This has the same quirky style of drawing and poses also poses a question; in this case, what would you like to be? Each page responds with the same structure:
Yo quiero ser (profesión) para ver el (color) de (sitio)
There are some of the usual professions to which we often aspire as children like bombero (fireman) and pirata, and then some more unusual ones like bruja (witch) and extraterrestre (alien). I like the eye holes that peek through the book and form part of each of the images.
The simple structure means that it’s easy to substitute the three changeable aspects of the sentence to make new ones about professions chosen by the learners. For example –
Yo quiero ser JARDINERO para ver el VERDE de LA CÉSPED
Yo quiero ser ENFERMERO para ver el ROJO de LA SANGRE
Yo quiero ser MECÁNICA para ver el NEGRO del PETROLEO
Another book on the subject of future plans/jobs is Cuando sea grande
This is one of the Scholastic Rookie Readers series A and is again very simple.
It opens with the statement Cuando sea grande, podré ser lo que quiera and the little girl goes on to dream about the job she might have with each page featuring a different job.
Una doctora, una granjera,or even la presidenta.
The thing I like most about this book is the final page that recognises that the little girl is still a child and just wants to play!
One final book on a similar subject is Yo astronauta, a lovely book in which a child dreams about what they would do if they were an astronaut. As the setting is space with the child visiting various planets before coming back to earth to see the sun set with friends, it’s a book I might share when looking at Los Planetas or discussing the solar system.
For more ideas on jobs and professions, see also these posts
*This is one of a series of posts about some of my favourite story books for Primary Language Learning*
When my boys were little, one of their favourite books was Moo Baa La la la; in fact, I can still quote it verbatim as I read it so many times! So I was pleased to see that there was Spanish version Muu. Bee. ¡Así fue!
This simple rhyming book introduces the noises that animals make as well as animal names. I was pleased when I read it that it still (mostly!) rhymes in Spanish and that it features lots of animals that make different noises in Spanish. Or, as it’s come to be put in my classroom
“Animals speak other languages too!”
When we use this in class, after the initial reading learners want to join in with the animal noises – it is fun after all pretending to be a snorting rhino! – so I pause at the appropriate moment to allow for this before continuing. The final page also invites the reader/learner to share what they say so can lead into a game of ‘Adivina que animal soy‘; learners take it in turns to pretend to be an animal by making the noise and the rest of the class have to work out which animal they are. This could be done with more ‘control’ by assigning learners animals in advance or giving them a mask. And a (noisy!) follow on activity could be for everyone to be assigned an animal from the story e.g un cerdo, una oveja, una vaca, un pato, un caballo, un perro; and their task is to find the rest of their family by making the animal noise and listening out for others doing the same.
As I mentioned above, “animals speak other languages’ was the conclusion that was reached when we read this book, and when I presented at the ALL North East Spanish Day at Gosforth High School I was given this book which reinforces just that!
Whilst this isn’t a book in the language that I teach (mostly Spanish) I love sharing this as, to me, language learning is about more than one language. It’s about exploring and making connections, and sparking interest as well as celebrating diversity. This book has the English in the corner, and then one or two ‘featured’ languages on each page i.e. the ones that animals say in their speech bubbles as well as a section in the opposite corner which shows another three languages.
And in case you have trouble pronouncing the animal sounds, there is a glossary on the inside covers written “phonetically” to give you some help! My aim in using this book would not be to teach animal noises in 30+ languages but to look at similarities between the different languages, to consider whether we’d know which animal made that noise if we hadn’t got the picture to help us, and why, and to perhaps look at the home languages of learners in the group.
The idea that animals speak different languages just like humans seems to appeal to children; I wouldn’t be surprised if there were pupils of mine across the world these holidays addressing animals in their ‘native language’ 🙂
And if you want a French book with animal noises – and nice touchy feely patches for stroking ‘if you sit nicely!’ – there’s Le Réveil de la ferme in which a little sheep dog goes around the farm greeting all his farmyard friends. He introduces them in a pair of rhyming sentences and then says Bonjour ………. before the animal responds with their call in French. At the end, he says goodbye to them all in a double page spread with all the animal calls in French (great as a reference point!)
