Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

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25 fun conversation starters

Have some fun with your Y13s or fast Y12s with these 25 conversation starters. This resource was sparked by a conversation I had with a lovely Australian teacher, Kristen Faraday, who is 'petite'. I am very tall. So she tried to convince me it was better to be short than tall. (More comfortable on flights, reach things low down, buy children's clothes, get in tight spaces) I argued for good views at concerts, reaching things high up, not having small man syndrome. Just to be clear, unlike fairytale giants, being tall does NOT make you stupid. On a serious note, it's perfectly fine to do things unrelated to the syllabus. All language transfers across topics. If you don't teach French, just pop these into AI or Google. 1. Serait-il préférable de pouvoir parler aux animaux ou de parler toutes les langues humaines ? 2. Préféreriez-vous avoir un chef privé ou un chauffeur privé à vie ? 3. Vacances à la plage ou retraite à la montagne ?...

Intensive input-output work

In my keynote talk to teachers at the NSW Department of Education French Teachers’ Conference in Parramatta (western Sydney) last week I mentioned a phrase I often think of when talking about classroom language learning: intensive input-output work. The phrase was used by ELT writer Michael Swan, for example in an article here: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/using-texts-constructively-2-intensive-input The idea of intensive input–output work lies at the heart of a long-running debate in second language teaching: how learners move from understanding language to actually using it accurately and confidently. Michael Swan often pushed back against the assumption that exposure alone is enough for language learning to happen. Most of us would think this is obvious, but keep in mind that some scholars argue that it is only input which builds the language system. Output may play a supporting role in other respects, but input is ...

4 million views on Blogger

When I left the classroom in 2012, I didn't anticipate that I would spend so much time writing resources, training teachers, blogging and so on. There was no real plan, apart from setting up frenchteacher.net with the hope of getting a few hundred subscribers. I've been blogging for over 15 years now, usually several times a month, so it's no wonder the number of page views has built up over time. Typically I get around 1000 hits a days either to recent posts or very often to older posts, some of which surprise me. So the stats page of my Blogger blog (by Google) currently shows over 4 million page views. This doesn't mean reads, of course! In these days of podcasts and substacks it may be worth reminding people that Blogger is still a free and effective way of sharing information and reflections. (To remind you, I put together many of my posts, with much added material, in my two volumes of Thinking About Language Teaching. Plug over.) If you want to write your own ...

An info gap text discovery task - GCSE level (A2)

I've been making a lot of these recently, with help from Mistral AI or Chat GPT. I think they're great for generating listening, reading and student talk. This is the type of lesson where, with the right class (able to get on productively in pairs), you can sit back and just monitor what the students are doing. The one I am sharing here is an easy one on the popular GCSE topic of healthy living. In language learning the essential ingredients are input and interaction (communication). This activity provides both of those while being tightly linked to the syllabus. The instructions are given on the worksheets you can see below. I left the Chat GPT texts intact, but added a few glosses of vocabulary. Some classes might not need these. I have more examples on frenchteacher.net , at both GCSE (A2) and A-level (B1/2). PARTENAIRE A You and your partner each have a short text about...