Grammar and language learning. Bringing it altogether

Over the last academic year and within our network we have been considering the requirements of the new PoS. 

One of the key elements that we have begun to address is the need to develop an understanding of how to deliver grammar with our young language learners and how to support all teachers who may be delivering primary languages with this.

In KS2,the new DfE POS expects young learners to..... 

 "understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including(where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English."

Last week was the first of two Subject Coordinator sessions where we brought together what we have learned about Grammar in the context of the primary learning environment

We want it to be ……..

• appropriate and part of good primary  teaching and learning practice
• clear and useful for the age and stage of the learner
• inclusive and offer all the children the chance  to make progress and move from using words to construction meaningful sentences
• structure and planned for and have clear links with primary  focuses on structure and grammar in English
• supportive of their  growing knowledge of grammatical structures and terminology 
• effective and enable the learners to apply rules to the new target language successfully 
• creative and active so that the learning is meaningful and memorable.

To this end the Grammar Stepping Stones  created earlier in the academic year can help to guide us toward meaningful and stage appropriate exploration of grammar that the class teacher can deliver or support with. The  Grammar Stepping Stones are written in the voice of the child learner to remind us of the developmental stage these young children are at in their own understanding of how languages function.

So the Grammar Stepping Stones can guide us but how do we support staff who feel lacking in confidence? Well last week in discussion with a young coordinator we discussed a post box system. The  post box means that staff and children can post a question or a perhaps the solution they have come to in target language post box and receive a clear answer from the teacher or teaching assistant in school who has a better understanding of the basic grammar conumdrum they have. This certainly works where the subject coordinator takes time to upskill themselves or has the knowledge already but isn’t teaching in every classroom and year group . This will  also work well where a visiting teacher delivers language learning or the school has an FLA. Not every question and query will happen during direct language teaching and learning. Want to know more then have a look here.

We are finding that the grammar learning journey is creative and exciting and supports and underpins children’s growing understanding of the grammar and structure of English and their other home languages.Have a listen the wizard's potion here 

This is our timetable for Grammar over four years .

It doesn’t mean we don’t touch on the specific areas in other year groups or at different stages but this seems to be developing as our most natural fit.

Year 3 /Stage 1	Year 4 /Stage 2	Year 5 / Stage 3	Year 6/Stage 4
Nouns
Adjectives
Verbs
	Adverbs
		Prepositions
			Verbal phrases

How are we trying to keep it primary, effective and creative?

It’s through games, exploration, meaningful contexts using familiar language and children being language detectives. Children are demonstrating that they are enjoying physically participating and using the visual to find solutions and to show their understanding.

So bringing it so far altogether ….Here are some of the techniques and activities we have used or are trialling this year in the network.Click on the links to read more! 

Nouns

Noun collectors

Treasure chests (also look at the blog post Ready, Steady, Go!)

Adjectives

Colour mimes and word association games 

Fisherman's trawl

Different sides of an adjective

Advanced adjective fisherman's trawl ( using verbal phrases)

Creating magic with personalities  :Agreement of adjectives when describing a male or a female person

Verbs

Powerhouse machines 

Robot routines 

Wizard's potion  (verb- to have)

Cinderella  masked ball (verb- to be )

3D Art  ( the verb- to be called) 

Personal Pronouns.

Personal Pronoun Photo Shoots

Prepositions

Preposition Picnic

Being creative and playing with structure

Shape sentence jungles

Word sculptures

The split personality of a sentence 

Simile silhouette sentences







Moving potentially in Year 6 to talk about events that have happened in the past.
Playing with the simple past tense and watching the world go by

I am sure that we will find more ways of working with the grammar we intend to cover and will add to this blog as we go along , however hopefully the activities above will support teachers in developing primary creative approaches to the new focus on structure  of the target language. 

Ready,steady,go! Setting off together with Primary Language Learning

Making first steps to progress together in primary languages. A report from the chalk face 

It's a case of Ready! Steady !Go!

This morning I have had the great pleasure of helping a school to set off on their Spanish learning journey.

Here is the picture so far .....

The school has a Year 3 teacher who has a degree in Spanish and has decided to embark on Spanish for this reason plus the fact that the school feeds to a local High school which offers Spanish.

The audit of staff skills showed that there were that other staff had a limited knowledge of Spanish and would need support to deliver a programme of study With support the school is about to set off on an exciting language learning journey where class teachers will deliver the language learning and draw support from each other.

We have begun to put some simple tools in place today to help school to set off on this journey!

Step One: 

Getting to understand the new PoS from the DfE for Primary Languages and unpicking the Purpose of Study section to create a school vision.(This has already happened and the POS was used as a discussion tool today to forward plan)

Step Two: 

A clear and simple guide by the subject coordinator during staff CPD time to set the staff and children off on their learning journey together (after half term) 

Step Three: 

A shared learning experience

School will hold a celebration of the World Cup using the games and activities from the JLN World Cup Football Seasonal Specials with a focus on the World Cup PE games  downloadable folders with lessons with support sound files in Spanish for the staff , using limited language in a familiar curriculum area- Sport. What a gift this year too as the World Cup focus moves to South America!

Step Four: 

Follow up discussions

How did the children react to PE in Spanish?

How quickly did the children remember the language?

How easily could the children lead the PE games ?

How did the sound files support the staff?

These discussions will pave the way to a simple understanding of how teachers can develop- their language lessons in the early stages and how they can be learners alongside the children, facilitating learning too.

Step Five

Planning for a European Day of Languages Celebration in September.