The Guardian is having a ‘Language learning in focus’ week and the Teacher Network has been publishing articles related to news ideas and resources for language learning.
And there’s also an article on how primary schools are getting ready for 2014 from which I’d pick out two paragraphs that highlights a couple of concerns I have – and I know others share them!
“A lot of teachers would appreciate a bit more guidance and practical help, whether it’s schemes of work or things they might be able to read,” adds Board. (Kathryn Board of CfBT)”That’s obviously not what the government wants to do – they want to provide big headlines and how you get there is up to you. But it’s quite tricky because we must not forget this is a new subject, it’s never been compulsory at key stage two before.”
Driscoll (Patricia Driscoll, reader in education at Canterbury Christchurch University) fears the draft curriculum does not place enough emphasis on developing children’s cultural understanding. “In ‘purpose of study’ the draft curriculum says: ‘Learning a foreign language is liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures.’ But then when you come to the ‘curriculum aims’ and ‘subject content’ there’s nothing about culture.”
“Languages are taught through interactive methods but also through cultural identity and understanding,” she says.
I wonder what’ll be up tomorrow? There’s certainly a web chat planned so if you’re free between 6 and 8pm tomorrow evening (Thursday 16th) join in with your ideas about creative lessons and teaching tips!
Reading Los mellizos del tiempo got me thinking about integrating language learning in the Primary curriculum. As I mentioned in my previous post, it links so well with the ‘topic’ of Egyptians, or under the ‘learning journey’ of Treasure taken in Year 4 at WCPS. So I had a bit of a look around and came up with the following ideas, resources and links that might be of use to anyone who wants to do just that!
General information
Egipto para niños – collection of fairly simple texts on a number of areas of Egyptian life including the Pyramids, food, manners and mummies as well as a bit of geography. This text is in fairly short chunks too. And Blog de los Niños has some short chunks of information, particularly about Egyptian gods and the meanings of the various crowns.
Here are some longer texts about various Egyptian ‘misterios’ including the Mummy of Pyramid KV22.
Historia Simple has some short-ish historical summaries of the various phases of the 2500 year long Egyptian era including a section on the Pyramids. There’s also some information on El Historiador.
And of course there’s Wikipedia – you can translate the pages back and forth between languages so you could have some fun with picking out key items of vocabulary.
Slideshare has some presentations for ideas and information including this lovely one from some young learners which is beautifully simple and asks some good questions on slide 4 that could be used for investigation.
And this blog has two simple presentations by Dora la Exploradora and friends, and Hello Kitty covering some of the basics of Egyptian geography and history in words and image.
However, my favourite find is from Junta de Andalucia. This site is a one stop shop about Egyptians, written in simple language and presented in short paragraphs with lots of visuals, making it really accessible. There is a dictionary of key terms as well as the facility to click on highlighted words for an immediate ‘pop up’ definition. Lots of interactive maps and also a hieroglyphics maker within the site also make it a great place for young learners to find out about Egypt. There’s also a webquest that guides learners through the site, posing questions that can be explored and investigated. (There’s another more complex webquest here along with other Egyptian resources shared on the Tiching site.)
A close second goes to a resource from Gobierno de Canarias that takes an interactive look at the Pyramids with extra information, again simply presented, appearing as you click on specific areas of the pyramid.
Videos
Videos are another source of information that can often be more accesible than just text.
And then there are these cartoons, the first from a series called Érase una vez.. and the second from a series called Martín Martín.
And here’s another I’ve just found which is a short video about the Egyptian pyramids:
You might also like to try the Barrio Sésamo approach with this video in which Lola visits the Pyramids or this video which presents images and name of the animals of Egypt before moving on to images of buildings and then some short snippets of information about Egyptian life.
