Pass the galette or the roscon de reyes

We will be celebrating Epiphany and the customs and traditions of the target language countries at the start of the New Year.


Let's play "Pass the galette" or "Pass the roscon de reyes"

We can revisit familiar language and remind children of the sound letter combination links in the target language you are learning in school whilst celebrating the culture.

It's a really easy game that involves the children working in teams and they have loved it when I have played this before.

  • You need two circles of card. One circle is made of white card and the second card circle is made up of at least 12 different colours.

  • Cut the second card circle into 12 slices (each a different colour)

On the reverse of five of the pieces of coloured card, glue a picture of one of the three Kings.

  • On the other side of each piece of coloured card from your cake,add sound- letter combinations from words that you know you have practised and used during last term in the target language with the chilren(e.g sound- letter combinations from numbers/colours/months/days/shops/subjects etc)


Blu-tac each of your card pieces in the shape of a circle back on to your white card circle with the Kings hidden on the underside and randomly placed in the circle.

  • All the sound - letter combination clues should be visible to the children

And now to play the game 



  • Show the children a real picture of a galette or a roscon de reyes or even better share a real cake with them!

  • Explain that normally the children take a piece and hope to be the child who finds the special counter to become King for the day.

  • Show the children a picture of the three Kings 

  • Split the class into teams of six. Explai that they are now king-seekers 

  • The team that wins the most Kings (up to a maximum of three Kings) will be the winning King team for the day. Remind the children the object of the game is to win the pictures of the three Kings hidden on the underside of  the pieces of your card cake  

  • Each team must ask politely for a piece of your cake. They must ask for the color of the piece of cake they want and then the team must look at the sound-letter combination and think of a word they know in the target language that has the letter combination they can see written on their piece of cake.

  • Ask a member of the team to say the word out loud and to try to write it up on the whiteboard

  • Does the class agree that this word has the sound-letter combination in it?

  • If they are correct they win that piece of cake and can turn it over. If it has a King on the back then they have won one of their three Kings and can keep the piece of card.

  • If it does not have a King pop it back in your cake circle 

  • Now it's the turn of another team

  • The game ends when one team  has collected three Kings 

  • At the end of the game if there is no clear winning team then which team has the most Kings?

You can play this game multiple times and also with children at different stages of language learning with different clue types on your pieces of cake.It's great fun and allows the children to revisit familiar language and make those all-important sound- letter links in the target language. 

Illuminating nouns

illuminated_nouns-775.jpg

Toward the end of this first half term, many of you will have introduced some nouns to your classes or will have revisited familiar nouns and used these in new contexts. Certainly if you are using one of our Primary Languages Network Schemes of Work then Years 4, 5 and 6 will have been using nouns in the target language this half term.

We love this activity as it makes purposeful and effective display and can be a display that works with beginners and more advanced learners and potentially allows you to create a whole school target language grammar display too.

The idea is inspired by one of the great celebrations here in the North West of England, the Blackpool illuminations. You will see strings of bright lights and light displays all around Blackpool, lighting up the night sky at this time of year. Below are the steps we suggest you take to create your illuminating nouns display.

  1. Play a game with the nouns you have practised , a spoken memory chain game or a game of listening, respond, mime and show the meaning of noun (for example Simon says).

  2. Talk with the children about how we can group the nouns. With beginners, this might be just to highlight the use of “le” and “la” in French for example before the nouns they know. With more advanced learners this may be to the group into singular and plural nouns in categories of masculine and feminine nouns. You may be able to think of a focus that you want to dig deeper with the class.

  3. Ask the children to create their own paper light bulb shapes and to add drawings of nouns and accurate target-language spelling of the nouns.

  4. Give the children short pieces of string and ask them to create their own illumination strings following your grammar focus. This may mean that all the masculine nouns should be put on a string and all the feminine nouns should be put on a string or you may want the children to divide the nouns into singular and plural nouns etcetera.

  5. Collect in the strings of nouns and display. In fact, you could have strings of nouns from beginners and more advanced displayed together.

How can we teach languages in a primary way?

