Category: ideas

Jane Halsall, Primary Advisory teacher for Liverpool and Maria Romeo, a FLA in Liverpool have worked together to develop some ideas for linking PE and MFL. Maria is a trained PE teacher in Spain and brings lots of ideas for warm ups and spontaneous ideas that can link areas of the curriculum. Examples in French and Spanish.

Sardinas en lata

Pupils move around the room as instructed

eg walk / andad, jump / saltad, run / corred. Teacher calls ‘Sardinas en lata de … / Get into groups of…. ’ and pupils have to get into a group of that number; you could get the pupils to lie down head to toe like a can of sardines.

Hoops

Spread different coloured hoops around the hall. As a warm up, name parts of the body as practice

French rap – tête bra main doigt jambe pied et dos de dos

Yeux nez bouche oreilles et stomach.

Pupils move around the room – Marchez vite / lentement / par tout on y va marchez

Dansez

Leader says part of body and pupils put that part of the body in the hoop eg pied (gauche), nez, stomach

After a bit, use colour of hoop in which to put part of body eg pied, rouge; oreille bleu

Julie, c’est quelle couleur?

Coloured cones to mark the designated area, then hoops (or other coloured objects) spread around the room.

One child is ‘Julie’ or ‘Julien’

Group say ‘Julie, c’est quelle couleur?’

Julie says a colour – all touch that colour and Julie tries to catch someone.

If she does, they become Julie o Julien

You could add instructions for saying the phrase eg Plus fort / Comme un elephant etc

Can be adapted to other topics- animals, number

El panuelo

Two equal lines, numbered as high as necessary

Person in centre has a scarf held high.

Call a number and the two people with that number run to the centre and grab the scarf.

To win a point they need to make it back to their line without the opponent stopping them or snatching the scarf.

Could be adapted with two objects and groups race to fetch and get back, or perhaps with a pile of animals or clothes with the caller calling the number and name of animal to find and take back.

1,2 ,3 chocolate

Like what’s the time Mr Wolf

Person who is ‘on’ stands at one end of the room by a wall and chants ‘uno, dos, tres chocolate’ or ‘uno dos tres chocolate, ingles a la pared.’ if you think the pupils need more time, whilst the rest of the group approach. The person who is on turns on the last word to see if anyone is moving. If they see someone, they ask a question eg ¿Cómo te llamas? and send them back ‘atrás por favor’ Once someone arrives at the wall, they become ‘on’

Earthquake

groups of 3 – minimum of 9 people – in each group, there is a devant / derrière / dans. Devant and derrière make as house shape by joining hands as a roof; dans stand in the house.

If the teacher calls devant , all those people move to form new house.

If the teacher calls derrière , all those people move to form new house.

If the teacher calls dans , all those people move and get inside another house.

If the teacher calls tremblement de terre , everyone moves to form a new house.

Cambia si

Learn features like eyes, hair` – can add clothes too

Teacher calls out ‘cambia si …eres morena (swap if …you have dark hair) etc all those people swap places – once the game gets going, specify two features eg Cambia si eres rubio y tienes ojos azules. You can also add how to move – eg Cabia saltando si / swap by jumping if…

C’est quel objet?

Give a flashcard to each grou

p– the group are going to make the shape with their bodies as living flashcards. Rest of class guess the object – in French / Spanish etc.

All these activities link the language with PE and physical activity. They could all form part of a warm up / cool down, or as ‘Wake Up Shake Up’, or simply for those days when you want to do something a bit different!

Similar ideas can be found in Take 10 en français (soon to be in Spanish too!)

I was just having a look at my Google alerts and was reminded that I’d signed up for TeacherTube ages ago. For those who don’t know, TeacherTube is like Youtube but for teachers!
Surprisingly for me, I remembered my password and managed to find my account, including the videos I’d bookmarked.

And I once more came across this lovely video called Three little men. Made by children with severe learning difficulties at Frank Wise School in Banbury, it use Playmobil men greeting one another in Spanish as the pupils practice speaking skills.

