Physical Tour de France Grammar Game !

The class need to decide on three symbols to represent nouns, adjectives and verbs.

Stand up right for a noun, wiggle your body for an adjective and pump your arms for a verb 

(just like you would have symbols in Charades for book, film, musical etc).

Warm up the class first -

• Show the written word for a noun (discuss this) and ask the children to show you the correct actions
• Show the children the written word for a verb (discuss this) and ask the children to show you the correct action
• Show the children the written word for an adjective (discuss this) and ask the children to show you the correct action.
• Show the same cards again but don't say of these are nouns/verbs or adjectives.Ask the children to demonstrate the action. they think matches the word type.

Divide your class into “Tour de France t-shirt teams- different coloured t-shirts . No team should be le maillot jaune/la camiseta amarilla or das gelbe Tshirt. This one is for the winners at the end of the game! 

Let’s brainstorm nouns, adjectives and verbs that we associate with sport and particulary with the Tour de France. You couod suggest that the children check and access these in the target language in bilingual dictionaries first!

Here are some to start us off  ……….

Nouns

Cyclist , bike , wheel, tyre, puncture , race ,helmet , t-shirt , shorts ,road ,city ,start, finish ,speed, power….

Adjectives

fast , fit ,tired, thirsty, determined , exciting, powerful , competitive ,breathless,sporty

Verbs

to push , to pedal ,to race ,to compete, to challenge , to cheer, to watch , to participate, to win , to lose , to pass , to crash, to celebrate

Put the individual words as written target language words on to cards in a bag.Select five nouns, five adjectives and five verbs .

Check that the children have had time to look at and remember the meaning of the words with a partner in their team before you put the words in the bag. 

Rules of the team competition!

1. A volunteer  from a team selects a word from the bag and decides if it’s a noun, an adjective or a verb. 
2. They must mime the word type action to their team.
3. The team receive one point for guessing this correctly
4. The volunteer must mime the meaning of the word- one more point for the team if they can guess and say it in the target language.
5. If you play this UKS2 Year 6 or with KS3  there are two bonus points if they can put the noun or the adjective in to a simple sentence e.g the helmet is blue (etc)
6. There is one more bonus point if the team can create a first person singular present tense statement if the volungteer has pulled a verbmout of the bag! (e.g. I push , I pedal, I race etc )? 

Different ways to get started with new content and add interest and challenge

A colleague has just contacted me to ask for ways that we might engage young learners when introducing new content.....

Here are some of my initial thoughts, 

Engaging with our senses

• Make the activity touchy feely - what's in the bag/ magic sack/ under the blanket / cloth etc?
• Add an element of sensory challenge - don't look! Just smell or taste - what could it be?
• Hearing the item before seeing it- does it rattle,squeak,clatter  etcetra?

Be detectives! 

• Solve the scenario - what collection/ group/ family / situation might all the new items you are introducing belong to (e.g a weather report/ a zoo/ a jungle/ a restaurant etc).Give them pictures of possible scenarios from which to pick (e.g a zoo and a jungle or a cafe and a restaurant)
• What's the link- in which order should the new items be ordered? Introduce the items in a specific order - can the class spot the link
• Ask the class to watch and practise carefully the new items and then on tables set up their own "solve the link" problems for the rest of the class.Let the class create link problems for the rest of the class to solve e.g.  one table can pout three of the items in size order - can the rest of the class spot the link and place the other items in to the size order so that the link is completed.Or another group might put some of the items in alphabetical order - can the rest of the class spot and solve the link
• Conceal all the items under a sheet- so that it looks like a landscape.Introduce the items as a word and a picture , Can volunteers come to the front and spot the items from  its shape under the blanket?
• Introduce more than one of an item ... maybe specific colours. Can they help you count up the items?
• Play hide and seek with the items ....just where is that new item?Who can find it first- maybe the pictures are blu-tacked around the room or are wrapped up and need to be unwrapped.Maybe volunteers are holding the possible items or pictures you want to share.
• Finding the matching parts.Cut your pictures in half and share one half of the picture - now who is holding or where is the matching half to complete the picture of the food,animal,clothes item etc

