Snapshots 2016-17:My house,your house

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The second snapshot of a 2016-17 lesson observation I am sharing with you, had this resource at the centre of the Y6 children's work in French at St Luke's in Prescot Knowsley today. .Created by one of our associate teachers ,Michelle, and used to great effect to encourage careful listening to text level target language and then independent extended sentence writing. (DfE ATs: ·"listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding"  and also "describe people, places, things and actions orally* and in writing ").

Michelle is a former secondary languages teacher, learning as she works with us how to plan and deliver primary language learning.She brings her knowledge of KS3 and KS4 target language learning and is now looking with a primary mind at how to make learning relevant to KS2 and also KS1. A pleasure to witness this happening too.

More than two thirds of the class are boys.The TAs and the class teacher stay in the class and work alongside the children and learn alongside the children too.They are three and a half years in to learning a language.The resource you can see above, was just right.It had the children keen to listen and find out about a footballer's mansion and then think what they would like to put in their own dream houses.The clip used the FunnyFacesAPP and the children are going to create their own clips to "sell" their own dream houses. Michelle's twitter feed is @BetsyBelleTeach and we are absolutely delighted that she has joined us .I think the resource sums up how I felt during this lesson.I was observing how teachers are making language learning so relevant to the young learners of the 21st Century. Effective language learning using APPs and up to date twists. Here is the resource link from her Twitter account.

 

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 It wasn't all technology - dare I say this Michelle shared flashcards to revisit basic language - nouns about the rooms in the house,but made them in to "read aloud nouns both to think of connections with English and also to . focus on pronunciation".She added simple silly scenario moments to get the pronunciation right - e.g. "Cuisine - be careful how you cook, you don't want to feel "queasy".Can we all say "cui...cui...cuisine" (DfE ATs develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases)

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There was a game of "Nemo  and Dory" , involving two volunteers, who were blindfolded and a third volunteer who the first two couldn't see being selected.It was yet again in this lesson an up to date version of a good language learning game :"Cabbages" ,where the first volunteer referred to as "Nemo" had to guess who the third volunteer  was  by listening to his/her voice.The third volunteer had to read aloud items (in this case rooms in the house).The second volunteer, "Dory" had to listen carefully and then explain in English the language she/he heard.Remember these children are Year 6 - but they just loved the game! (DfE AT: listen attentively to spoken language......./develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases )

Last lesson the children had added nouns for rooms in the house to their own paper models."We did this , beacuse we are going to build our own dream houses and this folds up into a house and we will write our descriptions first around the outside" one boy explained to me.The children understand that they have to go back to word level to develop sentence level language to build texts in both speaking and writing (DfE AT: describe people, places, things and actions orally* and in writing Language).

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And then the class listened to Pogba.They were fascinated and truly believed he was describing his house for them.They listened several times and watched the clip.The children were given the brief that they must listen and spot the extra language that Pogba used in his sentences with the house nouns to create a description of his house.They then had "partner talking time" to discuss what they had heard and to  analyse what phrases in the target language they had heard that they thought might be useful in their own descriptions. Michelle took feedback of structures  in English such as "there is , there are, I have, and , also, ...."  and discussed the French with the childeen, asking them to recall known language.She then asked the children to work with her on a large sentence jigsaw.- again a favourite of many us , a card ordering sentenc game :dominos en chaine, but as a jigsaw. Volunteers helped her to piece together a domino sentence and had to observe the punctuation in the sentence - capital letters, commas, full stops. (DfE AT: read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writin)

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It was when she explained that to the children that they were going to make their own"estate agents' clips of their dream houses" just like the Pogba clip , that the children understood how important their written descriptions of their own dream houses on their paper models were going to become.......

The children were set the challenge to write from memory if possible their own descriptions of their houses, to use conjunctions (e.g. and,also) and to challenge themselves if they had time and confidence to say what isn't in their dream house. (DfE ATs write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly). 

Finally, whilst the children were busy with their writing activities, three secret spies were selected by Michelle.How? Well, she put on the music "Mission Impossible" asked the children to put their heads down and close their eyes and she went round the room with three "Blues Boys" style sunglasses and gave them to three volunteers.The volunteers had to conceal the sunglasses.Only at the end of the writing activity could the three volunteers on three different tables in the room, put on their sunglasses  and name someone on their table who had "worked excellently" during the activity. A fun twist with a purpose ....and everyone took this very seriously too and tried their very best, just in case they were sat next to a secret spy. 

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