There is often debate about the merits of teaching MFL to children with ‘special needs’. I’ve always found that MFL has been a good leveller – by that I mean that pupils who are struggling in other areas of the curriculum find themselves on a fairly equal footing with their peers, particularly if their difficulty is with the written word as there is so much speaking activity.
And as to it being a ‘waste of time’ as I’ve heard many times – well, having watched the video, judge for yourself!

The ABC of QCA was presented by Sue Colepio – originally a secondary teacher now in Primary Language teaching and Heidi Gallagher, a Yr 6 class teacher for 2 days and is an PLL AST and Comenius KS2 consultant in East Riding.

The QCA schemes are one way of meeting the goals of the KS2 framework, taking the wider Primary curriculum as a starting point – what’s great is that many of the activities are inspired by things that are already done in Primary and it draws on things kids enjoy. Each unit has three sections – presentation (flashcards, puppets etc), practice (songs rhymes and games to consolidate) and production stages (the QCA scheme seems to recommend a final product to celebrate the things that have been done eg displays, assemblies, presentations to the class, exchange class projects).

Heidi focussed on activities for Four friends / Les quatre amis Unit 5 of QCA – aimed at Year 3, towards end of year. She pointed out that the QCA scheme could be an intimidating document for the reluctant or less confident class teacher, and suggested that a couple of activities be taken from the plans in the first instance and then more built in for the subsequent years.

The unit starts with looking at the story – Heidi would introduce animal names first but that’s a matter of debate – is this too near the topic based approach we’re being encouraged to get away from? Would it be better to introduce story first and allow pupils to pick out the relevant vocabulary ?

Heidi the used the activity montrez-moi ….– as informal assessment – pupils show the card that matches word she says. Also thumbs up, heads down – Pouces – with each child putting their head on the desk and holding up a thumb. Four kids are chosen to represent the animals then they squeeze a thumb- the pupils whose thumbs were squeezed then guess which animal squeezed them. I think this would work better if played like ‘squeak piggy squeak’ with all the class shutting their eyes and one child making an animal noise for the guesser to identify – animal and child’s name.

Classroom language can be linked – using the same four animals, each row or table or child receives an animal image and then instructions are given to the specific animals :
e.g. les moutons, levez-vous
les lapins, asseyez-vous
les souris, regardez-moi

The phonic focus for this unit is ‘ch’ in French (often there is one being reinforced) – makes sound ‘sh’ in French –and the action to accompany is finger to mouth. You could use le manuel phonique (French version of the Jolly Phonics scheme)

The story was presented by Heidi in a Smartboard flipchart, using the background in the resource bank alongside free downloadable animations. As it is read, the activity is to focus on phonics – put finger on lips everytime you hear the ‘ch’ . there’s lots of repetition in the story of phrase such as ‘c’est qui?’ ‘ X voit la belle pomme rouge’ and ‘ j’aime bien manger la belle pomme rouge.’ We did it with the text on the screen but the point was made that it’s best to do the activity without the text so it really is listening activity, then clone the page and add text for later activities. Here’s the link to a downloadable version in Powerpoint – seems to have sound embedded too!

The next activity might be to build a word bank of examples that pupils know already that may have appeared previously e.g. bouche, cache-cache, cheveux or that have appeared in the story / unit e.g. cheval, champs, chercher – perhaps have laminated posters for each phoneme – grapheme link so vocabulary can be added with Post-It or board marker as a reminder – also allows it to be an ongoing activity.

Another activity might be looking at how the animals move – galope, sautille, court, trotinne. Or possibly Répétez si c’est vrai – can be done with thumbs, or lollysticks or on IWB with correct answer hidden under a shape

This unit reinforces a previous phoneme – ‘on’(finger on nose to make pig nose) e.g. mouton, marron.

