A selection of free websites for young children learning
languages. These include English language sites, designed to
support children learning a new language, and websites for young
native speakers of other languages.
Languages include:
Review the sites before using them in your primary classroom and
take care to supervise children online. For helpful advice, read
Becta’s
guidelines on e-safety.
Arabic
Dutch
- Kid City
A cybertown for children where each building contains a different
activity and each visitor is a cybercitizen of the town.
Gaelic
-
BBC Alba
Details of educational websites available within BBC Alba for
children in Gaelic-medium education.
- Am Baile
The Gaelic Village
Website dedicated to culture and heritage of the Scottish Highlands
and Islands, managed by the Highland Council. Includes flash games
and comics for children and teachers' notes.
- BBC Colin and
Cumberland
Introduction to the Gaelic language with the characters Colin and
Cubmerland. Includes games and key Gaelic phrases.
Irish
-
BBC Primary Irish - Blaisín
Website accompanying the BBC NI schools radio series. Online
teachers' notes are available with creative ideas for curricular
activities.
- BBC
Colin and Cumberland
Introduction to the Irish language with the characters Colin and
Cubmerland. Includes games and key Irish phrases.
Italian
- Coloriage
Interactive colouring website with Italian colour vocabulary
- Il sito della Pimpa
Interactive website with online colouring, recipes, ecards and
simple games for practising numbers, colours and memory.
- Melevisione
Interactive website from the Italian children’s TV programme
Melevisione. Includes games, songs, makes and rhymes.
- RAI Junior
Children’s website from Italian broadcaster Rai. Interactive games
and videos.
Japanese
- Japan
21 Lesson plans
Downloadable lesson plans for classroom use. There are plans for a
variety of KS1 and KS2 cross-curricular lessons, including
traditional Japanese stories in literacy and origami in maths, as
well as a photobank.
- Japan Foundation London Language
Centre
The Japan Foundation website includes links for Japanese language
learning, teaching resources and information about Japanese in the
primary sector.
- Kids Web Japan
A website for children from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, designed to introduce 10-14 year olds living in other
countries to Japanese language and culture. The websites contains
interactive games about all aspects of Japanese culture, facts and
figures about Japanese life and eight lessons for Japanese language
learning.
- Primary Languages Training Zone
- Did you know you can download Japanese transcripts and audio
files for all the video clips featured in the Teachers Zone? Use
the download menu in the top right hand corner of each video
page.
- Ready
Steady NihonGO
Free online resource for teaching Japanese at Key Stage 2 based on
a curriculum linked scheme of work. Developed by the Japan Society
and the Japan Foundation London Language Centre.
Panjabi
- Advanced Centre
Punjabi
Website produced by Punjabi University. The 'Teaching Punjabi'
section features a wealth of online resources including
animated stories, animated pronunciation guides, rhymes, quizzes
and games around numbers, vocabulary and animals, and guides to
sentence structure.
Portuguese
- Duende
Interactive children’s website with games, songs, magic tricks,
music and online colouring.
- Key Stage 2 scheme of work for
Portuguese
Written and published by London Borough of Lambeth based on the
QCDA schemes of work for Key Stage 2 French, German and
Spanish.
-
TV Cultura - Alô Escola
Interactive website with online games from TV and radio broadcaster
Cultura.
Welsh
Multilanguage
- BBC CBeebies -
Story Circle
The World Story bookcase contains traditional tales in Arabic,
Bengali, Cantonese, Gaelic, Hausa, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian,
Somali, Swedish, Turkish, Urdu and Welsh, with English
translation.
- BBC Jam
Year 3 - 6 Music - listening to and making world music.
- BBC School Radio
- Music Clips Library - Geographical Locations. Stimulus sounds -
bank of sounds which can be used flexibly as stimulus for classroom
activities.
- Bilingualism
Matters
Advice and information for bilingual families based on current
language research.
