Lisa Stevens provides a list of favorite activities and resources for teaching languages. These include using props, games, stories, songs, crafts and cooking activities. She emphasizes making language learning fun and inclusive for all students through a variety of engaging methods such as squishy balls, silly voices, role playing, outdoor games and celebrations of different cultures.

1. A FEW OF
OUR
FAVOURITE
THINGS.
Lisa Stevens
The Language Show 2022

2. https://youtu.be/5VxIwyD06Jo

3. SQUISHY
BALL
• attract attention
• randomise answering
• pass the ball
• choose vocab items
• target practice
• fidget toy
• stress relief

4. PROPS
• encourages involvement
• wow moments
• memory hooks
• spread the joy

5. modelling language
‘safety blanket’
modelling behaviour
MY ‘SIDEKICKS’

6. GAMES -
BEAT THE
TEACHER
• only repeat if it’s true
• if I can make the class say the
wrong word, I win the point.
• if the class aren’t fooled, they win
a point
• set number of points that wins
• decide how lenient you’ll be!

7. GAMES • Silly voices
• Best impression
• Búscame algo….
• ¿Quién tiene…?
• 21
• Tenis /Squash

8. MAKING THINGS

9. Spanish -
Spring 1
We’ve been using our scientific knowledge to help us in our Spanish unit Los
Planetas. To celebrate our learning we’ve made concertina books describing the
planets.
Mercurio es
un planeta
pequeño y
rápido muy
cerca del Sol.
Saturno es un
planeta rojo y
bastante
grande que
tiene anillos.
Plutón es un planeta
minúsculo y frío muy
lejos del Sol.
La Tierra es un
planeta azul y
verde bastante
cerca del Sol.

10. DOING RESEARCH
festivals – video
https://youtu.be/FxBCUt67-ik

12. RESEARCHING
HISPANIC HEROES
César Chavez
Frida Kahlo / Picasso/ Miró
Gloria Estefan
Ellen Ochoa
Sonia Sotomayor
Lin-Manuel Miranda
https://youtu.be/ZypUTsEh1-o Intro
https://youtu.be/nbwc2DYofkI Sp/Eng
https://youtu.be/TH3g1qe_kko Interview
Isabella Springmühl Tejada

13. IMITATIN
G
MIRÓ
AND
PICASSO

14. ACTING
• role play
• silly voices
• stories
• grammar

15. PROSODY
Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene unos guantes,
Doña Pito Piturra
Muy elegantes
.
Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene un sombrero,
Doña Pito Piturra
Con un plumero.
story –based on Yummy Yucky -
https://www.lightbulblanguages.co.uk/resources/
PrimarySpanish/yucky-yummy-v2.ppt

16. SINGING
• community
• all involved
• low risk
• catchy
• ‘background’
• easy to use

17. https://youtu.be/tOj4hEk2CtU
https://youtu.be/yW9zLWBkkqk
from Lightbulb Languages
Unit 10
https://youtu.be/C4fREj60Crk
https://rockalingua.com/videos/parts-body
https://youtu.be/iafPLu3fLlc
https://youtu.be/nymD4tp_emw
https://youtu.be/mlBZeNKCbSI
https://youtu.be/OonqrUZCef4

18. Hello to all the children of the world.
https://youtu.be/Hsbfw-h4euw
Hands of the World project – How far we’ll
go!
https://youtu.be/FvNXGr6SFL0
Let’s Go Cultural! Hello song
https://youtu.be/JSV1Ggcut6o

19. OUTDOOR LEARNING – READING/COMPREHENSION,
RECALL, RELAY

20. OUTDOOR LEARNING – A ‘SAFARI’

21. STORIES –
FROM A BOOK

22. STRANGE ANIMALS
Animals disguise themselves as other
animals
http://lisibo.com/2019/04/strange-animals/

24. https://www.slideshare.net/lisib
o/year-3-spanish-story-making
https://www.slideshare.net/lisibo/
senor-cabeza-naranja-mod
BOOK

25. STORIES – WHEN
SEÑORA STEVENS
GOES OFF ON A
TANGENT!
• washing
• false friend mishaps
• geography
• travel stories
• word origins
• current affairs

26. BEING INQUISITIVE

27. CULTURAL CAPITAL / SOCIAL
JUSTICE

28. PHONICS
© Jenny Bell, Sue Cave and Jean Haig
• sounds and
actions
• make words
• letters and sounds
• predict spelling
• spell with actions
Rachel Hawkes

29. POPULAR PHONICS
IDEAS
mirrors – look at your mouth
missing letters
find a word that…
sort by sound (venn colours)
pa pe pi po pu

30. SORTING
- tangible things
- by gender
- by sound
- by word class
- by category

31. Spotting patterns
from LightBulbLanguages Unit
16
cognates
identifying
gender
discuss
English/Spanish
false friends
reinforcing
English
vocabulary
do children
know words that
are borrowed?