Another activity to reinforce phoneme – look at word then cover – can you write it? What phonemes can you hear? Will that help you? Perhaps show the picture and pupils say and write the word on a flashboard. This allows instant assessment as you can see who has it, who needs more help etc.

Sue took over, showing us Juan, her little man who shows her linguistic skills – English as her head, French as her body as she has studied and lived there, German and Spanish as her arms as she teaches them and Italian as her feet as it’s hard work to talk to her husband’s family. A lovely activity that could equally be done by pupils and even with cultures with which you / they associate.

Asking us to suspend belief and become Year 3, Sue aimed to look at the three sections of the units, suggesting ways of introducing then practicing and exploiting in a final production. She taught us some greetings in Spanish, using repetition and song. Focusing on silent ‘h??

? in Spanish with the example of Hola, we looked at hospital, hamster, hotel, suggesting from the model how we might pronounce these words. We quickly swapped to German, using Hallo and Auf Wiedersehen with actions like Peekaboo (peek out from hands for Hallo and hiding for Auf Wiedersehen), practicing the ‘au’ phoneme with a mirror and then playing Cabbages – I know the game as Squeak Piggy Squeak! Pupils disguise their voice and a blindfolded volunteer has to guess who it was – a good, fun game to practice vocabulary.

She showed us a clip from Early Start German that introduces Wie geht’s? Gut, Sehr gut, Nicht gut, then we improvised a dialogue from our new language.

I would have liked to have seen some ideas for taking the units away from the suggested activities, but it was interesting, as someone who teaches Spanish, to see how the French units work.

In the previous post, I suggested some ways to use items from IKEA in my teaching. Storage, cushions and soft shoes were all mentioned. This post focuses on items to enhance and facilitate speaking and listening in PLL.

One of the main obstacles I find in getting pupils to speak Spanish (or French, German, or any other language) is the ‘hang up’ that it sounds funny. Whilst this is not such a big problem, in my experience, in PLL, there is still some reticence on the part of some pupils to speaking the foreign language. Using puppets is one way of getting around this. Puppets come in all shapes and sizes – you can download patterns for card finger puppets here and here: you can use sock puppets – see Jo Rhys-Jones’ video in which pupils converse using their alien sock puppets; you can use glove puppets – I have a HUGE collection of those (including Ana and Jaime); and you can use finger puppets.

As well as charity shops , jumble sales and my childrens’ toyboxes, IKEA are the main source of my finger puppets. TITTA are sets of 10 finger puppets, costing £5. I have three sets (about time they brought out a new set!) – a sea set (right), a fairytale /royal court set (not pictured) and a jungle set (left). Pupils prefer the animals and give them names and different voices. By using the puppets they are distancing the ‘funny noise’ that some of them associate with speaking Spanish etc and displacing it onto the puppet. Using silly voices is another useful ploy – and is encouraged – as long as the voice doesn’t make understanding impossible! Additionally, puppets seem to increase confidence and encourage creativity in a way that ‘turn to your partner and practice the phrases’ doesn’t. Not hard to see why when you’re dealing with kids who associate role play with using props and dressing up and having fun.

If you were at the IoW conference in October, or even read about it, you may have seen a picture of me as a cat! For the benefit of those who haven’t, here it is!
The previous week I had popped over to our nearest IKEA in search of gingerbread for Christmas and come across these lovely animal masks and ears! There’s cat, a dog (with floppy ears on the mask), a rabbit (ears on a headband as well as mask) and a bear. I’ve used these in a similar way to the finger puppets – these give pupils even more to ‘hide behind’ as they are masked! We’ve used them for storytelling and for songs like El granjero tiene una granja. Always a clamour to wear them so there’s the incentive to take part and contribute to the lesson too, as ‘I only choose people who are working hard and trying their best’ ;o)

Well today, I made another discovery – more masks and this time not just animals! An alien with antennae, a flower, a spider, a princess, a dinosaur, a ladybird and a bumblebee form the latest set of play masks. This time I managed to find two ‘willing’ volunteers to model them for me (although I didn’t completely escape as you can see!).

