Power of books and interesting sentences

Take look at this wonderful picture! There are so many ways in my head that I can interpret what I see here!

 I want to use these pictures with our Stage 3 language learners to inspire them to use their language learning skills to explore language and extend their knowledge of adjectives!


So why and how am I going to do this?
Well each power of books picture inspires a different focus or theme.

  • Red for an exciting day out! 
  • Butterflies for a trip to a zoo
  • Wires and cables for an imaginary visit to Space!
  • Plants for a trip to the jungle and jungle animals
  • Monster like tentacles to describe a monster
  • Flames for a visit to a volcano 

Well our Stage 3 learners are our Year 5 and often Year 6 learners -and they are just beginning a new academic year of language learning and able to understand and generate simple sentences using nouns, verbs and adjectives- not necessarily placing adjectives after nouns or alway using accurate adjectival agreement but excited by the fact that they can now communicate in full sentences.It's time to help them to become more independent in their use of spoken and written language and to encourage them to see how creative they can be in their target language communication. 

Now we can give them the power!
........By becoming "word explorers" !
  • We want them to explore bi-lingual dictionaries and also to read short texts to find interesting words which they can take from the texts they read and then use in their own simple sentence construction to add colour to their own descriptions and communication!
  • We also want them to keep a record - a meaningful record of this new language so that they can re-use these words in other spoken or written texts


  1. Give each group of table one of the pictures from the "power of books" pictures at the top of the page.You can select one or two pictures for the whole class or give different pictures to each of six tables or groups.I think I would opt for the first option - so that we can then feedback and share and build our banks of adjectives via each others' word explorations. 
  2. Ask the children on the table to prepare to become "word explorers" and give the tables two tools to do this - a bilingual dictionary and a short written target language text with simple descriptive text based on their themed picture.Discuss with the children how as word explorers they will use the dictionaries and the texts. Set up word explorer rules.
  3. Ask the children to look at their picture from the  "power of books" pictures and briefly discuss their themes in English.
  4. Ask the children to write a list of key nouns that they  want to use and explore- can they identify these in their dictionaries.
  5. Ask the children to read their short texts and identify any useful nouns and adjectives that they can add to their descriptions.
  6. Ask the children to brainstorm on their tables additional interesting descriptive words that they would like to use and to search for these in their bi-lingual dictionaries.
  7. Now ask each group to generate a sequence of interesting sentences on their specific "power of books" theme. Ask them to work together and to write these out in rough
  8. Each group must now share their draft sentences with a second group and the second group must read the sentences and see if they can spot any changes that need to be made in sentence construction .The first group must explain the meaning of their sentences to the second group.
Now let's be creative and explore the "power of books" we can generate!


Create a power of books gallery of :
  • paintings of the power of book pictures and written target language sentences
  • a spoken presentation of the interesting sentences with the power pf books picture as a back drop
  • use Yakit for Kids APP, have a look here and create a talking power of books sequence of photos add and each child on the table can record one of their sentences and create a gallery of  recorded interesting sentences !  




French percussion and poem performance les feuilles mortes


Using this simple , effective and beautiful poem about Autumn in French we can explore and interpret and perform linking languages to percussion music. This could be a poem to be explored by the children in UKS2 (with two or three years language learning) or possibly in KS3 Y7. 

