Big Bear Banter

big bear
Our Teddy Talk activities for nurseries have just grown up!

Big Bear Banter is a series of activities for pupils in P1 to P3  who are new to English.  They include flashcard activities, story activities and using songs and rhymes. There are a host of different topics and links to further resources.

The BBB resources are now part of the New to English EAL Induction Pack for Primary. The pack now includes  links  to online resources eg. online flashcards, animated stories, YouTube videos, songs and interactive games.

N.B. This document is a live document which is currently being updated.

As always if you find additional resources or make up your own topics then please share them with us and we can add them to the pack.

Record Keeping Sheets

Here are some record sheets to keep track of sessions that are taking place for Big Bear Banter in your setting.

Big Bear banter Record of Activities

4 ideas about “Big Bear Banter”

  1. These are great resources – thank you so much for sharing them with us. One comment I would make is that there’s a huge emphasis on learning labels for things, and perhaps a missed opportunity to introduce relevant adjectives, verbs etc within each topic. E.g. the “pets” topic could include things like stroke, feed, cuddle, soft, naughty, fierce, noisy, and perhaps other related nouns like cage, lead, collar etc. A greater breadth of vocabulary could lead to more meaningful conversations.

    1. Thanks for the feedback Jo,
      We keep the vocabulary simple as pupils who are using Big Bear Banter to develop their language skills are at the very beginning of the journey. Some of vocabulary you suggest we feel is quite complex for learners at this stage but obviously very valuable for pupils who are developing their language further and putting their learnt words into full sentences by using more of these complex terms. Maybe we could think of Big Bear Banter Step 2 to include and develop some of this vocabulary further. The short sentences suggested in Big Bear Banter format are important to enable pupils to learn how to put sentences together and have an opportunity to practice them. Hope this helps and thanks again,
      Highland EAL Team

  2. Every time I use any of these amazing resources I get positive results. I have used them with children who have no English at all and also with children who have quite a lot of English. The teddy bear helps to totally relax the children and literally takes any pressure off their efforts to communicate. Without sounding patronising it does not matter if you are a good singer or not the children love that you are trying to communicate and have fun with them. I have used teddy talk resources with a small group of 3-4 year olds then used the same resources with p2 children and had two completely different sessions but both helped the children who became vocal and animated. Small groups worked best for me and in a room within nursery (Quiet area) and I have also sat a group of 4-5 older children round a table. I cannot choose a particular title as my favourite but traditional tales seem to be well received by most children for example 3 little pigs. This caused lots of laughter and pig noises/huff and puff and was followed up by the children re-enacting the story after hearing it twice in one week 🙂 Thank you for these resources they are fantastic and I use them a lot in nursery where teddy talk is part of our weekly plans 🙂 Keep up the great work.

    1. Always supportive Lorna, thank you, the work you do to promote support for EAL pupils in the school is second to none and you should be proud of what you achieve. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to this!

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