Educational

A few things which worked particularly well...

TV Game
(CM1 and CM2)
I was surprised but this was really successful! So, over several lessons, we learnt prepositions (on, in, under...you could add others), and objects (table, fridge, chair, basket...). Then one lesson I came in and just started the lesson off really animatedly as a TV presenter (all in English) "Hello and welcome to the TV game". On the board I put up an image of a kitchen with patafixed (bluetacked) animals in it. I then invited two "contestants" from the class (a boy and a girl) up and did a quick "H! What's your name? Where are you from?" etc. They had 30 seconds to look at the picture and then had to turn and face the audience. I would ask "Where is the black cat?" "Where is the white rabbit?", they would respond and the "audience" would say "right" or "wrong". They had 3 questions like that then we did "well, ______ is the winner! Well done! Thank you and goodbye". And restart with the next two contestants (after asking a child to move the animals around). After a few gos I let a child be the presenter and I was one of the contestants and didn't understand ANY French at all! Was really fun and they got into it/picked up what was going on with me only talking English really quickly.

Weather
(All levels)
Similiar idea as above. Didn't give them any warning of what we were going to do, just stuck a map of the world up on the board and launched into a weather forecast. Afterwards I would use my "microphone" to quiz the children about what I had said and invite the next "forecaster" to the board.

Monsters
(CE2 and CM1)
Over several lessons built up words to describe hair and eyes (could add lots more to this); I stuck to colours and long, short, curly, straight and wavy. I drew 9 silly-looking and brightly coloured monsters which went on the board. One at a time the children had to come up and described a monster and the children had to guess which one. Was careful to make sure that some of the monsters could be differentiated by one detail only (i.e. long v. short hair) and of course they all had English names!

Buying Fruit
I took in 3 shopping lists, little pictures of the fruits which were on the lists (and which we'd already learnt) and some 5, 10 and 20 pence pieces. The first time I distributed fruits to them and said "I'm going SHOPPING" (with big gestures to myself, emphasis on SHOPPING which they understand and jangling my money. Then I said "Can I have ....an apple?". The child with an apple holds up their hand and I set up a little dialogue with them (all in English), hello, how much?, thank you etc, and give them the money. Repeated this several times so they all got the idea. Then split them into 3 teams (still all in English...), gave each team their shopping list of 4 fruits and some money and went through them with them having to do their shopping with me. Then a big "Oh you have 4 fruits! Well done!" to the team who did all their shopping first.
I was kinda nervous about doing this (these kids are very excitable and have only been doing English since end of Nov), but actually the amount of English I said and they fact they could add in little things like "Hello!" and "Thank you" which we haven't exactly learnt but which they know, really kept their attention and yeah it went really well.

Shopping/My Town lesson
Give half of the children in the class a piece of a piece of paper which gives them a clue as to what shop/place in town they have to go to, i.e. a piece of bread = bakers, an ill child = hospital. Put the pictures of these places around the room. The children with cards have to stand up and go and find a child without a card and do a little role-play, "excuse-me, I'm lost! Where is _____?" etc. They must then go and stand by correct picture on the walls. Swap roles.

Restaurant menu reading evaluation
Comprehension questions to check understanding. Then get them to write their own.

Christmas
Comparing traditions in England and France
Christmas vocabulary
Christmas songs
Christmas cards
“Father Christmas/A snowman has got/is wearing…” (CM1-CM2)

Clothes
Children work in pairs. Each pair has two pieces of paper; on one of them they draw a girl/boy/character in coloured/patterned clothes. On the other they write phrases to describe this character, for example "The girl is wearing blue, spotted trousers, black shoes and a pink, flowery t-shirt". I collect in the sheets and distribute the descriptions only to different "teams" who then work on using these to draw their own version of the character. As a class, compare all the pictures and discuss the differences.

"My Town"
Teach words of places in town, e.g. post office, school etc. Draw a big map with pictures of these places on the wall. Teach up, down, left, right, continue, stop. Get one child to come up to board with a piece of chalk and close eyes, the others must direct him from one place to another using these directions.

