alice’s posterous

To teach animals in French to my year 7 class (11-12 years old), I
told them a little story about receiving different animals as gifts
each day of the week. As well as learning the animal words, they also
revised days of the week and were introduced to other describing
words.
 
First pupils had to look in the dictionary for the new words that
would come up in the story.
Then I told them the story (all in French) asking them which day of
the week it was or what the problem was with the animal. Because the
story was quite repetitive, they understood it as well as my
questions.
We then repeated the animals that came up in the story.
The last task was for the pupils to create a similar story in a little
booklet made with folded paper.
 
You can see my pupils' work as well as the PowerPoint with the story.
Some of the work on the pictures are from year 8 pupils who did a
story about the weather.
See details on http://aliceayel.posterous.com/new-story-i-made-up-on-powerpo
 
And you? have you used stories to introduce a topic to your pupils?

I am teaching the perfect tense to year 8 (12-13 years old) and decided to create an exciting animation on http://goanimate.com
First you have to register, which is very straightforward. Then you can start creating your own animation in minutes. It is really easy to use and so much fun :))
I added my dad's voice to the animation which took a bit of extra time as I had to use audacity to divide the whole recording into smaller chunks (I couldn't upload the whole thing as it was too big). The students liked the fact it was different from the usual PowerPoint Presentation.

Now next step is for the students to do their own animation. I have booked the ICT room for next lesson and students should come to the lesson with their stories ready in French. I will update you on how it goes but the students seemed quiet enthusiast about the idea of having a go at it.