This week we had a visit from a teacher working for the PDST for Gaeilge. Each class group had a meeting with her and it was great to get tips and ideas for teaching Gaeilge. I’ve been using some of the ideas she gave us this week and they have worked really well. This was one idea which I’ve adapted for my class. (This could be made easier or more difficult depending on your own class.)
Verbs
First we practiced- mé, tú, sé, sí and put actions to each one. (Mé – pointing to yourself, Tú – pointing with two hands, Sé – pointing to a boy and Sí – pointing to a girl)
We then practiced the verbs – Bhí, Chuaigh, Chonaic and Chuala
The children came up with actions to go with each verb
- Bhí – thumbs pointing behind you
- Chuaigh – fingers walking down arm
- Chonaic – pointing to your eye
- Chuala – pointing to your ear.
People
We made a list of the people we knew as gaeilge – an garda, an muinteoir, an fear, an bhean, an sagart, an dochtúir, an rúnaí etc. (We also used the back page of Bun go Barr for a great list of other characters)
Doing
We often use ‘Bígí ag ….’ so the children have a large range of actions they know. (Ag snámh, ag damhsa, ag canadh, ag ithe, ag ól etc.)
Place
Finally we made a list of different places (starting with those we knew already – ar scoil, sa bhanc, ag an trá, sa pháirc.)
Sentences
Now we were ready to write full sentences. We started with normal ones and then wrote some ‘silly’ sentences.
Chuala mé an muinteoir ag canadh sa leithreas.
Chonaic mé an garda ag iascaireacht sa seipéal.
Bhí an rúnaí ag damhsa ag an trá.
The children wrote their ‘silly’ sentences and drew pictures to illustrate them. (This was great for assessment reasons as I could quickly check sentence structure as well as understanding).
(I also had a list on the board in different colours. First the children chose a verb (Chonaic mé, Bhí ______, Chuala mé.) followed by people in blue, doing in orange, places in green etc. (The children just needed to pick one from each list)