Dive into our blog post that explores creating an inclusive learning environment, celebrating diversity through cultural assemblies, and bringing target language countries to life. Discover practical tips on educating young ears, starting simple with songs and games, letting children explore, and transitioning from beginners to advanced language activities.

  1. Create a learning environment where every child feels valued and a “citizen of the World”

In primary schools we can celebrate diversity in the whole school community through cultural assemblies, practising simple greetings from around the World, exploring and learning about songs and stories from other cultures.

We can look for similarities and differences and enjoy the language learning knowledge and skills of children with home languages. We can help open the door to the wider world for children who have limited experience.

A very practical primary launch to language learning is to create a corridor display, where children can introduce themselves and where the whole school can be proud of the shared and welcoming primary language learning environment in school.

2. Bring the target language country to life

It’s so important to see what the children know or not even be aware that they know about the target language country. It’s equally important to look for the similarities and the differences and celebrate these.

Find opportunities throughout your teaching to highlight links to the target language and the country/ies. For example highlight stories that are internationally loved (e.g. The Hungry Caterpillar or the Going on a Bear Hunt). Watch out for cartoons and characters from films and stories that children both in your class and in the target language country like.

Introduce the children to the food and festivals of the target language country/ies and build meaningful and age-appropriate visual displays to celebrate the target language, its culture, and the country. Make with the help of your class a pictorial knowledge map for example to gather this knowledge as a display

Share the children’s explorations of the target language country and culture with your wider school community and celebrate the language and the culture of the country. Take advantage of the positives of the internet and Google Earth and then use of APPs to capture what you explore and learn.

3. Educate the ear

Take time to play sound and action games to reinforce good pronunciation. Use techniques that you may already use for sound-spelling practice in Literacy. Revisit, repeat, build confidence in all your learners.

Use the internet,visitors from the community or your native speakers to introduce the children to the sound of the language or to reinforce pronunciation of core language.Go back and use resources more than once, tweaking the activity or adding challenge as you go. Remember children like to progress and they also like to start from a familiar and secure starting point. Don’t rush.

4. Start simple.

Primary languages is about all children growing in confidence and being keen and able to develop their own language learning skills and to want to explore languages further.

We really don’t know which language they may need in the future when they are adults.

Start with a song and a game and a focus on greeting each other for example. Primary colleagues reading this will know that eye contact and speaking out loud can in itself be a challenge for some young learners. Celebrate both the small and the big strides forward.

Don’t be afraid of repetition and for example singing the same song again and again over a period of lessons.

Build language learning into your classroom routines - why don’t you sing the songs as you line up outside to come in from outdoor play or PE or greet each other in the morning or after lunch in the target language?

5. Let the children explore

Primary languages means that we can make small steps forward into big and exciting challenges.

Look at how these two children are really focusing on a very simple paper counting board game with their German numbers 1-10. so much more is taking place than just counting in the target language. Rigour and pace in primary is not always about teacher led class activities focusing on core language. Keep it exciting, age appropriate, challenging and always a wonderful language learning adventure!

6. Think of primary approaches to learning

Primary approaches to listening,speaking, reading, and writing really start in the primary classroom and with approaches that experienced primary colleagues use to explore all subjects. Literacy and natural links to literacy are very apparent when teaching primary languages. Yes, children may have their “French” thinking heads on for the lesson but the links can still be made, for example make the links with questions to the class: “Do you remember yesterday when we were looking at nouns….” or “Can we think of ways we use to try to remember our spellings?”

Our Spanish stretchy balloon, to practise reading colours and sound-spelling is a primary favourite. It’s primary focus is sound -spelling. It engages children with memory skills and word association.It leads beautifully into our magical air writing and our special imaginary balloons in our favourite and least favourite colours.

Keep speaking “primary”. It’s not all about dialogues although as the children progress you will want to build their ability to talk about themselves and ask questions of others. For example, here we are using the class Numicon to speak aloud in pairs our French numbers and colours in the target language.

Reading and writing need to be “primary” in approach and expectations.

Keep these tasks purposeful and be mindful of all your learners and their needs.

We like to encourage children to be language detectives and to solve puzzles and find solutions. what is appropriate with Year 3 children may not be well received by beginners in Year 6 and consider also the audience.