We felt one way of stepping off and setting out what be to look at languages around us  as way to support the children , mainly mono-lingual, to appreciate languages around them. The coordinator will ask the staff to investigate some of the Commonwealth  languages materials (Welsh, Manx, Gaelic and the Scots reading of Peter Rabbit) plus investigate the target language country of their chosen language- Spain

Step Six

Establishing tools to help the school progress together.

I love these! The ideas developed from the discussions between the subject coordinator and myself and are so simple, so primary and so effective!

Suitcases to pack and unpack

This idea came from our conversation about my blog A journey worth the taking……………… (otherwise known as Miss Hilton’s suitcase. 

Creating real suitcases per year group or stored as a virtual class memento suitcase on the school VLE, that can go up with the children to the next year group and can be unpacked by the next  teacher. 

So for instance KS1 children learning songs and rhymes in the target language can share threes with the Y3 teacher at the start of the year.

Year 3 moving into Year 4 can unpack their Year 3 songs, games and memories with their new Year 4 teacher. 

Effective transition and a time to reflect and learn with or from the children as they move into a new year group! 

Step Seven

Building knowledge of grammar together. 

The new POS asks us to teach all four skills of listening,speaking,reading and writing and to develop the children's understanding of basic grammar. 

We discussed how this could be seen as a  big challenge but how really the grammar that young learners  meet in the target language is that of SPAG (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions). 

The first focus we identified are NOUNS! 

Simple – let’s have treasure boxes for each KS2 class , linked to my grammar blog about noun collectors.

Each lesson or when appropriate,a child that has worked well, joined in well, shared etc can be asked to draw a specific noun they have met in the lesson as picture treasure record and place it in one of two class treasure boxes.The boxes are for either our masculine or feminine nouns (and of course neuter if you are working in German). In return for the picture the child receives in  a card paper gold coin – for work well done!
It’s important right from the start that the staff and the children understand that masculine and feminine don’t refer to male or female and that these are “tags” to help us to use the nouns in messages in the target language in different ways( el/la in Spanish mean "the" which are referred to as definite articles by you and me!). 
Guess what half way through the year in the treasure boxes the  coordinator will add “un “ and “una”   stickers on the inside lids of the boxes.The challenge from the coordinator will be to ask the teacher and the children in the class to spot when and how these words are used …. Hence they will explore indefinite articles. Later she can change or add two new boxes for plural masculine nouns and plural feminine  nouns. everyone moves forward together and the coordinator can support.The year one , stage one grammar target will be to work with the children on their knowledge of target language nouns.

Step Seven

Ah I hear you ask …. But what about the teachers and the children when they get stuck in their language explorations! Well the coordinator is going to put up a Spanish letterbox outside her classroom – indeed she showed me the spot- and  the teachers and children can post her questions to ask, thoughts the class have had to check , good work done, creative ideas, facts they find out! Simple, effective and this helps to be able to access the school coordinator as a point of reference!

Step Eight

QR Codes!

The school wants to celebrate the fact that their children are developing the WOW factor (liberation from insularity!).This is a mainly mono-lingual school so the QRs help the mums, dads, carers and wider community get the WOW factor too – by being able to hear their children speak on displays that are 2D but become talking walls! 

Simple greetings to start with on a picture linked to Spain and Spanish culture in classrooms and in the foyer.

Everyone has to start at the beginning and build on solid foundations.

I look forward to going back to school to help them build some more !

Making a drama out grammar (5)

Simile Silhouette Sentences

This activity will fit really well with our UKS2 work on grammar and sentence structure.It's an activity where we consider adjectives, adverbs and nouns and the gender of nouns.

In a simple form we can create with our young language learners a drama and grammar sequence activities using nouns, adjectives, adverbs and creating spoken, performed  and written similes!

At the end of the sequence of activities the challenge is to create a "spoken simile silhouette poem" based on a specific groups of adjectives or adverbs. 

The children can use the language recorded on the board/flipchart or you can encourage the children to use other familiar language or access new language in the bilingual dictionaries.

            

Revisit a sequence of adjectives or adverbs that you may have taught the children. 

    Ask the children to help you capture and write these in a large thought bubbles on one side of the board/ flip chart in the target language e.g. colours, sizes, how something feels (soft,hard, rough etc) ,actions (fast, slow, quickly etc)  a class create mimes and physical actions for these words in your thought bubble.

In pairs add sounds to the words and actions.

In pairs investigate (using  bilingual dictionaries) objects that are linked by shape, touch, smell, feel, visual look to the adjectives or adverbs in your thought bubble. Brainstorm familiar nouns and encourage the children to find at least three unfamiliar nouns that the class can use.

Take feedback and add these in a second thought bubble on the other side of the board/ flip-chart .

Investigate with the children the gender of the nouns. 

Record on your board if the nouns are “le/la” in French,” el,la” in Spanish or “der,die,das” in German.

Ask the children to create as a mime or physical sculpture one of the nouns  when you call one of the definite articles above( “le/la” in French,” el,la” in Spanish or “der,die,das” in German). The noun must be from the correct gender .

Make this a pair game .One partner creates a mime or physical sculpture one of the nouns  when you call one of the definite articles above( “le/la” in French,” el,la” in Spanish or “der,die,das” in German). The noun must be from the correct gender. The other partner  must guess the noun and say the correct definite article before the noun.

Now introduce your class to the magic “simile spell word”. In French we use “comme” in Spanish we use “como” and in German we use “wie”. Model the word as a spoken word – just like it’s a special word from a spell. Write the word in between the two thought bubbles.

In pairs ask the children create spoken simile silhouette sentences. They must add performance and sounds to express the meaning of their sentences too!