Songs
You know how I love a good kitschy song! Here’s one called Momias de colores by Rockolate. When my hand is feeling better, I might try to subtitle the video using Amara or at least write them down!
(see also Fátima una momia responsable below under Stories for another song)
“Literacy” ideas
(see also Stories below!)
Perhaps with older, more advanced learners you could use some of the definitions from this ‘Glosario’ for a match the word to the definition. You could choose key words like Faraon, Esfinge, Obelisco, Momia, Papiro, Sarcófagos, Vasos canopos and so on.
And this vocabulary list gives you the Spanish word with the Arabic equivalent. Could provide an interesting language comparison activity.
And here’s an online hieroglyphics tool. Would be fun to write some words in hieroglyphics and ask learners to decode before they write their names. Or they could write key Egyptian vocabulary in hieroglyphics for display as well as in Spanish for a multi lingual display!
Maths ideas
The Egyptian system of counting and adding etc was very developed and you can find out all about it here (in more detail than I think I need to know but if you like Maths…)
This site has lots of writing at the top (useful information!) but the really ‘useful’ part for learners is the chart with the Egyptian number glyphs and the puzzles underneath, both for whole numbers and also for fractions. I foresee lots of fun with setting maths problems for each other… There are a few more maths problems here.
A document explaining that Egyptian numbers are not positional so you can write the units, tens, hundreds etc in any order! Un sistema aditivo – el egipcio
And of course there are all sorts of things you can do at a very simple level such as sequencing and using geometrical shapes when making Egyptian jewellery, and making pyramids.
Stories
I found this free video story about Egypt called El pendiente de la princess: Cuento de Egipto. Sadly it doesn’t go full screen but the man telling the story speaks clearly and fairly slowly so it could be used for a true/false activity or perhaps a multiple choice activity.
However, I found two more promising possibilities!
2. This PDF (rita_ladrones) has links to useful sites (some I’d already highlighted above before I found this!) and also some activity worksheets. Whilst the middle sheet on characters in the book would be hard without reading it, the first sheet (matching words with images and writing your name in hieroglyphics) needs no knowledge of the book, and I think that the third sheet which is a sequencing activity could also be done without reading the story, and actually gives a very simple synopsis of what happens!
3.Then I discovered that there is an online version of the CD rom of activities about the book, complete with Teachers Notes (in Spanish!) There are various activities including finding synonyms and antonyms, sequencing text and a wordsearch – see below image for contents. Some activities are quite challenging for primary learners; however, a bit of challenge can be a good thing!
Fátima, una momia muy responsable
Fátima una momia muy responsable is a lovely story about an Egyptian mummy called Fátima who wants to be a tour guide and keeps scaring people! She builds up a great collection of hats and torches by doing it, but one day…
It’s a narrated version of a book that has been used in many Spanish primary schools.
httpv://youtu.be/On5fNWq9N8w
Some ideas for using the story –
act out the story
talk about colours and sizes describing the hats that Fátima collected / was gifted
pretend to be Fátima and give a tour of a pyramid
one of the class blogs I discovered had a song on it about how Fátima dances which would be great fun, whatever your age! You can access the words here or here, and here is a recording of young learners singing it!
I love ‘being a magpie’ and collecting ideas, and here are some classes in Spanish primaries that have done an Egyptian topic and shared their ideas.
Mis cosillas de Educación Infantil – this link takes you to the posts for the entire project. I particularly like the concept map that they made which includes lots of important vocabulary organised systematically. I think that having a map of what is already known that is added to as time passes and more information is gathered is a great way of documenting learning and progress, especially if learners post questions that they’d like to investigate and see them answered as they explore and investigate!
E.I. 5 años Carlos Ruiz have been doing an Egyptian topic too and this is the first of a number of posts on what they have done. If look in the archive, there are further posts documenting their work throughout noviembre and diciembre 2012 including the sequencing activity referenced in the Maths section above and an interesting post giving instructions on making ‘papiros’.
