Claude Berri update

I have been adding some exercises and links on Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources to the A-level page on frenchteacher.net. I used Taskmagic 3 for some gap fills and a matching task on plot and characters. I also found a nice little video interview, originally from the INA site, with Daniel Auteuil, the day of the premiere of Jean de Florette. You get the impression he is still just a little in the character of Ugolin! Or was it my imagination? There is a worksheet to go with it if you happen to be working on this film.

Here is a link to the Daniel Auteuil video.

I heard an interview with him a few months ago on the radio. He seemed such a nice guy and he recalled what an important role Ugolin was for him.

In addition, I have uploaded some resources for Lucie Aubrac and Germinal. Do let me know if you know of any other materials.

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What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought. ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

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La retraite à 60 ans

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Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

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