Learn together

• Don't just share the words, ask the children to work in groups to initially find possible words that we might need if we want to talk about animals, clothes , foods etc.Take feedback and see which of the words they have found match the words you want to share in the lesson.Make a list of the other words for additional language later in the focus.
• Listen to the words first on sound files and ask the children to spot the written word on a flip chart or on cards in front of them.Can they help you to decide how to say the words by listening carefully to the sound files?
• Reveal a new word or phrase in the target language and ask the children to share in English any fascinating facts they may know about the item - e.g weather (hurricanes/ storms/droughts etc) or animals ( speed of animals/ largest and smallest /habitats etc).Add some fascinating facts of your own- to break up the repetitiveness of practising new words and to add a new dimension to the learning

Set up a challenge!

• Be first to spot the longest word
• Be first to spot the shortest word
• Be first to remember all the words that start with a vowel
• Be first to spot the words with two syllables
• Be first to spot all the  masculine words / all the feminine words/ all the plural words
• Be first to remember all the phrases using the same verb

Make a noise!

Make learning the sound of the words and the phrases fascinating

• Give words and phrases a beat or a rhythm .Ask the children to identify the words/ phrases just by their beat or rhythm.Make it a pair activity
• Make the words silent - just repeated in silence in your head
• Add radio control - loud or quiet responses
• Silly voices
• Put the new words in to a nonsense rhyme and add to the rhyme as you add new language.
• Create an English story interspersed appropriately with the new phrases  and words and  ask the children to see if they can retell the story to each other.

A Christmas context ,transferable activities and some shared learning approaches for KS2 and KS3

On Friday last week I spent a glorious afternoon by the seaside in Southport with a group of eleven primary and secondary teachers considering activities  with a Christmas language learning focus that rehearsed and explored a range of language learning skills .The activities can easily be transferred to other language content and context.Most importantly my intention was to link the activities and the                                                 learning to the objectives of the new DfE POS.

• Each teacher was asked to consider whether an activity was suitable for beginners /moving on ( more than a year of exposure to language learning or advanced learners (UKS2 with more than two and a half years of language learning or KS3 non beginner learners)
• We discussed how the objectives in the new DfE POS need to be considered on a sliding scale so that we consider how stage by stage we rehearse and strengthen and extend the objectives
• I asked my colleagues to consider ways of extending the activity or adapting the activity to suit their learners or different contexts and we unpacked the learning objectives or parts of the learning objectives and how there would be stages to achieve mastery of specific learning objectives

What was very noticeable was how the mix of primary and secondary colleagues worked so well.Together we were able to consider how we could ways to build progression in language learning!

Here are some of the activities we practised, performed and identified as possibly learning approaches that all colleagues could use in different ways with different stages of  learners. 
Remember these are all festive in theme but most could quite easily be changed to fit a new context.(It's a bit like a bag of tricks ...or in this case a bag of Christmas presents for language learning ......)

Bell ringing and Christmas greetings
This activity is centred on listening,responding,joining in and spoken performance activity which also involves reading.
The objective we identified for this activity is :
Listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding
We discussed and extended the activity described by looking at how we could actually take this activity further and listen for key words or miss key words out or listen for specific sounds
Here we identified a new objective as a focus:
Explore the pattern and sounds of the language

Open and reveal four corners
I dusted off a well loved activity here to look at how we could move the activity from just a game to practise sounds and key language and question responses to "unwrapping our Christmas present" 
The objectives we identified for this activity are:
Explore the pattern and sounds of the language
Ask and answer questions
All  the teachers felt that they could apply this to their KS1,KS2 or KS3 language teaching and learning before Christmas and that the children would enjoy creating their own Christmas present in language learning for friends to unwrap in a game!

