Photocopiable language activities for younger learners LYSE Rae ca Cacia! SECA Cle hger staal csTHEME NOTES ME This first Theme in Fun and Gomes in English deals with the pupils themselves: their names, their bodies, their school objects. It contains activities which can be directly used in the classroom with litle preparation and which aim at promoting language development. Pair and group work are favoured over individual work as they allow pupils to use English for real interaction. As pupils are encouraged to talk about themselves in this Theme, it would be better used at the stare of the term to allow pupils to get to know each other. The ME theme incorporates a variety of well-known activities, including bingo, dominoes, battleships and songs such as Head, shoulders, knees and toes, but these have been adapted to make them more suitable for the age group and the topic. All the skills have been included but writing and reading have been kept to a minimum {e.. pupils are only expected co completed dowed words or to read single words on cards) ‘Once you have covered the necessary language and vocabulary, this theme could be extended to cover work on pupils’ likes and dislikes, their homes, their hobbies, etc. MY FAMILY This section of the book focuses on the pupils’ families, and consolidates lexical items practised in ME, and is therefore better used after this first theme. It also introduces new vocabulary such as family members and adjectives, as well as new structures such as question forms, he's/she’s and possessives. Activities have been chosen to emphasise che fun aspect of learning and to be of interest to this young age group. While the focus is still very much on speaking and listening skill, some reading and writing activities have been included: where in the previous theme pupil were only asked to do dot-to-dot writing, here they have co write letters to complete words or write single words themselves. Before starting this unit, it would be advisable for teachers to investigate each pupil’s family background, eg. in case a pupil does not have a mother or father. If this is the case, you may need to adapt some of the materials.FOOD As this is such a large lexical area which is culture specific, vocabulary has been limited to common fruit, vegetables and favourite children’s foods. This means that the photocopiable activities can be used with as little pre-teaching of new vocabulary as possible. The specific vocabulary items included are: fruits apple, orange, banano, pear, melon): vegetables (potato, carrot, onion, tomato, peas) and general (pizza, hamburger, sausages, cakes, biscuits, ice cream). However, teachers can add other food items to suit their own needs, eg. foods popular in your own country oF seasonal foods (what British children eat at Christmas! Easter, etc). Some of the activities entail a certain amount of preparation, but as children love cutting chings up, colouring, matching and glueing, get them involved as much as possible. It is a useful way to promote co-operation, class participation and to practise classroom language (Can I borrow your glue? Have you got a blue crayan? etc). If you are not happy about young children using scissors, you can do the cutting out. If your class time is Timited, there are certain activities where the teacher can do the bulk of the preparation to reduce time. ‘As with all the themes, the activities are designed to practise specific grammar points, not to present them. There is no specific language level but each activity has been designed to be used at as low a level as possible and teachers can increase the level of difficulty by making the oral work more demanding or asking the pupils to write the words or target language. Some of the Follow up ideas included suggest ways of adapting the activity, others suggest how you can extend the activity or incorporate further work on food. Other extension ideas include carrying out food surveys, writing/following recipes, baking {if you have the facilities), preparing party menus! invitations, ete ANIMALS As with Food, the amount of new vocabulary has been limited so that the focus of each activity is on practising the grammatical structure. The animals included are pets (cat, rabbit, dog, fish, tortoise, hamster) and farm animals (sheep, horse, cow, hen) as wild animals could form a Theme of their own. Again, you can add vocabulary to suit your own situation, e.g. popular pets in your country, animals found specifically in your own country,