It gives me great pleasure to present.......new vocabulary

In a couple of weeks' time I'm going to be giving two workshops at my local authority's annual PMFL conference. One of them is "Joining in a poem", which is based on the poem "Le retour du printemps" from Unit 17 of the KS2 QCDA scheme of work for French. I prepared that workshop some time ago, and the PowerPoint that I have made can be downloaded from the TalkaboutPrimaryMFL wiki. I'm now working on the second - "Presenting new vocabulary" - which is also one of the sections of the same unit of the KS2 QCDA Scheme of Work.

I didn't feel that the suggested activities in the unit would give me the sort of presentation that I was after and that I am accustomed to give. I always try to cram as many ideas as I can into the time that I have so that delegates have something that they can take away with them to use the next day in their lessons. Personally, I think a conference or workshop has been successful if it has given me ideas that I can take away and use straightaway. (I think that's why I like Twitter so much !) Therefore I set to researching ideas for presenting new vocabulary to students.

Straightaway my perception of "presenting new vocabulary" was challenged. I had always thought that you present the new vocabulary and then you practise it. However, it became clear that when we talk about “presentation” we’re actually talking about the introduction and practice of new lexical items.

So what part does this presentation play in a lesson or as part of the bigger picture ? The presentation of single lexical items is the first step of a longer process leading to our students being able to operate confidently at phrase and sentence level. We need to consider what a pupil needs to know about a word in order to use it successfully. They need to know:

• What it means
• Its part of speech
• How it’s pronounced
• How it’s written
• How the word is related to other words

So any presentation activities that we choose to do in our lessons have to enable our students to gather this information, and build their confidence in the oral, aural and written aspects of the vocabulary.

To help me in my quest I tweeted a request for people to tell me their favourite and most successful ways of presenting new vocabulary. Here are some of the replies that I received:

Marie-France Perkins recommends using realia and passing them round while repeating the word. Connected with this is playing pass the parcel, where the student holding the parcel (or bag) when the music stops takes out an object and says the right word. She also suggests using online tools such as Task Magic and Quia to reinforce vocabulary.

Fiona Joyce says that one of her most successful lessons was presenting clothes using toddler clothes. Fiona is also mistress of the MFL Storybird Wiki. Storybird is excellent for creating simple stories which can be used to present vocabulary.

Isabelle Jones uses odd and interesting pictures as a visual stimulus and also sings words to get her students to focus on the pronunciation. (It was Isabelle who suggested I blog this topic !)

Joanna Pickering uses Noughts and Crosses and sorting activities, with a range of activities based on the sorting activities. Jo also favours using songs, either published ones or ones she has made up herself. I also really like Jo's speed reading idea: "I put a text on the board or a list of words, we read it together then the students have to read it aloud, either in pairs or as a whole class. They have to read it against the clock, and if they make a mistake they then have to start again but the stopwatch carries on timing. Each pair of students has a bell and dings the bell if a mistake in pronunciation is made. Great fun, very loud but really effective."

Stephan Rinke, a man after my own heart, like to use the OHP with cut-out pictures to play Kim's game.

Dominic McGladdery commented that "we should only ever introduce 5 items of vocab and then give the kids a dictionary". This reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever been given - when introducing new vocabulary, always bear in mind "The magic number 7, plus or minus two". In other words, though it may be tempting to do, for example, all eleven colours in one lesson, the average learner can only retain seven new items at once. The less able or younger learner can retain seven minus two, the more gifted or experienced learner can retain seven plus two.

Here are some more of the ideas that I have found, in no particular order:

Introduction of new vocabulary:

• Choral repetition with flashcards

• Vary the repetition, saying the word in different ways, or different groups, boys, girls….


• Focus on sound-spelling links, and the relationship between phonemes and graphemes.


• Students give a physical response when they hear a certain word or phoneme – they hold up a card, say a number or do a certain action when they hear a certain word. Students are taking an active role in the process early on and are "developing listening acuity".