Starry Night
This activity is centred on revisiting and practising familiar language and asking questions. In this instance it is based on revisiting colours and numbers and asking and answering simple questions:What is it?/How many are there?
The objective we identified is: 
Ask and answer questions
We created our own starry night of numbers performances ,using the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,and KS3 colleagues added additional language and a performance twist based on a dance routine. KS2 colleagues looked at how we could challenge children to create performances based on number sequences etc.
We considered how we could then hand the reins over to children ask them to ask the questions on the starry shape guessing game and how this could then be a board game.The expectation would be that the more language the children know , the more it should be used during the board game.

Triaramas and festive meal sketches
This is a listening,speaking,reading and writing activity when I designed this activity I presumed this would be a moving on or advanced activity but the LKS2 colleagues at the CPD felt they could adapt this with simple rhymes, songs and language to be a LKS2 beginners activity too .We often worry about can the children write accurately and now we need to concern ourselves with can they write from memory.The sequence of activities here can encourage your moving on and advanced learners to practise these skills for a creative purpose.
The objectives we identified as central to these activities are:  
Speak in sentences using familiar vocabulary
Read carefully and show understanding of words,phrases and writing
Write phrases from memory
Describe people ,places ,things and actions orally and in writing
Different colleagues felt that different objectives would be their core focus at this moment in time with their specific language learners 
KS3 colleagues felt that the activities were transferable across the whole of KS3 with a variety of reading comprehension texts (plays,poems, songs)

The magic of Christmas
The activities here are about asking the children to explore a non verbal stimulus and to participate in speaking,reading and writing activities to create their own advertisement (either orally or a written text) about a specific event.It's about finding the right clip and here the clip allows us to explore Christmas nouns, verbs, adjectives and the to revisit the context of weather , clothes, daily routine, emotions, play .....
The objectives we identified as central to these activities are:
Present ideas orally to an audience 
Describe people,places ,things and actions orally and in writing
All  the teachers felt that they could apply this to their KS1,KS2 or KS3 language teaching and learning before Christmas and that the children would enjoy creating their own Christmas present in language learning for friends to unwrap in a game! however our LSK2 colleagues once again thought of ways of using a picture or a one context focused clip to rehearse core familiar language to the children. 

Twinkle Twinkle Little star with a twist of Grammar
I took this well loved international song and considered how with older children we could create a grammar game and our own new verses of the song!
The objectives  we identified are:
Broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words
Understand basic grammar
The activities are for moving on and advanced learners but once again the KS3 colleagues could see how they could use the core activities with new texts in KS3 and revisit and practise core grammar and structure focuses with their learners 

An all in all delightful afternoon before Christmas by the seaside!

Sound in the French word for numbers and colours : ladders and scaffold games

These activities are  quick to create and simple to develop and involve key sounds in numbers and colours for teachers just starting to work with French (or any language- but it really works well in French)  with their primary school children.The games  can easily be used as a revisiting activity at any time in a language learner's career.They can lead to puzzles and performance opportunities 

The games in the first instance involve numbers 1-11 and  simple colours (bleu,jaune,orange,vert,noir,blanc )

• As  the teacher think about the numbers and colours you have taught. 
• Practise with the children key sounds in the words 
• Create a chart of key sounds as letter combinations for sounds that are in both colours and numbers or just in the colours or just in the numbers.
• Take a look here: 

Can you see the key sounds and letter combinations in the numbers 1-11 and the colours:  bleu,jaune,orange,vert,marron,noir,blanc?

Take  quick look some of the sounds and letter combinations are in both the colours and the numbers.

Sound in the word ladders and scafffolds

• Ask your class first of all to create a "sound in the word ladder or scaffold " of the words they think that the key sounds come from- they may think of both a number and a colour for some of the boxes in the table
• Can they add performance (mime,actions and volume)  to their sound in the word  ladders and scaffolds. They can decide to work across the table in horizontal lines or run down one column and then the other column of the table. Maybe they want to start from the bottom and work upwards etc .They can decide!
• Can they perform their "sound in the word ladder or scaffold "for another group of children and can thwy trace the path that has been followed on the table of sounds?