  1. Can the children identify for you the verbs in the text. Can they spot the repetition of the verbs?
  2. How do they know that the poet is speaking (j'entends)
  3. Can they identify the nouns in the poem and can they identify the noun which is repeated over and over again in the text . Is it singular or plural and how so they know? Maybe they are able to tell you whether the noun is masculine or feminine using detective work and looking at the spelling of the adjectives after the noun.
  4. In each verse explore the descriptions of the leaves,looking up the final adjectives in each line where necessary ,using a bi-lingual dictionary.
  5. Can they practise the nouns and adjectives for the leaves and descriptions as sound bites ( saying the description e.g les feuilles rousses/molles/d'or and making the sound of the words create a "sound bite picture of the leaves as they fall to the floor)
  6. In each verse explore what the poet tells us he can hear- which words for seasons and weather can they identify in the individual sentences that start with "j'entends....".
  7. Identify the pattern of each verse and the use of the verbs in each verse and the repetitive nature of the verb "tombent" and ask the children to suggest reasons why this might be the case (i.e perhaps to suggest leaves falling gently from the sky over and over again)
  8. Identify the rhymes at the end of each sentence in each verse.
  9. Write down in random order on the whiteboard the final words in each sentence.Can the children match up the rhyming pairs?
  10. Ask the children to read the poem with you and to visualise what is happening and how Winter is drawing in.Ask them to describe to a talk partner what they have visualised. 
  11. Give out the poem as cut up sentence strips . Can the children reconstruct the poem?
  12. Can they now close their eyes and listen again to the poem and imagine Autumn moving toward Winter as they listen to the poem with their eyes closed?
  13. Read and practise the poem out loud with the children.
  14. Ask the children to suggest musical percussion instruments to portray the falling leaves and also to portray the weather or seasonal changes in each verse. Ask the children to work in groups with percussion instruments to create the sense and  rhythm and  to convey the description in one of the verses of the poem. they can select their favourite verse to match the percussion instrument they have been given on their table.
  15. Ask the groups /tables to create a performance with spoken language , actions and music of their chosen verse. Ask them children to create the dynamics of the verse through the actions , music and the way they alter their voices (volume and stress etc)  
  16. Listen to the groups performances of the verses.
  17. Can the class decide which percussion performance matches the French poem description the best? 
  18. Can the class read the poem with you and can four children representing the selected percussion performances create the different music effects for each of the verses as the class reads out the poem?

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


I have just seen this marvellous sketch and decide this is exactly what we need in UKS2 at the end of this half term for our KS2 children to use to write a message using the target language they have been practising.It will link well in to our Autumn focus at the end of the half term and will also allow us to review what we have produced at the start of the new half term.
It obviously doesn't need to be in French - could be German or Spanish or Mandarin etc....


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

For example in our network schools the messages could be :
  • beginners: a greeting,name and feelings and a farewell
  • moving on: personal information about themselves and questions for a new friend 
  • advanced: personal information and emotions describing themselves as they feel on the day they write (and some information their class)


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





Celebrating Roald Dahl Day in foreign language learning



September is Roald Dahl month and it's also his birthday on 13 September plus it's the 50th anniversary of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
It seems to me an opportunity this month to make links between languages and literacy!

 This is a good opportunity to switch that "cultural lightbulb on" and allow children to realise that stories we love in english are also loved in other languages too!

What's the story? 
This is a simple reading recognition activity
A really simple idea is to share with the children the front covers of Dahl's novels in the target language and ask the children to decide what the title in English of each Dahl story book  must be.
For example ask the children which books are these and how do you know?(Key words,names and picture clues)
Maybe you can show the children these books in familiar and unfamiliar languages 




What's our favourite story!
This is a speaking and listening activity based on a question and a response 
If you have shared a range of story book covers in the target language that the children are learning then you are now ready for a class survey. Let's make it just a simple tally survey where children interview each other and ask each other  "Which is your favourite book?" (using the book titles that you have introduced in step one of course- so the children are familiar  with the book titles!).

Building characters
This is a bilingual dictionary adjective search which can be developed into a focus on adjectival agreement and the use of verbs to have and to be create simple sentences 
Using bi-lingual dictionaries and pictures on the screen at the front of the classroom can your class help you to build an adjective profile of some of the most famous Dahl characters?
with more advanced learners can the children create full sentence descriptions of their Roald Dahl characters and can they add descriptions of the characters clothes and looks?


 Silhouette characters.
This is an activity where the children can compose their own character descriptions at different levels:
Adjective gathering
Adjectives in simple sentences
Addition of nouns such as clothes and facial features
Choice of verbs in present tense 
Writing and speaking activities 
Now you can create Dahl outlines. 
Ask the children to pick their favourite character and to draw the silhouette outline of the chosen  character and fill the outline with the adjectives that make up the character's personality.
With more advanced learners or more able children encourage them to add adverbs and interesting verbs 
Why not hold a character identity parade?
Ask child  to introduce and describe their silhouettes in either the first of the third person singular!
  

