Hello! French and Spanish teacher in the UK (GCSE, IGCSE, A-Level, Pre-U). I produce worksheets, quick activities and sentence builder sheets. I have recently started to upload my work to TES, so if you like my resources, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a quick review. Thanks for visiting and I hope my stuff will help you in your lesson planning!
Hello! French and Spanish teacher in the UK (GCSE, IGCSE, A-Level, Pre-U). I produce worksheets, quick activities and sentence builder sheets. I have recently started to upload my work to TES, so if you like my resources, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a quick review. Thanks for visiting and I hope my stuff will help you in your lesson planning!
A brief guide on how to use a sentence builder for those who aren’t familiar with this fantastic tool that has been championed by MFL pedagogy legends such as Gianfranco Conti, Steve Smith and Dylan Vinales - I do not take credit for these ideas, I am simply organising them into a concise list of my personal favourite activities to accompany some of the sentence builders that I upload to my shop.
Here is my ‘lesson builder’ that I wrote about on this blog post and am sharing here after a few requests - the blog explains how it can be used. https://mflclassroommagic.com/2020/05/22/make-your-own-lesson-builder-cut-down-planning-time/
A selection of links where I have compiled lists of key verbs in the main tenses for GCSE French, particularly useful for giving to students for GCSE revision. Download the document for details on how each link can be used by students and teachers. Printable Quizlet PDFs of each list are also included.
A worksheet for a lesson on the different vowel sounds in French (including the nasal vowels) - exercises practising pronunciation, then a minimal pairs listening task (transcript and answers included), followed by a gap-fill for the song dernière danse by Indila focusing on the vowel sounds only.
This is a double-sided mat of ‘complex structures’ for GCSE French writing. This is only verb-related structures. A non-verb related one is available here https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12501391
A set of translations from English to French to practise 3 key verbs on the topic of family relationships / les relations familiales - se fâcher contre, s’entendre avec, se disputer avec - a good revision exercise to go back to this topic or a writing practice for once pupils have had plenty of practise on reading & listening with these verbs eg. https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/reflexive-verbs-and-family-relationships-worksheets-12282709
les verbes pronominaux / la famille
A challenging microlistening task based on the song fête de trop by Eddy de Pretto. This can be used AFTER students have had plenty of practice differentiating between the different vowel sounds in French, including the nasal sounds. A good way to practise (and also assess) the students’ understanding of these sounds. Answers included.
This is a revision mat of ‘complex structures’ for GCSE French writing, but all on non-verb grammar topics. I have also made a double-sided verbs one available at this link: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12498822
A worksheet on Maître Gims's new song 'Cameleon' from December 2017. Filling in the blanks in lyrics, matching up new vocab, and some short 'find the vocab' activities. You could also spend some time at the start of the lesson discussing French music, Maitre Gims, Black M and Sexion d'Assaut to see if any students have discovered their music before.
A quiz in French on the Geography of France based on a fun video (in English) from the ‘Geography Now’ YouTube channel - the quiz is cut into two parts and is aimed at KS4/KS5. Answers included. Good for a cultural lesson. Link to video is in the word doc.
A (basic) quiz on French culture to complete with students over zoom / equivalent. Instructions in the powerpoint - I ‘share my screen’ with the students and open the powerpoint to go through each slide with students who complete the answers by typing them on their phones in an email to me.
A ‘bad translation’ listening activity to practise vocab on physical descriptions such as hair and eyes - les cheveux et les yeux. Transcript and answers included - teachers read the sentences and students listen and correct the ‘bad’ English translation - this requires ‘thorough processing’ and not superficial listening.
A multi skill set of activities based on the video ‘A quoi ça sert, l’école ?’ from the YouTube channel 1 jour 1 question - vocab activities, gap-fill, reordering, translation and sentence unjumbling. Answers included. Suitable for Year 11 or a good Year 10 group in my opinion.
A ‘disappearing text’ oral and memory task to practise using direct object pronouns to describe people and say how long you have known them - this activity helps to reinforce word order. Topic of family / friends / les relations familiales / les descriptions.
For a lesson on physical descriptions, either use for
LISTENING: pupils have scrap paper and pen or a mini whiteboard. You give a short or long sentence in Spanish describing one of the people 1-6 on the images. You can therefore adapt the language to your group. Pupils then write down the number of the person it could be - you could even do a sentence that could describe 2 or 3 of the people to make it harder. To make this activity a bit easier, you could go through each photo from 1-6, and for each one give 2 short phrases, one that is true, one false, and pupils write the correct one.
SPEAKING: assuming pupils have had plenty of practise with the vocab, get them to give a short or long sentence describing each person.
Short activity that can be used as a starter before introducing how to describe someone in the imperfect tense (for teaching these imperfect words as vocab rather than grammar - early stages)
A parallel text gap-fill in French to learn the vocab for different members of the family / Décrire la famille / les membres de la famille. Answers included.