Step Two !All shook up!

• Cut up the table in to individual sound cards and put them out on the table.One set per four children works best.

The groups of children  can now play several different games:

• Take it in turns to select a sound and say a number or colour
• Take it in turns and collect number cards only - who has the most when the sounds' cards  the children can use run out?
• Take it in turns to create a run of cards of all the colours or all the numbers 
• Take it in turns to create a run of cards of all the colours but in French alphabetical order/ try this with numbers but in numerical order or in reverse order 

Exploring primary target language learning and developing competent risk takers

A young teaching colleague @NahuelPGCE and myself  discussed last week the  need to encourage children to take risks - informed risks - in language learning.

Take a look here.This is the simple chart that we created to demonstrate what we were thinking in the earlier stages of learning a language.

We had noticed in a lesson based on colours and preferences that children stopped learning when they felt "overload". We asked ourselves did we need as the learning facilitator  to consider how to help all the young learners develop coping and learning strategies?

Strategies that allowed them to take risks in their language learning but armed with useful language detective skills.What would be more useful to have experienced vast amounts of content or strategies and skills to approach new and unfamiliar language successfully?

We discussed the "horizontal” plain that primary language learning affords us. How we can link our learning across the curriculum and revisit and build on language making links with other subject areas. We have the  opportunity to take a “horizontal “ view of  primary language learning.

This should allow us to explore simple content looking for learning opportunities across the curriculum. This may help us to create engaging language learning-both inclusive and challenging.

Primary language learning needs to be an integral part of the curriculum and not an “add” on. From my privileged  position I am able to see language learning delivered successfully by class teachers,teachers in school with language expertise,visiting teachers or fantastic HLTAs! They all have a wonderful role to play and bring so much to the learning of languages.

What works best in all these scenarios is when the language learning is able to meld in with the primary curriculum or when approaches are adopted in language learning that are familiar to the primary learning environment.
So what did we come up with?

Colour across the learning curriculum!

Nahuel and I explored how to take specific content and explore language learning and the skills we acquire as linguists without rushing on to the next topic or content.

Here are our thoughts on teaching colours with Year 4 beginners on Spanish!

Introduce colours through familiar language learning games:

• Splat
• Recall games
• Memory games
• Hunt and find
• Show me
• Word and colour association activities 

Create an opportunity to explore the sound and spelling of colours:

Say a sound from a colour word and pick up the correct card and say the whole word back to the teacher or game leader.

Colour machines – what do the colours sound like as we add them to our"imaginary" voice machines? 

What actions do they make us do as a reaction to the sound of the word? What word associations do we make with words and therefore what images might we draw on a whiteboard as a visual outcome?

Can someone else guess our colour/ label our colour/redevelop in a different way our colour?

Colour challenges for partners:

Show a colour, say a colour.

Show a colour,say a colour, bat a different colour back to someone else.

Add two colours together and challenge someone else to say the colour they make

Investigate with a partner colours we want to say but can’t yet and don't know ,by using bi-lingual dictionaries

Challenging a partner to label items with post its around the classroom with colour identification labels.

All these  clusters of activities above are about not “rushing by” but giving the whole class a chance to inclusively access and practise the language and on the way rehearse very useful language learning skills- recognition , repetition, pronunciation, recall, association of words, ways to access the unfamiliar.

A class survey with options!

We discussed the questions and responses that naturally fit with the content of colour and made sure these would be question that the children would find useful.

What colour is it? 

Can you find me something ……?

What colours do you like? / not like? Have you got a favourite colour?

Again we  considered how we would stage this learning and engage all our learners, setting different staged challenges with the questions in a class survey. Giving the children a choice as to what they asked and how they answered , encouraging autonomy with limited and simple language.

