KS3 DISSEMINATION AND DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMME
Strategic Learning Network
Bishop’s Stortford & Sawbridgeworth
KS3 PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR
GRAMMAR-BASED STARTERS
June 2009
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STARTERS
SPELLING
1. Spelling / alphabet
Words on screen. Words are numbered. Teacher spells out words very quickly. Pupils write
down the number of the word.
GENDER
2.To practise gender agreement
This usually works really well, because students are interested in finding out who is being
talked about. Teacher puts lots of words on the screen together with article to indicate
gender. Class then asks the teacher: ‘Was ist dein/deine/dein Lieblings_____?’ and reply
‘Mein/meine/mein Lieblings_________ ist________.’
Would also work in French: ‘Quel(le) est ton/ta _________ préférée?’
3. Fall off the ladder (gender/accuracy) - students draw a set of stairs sideways on.
Students write 5 words or sentences, one on each step. Teacher has own set of stairs on
board. Teacher listens to students saying all 5 items and points at the steps, going up one at a
time. Student falls down if a mistake is made and teacher draws stick person falling off. If
the student gets to the top a smiley stick person is drawn on the top step.
4. Descriptions of people – adjectives
Teacher supplies list of teachers and adjectives. Pupils choose appropriate adjectives from
list to describe each teacher. Pupil whose list is closest to class teacher’s wins.
5. IDENTITY PARADE -Simple adjective starter (fem/masc endings – not good for
single-sex school)
Teacher calls out adjectives. Pupils stand up if they think the adjective describes them.
OR – allocate students a celebrity/cards with celebrity picture + 5 adjectives in English for
information.
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6. Revision starter – any theme (gender + tense).
The classic ‘I went to market and I…’ Either in pairs, or whole class with teacher.
E.g. ‘Ich habe mein Bett gemacht’.
‘Ich habe mein Bett gemacht und ich habe Staub gesaugt
‘Ich habe mein Bett gemacht, ich habe Staub gesaugt und ich habe den Tisch
gedeckt.’ etc
POLITENESS
7. Fully clothed (using polite forms)
Teacher brings lots of clothes, student to name items, which teacher will have to wear, only if
student uses the polite form. Eg: Sie tragen einen Rock.
POSSESSION
8. Guessing Game (possessive pronoun “my”)
Guessing game. Pupils write down the name of their favourite subject/food/colour. Teacher
guesses – ‘Dein Lieblingsfach ist…’. If the teacher is wrong, pupil must correct – ‘Nein, mein
Lieblingsfach ist…’
9. Revises school-subjects, mein/dein/sein.
As above. Can be set up as competition with class – class gets a point every time the teacher is
wrong.
Worked well with low-ability Yr 8
10. Basic guessing game – works for everything (pencil items) – accusative tense in
German/ un/e + gender endings.
What am I thinking of / What have I got in my hand? Have a bag/pencil case with items in it.
Put your hand in to choose one item and students guess which one. Send a student out of the
classroom once all items have been seen. He says which item is missing.
More able pupils should always be encouraged to reply in full sentences.
E.g. ‘Haben sie einen Hund’?
‘Sie haben eine Schlange’.
Variation: 10 bags full of items, students to stand up, if they cannot guess the items, they sit
down, last person standing wins the game.
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TENSES, CONJUGATIONS & PRONOUNS
11. Verb endings - put pronouns on one side of board, teacher says a conjugated verb.
Students recognise the pronoun for each verb; Variation – do it on mini white boards?
12. Hot and cold chant using verb endings – student sent out of the room, object hidden in
the room, students in classroom chant the verb endings for a certain tense and they get
louder as the person get closer to the object.
13. Pupil rounders - 4 students go one into each corner of the room, teacher has a list of
infinitives on the board, the class has to be silent, teacher says pronoun, 1st pupil to shout the
verb with the correct ending moves clockwise into the next corner, kicking someone out to
return to the main class. This student is then replaced. Aim is to move through the 4 bases
without being made to sit down.
14. Revision starter – verbs
Teacher supplies list of verb forms. Class decides whether they are correct or not.
15. Teacher guess- Verb venire (3rd person) + opinions (he likes… food)
Display list of teachers and list of places/food items. Pupils guess who comes from where.
Language ‘il/elle vient de _________’. Would only work with more able pupils
True or false as a variation, maybe on students.
16. Describe the teacher – (use of 3rd person). Students are given a teacher’s name on a
piece of paper – they have to describe the teacher. Provide verbs / adjectives on board OR
end of topic. Variation – group writing.
17.Elephant drinking wine - tenses – draw an elephant and a full glass of wine: The elephant
will drink/ is going to drink wine. Then make the wine glass half full: is drinking wine. Finally
the glass is empty: has drunk the glass. See SLN rep for PowerPoint. Could be extended into a
writing task / homework.
18. Ich wohne – first person
Pupils say where they live – ‘Ich wohne in…..’. Teacher guesses whether true or false.
Competition with class.
This kind of guessing game works with anything. E.g. pupils could say where they spent their
holidays (in past tense), what animals they have etc.
