Skip to main content

Intermediate reading on frenchteacher



It's a time of year when many schools and tutors are signing up to frenchteacher.net. Some are brand new subscribers, most longer term addicts. Reading comprehension tasks are a staple of the site and can be found on every page. Every one involves some close reading and language manipulation, in line with what research suggests about how we best acquire vocabulary and language patterns (grammar). Writer and grammar expert Michael Swan has called this 'intensive input-output work'.

Below is an example of a reading task from the Y10-11 page of the site (around A2 level CEFR, or intermediate-low in the USA). Help yourself. There are many more similar resources on the site. I often label them 'texts with exercises'.

Apologies for any slightly dodgy formatting, which happens when you copy a Word doc into Blogger.


Futuroscope – commentaires de Tripadvisor

 

A         Très bonne expérience. Le parc est très bien conçu et donne la possibilité même aux enfants de pouvoir faire les attractions avec un siège qu'ils fournissent pour les enfants de plus de 1m 05. Toutes les attractions et les films sont biens. Les enfants ont adoré et nous aussi !

B         Nous avons trouvé dommage que certaines attractions vieillissent (Destin sauvage, Virus attaque et Vienne dynamique). Les possibilités techniques d'aujourd'hui pourraient donner un résultat bien meilleur.

C         Rien à dire! Beau parc agréable, attractions superbes. A ne pas rater ! Nous avons adoré toutes les attractions sans exception ! Nous avons eu peu d'attente et nos enfants, 5 ans, 7 ans et 12 ans ont beaucoup apprécié. Personnel agréable et parc bien entretenu.

D         Bon séjour en famille où nous avons passé un très bon moment. Dommage qu’on n’ait pas pu rester pour le spectacle nocturne. Seul le restaurant Kadéliscope a été une grosse déception niveau qualité.

E         Il y des attractions pour tous les goûts. Mais certaines sont un peu vieillissantes, une seule 4D et très peu de 3D intéressantes. Mais tout dépend ce que l'on recherche. Un conseil : achetez vos billets sur le net car c'est moins cher.

F          Nous habitons à côté donc nous y sommes allées plusieurs fois et à chaque fois on s'amuse énormément! Par contre le coût élevé de l'entrée et les endroits de restauration sont assez chers. Je conseille d'y aller durant les petites vacances car l'été il y a beaucoup d'attente.

G         Des attractions pour tous les âges, des documentaires pédagogiques sur les sciences et la nature, même des sensations fortes pour les ados. Bref une journée agréable en octobre, il faisait beau, il n'y avait pas trop de monde (queue maximum 30 minutes)

H         Je pensais que les attractions allaient vraiment être surprenantes mais au final les histoires sont peu intéressantes, les effets toujours les mêmes. Je pense que le fait que la 3D soit accessible à tous au ciné et même à la télé, ne donne plus la sensation qu'on pouvait avoir auparavant

I           Il faut une journée et demie pour tout voir. J'y étais allée il y a un peu plus de 10 ans et j'ai été agréablement surprise par toutes les nouvelles attractions. Le site est autant intéressant pour les enfants que pour les adultes

J          La dernière fois que je suis allé au Futuroscope c'était en 1998 et malheureusement j'ai l'impression que rien n’a évolué au niveau technologique. J'ai vraiment été déçu par la qualité des images et particulièrement du 3D.

Pour chaque personne notez si leur opinion est positive (P), négative (N) ou positive et négative (PN)

A  …….          C   …….           E   …….         G  …….            I    …….

B  …….          D   …….           F  …….           H  …….            J   ……..

 

Write the letter of the person who said this . NOTE there are three statements which nobody makes!

1.         It’s cheaper to book online in advance.                                                   ___

4.         Nothing has changed over the years                    .                                   ___

5.         Special seats mean that children can do everything                               ___    

6.         It was all good apart from a restaurant.                                                   ___    

7.         There were not enough staff on site to help.                                          ___

8.         They could take advantage of more recent technology.                         ___

9.         The park suits adults more than young children.                                   ___

10.       We didn’t have to queue and the staff were pleasant..                          ___

11.       It was a bit boring; all the effects were the same.                                  ___

12.       The only downside is the cost of entry and food.                                   ___

13.       When we went there weren’t many people.                                            ___

14.       You need more than a day to do everything.                                          ___

15.       For some rides we waited over 30 minutes.                                           ___

 

Vocabulaire

well planned - ____ ______                       disappointment – d___________ (f)

seat - s_____ (m)                                         tastes – g______ (m.pl.)

to provide - f_________                             on the other hand – p__ c______

to age – v________                                    places, venues – e________ (m.pl.)

pleasant – a_________                              thrills – s__________ _______

well maintained – b____ e_________     surprising – s__________

staff - ___________ (m)                              disappointed – d_____

 

Teacher’s answers

 

Pour chaque personne notez si leur opinion est positive (P), négative (N) ou positive et négative (PN)

A P           C P         E  PN        G P       I P     

B N          D PN       F PN         H N     J N

 

Write the letter of the person who said this . NOTE there are three statements which nobody makes!

1.         It’s cheaper to book online in advance.                                                  E

4.         Nothing has changed over the years                    .                                 J

5.         Special seats mean that children can do everything                              A       

6.         It was all good apart from a restaurant.                                                 D        

7.         There were not enough staff on site to help.                                          No one          

8.         They could take advantage of more recent technology.                        B

9.         The park suits adults more than young children.                                   No one

10.       We didn’t have to queue and the staff were pleasant..                          C

11.       It was a bit boring; all the effects were the same.                                  H

12.       The only downside is the cost of entry and food.                                   F

13.       When we went there weren’t many people.                                           G

14.       You need more than a day to do everything.                                          I

15.       For some rides we waited over 30 minutes.                                           No one


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the natural order hypothesis?

The natural order hypothesis states that all learners acquire the grammatical structures of a language in roughly the same order. This applies to both first and second language acquisition. This order is not dependent on the ease with which a particular language feature can be taught; in English, some features, such as third-person "-s" ("he runs") are easy to teach in a classroom setting, but are not typically fully acquired until the later stages of language acquisition. The hypothesis was based on morpheme studies by Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, which found that certain morphemes were predictably learned before others during the course of second language acquisition. The hypothesis was picked up by Stephen Krashen who incorporated it in his very well known input model of second language learning. Furthermore, according to the natural order hypothesis, the order of acquisition remains the same regardless of the teacher's explicit instruction; in other words,
4 comments
Read more

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).
Post a Comment
Read more

12 principles of second language teaching

This is a short, adapted extract from our book The Language Teacher Toolkit . "We could not possibly recommend a single overall method for second language teaching, but the growing body of research we now have points to certain provisional broad principles which might guide teachers. Canadian professors Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada (2013), after reviewing a number of studies over the years to see whether it is better to just use meaning-based approaches or to include elements of explicit grammar teaching and practice, conclude: Classroom data from a number of studies offer support for the view that form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided within the context of communicative and content-based programmes are more effective in promoting second language learning than programmes that are limited to a virtually exclusive emphasis on comprehension. As teachers Gianfranco and I would go along with that general view and would like to suggest our own set of g
2 comments
Read more