Revisiting language Observation Game - Watching, Reading, Speaking

This activity works well with a video clip linked to culture or festivals – so a party, an event , a festival, a journey through the target language country, a visit to a famous place or town in the target language country.

At the start of the year it is a great activity to use with moving on learners to revisit familiar language and take a tour around the taret language country or set the scene for the academic year's learning with a cultural focus.

So select your video clip stimulus material!

Watch the clip carefully and select the key words (nouns,adjectives, verbs will all work well here!)

It's a game that I have played lots of times with all age groups of learners.Works well with adult learmers too.

You can revisit know language, practise new language or investigate unknown language using a bilingual dictionary first ..... 

Game One

Give each child five word cards. Each word is a noun of an object, place, person or building they will see in the video.

 Ask the children to watch the video clip and pick up a specific word card and wave it when they think they have seen one of the five words they have in front of them.

Ask the children to then share their order of the written words cards with a partner, by saying them in the order they have placed them and as they observed them appear on the video clip

Game Two

Working in pairs give them all the noun cards. The object of the game is to place the nouns face down in a pile when they see that object. Each partner should be holding 9 cards or have 9 cards face upwards on the table so that they can see the words. When they see one of their objects  , they place the correct word card in a growing pile of cards.

After they have watched the whole video clip, they should compare the words in their pile with those of   another pair. They must carefully pick up the pile. Turn it face up and take it in turns to read the noun at the top of the pile. Once read they should put this word at the bottom of the pile. Do both pairs have the cards in the same order?

Report back

Can the pairs now create a tourist information report using the phrase  e.g. “ A Paris il y a + nouns” in their pile , in the order they saw the places and objects etc.

Volunteer pairs to say their “Tourist information report” to the class.

Touch Base AfL Game

Start of the new academic year and what can the children remember from last year? 

A great and easy game to play to revisit core language that you want the children to be able to use throughout this next academic year!

The game allows you the chance to do some AfL aswell.

You can observe and see if children react correctly and you can also collect in their scores and see how well each child listened and responded to key language.

You need a "buzzer" card (just a circle of coloured paper) - one between two children. Make sure that is equi-distant between the two children.

The game is simple.

You can play this with so many elements of language:

• basic language- numbers/ colours/days of the week/ months of the year 
• questions to find out about someone
• spotting verbs
• spotting adjectives
• spotting nouns

How to play Touch Base!

One child is "the player" and the other child is "the counter".

The counter must observe and count how many times the child who is the player touches the buzzer card.

Ask the player to listen to key language that you say.They are listening for specific language content (e.g. numbers or nouns or adjectives).

Say several items- the children need to touch their buzzer card when they hear key language that is within the category you have asked them to listen for.

Ask the "counters" to let you now how many times their partner touched the buzzer.All they have to do is jot the number down on a piece of paper  with the name of their partner and the buzzer game they took part in.You could just opt for a show of hands from the counters when you call out the number of times that the player might have pressed their buzzers.how many hands go up on the correct amount you are expecting?

Now ask the children to swap roles and play a new but similar the game  of "Touch Base"

With learners who are moving on or are advanced primary learners, you can make this a game where they have to identify the nouns or the adjectrives or the verbs in  spoken list.  

Revisiting numbers and physical listening and responding

Every year you think that all the children have "got" those numbers ....and then at the beginning of the year you realise that ssome of the children really haven't "got" those numbers yet!!

Here is a physical and  novel ways to revisit and practise the numbers and keep everyone engaged and interested, no matter if you are still practising one to ten or counting up in tens or even three digit numbers!

Firstly children need to be standing in a clear space- away from chairs and tables and with sufficient space inbetween each child.The hall or the playground woud be an ideal space.

Physical Warm Up with Numbers (Listening and responding activity) 

• Everyone stands up .
• Tell the class that the number they represent standing up is a specific number e.g "eleven".You decide the number and this  number can be changed as you go along.
• Ask the class to stand very still and listen...
• If they hear a number higher than "eleven" (if that's the number you have chosen as the standing up straight number) they must reach to the sky with their arms and hands.
• If they hear a number lower than "eleven" they need to touch their toes.
• Start with one number and say it slowly 
• Speed up the numbers- who can keep up?
• Say a sequence of numbers (mixture of numbers,higher and lower than eleven ) which children can deminstarte a correct pattern of movements.
• Ask for a volunteer to lead the activity.
• Play the game as "the slowest to react is out"!  

