Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

 This is an old favourite. In case you don’t know of it, it’s called the Yes/No game. Students play in pairs. Each partner asks questions which normally require a yes or no answer. The responder has to answer without saying yes or no. This usually means answering by repeating the wording of the question, using negatives, changing pronouns, verbs or possessive adjectives as needed. The temptation to say yes or no is strong, so it takes care and concentration. Advanced students can play it off the cuff, but for level A2 (GCSE), for example, I’d advise giving each partner a set of questions to ask. You could give them in gapped form to add challenge. You can also have a theme for each set of questions if the aim is to practise conversation on a syllabus topic. You can make it more competitive by having students keep score of the number of times a partner says yes or no. Below I’ve listed a set of questions in French, then the same ones in Spanish. The topic is healthy lifestyle. Think...

 I weas recently asked if I could prepare some thoughts about how best to integrate and work with bilingual students in your A-level MFL class. This was a situation I encountered quite a few times in my career and one that A-level teachers should be prepared for. I'm talking about students who have moved from their home country to live and study in the UK, perhaps as a boarder at an independent school or at an international school. These students have a huge mnatural advantage, of course, but also particular needs. Typically, they are orally fluent, have excellent listening and reading comprehension skills, but their writing may be inaccurate, and their knowledge of the particular requirements of the exam syllabus may lead to underperformance. I did some thinking about this, canvassed some ideas on thr A-level French Facebook group and got Chat GPT to suggest some points. Here are the bullet points I came up with and shared on Facebook with colleagues. I hope some of you find them ...