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Plans for frenchteacher 2015

Happy New Year to readers and frenchteacher subscribers. Thank you for using my resources and for the kind comments some of you send me.

I expect 2015 to be another busy year of writing new materials for frenchteacher.net. Having developed a number of areas over the last year, notably primary/Y7 parallel reading comprehensions, video listening and adult student resources, what will 2015 have in store?

I am bound to be influenced by changes to British GCSE and A-level exams, which may involve my producing (reluctantly) more translation resources and reading resources with a more story-telling emphasis. I like my resources to be based on what I consider to be sound methodology, but I also have to bear in mind what my subscribers may need to help prepare pupils for public examinations.

As I shall be doing some work for AQA on the new A-level specifications, my frenchteacher work may reflect what I learn from that process. As I have written before, there is no certainty that the new A-level French will be taught from September 2016, so I cannot yet take a steer from this as far as the website is concerned. Things will be clearer after the general election.

I would still like to add more video listening resources, especially for younger learners. The latter are hard to source online, however, so I would not expect to be able to create that many.

I would like to develop further my handbook for language teachers, in particular with a section on target language teaching which I shall put together to accompany a webinar I am doing for the ALL (Association for Language Learning) on January 25th at 3.00 pm (UK time).

I would also like to produce some more model lesson plans to help young teachers develop their practice.

Expect to see plenty more reading comprehension at all levels, including parallel reading for near beginners.

I shall also be increasing the number of A-level translations and grammar manipulation worksheets with model answers.

In addition I shall be making sure all my reading comprehensions are up to date. This may involve deleting the occasional resource.

I have no plans to change the price of a subscription. To start with, I want the resources to be as widely used as possible; secondly, I am aware many teachers and schools are repeat subscribers so £20 a year builds up for them and me! I believe that the resources are good, based on a sound methodology for many students. I believe they contribute to good French teaching practice.

The large majority of my subscribers work in the UK, but I would like to attract more customers from North America and "down under" so I would welcome any ideas on topics and exercise/assessment styles which might appeal to Canadian, American, Aussie and New Zealand teachers. Contact me if there is material you would like me to work on.

Finally, I shall try to keep my links pages up to date. Do let me know about any really good online resources. I am happy to review new materials as well.


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