"Stepping Stones" and a first lesson back!

Time to get back to learning and to build on prior learning and move on forwards.

Here is a simple context that can help all our learners no matter how much or how little they have already learnt in the target language.Take a look at the picture above .....

Ask the children to look at the picture and to see the stepping stones in the picture.

Should we as a class find out how securely we can stand on the first three stepping stones 

Stepping Stones.

Stepping Stone One:

Reflect on what we already know - our numbers,our colours, our greetings....

• Think of a rhyme, a song or a game we can create .use or do to allow us as a class to practise the language we already know.(Great way for a new class teacher to find out the strengths and knowledge of a class from the previous language learning)

Now we are standing securely on our first stepping stone.....

Stepping Stone Two:

Recall and remember an authentic song or rhyme that we learnt last year.

• Can we still sing it or say it? Are there actions to go with it?
• How does it feel to be able to remember the song or rhyme from last year and to still be able to join in with the rest of the class and perform it?
• Can the class teach the teacher the song or rhyme and its actions?

Now we are standing securely on our second stepping stone.......

Stepping Stone Three:

Recall and  remember the questions and ansqers we can use about ourselves and to find out about others.

• What can we say about ourselves? How can we help each other to remember the answers?
• What questions can we ask about others?How can we help each other to remember the questions? 

Now we are standing securely on our third stepping stone.......

Stepping Stone Four:

Take a look at the picture at the top of the blog post again.

Take a look at the picture with the children - the stepping stones are about to turn a corner.

Let's use the fourth stepping stone to lay down the ground rules so that we can move securely from stepping stone to stepping stone and off in to the distance!

Let's ask ourselves:

• Why was the game or the song or the rhyme enjoyable and how did this help us remember language?
• Why do we like learning authentic songs and rhymes?
• How do actions help us?
• Why do we like being able to ask and answer questions about ourselves?

Stepping Stone Five:

Now we are ready to step off and move in to unknown territory and our final stepping stone needs to be something new..... over to you and your class! 

Full circle spinners

End of the year!.
Time to collate what we can now say and the growing bank of questions and answers .
Each half term we have extended what we can say, based on the contexts and content we have been considering. 

For example our Year 3 children have already  explored how to ask  a name, ask about feelings , ask an age, ask where someone lives, ask about favouirte animals, ask about fruit or animal likes and dislikes...... .

This is  an activity for the children to make,to play in pairs and to take home and play again over the Summer so that they keep practising these key new spoken questions and answers .

• Give each child a circular piece of card.Ask them to divide the circle in to six equal segments that match on both sides of the card.
• Ask them to colour each segment a particular colour and to make it match on the other side of the circle too! 
• Explain that this is one way to aid memory - to have a visual prompt ....

• They need to pierce a small hole in the centre of the circle - large enough to push a small pencil through.This will create the spinning mechanism and  action.
• Now they need to discuss with you the questions and answers you have practised over the year.Ask them to brainstorm with a partner first. 
• Collate the information they give you on the whiteboard.

Gather our questions and answers

• Can the children select their six favourite new questions and answers or the ones they think are most useful or the ones they are proud that they can remember and use!
• They must write the questions on one side of the spinner and the answer to each question on the other side of the spinner of the identical coloured segment. 
• Now they are ready to try out the game......

Let's spin!

• Try it out alone! Ask the children to push their pencil through the central hole in the spinner and make sure  that the questions are face up.
• Each individual child spins their own spinner.
• Can they say the question the spinner lands on and can they also say the answer they have written? Ask the children to turn over their spinners to check the answer they have just spoken.
• Thye can play this as an idivudual activity several times.
• Now give the spinner to a partner - who spins the spinner and must try to read out loud the question the spinner lands on.
• Can the partner (to whom the spinner belongs) say the answer to the question that is written on the other side of the spinner and matches the question in the correct coloured segment?
• The two children now work with the other partner's spinner and change their roles in the activity.

Storing memories until next year!

We are getting toward the end of another academic year and its time to ask the children to reflect on their learning this year.

It's almost the Summer holdiays and time to go off perhaps to the beach .Beach huts are places to keep equipment safe until the next time you visit the beach .... and this made me think about asking the children to store language they have enjoyed this year safely ,until we come back off holiday.

I like the idea of beach huts ,because they are bright colourful and can act as "piggy bank visuals" to show how we need to collect,collate,categorise and  store prior learning and our new knowledge this year.Also a great opportunity for AfL for both the child and yourself!  

