Teacher's pages

Things I like

• Plural endings: The S at the end of a plural noun is usually silent, e.g. les chats. Note that words already ending in S are the same in both singular and plural forms, e.g. souris. In the plural form words ending in AU add a silent X, e.g. oiseau - oiseaux; words ending in L also change their ending to AUX, e.g. animal - animaux; cheval - chevaux.
• Most sports use the same words in both French and English, e.g. le ping-pong, le badminton, giving potential for wide-ranging reinforcement of structures.
• J'ai and j'aime can sound similar - you may need to emphasize the different sounds in an exaggerated way.
• Est-ce que...? asks a question, when placed in front of a sentence, see En France - Est-ce que tu aimes le chocolat? [Do you like chocolate?]

• Create mimes for sentences about likes and dislikes, and play miming games, e.g. Je n'aime pas le rugby - imitate crying, then mime the sport - the children then guess the sentence. Progress to volunteers doing this for the class, then to work in pairs.
• Children express their own opinions about colours, sports or animals by drawing symbols, e.g. a cat plus a smiley face = J'aime les chats: these can have text added, through writing or the use of IT, and can be used as the basis for puppet conversation practice or role plays.
• Have a class survey on the children's (or their puppets') favourite sports and use the results for maths work on graphs.

Speaking Snap [Questions and Answers of familiar conversational language]:

• Prepare for this activity by using the OHP, whiteboard or large word cards to familiarize the children with the text versions of the questions and answers.
• Read the questions and answers aloud as a class activity before the children play matching games with the cards.
• Children can use the cards as models to prepare their own personalised answer cards or create answer cards for imaginary people such as favourite fictional characters; these can then be used as a basis for interviews and role-plays.

• Children can progress to writing or word-processing real or imaginary interviews.
• Introduce the use of the third person, e.g. Est-ce que Luc aime le chocolat?
• Introduce je déteste../j'adore.. See En France for further material on preferences.
• Have a class Survey of Likes and Dislikes: the children could decide on the categories and prepare for this by researching new vocabulary, using the bilingual or IT dictionary.
• Singular and Plural endings: have a sorting activity, on the OHP or whiteboard, placing the text version of the nouns in the correct 'box' or section of the board as they are heard.