Christmas is approaching. I’m fairly certain most MFL teachers have done the following over the past few years:
- Make a Christmas card
- Christmas Wordsearch
- Christmas crossword/sudoku etc
- Break out the DVDs…if SLT are reading, I didn’t suggest this…
Here’s some ideas that go beyond the minimal with years in brackets as a guide.
Cluedo: who killed Santa? (yr 7,8,9,10,11)
Prepare three columns of phrases on whiteboard.
- People (Santa, Herod etc)
- Places (santa’s workshop, lapland)
- Murder weapons (tinsel, christmas trees, presents, satsumas). You will need to pick one of each in your head. Students then give you their opinion on who killed Santa, where, and what weapon. You tell them only how many they get right or wrong. Brilliant game for teaching deduction and reinforcing opinion phrases such as “a mon avis” or “pienso que”.
Euroclub schools (yr7,8,9)
Take them to an ICT room and complete any of the pdf quiz worksheets on http://www.euroclubschools.org.uk/page2.htm. French, Spanish and Italian are on offer here. Whilst not huge on the TL; it is brilliant for their knowledge of culture. Some exam boards are looking at increasing the cultural side of the new GCSE so it cannot hurt.
La pesadilla antes de la navidad
Lyrics are in the description, exploit to your hearts content
Gap fills, multiple choice, missing sounds or letters, translate bits. Over to you… Lamentably, months on, all your students will remember are the words ¿qué es? ∏ë
Letter to Santa (Yr 7,8,9,10,11)
The new GCSEs have writing tasks that involve “write a letter to” (at least one of the sample assessments does). Why not introduce this with a letter to Santa. It is also a great opportunity to revise tenses.
El año pasado recibí … aunque quería …
Este año quiero/me gustaría …
Lots of potential and easily transferable between year groups.
Food-tasti
ng
Some students will never get to try turrón or stollen, why not bring some in? If finances are stretc
hed then you could ask for a voluntary contribution…or hand the receipts to your HoD to claim back under “vital lesson resources”. Serious point: check for nut allergies otherwise a great lesson and experience for the children will end up in the headteacher’s office, putting a downer on any festive season cheer.
Real Christmas (yr 9,10,11)
Typical Spanish animated cartoon telling the story of the nativity.
Madagascar Penguins (7,8,9,10,11)
This has been my stock Christmas lesson for a couple of years created by sanferminuk on the TES website who has a number of excellent resources
I know, I know, I made a comment about DVDs but this is an entire lesson planned around understanding a 20 min video in the target language. Surely that’s a different thing, right?! The video clip can be found on Youtube.
Origami santa (Yr 7,8,9,10,11)
For the grammar-lovers out there some revision of imperatives might be in order…
There are plenty of others out there but this might help get you started. Practice makes perfect so get practising!
The Great British sing off (yr7,8)
With names like that I should clearly get a job naming things… Anyway, team up with a couple of colleagues who teach at the same time as you. Each group learns a song and then a sing off is had with an impartial judge. Plenty of carols and songs can be found on youtube.
Everyday MFL 