Autumn and a walk in the park

Over the next couple of weeks in primary school you will be busy getting ready with children to celebrate harvest time and Autumn. We celebrate Autumn in our SOW and it's a great way to practise simple familiar and useful language.

It's also this year going to be one of the ways we practise directions in the target language.With Year 5 we practise directions and finding our way to places just after October half term . On Twitter these sensory gardens caught my eye ,made by 5AWB at William Barcroft Junior School @5AWBJunior   !

Why well in LKS2 we take our children on Autumn walks and practise simple action poems and rhymes. 
In Year 5  these sensory gardens could become Autumn walks and Autumn open spaces 3D maps
We can create our "spooky" autumn walks " with lift the leaf flaps to find our "spooky characters" or our Autumn treasure hunts to find the hidden treasures or woodland characters!

  1. Each child creates their own 3D Autumn gardens/parks.walks 
  2. Each child hides pictures of woodland characters or spooky characters underneath or inside items on their maps.
  3. The children will be practising prepositions and directions as part of their town and city focus so all they will be doing is transferring this knowledge to a new and more creative language learning opportunity! 
  4. Each child writes  simple directions for another child to follow to find the hidden characters.

How successful they are will be assessed by the children who read the directions and locate the hidden characters!

Autumn celebrations and a touch of creativity

Over the next couple of weeks in primary school you will be busy getting ready with children to celebrate harvest time and Autumn. We celebrate Autumn in our SOW and it's a great way to practise simple familiar and useful language.

Here is my second blog on ways to in corporate Autumn in to your language teaching this half term.My first blog are simple word games and activities that all staff and language learners can take part in from beginners to learners who are moving on.Take a look here.Autumn celebrations blog one


The incredible harvest of fruits and vegetables! 
This is a an activity to get the children practising using adjectives with nouns and also to start thinking out of the box with primary languages.
A few days ago I saw this! White strawberries!


The idea is simple.
Ask the children to design a bush with magical powers that can create fruits in fantastical/ unusual colours. Ask the children to draw and label their fruits and then to share their ideas in a spoken dialogue activity with other children .The children need to practise the question: "What is that?" or "What type of fruit is that? and the children can then share their incredible harvest of fruits or vegetables. the activity will allow you to reinforce with more advanced learners adjectival agreement and position too!..... and of course now I am thinking Art - still life with a twist! Papier mache DT! Fantastical fruit poems if we can also add flavours ( maybe our ice cream flavours from Year 4?) The list could go on!!!

 Woodland creatures 
Thanks to le francais et vous I was reacquainted with one of these glorious posters in French.This one is all about woodland animals.Take a look!

A great way to look at masculine and feminine nouns with our Y3 and Y4 classes ,particularly this in stage two (Y4 ) of learning . We can look for cognates and semi cognates.
We can add colours and we can create our own art work and drawings using a French stimulus.
With Stage 3 and 4 learners (probably Y5 and 6 who have been learning a language already for at least two years) so more advanced learners. let them go on a woodland creature hunt, giving each table a poster and descriptions of different animals in the poster.Can they read and understand the descriptions (make sure there are words in the descriptions that they need to look up on a bi-lingual dictionary  to add challenge) and can they add descriptive labels to the creatures?
Add a touch of Yakit for kids (using and APP where the photo talks ) and the children can make this an animated poster with spoken labels or woodland creature descriptions!

Twit twoo!

Looking for woodland creatures I found these two target language pages with instructions on how to make an owl that would be a useful way to develop reading comprehension activities with our more advanced learners:

In German Eulen basteln ( with a very simple template labelled in German that the children will need to read/puzzle out and then construct their own owls! 


and in French Julie Prince @princelanguages alerted me to this page for marionettes de automne from this blog http://nounoulolo88.centerblog.net/


Autumn poems
I think we can all source Autumn poems but yesterday I found this brilliant Spanish poem/list of all the things that are associated with Autumn .You can see it here below!