• Successful presentation involves Oracy and Literacy. Students need a good model of pronunciation. They need to recreate the sounds accurately if they are to use them effectively and confidently later on. Literacy skills are supported by and reinforce the development of Oracy.


• Knowledge about Language (KAL) – awareness of rules and patterns in language, and imitating pronunciation of words.

• Language Learning Strategies (LLS) - Children have opportunities to think about the best way for them to learn a new language and employ a range of strategies to help them to do this.


• LLS – use mental associations to help remember words

• This introduction can be a mixture of whole-class, small group and pair work.

• Visual aids include real objects, puppets, DVDs, IWB, flashcards and gesture.

• Present new words gradually, 4-8 at a time.

• Present the easiest and most useful words or cognates first, or words of the same gender.


• Suggested steps for presenting new vocabulary: Listen and respond physically; respond verbally as a class; respond verbally individually; listen to the word incorporated in a phrase or sentence; introduce the written word.


Practice / Reinforcement

Teacher-led:

• Use flashcards to practise the vocabulary, gradually building up from closed to more open questions: "¿Es un gato?" Students answer Yes or No; ¿Es un gato o un perro? Students give the correct answer; ¿Eso, qué es? Students give the correct answer

• Sing a song containing the words

• Show the pictures on the board, where each picture has a number (a PowerPoint slide is ideal for this). First ask "C'est quel numéro le chat ?" so that students have to recognise the word and identify it by its number. Then move on to "Qu'est-ce que c'est le numéro cinq ?"


• Games: Simon says, Bingo, True-False, Slaps, Pictionary (stop after each stroke drawn to make it more difficult)

• Finger writing in the air

• Mime the words

• Flashpast (there's an example here using colours)

• To practise and embed gender: tap your head for masculine, click your fingers for feminine.

• Clap out the number of syllables or the pattern of the word. Students say the right word.

• Odd one out, using pictures or words.

• "Répétez si c’est vrai". Make it competitive by giving points to yourself when the students get it wrong and to the students if they all get it right.

• Kim’s game

• Use flashcards to play "C'est quelle carte ?" with a twist, students vs teacher. Give them the choice of two cards. If they’re right they get a point. If they're wrong, you do. You can also keep score of the points by playing “Pull the teeth”. Draw two mouths on the board with teeth in. If the students are correct they get to "pull a tooth" from the teacher’s mouth. This could also be played as a team game.

• Guessing games – say a word that begins with a certain letter / that rhymes with.... / that has 3 syllables

• In my basket I have…

• Listening games – tick, touch or show a picture to demonstrate understanding

• Follow-me cards


• Number fans



In groups or pairs:

• Use small cards to play pelmanism

• Put words and pictures in order against the clock

• LLS - practise new language with a friend

• Dominoes

• Battleships

• Hangman


Individual:

• Work through activities on the school blog

• Online flashcards and games, such as StudyStack.com


Introducing the written word:

• Labelling a work sheet

• Calligrams

• Shape puzzles to match up the vocabulary. More information here. These can also be used to find out new vocabulary. In matching up the vocabulary that they already know, students discover more and are able to fill in an information-gap style worksheet.


• Match up cards which have halves of words

• Crosswords

• Give pairs of students a set of pictures and a set of letters. Say the word, and they have to find the picture and spell out the word with the letters.

• Put cards with words on the board. Call out the English word and they have to find and copy the correct TL word. This is good for use with mini-whiteboards.


So those are all the ideas that I have so far. I would be really interested to hear any other ideas that you have.

UPDATE:
Here is the presentation that I have on March 9th to Primary MFL teachers in Sunderland.

March 9 presentation new vocab

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Are you sitting comfortably ?

Then I'll begin !