Think about how can you pitch the activities appropriately for the age ,stage and interests of the class you are teaching primary languages.

And when children make mistakes, especially when they are thinking both creatively and using the written target language, be primary in your approach to corrections.

Share ideas anonymously from work the children have created (see below) and use back in class to discuss options and choices. For example in this case,your follow up lesson could include “language detective” work using vocabulary reference tool ( bilingual dictionaries/ online tools) to check spellings of nouns- as a class, in groups or pairs.

Provide models of language as display to support your classes with target language and spend time in DT or Art creating with your class primary appropriate interactive displays and working walls.

Indeed just as you would be in other primary subject areas, be the facilitator of learning. Remember your primary learners are being encouraged to become independent and creative. Let them lead and share when appropriate.

Sometimes small steps forward provide giant all round learning gains.

Sing a song in French and revisit the months as in the example below and your class grows in confidence, has fun, practises memory skills, works as a team, follows the rhythm and beat and tune etcereta, etcetera. It’s not all about the new content acquisition.

Link your learning to the school calendar.


Why not revisit numbers and colours and link them for example to Autumn and harvest time?

Make purposeful links across the whole school curriculum.Begin to consider some limited cross-curricular links. Above we have seen how we can focus on colours in sound-spelling,speaking, games, reading , writing.

7.What will the “primary” teaching and learning look like when we progress from beginners and word level activities?

Last year we kept a running record for most of the year of work facilitated by primary languages teachers and produced by primary children , in KS1 and particularly in KS2. When you have time and are ready to move on, take a look here:

And finally, remember if you are a network member, then using our Video2Teach and Click2Teach Schemes in French, Spanish and German you will be guided to teach appropriately for the age and stage if the primary learners.

Not a member yet? Interested? Speak to one of the team

If a trainee teacher could read one book related to primary languages, which should it be?

Rather than recommend a book related to primary languages pedagogy. I am going to recommend the book ‘If the World Were a Village’ by David J Smith and Shelagh Armstrong which can be used in the classroom and which both children, and adults, will find fascinating.  This book manages to present the world as a village of 100 people and we soon discover that 22 of them speak a Chinese dialect and 17 cannot read or write. We find out about people’s religions, education and living standards. A great place to start when discussing the concept of global citizens and a great link with language and culture. 

 

How might AI have an impact on your subject?

What can teachers/leaders do to embrace the opportunities and guard against potential problems?

When I first heard about the concept of AI in language learning, I must admit I had my reservations. The idea of the teacher in the classroom being replaced and AI producing less-than-accurate translations sounded worrying.

However, as we learn more about the technology of AI, the potential it has to enhance language learning becomes more attractive. Firstly, chatbots can provide the opportunity for students to self-study, AI systems offering feedback and help with pronunciation. Secondly, teachers can make use of AI powered tools to help alleviate some of their workload by generating grammar and vocabulary activities, provide translations and helping with assessment..

It may be that AI supports the more advanced language learner rather than the beginner and I think teachers do need to receive training and professional development to understand how to effectively blend AI with traditional teaching methods. Ultimately, AI should not and will not ever replace human relationships as language learning is all about becoming effective communicators with all its errors and successes, and the development of socio-cultural skills.

What are the main challenges for your subject in this academic year?

Going into next academic year, the challenges for MFL are three-fold in my opinion. Firstly, as in any new year, the aim is to ensure that languages are seen as an integral part of the primary curriculum, one which makes meaningful links with learning across other subjects such as English, grammar, geography and PSHE.  Start as you mean to go on with your new class with a growth mindset to learning languages (which they will pick up on), ensuring that MFL sessions are delivered as consistently as possible. Remember, MFL lends itself really well to very short (five-minute) re-visits of language throughout the week to embed learning and once this becomes routine, you will reap the rewards in terms of retention.

Secondly, teachers new to the profession need to know where they can access quality support for language upskilling, lesson resources and subject knowledge CPD. For example, www.primarylanguages.network offers a CPD journey open to members and some to non-members which can be accessed remotely. Everyone’s needs are different and there is something for teachers at every stage of their career to benefit from.

