Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

A feature of our new GCSE workbook, is the inclusion at the end of each unit of two 'sentence banks', one Foundation, one Higher. These lists of translated sentences would be familiar to teachers who like to use parallel text knowledge organisers. Below is an example from Part Two of our new workbook, coming in a few weeks. It's Foundation Tier set from the unit about education and future plans. Items in bold are more challenging structures which go beyond simple, one clause present tense sentences. The Higher senetnce banks contain more of these. Je vais à l’école à pied. I go to school on foot. Il y a 800 élèves à mon école. There are 800 pupils in my school. Je porte un uniforme scolaire ; c’est pratique. I wear a school uniform; it’s practical. J’ai cinq cours par jour. I have five lessons per day. Les cours commencent à neuf heures. Lessons start at nine o’clock...

We are pleased to report the publication on 25th March on Amazon of our workbook for the new GCSE French specifications, first teaching September 2024, first exam 2026, This is the first of two workbooks, each one around 130 pages long, including answers. There are a few pages of sample material here . It was Gianfranco's suggestion that our new project be linked to the revised GCSE and we quickly came up with the idea of a book in two parts and  a structure for each based on five units, each one of 19 pages. The book is A4 size and slim enough to be easily photocopiable within a purchasing school. There are 129 pages, including answers. Each unit is around 20 pages long. Structure of the units Each unit consists of the following sections: A Foundation Tier vocab building section leading into a number of GCSE-style Reading questions, based on the format of AQA and Pearson specimen papers. A Higher Tier vocab building section leading into a number of Reading questions, again based ...

 I often suggest that that 'ritual' use of target language in the classroom, for example phrases and sentences for giving instructions, making requests and maintaining good order, is not the most important role target language plays. I have seen teachers use such language, then happily use English a lot during interactions about a text, for example. I actually think it should be the other way round. Try to use target language as much as possible when doing conversational work, sentence builders, Powerpoints and texts, and don't worry so much about giving instructions in English, especially for complex activities. Always keep in the back of your mind the basics of second language acquisition - comprehensible input and interaction. Try to maximise both while keeping all the class on board. That said, if students get used to hearing and using 'ritual' language in class, it all highlights the importance of TL use and gets students used to the idea that it's the norm...