Presentation Techniques for
Primary Languages
After sharing the learning intention with your class, presentation of
language is the next step in language acquisition.
Here are some key points worth bearing in mind:
1. When presenting language aim to cater for all types of learners:
visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.
2. Always try to present language in a context and not just a long list
of words. (For example, when presenting pets, encouraging pupils
to say “J’ai” + pet as this builds on their language acquisition - “J’ai”
is a high frequency phrase and is a phrase they will already be
familiar with from talking about age). (see appendix 1.)
3. Where possible language should be categorised and colour coded
(for example, masculine and feminine words). (see appendix 1.)
4. If the presentation of the language is teacher led it should be
presented stage by stage and not all at once. Individual flashcards
or ohts with images and vocabulary in numbered boxes would aid
with this. (see appendix 1.)
5. The written word should be presented from the start with an
image or visual aid to facilitate comprehension. At this stage
depending on the level of your class you can draw their attention to
sound spelling links.
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6. The class should be encouraged to speculate about the meaning and
pronunciation of the vocabulary as the teacher presents it.
Speculation could involve some of the following:

Comparing French to English (see notes at end of appendix 1)

Drawing pupils attention to sound spelling links (see notes at end
of appendix 1)

Allowing pupils to guess vocabulary by using previously learnt
knowledge (see notes at end of appendix 1)
7. As pupils progress language can be presented at word level and
pupils asked to work out meaning and/or pronunciation. (see
appendix 2)
8. Language may also be presented in text form. (For example, when
presenting school subjects, a text mentioning subjects could be
used as a starting point. Pupils could underline all the subjects
they can find). (see appendix 3)
9. As you present the language it is important to make sure that
pupils do know exactly what it means. You can ask them “Comment
dit-on en anglais …?” and elicit the English from them. You can give
pupils a choice e.g. Does it mean a) a school b) a swimming pool or
c) a farm. You can involve the entire class by asking them if the
response given is correct or not.
Presentation Techniques
This list is by no means exhaustive and will be added to with examples
throughout the course.
1. With
flashcards/ohts/interactive
whiteboard
go
through
vocabulary with images one by one. If you are using an oht you can
cover over the vocabulary and images with “post its” and reveal
them one by one. To encourage speculation “slow reveal” or “quick
flash” images and vocabulary.
2. Present pupils with numbered/lettered images and vocabulary
separately on a sheet, oht or interactive whiteboard and ask them
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to match them.
If the vocabulary and images are
numbered/lettered this task can be done quickly by pupils using
mini whiteboards.
3. Present new vocabulary and ask pupils to work out pronunciation
drawing on their knowledge of phonemes and pronunciation rules.
4. When using an interactive whiteboard to present language, there
are many tools you may wish to use to make the presentation of
language more exciting. For example the spotlight and the screen.
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Appendix 1.
As-tu un animal?
J’ai ...
1
2
3
un chien
un chat
un lapin
4
5
6
un poisson un
hamster
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un
serpent
7
8
une souris une
arraigné
9
une
tortue
Notes
This type of resource can be exploited in may ways at presentation level. For
example:

Pupils should be encouraged to work out meaning of the
contextualising question “As-tu un animal?”. They should be made
aware that punctuation is the same in French and English for questions
and therefore recognise the phrase as a question.

Pupils should be encouraged to look for cognates (animal/serpent) and
near cognates (tortue/chat).

Pupils’ awareness to gender should be heightened. They should all
recognise “un” as number one. However, they need to be aware that it
also means a/an and that in French there are two ways of saying this
depending on the gender nouns. They may initially find this difficult to
grasp. Showing pupils that some words in English have gender and
eliciting more from them may be useful e.g. prince/princess,
actor/actress etc. When presenting this vocabulary it will be useful to
take a kinaesthetic approach and mime and over exaggerate the
difference between UN and UNE. For example, when you say “un”
squash you hands together as it is a short sound. For “une” stretch
you hands apart as it is a much longer sound. This will greatly aid
pronunciation and will support kinaesthetic learners.
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
There are many phonemes in the above vocabulary which you may
have covered or may wish to focus on. For example:
J’ai/arraigné
= sounds like ay
un chat/un chien
un poisson
= sounds like sh
= sounds like wa
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Appendix 2
Où habites-tu?
J’habite dans …
1
2
3
4
5
6
une
ferme
a.
un
bateau
d.
un
c. un igloo
appartement
b.
e.
un château
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une
maison
f.
Notes
Using mini whiteboards ask pupils to match the images to the French. For
example, 1b, 2f etc.
Discuss with pupils which strategies they used to help them work out which is
which. For example apart from house they all begin with the same letter in
French and English, some are cognates or near cognates, etc.
Pupils could guess pronunciation depending on which phonemes they have
learnt.
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Appendix 3
J’adore le collège. Mes matières
préférées sont les maths et
l’histoire.
J’aime aussi le
français et la géographie. Je
n’aime
pas
beaucoup
les
sciences
et je déteste la
musique.
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Notes
Show pupils text and images. Ask them to find the French in the text for the 6
subjects which the images represent.
Discuss with the class the strategies they used to help them.
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