Thirdly, transition between year groups and key stages is something which always seems to receive a negative press. It needn’t be something elaborate which takes copious planning but a simple conversation or transition document outlining attainment and confidence, for example, along with a bank of vocabulary, phrases and language learning skills which the children have both encountered and retained would be really useful information for their next teacher. In the same way, Y6 teachers can make contact with the head of languages at the feeder secondary schools to ask if they have a set format for how they would like to receive information, if they are part of the SixIntoSeven portal for transition or if there is any scope for a sample lesson or Q&A session with the high school to give pupils a flavour of what to expect at KS3.  In short, when it comes to transition, anything is better than nothing and whatever you manage to do will benefit both their subsequent teachers in terms of planning and setting as well as the pupils’ motivation to continue learning languages which can only be a good thing!

What are the exciting developments within your subject as we move into a new academic year?

As we come to the end of our first term, we look to harness this ‘positive time of renewed focus’ as quoted by the British Council’s recently published Languages Trends survey.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language_trends_england_2023.pdf

We seem to be on the road to recovery post-pandemic where more schools in England are including primary languages more consistently in their curriculum offer.  International engagement is improving and there is a greater continuity between KS2 and KS3 transition which, although it still has some way to go, is definitely a step in the right direction if the government’s EBACC target of 90% of pupils including a foreign language in their choices is to be achieved. We see that in the Welsh curriculum, a development to include an international language strand into their offer is being implemented which will again spotlight the relevance and importance of foreign language learning at primary level. One further exciting development is the more prevalent use of digital resources and interactive apps to support pupils’ learning. For example, Primary Languages Network’s new web-based app ‘Planet Languages’

Allows individual pupils to engage in a listening, reading and writing activity each week, consolidating the words and phrases they have previously learnt throughout the scheme of work. In the same way we have seen other apps increase the potential for pupils to self-study in bitesize chunks of time, language learning apps such as this aim to boost recall with its little and often approach.

Becoming Language Detectives: Empowering young learners with effective language learning skills.

When it comes to teaching primary languages, we should ask ourselves what it means to be an effective language learner. Our young learners need to be taught strategies to help them to become effective language learners and at Primary Languages Network we call this being a ‘Language Detective.’ To be a language detective we can teach them explicit language learning strategies called ‘Language Detective skills.’

What are language detective skills?

These are a set of strategies that facilitate language learning for our children and help them to become more independent, confident and effective learners. Some of the most frequently used skills include:

  • Speak confidently

  • Join in with games and actions to aid memorisation

  • Find learning links and memory hooks to help remember new words

  • Make links with English/other languages (looking for cognates and semi cognates)

  • Listen attentively

  • Imitate pronunciation of sounds

  • Identify key sounds and silent letters

  • Have a positive attitude to learning about language and other cultures

  • Use a bilingual dictionary to check spellings or look up new words

  • Take risks and learn from mistake

Taking risks and learning from mistakes should be encouraged to students from the start, this builds confidence and children learn to just have a go without fear of getting things wrong. Once children understand that it is ok to make mistakes then the other skills will follow.

When should I start with language detective skills?

Start teaching these skills in the first lesson with a new class. The children need to understand what the language detective skills are, how they help us to learn and understand that these form a part of every single language lesson. To do this in a child-friendly way, introduce the class to Curio the language detective and his dog Fetch, then look at some of the most common skills with the children. It does take time at first to introduce the idea of language detective, but once children understand it, it becomes routine.

Children could be asked to nominate a language detective winner at the end of lessons. This gives the opportunity to compliment each other's learning and say what other children did well and which skills they used. I often ask the language detective from the previous week to nominate someone.

How do I fit language detective skills into my lesson?

Try to embed language detective skills and certificate nominations as part of your language lesson routine. Why not have this at the start of your lesson along with the learning objective? Explain to the class what language detective skills you will be expecting to see, like with the learning objectives, it allows the class to understand what skills they will need to use.

What do language detective skills look like in practice?

As an example, let’s look at the skill of making links with English/other languages. This is where children look for cognates and semi cognates with either English or a home language. An example from a recent lesson on the topic of the beach, a pupil explained that in their home language the word for ‘slipper’ sounded similar to the word "flip flop" in Spanish and this helped them to remember the Spanish word. It is important to remember that children with English as an additional language can thrive in language lessons as they can sometimes find links between words in the target language and their home language, such a confidence booster!