 One child is responsible for the performance of the first part of the sentence (adjective /adverb)and the other child is responsible for the  performance of second part of the sentence (noun).Both children speak the sentence. Hold “view ins” to see the sentences they create.

Adjective/ Adverb

comme wie como

Noun with correct definite article

Remember! The challenge is to create a "spoken simile silhouette poem" based on a specific groups of adjectives or adverbs. The children can use the language recorded on the board/flipchart or you can encourage the children to use other familiar language or access new language in the bilingual dictionaries.

• Children work in pairs and the poems must be composed of at least five sentences.
• Give the children time to practise their poems and performances.
• Encourage the children to think of how they will present their physical performance e.g. they can stand back to back, facing each other, at different sides of the room , one child could kneel and one child could stand etc.

There is potential with this activity to develop a creative written record of the poems.

I would suggest:

• Black and white photographs with subtitles of target language to “add the colour” to the photos
• Poster painting maps , where the children map a journey of pictures on the poster of the target language sentences and symbols to explain the adjectives,adverbs, nouns.

Advanced Adjective Fisherman's Trawl

Working with teachers actually, thinking ahead and planning with them ,is definitely one of the best ways of  generating a new and useful approach or tweaking to practising the target language.It's a way of meeting both the teacher and learners’ needs and next steps. Today at staff CPD was a perfect example!

I was sharing with the teachers a very simple game with adjectives and mimes called Fisherman’s trawl (which I recently added to the blog).You can read the original idea in this blog on nouns, verbs and adjectives.

We were discussing the potential of the original game with Year 4 to practise and internalise adjectives when we realised that this game could be made more advanced and become more of a challenge for UKS2 learners. 

The original game is about working in pairs and is a miming and guessing game.

The advanced game involves the children working in teams,using adjectives for extended feelings e.g. “ tired “ would be a good example . 

We ask the children to extend the feelings they give with a reasons…..”I am not okay because  am tired “

It’s a simple extension of the original game and it gets the children to think in Year 5 and 6 whether they should say in French and Spanish the following verbs before the adjective either :

“ je suis/estoy “or “j’ai/ tengo”.

How to play Advanced Adjective Fisherman’s Trawl.

• Put the selected adjectives below on to cards and stick the cards to the whiteboard.

calor/chaud

sed/soif

frío/froid

triste/triste

hambre/faim

feliz/heureux.

• Divide you class in to teams – boys/girls for example.
• Invite a child to select without sharing an adjective from the whiteboard. They must mime the adjective. 
• Can the team guess the adjective? As this is advanced fisherman’s trawl firstly the team only has two guesses (unlike the original game where there were four guesses) and the team wins two points for a first correct guess and one point for a second correct guess. If they can’t guess correctly, it gets passed over to the other team.
• The team that’s guessed the adjective correctly can now get the "fish in the net" and gain two bonus points by deciding if the adjective goes with :

estoy/ je suis   or tengo/j’ai

Simple but effective, building on a previous game and developing a learning tool which can be used at different levels with different stages of language learners!

Preposition Picnic

Preposition Picnic

This is an activity that we have used with” House and Home” language learning  and also when we practise setting the table with cutlery and crockery and pretend to be” à table” in a French Christmas sketch with Year 6.

This year I think it sits really well with UKS2 a  celebration of your French/ Spanish/ German picnics or café culture focus during Summer term.

In KS2,the new DfE POS expects young learners to..... 

 "understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including(where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English."

It’s a series of simple activities that would work well in KS3 too when children are practising prepositions and especially in German where there is quite a lot to take in and understand.(See my comments below in italics)

You can develop some Art and DT work from this language activity too.

German :This will work in all three languages as described, however if you are working with German you may need to use the command  “Put” with key accusative prepositions first introducing the concept using feminine and neuter nouns. I would then introduce and share how the sound and spelling of the masculine definite article (der) has been altered when using these prepositions. Let your children be the language detectives and solve the sound and spelling riddle here. You can then continue with prepositions that are either accusative/dative or purely dative as and when you feel the children are ready to strengthen their language detective skills.

Equipment

Here are my picnic items. They are nearly all red in colour- but you could have different colours so that the children had to add a colour to the noun too to increase the challenge.

When we worked on this in class all the children had access to a plastic spoon, fork, knife, plate, cup and beaker. There was one between two of everything and I just bought cheap packs from a local supermarket.

Revisit and recap

• Revisit and recap the items of crockery and cutlery for your picnic and reinforce the correct definite article with each noun etc). Do the children know that it’s “la tasse” for example.
• Using physical actions with the children create preposition warm up. The children need to move their hands and arms to represent the position of prepositions e.g.

Next to – one arm out to the front bring the other arm and hand out and clap together

In front- hands in front

Under – touch the floor

Above – reach the sky

(and don’t forget “on the right”- arms to the right and “on the left” – arms to the left)

Altogether now

• Bring the class to the front or to an area where you can lay out your picnic mat. 
• Demonstrate setting the picnic mat for the class with your items.
• Demonstrate how the table should be laid and place the crockery and cutlery correctly, saying clearly on the target language as you move and place items “put the cup above the plate, put the knife next to the plate on the right” etc.. 
• Muddle up the items and ask children to place the items for you – giving the children clear target language instructions .

Now ask the children to help you reset the table in a new and creative way. The children can direct you to place the items where they wish e.g. put the knife in the cup , put the spoon under the plate etc.

