A few colleagues have recently chatted with me about how they are trying to link language learning to their focus on the Ancient Greeks. I think there are lots of lovely ways we can all think of to do this – sports, daily routine and life, the Gods etc.
Here are two simple ways we can make sure that in doing this we also focus on language learning skills too. In doing so we will be creating a spoken and written record of target language and bringing something “very ancient Greek” up to date and celebrate language learning too.
We probably share with all our children the Ancient Greek freezes we can find on pottery, Art etc depicting daily life, routines and hobbies. Let’s focus on sporting activities here! I like the way that artefacts can share so much about life in a certain time frame!
Our Ancient Greek Artefact collection
The first activity is based on reading and showing understanding words and phrases. All you need are a series of cards with the familiar words of sports you have taught the children – possibly just nouns or maybe verbal phrases or infinitives of verbs associate with sports. You could decide to add in verbs used in 3rd person singular or plural too or some unfamiliar nouns and verbs associated with sports. Your selection will determine the challenge for the children- so you could differentiate the task within the class by the type of written information on the cards. Either set this up as a table top activity for different groups or ask volunteers from the class as whole group activity to label your “Ancient Greek” collection. Allow the class access to bilingual dictionaries for familiar words.
Modern Day Life “Freeze Framed”
The second activity is quite simple too but brings the freeze frame(d) idea bang up to date. A couple of years ago I went to the Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum and saw and loved his modern take on the “Rosetta Stone” .He produced a 21st Century “Rosetta Vase”
1. Take a box or a container and ask the class to help you cover this with paint or coloured paper. You may need more than one container – maybe a container per table will work best.
2. Ask each pair to decide on a sport or activity they want to depict in a pose “Ancient Greek style”.
3. Ask each pair to write draft sentences about the sport they have chosen to use for theirpose -with beginners this could be a simple sentence about liking the sport. With more advanced learners this could be a simple like sentence plus an opinion. With advanced learners this could be a series of sentences – containing a like, an opinion and adverbs.
4. Ask the children to pose. Take their photos. Print off their photos. (You will be glue-ing these later to the container to create the effect you can see in the Rosetta Vase picture above. You may need more than one container)
5. Ask the children to read and check each other’s sentences. Now ask the children to record their draft sentences either as sound files of their sentences or written as speech bubbles .
6. If the children write speech bubbles then these need glue-ing next to the picture.
7. If you create sound files then investigate QRs and see how you can add these to the pictures before you glue them to the container, so when you hover over with the QR APP on an IPhone you can hear the children saying their sentences.
8. Now you can create your freeze framed modern day artefacts of sporting life (etcetra)
