Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

I have produced the first of a number of listening activities based on the 'spot the differences' principle. Nothing revolutionary, but they promioe very careful listening. I am copying here a resource I just uploaded to my site. The instructions should be clear. Help yourself. By the way, I tried out the AI tool Deepseek to create the texts instantly. Deep seek is all the rage just now (January 2025). The interface and performance is remarkably similar to those of Chat GPT. I just very lightly edited the text. SPOT THE DIFFERENCES LISTENING – DAILY ROUTINE The teacher reads each of the two texts twice, quite slowly, pausing enough for the class. A third read could be done. There are EIGHT factual differences between the two texts. As the teacher reads, students make notes in English about factual details. In pairs students then compare their notes to see if they found all 8 differences. The teacher can then elicit the differences from the class. As a follow-up, students can ...

On frenchteacher.net, on the Y10-11 page (GCSE/Level A2), I have a set of around 20 'instant listening tasks', some at Higher Tier, some at Foundation. The idea is that a teacher can print off the exercises, read the text aloud and give the answers once the exercises have been completed.  This is a classic example, by the way, of the 'listening for testing' or Comprehension Approach which teacher Kedi Simpson has described in a very clear blog post. This approach is where a listening task is completed without paying attention to the so-called micro-processes of listening, such as phoneme or syllable recognition or vocab retrieval. The focus is on understanding and getting right answers to questions such as true/false, matching tasks or traditional questions in the target language or English. It makes sense when students have reached a certain level of listening proficiency and is, in fact, the most common way of carrying out listening in classrooms. It also justifiable...

First off, let me explain what's meant by 'interpersonal listening'. Also known as 'two-way listening', it is when we listen while engaging in conversation or when a student is having a dialogue with the teacher - for example when the teacher is asking questions. Most listening students do in class is of this type. It stands in contrast to listening while answering comprehension questions on paper, or when doing a gap-fill, dictation or true-false task (known as 'one-way listening').  Students who engage with interpersonal listening on a regular basis over five years or more become good listeners. It's why teachers are urged to maximise their use of comprehensible target language and interaction. So, below are three examples of advanced level interpersonal listening tasks. They are taken from our Teaching A-Level Modern Languages book and  are related to thematic material from the English and Welsh awarding body specifications. 1. Describe a film yo...

I've been working recently on worksheets focused on helping students develop topic-specific vocabulary for A-level. There is an example below. Students first do a matching task, linking up French words or phrases to their English translation. Then, in pairs, students test each other on the vocabulary, first going from French to English (easier), then English to French (harder). Once they have got familiar with the vocabulary, their next job is to create sentences incorporating each word or phrase. They could do this in pairs orally, maybe challenging each other to come up with more interesting senetnces. Or they could do the task in writing individually, perhaps as a homework. Or they could do both: do the task orally in class, then reinforce the work by writing up at home or in private study. These tasks would suit a strong Y12 class or a Y13 class. You could do more with bilingual lists like this. Here are a three examples: The teacher gives target language definitions of the wor...

Image: pixabay.com I love a nice information gap task. Recall that these are designed to give students a reason to communicate while using language in a more or less structured way. Each student has different information which must be shared to complete the task. The less proficient the learner, the more structured the task needs to be. Students get to do a lot of listening and speaking, as well as, in many cases, some rteading and writing. A meaningful, multi-skill task which is often quite fun. The one below, Timeline, can be used at internediate and advanced level. I have peviously posted an example of an advanced one focused on the events of World War Two. The one below would suit a GCSE class (CEFR A2) or even a very good Year 9 class (two to three years of learning). The example is from my site. Feel free to copy and use or adapt. Instructions – scroll down for the student sheets. Students work in pairs. Each partner has a list of six things Astrid did during a week on holid...

In our new handbook for A-level language teachers we included a chapter, early in the book, focused on our chosen principles underlying A-level teaching. There is a very good question we should ask when formulating a syllabus or teaching approach: why do we do what we do? In the adapted extract below you'll find key notions that underly the whole book - sound principles of language teaching at A-level, and language teaching in general. 1. The role of comprehensible input This term from second language learning research refers simply to language, oral or written, which students understand. Common sense and research tell us that the main driver of progress in a language is exposure to comprehensible input. The mechanisms we use to acquire our first language(s) through input (and communication) are still active when we learn a language as teenagers or adults. This is why language teachers are so often urged to use the target language as much as possible, and to encourage contact wi...