Can anyone help me out with a few ideas for teaching French children English?

[jenpet]

I've helped out on a voluntary basis since my DS started school here in France 3 years ago (he's now 6) his teacher thought it would help him integrate & that it would be good for his classmates to get an early introduction to English. She was spot on & it has gone really well, we've been in the local newsletter, done all sorts of different activities & for me it's been great as I've had an excellent insight into how French primary schools work (as well as getting to know all DS's friends!)
Trouble is, I'm running out of things to do with them! It's not a long term problem as I'm having DC2 in the summer & they have an "official" English teacher from next year anyway. I'm not trained as a teacher, and they don't expect that in any way, I'm just a chance to hear, and hopefully remember some English - so we sing songs, we read stories, we have made gingerbread men & named the icing clothes (?) that kind of thing....
Can any kind inspirational people give me a few ideas for these last few months please??! Thanks...

What a brilliant idea.

No advice really but bumping for you. How about 'What's the Time Mr Wolf'?

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OliviaJ - STOP POSTING ON ALL THE THREADS!

err, could you build a village (from lego or cardboard boxes) and name the buildings?

I used to teach English on Wednesdays to French children age 4 - 7. We did a lot of role playing eg shop, restaurant
I would like an ice-cream/some fruit salad, please thank you etc
You can make menus/shopping lists with them.
Also Simon Says for learning 'sit down' 'stand up' 'shake your head' - good for parts of the body and actions
HTH

I taught English in a primary school in France for a year. I taught CM1 and CM2.

Simon says went down very well. I also invented a game for them to learn prepositions. I'd tell them to stand "on" the table or "under" the chair or whatever. I also did a game where one child had to mime being a particular animal and the others had to say (in English) what it was. I did bingo but some of the slower ones found that hard.

Have fun!

My dd was bought a kiddy's vtech laptop for Christmas and as well as english games on, also teaches french speling/sounds/games etc, really good!..we also have a book(very cheap from home bargains or somewhere) which has everyday pictures in(park/home/bedtime etc) in english and french???

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Orchard Toys do a shopping game in French and in English (Pop to the Shops and Des Courses a Faire IIRC), so that might be fun
Simon Says is always great
do French children see any British children's TV output dubbed into French (am thinking of the stuff we get in the UK such as Watch My Chops)? You could get a couple of BBC comics featuring familiar characters, maybe Dora and co, and do the simple reading/game activities with them

Thank you everyone. There are some fantastic ideas there, I really appreciate your help, can't wait to get started next Monday again now!

if you contact these people I am sure they will give you some ideas and suggestions this is where my daughters go to maintain their english (written and reading)

thanks Helenhmw, I'd seen this site ages ago & forgotten all about it. It looks very well run & organised. Are you daughters getting on well & enjoying it? I wish there was something similar near us. I do what I can with DS at home, & he goes to a woman for some tuition, but it's not ideal...I wish I could do more for him. Even at this age I can see his use of French is far better than his English...

Its quite new and eldest dd is not 4 yet, but we wanted her to get a good grasp of how to read and write in English because we heard of a few English kids trying to get into the airforce and university (in UK)but the standard of their written English was not good enough. Also a couple of friends he is English and she is French the children dont speak english at all. Speak to Kathryn I think her number is there she may help you to set it up if you have other English people near you

I worked with slightly older children (10/11 years olds were the youngest) but games like Pictionary and Guess Who always went down well.
They also loved it when we made up a story-I'd write the first sentence on the board and they had to take it in turns to write the next line-you can make it as easy/complicated as you want by making them write it in a certain tense etc.
I also dug out some really embarrasing photographs of me and got them to make up a story around the picture-their imaginations ran riot with that one!
We did a murder mystery-I reworded the clues etc to simplify it for them. Also some basic logic puzzles-you know the ones where you have to fill in the grid?
Lots of crosswords/wordsearches etc.
Painting by numbers
I went shopping and I bought...
Get them to bring in favourite toy/book, describe it and say why they like it.
Take in some typical English food (I did dairy milk, marmite, cheddar and stilton) and get them to describe it (sweet/salty creamy etc)and say if they like it or not.
Lots of these probably too old for 6 year olds but they are the ones that my students seemed to enjoy

The BBC Video/DVD series:
MUZZY IN GONDOLAND is absolutely brilliant.
It exists in a version to teach English as a foreign language, with L1 commentary and explanations (i.e. French) to assist teachers/parents.
An expensive purchase, but worthwhile investment in my experience.

Get a copy of the Jolly Phonics Handbook and follow it precisely. Jolly Phonics has a very good reputation for teaching EFL children to read and write English, in UK schools. It's also very small child friendly.

I'm an EFL teacher, although it's been a couple of years since I had littlies. All these ideas look great.

Have you got any flashcards? There are so many games you can play with them to learn and reinforce vocabulary and grammar.

One I liked a lot, which is a 'stirrer' i.e. gets them all wound up, is the 'jumping game.' All kids in a line, facing you, you holding a bunch of flashcards. You show the cards one by one, saying a word. IF you say the correct word,(picture of Cow, you say cow), they jump to the left, if you say the wrong word, (picture of cow, you say duck)they jump to the right. IYSWIM. Anyone who makes a wrong move is eliminated, and can then (At your discretion) become the caller.

If they like stories but you've run out of books in English, don't worry. Just take any French story book and tell the story in English. If they read, you can cover the text with paper and blutac.

Look on the website www.onestopenglish.com for more ideas (go to the young learners section.)

Also, there a lots of printable colouring in sheets connected to festivals etc, which could easily be used to paint by number.

HTH