How can we celebrate our language detective winners?

On our VLE we have a language detective certificate. These can be used as often as you like but one per lesson is the best. The children love these certificates and try their best to use these skills to win the certificate.

Some schools celebrate the language detectives in weekly assemblies along with other awards. This is an opportunity to show the importance of language learning in school and demonstrate that it is equally as important as other subjects. St Michael’s Catholic Primary School in Widnes celebrate the language detective winners in their celebration assemblies each week and often celebrate these on Twitter too.

Lisa Ormes

Associate Primary Languages Teacher

Lisa Ormes is an associate language teacher at PLN specialising in Spanish and has worked with us for the last four years across a number of schools. Lisa has a wealth of teaching experience including secondary and sixth form as well as English as a Foreign Language in Spain and Japan. She is passionate about helping our young learners to become independent language detectives whilst developing a love for languages.

Monitoring progress in Primary Language Learning: from skills development evidencing speaking and writing

How can I evidence progress?

Let's start by understanding how progress can be measured in primary languages. It makes sense to start with the four key skills learning document. The key word here is four, a reminder that as a class teacher, you must ensure that your classes are practicing all skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

What does progress look like from lesson to lesson

One point worth noting is that each new topic will usually start with learning new words or phrases before being expected to form full sentences at the end of that topic. Here are some examples of progress made between lessons with stage 2 learners of French and Spanish in different schools.

Stage 2 Summer 1 Spanish, Walking through the Jungle.

You can see progress from lesson to lesson here. If we look back at the core skills document, we can see that the learner here has progressed from individual words in lesson 1 to "write simple sentences with limited mistakes so the message is understood".


Work from St Michael’s Catholic Primary School in Widnes

Similarly, this French piece of work in lesson 1 uses a gap fill template then moves on to writing several sentences in lesson 2.

Work from Weston Primary School

Do I need to have work in books every lesson to show progress?

Absolutely not! At Primary Languages Network we believe that the work in books should be a 'celebration' of writing and other work done in lessons. Every other week or every three weeks is certainly enough. Writing doesn't always have to be done in books and instead could be done on whiteboards; this is particularly helpful to build confidence before doing work in books. This work could then be photographed and saved in a folder on your VLE secure locker or even printed and stuck into books. Written work could also be done using the ‘magic pen’ and air writing activities.

How can I show the bigger picture of progress?

When the children start learning the language at stage 1 (usually year 3), we advise making sure books are big enough to be used over two years or longer, from year 3 through to year 4 and from year 5 through to year 6. Some schools use one book all the way through. In terms of evidencing progress, the biggest indicator to show progression is how the core skills develop from stages 1 through to stage 4. If we take a look at the core skills of learning document for writing, a book should clearly show at the beginning of the book in stage one that learners can ‘copy or write a few simple words’ then the following academic year there should be examples of work showing that the child ‘can spell some familiar written words and phrases accurately and write simple sentences with limited mistakes’. If work is kept in one book, even between stages 1 and 2 the progress should be clear to see even to an outside visitor.

Do I need to use books with KS1 classes to show evidence?

Exercise books do not tend to be used in KS1 languages. Folders can be used to keep pieces of work that the children have completed or some schools opt for the big floor books which are often used for subjects such as PSHE or RE. In KS1 a lot of the focus is on using songs, games and stories. If you are using a floor book, a nice idea to evidence the speaking skill is to use your class iPad or phone to take videos and create a QR code to stick in the floor book.

What about evidencing progress in speaking?

An iPad is your best friend for this. Record your class doing speaking activities and save it to your school drive or the secure locker folder on the Primary Language Network VLE. Another way to evidence speaking progress would be to celebrate their speaking work on Twitter. Create a hashtag specific for MFL Tweets at your school, for example #Schoolname_MFL. This automatically will keep a record of speaking activities and should demonstrate progress made over time.