Getting creative with colours

We wanted to make the learning of colours creative and link to the rest of the primary curriculum and continue our "horizontal" journey to allow the children to explore their knowledge of the content but see how it can be used to communicate creatively. 

Haiku and colours to describe a scene 

So we decided upon a haiku poem challenge – describing a visual picture such as a beach, a garden,a park or a mountain view-using the limited amount of colours and language they know and applying the rules of Haiku to the process.

At the start of this blog I mentioned that we were exploring colours in Spanish and I had recently written a blog on the Matisse Cut Outs exhibition at the Tate (which could be used in any target language activity). We felt it was important that we explored Spanish art here as these young learners are beginners and we wanted them to have a taste of Spanish culture. So we decided upon Joan Miró.

The colours of a Joan Miró piece of Art 

• Take an A3 piece of paper – blank sugar paper and insert for children (who would be working in twos) a work of art by Joan Miró.This must be in colour and printed on an A4 piece of paper. 
• The children are practising their writing of the colours and must draw arrows to the edge of the A4 paper and onto the A3 paper, where they clearly write the name of the colours in Spanish- but in the style of the artist if they can and possibly copying the shape the colour has been painted.
• Now all you have to do us take away the A4 paper, put all the A4 pictures on the wall – number them in Spanish- and make sure everyone can see them. Ask the pairs to remember which  is their A3 written document and hand the A3 sugar paper to another pair . 
• Can they identify which A4 painting matches the sugar paper?They record their decision and pass the sugar paper on to another group. 
• At the end of the activity you can have a big reveal and match the written A5 papers and the A4 paintings together.

Word Art or Calligrams using Colours of Joan Miró

This leads really well into Word Art or Calligrams!

Nahuel is a Manchester University PGCE Primary ITT and Clare Seccombe @vallesco and myself work with the students as day tutors. Clare wrote this blog called magical miro about an activity she observed another of the students deliver on one of our trips to Hursthead Primary School this year.It would make a great way of generating the children’s own creative display and written form of Joan Miró art work …. finishing off nicely our “horizontal” exploration of a content focus in primary language learning which has hopefully given young language learners to explore lots of ways of developing their language skills and knowledge.

Totem Pole Prompt Sticks

Totem Pole Prompt Sticks

• Why totem pole? The pictures carved into totem poles tell the reader information and I see the link between this and a "pow wow" - having a conversation.
• To develop and promote conversation :  asking and answering questions leading to preparing and practising a simple conversation using familiar vocabulary and structures in new contexts
• Each box on the totem pole prompt stick is a visual prompt for the children to develop their simple spoken conversation.
• The totem pole prompts start off as horizontal strips - questions prompted by pictures to prompt responses . It reads from left to right just like following a story for young language learners 

These are  card strips made from one A4 template of seven or eight identical strips or they could be computer generated and drag and drop pictures that the children can reorder  and create their own "pow wow" totem poles for more advanced activities - see below. 

Set the scene with this simple You Tube clip , which practises colours and numbers but extend this by asking the children when you pause the clip to decide what incidental greetings or questions might these two characters the cow boy and the squaw ask each other. Brainstorm possible answers. The responses expected from the children will depend on the stage they are at in their target language learning.

Simple conversation asking and answering questions- Y4 LKS2  activity

1. 1.       Revisit and practise with the children how people from different countries physically greet each other or say farewell   ?
2. Introduce each prompt picture on the totem pole and discuss with the children possible greetings / farewells and questions that the very simple picture clues suggest ( in this order the prompts require a greeting / a name question and response /a where do you live question with a true or imaginary response / an open question –what do you like ? or a closed question – do you like + animals etc/ a farewell .
3. Children should spend a few minutes practising with a partner how to ask the individual  questions – remind the children to listen out for good pronunciation and the use of intonation when asking a question.
4.  Children should then spend a few minutes practising their true responses as themselves
5. Children should then work with a partner to create  simple questions and responses using the pictures on their totem pole sticks as their prompts and the order they should work in.
6. Can the children re-run their questions and answers and add physical responses etc
7. Pairs to practise their dialogues – taking it in turns to be the questioner or the responder(themselves)
8.  Invite pairs to perform their dialogues for the class .

