Some
teachers have cottoned on to the fact that sentence builders (aka
substitution tables) are a very useful tool for helping students prepare
for their GCSE speaking and writing tests. My own hunch is that would
help for students of all levels of proficiency, but may be particularly
helpful for those likely to get lower grades, say between 3-6. Much
depends, of course, on how complex you make the table.
To remind you, here is a typical sentence builder, as found on the frenchteacher site. The topic is talking about where you live. A word of warning - formatting blogs in Blogger is a nightmare when you start with Word documents, so apologies for any issues. It might have taken me another 30 minutes just to sort out the html code underlying the original document.
1. Read aloud some examples.
2. Do some choral repetition.
3. Do teacher-led translation, English to French.
4. Hide the grid and do some dictation, possibly gapped.
5. Alternative: display the gapped version of the grid on the next page and get students to complete in pairs or with you (see below).
6. With the grid hidden, pairs make up sentences from memory.
7. If possible, pairs attempt to out-do each other remembering or inventing new examples or variations on the existing ones.
8. Written translation from English to French.
9. Students could prepare short memorised talks in preparation for oral exams. To scaffold the task you could include a gapped version of the frame, as below:
Then it's a question of practice, practice, practice. Yes, I'm talking about a rote learning approach, which many pupils depend on to produce acceptable outcomes.Departments might consider producing a booklet of, say, ten or a dozen such frames as a Speaking and Writing revision booklet, a sort of knowledge organiser, if you like.
I believe this would be a very usable aid, appreciated by students, including, as I said above, highr proficiency ones. For the latter, the grid could be a staring point on which to build further - a sort of comfort blanket.Do comment if you'd like to add anything. I may look at this as a projecty for my site, gicen that I have quite a few of these already written. Or you could use mine and supplement or edit them for your own purposes.
To remind you, here is a typical sentence builder, as found on the frenchteacher site. The topic is talking about where you live. A word of warning - formatting blogs in Blogger is a nightmare when you start with Word documents, so apologies for any issues. It might have taken me another 30 minutes just to sort out the html code underlying the original document.
Dans ma ville (in my town)
Dans ma région (In my area)
|
il y a (there is/are)
|
des banques (banks)
des cafés (cafes)
des centres sportifs (sports centres)
des cinémas (cinemas)
des écoles (schools)
des gymnases (gyms)
des hôtels (hotels)
des jardins publics (parks)
des magasins (shops)
des musées (museums)
une piscine (a swimming pool)
des pubs (pubs)
des restaurants (restaurants)
des supermarchés (supermarkets)
un centre commercial (shopping mall)
un hôpital (hospital)
un office du tourisme (tourist information)
un théâtre (theatre)
une gare (railway station)
une gare routière (bus station)
|
On peut
(You can)
|
faire du sport (do sport)
faire les magasins (go shopping)
aller au restaurant (go to the
restaurant)
visiter
des monuments (sight-see)
faire
des balades (go walking)
aller
au centre commercial (go to the mall)
aller
au cinéma (go to the cinema)
|
|||
J’aime ma ville (I like my town/city)
Je n’aime pas ma
ville
(I don’t like my
town/city)
|
parce que
(because)
|
c’est très animé (it’s very lively)
il y a beaucoup à faire (there’s lots to do)
c’est trop pollué (it’s too polluted)
les transports sont bien (transport is good)
|
et
(and)
et
et
|
les magasins sont
variés (shops are varied)
il y a trop de bruit (there’s too much noise)
la vie nocturne est
super (night life is great)
je peux voir mes amis
facilement (I can see my friends easily)
|
|||
Normally the table would be formatted in landscape mode. One point I
would make straight away is that much of the language which can be used
for the conversation part of the Speaking test can be recycled for
written compositions. So, especially for middle-attaining pupils, they
need to really grasp that the chunks they set to memory can be used in
both contexts and need to be forced in as far as possible (without
evading any requested bullet points, of course).
In terms of how you actually use the frames for revision, I would
probably go back to how they might be used with younger learners to
start with. Here is a possible teaching sequence:
2. Do some choral repetition.
3. Do teacher-led translation, English to French.
4. Hide the grid and do some dictation, possibly gapped.
5. Alternative: display the gapped version of the grid on the next page and get students to complete in pairs or with you (see below).
6. With the grid hidden, pairs make up sentences from memory.
7. If possible, pairs attempt to out-do each other remembering or inventing new examples or variations on the existing ones.
8. Written translation from English to French.
9. Students could prepare short memorised talks in preparation for oral exams. To scaffold the task you could include a gapped version of the frame, as below:
Dans ma v…. (in my town)
Dans ma r……. (In my area)
|
il .. .. (there is/are)
|
des b…… (banks)
des c…. (cafes)
des centres sp…… (sports centres)
des ci…… (cinemas)
des éc….. (schools)
des gym…… (gyms)
des ho…. (hotels)
des jar…. pub….. (parks)
des mag…… (shops)
des mu….. (museums)
une pi….. (a
swimming pool)
des pu.. (pubs)
des …………… (restaurants)
des super…… (supermarkets)
un centre comm…… (shopping
mall)
un hôp…..
(hospital)
un office du t……… (tourist
information)
un th……
(theatre)
une g… (railway
station)
une g… routi…. (bus station)
|
On peut
(You can)
|
faire du s……. (do sport)
faire les ma………. (go shopping)
a…… au restaurant (go to the
restaurant)
v……… des monuments (sight-see)
faire des ba……… (go walking)
aller au centre co………… (go to the mall)
aller au c…….. (go to the cinema)
|
|||
J’aime ma v…. (I like my town/city)
Je n’aime … ma v….
(I don’t like my town/city)
|
p….. que
(because)
|
c’est tres ani... (it’s very lively)
il y a beau…. a faire (there’s lots
to do)
c’est trop poll.. (it’s too polluted)
les tran…… sont bien (transport is good)
|
et
(and)
et
et
|
les mag….. sont var… (shops are varied)
il y a trop de br… (there’s too much noise)
la vie noc….. est super (night life
is great)
je peux voir mes a.. facile…. (I can see my friends easily)
|
|||
Then it's a question of practice, practice, practice. Yes, I'm talking about a rote learning approach, which many pupils depend on to produce acceptable outcomes.Departments might consider producing a booklet of, say, ten or a dozen such frames as a Speaking and Writing revision booklet, a sort of knowledge organiser, if you like.
I believe this would be a very usable aid, appreciated by students, including, as I said above, highr proficiency ones. For the latter, the grid could be a staring point on which to build further - a sort of comfort blanket.Do comment if you'd like to add anything. I may look at this as a projecty for my site, gicen that I have quite a few of these already written. Or you could use mine and supplement or edit them for your own purposes.
This is just the sort of advice I needed. Am definitely going to trial it with my classes. Will aim to do 10 in total to broadly span the 5 Edexcel topic areas. Use treasury tags for the booklet so they can add more if needed. Thank you for the inspiration. you think it's too late in the day to use them with Year 11?
ReplyDeleteNot at all. They might welcome them, even if only as a revision guide. Thanks for commenting.
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