- blen - Bilingualism and
languages/literacies education network
A non-profit
organisation with information about language education and
literacy. Including research and resources relating to primary
languages, EAL and science language and literacy. Also
provides information for parents and some multilingual activities
for children in Kids Corner.
- Celebrating
languages
Website from a Cambridge LA project,
featuring a video bank of pupils using their family
languages and resources relating to festivals linked to a
range of languages. All accompanied by downloadable sound
files and teachers notes. Languages include Afrikaans, Cantonese,
German, Italian, Korean, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Mandarin, Pashto,
Polish, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai and Zulu.
- Chain Stories
- A project for pupils in their first year of language learning.
Designed to enable them to carry out creative writing in their
mother tongue. Stories are then exchanged with other schools,
within a chain, for completion. (visit Chain Stories on
YouTube)
-
Channel 4 - We are from...
Find out what it would be like to grow up in an European country -
Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden and Turkey.
- EduComics
- Project on using web comics in education. Examines and builds
case studies and methodology on how digital comics can be used to
enhance learning and motivation. A comic software is available
through the website than can be used in language education.
- EuropaGo!
European Commission's website for young European citizens aged 10
to 14. This site gives access to interactive and educational games
on Europe and the European Union. Available in Danish, Dutch,
English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese,
Spanish, Swedish.
- Ictopus
Free support service for ICT in primary education. Features
'lessons to go' for a variety of subjects including primary
languages. The website also hosts a picture bank and various ICT
applications which are fully licensed for teachers and children to
use freely without copyright issues.
- The Language
Investigator
Site aimed at primary school teachers who are interested
introducing a multilingual dimension into their lessons.
- Languages
Online
Interactive tasks and games, plus worksheets for French, German,
Indonesian, Italian. From Department of Education and Early Child
Development in Victoria, US.
- Links in
Languages phonics guide
Short guide for teachers in exploiting phonics to enhance
language learning.
- London
2012
Teaching ideas exploring the global dimension with reference to the
London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
- Lullabies of
Europe
An EU Lingua project 'Languages from the cradle' collecting the
lullabies of Europe as an early language learning resource.
Available in English, Turkish, Italian, Danish, Greek, Romanian,
Czech.
- Mamalisa
Songs from around the world, rhymes, recipes and children's
poetry
- Modern Foreign
Languages Environment
Online service for languages teaching in Scottish schools developed
by Scottish CILT and Learning & Teaching Scotland. Creative
teaching ideas, resources and information for many languages.
- Modern Languages in the Primary School
Initiative (MLPSI)
The MLPSI, initially set up
by the Irish Department for Education and Science, aims to
introduce modern languages at primary level in Ireland. This
website has a wealth of resources for primary languages teachers
including best practice guidance, support for teaching and
learning, professional development and resources for Italian,
German, Spanish and French. and for the interactive
whiteboard.
- Multilingual
Songbook
Database of links to songs with lyrics. The website
has areas for links to resources in Cantonese, Czech, Danish,
Dutch, English, Esperanto, Finnish, French, Hungarian,Icelandic,
Indian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin,
Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and
Vietnamese.
- NALDIC
Vodcasts
Youtube video clips featuring multilingual
storytelling and practical advice on a variety of topics such
as how to integrate ICT and EAL.
- Naace Primary Big
Book Maker
Big Book Maker is a versatile resource which allows children to
make their own on-screen books. These can be saved to any computer
and used off-line and there is an option to add audio.
- PrimLangues
French Ministry of Education site for primary school teachers of
foreign languages. Includes resources for Arabic, English, German,
Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.
- Talk
To Your Baby
National Literacy Trust campaign to help develop young children’s
language and communication skills. Resources in Arabic, Bengali,
Chinese, English, French, Gujarati, Panjabi, Polish, Portuguese,
Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Welsh and blank version for other
languages.
- Vocal Union
Vocal Union is a programme that takes place within primary
education. This website features free non-copyright mp3 files and
lyrics to download for a range of French, Spanish, German and other
traditional songs. All material is suitable for Key Stages 1 and
2.