Lesson 5: French detectives in the kitchen
Using language detective skills to decode an unknown text in French, unpicking the meaning through context, identifying cognates and near cognates, and recognising known vocabulary, before following the recipe to make ratatouille.
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Learning objective
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Before the lesson
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Lesson plan
Ask the children to work in small groups to come up with a list of as many language detective skills as they can, giving an example of each.
Circulate while the children are discussing to assess the children's understanding and prompt on examples.
Invite each group to explain one of their language detective skills.
Language detective skills include:
Remembering a word or a word that looked very similar.
- Cognates and near-cognates (words that are the same or very similar in both French and English (e.g. un éléphant - an elephant)
Context (for example, if you are learning about food, it is more likely that the word has something to do with food).
Layout - some information layouts are easily recognisable and can give you a clue what the words might be about (birthday invitations).
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Belinda has been a French and Spanish teacher based in Bath for more than 15 years. She has delivered a range of courses for teachers and PGCE students and is particularly passionate about weaving language, culture and global learning across the curriculum. Having previously worked in travel publishing, she is a keen explorer and nature lover with a fondness for all things South America.
Belinda has created topics on introductions through puppets, playground games, and has created a French science lesson on the circle of life.
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