School timetables

Make an English dictionary
At the end of my year with my CE1s I made a Class Dictionary. It was a good way to review all the words they had learnt, and I set it up at the beginning and something they would be able to take with them into next year. I split them into groups of 3 or 4 and each group got given a theme from this year (e.g. animals) and had to work on that, making a page for each word with a big picture for it.

Penfriend work
Letters
My favourite things
Culture box exchange
"My school" project

Otherwise most of my ideas come from the internet! Particularly the inspection academique 24 website, the CIEP website, British Council and Primalangues.

CE1
Se présenter
Brown Bear, Brown Bear (Book: animals and colours)
Christmas
The weather
Buying fruit
Sports
Toys
My classroom
Months of the year
My town
My home
Food

CE2
Se présenter
Brown Bear, Brown Bear (Book: animals and colours)
Christmas
The weather
Buying Fruit
Describing myself
Sports
Clothes
My classroom (and prepositions)
Months of the year
My town
My home
Food

Evaluation: Writing a postcard/oral evaluations/dictation

CM1
Going through customs (se présenter and clothes) (Oral evaluation)
TV Game (prepositions and animals)
Christmas
Penfriend letters (My birthday, Sports/Hobbys, My family, Describing myself) (Written evaluation)
Weather
Fashion Show (review of clothes) (Oral evaluation)
Book: Where's Spot?
Fruit
Food (Menu, reading comprehension evaluation)
Months of the year
My school (oral evaluation: asking and giving information, favourite subjects)
My town (written evaluation: form filling/understanding written English)

CM2
Going through customs (se présenter and clothes) (Oral evaluation)
TV Game (prepositions and animals) (Oral evaluation)
Christmas
Penfriend letters (My birthday, Sports/Hobbys, My family, Describing myself and other people) (Written evaluation)
Weather
Fashion Show (review of clothes) (Oral evaluation)
Fruit
Food (Menu, reading comprehension evaluation)
Months of the year
Time
My school (oral evaluation: asking and giving information, favourite subjects)
My town (written evaluation: form filling/understanding written English)

First or second lesson: English!
Use maps and realia. Where do people speak English? How far away are these places/how do you get there (plane, boat etc)? My home town/region. English words they know which are used in French etc.

Christmas traditions
Comparison of Christmas traditions here and in England: food, routine, cards, presents, decorations, celebrations.

English sports
Introduction to typically English sports, e.g. cricket, "The Boat Race". Discussion of "soccer" versus "American Football" etc.

The Beatles
Introduction to the music of The Beatles, where they come from, their popularity etc and the role they played in British Culture.

Food
Typical food in the day of an English child, and "special treats": fish and chips, Roast dinner, afternoon tea. Get children to write questions to penfriends about this.

English money
Talk about pounds, dollars, euros and francs. Show them some English money, get them to fill in each sheet matching pictures of coins with amount (using symbol). Talk about Queen on notes/coins.

Halloween, Pancake Day, Thanksgiving (in America), St Patrick's Day

Surveys
When children are confident with question and answer forms give them some kind of survey sheet and 5-10 minutes to interrogate as many children as possible. If applicable bring the answers together to get the results for the whole class.

Coloriages/Information Gap
Children work in pairs; each has the same sheet but with different information. For example child A's sheet may tell him that Anna is 12, but he needs to know how old Megan is. He asks child B how old Megan is and tells child B how old Anna is. Alternatively both children are given the same sheet and instructions to fill in different details which they must then give to their partner, for example child A colours the giraffe, monkey and dog, and child B the cat, fish and penguin and must then tell their partner how to colour their other animals so eventually both sheets should look identical.

Who am I?
All members of the class have a sheet with a number of children on and certain information about them i.e. what fruits they like, what sports they like, what colour eyes/hair they have. In groups/pairs or as a class one child chooses a character and has to describe him/her to the rest of the class who try to guess who he is.

Tell me about yourself
Children work in pairs and have an "English conversation" about their family, their favourite sports etc, then come back together as a class and ask various children what they found out about their partner.