Gathering evidence of speaking activities can be lots of fun. Why not try using apps like the Chatterpix app for recording speaking? I did this with a class working at stage 2 with the alien family topic. The children drew a picture, then using the Chatterpix app, they took a photo of the picture then recorded a message. The app then turned the picture into a speaking picture with a moving mouth, so much fun!

Are there end of unit tests?

The Puzzle it out tasks can be completed at the end of each half-term or each term as evidence to stick in books. At the bottom of the series of lessons on click to teach you will find a button for the Puzzle it out task for that half term.

Is there a tracking tool?

At Primary Languages Network we have created a tracking tool for you. On the VLE we have a spreadsheet to input grades for the puzzle it out task and this will monitor progress for you, both on an individual level and a class level. It also shows performance in each skill so you can monitor where the class as a whole may need more focus in the future. To access the assessment spreadsheet, go to your Coordinator tools. Download them and you are ready to go!

Coordinator Tools >Tracking and assessment > Assessment spreadsheets > Download assessment spreadsheet

Lisa Ormes

Associate Primary Languages Teacher

Lisa Ormes is an associate language teacher at PLN specialising in Spanish and has worked with us for the last four years across a number of schools. Lisa has a wealth of teaching experience including secondary and sixth form as well as English as a Foreign Language in Spain and Japan. She is passionate about helping our young learners to become independent language detectives whilst developing a love for languages.

Engaging and effective methods of modelling new vocabulary for language learners.

Modelling new words is key to developing good pronunciation when learning new language but we must remember to engage children by using a variety of methods other than asking the children to "repeat after me".

The most effective methods of modelling are often those that involve the children repeating after the teacher but in a way that is not obvious but is fun.

Modelling through games

Simon Says

Personally, my favourite way to model new language is through the classic game of 'Simon says', ‘Simon dice’ in Spanish or ‘Jacques à dit’ in French. The teacher says Simon says followed by the word and an action, and students repeat the word AND the action. Some teachers just ask the children to do the action when they hear the word, asking the children to repeat as part of the game helps to incorporate repetition of the new words.

Beat the teacher

This is another favourite for many as a way to model language in a fun and engaging way. It introduces an element of competition between the class and the teacher, which the children love. The teacher says a word and action and the children repeat but only when the action matches the word. If the action doesn’t match then pupils do not repeat. If they do repeat, the teacher wins a point but if they remain silent then the class wins a point. Quite simple!

The detectives game

This is extremely repetitive and from experience the children love it. Have a list of the words you are learning on the board. There are two roles in this game; the teacher needs to choose a 'detective' to go out of the room and then nominates a ‘game controller’.

When the detective comes back into the room the class starts chanting the first word from the list of words on the board. The ‘game controller’ must then send a secret signal to the teacher to chant the next word in the list. This secret signal could be a little wink, a flick of the hair or a nod. The aim of the game is for the detective to guess who the controller is. They have three chances to guess once the class reaches the end of the list.

Let the children have a say

Why not let the children have a say in the way that the new language is modeled by using the 'voice changer' activity. The teacher models the new words using a type of voice, for example, a slow voice. Once you have practised all the words,  ask the class for ideas of different voices to use. 'Angry voices' is a popular on! Others include whispering voices, happy voices, robot voices (complete with actions) and serious voices. The children love having a say in their learning and it is really motivating to get the class involved. 

Modeling through song

Our Click to Teach scheme of work has been revamped this year with some exciting, repetitive songs that help to model new language to the children. These songs have been such a hit in the classroom with both children and teachers alike. Let's take a look at two popular songs from the scheme.

The Manners Song

If we take a look at the stage 1 scheme of work in summer 1, lesson 4, we have 'The manners song'. This song teaches four keywords in a repetitive way: 'Quisiera' ( I would like) 'Gracias' (Thank you)  'muchas gracias' (thank you very much) and 'Por favor' (Please). As with all other modeling methods, the words in the song should be accompanied by action to help aid memorisation.

The weather rap

The weather rap in stage 2 summer 2 has been a hit over the last couple of years and can be found on our Planet Languages YouTube channel as well as built into our scheme of work. The children have loved rapping along with the song and even find themselves still singing it at the end of the lesson "¿Qué tempo hace hoy?". This song repeats this question over and over to practice asking "what is the weather like today?