La Clase de la Bruja Maruja have done a project on Egyptians too and have published some of their work as well as links on their blog. Of particular use I think are the simple worksheets they used that could easily be used in the primary language classroom. I also love the fact that they’ve been using the wonderful Woodlands site by Mandy Barrow using GoogleTranslate to put it into Spanish!
And the Egiptologia site has a number of resources from schools in their Trabajos en colegios e instituciones section as well as Tus trabajos escolares. Lots of the resources are written by students making them suitable for learners to access themselves as well for use by teachers as information sources and inspiration!
So, I hope you’ve find the above useful. I know that there are many more things that could be done; for example, I haven’t even started on the possibilities for art projects! If you have any ideas or resources, please leave a comment – it’s good to share! And even if you haven’t, leave a comment! Its good to know that people are reading!
I came across this website earlier when searching for something else and thought I’d share it.
TuDiscoveryKids is the website for DiscoveryKids in Latin America and features all sorts of activities in Spanish linked to some of their programmes. I thought I’d highlight a few that you might find interesting!
In this game, learners are given five tubes of paint and challenged to make the colour indicated – in the example above ‘bordo’ or burgundy. They squeeze the tubes to squirt the paint onto the palette, use the paintbrush to mix the colour and then paint the picture with the colour they mixed. Great for linking to colour blending in art.
In this game, the crane challenges you to complete words by finding the missing consonants. The letters are then hoisted into the word and the crane repeats the sound and tells you if you’re correct. Then you are asked a yes/no question about consonants and vowels before being given another challenge. Great for looking at sound/letter link.
A game for dinosaur fans – and every class has them! The dinosaurs travel from Triassic to Jurassic to Cretaceous period and you are in charge of showing the dinosaurs to their seats, checking the tickets, feeding them and making sure that they get off in the correct period. As you go, you learn what type of food the dinosaurs eat and also in which time period they belong.
This game links to your senses and asks you to choose from three objects that match a description e.g. Algo que tiene olor – something that smells or algo brillante – something shiny, and then decide which sense you would use to find out. As you play, you can learn the names of the objects from which you select, increase your knowledge of adjectives, and also consider your senses. You need to be careful as well not choose the correct sense for the adjective e.g. I had to find something ‘silencioso’ (silent) which was ‘una pluma’ (a feather), and this linked to ‘Oido’ – hearing rather than touch which you might have chosen had the adjective been ‘suave’ – soft. A fun link to science!
Each game also has links to other activities that have a link – for example, a video called Masa repugnante is suggested for this game which links to a video about an experiment to make a gooey yucky dough!
And there are also articles that would be of interest to educators and parents. This one links to the game above.
This is a very simple game that wants you to indicate the animal that makes a certain sound by clicking on the animal. This is made harder by the animals being in silhouette on what looks like a sight chart! A fun game that could be played when discussing animals as well as when thinking about how languages have similarities and differences.
Our final example is accessed via the image of a library where you click on the book you’d like to read. The book is read to you but there is a missing word in the text. In the first example, there are three images from which to choose to fill the gap; in the second you have to choose the word that has the syllables correctly ordered. A fun way of keeping attention if you are using the story with the whole class as well as a little challenge for an individual reader.
I hope you’ll investigate the site more yourself – there are many more games and activities that merit attention. Perhaps I’ll come back with a follow up post in the future to explore further!
I was really interested to read the following press release this week –
Education Scotland publishes new online resource for modern languages called ‘Passeport pour la Francophonie’ at the Scottish Learning Festival on 19 September 2012.
Passeport pour la Francophonie will support primary teachers to provide stimulating and exciting learning experiences at second level, developing skills for reading, writing, listening and talking. The website provides suggestions for exploring the other curriculum areas such as religious and moral education or maths and numeracy through the medium of French language and culture.