19. Vocal Mexican wave
Mexican wave with your voices in numbers or alphabet – 1,2,3,4, etc, Each student follows on
with a number but the wave starts again if a mistake is made. Could be done with conjugations.
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20. Grammatical chairs. Pronouns – verb endings
Allocate verb endings to students. Chairs in a circle. When teacher says the pronoun, student
with the correct ending has to move a chair up and they will end up sitting on each other! The
idea is that they get back to their chair.
21. Verbs
Most year-groups have problems identifying verbs. Have text on screen and ask to identify
verbs. Particularly useful in German, because of word-order issues.
22. Tenses
Teacher says sentence, class supplies appropriate time-expression, e.g. gestern,
normalerweise, morgen.
Leads to practice of word order after time expression.
23. More on tenses
Teacher supplies list of infinitives and list of predicates. Class produces sentences in past,
present or future.
E.g.
bleiben
nach London
Fahren
in einem Hotel
etc.
etc.
‘Wir sind in einem Hotel geblieben’
24. More on verbs – piece of long paper stuck to the wall
Class builds up its own data base. Can spend a few minutes at the beginning of the lesson
discussing yesterday’s activities or what they will do after school. Any new verbs are added
to the data base, which can be a simple OHT for the technologically challenged. The
augmented data base is used as the base the next time you do the activity.
STRUCTURES: SENTENCE- LEVEL
25. Holidays
1st halves of sentences on the screen, e.g.
Das Wetter war… Wir sind…. Das Hotel war… Ich habe…. Später habe ich….
Teacher supplies second half of sentence and class guesses whether the sentence is true or
false, i.e. whether the teacher is telling the truth about his holidays.
Leads to partnerwork and pupils describing their own holidays.
Works well with able pupils. Also match up with 2nd part of sentence.
26. Question words
What’s the question? Teacher supplies an answer, class supplies the question.
E.g. ‘Die Lampe steht auf dem Tisch’
Question ‘Wo steht die Lampe’?
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27. More on questions
Teacher shows a picture of something, and invites the class to produce questions about it.
Depending on the ability of the class, teacher supplies question words.
STRUCTURES: TEXT- LEVEL
GENERAL VOCAB
28.. Starter without words, focusing on opinions.
Teacher shows pictures of school subjects.
Pupils say names of subjects. Teacher mimes opinion of the subject
Revision of school-subject vocabulary.
Leads on to vocabulary for opinions and partnerwork
Works well with low ability
29. Spinners – opinions. Students make a spinner on a recent topic covered. Students spin the
wheel and challenge their partners to say the word or phrase represented on the spinner or to
put it into a sentence
30. Magic triangles – draw a square and divide into as many triangles as you want. Write a
word/phrase/question in the TL under each line of the triangle and the English translation
over the line (or the other way round). Cut the triangles up and students need to put the
triangles back together matching the 2 phrases correctly.
J’aime
Yes
I like
Oui
Je deteste
I love
J’adore
I hate
31. Vocabulary
Works for any topic. Start with a list of words. Class guesses whether each word is related
to the topic or not. Good way of introducing new vocabulary. Encourages pupils to develop
their guessing skills.
Variant. Start with list of words, class guesses whether the words are positive or negative in
context. E.g. ‘Fett’ would be negative in the context of healthy eating.
Variant at Christmas. List of Christmas vocabulary. Class guesses whether each item is
something to eat, something to drink, or something else.
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32. Vocabulary
List of initial letters on screen. Teacher mimes the object. Class guesses the word.
Variant – to focus on spelling – list of words each with two letters missing. Class supplies
letters.
Works with low ability.
33. Vocabulary – another mime game
Worked well for health. Teacher says an ailment and mimes it, but sometimes mimes the
wrong one. Class guesses whether right or wrong. They usually find this amusing. Durchfall is
always successful.
34. Vocabulary
Again, to introduce new vocabulary. List of words on screen with meanings mixed up. Class
has one minute to match up. Teacher then assesses the class response - covert message –
you can always have a decent guess at something.
EXTRA
35. To encourage production of longer sentences
Competition between two halves of class. Who can produce the most interesting sentence on
a given theme?
38. Bish bosh bash game –interactive software. Please request from your SLN rep.
39. Pupil chooser or random –interactive software. Please request from your SLN rep.
40. Fridge magnet–interactive software. Click on letters and students have to drag around in
the interactive board to make up a word. Please request from your SLN rep
41. Hangman. –interactive software. Please request from your SLN rep
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Members of the East Herts SLN:
Kate Muscroft, Birchwood High School, Bishop’s Stortford
kmuscroft@birchwoodhigh.org.uk
Ruth Bravo, The Bishop’s Stortford High School
ruth.bravo@tbshs.herts.sch.uk
Elke Davies-von-Mering, Hockerill Anglo-European College, Bishop’s Stortford
DaviesE@hockerill.herts.sch.uk
Barbara King, The Leventhorpe School
b.king@leventhorpe.herts.sch.uk
Elena Alexe, St Mary’s School, Bishop’s Stortford
e.alexe@stmarys.net
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