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Atantôt

There is such a wealth of free and subscription material out there for French teachers that it hard to know what's worth a candle and what's not.

My old school subscribed to Esther Mercier's Atantôt site for several years and we were always happy to fork out our £40 each year. Atantôt is aimed very specifically for interactive whiteboard use and it fulfills its function very well indeed. It covers primary to KS3 very well, and to some extent KS4. The visuals are striking, clear and often amusing. Each collection of exercises allows for differentiation and development through the lesson.

The language covered may not fit perfectly with your own scheme of work and you cannot edit the resources as you can with Powerpoint, but these are minor niggles. You just have to pick and choose what fits and be prepared to teach new language when it comes up. The language is accurate and the range of activities is good. Pupils enjoy the resources which are really designed for teacher-led lessons above all.

Esther adds new material to the site on a regular basis, but you will probably, like most teachers, find the pages you like most and use them repeatedly. My classes always liked the pages on food where a cheeky rabbit ran across the screen pinching items which the class had to remember. I often used the pages on clothes and fashion which had splendidly colourful pictures for oral exploitation. I also enjoyed the interactive number and time pages.

There is plenty more to savour! If you haven't tried this site, you should really give it a look.

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