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

As well as using these masks for the activities mentioned above, I’d like to use them to encourage pupils to be creative and make up their own (simple) stories that they can act for one another.

You’ll notice that some of the pictures are framed by a green and blue ‘stage’. Today IKEA were selling puppet theatres for 49p – made of cardboard admittedly but nonetheless worth a small investment! As demonstrated by my ‘dos voluntarios’, they can be used as a stage for conversations using the masks, and would work equally well with finger, sock or stick puppets.

Can’t wait to have a go in the classroom! But until then, I know two people who’ll be having fun giving me more ideas!

Anyone who knows me will vouch for my ability to shop ’til I drop – not necessarily buying lots but always on the lookout for something new and exciting. And anyone who has been in one of my lessons, or attended a session I’ve led will also know that I love IKEA. My first outing after having #2 son was not to a restaurant, or even a pub, but late night shopping at IKEA. And, if you ignore the wardrobes, beds and sofas, and look at the smaller items, there are many things that can be used to inspire and facilitate PLL.

GLIS boxes are great for storing bits and bobs – and are different colours so allow for spontaneous questions: ¿Qué hay en la caja verde? ¿Los dados, las tijeras o las cartas? or instructions: Dame la caja azul por favor. Pon los dados en la caja blanca por favor.

Also good for storage are MINNEN velvet bags. I have a collection of these – I keep my finger puppets in one, and my paper puppets in another. I also use them for games such ¿Qué hay en la bolsa? – hide a number of small objects in the bag and children name an item by touch. I’ve recently done it with small farm animals and also fruit. Note to self – next time use plastic fruit to avoid a soggy bag smelling of strawberries! The element of wondering what’s in the bag adds to the exercise and keeps the class on its toes. It also allows for self differentiation as a child can pull out an item that they are pretty sure they know rather than be put on the spot.

And finally on the storage front, NOJE storage boxes are collapsible so saves space – important at the best of times, but when your storage cupboard is the boot of your car, all the more vital – and, like the bags, have a use beyond the intended. I use mine for simple games.
A favourite is throw the beanbag into the correct box. For the youngest children, I ask them to throw the beanbag into the same coloured box, reinforcing the colour vocabulary: el saco rojo en la caja roja. Then, to make it harder, I ask them to throw it into a different coloured basket: el saco azul en la caja verde. Teaches and reinforces colours as well as enhancing motor skills.
I also used them to separate food into ‘healthy’ – es bueno (green), ‘unhealthy’ – no es bueno (red) and ‘undecided’ – no sé (blue) The physical act of moving food adds movement to the lesson and was again tactile, reinforcing the groupings.
And you can play memory games too – ¿dónde está la manzana?

What about these UNDERBAR discs – my boys use them as frisbees although they are intended to be seat cushions. Why not use them as stepping stones, or for dancemat activities (they are textured so no danger of slipping) – both these activities allow sequencing and enhance memorisation skills.

When I ask questions, I like to throw things! I think it goes back to my early days of learning Spanish when my Colombian teacher had the habit of throwing someone’s pencil case around the room to keep us on our toes. It certainly did that, especially as it was a well packed case! Anyhow, the theory make sense to me although I prefer to avoid the danger of knocking out my pupils and so favour a small soft ball. I bought one from IKEA that contains a bell, so we could play with our eyes shut to work our auditory skills! I find it adds to the pace of the lesson, and pupils love being the teacher and getting to throw the ball. Recently, I got fed up of the ball and decided to go for something a bit more exciting – cue BÄSTIS! Actually dog toys, but I now own a pair of shoes
(trainers) that fly around the room. I wanted the pink boots but was informed by #1 son that they were not aerodynamic enough and #2 son that they are too girly!

That’s just the start of my IKEA inspired ideas – the best comes in the next post! Back in an hour or so :o)