How to Teach Foreign Languages and Make them FUN!

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received these books, free of charge,from Crown House Publishing, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about them, and  all opinions are my own.


When you aren't a teacher, but suddenly you ARE becuase you are now homeschooling your child, you reallize there is SO much you don't know, like how to make Algebra and Foreighn Languages FUN! 

So I was thrilled to be able to check out 2 great new books from Crown House, that can help you address the latter subject!

Games for Teaching Primary French  cover

Games for Teaching Primary French by Daniele Bourdais and Sue Finnie

Games for Teaching Primary French is a practical toolkit containing a wide variety of fun and engaging games for all abilities, from complete beginners to more competent learners. It includes a wide range of games, from 5-minute starters or plenaries to longer, more challenging games where learners can make substantial progress. It has been devised specifically for busy teachers with limited resources, budget and planning time, who want simple and effective ideas to use in the classroom. The games in this book cover all core aspects of the primary...

Review:

This book is really made for a classroom situation, with mainly games for greoups or teams of students. they range from the simple, like Bingo and Gossip, to more evolved like Dueling Numbers (whcih means solving number equations in the language) or making up new sverses to familiar songs. Each game goes throu the game step by step, then has a block to let you know the Skill/Aim/Resources/Classrrom Management needed for it, then offers comments and suggestions, and an area for you to write your own notes and comments. So while it's not necessarily the best book for those with less than 3 kids to school, it does give you some ideas for a way to make quizzes more fun, and to get kids speaking and thinking in their new language! If you're a teach it's a must read!

Fun Learning Activities for Modern Foreign Languages cover


Fun Learning Activities for Modern Foreign Languages by Jake Hunton

Synopsis:

Students learning modern foreign languages often comment that it is just too hard to learn, and remember, all of vocabulary presented to them. Yes, there is a lot of content that needs to be covered, and a lot of vocabulary that needs to be learned. But there is a way of making this process engaging and motivating. Language lessons needn t be full of grammar worksheets, endless drilling and rote learning lists of vocabulary. Learning languages isn t always fun and games. But these aren t games; they are fun learning activities. And they can help revolutionise language teaching; enabling teachers to authoritatively impart knowledge while fostering a thirst for knowledge and love of learning in their students. 

The book is broken down into 3 sections,first the Vocab Fun Learning Activities (VFLAs), in which the student learn vocabulary that help to improve recognition and recall. Then, come Fun Learning Activities that take the vocabulary knowledge learned in the VFLA, to build sentences and paragraphs; explore and use this language while keeping the whole class engaged and actively learning. The activities are all fun and designed to encourage all students to participate in them. Based on the author s extensive classroom experience, based on research into how students learn best, each activity comes complete with a detailed explanation and plenty of ideas for variations, differentiations and extensions. The activities all also have example vocabulary lists in French, German and Spanish,on the included CD-ROM.

Review: 

No matter what, somewhere along the line, you'll need worksheets or tests/quizes to know that your student is understanding  and mainting vocabulary. These activities in this book help to enrich learning by helping students to RETAIN the knowledge, by making it fun with games like Teacher vs Youtube and Three Amigos and Make the Switch. The vocabulary lists also give you a great starting point for making your wn lessons. Each game is its own chapter and included preparation and resources, instructions, variations and notes.  It's a really well put together book and one I can't recommend enough!

Put together with the previous book, you have a 1-2 punch that REALLY helps you figure out what you as a new foreign language teacher can do to make learning FUN!


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