I hope that I can put that as a blog post title without risk of being sued :o)
This is a lovely activity that I became aware of a couple of weeks ago. The wonderful Michael Wardle from our local Commenius Centre came to Ian Ramsey to deliver some training for teachers in the area, after school one evening. As usual, he reminded us of and taught us some great activities that we can use in the MFL classroom to keep our pupils engaged. Many of the activities involved using "Thinking Skills" and I think that most of the activities involved doing something in which the language was "secondary" and became the tool with which to complete the activity, rather than the the sole purpose of the activity.
One such idea was this "Rolf Harris on Red Bull" which worked a treat with my 2 most difficult classes on Thursday. A real achievement in the case of one class who did the activity in silence - until they needed to speak FRENCH - I remember back in September being completely overwhelmed by this class and wondering whether I'd done the right thing going back to teaching full time after their first French lesson of the year!
So...you give out paper (A4) can be lined, but preferably plain. Get them to divide it into 9 squares by folding it 3 times one way, then the other (this, by the way, is the ONLY complicated bit of the whole activity)...might be a good idea to do it quickly for the very low ability ones (or the one who, due to their SLD have a "thing" about paper and pencils). Next say (in the TL) things you would like them to draw in each box (Y7 had to draw school subjects, Y9 school facilities). For each square say a different word and do it quite quickly...listening activity (very low level, I know). That done, get them to tear up the paper, making 9 cards and there we have it...do what you will with them! I began by getting them to lay them on the desk, face up and just pick up the card I shouted out. Then I moved onto getting them into pairs (I, know, how brave am I with this one very difficult class, last lesson of the day!) and one had to secretly choose 2 of the cards and the other had to guess which they were by saying combinations of the words eg. anglais et maths, the other would then say "zero, un or deux" to indicate how many their partner had said correctly. We then ran out of time but the possibilties of this game are endless! I can't remember for the life of me though other games he played with them. If anyone reads this and can think of any more or has also had Michael Wardle do this session with them and can remember other acitivities please do let me know! This activity was fab with both classes I did it with...silence during the listening activity...totally focused on what they needed to draw the completely committed to completing the other activities. The only time anyone kicked off was the pupil who has learning difficulties and that was because I forgot and didn't do the tearing up of the paper for him...he doesn't "do" paper :o(
Anyway, back to annoying my husband with my sticky slippers on the freshly cleaned kitchen floor!
This is a lovely activity that I became aware of a couple of weeks ago. The wonderful Michael Wardle from our local Commenius Centre came to Ian Ramsey to deliver some training for teachers in the area, after school one evening. As usual, he reminded us of and taught us some great activities that we can use in the MFL classroom to keep our pupils engaged. Many of the activities involved using "Thinking Skills" and I think that most of the activities involved doing something in which the language was "secondary" and became the tool with which to complete the activity, rather than the the sole purpose of the activity.
One such idea was this "Rolf Harris on Red Bull" which worked a treat with my 2 most difficult classes on Thursday. A real achievement in the case of one class who did the activity in silence - until they needed to speak FRENCH - I remember back in September being completely overwhelmed by this class and wondering whether I'd done the right thing going back to teaching full time after their first French lesson of the year!
So...you give out paper (A4) can be lined, but preferably plain. Get them to divide it into 9 squares by folding it 3 times one way, then the other (this, by the way, is the ONLY complicated bit of the whole activity)...might be a good idea to do it quickly for the very low ability ones (or the one who, due to their SLD have a "thing" about paper and pencils). Next say (in the TL) things you would like them to draw in each box (Y7 had to draw school subjects, Y9 school facilities). For each square say a different word and do it quite quickly...listening activity (very low level, I know). That done, get them to tear up the paper, making 9 cards and there we have it...do what you will with them! I began by getting them to lay them on the desk, face up and just pick up the card I shouted out. Then I moved onto getting them into pairs (I, know, how brave am I with this one very difficult class, last lesson of the day!) and one had to secretly choose 2 of the cards and the other had to guess which they were by saying combinations of the words eg. anglais et maths, the other would then say "zero, un or deux" to indicate how many their partner had said correctly. We then ran out of time but the possibilties of this game are endless! I can't remember for the life of me though other games he played with them. If anyone reads this and can think of any more or has also had Michael Wardle do this session with them and can remember other acitivities please do let me know! This activity was fab with both classes I did it with...silence during the listening activity...totally focused on what they needed to draw the completely committed to completing the other activities. The only time anyone kicked off was the pupil who has learning difficulties and that was because I forgot and didn't do the tearing up of the paper for him...he doesn't "do" paper :o(
Anyway, back to annoying my husband with my sticky slippers on the freshly cleaned kitchen floor!
No comments:
Post a Comment