Extend  this activity by revisiting and creating new characters with the questions and answers

Using APPS such as the String APP where children can generate a picture of a cartoon character sitting in their own classrooms  , you could ask the children to use the same totem pole prompt stick to create an imaginary conversation between themselves and the strange visitor from the “String APP” . Check out Mr Parkinson’s blog here  to find out more about the String APP. Here is an example used in Literacy with Mr Parkinson's class at Davyhulme CP School Augmented reality clip

Extending conversations and creating an interesting performance using familiar language in a new context- possibly an activity to develop as a revisit activity in Year 5 and Year 6 UKS2

Here we want to encourage the children to move from a simple question- answer dialogue to a more engaging conversation that flows .

Give out the vertical totem poles this time 

A.      Revisit the simple dialogues the children made using their prompt   sticks in Year 4

B    If the children created their own character videos etc then share     some of these with the class as a memory jogger 

C.      How much more can they say now? Explore this with the class.   Now ask the children to take the basic building block prompts from their totem pole prompts and cut these up and rearrange them as the scaffold upon which to develop a new dialogue 

D.     Can they add  new picture prompts or create a new totem pole       prompt stick of their own so that they can share the new        questions and answers they have practised ?

E.      Introduce  simple phrases  such as   “and you ?” or “pardon” or “can you repeat that? or “me too “ etc – see highlighted text below which gives you a simple example of this .Encourage the children to generate a conversation based upon a simple question and answer dialogue that will to flow  e.g.

Hello ! How are you ?

I am fine and you?

Me too! I am called ...... What are you called?

I am called ..............Where do you live ?

I live in ........ And you? Where do you live ?

I live in ..............I like ..........What do you like ?

I like ............. Do you like ..........?

No I prefer ............

Nice to meet you !

Bye for now 

 See you soon!

F.   Allow the children time now to create a conversation with the   new language with a partner .

G.    Challenge some of the children to participate in a three  or four way conversation once they have completed task E successfully .

H.  Either perform or film the conversations on IPads or Chrome Books  and share on class IWB as an “Our Class Conversations  “ film clips .

Physical POP UP Poems le jour de la rentrée

Physical POP UP Poems

Many thanks to

@vallesco

for sourcing this poem “le jour de la rentrée “

le jour de la rentree

 on

pinterest

We love the use of the sounds to replace key present tense first person singular verbs and add a performance dynamic to the poem !

@EWoodruffe

 and myself have broken the poem down into a simpler French version for our young language learners to develop into a series of  performance language activities which links well with either of our UKS2

JLN

 learning focuses : school routine or daily routine.

Here’s our shortened version made into two verses: 

D’abord je me

hop hop

du bon pied .

Puis je

gloup gloup

mon petit déjeuner.

A l’école je ne

oin oin

meme pas,

Mais je

bonjour bonjour

tout le monde

Je

lalalala

des chansons en faisant la ronde,

Mais je

chuTTtt

aussi pour la maitresse.

Tout à coup la cloche

dring dring

l’école est terminée.

Je retrouve ma maman et je lui

blablablabla

de ma journée!

Should you want this poem in Spanish then thanks to Ana Garcia we have tried to put this into Spanish at the bottom of this page 

What’s the text about?

To work with this text we feel that the children need to first of all to explore the two verses of our poem by  :

1.Reading the text with the teacher

2.Identifying   key words they recognise – a simple highlighting activity

3.Sharing this knowledge with the class

4.Collecting  the known language on a class record sheet.

5.Piecing together as language detectives   what the text is about

Explore the Sound Text !