  Take a look here

Maybe it's a text to read and unpack learners or to use as stimulus to write with more advanced UKS2 learners our own lists of things we associate with autumn using nouns, verbs and adjectives. with younger learners we can make our own written and visual class autumn list perhaps using bilingual dictionaries of the colours, fruits, vegetables, weather, animals etc etc we associate  with Autumn.

What does Autumn and  harvest time mean to you?
Finally this morning I found these making activities on  the French website
http://www.teteamodeler.com
It's a time when we can look at culture and the lives of children in different countries and the crops and harvest time activities that they will be involved in for example la vendange in France is a time of grape picking and village festivals......Here's une boite aux raisins to make ...




in Spain the children will hear and possibly celebrate

 LA CASTAÑERA


Autumn celebrations culture and language learning

Over the next couple of weeks in primary school you will be busy getting ready with children to celebrate harvest time and Autumn. We celebrate Autumn in our SOW and it's a great way to practise simple familiar and useful language.

Here is my first of two blogs on ways to in corporate Autumn in to your language teaching this half term.

Here are some simple ideas for all staff to practise basic and familiar target language:

  • It's a great way to practise numbers and colours using cut out card leaves (with numbers and colours)as stepping stones  and adding an element of elimination to the game. Place the lots of cut out leaves on the floor/ around the room (with numbers and colours on them in the target language) and ask the children to walk around the room standing on the leaves. When you call a number or a colour of they are stood on or next to a leaf with that number or colour written on it, then they are out! 
  • It's a great way to practise sounds in numbers and colours in the target language.You need leaves cut out of white card . On one side is written a key sound from the target language word for the object  or symbol on the reverse of the card.Divide you class into teams.Stick all the leaves sound side up to the board or flip chart. Can the children take turns in teams to guess the object (e.g colour/ number ) on the reverse of the card.Turn the card over and if the team  guesses correctly, then the team wins  the leaf.The team with the most leaves at the end of the activity has won the "harvest".With early learners stick to one theme e.g. just colours but with more advanced learners create your leaves using two or three very familiar themes - e.g. days, months , numbers. You will need to give teams thinking and reflection time before you start the game so that they can try and recall independently the language they are going to need to focus upon.
  • Practise simple actions and commands associated with harvest time e.g  picking ,smelling, looking for ,tasting, eating fruits and vegetables . Create actions and play simple games such as Simon says or last farmer standing - where children freeze frame in a chosen action of their own and if you say that action the children in that particular freeze frame must sit down. Who will be the last farmer standing? 
  • Create piles of card leaves with maximum of 10 cards in each pile.Give a pile to each table. On some of the leaves there are letters that are in a random order but when re-assembled in a specific order form a word that is familiar to the children. Ask the tables to create a similar challenge of letters that make up a word pile of leaves for another table.With more advanced learners make this a full sentence challenge with whole words on leaves or even more challenging with words that have been split in to two and written on separate leave and are part of the sentence,

Language Learning Tools to Share

This year I have the very exciting opportunity to support local high schools as they work through what primary progress in language learning means to their own MFL departments in KS3.I am going to be helped to achieve this by a wonderful colleague, who has just started to tweet and who will keep a running record of how she is able to use these tools in her own KS3 language learning classroom @JoBeeG73 
(As I am meeting with the teacher on Wednesday I thought I needed to put down in my blog what I mean by  "Language Learning Tools to Share").

I see these as "shared approaches to learning a language ,which can put the learner at ease and allow the learner to scaffold their own progress as they recall and use familiar techniques and possibly language and upon which they can  build and explore new and more challenging language learning.so you may start off with simple word recall and mve to phrase, sentence and text etc or perhaps you have started with simple questions and answers but you want the children to build in conversational asides or to listen as a thrid party and report back in the third person 


Here are some shared learning tools we know are working well.
By this I mean tools/ resources/ prompts/ ways of recording language and revisiting language  that allow children to use familiar approaches and  activities to explore more challenging use of language in listening , speaking , reading and writing.



