Comment to blog post by perfettowritingroom.blogspot.com.au

Please visit:http://perfettowritingroom.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/tpt-tips-tuesday-finding-your-niche-and.html

As a TpT seller,  I am getting better at aligning my products to my own style.  My best sellers use colour coding to tag patterns in grammar of language whether it be products in English, Italian, French, German, Spanish or Portuguese.  Colours help highlight patterns for counting in 10s for number charts, gender and number for nouns as appropriate masculine, feminine and in some cases neuter, and verb groups like the Italian verbs ending in -ARE, -ERE and -IRE suffixes.  My TpT buyers comment on the simple but at the same time effective way this assists beginners (including the strugglers).  So, I have to agree that once I found my style - I have used colour to add value to my TpT products as well as make them more eye catching and more memorable as my own creations at my TpT Store.

What have you discovered as fellow TpT sellers?  Maybe you are a newbiw still learning the basics of products, blogs and even pintetest?  Maybe you are alreday getting a sense of your own TpT style? Comment if you care to share :-)




Cheers,

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Italienfrancese
http://italienfrancesetpt.blogspot.com.au/
All May donations donated to Crohn's & Colitis Australia for awareness month to support my husband, other patients and their families and make everyday more liveable.

Checklist of 12 common sentence mistakes

Examples for English speakers learning Italian 

Sentences start with capital letters

This is an easy one, since it matches English and most languages.  However, it is one of the most common mistakes made by beginner language learners.  Hence, this is an important teaching point at the beginning of every writing assignment to help eliminate careless errors.

Word endings match in gender and number

This is more challenging for beginning learners of Italian. As English speakers, this is a challenge to remember and check properly as it is not part of the English language.

Verb conjugations for correct pronoun and tense

This is similar to English.  Verbs vary in both English and Italian.  However, there are more variations in Italian.  Because Italian has so many verb conjugations, Italian often dropped the pronouns before the verb.  This leaves the pronoun as implied for the listener/speaker.  So occasionally, the reader needs to determine the context, where the verb offer the only clue as to the pronoun dropped.

For example, “to have” varies between the two languages: bold shows variations

English	Italian
I have	io ho
you have	tu hai
he / she has	lei / lui ha
we have	noi abbiamo
you have	voi avete
they have	loro hanno

Use of capitals of time words days and months, language and nationalities etc.

In English, days of the week, months of the year, languages and nationalities all require a capital letter even when they are not at the start of the sentence. In Italian, the days of the week, months of the year, languages and nationalities never require a capital, unless they are at the start of the sentence.  In contrast, countries always require a capital letter.  So, beginners take time to remember only capitalize countries and not languages or nationalities.

Word order of nouns and adjectives

In English, word order is consistent: ALL adjectives followed by nouns. In Italian, there is a general rule: MOST adjectives follow nouns, because there are exceptions.

For example: ‘I have a black dog’  In Italian: ‘Io ho un cane nero.’

Here, the colour ‘black’ follows the noun ‘dog’ But some key adjectives break with this pattern.

See: ‘I have a beautiful dog’ In Italian: ‘Io ho un bel cane.’

Sentences end with full stops

Just like the English language, ALL sentences end with full stops.  It is surprising how easy this is, yet it is frequently forgotten when writing in a foreign language.

7 ways to expand vocabulary.

 Purpose: Making word wall encourages students to record new vocabulary, use a greater variety of words and revise words regularly.

Students create dictionary in back of exercise book.

Turn Italian writing book upside and open it from the back.  Fold/ rule of 2 columns (English and Italian) on each page.  If you have a bigger book, use last 26 pages in book.  If not, put 2-3 letters to a page, for example, A-C, D-F, G-I, J-M, N-P, Q-T, U-V, W-Z over 8 pages.

For example, a double page of 2 sets of 2 columns

A-C		D-F
l’ananas (m)	pineapple	il delfino	dolphin
la banana	banana	l’elefante (m)	elephant
ciao	hello	la foca	seal

§  Group letters as you think appropriate.

§  Keep in mind that in an Italian-English dictionary there are only 21 letters used for most words.

§  Exceptions include: jeans, windsurfing, koala, xylophone and yoghurt from borrowed words.

