Modern Foreign Language
To continue with our French learning, we looked at describing items of clothing in more detail using our previous knowledge of colours. We looked at the sentence structure, as it is slightly different to how we would order our words in English, before reading the phrases and choosing the correct colour for the correct item of clothing.
We looked at the artwork of the French artist, Matisse and talked about how he uses colour and shape to create abstract pieces of art. We looked at some of his pieces based on animals and decided to create our own piece of Matisse-inspired artwork… with a twist! So that we could create our piece, we had to work with a partner to ask them in French for certain shapes, but we were only allowed to use 6! We had to include information about the size, shape and colour we needed. Some of us even challenged ourselves by saying ‘I would like…, please’ and ‘thank you’ in French too!
Once we had finished, we did a gallery walk around the classroom to view the pieces created by the rest of our crew. We shared praises and notices whilst we were moving around the room. Take a look at some of our finished pieces! ✨
We have been looking at items of clothing and identifying any cognates or near cognates with the translations. We then discussed the different nouns for clothing items and how the determiner changes depending on whether it is masculine, feminine or plural. We applied our new knowledge by completing a written task that required us to think about the rules of the French language and whether the determiners we had chosen were appropriate for the noun. We worked really hard and the discussions we had in our groups were really helpful.
We have used our French knowledge of shape, colour and size to complete a number of different activities to help to embed our learning.
Colour splat – Who can splat the correct colour in the fastest time?
Listen carefully – Who can identify the correct colour and hold up the corresponding block? Can you listen to the sequence and create the matching tower?
Shape matching – Who can identify the correct shape AND the correct colour? Can you work as a team to be the quickest team to do this correctly?
Christmas craft – Using the shapes and colours we have looked at, can you create a Christmas image? Could you describe the shapes you used to create your image in French?
During French, we have been looking at ways to communicate feelings. We looked at the new vocabulary before playing a number of different games to try and better our understanding. First, we played ‘Thumbs Up’ which involved us working with a partner to hide gestures representing each feeling ‘I am good, I am very good, I am sad, I am very sad, and neither good nor bad’. Our partner had to guess, in French, which gesture they thought we were hiding behind our back before it was revealed to us! We then played a game of ‘Captions’ where we had to listen carefully to the phrase that Miss McGlone said. We then had to choose the correct picture from around the room to go and stand by that we thought was the matching image to the phrase. To finish our lesson, we had a go at applying all of our knowledge so far in the form of a conversation.
In Crew Mcloughlin, we deepened our understanding of feelings in French by working with a partner to practice our pronunciation. One person pronounced one of our new phrases whilst the other drew the matching face. If the face was correct, the drawer got a point. If it was incorrect, the speaker stole the point for themselves!
During this weeks multicultural focus we have had a go at speaking Italian. We shared our feelings on Italian and then used a video to help us say foods. I have to say I was rather impressed with some of their pronunciation.
This week we extended our knowledge on French greetings and discuss a range of greetings to use throughout the day. Once we were secure, we got creative and drew our own pictures to represent certain times of the day. Our partner then had to guess the correct French phrase to match our picture. We then played a game of 3,2,1 Show Me. Miss McGlone showed us an image on the board and we had to write the French greeting on our whiteboards before being counted down to reveal our answers!
Today we have been looking at how to identify someone’s hair and eye colour. We talked about the difference in using either a masculine or feminine spelling/pronunciation of a word before looking at different translations of hair colours. We had a discussion about how the French language translates into a different order than the order we are used to speaking. For example, we would say that someone has brown eyes, however, in French it would translate to say that someone has eyes brown. Once we had mastered the French way of constructing sentence, we turned our detective skills on and managed to translate certain sentences to match the description with the corresponding picture.
This week we have been looking at how we greet people at different times of the day (good day, good evening, good night). Once we had mastered our pronunciation and practised matching pictures with the correct greeting, we tested our new knowledge by playing a game of corners. There were pictures up around the classroom showing different activities at different times of the day. Miss McGlone said a greeting and we had to decide which picture matched the time of day for that greeting. We then moved to that picture and waited to see if we had chosen correctly!
This week we have started our French learning journey! We started off by learning how to greet one another and ask someone what their name is. We also discussed our classroom protocols and were introduced to French phrases that Madame McGlone will be using during our lessons.
We worked hard using lots of ‘my turn, your turn’, working on our pronunciation, and understanding the meaning of each phrase. We then had a visit from our French speaking friend Phillipe the Puppet, who we confidently introduced ourselves to. We finished off with a slight twist on the game ’21’. We used the French numbers from 1-10 to adapt the rules slightly to try and be the last crew member standing. Super effort from everyone – très bien!
