This chapter has two separate aims which will help you to start up or encourage further language learning in your school. First, there are tried and tested ways to slip languages seamlessly into the current school day in your class or even throughout the whole school. If you are the languages co-ordinator, or just a keen teacher, you could pioneer these methods and help more reluctant colleagues to follow your example. With a little practice, it should be possible to hear some basic language exchanges, songs and chanting carried out in the new language in each classroom every morning and afternoon. Remember that your motto will be: Do a lot with a little; so you will be starting with simple vocabulary repeated in many different ways over a school week.
Second, there are suggestions to help you to set up your school and classroom space as a vibrant bilingual area in order to stimulate language learning and to slot language into other areas of the curriculum. First impressions certainly count and you can sense the atmosphere of a school just walking down the corridor and peering into classrooms. This could be a golden opportunity for you to promote a new language and to conjure up the lure and exoticism of another way of life or country. In primary schools, ‘display’ is a great tool to intrigue, stimulate, captivate children’s attention and imagination and celebrate their achievements. Whether you have at your disposal just a small corner of a classroom, a single display board in a corridor or even a complete classroom, this is your chance to stimulate the children in your class (and others), provide food for thought and show off their achievements. If you work in a school with young children (ages four to six), pop into their classrooms and remind yourself of how their teachers immerse children in the new world of the written word, and then copy some of their ideas.
The simplest way to start languages resounding around your school on a daily basis is to use the target language in classroom exchanges which are part of the normal primary school day. Examples include: morning greetings; taking the dinner register; counting how many children are away and so on. Try to spread the idea around the whole school by practising first in an assembly so that all the teaching staff and children alike know what is expected and feel comfortable. Children soon get used to repeating a formal greeting and response in the target language such as:
English
Good morning. How are you? I’m fine thanks.
French
Bonjour les enfants. Bonjour Monsieur/Madame.
Comment ça va? Ça va bien, merci.
German
Guten Morgen. Wie geht’s? Gut, danke.
Registers
The next step is to call out the class register in the same way, addressing each child in turn and expecting each one to respond. By adding on just a few extra words, children can answer the dinner register. Before going to lunch, a friendly way to start lunchtime would be to wish the class a good meal (and on another occasion, discuss why we don’t have such a phrase in our own language!) and to expect them to repeat the phrase to you.
English
School dinner or packed lunch, Joshua?
School dinner please, Madame.
Enjoy your meal!
French
La cantine ou les sandwiches, Joshua?
La cantine s’il vous plaît, Madame.
Bon appétit!
German
Die Kantine oder belegte Brote?
Die Kantine bitte, Frau X.
Guten Appetit!
Counting activities
Counting can be slipped into many daily activities: count the number of children having school dinner or packed lunch each day by asking them to stand up and then you all count along the line. Look for any chance to use numbers when you are lining up for assembly or games or waiting for children to get changed. Count the number of people on the green table, the number of children who are absent that day, anyone with a birthday in July, how many children are left handed etc.
Using assembly time
In assembly, when the whole school is together, a great start could be made to the occasion with the now familiar language greeting from a teacher, Hello children!, and the response from all the children. As part of the assembly, teach a new classroom instruction for the whole school and reinforce it in the corridors and playground, as well as in each classroom. Add the instructions to a prominent poster in each classroom and play games with them, trying to catch the children out. Start with easy ones which could lend themselves to a game such as sit down and stand up. The whole school could gradua...