Announcing the launch of the resource Education Scotland Strategic Director Kenneth Muir said, ”Passeport pour la Francophonie’ will support teachers in building confidence to embed language learning across the curriculum in an integrated and interdisciplinary way in line with the ethos of Curriculum for Excellence.
The Passeport challenges and learning journeys are designed to develop and practice key vocabulary to deepen understanding of culture of the French speaking world and to allow learners to see the interconnected nature of languages.
The online resource promotes an approach to the learning and teaching of French that is active, collaborative and makes appropriate and effective use of ICT. Local authoriti
es will find this helpful when planning their provision of modern languages in primary schools.’
Practitioners can use Passeport pour la Francophonie to enhance their professional learning both in terms of their own foreign language skills and developing innovative approaches to teaching a language.
Learners will find that the activities bring languages to life by travelling through five different countries of the Francophonie. They will discover other cultures, meet children from around the world and gain an understanding and appreciation of their native language and culture.
Passeport pour la Francophonie will be demonstrated at the Scottish Learning Festival on the Education Scotland stand (D65, Hall 3, SECC) on Wednesday 19 September at 11.30am and on Thursday 20 September at 10.30am.
And looking at the website, it looks really great! There are ebooks, sound files, videos and clear lesson ideas and plans with links to the Scottish curriculum. I love the way that it’s not about the language in isolation but about experiencing the culture and the “sights and sounds” of different places that have a common language.
Below you can hear Fhiona Fisher of Education Scotland speaking about just that – ‘widening out’ the idea of French as European to go on a voyage in their imaginations to see it as a worldwide language, and how language learning can be done cross-curricularly.
Another part I really like is the Links between languages page, looking at language in general, and also the Using this resource section which gives helpful information to the teacher on using the resource and also some CPD videos on Primary Language learning (MLPS in Scotland) Lovely to see some familiar faces from Le Français en Ecossewho were so instrumental in helping me love French again (merci Richard et Elise)
I’ve just received an email about an exciting new venture from Lingua@Hillcrest. Based at Hillcrest School and Sixth Form centre in Birmingham, Lingua@Hillcrest is already known for its virtual visits to France, Spain and Germany including passport control, currency exchange, shopping and refreshment experience as well as language games.
Now they are offering …
Murder Mystery?
in French, German and Spanish
Why not challenge your students to solve the crime at
lingua@hillcrest
Birmingham
Using their language skills students take on a role in a team of detectives in order to solve the crime.
Investigations include
examining the scene of crime
forensics
scrutinising news bulletins, recorded interviews & CCTV
analysing suspects’ bank and telephone records
cross-examining suspects
Recommended for year 9 – 11
Available every Monday
Bookings before 31 December 2012 – £150 per session or £250 for the full day.
After 1st January 2013 – £180 per session or £330 for the full day.
Sounds fun to me and a great way to learn and practice language that can become very ‘borong’ after a while – personal identification, descriptions and so on!
Details of other activities at Lingua@Hillcrest are below.
Do you want to get your pupils ahead of the game in MFL?
fun, hands-on activities for KS3 in
French, German and Spanish
lingua@hillcrest, Birmingham
Half day visits include:
Passport control
Exchanging currency at the bank
A carousel of interactive language activities
Simulated shopping in our international shopping village
Collecting stamps for every transaction completed
Buying refreshments and souvenirs at the shops
Available every Monday
Bookings before 31 December 2012 – £150 per session or £250 for the full day.
After 1st January 2013 – £180 per session or £330 for the full day.
Discover how your pupils could benefit from a visit at
“We had a great time on Tuesday – thank you all very much! We hope to be back next year!” Victoria School“Very well thought-out structure with good timings. Great content… Year 8 students loved it and have even greater enthusiasm for MFL.” Heartlands Academy
Thanks to Pat Sweeney on the Yahoo MFL Resources group for pointing out this group.
If you like Hi5, and you love a bit of 90s “cheese”, you’ll love Nubeluz.
As Pat writes –
“Many of Nubeluz’s songs seem to be innocent good fun and definitely have catchy tunes that make you want to dance and sing along.
