Mi gramática and Ma petite grammaire

Yesterday saw the publication of my grammar resources for Key Stage 2 French and Spanish.

Each resource is a collection of activity sheets and information sheets to support both beginner learners and non-specialist teachers with the grammar named in the Key Stage 2 national curriculum for Languages.  The resource would also suit lower Key Stage 3.  The mind maps in this post show the grammar which is covered in this part 1 (Nouns and Adjectives) and what will be covered in part 2 (Verbs).

Each activity sheet has an explanation of the grammar point in the form of a conversation between children.  It endeavours to include many of the questions that children ask during their language lessons and to answer them!

Find the resources in my Sellfy shop: https://sellfy.com/ideaseducationltd

French:

Spanish:

UPDATE 07.07.18:

Part 2 of Ma petite grammaire and Mi gramática are now available.

French:

Spanish:

Grammar in Key Stage 2

I've mentioned before that the national curriculum document for Key Stage 2 Languages doesn't give us much to go on as far as content is concerned.  It's particularly impenetrable for the non-specialist teacher.  The grammar part is the "bit" of the two-and-a bit pages of the document:

"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 the face of it, there doesn't appear to be a great deal to it.  However, if you drill down into these simple statements, such as "the conjugation of high-frequency verbs", there are a lot of grammatical points to be covered if children are to build sentences and longer texts successfully.

I have been thinking about exactly what grammar we need to cover in Key Stage 2 to enable this part of the curriculum to be met, to enable children to write longer texts confidently and coherently and, of course, to lay a solid basis for Key Stage 3.  I have used Mindomo to mindmap the grammar that I think we need for French and Spanish.  Please feel free to use these mindmaps to help you in your work and to show your English co-ordinator what you do!  Very many thanks to members of the Languages in Primary Schools Facebook group for their input and lively discussions about what should be included and what we should call it!

French:

 Spanish:

5 in a row

Yesterday afternoon I had an enjoyable lesson with my new Year 6 Spanish class.  At the moment we are learning about sports, mainly to introduce opinions which they haven't done before, being new to Spanish in September. 

The whole-class speaking and listening, and the individual writing, was followed by this 5 in a row activity, which is from this lesson pack. 

• The children played in pairs, and there was one group of three.
• The 5 in a row grid has 64 squares, and the aim of the game is to win by getting 5 squares in a row, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally.  
• Each team member will need a different coloured pen or pencil.
• The children take it in turns to point to the square that they want and then say the right sentence to go with it.  
• If their partner agrees that they are correct, they colour in the square with their colour.  Alternatively they could write their initials in the square.
• The winner is the one who has five squares in a row in their colour.

To say it got a little competitive is an understatement!  There was plenty of target language being used and they were very good at playing tactically to block their opponents.  The group of three found it especially hard to get a line of 5 and had to use nearly all the squares.

This grid could also be used for a Blockbusters-style game, with one student moving vertically and the other horizontally.

It could also be used for a Knights game.  Students move in an L-shape, like the knight in chess, colouring in the square that they reach, as long as they can say the word or phrase correctly.  The student with the most squares coloured in their colour before both players get stuck wins.

If you would like to have a go at 5 in a row, there are quite a few games to try on Light Bulb Languages:

French - numbers to 15

French - numbers to 64

French - colours

French - fruit and vegetables

French - aller (present tense)

French - avoir (present tense)

French - être (present tense)

French - telling the time

Spanish - numbers to 15

Spanish - fruit and vegetables

Spanish - numbers to 64

Spanish - colours

Spanish - places in town

Spanish  - ir (present tense)

Spanish - ser/estar (present tense)

Spanish - tener (present tense)

Spanish - telling the time

German - numbers to 15

German - numbers to 64

German - colours

German - telling the time

Italian - numbers to 15

Italian - numbers to 64

Italian - colours

Italian - telling the time

If there is a 5 in a row game that you think would be useful to your classes and which isn't already mentioned here, please get in touch.  I already have the grid made and it's easy to adapt for a new game.

Story Dice

Yesterday morning I found in my Inbox an email alert containing this post from Richard Byrne.  It mentions Story Dice for Android.  This afternoon I downloaded the app to have a play.

You get three vertical rows of dice, which roll when you tap on them, to display sets of images like this:

Once students have rolled the dice, they could take a screenshot and then annotate it in Screen Master.  I have done this example, where I have used each image as a stimulus for a sentence in the target language.  This might work as a revision activity for older learners.

Words and Pictures?

When I was preparing my presentation about writing for Language World, I re-read Patterns and procedures: focus on phonics and grammar by Heather Rendall.  Those who attended the presentation will remember that I quoted Heather a couple of times.

Heather says that learners will store an image of what a new L2 word looks like as soon as they hear it, and, especially if they are beginner learners, they are likely to use their pre-learned system of English phonics to do so.  It is likely that English will interfere with learners storing an accurate image of this new word.  

Heather goes on to say that:

"Every word has three attributes: a meaning, a sound and a spelling.  Target language nouns will also have a gender.  All four attributes should be presented immediately and simultaneously and repeatedly."

I trained as a teacher in the mid-1990s, when the communicative method was all the rage.  The thinking at the time was that you should introduce learners to the spoken word first, and to the written word considerably later.  Seeing the written word too soon apparently confused the learner.  In addition, phonics was something they apparently absorbed by some kind of osmosis.  This proved to be largely impractical and unsuccessful, and at the turn of the century I was part of a local working group who looked at the systematic teaching of phonics and much more focussed attention on the written word.

As a primary practitioner, I always present new language using a visual focus, which enables me to present the new language without the need for English until we spend a little time checking understanding.  This image shows one of the A5 flashcards that I use:

The picture indicates the meaning of the word, learners will hear the sound of the word when I say it, and the pink stripe at the bottom of the card indicates its gender.  Of Heather Rendall's four attributes, it is therefore missing the spelling.  This flashcard is for una plaza - a word with a phoneme/grapheme that is specific to Spanish.  It's likely that, despite some extensive work on phonics over three years, the Year 6 learners who hear this word will store the image platha in their heads.

An alternative is to keep the image but add the written word:

The fourth attribute is now present at the expense of the gender, which could, I think go somewhere else on the card as a coloured dot.  I wouldn't want to colour-code the words as that would make them less visible from the back of the room.  The image has to be smaller if the text is present and ideally I would like the text to be bigger too.  If I presented the words via PowerPoint slides then the words and images would both be bigger, but I really prefer the versatility and immediacy of low-tech flashcards.  So the exact design of a flashcard with all four attributes leaves me in a quandry - what to include and how?  It's possible that I would want two sets of flashcards - one with text to present the new words and a second with picture only to aid recall.

Do you introduce the written word at the same time as the sound and meaning?  What are your thoughts?