Skip to main content

New Higher Tier GCSE units on TES

Updated 12th October 2016

Gianfranco Conti and I have been working on a set of resources for GCSE French. There is some emphasis on translation which, as you know, now features in the exam specifications. The first three are now available on the TES site. We have adapted the model of the A-level resources which have been selling well.

Here is where you can find our shop:

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/spsmith45
 
Here is the description of the first unit we wrote.there are two further units now posted, on volunteering and holidays. More will appear soon.

"This is a densely packed eight page unit of work with a focus on reading and translation into French. The theme is healthy living. The level is Higher Tier GCSE. You will find pre-reading tasks, a set of reading comprehension paragraphs, pre-translation activities and short, graded passages for translation into French. These tasks enable students to build up their skills by recycling language in various ways (matching, translating, synonyms, antonyms, true/false, questions etc). They are based on the concept of "narrow reading" whereby similar language is used across a number of reading paragraphs enabling students to have repeated exposure to the similar language. A detailed answer key is supplied. This resource is primarily for independent work to be done in class or at home. There is a pdf version and editable Word document."

We are charging £3 each. We would anticipate selling a bundle of 10 for £20 in the future and will be covering a full range of GCSE topics/sub-themes.

I should stress that these are aimed at Higher Tier and would make a very good supplementary resource for quite capable students (probably aiming at grade B equivalent or above - Progress 8 level 6?). Regular users of Gianfranco's resources will recognise the style and format of this first unit. He is writing some of them and I shall write others. The first unit is Gianfranco's baby.

If you have not yet discovered Gianfranco's TES resources you it's worth mentioning that he has published well over 1500 of them. The vast majority are free. He can't stop writing!

Comments

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 language).

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 of topics

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,