Modelling language as a non-specialist

If you are a non-specialist teacher and you are worried about teaching new language, fear not! Our Click to teach scheme of work includes native speaker sound files on the slides. Simply click the speaker and a native speaker's voice will model the language for you

Stage 1, Spring 1, lesson 2. This speaking activity helps children to practise the 'r' sound in Spanish. It fits in nicely with the topic of animals in spring 1. They are so much fun, make sure to give them a go with your classes.

Lisa Ormes

Associate Primary Languages Teacher

Lisa Ormes is an associate language teacher at PLN specialising in Spanish and has worked with us for the last four years across a number of schools. Lisa has a wealth of teaching experience including secondary and sixth form as well as English as a Foreign Language in Spain and Japan. She is passionate about helping our young learners to become independent language detectives whilst developing a love for languages.

Creative and inspiring ideas for your primary languages display: celebrating progress and diversity.

It is the start of the school year and you have been digging deep for ideas and wondering what your primary languages display should look like. In this blog, I am going to share with you some ideas and examples of what you could include on your display and some different ways a display can be used.

Languages can be displayed in so many different ways. Displays can be used to celebrate children's work throughout the year or even a particular theme like European Day of Languages. Why not use your display to celebrate EDoL and give children the opportunity to celebrate their own home languages and other languages from around the world. You could also use your display to show how the children progress in the language from stages one to four and even consider making your display interactive. I hope this blog gives you some inspiration for your own displays at school.

Diversity on display


If, like many schools across the UK, your school has a wide range of home languages spoken, your language display could be a great way to celebrate these.

Haslam Park Primary School, Bolton

At Haslam Park Primary School in Bolton, they have used their languages display to celebrate European day of languages 2022. This year at Primary Languages Network, we celebrated this special day by learning and singing the rocket song, written by our very own Joanne. Based on the song, the children created their very own microphones of positivity, which focused on reaching for the sky to achieve their dreams and to give the message that anything is possible.

Haslam Park Primary School, Bolton

Children at Haslam Park were encouraged to create bilingual microphones of positivity, using both Spanish and their home languages. In the photos below you can see how some children included the flag of the country where their home language is spoken as well as some key words in both Spanish and their home language. It was evident that children felt a sense of pride in celebrating their home languages as well as Spanish on display in school. Perhaps this is something worth considering for your display for September 2023.

Make your display interactive

Photo: Queen’s Park Primary School, St Helens.

There are so many ways a display can be made interactive. First, why not use your languages display to celebrate phonics in Spanish, French or German. One of our network schools, Queens Park Primary School in St. Helens, shared their French display on Twitter and at PLN we just loved the idea of the 'phonics pockets'. Children add words to the phonics pockets as they learn, for example, ‘douze’ is placed in the ‘ou’ pocket. A big thank you to Mrs Taylor at the school for this fantastic idea and for sharing! This is a fantastic way to get children involved with the display as well as tracking progress with new vocabulary and phonics. They could even be used for retrieval practice throughout the year.

Haslam Park Primary School, Bolton

Why not make your display interactive by having the date in the target language as a central feature of your display? This is another way that Haslam Park in Bolton encourages the daily use of the language in the school. On a daily basis the designated language ambassadors change the date in the centre of the display at the start of the school day. This is a great way to demonstrate the importance of using the language outside of the lessons. The language ambassadors are also responsible for changing the date in Spanish in all classrooms throughout the school. In each classroom there is a mini display at the front of the class where the date is written in Spanish.

Time constraints

As many of us know already, planning a display and putting it together can be time-consuming. At Haslam Park they thought of and implemented a very clever idea to nominate language ambassadors in years five and six. These language ambassadors are responsible for updating the displays during the year and helping to get the displays ready. Do you have a language ambassador in your school? Why not implement this? These children show such pride in their role and love being involved in creating the displays.

