Sarah Shaw asked me to have a look at her new resources site, produced together with Barbara Allen, for adult learners of French. I am delighted to write a brief review.
Firstly, before I offer my own thoughts, here is what Sarah shared with me:
"I think the main two things for Barbara and I are that teachers will find the resources we are offering engaging, effective, well-targeted and good value for money. We would love to give everything away for free but as we work for ourselves it isn’t really possible and we hope that if teachers in the same position as us can buy a good resource for £1, £2 or £3 then they could actually make a little bit more money themselves by reducing all their prep time.
Our pricing is very simple: Free resources - one or two activities that could complement an existing lesson plan or be used for homework tasks £1 for resources of up to 10 pages that will take between approx. 1 – 2 hours to teach £2 for resources of up to 20 pages that will take between approx. 1.5 – 2.5 hours to teach £3 for resources 30 pages+ that will take between approx. 3+ to teach The resources all include notes for tutors comprising the answers, scripts for listening activities, all the speaking activity handouts as well as ideas on how the activities could work.
All the resources are in Word so fully editable too. We have tried to present them attractively but our main focus is that they are easy to use, simple to follow and adaptable. The second thing that is very important to us is that we seem authentic and professional. We believe so passionately in what we do and we know it will take time to build trust among other teachers (especially as this can be quite a competitive market) but we don’t want to look like ‘know-it-alls’ as we aren’t and we don’t!!
We constantly assess and adapt our practice and ideas and we want to share this with other teachers in our situation too. I have also attached an ‘exclusive’ resource that we are going to give away for free (it would usually be £2) to teachers who sign up to our monthly newsletter."
I've taken a look at a few of the resources which are divided up into three levels: Higher beginner, intermediate and advanced. All resources are editable, which is a major plus, in my view.
The resource entitled Describing a place is focused on the use of adjectives with the perfect tense. The sequence of activities is clearly and soberly laid out - nothing flashy. Some are to be done in pairs, some individually, some led by the teacher (e.g. the listening bingo task). Skills practised include vocabulary retrieval, grammatical analysis (adjective agreement and positioning), listening and reading comprehension. There is plenty for learners to get their teeth into.
The resource called Relative Pronoun Review is grammar-focused, of course. This resource begins with an activity called La ville où j'habitais. There is some verb work, then a gap-fill where those verbs have to be deployed. This is followed by an interesting listening task where students must choose a sentence from a written list which could provide additional information to one they hear. Nice idea. This is followed by a reinforcing written task. Next there is a task involving liking pairs of sentences with a relative pronoun such as qui or que. Finally there is a reading comprehension gap-fill with chunks to place in a text. Each of the above activities requires recycling of key language. This is a well conceived leson sequence, I think.
A third resource I looked at is called Les Cadeaux de Noël and is lengthy at 19 pages. The first task is listening and involves ticking true sentences and translating from English chunks which are heard. Next there is a bilingual vocab list (Christmas gifts) to complete, with help. Next - and I like this one - students have to match the gifts to the personalities of people they hear described. Next there is an audiolingual-style grammar drill based on using direct object pronouns, which fits well with this topic. There then follows a listening bingo task and a further drill on direct object pronouns.
The last resource I'll mention is a traditional Battleships pairwork game involving translating main and subordinating clauses. Students must decide if the subjunctive is needed or not. This would supplement other resources you may have used on the subjunctive.
All in all, with some free resources, and the others all priced very low, and given the accuracy and general quality of the resources I can recommend this site as a source of useful worksheets and activities, not just for adult learners, but also for school students working at GCSE or above. I expect the number and range of resources to grow from its current base. Ideally, the previews of each resource could reveal a bit more, so buyers (as with TES) may hesitate before purchase.
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