Skip to main content

Daily Geek Show



I've recently come across this interesting French website called Daily Geek Show which also has, by the way, an associated YouTube channel with interesting videos as well as a Twitter feed worth following (@DailyGeekShow). According to their Facebook page: "Daily Geek Show est un site d'actualités dédié aux plus belles découvertes de l'humanité !" There's certainly a lot of potentially useful authentic reading and listening material for intermediate (GCSE) and advanced level.

Based in Paris, the site features videos, news, features, quizzes and an "insolite" section (weird news stories). Here is a video you could use on poverty with an A-level class (or even a really good GCSE group).


The video goes with an article here.

On the day I checked the Features page covered subjects such as  female Nobel prize winners, cannabis, left-handed people, how artistic endeavour is good for your health and animal cruelty.

The News page featured hurricane Harvey, a biodegradable car, an artist who paints false shadows on pavements to confuse people and some of the most amazing but least visited places on the planet. TheLifetyle page had features about makeup, artwork lamps, an artist who creates huge murals outdoors, how to support shy children and sweets which contain harmful nanoparticles.

The Geek page featured mainly TV and film-related video material. The "Insolite" page included this video about how you can be hacked at McDonalds (a good A-level video). The Tests and Quiz page had interactive quizzes about animals, rock bands and farting - yes, farting. They introduce the latter as follows: "Souvent gênantes, parfois drôles, les flatulences font partie intégrante de notre quotidien. C’est quelque chose que nous faisons tous jour après jour. Oui, même les princesses. Mais est-ce que vous êtes certain de tout connaître de ces gaz ? Nous allons voir cela avec un quiz !" The fifteen multi-choice questions give you instant feedback and extra information - the language is well within the scope of A-level students.

The site keeps a Top 100 of its stories based on reader popularity.

So all in all, you'd find interesting material for your own reading and listening, as well as material you could use or adapt with classes. Now to write a worksheet!




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,