Topic title: Holidays
Year group: 8
When taught: Dec / Jan / Feb
What are we learning?
- How to describe holiday destinations in the present & imperfect past tenses
- How to understand and give information on a past holiday:
- When / how / who with
- Accommodation
- Activities
- Travel
- How to use the imperfect & perfect past tenses
- How to combine different tenses across the different skills
Why is this important to know?
- It expands pupils’ understanding of other cultures and German speaking countries, in particular popular holiday destinations abroad
- It allows pupils to transfer existing knowledge on verbs into other tenses – a crucial skill for communication
- It exposes pupils to key travel vocabulary – useful when abroad
Where does this link into our past and future learning?
- This links to vocabulary learnt in Year 7 on the countries & towns and revises use of adjectives
- Learning the perfect tense requires consolidation of the two key verbs ‘haben’ & ‘sein’ learnt in Year 7
- Our next topic looks at combining these tenses with the future tense, as well, which was covered at the end of Year 7 & start of Year 8
- In Year 9 and beyond, combining the tenses in independent writing and speaking are crucial stepping stones to access more complex grammar
- This topic deepens skills such as decoding new language and comparing and contrasting linguistic patterns, which are key to developing as a successful linguist
How will we be assessed on this topic?
- The end of term assessment will test vocabulary recall, dictation skills & reading aloud
What makes a strong piece of work in this topic? What are teachers hoping to see?
- Attention to detail in spelling and grammar
- A willingness to decode and put forward theories on tense formation and German syntax
- An ability to understand others talking about their holidays in speaking, reading and listening tasks
- At the highest level, pupils will be able to adapt and form their own sentences, displaying awareness of the new tenses
What key words are there in this topic?
You could use the wordwall activities linked on Satchel to revise actively
What can I try if I want to stretch and challenge myself on this topic?
languages online – grammar practice of the perfect tense