32. from LightBulbLanguages
• patterns
• relationships
• links to
history/geography
• not limited to
languages here

33. WRITING
• writing in the air
• using
whiteboards
• using cards
• using support
grids
Secret sentence Fading sentence

34. WRITING
Play with language
Rewrite stories
Apply grammatical knowledge
Models to new versions
Adding ‘bells and whistles’

35. OTHER
EXAMPLES

36. Spanish -
Spring 1
At the end of Mi pueblo we made comic strips using the verb IR, transport and places in
town. We challenged ourselves to extend our writing using time phrases and previous
learning.

37. • Secret sentence
• Trapdoor
• Last One Standing
• En mi pueblo hay…
• Mi ciudad

38. ACCESS FOR ALL

39. “SHOWING OFF”
Twitter/website
Padlet
WriteAway
Partner schools
On the wall
“Leaving a legacy”

40. CELEBRATI
NG THE JOY
OF
LANGUAGE
S

41. LANGUAGES
There are so many languages; I can't count there's so much.
There's Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, African and Dutch.
There are so many languages
In this world
But very few of them have I been told.
There's Spanish and French
I'm sure,
And Dutch, Maori and many more.
There are so many languages, every one is unique.
There are so many languages about which we can all speak.

43. CELEBRATING
LANGUAGES
• -European Day of Languages
(September)
• International Mother Language Day
(February)
• World Book Day
• “We all smile in the same language”
• Language Leaders
• Book Award

44. DISCOVERING
ARABIC

46. ON ALL OUR
DOORS
Year 2 are a very linguistically and
culturally diverse year group!

47. LANGUAGE
PORTRAITS
LOST WOR(L)DS -
https://www.multilingualism-in-schools.net/
https://www.multilingualism-in-
schools.net/language-portraits/
“Essentially, a language portrait is a tried and tested way
to encourage children to talk about their different
languages, and how they form a part of their identity. The
premise is simple – you choose one colour for each
language you consider part of your identity, and colour in
the outline of a person, in any way you want.”
• ISA Padlet https://padlet.com/nocilla13/ISA
• WBD Padlet https://padlet.com/MrsWoodDHT/zfwygb46bn62jf6u
• Portfolio https://padlet.com/nocilla13/spport21

49. AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BOOKS.
https://padlet.com/MrsWoodDHT/zfwygb46bn62jf6u
For World Book Day (March
3rd) the whole school decided
to travel around the world in
80 (mostly story) books.
Classes explored the
geography, customs and
people of the stories they
read.
They also explored the
language of at least one of the
countries in their books.
Their learning was marked on
this Padlet map.

50. CHILDREN ALSO BROUGHT IN BOOKS THAT MEANT SOMETHING TO
THEM – IN THEIR LANGUAGE, FROM THEIR HERITAGE OR FROM A
COUNTRY THEY VISITED.

51. We also wore the colours of flags of countries that
are important or mean something to us.

52. WORLD
BOOK DAY –
A
RECORDED
MULTILINGU
AL STORY
https://www.loom.com/share/7e7ab8218157471f90778360d7a543
The Very
Hungry
Caterpillar in
our five
languages.

54. MAKING LINKS WITH
OTHERS
• Postcrossing
• Erasmus+ project – Let’s Go Cultural!

55. LETTER
WRITING
Letter writing and card
making was very much in
evidence prior to Christmas!
Years 2, 5 and 6 wrote
letters and the whole school
made cards for their friends
in Austria, Greece, Spain
and Turkey.
Year 2 even made pom
poms!

56. RESEARCH ABOUT CHRISTMAS
Year 3 spent a wonderful morning in December finding out what
was happening in our partner schools.
It was lovely to use materials that had been shared with us –
photos, videos and also food (to look at!)
They were fascinated by all the traditions and customs, and were
full of questions!
Each child made a poster with their three favourite things.
We listened to seasonal music from the countries as we worked.
https://youtu.be/gsvJo0nlpF4

57. VIRTUAL LET’S GO CULTURAL!
CONFERENCE
Whitehouse Common hosted the
Virtual Let’s Go Cultural! conference in
January.
Children loved meeting their peers via
Teams, sharing songs and stories, finding out
about culture and playing games!

58. PAN CON TOMATE
Year 3 explored a typical
Spanish recipe in their DT
lessons.
In preparation they listened to
a story from Sra Stevens.
They also found out about a
Spanish chef, Carme
Ruscaleda.

59. LUNCH AT 10 POMEGRANATE STREET
In assembly, we read the
story Lunch at 10
Pomegranate Street
which is about a building
in which everyone is
cooking lunch, each with
a recipe from their own
heritage or culture.
https://www.loom.com/share/ba
199c2f0c0d401f8b54a570a4bfc

60. THE GREAT
WCPS
RECIPE
Inspired by the story, we are creating
our own Whitehouse Common
Primary School recipe book filled with
our favourite recipes.

61. AND SOME OF THE CHILDREN MADE ME
THEIR RECIPES TO TASTE!

62. LISA STEVENS
Twitter @lisibo
lisibo@me.com
Website: www.lisibo.com