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.