Decorate a bulletin board as a literacy resource for your students.

Either use Italian flag colours (red, white and green), Italian soccer team (light blue) or theme colours (depends your theme may be sports, places, foods, hobbies etc).  A visually appealing board will create more interest. Decide whether you want student to create words as whole page tiles (in A4 or US letter etc) or cut strips in half length ways.  Ask students to write clearly for legibility but add some colour or draw a symbol to show meaning of the word.

For example,

l’arcobaleno	l’Italia
punto   .	il punto interrogative ?
+ più	- meno
* per	/diviso
il sorris:-) or il sorriso	l@ chiocciol@

Students play Scattegories for verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

Based on the board game, students are given a category or theme and have a time limit to brainstorm known vocabulary.

·       You may vary the time limit according to the category difficulty. Start with 2 minutes.  Extend time if they have prior knowledge of topic.  Leave time shorter if you have to determine prior knowledge at the beginning of a new topic.

·       Decide your own scoring system. 1 point per word. ½ point if word are missing the article/not showing gender and number) Extra points if showing mixed gender and number options. i.e. la mela =1 , mela = 0.5,  la mela/le mele = 2.5 points

For example,

A-Z of fruits: l’ananas, la banana, la frutta, il limone, la mela etc.

Smaller themes such as time: lunedì, gennaio, il secondo, la settimana, l’anno

3 letter words beginning with B: la banana, il bambino, il bue, il buio etc.

Small words 3 letters or less: a, di, de, da, fa, ma, io, tu, lui, noi, te, me, dio, mio etc.

·       Option: students may use a dictionary, until they become more confident.  However, dictionary work will slow students while they look up and then copy vocabulary onto game sheet.

Teach with implicit teaching sentences:

changing to singular, plural, negative and affirmative across all topics and grammar rules.

Emphasis in the beginning will give students a strong foundation and allow using language confidently.

For example,

Simple sentence:

Il gatto beve il latte. (singular/affirmative)

Variations:

I gatti bevono il latte. (plural/affirmative)

Il gatto non beve il latte. (singular/negative)

I gatti non bevono il latte. (singular/negative)

Brainstorm themes for prior knowledge: animals, colours, sports, food etc.

Students share all prior vocabulary and/or grammar that could relate before introducing additional vocabulary.  This activity encourages linking words between topics as opposed to pidgeon holing and separating vocabulary. Student may volunteer borrowed words into English such as Spaghetti.  Teacher may need to give articles from gender and number patterns to complete list as brainstorm.

For example,

Topic of Food

la pizza, la pasta, gli spaghetti, le lasagne

New words to try to predict:

il latte, l’acqua, il caffè, il pollo, il gelato, il zucchino

New words that are less likely to be guessed:

la bistecca, il panino, il pane, il pomodoro, la lattuga, il cetriolo, il sedano, la zuccca.

Introduce variety of texts for reader’s comprehension: news, sports, history are many topics easily available.

In newspaper, books and online, there are many authentic texts on many topics.  Perhaps your students are more interested in tv, movies or sports than reading about historical events in Italy.  If you can engage their attention, it will be halfway to learning a new topic.  It will halve the teaching load over constantly retuning them in to the topic even lesson.

Possible ideas:

l’uomo d’accaio – Man of steel (film)

Francesco Totti (in newspaper and online – soccer)

lo squalo ( movie – Jaws)

Italia’s got talent (TV)

Masterchef Italia (TV)

Mythbusters (TV)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV)

Art Attack (TV)

A stimulus photo for students to build their colour vocabulary.

Students can start from basic colours:

from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black and white.

Extend colours by topic: Oympics medals, more unusual colours in paints (turquoise, sky blue etc.) Activites to expand colours: paint palette, paint by numbers, rainbows. Students draw a paint palette and label colours.  Students draw a symbol / picture of a new vocabulary word and make into a paint by number. Students can complete own or swap with a partner.  Extension activities include writing a descriptive sentence. More complex sentences can describe colours, as well as size, and shape.  Advanced students can include similies such as green as grass and blue as the sky.

What activities do you teach to build vocabulary?
Please comment on favourite activities and/or which ones you would like to try next.

 

How do expand on beginners' vocabulary?  Please comment with your favourite ideas :-)