In groups

• Give each group a set of written instructions. Each set of instructions uses the same crockery and cutlery but the table will be set slightly differently- no table should be set like your modelled table in the previous activity . 
• Ask the groups to read the instructions and lay their tables. Now take a class tour of the tables. 
• Can the children spot the differences between the table they are looking at and your original table? 
• Can they say this is the target language? The children will need to be able to respond with  “the …..is …..to the ……” as their response. (If you teach German you may wish to return to this part of the  activity at a later date when the children are secure with their prepositions and accusative/ dative sound-spelling) 

  

In pairs

• Can the children work in pairs and direct each other to set their tables – firstly correctly and then creatively? 
• Can the children create a 3D sculpture of the crockery and cutlery piling it high rather than placing it flatly on the picnic table or mat?

Individual creative activity

The outcome of this activity is that the child creates a 2D or 3D piece of art placing the crockery and cutlery in a design pr sculpture about which they write a set of instructions so that someone else could do the same. They will use their command “put” and a variety of prepositions to do this. 

There is a choice here of delivery styles: an ICT photo story , a poster, a spoken demonstration to recreate their art work to their group, or a sculpture or painting of their work which is framed by their target language instructions around the outside. 

Making a drama out of grammar (4)

The split personality of a sentence production!

This is a great activity using familiar language, drama and grammar for children who are “moving on” in their language learning. It reinforces the literacy work that schools are engaging their children with to understand the grammar of a sentence and the construction of a sentences  . It’s an activity that demands correct pronunciation and intonation of the target language and asks the children to not just decode but also understand the message they read and to demonstrate this through performance! It’s also great fun!

Your class can explore the punctuation,the pronunciation,the meaning, relaying the meaning and the grammatical structures of a sentence through drama and language learning.

This works well with lots of contexts and content. We will be using this on Tuesday with teachers to practise language around likes and dislikes of fruits and vegetable and the use of colour as an adjective. 

We will also use this in the Summer final half term to practise ice creams(Year 4) we like to eat and to explain activities we can do at the beach (Year 5), using more complex sentences.

You will need to prepare the written sentences that the children will read and with which they will create their split personality of a sentence productions. Make sure the sentences are made up of familiar language that the children have both spoken and read before.

The sequence of activities!

Take a simple sentence and see how much  we can reinforce and learn with this!

Je n’aime pas les pommes vertes!

Let’s look at the split personality of a sentence!

• This sentence has a punctuation personality
• This sentence has a pronunciation and intonation personality.
• This sentence has a performance personality (the message and meaning of the words)
• This sentence has key characteristics. 

 Punctuation Personalities

1. Discuss with the children the personality of punctuation in a sentence.This could be an activity that you have already tried with the children in literacy.
2. Discuss the role of punctuation in a sentence. 
3. Ask the children to discuss the role of the punctuation in the sentence with you. 
4. Describe the characters of the punctuation (use the middle column in the table below to help with this).
5. Can they guess which part of punctuation is being described? Now practise the poses for the punctuation?

Play a game of simple “Simon says “ or “Do what I say not what you see”(where you may not take the pose of the punctuation you say- children need to concentrate here!)

Punctuation	Personality	Pose
Capital letter	This character is proud and stands tall and knows it’s the beginning of a sentence!	Stand tall. Hands on hips Look important
Question mark	This character is in inquisitive ,listening and always wants to know more	Hunch or bend over One pointed and outstretched index finger and the other index finger is on the cheek of the character’s face.  Inquisitive face
Full stop	This character puts an end to all the speaking. It won’t move and stands firm!	Standing firm Legs placed slightly apart. Hand out like a policeman asking someone to stop
Comma	This character wants to take a breather, collect thoughts and carry on.	Looks a bit out of breath Waving /flapping hands in front of face as if wanting to catch their breath
Exclamation mark	This character is “striking” , wants to make its’ mark in the proceedings and thinks it’s important	This character is standing upright This character has an arm stretched out in the air! The look on the face of the character is startled Mouth wide open!
Speech marks	These characters just natter on and on and are twins together.	Two characters, a slight  distance apart , looking at each other. Hands are chest height and fingers are wiggling like they are typing a message.
Brackets	These characters whisper and gossip together and look on as the other characters wrestle of position and importance.	Two characters, a slight  distance apart , looking at each other. The two characters have a hand to their own mouths as if they are whispering something to someone else.

Characteristics of the sentence

1. Ask the children to think about the role of specific structures in the sentence. 
2. Ask the children to help you brain storm the names and roles of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and prepositions in a sentence.  Again this may be something you have already used as an activity in Literacy

Nouns name items and objects. They look proud and important

Adjectives describe items and objects. They look creative and artistic.

Verbs are the machine of the sentence. They stand on the spot, pump their arms and look fit and active!

Adverbs add description to the verbs. They stand near the verb and support the verb with looking fit and active.

Prepositions add a position and a place. They point and show direction.

Pronunciation personality

The pronunciation ( and intonation) of the target language sentence helps the correct meaning to be conveyed.Discuss with the children how important this is and practise some of the key words that you know will be in the sentences they will read and with which they will create their split  personality productions.

Performance personality

Each sentence has a personality created by the meaning of the sentences. Each word plays a role in this personality.

1. Practise with the children ways to act out some of the key language they will be reading in the sentences you have prepared. 
2. Discuss with the children whether the key language is a noun, a verb, an adjective etcetra too!

Split personality of a sentence production

1. Now divide your class into four groups. 
2. Give each group a specific role so you have a group investigating the punctuation personalities , another investigating the pronunciation personalities , another investigating the characteristics, and finally a group investing the performance personality.
3. Show the first sentence. Can each group create the performance that demonstrates the personality they are investigating? 
4. Watch each performance separately.
5. Now run the performances together so you have four different performances at the same time all about the same sentence.
6.  The children must listen carefully to the group  performing the "pronunciation personality" part of the production. All the performances need to be in synch!

