Lingobox

We’ve been doing lots of work on writing recently so here are some of our top-tips for writing in primary French and Spanish!

• When we write down what we’ve been learning, it helps us consolidate the language we are learning and provides us with a resource we can refer back to as we learn.
• Writing is often an area which can seem a bit scary for primary learners however it is actually the aspect of learning where you have time to think about the language you’re producing, edit what you’ve written, check word order and ensure it all makes sense. It’s also an opportunity to share, reflect upon and celebrate the progress you’re making as you learn.
• Writing can be embedded into all learning from mid to upper primary onwards. Start with simple activities like creating classroom and school labels and build it up over time so that children are writing more extended sentences and texts as they progress.
• By linking activities across skills such as reading, writing and talking, we can create contexts which really help to deepen learning. Making opinion or classroom language sticks by writing phrases on lollypop sticks is a great way to increase use of language throughout learning.
• Giving children their own languages jotter or starting to develop their own word banks helps give them ownership of their language learning and enables both you and them to see their progress over time! Bookcreator is a fantastic app for this if you have ICT resources like Ipads or Chromebooks. If you’re using jotters, you can ask learners to research aspects of culture (e.g. places, football, music, film etc.) and then decorate their jotter to reflect their interests.
• Writing is a great opportunity for children to share their learning with others – you can create greetings cards at Easter or Christmas or create postcards or birthday cards for other classes in your school and which can be shared throughout the year. These kinds of activities allow learners to take pride in learning and show off what you can do!
• Writing a short letter offers a clear structure for writing where you can use the date and addresses, write about yourself and ask questions in a structured and authentic way. Children can write letters to send to others in partner schools e.g. schools abroad or secondary learners as part of transition work. This can link really well to cultural exchanges or penpal type activities.
• Writing can be used to create reading activities for other learners or classes. This could include activities such as working in groups to write short menus and then writing questions to go along with them e.g. How much does the soup cost? What 3 flavours of ice-cream can you buy? Etc. Not only does this link learning across skills but it also reduces workload for everyone – which can only be a good thing!