All you need are boxes with rooves, coloured in bright primary colours.The rooves need to be detachable, so you can lift off the roof of a hut and put written cards inside.Each beach hut needs a sign "nouns" or "adjectives " or "verbs" etc. 

The DFE POS asks us to encourage children to "broaden their vocabulary" and I think it is really important that we help our young learners to understand how you store this vocabulary, ready for use another time.

So here is the idea!

• Ask each child needs a rectangular piece of card with which to create a postcard.Once finished they will post this card in one of the class beach huts.
• On one side of the card the children need to write the address. (Does the card need to be sent to the nouns or adjectives or verbs hut etc?).This means that their postcard will be stored in the correct beach hut if you have more than one category of hut.
• Instead of a stamp the children should draw their own face and add their name (this means you can see who has written the card and also hand back out next year to the correct child)
• Where you normally write a message on a postcard,the children need to write down key language they have learnt and like the look or sound of this year.They need to make sure that the words are written on the correct postcard- are the words nouns, adjective,verbs etc?
• Each postcard needs visual symbols on the other side- drawn by the children to represent the words they have selected and want to store and have written down in their message section.
•  
•  

With our Year 3 learners we have been focusing very much on nouns.... so let's have our own "noun beach huts" postcard collection.

With our Year 4 learners we have been focusing on nouns and adjectives - so let's have own beach huts postcard collections - one for nouns and one for adjectives.

With our Year 5 and 6 learners we have focused on nouns, verbs and adjectives plus we may have considered prepositions and conjunctions too.

We are going to need several beach hut postcard collections.

• Now post the cards in the correct beach huts
• Take time to bring out cards and ask the sender to try to tell the class the words they have put on their postcard and what type of words these are.
• Take time to look at the pictures too.
• Finally discuss how we use our memories to store language and challenge the children to try to remember some of their written messages on the postcards right through until the start of school in September!  
• Maybe you will be able to hand the cards back out at the start of the year and see if the children can still recognise and understand the words on their postcards

Keeping a creative spoken record of progress in primary languages

It is so important to keep our tracking of progress "primary" and creative and the teachers who work with me in our network are doing just that! How are we finding ways to track our progress in the spoken language?

Last year Emilie @EWoodruffe took up my challenge to her to try out some APPS with our young learners.

With the wonderful Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings from Kent she set up a spoken class to class swap of family raps.
They used Autorap .
You can listen in here to two of her year 4 children describing the family and facial descriptions.
Emilie heard the children read out loud their written texts before they were recorded and so was able to track pronunciation and intonation etcetra. 

family rap 

She then went on to try out Yakit for Kids with her own take on a fashion show.Simple, effective and we realised that we had a way of capturing children's spoken language and use of grammar ( adjectives after nouns etc)

fashion show yakit for kids clip

fashion show yakit for kids

You can find out more  about all these ideas here in Emilie's presentation  at our JLN annual conference 2013.

Using technology to advance creative learning in our network schools 

Recently we have received from one of network school teachers - Lynsey McHugh, clips  of her children performing their creative Puppetpals dialogues based on personal information conversation.Here she can keep evidence and a track of how well the children are engaging in conversation. You can ee more of Lynsey's Puppetpals clips on our Facebook page  Janet Lloyd Network Facebook

And recently we have realised how easy it is to track progress through songs.We have run a carnival song competition which has allowed our Year 3 beginner learners the chance to show off their pronunciation and intonation.

This year.2015, we have used Yakit for Kids to record and keep evidence of use of simple sentences - noun,verb,adjectives with Year 4 designing monsters,thanks to Ana by the way!

And to once again thanks to Ana and her year 5 children we have a record of our children in 2015 ,talking about clothes they have designed - using adjectival agreement and placement  

Making progress with listening.Activities using all four skills.

This year we have been focusing on how we make progress in language learning with our children and how we can track this and record this.
Here is a simple activity which can be used with all four skills...... to see how children are progressing.
In our JLN SOW we offer teachers sound files and podcasts to support themselves with upskilling in the target language, but we find that teachers can use these too to develop their own listening activities .The podcasts are great for children moving on from word level! 
Emilie Woodruffe @EWoodruffe   amd Ana Lavado Garcia @AnaLavadoGarcia have worked alongside me to create podcasts and sound file for every half term from Year 3 to Year 6- so we have lots of listening texts to work with .These ideas are therefore replicable with other podcasts. Simple too!