Change the sentence, swap round the groups and start the “Split personality of a sentence production” again!

Making a Drama out of Grammar (3)

Personal Pronouns’ Photo Shoot

In KS2,the new DfE POS expects young learners to..... 

 "understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including(where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English."

Here we are considering physiical and expressive ways to explore and internalise the meanings and use of the personal pronouns we require when working with verbs.

Personal pronouns refer to the person or other people and things doing the action/ controlling the choice of verb ending.

Young learners need to play with these personal pronouns to understand their role in sentences and how they are the “trigger” that generally changes the ending (spelling) of the verb stem.

This is an activity for learners who have reached the stage in their use of present tense verbs in simple communication (such as questions and answers about themselves), when you think it is time to focus on the personal pronouns and how these alter the meaning of a question or answer.  

Participating in physical activities and performance has always helped my learners to internalise the key personal pronouns and to want to learn the meanings of the new words in the target language.

Below is a sequence of activities that lead to a “Photo Shoot” as if the children are models posing for the camera in a real photo shoot .There is some groundwork that has to be done first …in any good photo shoot, preparation is key!

A note for the language teacher!

Personal pronoun word choices are different depending on the target language.In French the word for "they" depends on whether it’s a masculine, mixed or feminine plural personal pronoun (ils/ils/ells) and in German there are three different meanings of the same sounding personal pronoun -sie(she),sie (they) and Sie (you when you are being polite).In Spanish we do not always use specific words for the personal pronouns when we form the verb.The meaning of the verb in Spanish is contained in the ending change on the verb stem.

However all the language learners need to know that the sound of the spoken verb and spelling of the written  verb in the target language is dependent on the personal pronoun used when creating the  message in our heads.

It's good therefore to start the physical activities below in English with our own target language pronouns first.You can discuss with the children the meaning of the pronouns in English. 

Once the children are comfortable with personal pronouns in English then we develop the “Personal Pronoun Photo Shoot” in the target language.

Steps to a successful photo shoot

Revisit and recall the personal pronouns in English.

Create symbols using stick men to simply represent the personal pronouns (I,you,he,she,it, we, you plural, they).Share your flip chart stick man pose sketches with the children. 

Here are mine. I have divided them into singular personal pronouns stick men symbols :

plural personal pronouns stick men symbols:

Ask the children with a talking partner to discuss which personal pronoun each stick man pose represents?

Now reveal your personal pronoun labelling. Where they correct?

A photographic record

Ask children to come to the front and strike a pose of a target language personal pronoun . Ask the class to take imaginary photos on their heads of these poses- just like they were real photographers keeping a record.

Strike the pose

Divide your class on to groups of four – two boys and two girls. They are now a team. In a large space, in the play ground or if it’s possible in your classroom play a game of “Stop! Go! Strike the pose!”.Ask the children to walk around the classroom when they hear  “Go!” and to find their team members and stand still when they hear “Stop”” and then as a team to strike the pose of the personal pronoun they hear!Pause and hold and then start the game again.

Now add an element of competition.Last time to take the pose is out!Who will be the last team standing and the best team to strike the poses? 

Photo shoot producers

Now two groups of four children must work together. Working with the second group, can the first group become the producers of a photo shoot? Make sure the stick men symbols and labels are clearly visible at the front of the classroom for reference). Each child takes it in turns to call a pronoun and the other group must strike the pose .Swap roles so that the second group are now the producers.Share the photo shoot performances with the class-ask each group of producers to select what they think are their best two shots.

Frame the photo shoot!

Finally back in their original groups ask each group to create a sequence of “photo shoots” to depict the personal pronouns they have been practising.

Why not create a photo shoot gallery?Take real photos – one from each group of children (their best shot perhaps?) that can then be labelled with the correct personal pronoun and be in the classroom on display as part of their photo shoot for future reference!

Making a Drama out of Grammar (2)

Word sculptors

Take a single word and sculpt a range of meaningful messages!

This simple drama and creativity idea is targeted at UKS2 learners to encourage them to manipulate simple present tense sentence structure.(You could use this in KS3 as a transferable learning tool to engage pupils in work with different tenses , more complex sentences and unfamiliar language that they have to put into a new context).

In KS2 the new DfE POS expects young learners to..... 

 "understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including(where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English."

These ideas below are all part of the same lesson and children working in groups of four will explore how a single word can be used in a variety of contexts and using different sentence structure to convey different meanings. The children need to create interesting structures and performances so just like sculptors they create meaningful and creative spoken sculptures.Below is a chart I have created to explain the four elements of each group's language and drama activities. Each group should be given the same noun on which to base their language work. At the end of the group work , when groups share their work,part of the discovery will be to see how the different groups have used the same noun with different language and in different contexts and performances.  

 How do you achieve this?

1. Each group should be given the same familiar or unfamiliar noun.Allow the groups access to a bilingual dictionary if necessary.       
2. Ask each group to discuss and write the following:

• A sentence using the noun
• A question and answer using the noun
• A simple description with adjectives in a full sentence or sentences using the noun.
• Three  command statements using the noun

3.  They must then become the "creative sculptors". Each group must divide themselves in to two pairs and each pair is responsible for two parts of the sculpture

• A spoken sentence portrayed by different emotions several times , so the meaning changes slightly
• A question and answer that is animated and delivered by two children in character
• A simple spoken description that has added colour using actions,movements and percussion backing music.
• A three line command rap   

4. Allow the groups  time to refine their performances and to memorise their spoken language. Ask the groups to create a visual display of the language contained in their four performances. They must all freeze frame (in character) whilst one pair performs part of their word sculpture… each group must be in a freeze frame related to their performances.
5. Now they must perform  for the class. How many different performances using the same noun have the class created?

