Chocolate Bar Chats

Thanks to Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings I have been thinking about chocolate a lot today .Sylvie is hoping to create a language learning unit on chocolate in KS2 Primary Languages.....
This got me thinking about why not make the chocolate bar work for the language learner? !!

Here are my ideas for "chocolate bar chats"!

Create simple card chocolate bar shapes.
Here my shape is 3 x 3
Each  chocolate bar  is in its own wrappper.A piece of wrapping paper with a title on it or a re-usable envelope with a title on it - this is the theme  of the chocolate bar chat e.g. clothes/ food/ party/ etc
Each square in the block contains a word.
Each word needs to be able to be used in the  questions and answers determined by the title on the wrapping of the chocolate bar.
This is an opportunity for teacher AfL too - just how do different children use the key word prompts in their sentence construction etc?


Working with a partner can the children hold a "chocolate bar chat" based upon the wrapper theme and using up all the chunks of chocolate  in the chocolate bar questions and answers  to hold their own chocolate bar chat.
I would suggest that you have a maximum of four types of chocolate bars so that children in the class can be working on the same "chocolate bar" and the same words in the squares, but each convesation will be unique to  each pair of children

Show the four different wrappers to the class.
Ask the children to perform their chocolate bar chats for the class!
Can the class spot  which wrapper the chocolate bar has come from (i.e the theme)?
Can the class spot the the similarites and differences between the conversations?

Delighted that Sylvie loves the blog post and here are Sylvie's chocolate bars that she made following the instructions of the blog post.What a star!

Quiz Quiz Swap with a Listening and Responding Twist- Restaurant Style

We love Quiz Quiz Swap and can play the game from from a very early stage in our young language learners' target language acquisition journey. 
All you need are sets of cards with picture items on them and you can set up simple guessing activities or asking and answering questions activities too.
The activities below are for our UKS2 learners,linked to eating out at a seaside fish restaurant in Spain but could easily be altered for other languages too!


With our UKS2 learners I want to look at how well they listen and respond and how quickly they can hear differences.It's a fun activity based on simple cafe culture conversations and add a listening and responding twist that they will enjoy!

Quiz Quiz Swap with a Listening and Responding Twist

1. Practise the core language to create a simple cafe dialogue between a waiter and a customer.You may like to start  by using my Happy Meal dialogues.
2. Share the specific dishes with the children which you want to use in this activity.Below are my dishes for a Spanish meal.
3. Play two games of Quiz Quiz Swap.First game a guessing game where each child has to guess what card the other player is concealing from them and then they swap cards and move to new partners.Second game build in questions and answers to create a cafe dialogue,with a freeze ,stop and listen built in, where you call "Freeze" the children stop talking etc and you select a pair for the class to listen in to and hear their conversation.
4. Now you can add the listening and responding twist! It's simple really.You need a bag of the pictures that the children have as Quiz Quiz Swap cards.As the children are performing their Quiz quiz Swap dialogues,randomly select a picture and call out "I would like + the item you can see on your picture".The children need to be both focusing on their conversation and ready also to listen and respond if they have the picture on their cards you are looking for.Children with that picture must raise it in the air and shout out the name of the dish.The child you hear first,wins a point for their class group or table. 
5. Once the class are confident you can ask members of the class to be the "caller" and draw pictures from the bag and call out the request with the  name of the dish.    

Here are some of the Spanish dishes I am going to use .I took these photos during a meal at a seaside fish restaurant meal.I deliberately chose items that either could sound similar (e.g the children must decide what type of olives they hear called out or can they hear when it's bread and water or bread with tomatoes?) The items chosen,specifically address the fact that our Year 6 KS2 learners have already met foods ,drinks and simple meals in the JLN SOW  .Now we are taking them on a "Cafe culture" trip -at the end of their KS2 language learning journey.
So for our Spanish cafe culture here are a few of the dishes I selected :

aceitunas (con queso/pulpo/boqueron) 

gazpacho

pan con tomate

pescado con patatas

Exploring role play

This blog post is to support those looking for ways to work with role play that encourage teacher and children to practise:

asking and answering questions

speaking in sentences

engaging in conversation 

and

describing people,places and things orally (and in writing)

It is really important that you plan for the stages of developing this skill:

• From simple responding to a simple question (maybe in a game where the teacher sits children in a circle and the class practise in song or rhythm a question until the teacher stops and selects a children to respond- perhaps by rolling a ball to the specifc child or picking a name tag lolly stick randomly from a tub etc
• Through to matching appropriate questions and answers that are written on randomly ordered cards and reading them in a correct order with a partner
• To developing conversations independently using asides and  additional language.

