10 Top Tips for Primary/Elementary Language Teachers

Sylvie Rawlings profile

Thank you to Sylvie Rawlings for putting these great tips together for us all!

Sylvie is A Spanish teacher and Language Coordinator. She currently works in two primary schools in Kent (UK). She also teaches French! Follow her on Twitter @SylvieBRawlings

 
  • Make the language part of their every day life

Have a routine at the start of class: Calendar, etc.. to reinforce subject knowledge. Pupils answering the register with vocabulary from the language covered, etc..

  • Storybooks

Choose engaging ones with lots of repetition. The children will join in miming or/ and repeating. I recommend:

Book cover: El cuento de los Reyes Magos
Book cover: Fuera de aqui, horrible monstruo verde
Book cover: Azul el sombrero, verde el sombrero

 

Have a look at the Little Linguist site for more ideas: www.little-linguist.co.uk

  • Authentic songs

These are wonderful and encourage repetition. I recommend Babyradio:

I use them also to reinforce phonics.

  • Making your classroom  Spanish

Use posters with every day language, colours, days of the week, months, etc..., labels, displays, washing lines, etc... The Spanish Embassy offers a lot of free posters and resources linked to them: http://www.mecd.gob.es/reinounido/en_GB/publicaciones-materiales/material-didactico

I recommend:

  • Displays

I use washing lines to display key language on items described with their gender and the children's work. If you do not have a classroom a board dedicated to MFL in the school would be a great idea.

  • Minibooks

At the end of a topic or a story we make minibooks inspired by Clare Seccombe. With them the children can read to one another their adapted version of a story covered or they can use it as a prop for oral work.

  • Use the resources from your classroom

Dice, white boards, number fans, etc...

  • Bilingual dictionary

Invest in a set of bilingual dictionaries; simple ones such as Spanish Dictionary by Collins.

  • Apps

We use specific apps such as Puppet Pals, Sock Puppets, Voice Record and Songify for our recordings. They encourage speaking and enable the pupils to review their work. We use Book Creator. The children love Decide Now and 30hands too. We are experimenting with Show me.

  • Making links with other countries

We share a dropbox with a school in France and they have posted a film made by the pupils about their school, ours made books in the BookCreator app about our school. I am looking at etwinning at the moment and have asked one of the local etwinning ambassadors to come to talk about it at our school.

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