Use flashcards, mime and song to teach your class the vocabulary of pets in French…
Although they might be seen as ‘retro’ these days, flashcards are a fun, low-tech way of introducing the vocabulary of pets in French.
Hand-drawn pictures, produced by you or your children, or images downloaded from the internet, are very appealing and can be an antidote to ‘death by Powerpoint’.
There is an excellent menagerie of pet pictures to download for free from the animals section at Primary Resources.
You might want to make a dictionary available to those children who have exotic pets, unless your French knowledge extends to ferrets and African land snails!
Pets in French learning objectives
- Say and recognise the words for ten pets in French
- Develop listening skills
- Ask someone if they have a pet
- Use gesture and song to memorise new vocabulary
Starter activity
Show pupils photos of your pets (fictitious or not) and describe them along the following lines, using lots of gestures to help children access the meaning. (If you are in the habit of using a puppet, it could be the puppet who describes their pets).
‘J’adore les animaux. J’ai un chat et un hamster. Mon chat s’appelle Bruno et il a six ans. Mon hamster s’appelle Betty et elle a deux ans.’
Ask pupils how much they understand, highlighting the cognates and drawing on their previous knowledge. This is a good way of training their listening skills to pick out the words they recognise.
Dr Amanda Barton is a freelance writer, educational consultant and teacher trainer. She is co-author of Teaching Primary French and Teaching Primary Spanish. Browse more ideas for National Pet Month.