Take a look at this report for some very real reasons why it is so important to support children to build the ability to engage in conversation with target language speakers.

Latchford Year 6 visit their Spanish friends in Malaga

Here are some creative ways to develop your role play beyond simple personal information questions and answers, shopping dialogues etc 

Talking animals using the Yakit for Kids APP

Who lives here? talk prompts for question and answer practise

3D Art and verbs to create conversations

Totem pole prompt sticks

3D scenes questions and answers in clay

Changing faces and pop art

Paper puppets with a purpose

Christmassy questions and answers

Rudolph and your nose so bright

Carnival conversations and triaramas

Elmer explorers

The aliens have definitely landed

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,

Art and language learning , my blogs so far ....

This blog post is my own mental note and list of  the Art and language learning blogs I have written so far- to help the associates, colleagues within the network and me  plan purposeful and language rich learning opportunities:

3D Art and verbs using Renoir the Boating Party - Drama and Art /spoken activities (personal information , feelings, 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular questions and responses)
3D Art and verbs stage one
3D Art and verbs stage two
3D Art and verbs stage three

KS2 Matisse Cut Outs Art and colour - dance,drama, spoken language , reading and writing
Matisse Cut Outs

Conveying emotions through Art - using the target language
conveying emotions

Rousseau and shape jungle animal sentences for jungle display  (noun verb adjective and animal descriptions) 
shape sentence jungles

Poster Power Poems (revisiting familiar language : weather,people, reactions,emotions, activities etc) - using the visual evidence in a poster to create spoken activities and performances (based on the Tour de France but activities can be used with lots of different posters etc)
Poster power poems

Preposition Picnic: creating our own sculptures using foods and cutlery/crockery and prepositions-using all 4 skills
Preposition picnic

Sentence calligrams- creating our own suitcases of Summer clothes - full sentence descriptions of items for a class display
Sentences ,objects and calligrams

Abstract Art - how we can use art to revisit and practise basic core vocabulary- colours, numbers 
Abstract art and beginners language

3D Clay and conversations - using clay sculptures to generate dialogue and conversations
3D clay scene questions and answers

If a picture paints a 1000 words. Portraits of women's faces through the ages used to practise eye, hair colour, target language names and emotions. Linking Art , Drama , music and language learning,
If a picture paints a 1000 words  

Playing with the simple past tense..watching the world go by!

As the children move further through their language learning in KS2, there are times when they want to explain or describe simply a past event.

In Year 6 there is an ideal learning situation linked to one of the focuses of the JLN SOW  ...... the cafe!

In Year 6 we look at  café culture and one of the wonderful things I enjoy about café culture abroad is the way you don;t rush .... you sit.... and you watch the World go by!

Think of all those times when we sit in cafés and watch the world go by and observe the actions and interactions of the people we see sit down at a table and order a drink or food then leave!

The past tense focus will be in this instance on the phrase "il y avait ...." / había......./ es gab...."

To accomplish the final task of "Watching the world go by" we firstly will need to practise the core language.(You may decide to spread this across a sequence of lessons).  

Activity One:Stepping in and out of the picture

• Introduce and practise the present tense and past tense verbal phrase for "there is/are " and "there was/were" in the target language.
• Ask the children to freeze frame if you say the past tense phrase and to move and be active if you say the present tense phrase
• Discuss with the children why they think you asked them to freeze frame or to move and be active. Discuss with the children the concept of the past and an event having happened that is now a memory and a picture. 
• Discuss with the children the concept of the present and an event that is still happening and is active before your very eyes!
• Can the children use the two phrases and play the same game of freeze frame or moving with a partner. Hold "listen and watch ins" and see if the children are responding correctly to the two phrases in the present and the past.

