22nd March Language
World
At this year’s ALL Language World conference in Newcastle I presented one
of the ‘Major Talks’ with the fabulous Janet Lloyd. Our session was all about
Active Grammar. We defined it as:
“The use of movement, physical action, mime or gesture to explore or
reinforce a grammatical point.”
I also asked my Year 6 children for their definitions. Here’s an example:
“Active Grammar is when you actually do the learning by physically getting
up and doing it instead of copying down the work. It helps me understand better
because I can actually do it and see it.”
Here are the steps in the presentation Janet and I gave…
1)
Janet started with The Split Personality of a Sentence.
Audience members kindly volunteered to act this out. First was the punctuation
personality. The phrase we used started with a comma and ended with a full
stop. Gestures were used to mimic the punctuation marks. The 2nd
layer was the pronunciation and intonation layer. The volunteers responsible for
this level stood in front of the punctuation level people. They spoke the words
of the sentence (one word each). In front of them came the Performance
personality layer. These volunteers mimed the phrase. They were each
responsible for a word in the phrase and stood directly in front of the person
saying that word. Finally there was the Key Grammatical Structures layer.
Again, each person in the row was responsible for a word in the phrase and used
a mime for the part of speech – based on Catherine Cheater’s word class mimes
(hand on head for noun, etc.). Then it was all performed together. We heard the
sentence, saw its meaning performed, were reminded of the word classes for each
word and also saw where the punctuation came in the phrase. The aim is to help
children appreciate the various aspects of a phrase or sentence and how they
are linked.
2)
Next I looked at Human Sentences. This involves giving
people a large text card each and saying a phrase or sentence. Those with the
appropriate card come out to the front and stand in order to create the
sentence, This can be at quite a simple level e.g. 'Un chat noir' or more extended
e.g. J’ai deux souris noires. In the second example you could give out ‘red
herrings’ such as ‘noir’, ‘noire’ and ‘noirs’ (they all sound the same) and see
if the right person comes out. It can lead to very useful discussions about
adjectival agreement and word order. We then played the Human Negatives Game. Word
cards were handed out randomly to the audience members. The words were chosen
to be interchangeable so that it was possible to mix and match them to create simple
sentences with 3 cards e.g. there were cards with J’ some with il and some with
elle. There were cards with habite and some with aime. Finally there were some
cards to complete the sentences such as “en Italie” or “les bonbons”. There was
also a table at the front with objects or picture cards relating to the
sentence (a packet of sweets, an Italian flag, etc). The aim was to find 2
other people with whom you could form a sentence and then collect the
appropriate picture/object. The first group to do so would win. However, we
also had some “negative people” whose job it was to spoil the fun. They worked in
pairs, one with ne and one with a pas card. They had to seek out the verbs. If
they found one they had to sandwich it and ‘lock it down’. Once this happened
the sentence would be negated and so the group could not collect their
object (because now it meant that they did NOT live in Italy, did NOT like
sweets, etc) and thus were ‘out’. Warning: this game does get very competitive and
lively (especially with language teachers)! We concluded that it is a much more
effective way of teaching negatives in French than simply saying “ne and pas
sandwich the verb.”
3)
Next Janet led participants through her Active Conjunctions
activity, to create some complex sentences. 12 volunteers formed a circle and
were each given a card with a simple sentence on it. A selection of
conjunctions were available, each in large text on colourful card. These were
on the floor in the centre of the circle. The aim was for participants to
select an appropriate conjunction and pair up to create a complex sentence. You
need to be quick to get the conjunction you need before someone else gets it.
The pairs then read out their new, longer sentences.
4)
Next it was my turn to share some further ideas on verbs. The
new Programmes of Study for KS2 Languages include “conjugate high-frequency
verbs”. This is exactly what I’ve been doing with my Year 6 children but using
songs, raps and props. The ‘avoir’ song is to the tune of “If you’re happy and
you know it” and goes like this:
J’ai, tu as,
il a, nous avons, vous avez…Ils ont!
