound just like their actions.
• Split the class in to groups of four and play team simon says - each child taking responsibility for a 60 second game.
• Allow each child in the group to be a group puppeteer.The other three children must listen to the their commands and do what they say , changing from one action to another action as quickly as they can and as soon as they hear the new command.

Reading familiar command words

.

• Lay large command word cards out on the floor as if they are stepping stones across the floor.You will need 5 of each word card ,laid out in a random order. 
• Invite a group of five children at a time to stand at one end of the stepping stones. Invite the line of children to step across the cards from one side of the hall or room to the other.
• As they step on a particular card they must read the action command and perform the action command.They move from one card to the next when you tell them to do so.
• Repeat the activity with a second group
• Play the game as a small group game 

Writing our favourite familiar command words.

• With beginner learners we need now to practise writing. The teachers loved this activity today and I am certain that children will do too.Display the command cards at the front of the room . 
• Ask the children to select their favourite command and action. 
• Can they write the letters of the word in the style of the action they performed e.g jumpy letters, wiggly letters in a vertical top to bottom line, dancing letters etc.
• Can they share their large in the air command writing with the class? 

Add three simple adverbs and try the activities all over again!

Add challenge and also revisit with a twist by adding adverbs that slow down or speed up the actions e.g. 

move slowly 

dance quickly 

jump fast

run slowly 

walk quickly 

.

Simple songs and first step language skills

How many familiar refrains can you hum? (frère Jacques, London’s Burning, Nice One Cyril, Here we go gathering nuts in May)

How many familiar refrains can the children hum and remember from songs in KS1 and links to traditional songs?

Let’s build on these simple refrains  to support initial language acquisition of transactional language ( e.g questions and answers in the first and second person singular , numbers and a key question ,colours and a key question etc.

Why? Well a traditional refrain means we don't have to worry about the tune - just the words and we can use the familiar refrains to focus on syllables  , repetition and  putting song (the words ) into memory and then recalling the words when we need them in a different context.I think                                             lots of us already realise this and use these methods!

Here's one way of developing this approach:

• Introduce key simple phrases and add actions in the target language that generate a dialogue e.g greetings, feelings, a farewell
• The actions can reinforce the number of syllables in the word (e.g. hallo in German is two syllables- so we would shake a hand twice)   or the type of sound we have to produce (we need to roll our “r” in French words such as “merci” so let’s use or hand to roll up from the bottom of the throat to remind us to try and roll that “r”) or maybe it’s a question – so let’s use our famous question mark(thanks Amanda Ziebeck one of wonderful former associate language teachers) with a flick at the end when we need our intonation to go up at the end .
• Try this and see how it works. Draw a question mark in the air as you say “Comment ça va?” and add a flick upwards  on the last word….your intonation will automatically rise!
• Discuss with the children why you have added the actions you have – can they think of their own too to help them remember the words or accurately reproduce the sounds?

• Create a song to a familiar refrain of the phrases you have been practising with the children. Ask the children to listen to your song and just do the actions as they hear the words.
• Set the children the task now of putting these phrases to new music- to a new familiar refrain and listen and watch what they come up with.
• Alternatively before you sing or play your own song, ask the children to invent their songs and then see how many of their songs are very similar to your own.

Simple effective fun! and works every time!  A re-usable teaching and learning tool that involves listening , repetition, responding to spoken language ,rhythm and use of sound patterns and a little bit of  creativity! 

Fantasy Football Team

Sometimes the old ideas and the simplest ideas are still the best!

Many World Cups ago with a group of beginners in Year 5 I was practising numbers and how to say our names in French. It seemed a great opportunity to combine football, numbers and names. We created our own fantasy football teams and the idea has been rolled out many times and in many different ways.

All you need are templates for football shirts with the numbers printed on them. The lowest order of numbers is obviously 1-11 but you could add subs too!

The activity appealed to boys and girls because this was the creation of their own personal fantasy football team so it was amazing how many story characters, film stars, boy bands and cartoon characters made their way into these teams . However some of us took t really seriously and had to contemplate which great footballer was their goalie etc….especially when the players had to be drawn from the international pool of players taking part in the World Cup or European Cup etc that was the sporting event of the season.

So with a simple set of cards this is what we have done over the years …since 1996 to be exact!

Manager and team

A simple number sort .

The manager can’t get the numbered shirts in order!A different child holds each shirt and the scenario is a team photo 1-11- can the class help you put the shirts in order. It’s great fun misplacing the numbers in the sequence and getting the children to help you reorder the numbers and over and over again getting the order out of synch! Finally give up and let someone else be the manager and ask the class to help them count the shirts into the correct order.

Sound shirts and players from the target language country.

