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Working on a workbook!

My next big writing project with Gianfranco is a workbook for GCSE students of French in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (+ some international schools). This idea was Gianfranco's and we've already made a start.

We are looking at an A4 sized workbook to go with the new GCSE courses beginning in September of this year (with first exams in 2024), covering around 10 topics in line with those of the two most popular awarding bodies AQA andPearson-Edexel. (The last I saw, the Eduqas specification was not yet accredited, but we'll consider that in due course.)

This is self-published work, not an awarding body-sponsored publication.

The idea is for each unit of around 12 pages or so to cover reading, writing and speaking. Each unit will begin with a 'word bank' divided into easier  (Foundation Tier) and harder (Higher Tier), plus a 'sentence bank', similarly divided by level of difficulty. The latter may take the form of a parallel text, Knowledge Organiser. The subsequent pages of each unit will recycle many times the language in these two banks. the word banks will be carefully mapped against the exam board lists.

The content of texts will be dictated by the prescribed topic areas and will take account of  pupils' interests, as well as inclusivity and diversity issues. Texts will not be 'authentic', but comprehensible. This is in line with what the awarding bodies publish.

The unit will gradually increase in difficulty from Foundation-style reading tasks, to Higher. Reading comprehension exercises will resemble those used in the specimen exam papers, but will be supplemented by more intensive recycling tasks. By the end of each unit studenst will have reused and adpated the same language words, chunks and sentences many times over. This should give them confidemnce to tackle anythin the exam boards throw at them.

The first few tasks of each unit will be receptive (reading comprehension), with productive use of language being introduce later (reading + writing), then fivally speaking and writing.All exam-style questions will be practised.

Speaking tasks will include photo card + conversation and role-plays, some in the AQA style (conversational), some in the transactional style à la Pearson. These pages will require writing, but can be done in pairs for oral practice.

Writing tasks will include gap-fill, translation of short sentences, 50-word questions, 90-word questions and 150-word questions.

One extra idea we have is for a 'grammar focus' page, where greater attention is paid to specific written accuracy issues such as tense usage, still an important area, notably for Higher Tier.

We are just starting out on the project, so our ideas may yet evolve! Note that this is not a 'Language Gym production' as such so, as you can see from my description above, will be unlike Gianfranco's excellent sentence builder books and similar.

Histoire à suivre! (Watch this space.)

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