Every so often TES Connect sends me emails with things they want me to look at. I usually give them a cursory glance before deleting them (I've often heard it before on Twitter!) However, one of the links they sent me today was this one, which immediately caught my eye as I had just been having another look at the fantastic MFL Storybird Wiki set up by Fiona Joyce.

So the 30th January-6th February is National Storytelling Week. An ideal opportunity to try out some new ideas and some new stories.

There are Storybird stories to try - there are lots on the Wiki now and I'm just one of many who have already blogged about it. There are also ready-made big books available from places like Little Linguist. Something else worth considering is getting a translation of an English story book and comparing the two. We are big Sandra Boynton fans in my house and I'm eagerly awaiting the delivery of the Spanish version of "Moo, Baa, La La La" ("Muu, Beee, ¡Así fue!") I'd also recommend Elmer the Elephant and Rainbow Fish. The lovely Suzi Bewell recently showed me "Hooray for Fish" by Lucy Cousins, the author of Maisy Mouse, alongside its French translation "Drôles de Poissons", and described some of the activities for which they can be used.

Recently I've been reading up about Storytelling in the MFL classroom. Here are some of my notes. I hope they will be useful to you as well.

What can you do with stories ?
• Opportunities for experiencing rhyme, active methods, physical responses
• Pupils can react to sounds, words, phrases with a physical response
• Act out parts of the story
• Provide sound effects, missing words or phrases, or a refrain
• Stories provide a good model of pronunciation and sustained language. Pupils have to listen and concentrate
• High frequency words and phrases can be learned through stories
• Read story to the class, then pronounce and repeat certain words, reading from word cards
• Read story to pupils, they join in saying some key sentences and words while performing actions and sound effects. Children can gradually take over the storytelling.
• When introducing the story, use word flashcards of the things they’ll have to say and actions they’ll have to perform during the story
• Perform certain action for a certain group of words (e.g. months) or point to something in the room when you hear it
• Offers opportunities to listen, imagine, predict, comment, participate, express opinions, access longer texts without necessarily having to understand every word.
• Introducing a new story – identify key vocab (not just nouns) and limit the vocab to about 6 words or phrases.
• Decide on your objective: identify by listening? Pronounce accurately ? identify by sight ? read aloud ? write the words ?
• Involve children in the story from the start with actions and gestures, choral repetition of language, complete repeated sentences, hold up a card when you hear a certain thing

Follow-up activities:
• Make a model of one of the characters
• Learn a song with movements based on the story
• Write a description of one of the characters
• Pupils write their own stories inspired by the original
• Match words and pictures from the story
• Listen and draw
• Sequencing
• Making sentences from the story using word cards
• Drama
• Mini books

KS2 Framework:
• Y3 Literacy: “As children listen to sounds, words and phrases, they repeat and chorus, learning accurate pronunciation……They enjoy reading a few familiar words and phrases aloud and begin to write letters and familiar words.”
• Y4 Literacy: “Children develop their reading skills and learn to understand familiar written phrases in clear, printed script. They link listening and reading, by reading short familiar stories, songs and poems while listening to them at the same time. They write familiar words and phrases using a model and begin to experiment with building short phrases from memory.”
• Y5 Literacy: “Children….develop their reading skills by re-reading a range of short texts.”
• Y6 Literacy: “Children read a variety of longer texts from different text types. They read aloud with confidence and enjoyment, and also enjoy reading short texts independently.”
• KAL: “As they increase their understanding of the rules of sounds, spellings and grammar, they should begin to apply these rules when creating new language, both spoken and written.”
• LLS: Children plan and prepare themselves for a language activity – “How do you recall vocabulary in order to sing a song/join in a story/create sentences? How do you find key information in a new sentence or text ?
• LLS: Children use knowledge of English or other languages to help learning and understanding – “Listen and look for words that are similar and different in other languages. “
• LLS: Children pick out key words when listening
• LLS: Children learn a short poem, rhyme or story by heart
• Suggested activities: O3.1, O3.2, L3.1, O4.1, O4.2, L4.2, IU4.3, O5.3, O5.4, L5.1, L5.2, O6.1, O6.2, O6.3, L6.1, L6.2, L6.3, L6.4, IU6.3
• Dictionary skills

My favourite thing about stories in the foreign language is that they enable students to hear extended language. They get to immerse themselves in the rhythm, sounds and music of the language without necessarily having to understand every word. Especially important when so much of their work will be at a word or sentence level.