Celebrating languages with the Commonwealth Games 2014

Celebrating languages with the Commonwealth Games

What a wonderful opportunity to allow young language learners the opportunity to listen and practise languages that are less known and spoken by some people within the Commonwealth.It's marvellous opportunity to share the diversity of languages!

Here in Warrington we are 20 miles from Wales and just across the Irish Sea from the Isle of Man.The Commonwealth Games take place in 2014 in Glasgow so let’s firstly share languages close to home!

Why not start with Peter Rabbit told in Scottish?

The 

The tale o Peter Kinnen

Listen to the story and see how much the children can understand?

Share with children the comparison of words in Scottish and English , taking examples from this

chart

. Can the children guess what the words might mean before you share with them the English meaning?

Teach the children some simple Gaelic using language and support from the website 

Gaelic4parents

.

Can your children identify athletes at the Commonwealth Games that will be representing Scotland?

Let's learn  our numbers our colours and our simple greetings and questions in welsh . Certainly for the children in our network that we work with this makes sense.They have teachers who speak Welsh and most probably takes out at the seaside on the North Wales Coast. Indeed we take our children to the North Wales coast for school trips and holidays.

Take a look at this

learn-welsh

 website for all sorts of sound files and activities!

Can your children identify athletes at the Commonwealth games that will be representing Wales?

It's just a short (well truthfully four hour) ferry sail from Liverpool to the Isle of Man , but we can fly there in 30 minutes too! 

Do your class realise that the island has its own language of Manx?Why not watch the You tube clip above and practise some simple Manx with the class?

Can you children identify athletes from the Isle of Man that will be representing the island at the Commonwealth Games.

Let's go further afield

! 

It's definitely a chance to go further afield and to explore the sounds and script of languages that our children may never have heard of or be aware of.Let's take them to Tonga and listen to the sounds of Tongan and look at the script of the language. Here is the Tongan

Omniglot

 website link you will need for the sound files and script.

You could explore the language of Brunei on the same website:

Malay

 or learn more about a language nearer to home 

Maltese

.

Finally there is never a bad time to practise with your classes the New Zealand Hakka which the children will no doubt see at the start of the Rugby Sevens matches in which New Zealand participate.Use the

BBC Sports Academy

 website page to access both the words and the actions to the Hakka.

Making a drama out of grammar (1)

I am passionate about the use of drama to explore and consolidate language learning.Over the course of this academic year I have been considering ways to use drama to practise and consolidate young learners knowledge of grammar in a target language.This is my first bulletin on simple drama activities linked to grammar in the target language.

I think that drama can help the primary child to meet the demand below of the new POS for languages at KS2......

"understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including(where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English."

On 17 June we will be holding our annual network conference.I will be encouraging teachers to consider simple ways to engage children in the physical  learning, practising and reinforcement of simple grammatical structures through drama and performance.

Here are a few simple ideas for you may like to try to out with your young learners and encourage them to use their bodies and imaginations to bring grammar to life!

They are simple performance activities that can be attempted either in the classroom or in a hall space or in the playground.

Nouns 

Noun Collectors

In the early stages of learning a language we introduce children to collections of nouns. 

Can we engage the children with the collections of nouns and understand the ways we can use these?

Noun collector nets (learning and recalling nouns)

1 .Practise the key nouns related to the content and context focus with your class

2. Encourage the children to hold an imaginary net (like a butterfly net). Can they either stand up away from their chairs or move   freely around the room or the hall and catch the nouns you have practised one by one. 

• What do the nouns sound like as they are caught- are they long words, soft words, large words, squeaky words etc? 
• What do the nouns look like? Are they nouns high up in the air they are hard to catch as they float by or are they nouns to be found sliding along the floor or hiding around a corner or under a chair ? 

The children’s voices and actions and ways they catch the nouns in their imaginary nets should reflect how they hear and perceive/ see the nouns in their minds.

3. Can the children share their nouns  that they have caught in their nets with a partner?Each noun should be released from the net as an action and a sound and should disappear back into space as they were found e.g.floating away, under a chair , hiding , sliding quickly away.

Noun collector’s treasure (masculine , feminine , neuter)

1. Practise the key nouns related to the content and context focus with your class.

1. The children work in pairs with the written nouns on cards and they must fill their own treasure boxes with these precious nouns
2. The children could pretend to be pirates or Kings or millionaires. What they must demonstrate is how much they "treasure" their items and want to put them away carefully - just like we need to store the nouns carefully in our memories and remember the genders of the nouns correctly.They have two imaginary treasure boxes in French and Spanish and three imaginary treasure boxes in German( masculine, feminine and neuter singular). One child mimes the noun on the card and the second child must remember if it is masculine, feminine or neuter and place the treasure (as if it was the object) itself into the correct treasure box. Children might need to wrestle with jungle animals, or carry food items carefully … without eating them   or fold up clothes items appropriately etc .The children should swap roles every third noun.
3. You can use this activity with singular and plural or with indefinite articles too.

Adjectives

Adjective actors

As the children develop in their language learning from stage one into stage two of language learners they l begin to create simple sentences describing objects. 

Can we encourage the children to internalise and recall key adjectives through physical performance? 

Can we allow the children to physically explore and demonstrate how adjectives change depending on what type of noun they are describing?

A fisherman’s trawl of adjectives 

1.     Working in a large space,paste six to eight adjective word cards on a wall opposite to where the children are standing in pairs.The children should work on this activity with their partner. Each partner takes it in turn to pull in their "imaginary" fisherman’s net and share with their partner the adjective they have caught. This child reads silently all the adjective cards and selects the adjective that he/ she wants to catch and pull toward their partner in the imaginary net.To do this he/she will need to pull the net at least four times towards themselves and after each pull must portray by actions and sounds a meaning of the adjective e.g. cold ( shivering then saying “brrr” then putting on a piece of warm clothing then rubbing and blowing on their hands) . 