With many of these activities I have girls v. boys or two teams and every time I hear them speaking French between themselves they lose a point. Good English gains them points!

Sketches
If children are learning language for a particular "situation de communication" i.e. "Going through customs", when they are confident with all the structures get them to produce little 'sketches' in pairs or groups and present them to the class.

True/False
Children come up to the board one at a time and say a fact about themselves, e.g. "I've got brown hair and blue eyes", they then hold up True/False cards and say "True or False?". The first child to put up his hand with the right answer (and the correct version if it was false!) gets the next turn.

Songs
I have used: "The Good Morning Song" (Good morning, Good morning, Good morning to you. Good morning, Good morning and how are you?)
"The Goodbye Song" (Goodbye everyone, Goodbye everyone, Goodbye everyone. It's time to say goodbye)
"The Alphabet"
"Apples and Bananas" (I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas. I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas. Repeated with different fruits)
"Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"
"Colours" (Red and yellow, blue and green, blue and green, blue and green. Red and yellow, blue and green, purple, orange and pink)
"The Weather Song" (What's the weather? What's the weather? What's the weather everyone? Is it windy? Is it cloudy? Is there rain or is there sun?)
Chant for days of the week
"The Animals Went in Two by Two"

"Oh Christmas Tree!"
"We Wish you a merry christmas!"

"Hello, Goodbye", The Beatles

Books
Read a book together; spend several lessons beforehand building up all the vocabulary and structures necessary for them to be able to read it with you/to you, e.g. "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Where's Spot?"

Flashcards

-Good old listen and look, repeat. Hold up flashcards one at a time or stick them on the board and point. On average about 9 words seems to work best.
-As above, point to 1 flascard, say, repeat, then flascards 1&2, then 1&2&3, then 1&2&3&4 and so on.
-Blindlearning. Have all flashcards on board, go through them all several times in order then take down/cover up flashcard 1 and get the kids to say it then go through the rest, then take down 1&2 they have to say both, go through the rest and so on untill they say all the words in order without seeing any of the flashcards.
-When saying/repeating words use different voices/intonations which they have to copy. Really helps keep their attention. Loudly and quietly works great; whispering so softly they can only just hear you means they really have to listen and doing it loudly means the shy ones aren't scared.
-Ask the class/individuals "What's this?" and hold up flashcard
-As above but with part of it covered with black card (so they only see part of the picture)
-Look at child A in the classroom, hold up a flashcard and whisper "What's this?" followed by the name of child B who is sat elsewhere. They have to listen out for their name (because you won't be looking at them) and tell you what it is.
-Give each child a flashcard/a set of mini flashcards. I say a word and if they have that thing they have to hold it up.
-Have all flashcards on board, ask the children to "close your eyes", then remove one (two? three?!) cards and ask tthem "What's missing?".
-Get two children (one from each team) to come up to the front, make a big deal out of this and get them to turn around and shut their eyes. Distribute flashcards to some of the children in class and get one of them to stand up. Get two at front to open eyes and race to say the name of that flashcard which is being held up.

Other ways

-Introduce each word with an action
-Introduce words with a song

Games

-Get class into two teams. One at a time a member of each time comes up, you say a word and the first person to touch the flashcard/draw the item/act the gesture/write the word gets a point for his team.
-Bingo!
-Charades
-Noughts and crosses. On the board draw a noughts and crosses board and fill the squares with numbers, letters, flashcards etc, in order to get a nought or cross for their team the child has to say the item which is in the square he wants; make sure each child can only get one go, so the others have to do it "for the team".
-Hangman
-Memory game/"Pairs"; they have to say the words when they turn the cards over and try and find ones that match in order to win a point against their partner (either two pictures which are the same/go together, or the word and the picture)
-Dictee. I say a word they have to write it down or draw a picture which corresponds with it.
-Simon Says

Writing

-Try to make sure that my CE2/CM1/CM2 classes always have a list of the words we have learnt as a record of what we have done. Normally I do this by asking them to copy all the words in English from the board and then, next to each they can either draw an illustration or write the word in French if they prefer.