German Dictionary 1

Lesson Context

The children may have used the dictionaries in 'People 3' but this is the first lesson which focuses on dictionary use. They will learn different types of words and will be able to find the different types in the dictionary, as well as translating the English/German words. The children will also learn 10 new animals and will complete a task where they use their dictionaries to find new adjectives to describe the animals 

Resources

Powerpoint presentation

'Animals and Numbers' flashcards for the starter activity

Hand outs which the children can take home for revision  

German-English Dictionaries - I use the 'Collins German School Dictionary' but any medium or larger sized dictionary is fine:

https://www.little-linguist.co.uk/collins-german-school-dictionary.html

Slide 2 - Main Introduction

Communicate LO and SC

Slide 3 - Starter activity - Das Kartenspiel - revision of  'Animals' and 'Numbers' vocabulary 

Explain that the children should be using the 'Lob' words on slide 3 and let them get on with it. Reward children for using the 'Lob' words.

Slide 4 - Quote from Goethe

Discuss this quote with the children. As they are learning German, they are becoming more aware of English. This lesson will highlight that as the children will be looking at the different word types in English and German

Slides 5 - 6 - Types of Word

Go through these slides with the children, giving other examples as you feel is needed. In the dictionary, the word type is indicated by the letters in brackets. These follow straight after the word in the dictionary. Point out that in the German 'half' of the dictionary, a noun is indicated by its gender (m, f, nt, pl). In the English half, a noun is indicated simply with an 'n' and the German gender is given after the German noun translation 

Slide 7 - Examples Slide

I have put all of the examples from the previous two slides so that you can question the children about types of words which weren't the focus of the previous two slides. In the blue example, you could ask what type of words 'like' and 'grapes' are. You could even get the children to mark on their hand outs what type of word each one is

Slide 8 - Dictionary Work

German to English

Using the grid on the bottom of the front page of their hand outs, get the children to find the 7 German words in their dictionaries, translate them and identify what kind of word they are. You may want to go through the first example with them. 'Klasse' has 2 different meanings

English to German

Repeat this activity in the grid at the top of the back of their hand outs, emphasising that the children will now need to use the other half of the dictionary

Slides 9 - 18 - New animals

'Sag mir nach' the vocabulary with the children. You may want to ask some occasional translation questions such as:

The insect is small

The human is clever

You may also want to give the children a few minutes to memorise the new vocabulary and do a challenge where whoever can remember the most wins a prize 

Slide 19 - Animals and Adjectives

Using the 'The ____ is ____' format, get the children to fill in the boxes on the back of their hand outs, coming up with a new adjective from their dictionaries to describe each animal. Illustrate this with the example on the slide - we have not used the word 'winzig' before but it is a good word to describe the mouse

Give the children around 10 minutes to complete this and afterwards randomly select and reward accurate sentences that have good new adjectives

Slide 20 - Dictionary Hangman

This is slightly different to what the children have done before as they will need to use their dictionaries. The teacher does the hangman and dashes. Follow the format 'The ____ is _____' but in German. For example, you could use 'Die Eule ist anmutig' (the owl is graceful). As the children get more letters, they can start to use their dictionaries. The winner is the first person to guess the English translation of the German sentence

Assessment and Evidence

Observe and ask questions

Refer back to the learning objective and success criteria after the 'hangman' activity

Check achievement of the success criteria when you are on slide 21 by questioning and rewarding randomly selected children (using lollipop sticks)