...and here is a new tool that I think the learners and teachers will enjoy trying out this year







Changing Faces and Creative Popart Challenge

This evening on my Pinterest board janet's language learning  this pinned item from a few months ago caught my attention! 


Changing faces 
This Popart picture is made up of the faces of Tintin and it caught my eye immediately - as it could be such a great shared language learning tool across UKS2 and then into Y7!

 With young learners who are beginners in the target language we can play Quiz Quiz Swap / partner or group guessing games/ create our own written Art work replacing the image of the hair with a written target language phrase etc

 With young learners who are moving on in their learning we can give Tintin a personality based on each picture - emotions, names, age, likes and dislikes etc 
We can bring the pictures out again in a different lesson and  revisit,recall and build upon knowledge of sentence structure.

And what about practising those common present tense verbs to describe someone or something? We can practise first to third person verb changes,develop conversations rather than dialogues and generate new Popart challenges for other pupils in the class or add voices and sound via QRs and Yakit!

Celebrating international literacy day

UNESCO international literacy day


It’s “International Literacy Day” on Monday 8 September- so what better way to put a marker in the sand and make those cross curricular first steps between target language learning and literacy."Literacy and sustainable development" is the strap line and when you reflect on what we hope to achieve for our young learners it's that they will become competent young linguists who can communicate for work and business in another language sometime in their futures. who knows what communication and language challenges in their work and personal lives they may have to face.

Languages and Literacy belong together so this is an ideal opportunity to investigate and celebrate links between languages  and the structure of languages. Here are a few ideas we can easily incorporate in to our language teaching and learning next week – even if it’s a day or two after the official international literacy day!!

Possibility One :Exploring the World family of languages 


Who has the book below on their shelves.....somewhere?
Take the children on an exploration of another language  - maybe one that is spoken by children in school or maybe one that is unfamiliar to all your learners.
I love the fact that the subtitle says "talk your way around the world"!
The  book has short histories of each language , simple and useful phrases, pronunciation guides and a structure focus e.g in Turkish it’s explained that there are two words for “you” …..now how easy is that to link to French , German…..??


Possibility Two: a international story read by the author is his/her original language



Does it matter is the children don’t understand each word? In this instance it’s about the children seeing that stories exist in other languages. We love using this Eric Carle clip of the Hungry Caterpillar read in German by the author himself.


 Possibility Three: Taking a thought for a walk in two languages!


A sentence is a device to take a thought for a walk blog

Why not explore some simple writing in the target language you teach in school. I love this cartoon and the blog I wrote last academic year is all about how we can encourage young language learners to take a thought for a walk in any language!

Possibility four  :Links between Literacy,target language grammar and drama

noun collectors
noun treasure chests
different sides of an adjective
the split personality of a sentence













Setting out our language learning stall for 2014 2015

Today the associate language teachers and assistants met for our CPD Day.Part of our discussions where based upon how we are going to set up effective environments for primary language learning this academic year.

 Here are some of the tools,approaches and resources we will begin to implement or use across all year groups in KS2 in the next couple of weeks.

 The rights of the language learner
You can access the PDF from Bsmall publishing here.

 The rights of the language learner


The poster reminds children about respecting others, taking risks and having a go and allows us to think of some of our own important learning strategies for the year! Brilliant to have in the classroom and to refer to when children are struggling or not sure how to approach a challenge or just as a prompt when required. We are sure that the children will want to add strategies and pictures of their own.

Creating a whole school supportive language learning environment 
We identified the need to support the whole school staff to feel a part of the language learning taking place in school and loved the idea of the " target language postbox"


great to post and share successful activities, questions or requests around language learning.Maybe this blog will help.....
Ready steady go!