How are you going to celebrate National Storytelling Week ?

World Cup Calligrams

Combining ideas for bringing the World Cup into your classroom and my love of calligrams:

World Cup Calligrams

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I found a football colouring sheet and lightened the lines to pale grey using PaintShop Pro. Braver people could draw their own in pencil ! Then I filled in each section with words about England and being English. These are the images that you can see on the slides.

Suggestions for using this in the classroom:

• Show pupils the images and ask them to read what is written in each section. Why have these words been chosen ? This makes them think about their own country and the things that typify it - community cohesion !
• Pupils then research another of the World Cup countries, finding out similar information.
• Pupils either draw their own footballer or find a suitable colouring sheet and represent their findings as a calligram. It's even better if they use the country's national colours.
• For a MFL twist, pupils can present their findings in their foreign language or even in the country's language !

My journey through the open fields of KS2 Assessment

Many things drew me away from the secondary classroom and into the primary one. One of them was assessment. A necessary evil when I first started teaching 15 years ago, it became an all-encompassing sine qua non of my daily working life. Yes, I saw the point of it, and yes, I think AfL is a good thing. But sub levels ? Numbers on a database now appear to count for more than a professional's gut feeling. The grass was definitely greener on the PMFL side. It's not yet formally assessed and Ofsted won't formally inspect it until 2014.

So in September I started primary language teaching. Just teaching. Not assessing. Or not assessing formally and endlessly in any case. It was very refreshing, and I felt like a proper teacher again.

However, after three quarters of a term of this golden, halcyon phase, I realised that the time had come to look into the A-word and what I should be doing in the primary languages context. Partly because my line manager at the LA wants me to investigate it, partly because the headteacher at my school wants the children to have a record of what they have done in Spanish and how well they have done it, and partly because of my own professional curiosity and conscience.

I spent some considerable time reading up on the subject. If you need to do the same, I'd recommend that you look here:

• primarylanguages.org.uk
• The CILT Primary Pathfinder books
• Talkabout Primary MFL Ning
• The KS2 Framework for Languages
• The European Junior Languages Portfolio

By the time I had read my way through these and more, and made copious notes, I had a fair idea of what I wanted to do, not only for the Y6s for the purposes of their transition, but also for the rest of KS2.

Here are some of my conclusions:

Assessment in KS2 needs to be manageable (not too much of it) and above all useful. It needs to be useful to the pupil, to the teacher, to the parents and to the teachers at the secondary schools.

Some people favour using the Languages Ladder levels, but these mean nothing to me or to the majority of practitioners in my LA, so I prefer KS2 Framework objectives integrated with National Curriculum levels. This will be more meaningful to the children, as they are familiar with levels through their other curriculum subjects, and also to the secondary teachers who will one day inherit my pupils.

I very much like the European Junior Language Portfolio, especially its layout and "can do" statements. But I think that it doesn't quite go deeply enough into the subject for me.

In the last week of last term I took the bull by the horns and presented my KS2s with their first assessment record sheet:



We had learnt numbers in batches throughout the term, and this was an attempt to bring all that knowledge together. The top half of the sheet deals with the knowledge gained, and the bottom half of the sheet looks at the skills that pupils have gained by learning these numbers:



Preparing this second half of the sheet was a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea that we had covered so much in just one term. We had some interesting discussions in the classroom about each box, what it meant, and what we had done to address each one. It gave me a good idea of what had gone down well (playing "¿Más o menos?" and "Which card?") and what we need to do more (Practising new words with a friend).

