Monthly Archives: October 2018

Lesson Plan – Gender Agreement / Self Descriptions

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Class/Group:Primary 3 mixed ability           Lesson: French         Date: n/a

Previous Experience: In previous lesson the class were introduced to the vocabulary used for describing themselves (les cheveux blonds, bruns, noirs, roux, les yeux bleus, verts, marron, grand(e), petit(e)).

Areas to cover in this lesson: understanding that the gender the adjectives use must agree with the gender of the nouns used and the children themselves. (petit/petite, grand/grande)

Working towards outcomes of a Curriculum for Excellence:

Listening / Speaking –I can participate in familiar collaborative activities including games, paired speaking and short role plays. MLAN 2-05b

Writing –I can use familiar language to describe myself and to exchange straightforward information. MLAN 2-13b

Reading –I can read and demonstrate understanding of words, signs, phrases and simple texts containing mainly familiar language. MLAN 2-08b

Learning Intentions:

  • I will revise the words used for describing myself.
  • I will learn how to use gender correctly whilst describing myself

Success Criteria:

  • I will understand how gender agreement works when describing myself both verbally and in my writing.
  • I will be able to fill out a personal fact file with the aid of a vocabulary list.
  • I will be able to listen to the teacher describe someone in the class and try to guess who this might be.

Setting the context/Beginning the lesson (Introduction):

  • Ask class to discuss the vocabulary that they learnt in the previous lesson with their shoulder partner.
  • Get them to use their ‘show me’ boards to write down any vocabulary that they can remember.
  • Introduce the concept of gender, (when using an adjective and talking about yourself, you use an adjective that is agreeable with your gender and a noun’s gender).
  • As the teacher, clearly read out all the vocabulary with correct pronunciation so the class can hear how it should sound.

Teaching the learning intentions (Development):

  • Introduce myself in French verbally and written on the board. (bonjour, j’ai les yeux verts, j’ai les cheveux roux et je suis petite) explain that the ‘e’ is at the end of petite because I am a female and if I were male there would be no ‘e’. Ensure pronunciation is as accurate as possible.
  • Hand out worksheets that pupils will work on individually but with the aid of a vocabulary list (this will have eye/hair colours and small/tall).
  • They will fill these out
  • Once these are completed ask the children to swap with a partner for peer assessment. Children should check for correct grammar and spelling.
  • Collect these sheets in and select a few to read out to the class, in French, as a ‘guess who’ activity, where the children have to guess who is being described.
  • Ask children to turn to their partner and describe themselves using the vocabulary they have just learnt.

Ending the lesson (Plenary)

  • Use ‘show me’ boards once more to check for pupils’ spelling of the vocabulary, some pupils can use the vocabulary list if need be.

 

 

Lesson Plan – French Colours

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Class/Group: Primary 2 (early years) Lesson: French       Date: n/a

Previous Experience: The class have covered basic greetings and in their previous lesson, began introducing themselves (bonjour, au revoir, je m’appelle, j’ai six ans etc).

Area to be covered in this lesson: colours in French.

Working towards outcomes of a Curriculum for Excellence:

Listening for Information:I can listen to and show understanding of language from familiar voices and sources. MLAN 1-01c

Listening and Talking with Others:I can participate in a range of collaborative activities. MLAN 1-05b

Learning Intentions – 

  • I will practice/revise greetings and introductions.
  • I will learn new vocabulary for colours in French.

Success Criteria – 

  • With a partner, I will be able to recall two ways to introduce myself.
  • By the end of the lesson I will be able to hear and recognise 5 colours in French.

Setting the context/Beginning the lesson (Introduction)

  • In order to get the children thinking about French again, ask them to talk to their partner and feedback what they can remember in terms of ways to introduce themselves, and practice this.
  • Ask for volunteers to speak aloud and introduce themselves in French (something along the lines of “bonjour, je m’appelle Beth”).

Assessment (Circulate among pupils whilst they do this to hear types of discussions they are having. Check for correct pronunciation/ allow children to peer assess their partner and give feedback.)

Teaching the learning intentions (Development)

  • Introduce colours using flashcards (hold up and show the class as a whole), using choral repetition and a variety of volumes/tones/pitches to engage the children.
  • Begin to do this in smaller groups/ individually once they get used to the activity.
  • Flashcard activity: each child has 5 flashcards with different colours on them (red, blue, green, yellow, purple), they listen to a colour that is given to them in French and hold up which colour they think that correlates to.
  • Point out any cognates to the pupils (e.g. blue/bleu) that may help them to remember the vocabulary.

Assessment (This is important as it allows you to hear better who is pronouncing the colours correctly and who is not. Scan the room and check those who are correctly holding up the colours and those who may be struggling.)

Ending the lesson (Plenary)

  • In order to consolidate the new vocabulary and assess the pupils’ progress, shout out a colour (in French) and ask the children to find an object around them of that colour. This is a similar activity to earlier but by doing this it is putting the vocabulary into context.

 

 

French Restaurant Menu – Lesson Idea

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For our TDT this week we were asked to find a menu, advert and holiday brochure in the modern language of our choice, all with varying levels of difficulty. I struggled more than I thought I would doing this, as it seemed that everything I found would be too difficult for primary school pupils to comprehend. However, I came across this children’s menu for a restaurant that I thought would be suitable for children in the upper primary school to work with.

Questions to Ask My Pupils

I came up with questions that I could ask pupils after they have had a look over the text. These would be asked before the pupils attempt to thoroughly read the text and with the aim of them discovering that they knew more of the vocabulary than they had first thought, and also to look at the wider picture.

  • What type of text do you think this is? (gets the pupils to think about the structure, layout and style of the text without reading anything).
  • What is its purpose? (to inform, to entertain etc?)
  • Can you recognise any of the vocabulary or pictures? (starts to give an idea of what the theme of the text is, again, without the pupils reading very much).
  • Who is this text aimed at? (school children, adults, a specific profession etc?)
  • Can you find any words in French that look similar to words in English (cognates)? (this may build confidence in the pupils before they tackle the text fully).
  • Are there any words that you don’t recognise?

Pros and Cons of the Text

  • The first thing that grabbed me about this resource is that there are pictures, a great visual aid for pupils who might be struggling with the vocabulary.
  • The vocabulary is also relatively simple, with potentially a few words that cold confuse them, such as la viande and la fromage, as they are very different from their English translations.
  • A downside to this resource is that the English translation is directly below all of the French. I would say in order for this to be as effective as possible, the English should be eliminated, otherwise it is too easy and defeats the purpose of the pupils using their prior knowledge to figure out the new vocabulary.

Activities

  • This text could be used simply in a comprehension activity, the text is in French but the children would read and respond to questions in English.
  • Role play – ordering from a restaurant (further inputs would need to be had in order for pupils to build up their vocabulary for conversations).
  • Create menus for their own restaurants, could include their favourite foods (research involved if they don’t already know these words).
  • Culture – look into the traditional food that is eaten in France, food that they eat at different holidays and celebrations.