Welcome back! 
We identified how important it is to welcome children back or for the first time into our language learning classes and how we can link this to the idea that all children are going back to school right now across the target language countries. We want to share with the children greetings in the target language pertinent to "returning to school" on the IWB or as individual cards just like these in French:


A memorable learning journey 
If we use individual cards (welcome back) then these can be stuck in to our learning journals. This year we will have learning journals that are personal to the children created along the lines of the one described in the blog below:


A journey worth taking

We want the children to keep a growing record of the experiences, sights,sounds,smells and creative activities along their language learning journey and individual or class learning journals just like these seem a good way to create a  memorable journey!

Unpacking our suitcases from last academic year 
With some of our children we will be unpacking their virtual language learning suitcases from last academic year to remember and to revisit some of their favourite activities and stories . Take a look at emilie's blog and see the suitcases she packed with her classes...


Our suitcases of learning

A child's record of how much they grow in language learning and knowledge across the academic year.


How does your garden grow?
We discussed the elements we see the children developing across a year of language learning (language content , structure ,all 4 skills, links between language and other subjects, cultural knowledge etc). I suggested the " how does your garden grow record" for Year 3 and Year 4 but colleagues felt that this was still a valid and age appropriate activity for UKS2 too! This will be kept in the children's journals or learning logs (see above) and we intend to start these pictures in October.

Exploring culture and celebrating languages through creative and imaginative work.
We discussed  ways this year we will use Art,literature,poetry ,song, music, Drama to explore  both language skills and the culture of the target language country.We are setting off on a " a grand day out"  in the week of the European Day of Languages ( 26 September) with this in mind!

Transition in a suitcase
And at the end of the year we hope to be able to pack those virtual suitcases again with memories , games, creative outcomes ,songs, stories and poems that we want to share at the start of the next new academic year of learning!
Transition in a suitcase between year groups












If a picture paints a thousand words ...

Thinking of ways to explore descriptions of people, their hair, eyes, faces, emotions?
Well why not use this video clip that I was alerted to via Twitter @i100 this morning!
Watch how the portrait of a woman's face has changed over 800 years of painting


How do I think this could be used? Here are just a few simple ways ....

Name the portrait!
  • Give children target language name cards- 3 per child. Practise and use the target language names of course and then  play the video and ask the children to raise the name cards when they see a face that they think suits the target language name. 
  • Now ask the children to work in groups of four and create 12 faces -using facial expressions for the 12 name cards they hold between them. They must introduce themselves using a full target language sentence.
  • Ask the children to find portraits of characters through the ages that they can label with their target language name phrases and then create their own short videos with portraits and names
Look closely and what do you see!
  • Practising describing eye and and hair colour?Well then ask the children to write as many eye and hair colours phrases as they can  on a piece of paper. The children cut the phrases into phrase strips and one child goes first on the table or in the group to share their phrases with their classmates. 
  • Ask the children to read out the phrase they hold (it could be an eye colour or a hair colour) and tell the group what they think the phrase is in English . Does the person who wrote the phrase agree?
  • Now play the video and ask the children to watch for a portrait ,where they can see or identify the eye colour or hair colour phrase strip they are holding.They must raise the strip in the air to acknowledge this . Pause the video every so often and see what phrases the children are holding up. Are they all correct ? Do they match the  portrait?
  • Increase the challenge by giving the children pre-prepared phrases which have an eye and a hair colour  - the portrait must match both descriptions for them to hold up their phrase strips.
Anticipation Emotions 
  • The clip had the most evocative music and if you watch closely many of the portraits and the music are interlinked, sharing the facial expression and the emotion suggested in the music.
  • Ask the children to watch  some of the video with you and when you pause the clip to suggest an emotion that the portrait is relating to its audience.Either asking children to recall key emotions language or using bi-lingual dictionaries create and English /target language checklist of emotions on the flip chart.
  • The children can use this checklist as a point of reference for the second part of the activity. This time play part of the clip and conceal the screen from the children and ask them to listen to the music- can they anticipate the possible emotions on the screen when you pause the clip and reveal the portrait , just by listening to the music.What emotion does the music convey? They must tell you this in the target language!
Portrait gallery selfies!
  • Using photos of themselves and music that they enjoy , can the children generate a portrait gallery of "selfies" with written and read aloud facial descriptions that can be share with the whole class on the IWB?