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Guidance on implementation of the KS2 Framework for languages

Education of the ear: The value of games and songs

Children benefit from frequent interaction with the sounds of the language. This helps them to educate their ear into recognising the new sounds and patterns of the language that they are learning. Songs and rhymes are a rich source of material for this process.

Spotlight: Using traditional songs to train the ear Children in Year 3 listen to the song 'Sur le pont d'Avignon' a number of times and try to pick out the rhyming sounds: pont, Avignon, l'on, rond, font. Each time they hear this sound, they tap their knees. O3.1 Listen and respond to simple stories, finger rhymes and songs

Children can also join in with finger rhymes at any point of the day and this can offer frequent short but intensive encounters with the new language which everyone finds enjoyable .

Games create meaningful contexts which make sense to children and which engage their interest and enthusiasm. Games:

• are enjoyable and promote learning;
• create helpful frameworks for further learning;
• create situations of real language use;
• engage the whole attention of the learner;
• facilitate the necessary repetition of language;
• develop interactive competence, confidence and fluency.

Using game formats for learning develops a subtle linking in the children's mind of the pleasure, excitement and enjoyment of the game with the learning of the language. Many standard game formats are very flexible and can be adapted to a range of language learning activities e.g. bingo with numbers or pictures, noughts and crosses, dominoes, battleships, Chinese whispers, snap, pelmanism, happy families, odd-one-out, Kim's game.

Games offer valuable opportunities to use the language for real purposes and provide enjoyable occasions for repeating and reinforcing the language, supporting retention and recall. Songs and rhythm can help children to memorise sequences of language. They internalise the structures and patterns of the language almost subconsciously. These 'language chunks' can be recalled and analysed at a later date and provide helpful building blocks for future learning.