(clap on ils ont, as it’s the “clap clap” bit),
J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ont
(clap on “ils ont”)
J’ai, tu as,
il a, nous avons
J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons
J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez….ils ont!
(clap as before).
The être song is to the tune of ‘The Farmer’s in
his Den’ and goes like this:
Je suis, tu est, il est
Je suis, tu est, il est,
Nous sommes, vous êtes
Ils / elles sont.
We then moved on
to regular –er verbs. I mentioned the story ‘Par Une Sombre Nuit de Tempête’
and how fabulous it is for exploring the singular forms of present tense –er verbs
and the infinitive. See my previous blog posts for more detail on using this
story.
I then showed a photo of some of my Year 6 children
creating a physical verb paradigm (pattern). 9 children were in the photo, each
holding a text card. One person was standing on a chair, at the back in the
middle. He was the infinitive and held the card “Danser”. Standing in front of
him, side-by-side, were children holding “Je porte” and “Nous portons” (the 1st
person singular and plural). I had decided to teach the children the correct
terminology to make it easier to talk about the parts of the verb. They even
got to wear rosettes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd
(1er, 2e, 3e) – green rosettes for singular and purple for plural. The child
with “Tu danses” is sitting on a chair in front of the one with “Je danse”. Similarly,
the one with “Vous dansez” is sitting on a chair in front of the one with the “Nous
dansons” card. They are the 2nd person singular and plural (and so
they are on the 2nd row). Finally we have the 3rd person
singular and plural. I had a boy hold the “il danse” card and kneel on the
floor in front of the child on the chair. A girl holding the “Elle danse” card
knelt next to him. They had their green rosettes on saying “3e”. Next to them,
kneeling in front of the child with the “vous dansez” card were a girl and boy
with “Ils dansent” and “elles dansent” respectively. They were the 3rd
person plural and had their purple rosettes. This was supposed to look like
lines on a page, with the infinitive as the title and the verbs arranged in 2
columns – singular and plural.
It was then time for The ‘Porter’ Song. This is to
the tune of the National Anthem and conjugates the verb ‘porter’, adding some
items of clothing to create a rhyming song. The song has now been performed by
teachers at ililc5 and in Warrington at the DfE training course, as well as by
my wonderful Year 6 children (we watched them perform it, in costume, on
video).
5)
Janet then took us through her Preposition Picnic activity.
This is a super idea for practising prepositions and links beautifully to
summer-themed work. 2 “volunteers” (myself and Steven Fawkes) were given a set
of picnic ware and cutlery (plates, bowls, glasses, cups, knives, forks and spoons
in different colours, sizes and materials). Janet described where each item
should be positioned in relation to another e.g. “Place the large red spoon in
the white bowl”. Steven and I attempted to recreate this, individually, in a
Krypton Factor-cum-Generation Game style scenario. Next, I gave instructions, in
French, for Steven to follow to create a similar structure of picnic items.
6)
To finish I shared the Rainbow Rap. This is an idea I
picked up on a CILT course in Besançon in 2005 from a French teacher called
Hélène Vantier (utterly brilliant!). Fortunately, we had a lovely audience on
Friday, with many people happy to join in. Groups of 3 or 4 volunteers worked
together to come up with a mini performance based on their given colour. The
yellow group had to chant “Nous sommes jaunes, nous sommes jaunes, nous sommes
jaunes”, the red group had to chant “Nous sommes rouges, nous sommes rouges,
nous sommes rouges”, etc. The groups were asked to think about the sound their
colour word made and make their voices and actions fit it. After a few moments
to practise, it was time for the performance. The colour groups made up the
verses and the rest of the audience joined in the chorus: “Nous sommes un
arc-en-ciel, nous sommes un arc-en-ciel, nous sommes un arc-en-ciel”.
You can see the presentation slides and The Porter Song on the ALL website
here.
