Using PowerPoint and mp3 to help non-specialist Primary MFL colleagues

[Jo Rhys-Jones]

Inspired by Joe Dale's 'Death by Powerpoint' articles and 'how to' guides, I have been trying to adapt a powerpoint introduction of clothes vocabulary in French so that it is easier to use for non-specialist primary teachers. I've attached a copy at the end of this post for anyone who would like to download and comment on it.

The PowerPoint introduces the following words for items of clothing;

• • Un chapeau, un pantalon, un pull une écharpe une culotte une cravate un manteau des gants, une jupe une robe des lunettes des chaussettes des bottes un t-shirt
• Each picture also has sound that plays automatically so you can hear the word in French twice, with a chance for the class to repeat the word. I recorded myself speaking the vocabulary using an mp3 player and editing out the sound of Big Brother in the background (yes - I know, sorry) using Audacity (Thanks to Joe Dale and Paul Harrington for introducing me to this very easy to use technology). If I had thought about it before I would have asked one of my French family to record this, or found an 'assistant' at a local secondary school.
• From slide 20-28 is a multiple choice quiz. Hopefully by adding the sound and getting it to play automatically makes the activity self-explanatory even for someone not used to playing these sort of MFL vocab games.
• Slide 29-32 is a version of Kim’s game. Again with added sound and set-up to happen automatically, the sort of thing a trained MFL teacher does naturally with flashcards and objects. The class has to guess which is missing and say the word in French. When you click again the missing picture appears.
• Slide 33 and 34 Qu’est-ce que c’est? (what is it?) Pictures will shoot across the screen (on the blue slide 33 they will be masculine words and on 34 pink they will be feminine) and the class have to call out in French what they think they saw. But I've added the sound again to hear the correct answer afterwards.
• Last slide – 35 Qu’est-ce que c’est? A variation of the above game but this time the pictures (feminine and masculine) will briefly appear and disappear on the screen for the class to call out in French what they thought they saw. To speed the game up there is no sound this time as I am hoping that by this time teachers are feeling more confident and up to having a go themselves.

I have added a word document to explain how to use the powerpoint and how to start/stop at different points. I think I will also post this up on the TES resources to see if I can get any feedback as it was very easy to create this, just time-consuming.

I know this is not the answer to non-specialists teaching MFL in Primary schools, but frankly we have got to start somewhere, and if we can make this work then eventually it will be considered as much part of the job as teaching music and science and geography and all the other subjects we are not 'specialists' in.

Download les vetements ppt.zip

NB. Technical information: The sound files are attached in the folder and the PowerPoint will not be able to play these sounds if you remove it from the folder (so basically if you want to copy this to another computer, memory stick, CD/DVD etc. make sure you copy the whole folder not just the ppt.)