    Can the other partner guess, identify on the cards and say the key adjective as the imaginary net is pulled right up next to them? 
    The children then swap roles and pull in another net with an adjective they have “caught”

2.Make this a more challenging activity by mixing up noun and  adjective cards on the wall opposite the children . Can the child who has to perform the mime , select an adjective from the nouns and adjectives they can see?Can s/he mime this for the partner and can the partner go to the wall and select/point at / write down or collect the correct word card for their fisherman's net.

3. Make this two team race- who can collect all their adjectives first? 

If you enjoy these activities with your beginner learners then maybe you can revisit the activity with more challenge later in their language learning development . Take a look here at Advanced adjective fisherman's trawl

Different sides of an adjective.

1. Once you have practised with the children the agreement of adjectives with masculine , feminine , singular , plural nouns ( and in German neuter nouns) the children will be able to take part in this four sided activity.

1. Divide your children into groups of four. Ask them to stand in a square facing outwards. Each group of four is working in the first instance with one noun e.g. if you have been looking at clothes then each group has a clothes item. They must create a moving 4D image of the noun and four adjectives that can be used with then noun. Each child in the square is responsible for the performance and the utterance of the noun with their adjective. Remind children to think carefully whether the noun is masculine, feminine, neuter, singular or plural. Remind them that you will need to hear the correct agreements on the adjectives.
2. Now swap the activity over. Give the groups one adjective and four pictures of items (e.g. animals/furniture/foods)   – each one is a different gender or singular/ plural. Can they create a speaking sculpture of their adjective used with different nouns? Each member of the sculpture is responsible for the spoken utterance of one of the nouns and the adjective with correct agreement and the performance and depiction of the noun and the adjective.
3. There is an opportunity here to film the performances and fade one performance into another so we see and hear four “different” sides of an adjective!

Verbs

Across the four years of KS2 children will come in to contact with verbs.There are  many ways that we can explore verbs through drama. Here are two simple examples to use verbs physically in drama and language activities.

Powerhouse Machine Imperatives!

1.Practise verbs of action – run, jump, hop, skip, dance, walk with the  children

2. In groups of six ask them to create a “powerhouse machine “. The machine must move around and must be made up of the imperatives and the actions and the sound of the actions. The children can use one action as many times as they want but all actions must be included.How high ,low, far, fast and slowly can their powerhouse machines move? All six children must be included in the performance.

3. Share this with the class

4. Join the machines together and create a class powerhouse machine!

Robot routines

1. Practise with the children the phrases they would need to use to describe a sequence of activities they may participate in e.g.own daily routine in the morning or activities on a day trip to the beach.
2. Sit two children opposite each other and ask one child to be in control of the daily routine phrases they want to say.This child needs to say a sequence of sentences describing specific activities.
3. Can the partner respond with the correct actions? 
4. Can the partner then remember and repeat the sequence of phrases with the correct actions. This child is now "the robot"-programmed by the first child.
5. Can the robot adapt the actions and the phrases to generate a robotic type speech and actions?
6. Can the robot move to another partner and share the sequence with the new partner who then adapts the sequence back to a human voice and human actions?

Year 6 on their way to meet friends in Spain!

This afternoon I have received the wonderful report below from the Languages Coordinator, Tina Charnley at Latchford St James CE  Primary School, Warrington. Supported by our very own JLN Spanish language teacher Jose Maria Jimenez Year 6 are preparing for the annual week in Spain with their partner primary school in Rincon ,Malaga!

Take a look at the school website which is beginning to fill up with exciting news for the children, teachers and wider community to read about the visit and the preparations that have been taking place! 

Just before Year 6 broke up for Easter they were reminded on the website that it is ......................................

Nearly time for Spain

April 04, 2014

We will soon be going to Spain, so all year six should be practising their Spanish phrases over the Easter holidays. Buena suerte!

First a little context! 

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to   other cultures..................... It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes

(new KS2 POS for languages)

Who would have thought that such an amazing opportunity for the children from this town centre school could have developed into something so magnificent! The school has developed a whole school Spanish language learning programme from Nursery to Year 6 and have established productive and purposeful language and cultural links with a primary school in the Rincon de Victoria, Andalucia.Who would have thought back in 2006 that a headteacher initial link visit funded by the the TDA would lead to such a dynamic link!

Latchford St James CE link school project is about two dynamic head teachers, one from Rincon in Malaga and  one from Warrington,deciding that there was no reason why their  10 and 11 year old children couldn’t meet each other and spend time together! There is a lot that goes in to making this link so successful and all the members of staff and business administration teams in both schools work hard to make the visits so successful every year. All year round the children in the whole school contribute to keeping alive and real the letter, project based and virtual contact .It's most definitely a whole school focus.

The project started about 8 years ago and has grown from a small group of year 6 parents agreeing for their children to go to Malaga for a week to now the whole class expecting at the end of their six or seven years of learning Spanish in primary school to go to Malaga and spend time with the friends they have been skyping! The system works well . One week is spent in Malaga and several weeks later their Spanish friends come to Warrington and stay at the Peace Centre and spend a week at Latchford St James.The children go to school together,take part in traditional cultural activities together,visit castles and beaches here and in Spain and speak with each other in Spanish and English.By the end of the first week they are all best of friends!