Step One 
Select the podcast and text that contains the language content you have been focusing upon with the class.
I have selected podcast one from Year 3 for this example (it's all about Emilie in French or Ana in Spanish)

Give out a series of words from the podcast text you want to use- in a muddled up order.:

1. Can the children look at the words and decide what the listening text might be about?
2. Can they spot any key language they have been practising e.g,question words,months, numbers?
3. Can they put these to one side- you can now see who can identify these words individually.
4. Can they anticipate in which order they may hear the words?
5. Ask the children to listen to the text and put the words in the order from top to bottom in a vertical list as they hear them. 
6. Would they like to listen again and see if they are happy with the order they have generated ?
7. You can take photos of sample vertical lists of the children that you are following as progress pupils in the class  
8. Now can they discuss with a partner what they think the listening text is about?

Step Two

1. Can they now look at their list of words and gather facts about Emilie or Ana for example: 

Here is another opportunity to take photo samples of how the children can comprehend and link together sequences of words that belong together.

Step Three

1. Give out the words written out on a table that the children have been sorting.
2. Working in pairs can they create spoken sentences that use all of the words (Remember they have listened to a modeled text already).In this text they can create up to four or five  sentences  speaking as of they are ~Emilie in the first person singular- name/age/ birthday/ where Emilie lives/ feelings
3. Ask the children in pairs to write down their sentences .You can collect in  their work after the activities and keep samples as evidence of progress in writing from memory.
4. Ask for volunteer pairs to show and read out loud  their sentences for the class.Now you can listen for pronunciation and intonation  as they read aloud their sentences. 

Putting all our eggs in one basket! Making simple sentences

It's really important that we look for and keep evidence of children's progress in language learning and that the children have something tangible to share and revisit as they make progress.
At the end of the first half term this year I encouraged my associate teachers to gather in leaves with children's writing on them.The writing  was based on the language they had been practising during that half term.Leaves? Well it was Autumn time. At the start of the next half term term the leaves were re-distributed amongst the class - could the class read out loud and remember the meaning of the sentences that had been written? Here is the original blog article Writing and reviewing a half term's progress

At the end of the Easter term I think that we can use the idea of "putting all your eggs in one basket" (in a positive way) to look at the progress children have been making with  grammar in Year 4 writing simple sentences (noun /3rd person singular or plural verb/ adjective).

In Year 4 we have been making simple sentences to describe aliens and monsters. So if we have three different types of coloured card eggs in a basket (several eggs from each colour) each colour can represent either nouns (part/s of the face or body), adjectives (colour with correct agreement) or a present tense part of  the verb "to be" ( either " is" or "are").

• Can volunteers select three different coloured eggs and see if they can make a sensible sentences to create a spoken and written description of a part of the body - or is it impossible, because the verb or the adjective just doesn't fit correctly?
• Ask the class to write out  a maximum of three descriptive sentences on an egg shaped card.
• Collect them in and hand them out again at the beginning of next term .Can the children still read them?
• Bring out those different coloured eggs in the basket- can the children still make sensible sentences with the eggs?

APPs and links between KS2 and KS3: first achievable steps

I am not an expert with IT and would never suggest that I was, but I do love my ipad and the fun you can have with all sorts of APPs to use in language learning! So yesterday was exciting CPD opportunity for myself as well as others because yesterday Joe Dale visited us here in Warrington for a twilight linked to our DfE project Language Learning for everyone

We had 55 teachers in the room ,six high schools were represented plus we had primary WSTA SCITT students too.
There were teachers from St Helens,Halton,Knowsley,Warrington.Wigan ,St Helens and Cheshire who ranged from novices and beginners with ipads to more experienced ipad and APP users.It was fast and furious but there was plenty of food for thought and ideas, plus I think every teacher went away with next steps to try out in the world of APPs!

Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity,transition activities again spring to mind!

I have had an ipad for a year now and love it.I enjoy looking at the ways we can use the APPs often recommended on Twitter to create learning opportunities for the language learning primary school children we work with.
We have had great success with Yakit , Pic Collage and Sock Puppets plus colleagues have tried out Tellagami and Zondle. We also love a programme from www.smule.com (Autorap) to record children and create raps of their simple recordings.

This Christmas we are using Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with both Yakit for Kids with younger children and Autorap with the older children  Most of my colleagues have to work with one Ipad in class their own and a VGA cable to connect to the main system and share via the screen in their classrooms. 

