Skip to main content

Latest additions to frenchteacher

Here are the resources I have added to the site over the last month. As always if you have any requests for specific types of resources just let me know by commenting, messaging on Twitter or by emailing me via my website. I can always say no!

Intermediate level (GCSE)
  • A seven page mini-unit of work on school for Higher Tier GCSE. Various comprehension and translation exercises (adapted from a unit from The Language Teacher Toolkit TES shop). Lots of built-in recycling. based on the "narrow reading" concept (several texts reusing similar language). An answer key is provided. We have several similar units on TES.
  • A numbers lesson plan for intermediates (good Y9 to Y11). Based on the game show The Price is Right (Le Juste prix in France). All you need to add are about 10-12 slides of items for sale, e.g. from amazon.fr (without displaying their price). Aims: revising numbers and listening to them to develop quick recognition. This lesson would take around 40 minutes and provide lots of listening input.
  • Video listening. Another Peppa Pig to add to the collection. In this one dad once again makes a fool of himself (stereotype alert). It's called Les avions en papier. A vocab list is provided for help, then a gap-fill task with options given. Because of the relatively high vocab load here it would suit Higher Tier GCSE.

Advanced level
  • Video listening: racial discrimination in Brussels night clubs. Comprehension questions in French and sentences to translate using the recording. Yes, in the twenty-first century in Western Europe racial discrimination continues to thrive. Needless to say, this material supports the sub-themes of all the exam board A-levels, providing some useful background knowledge for AO4 (knowledge of culture).
  • Written texst on key events of the French Resistance in the Second World War. This is a set of short extracts followed by a choice of exercises which can be done orally or in writing. This is another good source of knowledge for the A-level exam (Edexcel and Eduqas/WJEC). 
  • Audio listening. This is an interview with a spokesperson for the Fondation Abbé-Pierre in which he answers questions from children about homelessness and poor housing in France and the role of the Fondation Abbé-Pierre. From the 1jour1actu online magazine. I have included various exercises including summary, translation and gap-fill. This could be used in the context of volunteering, poverty and homelessness.
  • Video listening. This is linked to a video in the 1jour1question series and is about why General de Gaulle is considered a hero of the French Republic. There is a gap-fill with transcription provided. The standard is quite easy. This fits well with Edexcel and Eduqas sub-themes. There are now five resources on this general topic area on the site, two readings and two listenings. 
  • Text and exercises about the occupation of France. Text, vocabulary to complete, gap-fill, sentence completion, creative oral work, translation both ways. Partial answers provided.

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