Help

I am an assistant teacher in a primary school in Scotland. I was wondering how to best teach French as a second language. Especially on the activities concerning the special occasions on your site.

Hi Sebastien

One good idea is to get the children to play a game in their native language (English). When they are fully comfortable with that, just click on the "Switch" button in the gray navigation bar to switch to the same game in French. All the words and audio will be the same, but in French.

Using the special occassions is a great idea, since these usually really appeal to children and are "meaningful" to them.

Try the songs too : attaching a melody to words is a great way for kids to memorize them. Knowing a song in two languages will be a great confidence booster too. Watch out, though. The songs are rarely direct translations, but adaptations. Make it clear to the kids that the words are not directly interchangeable between the two versions !

Any other ideas from other teacher are more than welcome : just submit them below.