One of the main intentions of the CPD twilight was to bring primary and secondary teachers together at the same training event to meet and to consider links through technology between KS2 and KS3. 
So now I am putting on my KS3 hat and looking at the possible links between the APPs Joe shared with us and how we can create purposeful learning opportunities between Y6 and and KS3. Thanks to Joe for the answers to my questions during CPD about possible ways to do this.......

Google Drive 
Setting up a shared folder on Google Drive between KS2 and KS3 language teaching colleagues seems to me the first step! 
Teachers can see what children are doing and share good practice plus shared activities can be accessed from these folders.These can be across all 4 skills and look at grammar too! Words such as AfL,quality assurance, support,creativity, continuity , transition activities spring to mind!

 Yakit for Kids 
Joe showed us how to create the characters and then add voice recordings with this APP.I asked Joe if one person could create the characters and then if this was shared in Google Drive could another person add the voice recordings and I was delighted to hear the answer was yes!  Well there is potential here for a Year 6 challenge . 

• One Yakit for Kids clip with characters  (it takes about 5 minutes maximum to source and make) 
• Shared on Google Drive by a KS3 teacher,downloaded by the KS2 Y6 teacher for the Y6 children to add the voice recordings .
• What do they think the characters are saying? 
• I can see this being a termly challenge based on a theme or focus that is pertinent to Y7 term 1- revisiting personal information, talking about objects and describing them etc.
• There is limited time of 15 seconds but then Joe showed us a clever technique to stitch Yakit clips together so children who can or want to  say more can stitch together the identical clips but with continued question and answer dialogues! Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind!

I-nigma
Ever since I found out about QRs I have really liked them. I can see links between drama, music and QRs and performance ! In a primary language learning context I have suggested using QRs on display to share good language work with parents and carers or sending QRs home to parents to see the work they have done. 
A teacher  in the audience did ask the question yesterday about what happens if parents don't have the correct equipment to read the QR and Joe does know a way to do this but maybe you need to ask him this....
And yesterday I realised once again what an easy way this would be to:

•  set up question and answer treasure hunts for Y6 children 
• created by either language assistants in high school or older pupils.
• Simply create a set of recordings (either visual and spoken or just spoken), 
• load on Google Drive in a "treasure hunt" folder and share with Y6 teachers.
• Can the Y6 children piece the  QRs together so that they make sense and flow as one piece of information text or dialogue.......  Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind! 

Book Creator
I have tried out Book Creator as a class activity with one class at KS2. I would say that the children are more adept than myself at using this and enjoyed showing me how to add, insert , put in sound clips.
Joe showed us how to add sound clips though that become transparent icons on the pictures and again it occurred to me that this could be a Y7 - Y6 activity:

• Simply take photos of objects in a Y7 classroom and school.
• Ask your Y7 to record a description of some of the items in the pictures
• Conceal the sound files and then pop in to a book creator  template.
• Share via Google Drive with Y6 teachers and the children in Y6 can have a virtual tour of the high school in the target language.
• All the class needs to do is hover over each object and listen to what has been recorded. 
• It works the other way round too - allowing Y7 language teachers to meet the class of Y6 at a specific school in a specific year via a photograph.
• Simply take a photo of the class and ask each child to introduce themselves in the target language (personal information,likes,dislikes etc) Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind!

Book Creator can allow the children to share writing,to annotate work and to add pictures of events that have taken place or performances the class have taken part in- not necessarily one book per child,but one "special 2 book per class over the course of KS2 or throughout Y6 would enable KS3 teachers to look and see and be able to refer to prior learning activities and events with their new Y7 intake.

Using Book Creator KS3 colleagues could set up activities based on nouns, adjectives and verbs by simply sharing on Google Drive via the Book Creator APP.Accessed and used by the classes in Y6 as one off revisiting and practising activities and the results recorded in Book Creator and shared back to KS3 teachers via Google Drive.  Words such as AfL ,understanding of prior learning, shared learning,continuity ,transition activities again spring to mind!

As with all CPD events, a health warning needs to be applied here.

• Small  and achievable steps are best .One simple trial project with a small and willing group of schools or with one link primary school.
• Careful and clearly planned activities and expectations
• Carefully selected APPs that all staff and children understand and can use
• Realistic time limits 
• Activities that can be achieved with one ipad in the room or with a class of children with access to ipads

But what a way to build transition links ... AfL, shared learning, quality assurance and support, continuity and creativity.