I have used the traffic-light system of recording for two reasons: (1) my pupils are already familiar with it from elsewhere in their curriulum and (2) there's no writing for Y3 and Y4 to worry about, so they can just concentrate on thinking hard about what colour light they will give themselves.

Tomorrow I will be starting my second term as a primary teacher, and am planning to move onward and upward with the assessment, fine-tuning the process as I go. I am still not happy, for example, with the layout (there is no space left for Intercultural Understanding !) The assessment that I have already done has focussed my planning, and I have incorporated some of the objectives into my lesson plans. I fear that for some pupils there is still some way to go with "I can listen carefully and give a clear, sensible answer"........


So that is my journey so far. I would be very interested to hear peoples' thoughts.

Calligrams, part 2

Last week I spent two after-school sessions doing some training at a local primary school. They are just starting out with French, and so I began by teaching them the first lesson of the Sunderland scheme of work, which many will recognise as the "Deux petits oiseaux" lesson. One of my activities to practise bonjour, je m'appelle and au revoir was the dinner party one, where everyone has a character and has to go around greeting each other and introducing themselves until they find their partner. For example, Minnie Mouse has to find Mickey Mouse. I used the set of character cards that I use when doing the same activity with children. The deputy head of the school was sitting next to me while I was explaining the activity, and was having a crafty look at the cards. She whispered "I don't know who Boots is, or Miss Hoolie!" I think I assume that every teacher has to endure the same number of hours of children's television as I do. Dora the Explorer, Peppa Pig and the Disney Princesses are very well known in my house.

Yesterday, children's TV came up trumps. My artistic elder daughter's Saturday lunchtime routine consists of coming back from ballet and having some lunch while watching Art Attack and Fingertips on CITV. Yesterday on Art Attack there was one particularly good item, which gave me another idea for Calligrams.

You need a pencil outline of your picture - Neil Buchanan (Art Attack presenter) used a skier zooming downhill. Then you fill each area of the picture with words pertaining to that picture. For example, he wrote the word "cold" over and over again on the skier's coat. I could immediately see the potential for MFL ! As they say on all the best children's TV programmes, here's one I prepared earlier:

I wasn't brave enough to make my own pencil outline, so I found this character on the Staedtler website. (I thought he was very suitable for the World Cup !) I pasted the picture into PaintShop Pro and adjusted the lines from black to pale grey. Then I printed out the picture and set about filling in each section with words. I am quite pleased with the overall effect. It made me think carefully about the words I was using to fill in each section, and the repetitive writing really drives the spelling home ! When I do another one I'll try shading each section in coloured pencil and then writing the words over the top in felt-tip.

This will be a good idea to use for the World Cup. Once pupils have researched one of the countries playing in South Africa, give them a football player outline and they can fill each section with words pertaining to that country, in relevant colours.

While I'm still on a Calligram tip, I'll share with you another idea. My daughter did this at school and told me about it. You make/buy/get pupils to make a stencil. Then place it over a blank sheet of paper and write your words inside the shape. Remove the stencil and you have a Calligram. I cut out a stencil of a Christmas tree and wrote my words with a white pencil on green card. The final result is rather like a low-tech version of the ImageChef Word Mosaics:



Enjoy!

Update, 10.12.09

I have used the stencil method to create some Christmas calligrams with Y3, Y4 and Y6.

We started the lesson with the Level 1 skill of copying single words accurately, to collect from the board a bank of Christmas words to use in the calligrams. This also enabled us to talk about Christmas in Spain. I got the stencils from here.

We have found that the less blank space you leave in the stencil, the more effective the overall result is, and that colour really brings them alive. Click here to see Y6's Calligrams. I will upload Y3's and Y4's when they are finished - they are looking even better then Y6's.

The lesson was very successful and the pupils obviously really enjoyed it. Their class teachers commented on how focussed they were creating their calligrams.