Active Learning

Definition of active learning?

Activities to suit kinaesthetic learners?

or activities to involve pupils in their learning, to develop thinking skills?

Interactive whiteboards are great for getting pupils involved but most of today's suggestions are low tech!

Listening

Non-verbal responses, reacting to a word or phrase with a physical action

eg for a story or a song, jump up when you hear your word or 

hands up whenever you hear a colour or 

a certain phoneme eg words with ou in song dans la forêt lointaine

more examples in French songs blog

mime items of vocab eg weather phrases

or perform a non-related action for a different colour, say 2 colours

eg jaune  levez les bras

rouge sautez trois fois

vert vous êtes fatigués, bâillez

bleu frappez des mains

bleu et jaune!

Brain gym

colour words written in wrong colour

colours

Ordering, sequencing

Each team/table has a set of letter cards (or magnetic letters or mini whiteboard)

Teacher says a word pupils must spell out words each holding a letter and stand in correct order

Can do the same for words and sentences

Or the lines of a song, or times of the day

Sparklebox letters scroll down to sb612

Matching pairs

Either face up or face down (random)

picture to word

half sentences on different coloured card (daft combinations are fun)

sound to word or picture using Talktime products from TTS catalogue

KAL knowledge about language, links L1 and L2

sorting words: by topic, vowel sounds, parts of speech (Grammar Ninja)

seeing patterns, collecting word families (eg le boulanger, la boulangère, la boulangerie or le coiffeur la coiffeuse, se coiffer)

seeing patterns

playing with rhymes - eg make up a food words song, or à Paris, à Paris sur un petit cheval gris

riddles (devinettes - there  are hundreds in French)

eg quel fleuve français n'a pas d'eau? which great French river has no water -

(you have to say it aloud)

M et Mme Versaire ont une fille. Comment s'appelle-t-elle?

answers at the bottom

Talking

Reluctant talkers can be inspired to talk if they have their own puppet. Keep their puppet in their drawer. 

Lisa Stevens talks about using puppets in this webcam video The video quality is not good but content excellent! She mentions an idea from Jo Rhys Jones of rewarding good talking in French with accessories for a sock puppet - fancy pipe cleaners for hair. Best talkers have the most hair!

Chain questions - done as a warm up. Great revision. This is where a set of questions are printed and cut out so that each pupil has an answer and the next question. Pupils have to listen carefully to work out the right order.

Pass the parcel. Sitting in groups pass round objects or flashcard pics and when the music stops have to say something appropriate to what they are holding eg j'ai un crayon; voici une pomme

Games requiring some space

Giant steps baby steps (H/O)

si vous avez une grande sœur, faites quatre petits pas

Walkie Talkie

Each pupil has a piece of paper. They have to find someone who likes cats, has an older brother. and go round asking  till they find someone

… aime les chats

… a un grand frère

Walking Dictation

is done in teams. text is on sheet a bit away from group. one at a time reads a section and runs back to dictate to the group. can  take as many visits as needed to complete.

Reading

Work in pairs (collaborative) to gather information from a text. 

You don't need to understand everything.

Skills:-
Prediction: what do you know already about the subject. need to check it is actually in the text
Identifying known words, spotting cognates. Use a highlighter to mark off known.
Working out what part of speech the unknown word is eg noun or verb

More ideas from 

Talkabout primary MFL 

Lisa Stevens' blog

Answers 

riddle la Seine (le Rhône, la Loire, La Garonne ont tous un O)

Annie Versaire