Now the class can check their conclusions by using the sounds in the text and the actions modelled by the teacher, to explore the meaning of each sentence.They will do this by just speaking and acting out the key sounds   from each sentence .

Can the class read the text below and explore /understand from this what the missing verbs in the text could be?

Can the children read the sound text below as a class and through teacher voice emphasis , can the children draw conclusions about the missing verbs?

Hop hop

(jump twice)

Gloup gloup

(hold pretend bowl to mouth and slurp)

Oin oin

(pull a face as if crying)

Bonjour bonjour

.(wave twice)

Lalalala

(make a gesture as if singing )

ChuTTtt

(finger to lips)

Dring dring

( move hand as if ringing big heavy hand bell twice)

Bla bla bla bla

(open and shut hand as if it’s a mouth -chattering)

Give the children the missing verbs as cards. Can the children link any of the verbs to the sound text above? Which verbs are left? Can the children help you to place these verbs next to key sounds and perhaps use the action s to help them do this? Are there any verbs left that the children need to look up in a bi-lingual dictionary? You will to help them by providing them with the infinitive of the verbs.  .

lève

prends

pleurs

dis

chante

me tais

sonne

raconte

Games with sounds and verbs

Play recall games with the sounds and the verbs ….

As a class the teacher should :

Call a sound and the children must do the action

Do an action and the children must say the sound

Call a sound and the children must say the verb that matches the sound

(You could also play the recall games in pairs or as small groups )

Create Physical POP UPS of the poem

We will be using the poem we abbreviated for this. Divide your class into   groups of four children Give each group one of the   8 sentences from the two verses of the poem. Each of the four children has a role to play in saying part of the full sentence from the poem   and making the POP UP sentence of the poem

Each group has two core sentence cards – the start of the sentence and the end of the sentence . Two children hold up the core cards – one holds up the start of the sentence and another child holds up the end of the sentence.

In between the other two children are responsible for the sound and the verb pop ups . One should say the sound and do the action and the other child should say the missing verb and carry the action on.

Here’s a diagram to explain what I mean  :

“D’abord je me

(

sounds/ action

)

(

missing verb/

action

) du bon pied “

Now the class can put together its pop up version of the whole poem .Each group saying  and performing their sentence in turn .

At this point you could film the class using props and performing their POP UP poem with sound effects as a  “ video of le jour de la rentrée”

Let’s take the performance further …….“Sound” “Vision” and “Target Language” performance

You may want to stop here or you may want to try out this series of drama and performance linked activities to create a  “Sound” “Vision” and “Target Language” performance .

Divide the class into 8 groups .

Ask them to perform their POP UP sentences from the previous activities

Now ask them to explore the rhythm , beat and cadence of their sentences as part of the whole poem.

To do this they need to identify the rhythm of their sentence – clapping out the syllables and the beat

Can they replace the clapping with their key sound from the sentence e.g.

D’abord je me hop hop du bon pied

could become …..

“Ho-hop hop hop hop hop hop ho op”

To this they need to add a clapping /clicking / tapping or stamping rhythm that matches

This forms the basis of their backing track for their sentence. Now two children are responsible for the backing track and the sound and clapping / tapping / clicking or stamping of the rhythm)

Now the group needs to add the spoken sentence on top of this rhythm .The other two children are responsible for the performance of the spoken sentence with actions and fitting it to the rhythm of the backing track they have created.

Can they perform this for the class?

Put the whole poem back together and perform this as a class performance – with backing track rhythms and spoken French sentences with actions.

What a performance!

The Spanish version of the abbreviated poem 

La vuelta al cole

Primero me quick quick con el pie derecho

Después ñam ñam desayuno

En el colegio no muaa muaa

Pero hola hola a todo el mundo

Yo lalalala las canciones

Pero  ssh ssh para escuchar a la profesora

De pronto  ring ring el colegio ha terminado

Encuentro a  mi mama mua mua

Y le bla  bla bla bla de mi dia