The school has invested in Spanish language assistants trained and supported by JLN and currently Jose  works in the school every Wednesday. The programme runs the  whole year round and he delivers lessons from Nursery to Year 6 in line with the JLN SOW.All the children make tremendous and noticeable progression in learning a foreign language …. and what a reason to learn to they have! 

So now over to the school and their report about how Year 6 are preparing to fly over to Malaga and visit their Spanish school friends !

This term we have been working really hard to prepare for our visit to Malaga and since the whole class are coming we have spent some of our Spanish time working on basic conversation to help us whilst we are there. Our Spanish lessons have become something the children really look forward to, especially during the SATs preparation time.

We have been skyping our Spanish school frequently and now the children feel that they know the children that they will be meeting and spending their days with. 

We organised ourselves into three groups- to break the ice- and we chatted about Computer games, music or sport. As the children became more confident they also chatted about families and favourite TV shows. We all enjoyed learning a Spanish song and dance which we performed alongside the Spanish children and staff!

We will be visiting a market whilst we are with our Spanish friends and so we spent some time learning about the phrases we might hear and need when we are there. We had a great day when we set up a marketplace in the Year Six classroom, with various stalls all containing items which we would find in a typical market. Jose made sure that the room became a noisy one to reflect a real market place and the children all thoroughly enjoyed it.  Year Six then invited all of the other classes to visit the marketplace where all the children used their Spanish to ask for items, how much they would cost and then describing what they had bought.

As we are lucky enough to spend time on the beach we feel it is important that the children can all  buy their own ice-creams etc from the Kiosko and so we also spent time role-playing this whilst also getting used to using Centimes.

Some of our year six children are very competent now in everyday Spanish and have enjoyed assisting Jose with the younger children. We have put some of their work and photos on our website and hope to upload photographs daily whilst we are in Rincon de la Victoria(Spain)

This is primary language learning with a clear purpose and I look forward to following Year Six and their week in Spain on their website! 

Tour de France Sequence of Lessons

Follow and celebrate the Tour de France 2014 as it travels from Yorkshire through England and across to France 

and around ,up and down and through the country! 

This afternoon we having been discussing the tour de France! Here are a sequence of lessons that I have helped to create based on the resources you can find here 

tour de France links and resources

Below are some ideas for us firstly to use in all target languages: 

A virtual tour of the Tour de France !

A virtual tour from Yorkshire to the finishing line in Paris

Let’s create our own virtual 3D tour and add our own 2D and 3D famous buildings from cities on the way  to the finishing line . Create a 3D tour Eiffel for the finishing line!

Here's a video clip to help us achieve this 

And follow this link to find 

a 

3D tour Eiffel 

to complete your 

own virtual 3D class tour 

Physical 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.

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!

Let’s brainstorm nouns, adjectives and verbs that we associate with the tour de France. Can access these in the target language in bilingual dictionaries .

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

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

A volunteer  from a team selects a word from a cycle bag and decides if it’s a noun, an adjective or a verb. They must mime this – one point for getting this correct and then they must mime the meaning of the word- one more point for the team if they can guess and say it in the target language. If you play this UKS2 Year 6 or with KS3 with there are two bonus points with UKS2 if they can put the noun or the adjective in to a simple sentence and can any of them create a first person singular present tense statement with a verb (e.g. I push , I pedal, I race etc )? Verbs would b e at the teacher’s discretion – depending on whether they are regular verbs or not in the first instance.

Cyclists on tour- a language recall game!

You will need  

dice ,different coloured

counters for the players and the board,which you can download here 

Simple tour de France and sports vocabulary game

It doesn't just need to be abut sports though ....read on!

Divide your class in to teams of four .How many times around the board can the children race before the end of a designated amount of time – on a countdown timer ? If they land on an odd number they have to pick up a picture card and say the word they see in the target language. If they land on an even number they have to ask a question of another person in the game. They cannot repeat the question that was said by the last player to land on an even number. The winner of the race will own the yellow jersey and will have been around the board the most times or got the farthest around the board before the end of the timed race!

Our own class jerseys!

Take a look

here

 at the jerseys that are rewarded during the whole race  

Can the class design their own Tour de France jerseys – either on real plain white t-shirts or as card cut outs for a class mobile or display? Each of these t-shirts should have written on them the characteristics of a true sportsman in the target language – either as single words or as simple present tense sentences using the verb “to be”  

Superlative t-shirts

Take a look at how to form the superlative in the target language . a good activity again for Year 6 or KS3 .In your class which characteristics make the best members of the class …. The most organised, the most creative, the tidiest , the most helpful, the kindest. Now can your class help you to design reward t-shirts for the duration of the Tour de France?these can be awarded for the “superlative” people in your class during the Tour de France! Display the t-shirts with their superlative labels for all to see and add the faces of the children who win these t-shirts one by one.

Poster Power Poem Performances! 

Why not create your own Power Poem Performances using posters as stimulus for draft writing of poems which can be short such as a haiku made up of adjectives or verse by verse present tense sentences using a noun verb and adjective to describe elements of the Tour de France. The children  perform the poems and bring the posters to life!

Here's the link to the blog post with the

poster power poem

 lesson guide and below is a poster that inspired me!

And finally for French language learners ….

Food Fest

Let’s go on a Tour de France food fest and take in the regional foods. Let’s have a food-tasting journey and keep an E- journal of the foods we try – photos, sound file comments and short videos of foods we try or foods we find on line. Take a look at this article of 40

Tour de France

 regional recipes 

Mon vélo est blanc

Let’s learn and perform this simple poem for a school assembly. Why not adapt the poem and change the colours.

mon velo est blanc

Or take a break and watch with KS2 children

le petit Nicolas le 

vélo