Put a spotlight on progression

St Michael’s Catholic Primary School, Widnes

Books are one the first ways we think of to demonstrate the progress our children make in school. Why not have this progress on display? It is a great idea to divide your display board into sections for each stage of learning or year group. Displaying work across the stages in one central place emphasises the progression made from stage one through to stage four. The display can show clear progress in writing from using single words in stage one to full sentences, opinions and adjectives in stage four. Here is an example from St Michael’s Catholic Primary School in Widnes. It displays work from stage one learners using words to describe their animal masks, stage two learners designing and describing their own aliens to stage four learners who designed and described their own funfairs in the style of a triarama.

Remember that your display does not have to be limited to showing progress across just key stage two. St Ann's Primary School in Sheffield have split their display board to show work in KS1 too and just look at the creativity and colourful work from the children.

I hope this blog has given you some ideas that you can take away and use in your own schools. Please feel free to contact the team at Primary Languages Network with any questions. Similarly, once you have your new display please share with the team, we would love to see them.

Lisa Ormes

Associate Primary Languages Teacher

Lisa Ormes is an associate language teacher at PLN specialising in Spanish and has worked with us for the last four years across a number of schools. Lisa has a wealth of teaching experience including secondary and sixth form as well as English as a Foreign Language in Spain and Japan. She is passionate about helping our young learners to become independent language detectives whilst developing a love for languages.

Register their interest! 7 ways to use register time to maximise language learning.

By Kate Percival

I always say that registration time in the classroom is the most under-used time during the school day. It is a real opportunity to maximise learning. Think about it: that two and a half minutes spent (or longer) twice a day can be a real chance to revisit and recall learning from a previous day, week, month or even year to encourage that all-important retention.  Here are a few simple yet effective ways to exploit it.

1.   Greetings.

Greeting the child and them greeting you back in the target language is the obvious start. But if you’ve been learning different greetings and farewells, have you considered asking the children to choose any that you’ve learnt to reply to the register? It may seem strange to reply ‘Good night’ in the morning but I’m sure children will see the funny side of it as well as be able to embed these essential phrases. You can build in a rule that you have to say a different phrase to the person before you. Or even that they have to alternate between a greeting or a farewell.

2.   Q and A.

We are often teaching children how to answer a question about their name, age, how they are feeling, their preferences etc in the target language. But are they as confident with the question? Select a few questions and answers you wish to focus on; these could be displayed on the board for support. You ask the question eg: ‘Quel âge as-tu?’ and add the child’s name after it. The child at the top of the register answers it. Continue all the way through the register giving each child the opportunity not only to hear the question up to 30 times but also a range of answers, reinforcing the language each time.

3.   As easy as 1, 2, 3. 

Another obvious one is to give each child their number in the target language according to their position in the register. They simply say their number out loud when you call their name. Build this into a speed challenge to see how fast you can do it. They may become confident enough to reel off their numbers without you saying their names in between! A great one for a quick check of who is present.

4.   Slide sorter.

On your PowerPoint of vocabulary or phrases, go to ‘View’ at the top and ‘Slide Sorter.’ All the slides should appear on screen. Taking each one in turn, you say them out loud followed by the child’s name, they repeat it in response. Rotate through all your phrases as many times as you need to reach the end of the register.  For the afternoon register, see if you can do it aurally e.g. without using the phrases on screen. Or even, allow children to choose which of the phrases they want to respond with.

5.   Silly voices echo.

A fun twist on number 4. Choose any vocabulary or phrases you want to focus on: this can be a good way to hone the particularly difficult language you wish the children to master. Use call and response again but make it vibrant by using different voices and volumes for the children to replicate.

6.   Charades.

Either you or a confident learner performs the action or gesture for a word of phrase you’ve learnt at the front of the class and the child says the word aloud in the target language. To keep it pacy, if they don’t know, you can say it and they repeat it to reinforce.

7.   Snack and dinner orders.

Don’t forget the dinner register too. So much opportunity here to exploit the meal choice names in the target language for the children to choose from or even ‘yes please’ and ‘no thank you’ – great transactional language to embed which, after a few tries, will become second nature and part of your class culture.

We’d love to hear what you think when you’ve tried these ideas. Do let us know what worked and any other things you’ve tried to be about exploit language learning outside of formal language lessons. PLN members can join and post on our WhatsApp forum (just email your mobile number to will@primarylanguages.network to join the group).