Classroom etiquette  

Starter

Students sort pairs of classroom instructions or questions in the presentation, listing them under the ‘familiar’ or the ‘polite’ heading on the handout.

This activity is designed for use in any lesson dealing with classroom instructions, imperatives or questions in the ‘familiar’ or ‘polite’ form. The presentation should be projected so that it is visible to the whole class for the duration of the starter exercise. Students should copy/use the two-column table on the handout and then copy the commands on the presentation to their table, putting them in the appropriate columns.

This exercise may be used to introduce imperatives. Alternatively, it could support 7W3. The text of the presentation may be edited to target specific commands or even to change the selection of words and phrases. The Spanish and German versions use commonly-used questions.

Plenary

Discussion topics include:

• Polite and familiar commands – addressing a teacher, a friend or the class
• Commands to one or more than one person
• The need to adjust words within the command to match the form (for example, in French, ton, ta, tes, votre, vos)
• The importance of using the language in the classroom
• (In French) The acceptance of capital letters without accents.

Classroom etiquette presentation

Classroom etiquette handout