Activity Two: Time travellers and stopping time!

• Ask the children to walk around the room and be active, talking to each other and asking each other questions in the target language until they hear you call the apprppriate past tense phrase :"il y a avait ...." / había......./ es gab..."Now they must freeze exactly where they are and hold there action until you say the present tense phrase. You may decide to say the past tense phrase over and over again and try to catch them out ..... they mustn't move!
• You can generate a game here to see which children are the best time travellers - if the children move to soon , they must sit down. Who will be the last children standing?
• Once they hear the present tense phrase then the children can carry on their conversation and move around the room...until they must freeze frame and travel back in time again.

Activity Three: Spot the difference and step back in time!

• Show the children a picture of the classroom yesterday  - in black and white. Explain that in the picture you have added items- a bag, a book,a picture  et that are not in the classroom today. Can the children spot the difference? They will need to describe the room to do using the present tense phrase and the room yesterday using the past tense phrase. Provide the children with bilingual dictionaries in case they can not recall certain key nouns they need .  

The main event .....watching the world go by.

• Working in groups of the three ,ask the children to create their café role plays .they must order two drinks and a snack and the children must take the roles of a waiter and two customers. Each of the customers must have a character e.g a mum and a child or an old man and an old woman  or be creative a monster and a child etc.
• The class must "Watch the World go by" and listen and watch the role plays as the children volunteer to perform them for the class.
• Can the class report back in spoken form what they saw and understood- using the past tense phrase?

 For example "There was an old man and a child and a waiter.There were two drinks. There was a coffee and a lemonade. There was also a piece of chocolate cake with cream"

• Now listen to and watch a new role play and ask the class to observe and report back how the scene changes yet again!    

World Cup Lessons Ready to go !

We are getting ready for the World Cup in the Network
Celebrate the diversity of languages
Link language learning to sport and performance
Take a journey to meet children around the World
Find out more about target language countries, emblems and the footballers!

As part of our  support work in  the network we will be offering teachers the opportunity to celebrate the World Cup . Resources and ideas are located here World Cup in French , Spanish and German . Most of the lesson plans and our own JLN resources and ideas can be adapted to other languages too!

We have sourced online resources that can help you to create a bespoke sequence of lessons and have added links to World Cup resources such as 

on Lightbulb resources World Cup , where you will find lots of downloadable activities and resources that could enhance the lesson focuses below. 

How are we could we put these ideas and resources together in to a sequence of lessons with language learning at the hear of them?

Well as they say in football term "' 'ere we go, 'ere we go' ere we go!".....

Catch a greeting

Let's start by catching a greeting 

Take a look at the lesson plan here 

Create a football chant of our own
Take a look at the lesson plan
It's called A football chant of our own

Let's meet children from around the footballing world
Let's create target language conversations and get to know them
Take a look at the lesson plan
It's called Meeting children from the target language countries

Hold a flag bearers parade
Based on a primary languages and drama lesson
Take a look at the lesson plan
It's called Countries and flags of the World

Meet the footballers!
Find out about the teams on the Fifa website
Listen to and find out about the languages they speak
Create the personalities and characteristics of the footballers
Take look at the lesson Who is the person inside the player?

Participate in the world Cup Warm Ups!
Take a look at our simple World Cup Warm Up Lessons and PPTs 
Create routines with numbers and actions
Create a class warm up song for the Summer term PE lessons
 

Put your PE lessons into French, Spanish and German!
Warm ups, pass and shoot, dribbling, invasion sports activities !
Here are the World Cup Football Games 
Just find the correct file- French, German or Spanish

Hold a "Football Finale" or a World Cup performance
Why not teach the children ......

A Spanish Dragon Football poem
The Rock the Capitals  South American Countries  Rap
A Tunisian rhyme and song in French or Spanish
J'ai laissé mon ballon 
Mi pelota   


And now you have your sequence of World Cup lessons in the net!