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. 

This week @valleseco  has been sharing ways to make sure that schools can make the time  for primary language learning and has listed and described ways that schools can make time for languages across the curriculum as additional activities:Time for languages.

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 : Vassily Kandinsky cercles concentriques 1913

Kasimir Malevitch cercle noir vers 1923

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....

Ask the children to create their own group abstract art books with numbers ,colours and shapes from 0-10 or 11-20 or 20-30 and ask them to name their pieces of art too.Each child must take responsibility for two pieces of art in the style of an abstract artist. 

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.