Jenga for revision

Jenga is a fun game which students like playing so I jumped onto eBay and bought five minisets at a couple of pounds each. I numbered each block and made a revision sheet with questions to match each number. The idea is that when they push the block out, they check the number on the sheet and answer the question, talk for 1 minute on the topic, list 10 things you can buy in that shop, list 10 colours etc. When I didn't have much time, I displayed this powerpoint instead of making up questions. Students could also write questions for the other team to answer.

BYOD and iTunes

Students love music and I've been trying to incorporate more of it in my lessons again as I used to do when I was an NQT. I always used to display number 1 in France or Germany on a Monday. I'm not a big singer but I've found lots of videos on YouTube for introducing a lot of different vocabulary. My tutor group also love songs and we've been doing weekly quizzes in afternoon registration. iTunes is really easy as there is no preparation involved. Students work in the same teams every week and we rotate the groups every half term.

1. Using the top single charts, students guess the artist and song title. Using BYOD, students can choose a song from their collection by plugging their phone into the classroom speakers.

2. Play the first 5 seconds of the preview for students to guess the song. This can be done one at a time or 5 in a row which makes it more difficult!

3. Higher or lower? Guess the song and also guess if it's higher or lower than the previous song. Instead students guess the number of the song. Closest team gets the point.

4. Students must guess the name of the TV programme or film. I use YouTube for this and just search the name of the TV programme with theme tune. If you are introducing types of programmes in MFL, students have to write the type of programme or film instead.

BYOD pronunciation practice

Give students key questions and model answers for them to match up. Using a voice recorder, in pairs record the conversation and listen back to it, highlighting words where pronunciation is unknown. Using an online dictionary that has audio support, find out how to pronounce each word. Practise the conversation until confidence and pronunciation are improved. Students can email to you for feedback.

Stick Men

I'm teaching aches and pains at the moment with my Year 9 German class and wanted them to write some sentences using the body parts and 'Schmerzen' or 'tut weh'. Using an A4 piece of paper which we folded in half lengthways, we cut out a stick man shape. Students then wrote 6 sentences on the head, legs, arms and body. I asked them to cut the stick man up into 6 bits and working in pairs, they read out each sentence which their partner had to translate. If they got it right, they won that piece of the stick man. The idea was to win their partner's stick man first! It got quite competitive and students were very strict about the translations and would only hand over the body part if the answer was 100% correct! As they finished, they then had to win their own men back. 

National Poetry Day

A colleague sent everyone an email saying that last Thursday was national poetry day so I wanted to incorporate writing poems in French and German into my lessons. Here are some ideas that I've picked up over the years:
1. Shape poems. Think of a shape and fill it with your poem or single words. Here is one I created on wordfoto app.

2. Comparisons poems. Using personality adjectives and comme/wie: Gefährlich wie ein Tiger. Using comparatives: Tu es plus jolie qu'une fleur.

3. Using the model of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 'If'. For this, you need to use the imperfect and the conditional tenses: si j'étais riche, j'achèterais une voiture.

4. Hello and goodbye poems: 

Guten Tag die Sonne, Auf Wiedersehen der Regen.  

Listening Ideas

With the GCSE course having a heavy focus on speaking and writing, I sometimes feel listening practice gets pushed to one side apart from students listening to me or their peers. This year I aim to not neglect this particular skill so I've been digging around for ideas on how to involve listening tasks more in my lessons. Here are a few ideas: 

1. Gap fill. Sentences could be in the foreign language or English so students have to translate the answer first. 

2. Bingo. Give out grids with words or phrases. This task could be differentiated easily. Higher ability could have more to listen out for or more difficult language/structures. 

3. Order the words. Students put key words or phrases in the order they hear them.

4. Bash the table. Students bang the table every time they hear a sport etc. For a quieter activity they could stand up and sit down instead. 

5. Tick or add. Ask students to brainstorm key words from a particular topic (sports/hobbies for example). During the listening they either tick the hobby as they hear it or add it to their list if they don't have it. 

6. Music videos. I used to include lots of music in my lessons and aim to do so again. Top 10 is good for finding out what's current, Disney songs on YouTube. 

7. Are my answers correct? Students are marking questions that are already answered. Or get them to predict their own answers before listening. 

8. Dictation. Good old fashioned dictation or letter by letter to practise the alphabet and students have to work out where to put the gaps. 

9. Draw answers. Instead of writing students can give answers with pictures. 

10. Spontaneous speaking in the target language in the classroom is listening (I know - that's listening to me and their peers but I wanted to add it to the list!)

11. Get them to answer in pencil or on mini whiteboards. It will feel less like a test. 

12. Use the reading time. Work through the question with them so they know what kind of answer they are listening for. 

13. Think, pair, share. 

14. Use the transcript to harvest new vocabulary and structures. 

Read and toss

This was posted on Twitter which I thought would be a great starter. I'm going to use it this week by asking students to write their own sentences on strips of paper that they then screw up and throw. Maybe a word limit for each sentence so all teams have similar length sentences. The activity could then be a competition.