Talking About Thanksgiving Foods and Preferences in French and Spanish

Posted by Diane

November 10, 2009

November is the ideal time to teach French and Spanish learners about food. Tukey, stuffing, and pumpking pie . . . mmmmm! Get your K-6 language learners using the target language for authentic communication this Thanksgiving holiday. Find out what foods they like and what foods they don’t like through highly structured pair work/interviews.

Younger children need manipulatives for hands-on learning. Use realia that they can both see and touch: plastic toy foods, cans of food from your pantry, empty food cartons, etc. Use a lot of TPR (Total Physical Response) to get your students physically moving the food items: pass, roll, toss, smell, put, etc. Picture visuals are effective, too.

Make the concept of expressing preferences as concrete as the food (noun) vocabulary. Use gestures, facial expressions, and pictures to denote various opinions. For younger children, begin with just 2 choices:

I like . . ./I don’t like . . .

J’aime. . . /Je n’aime pas . . .

Me gusta . . . /No me gusta . . .

From there, you can expand and enrich vocabulary as the children grow and advance. (I love, I don’t really like, etc.) We’ve got some new conversational downloads that make partner activities clear and concrete for kids.

French Conversational Activities About Thanksgiving Foods

Spanish Conversational Activities About Thanksgiving Foods

To receive a free download of French and Spanish Thanksgiving worksheets, sign up for the Foreign Language House e-newsletter (right sidebar.) Absolutely free!

Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/636352

Foreign Language Fun, French, Holiday, Spanish, thanksgiving

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.