Who will be playing in which shirt at the match .  Introduce the children to famous players from the target language country …not necessarily playing in the specific World Cup team. Focus on key sounds in the names of the players. Add the sound as a grapheme to the reverse side of one of the numbered shirts. Blu-tac them to the board number side up .Divide your class in to two teams. Can the  children select a number, turn the card over say the sound they read on the reverse and name the correct player .Which team wins?

Colours, flags and shirts

Introduce the children to five key teams in the World Cup. Practise the names of the countries in the target language. Look at the flags for each of the countries and practise the colours in the flags. Blu-tac the flags to the board with no country names on them. In a bag or box put the names of the five countries with one of the numbers 1-11 on the cards too. Divide the class in to two teams. Can each team take it in turns to ask politely for a country. Pull out a card with that country on it and the team must then say the number and identify the correct flag. 

Can they say the colours on the flag and can one of their team members

colour in the shirt with these colours?

Fantasy Teams

Give each class member a set of smaller version team shirts with numbers on. Ask the class to decide who they would like in their fantasy team. They must create a mobile or a poster or a team layout for their fantasy team with pictures of the heads of the chosen famous people or characters attached to the shirts. The children must introduce their teams to their class mates –as if they were holding a simple greetings and question answer dialogue .

This can be done in the first and second person singular:

e.g

Hello number one. What are you called?

Hello I am called ……..

Or as third person singular question and answer dialogue

e.g

Hello ! What is player number ….called?

S/he is called …….

Or as simple presentation

e.g 

In my team there are eleven players ,Number one is called ….., number two is called……. etc

Finally don’t forget to display the teams – as the children are always really proud of their own fantasy football teams ! 

Take a look at the sequence of lessons here we have already created for the World Cup celebrations

Brasil, celebrating the World Cup with a twist

World Cup Warm Ups

World cup Lessons Ready To Go

Extending listening sticks

Extending listening sticks

Last month I shared my simple resource of “Listening Sticks” and how these could be used to encourage children to practise listening and responding for key information.

Here's the link to my original blog Listening sticks 

You will need a master copy for all the activities where you are the speaker 

Here's a simple colours and numbers listening stick for one child

Since my first simple blog about listening sticks  I have been able to put together a sequence of activities that  help children to progress in their ability to listen and respond and that can be used along the way be as a simple device to create activities to track progress and to assess individual children’s developing skills .

Moving on and listening for specific words and phrases ……from the very simple activity described in my previous blog , I have explored using these sticks to listen for specific words and phrases – so for example if the objects (for examples the numbers on the listening stick) are printed in different colours – then we can ask the children to listen for two items – a number and a colour . You could not wave your stick if the colour of the number on your stick did not correspond to the information they heard.

Creating a recall listening stick …..Why not ask the children to create their own listening sticks to challenge children to recall language from prior learning during the year

Listening for key information in longer or more detailed texts  and identifying key language . This activity uses the same simple listening stick bit this time look at the stick below ….when would you wave your stick if this was the  text you heard ?

"Hello , I am called Paul Green and I am 7  years old.I have one brother and he is 9 years old .He has black hair and blue eyes and loves animals . We have 7 cats and dogs in our house and 1 rabbit ……"

Making a listening stick a writing stick!

Why not encourage the children to write a series of sentences themselves  to create a text which has to include each of the items on their listening stick !

Mind the gap and get writing

Mind the gap : punctuation prompts

This activity is to encourage the children to write messages that they already know in the target language....

e.g a question , a statement , a command  or a spoken response

Before attempting the task the children need to be secure in their knowledge of spoken phrases.

You could try the activity at first with Y4 toward the end of the year of learning or Y5 and Y6 based on their knowledge of personal information questions and answers .

Children in the activity are being encouraged to show us what they can write rather than penalised for not knowing the correct phrase .

Just what can the children recall and attempt to write in the target language

At the start of the academic year in Y4 give children, working with a partner, strips of paper which just contain target language punctuation and an appropriate  gap for the missing words e.g.

• target language question marks
• exclamation marks
• target language speech marks
• a full stop
• a comma and a full stop

Here’s a Spanish example

¿........................................................................?

Increase the challenge 

Expect the children as they progress through Y4 and in to Y5 to work individually on an activity like this .

Give out two mind the gap challenges - so that children need to think of a question and an appropriate response

Increase this to four or five mind the gap strips and encourage the children to create a short written dialogue/ role play or conversation

You can differentiate the task by providing some children with a mind the gap text. 

An AfL Transition Opportunity 

This is an activity which could be used for simple AfL at the start of the Y7 academic year , especially if it's an activity the children have grow used to in UKS2 . Teachers can see what the children can recall , create and write.