Skip to main content

TES A-level and GCSE resources reviewed

This is a shameless plug for the resources which Gianfranco Conti and I wrote some time ago for our TES shop. We uploaded some quite meaty units of work for Higher Tier GCSE and A-level French. The style is a bit of a combination of Conti-style vocab builders, narrow reading and translation with my style comprehension exercises on a range of themes all relevant to the GCSE and A-level specifications (all boards).

Each GCSE unit has at its core a set of narrow reading texts on a theme, accompanied by a detailed set of exercises scaffolded for difficulty and leading to some quite challenging translations. Don't be put off by the level of the translations. Once pupils have worked through the exercises, they have all the language they need to do them successfully. These make for great revision tools for use in class or at home. Each booklet has about eight pages of densely packed exercises with an answer key. Not for Foundation Tier though!

The A-level bundle of units is based on one lengthy text in each case. This is accompanied by a large range of exercises, once again leading to translations into French, graded at three levels from easier to harder. We covered a range of topics from the three examination boards, though with a stronger focus on the most popular board AQA. Even if any of the topics are not part of your course, they feature very transferable language and will help your classes build their skills.

You can buy each unit individually at £4 or, far better value, purchase the bundles at between £15 and £20. A LOT of time went into these and a whole bundle runs to around 80 pages of material, like a short text book! By the way, these are entirely separate from my resources on frenchteacher and are quite different in general style too.

I know it's frustrating that TES only allows a limited preview of resources, so you can't be sure what you are getting, but here are some brief reviews teachers left for us on the site about the A-level units:



"Great resources - lots of useful and valid activities. Set at a challenging level, which is exactly what I wanted."

"I was a bit reluctant to purchase but I'm glad I did as there are quite a few more pages than what you may think in the preview. I especially like the fact that the translations are meaty and suggested answers provided"

"Thank you for this. It's excellent."

"Very useful for revision and preparation for the translation part of the exam. Saved me a lot of time."

"Brilliant."

"Great! I have now used this bundle for a couple of years, well worth it!"

"Lots of useful activities - excellent as revision resources. Thank you!"

"Fantastic resource - brilliantly thought out, and closely related to AQA spec. Skills progress throughout document and increase in difficulty as students gain confidence. I used this as homework tasks to support work in lessons, and resulted in the students completing the final translations closed-book in timed conditions in class. Both students and I were v. impressed with the progress made! Will definitely purchase the other packs - excellent value for money."

"Good practice and increasingly challenging tasks. Great for dipping into, or independent study or revision."






 

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,