However, some “carry a message “. For example “Papi, deja de fumar!”
( Daddy, give up smoking!) or “Cuidado ” ( Be careful!) which warns of being mislead by friends to get involved in things that are not right or good.”
She goes on to pose a question –
“I would be very interested to know what people think of the songs and whether they would deem them suitable for using as teaching aids..and if so..with which groups..how?”
So…here are some ideas for how to use Yo quiero ser
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm1ZqJel8-c
I think this would fit well with the topics People who help us or Jobs people do that are part of EYFS and KS1. I think that the chorus is the most useful part.
Activities you might do:
ask learners to identify the jobs they hear in the chorus. They are repeated at the very end so there are 2 chances to catch them. You might provide a tick sheet with pictures for younger learners or the names in Spanish for older ones.
make a pelmanism game with job images and names in Spanish for matching first then for playing.
cut the lyrics (chorus) into strips. Ask learners firstly to see if they can match the jobs with the description of what they do. This uses their LLS as they will look for cognates, make connections between the word for the job and words in the description and so on. Then they can check their answers by listening and watching again.
I might use Amara (was UniversalSubtitles) http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/ to put Spanish subtitles on the video too. (See this example and also this post about how and why)
Moving away from the video, some further ideas –
I might use other video clip such as Los oficios which features a famous song, or this version with the words.
This clip Cuando sea grande would be a good step onto using the future tense. Seré dentista/artista etc. I also like the final lines – “Cuando sea grande, haré mil cosas/Porque estoy seguro que podré. Y mientras tanto llega la hora/Solamente niño quiero ser”
There is a whole unit of work on Udicom on Los oficios. These resources are intended for ‘alumnos de compensatoria’ or learners needing extra help in Spain so many are very simple exercises on copywriting, phonics, matching and writing words and short phrases. I particularly like the phonics sections and the use of little rhymes too.
This interactive site is useful for learning the names of jobs by hovering over the people, and clicking to see/hear a short sentence about what they do. Further forward (click on arrow bottom right) it talks about “profesiones” – professions as opposed to “oficios” – jobs.
Here’s a free poster that you can download – I believe you need to purchase the other posters tagged Los oficios but you can look at them for ideas!
I also found this blog with an image and short descriptions for 6 jobs/professions.
And this is a wonderful site with lots of ideas and materials for a wide age range. There are a number of stories at a variety of levels (primary and secondary) as well as comics and ‘information books’, all presented online. As this resource is aimed at social studies for Spanish learners, so you need to bear that in mind e.g. Look at the complexity of language rather than going by the age indicated. I looked at a few stories – Alejandro el canguro pintor (basic) is a lovely tale about a kangaroo that draws all the time, and Maria auxiliar de ayuda a domicilio is more complex and a home help who makes Grandma’s life better. There’s a teachers guide that includes ideas and some activity sheets. Well worth an explore if you’re looking to work cross curricularly at primary or secondary level!
A day early I know but I figured it would be more useful to tell you about it BEFORE the day so that you might be able to use it ON the day…
Via Twitter, I discovered this lovely activity from OnlineFreeSpanish.com for making Valentine’s Day cards.
I particularly like this resource as it offers lots of choice! You can choose a border, an image and a bilingual message to suit your personality and the recipient. Not all the messages are ‘slushy, lovey-dovey’ ones so it’s quite safe to use with a group of children who might not be into romance. And you can also choose to have the image in colour or leave it black adn white to be coloured in. Additionally, you can choose to print the card as a poster (one loveheart icon), as a sheet of four (four lovehearts) or as a sheet that can be folded to form a proper card (heart on card icon) The only downside is that the inside of the card is only in English 🙁
More Spanish Valentine’s fun here on Youtube from Babelzone/LCF with a little video and a new take on He loves me, he loves me not!
This is one of the Scholastic Rookie Readers series A and is again very simple.
And looking at the 
