alice’s posterous

Isabelle Jones sent this wonderful link on Twitter the other day about getting physical in the classroom by using movement and language.

Marc Helgesen from Miyagi Gakuin Women's College has listed numerous activities which can be used to introduce or reinforce a topic.I have already tried one of the activities listed called FonFs (Focus on forms). The good thing is that there is no preparation required and you can practice different structures and new vocabulary.

I used it in French with grade 4 students (8-9 years old). They have been learning items of clothing, so I explained to them I went on holidays and I wrote on the board:
Dans ma valise, j'ai emporté.... (in my suitcase, I had.......)
Students worked in pairs. They faced each other. One partner held his hands in front of him, palms up.The other partner said the target sentence (Dans ma valise, j'ai emporté un pull) and slapped the first partner’s hands. The first partner said the next sentence. That sentence included the first item from the previous sentence (un pull) and a new item (Dans ma valise, j'ai emporté un pull, un pantalon) and slapped the partners hands.
Students loved slapping each other's hand! and it was a good way to memorise the different items of clothes, plus they learnt a sentence in the past tense.

I used it in Spanish with grade 7 (12-13 years old). This time they practiced a mi me gusta bailar, navegar por internet....(I like....).They enjoyed it so much (there are all boys!) that we did it a second round with a mi no me gusta.....(I don't like...)

The version from Marc Helgesen includes saying a word starting with every letter of the alphabet, so that students play the game from A to Z. But I thought it would get too complicated for my students so we just did the activity randomly.

There are many more activities I want to try on this web page so I will be posting more to tell you how I adapted them and how they went.

What about you? what are your warm-up activities?

There was a time in France during the summer holidays when children would have a "cahier de vacances" which was an exercise book to revise the curriculum covered during the year and to start the new school year in September well prepared! I can clearly remember myself, my brother and sister and my cousins working on the dining table in the morning  in Arcachon so that we could then go to beach in the afternoon! We would often see some "poorer" children studying their "cahiers de vacances" on their beach towels being watched over by their sadistic parents or even grand-parents!



Well... Times have changed as this year the French government has realized it is the 21st century and is providing resources and exercises online for free (I forgot to mention that our parents had to pay for these "cahiers de vacances")! YES, believe it or not, they have created this online academy. You can access the resources either by subject or by level. I had a look at the exercises and they look fun and engaging although the explanations at the start are a bit tedious! There are lots of resources that might be useful for French teachers and also Spanish teachers.
If you are teaching French phonics to help your students improve their speaking skills, follow this link, there are lots of activities related to sounds. I played them with my 3 years old son and he enjoyed them.
If you cannot find the activities, make sure you scroll down the page and click on "Accéder aux activités".

What about you? did you have to carry on working during holidays when you were a child?