What's new on frenchteacher.net?

I've added a testimonials page to the site if anyone is interested to read what some teachers think of the resources. I'll add more comments as I receive them. To accommodate this on the home page contents bar, I've shifted the Spanish resources into the "free resources" menu, so Spanish has not disappeared, it's just elsewhere.

I've also decided to place a few small Google ads on American and Canadian sites as the large majority of my subscribers are British and I am not so sure Americans, Canadians, plus teachers down under, are so aware of the resources. Most of the resources on the site are not aimed specifically at British teachers, although I am conscious of the fact that some of the acronyms for assessments look alien to non-British teachers.

As for new resources on the site, I've added a few more crosswords for KS3 and KS4 (low intermediate), plus a crossword on the subjunctive for advanced students. I have also made a resource about Bonfire Night and Guy Fawkes, a sheet featuring a very curious fait divers about a seaman who dies in mysterious circumstances, a useful text for AS level about internet shopping in France and an updated text with exercises on doping in sport, taking into account recent developments on the Lance Armstrong affair.

As always, I am trying to keep up with the latest French teacher blogs and other resources, but I always welcome suggestions from fellow linguists.

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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 langua...

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

Two DfE documents were published today. The first was the response to the consultation about the proposed new GCSE (originally due in October 2021) and the second is the subject content document which, ultimately, is of most interest to MFL teachers in England. Here is the link to the document. We are talking about an exam to be done from 2026 (current Y7s). There is always a tendency for sceptical teachers to think that consultations are a bit of a sham and that the DfE will just go ahead and do what they want when it comes to exam reform. In this case, the responses to the original proposals were mixed, and most certainly hostile as far as exam boards and professional associations representing the MFL community, universities, head teachers and awarding bodies are concerned. What has emerged does reveal some significant changes which take account of a number of criticisms levelled at the proposals. As I read it, the most important changes relate to vocabulary and the issue ...

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans, ...

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