Skip to main content

Latest from frenchteacher

Here are the subscriber resources I have added in the last month:

Text and exercises on overcrowding in French prisons. Article, vocabulary list to complete, questions about the text, general questions on prison and law and order.
Y13 (advanced)
Video listening for near beginners: Trotro fait un bonhomme de neige. Linked video with sentences to recognise, gapped translation and a mini story in French to complete. By the way, if you didn't know, Trotro is a cute little donkey much loved by toddlers in France. Fortunately, unlike most donkeys, he speaks French slowly and clearly.
(Y8 - near beginner)
Parallel reading passage and exercise on the organisation Islamic State. Some useful background knowledge for students.
(Y10-11 - intermediate)
Parallel reading. The story of three Mexican fishermen rescued after drifting 8000km across the Pacific. True/false/not mentioned exercise and an idea for written exploitation.
(Y10/11 - intermediate
A French to English translation on the subject of the cartoon book market in France. Model answer provided as for all the translations on the site.
Y12-13 (Advanced)
Two parallel readings for intermediate level. Weird hotel complaints and phobias. Parallel French-English text, true/false/not mentioned and other exercises.
Y10-11 (Intermediate)
Two parallel readings for intermediate level. The first is about young people's changing online behaviour in France, the second about superheroes. Parallel texts (French and English) with true sentences to identify and some gap fill. Could work with excellent Y9 pupils.
Y10-11 (Intermediate)
Video listening. The Ariane rocket launcher. Link to short video from 1jour1question. Correct sentences to identify and vocab to complete. Teacher's answers provided. You could do this with fast Y10s, Y11 or Y12 (high intermediate/low advanced). The1jour1question videos are really good for this level.
Y10-11 (Intermediate)
Three new parallel reading for beginners. The Eiffel Tower, the Channel Tunnel and the EU - short parallel texts (on in French, one in English) with true or false sentences to identify and a vocabulary list to complete. I've also posted a front cover page if you want to make the parallel texts into a booklet.
Y7 (Beginner)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zaz - Si jamais j'oublie

My wife and I often listen to Radio Paradise, a listener-supported, ad-free radio station from California. They've been playing this song by Zaz recently. I like it and maybe your students would too. I shouldn't really  reproduce the lyrics here for copyright reasons, but I am going to translate them (with the help of another video). You could copy and paste this translation and set it for classwork (not homework, I suggest, since students could just go and find the lyrics online). The song was released in 2015 and gotr to number 11 in the French charts - only number 11! Here we go: Remind me of the day and the year Remind me of the weather And if I've forgotten, you can shake me And if I want to take myself away Lock me up and throw away the key With pricks of memory Tell me what my name is If I ever forget the nights I spent, the guitars, the cries Remind me who I am, why I am alive If I ever forget, if I ever take to my heels If one day I run away Remind me who I am, wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Longman's Audio-Visual French

I'm sitting here with my copies of Cours Illustré de Français Book 1 and Longman's Audio-Visual French Stage A1 . I have previously mentioned the former, published in 1966, with its use of pictures to exemplify grammar and vocabulary. In his preface Mark Gilbert says: "The pictures are not... a mere decoration but provide further foundation for the language work at this early stage." He talks of "fluency" and "flexibility": "In oral work it is advisable to persist with the practice of a particular pattern until the pupils can use it fluently and flexibly. Flexibility means, for example, the ability to switch from one person of the verb to another..." Ah! Now, the Longman offering, written by S. Moore and A.L. Antrobus, published in 1973, just seven years later, has a great deal in common with Gilbert's course. We now have three colours (green, black and white) rather than mere black and white. The layout is arguably more attrac...
26 comments
Read more