Beginning with languages blog 2

Across our network we work with schools who are all at different stages of setting up and delivering primary language learning and each year we welcome new schools who want to set off on their own individual school's language learning journey.

This year these specific "Beginning with languages " blogs will try to offer "bite size chunks" of indirect help and support to schools, who are doing exactly that .... just setting off and implementing  a language learning curriculum .In September I wrote Beginning with languages blog 1"

In the first blog there was a checklist for the coordinator or teacher leading out the new primary language teaching as follows:

Sept - Oct (first half term) Checklist

• It's all about establishing a whole school support system for all your staff
• It's about small steps and simple language learning
• It's about children and staff beginning to enjoy language learning

Add a new checklist bullet point!

• So how are you all getting on? How do you know that primary languages are being implemented in all the classes and are the teachers and children having fun in their learning? 

Maybe the suggestions below will help you to see what progress is being made and also encourage the staff to try out creative activities to add a touch of Art , performance, song and fun!

Whole staff engagement and sharing success with parents!

Well it's October now and you will be in to your second month of primary language learning in school and maybe it's time to promote what all of you have been doing in your language learning in a school assembly.Or maybe school has space for a whole school display to celebrate the language learning that has been taking place? 

A whole school sharing and celebration of what you have already achieved !

So why not take the opportunity to link the learning  in the classroom to a common whole school focus before half term?

This half term you have probably been focusing upon greetings, names , feelings and possibly numbers and colours.

Here are some really simple ways that colleagues have created display and activities with their classes with limited language, which you could adopt or adapt! 

A collage map of the target language country by children  in each class for the classroom door- to say we learn about this country and its' language in our class this year!

Hold a "swap the greetings " week. During the week challenge your teachers and their classes to use the correct greeting for the time of day.Maybe the children could greet each other around the school and what about adding a question and answer about how they are feeling to - no matter which child or age group and don't forget the staff too!Put the greetings on display in each classroom and possibly in the corridor too and invite your classes to try to use a different greeting in the morning, in the afternoon and at the end of the day.Here are some French examples

Use puppets to create puppet shows of greetings ,name question and answer and farewell phrases.Great idea for a class or whole school assembly by UKS2 for younger children.

Don't forget some AfL and also an opportunity for the children to reflect what they have already achieved. Maybe there is an opportunity for simple personal reports by older children to take home for parents and carers to share what they have been doing during this first half term of language learning

Linking simple language learning to schools celebrations of Autumn

Try some autumn themed games and activities with the simpler language you have learnt or are practising . Have a read of this Autumn blog about numbers,colours, leaves etc and share some of the ideas with your colleagues.

Set yourselves an end of half term whole school singing challenge!

Why not take up the challenge to have a go at a song in the target language. Listening and practising the words you can hear in the clips we suggest and adding actions and performance too!Learn a whole school song to celebrate Autumn and provide your teachers with an appropriate sound file and clip to help them.

Once you have set a date for a whole school assembly,the classes can practise the song until they can sing along confidently with the clip!

In French........

In Spanish

In German

 Beginning to keep evidence 

Whatever you do don't forget to take some photos and clips so that you can begin to create your own school portfolio of evidence as you go along on this language learning journey, ready to set up a sharing with parents' area on your school VLE etc.

Writing and reviewing a half term's progress: les feuilles s'envolent

I have just seen this marvellous sketch and decide this is exactly what we need in UKS2 at the end of this half term for our KS2 children to use to write a message using the target language they have been practising.It will link well in to our Autumn focus at the end of the half term and will also allow us to review what we have produced at the start of the new half term.

It obviously doesn't need to be in French - could be German or Spanish or Mandarin etc....

It's a simple writing activity.

• Each child creates their own Autumn leaf or receives a leaf template. 
• They consider what they want to write about themselves from the language they have practised during the half term.

For example in our network schools the messages could be :

• beginners: a greeting,name and feelings and a farewell
• moving on: personal information about themselves and questions for a new friend 
• advanced: personal information and emotions describing themselves as they feel on the day they write (and some information their class)

As these are Autumn leaves they need to be gathered up to stop the leaves blowing away and the class forgetting what they have learnt too! The teacher keeps the pile and at the start of the next half term shares the leaves and their written messages randomly with the class so that the children can read each others' messages and remember the language they practised  the previous half term!